Olympic bulges

"You gotta know that there's an art to it, Ezra," Hitch said, cutting another piece of duct tape.
The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”

He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”

Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.

[Previous] [First] [Patreon] [Discord] [Next]
Before the last chapter of this week, just a quick plug for my new Discord server. Come hang out, see my research, add your raw materials to the memeforge, and share your conspiracy theories on where the fuck this story is going.
Marcus closed his eyes to the heap of shit and piss that assailed his senses, traveling up his nose and smearing itself across his pale face as the Yokun hit-squad dragged him through the Festering Fountain supply pipe.
He only opened his eyes and drew deep the dank air of Fleapit when the emerged on the other side, smashing through the fountain in the residential quarter square and sending up a shockwave of terror that swept through the ratmen civilians enjoying their putrid shower.
The Yokun women did not spare a single moment. As a unit they surged towards the jagged iron towers of the Industrial Sector forges, Marcus still being held by the second youngest of their order. On the way, only a few guards were roused from their sprints down the alleys of Fleapit by the team, having only enough time to raise their spears or halberds in defense before they Yokun's Wakisashis slit their throats and left them gagging for breath in the dark.
To Marcus, the entire world was nothing but flashes of deep onyx and the puffs of smoke billowing from the great forces of Fleapit's East District, mixed with flashes of grey, blue, and swamp green that he caught from within the Yokun's visors. Occasionally such sights were bathed in corrupted crimson as some unfortunate peasant rat stumbled out onto the streets and was soundly silenced by the blades of the assassins as they bore their charge relentlessly towards the forges and foundries.
"Matron!" the youngest, wounded one shouted as they neared their destination. "Up top!"
The Elder's eyes flared as she looked to the skies and saw javelins flying at them from the puffing chimneys of the foundry towers, clearly workmen who had taken up arms and decided to try their hand at defending their trade.
"Tsk," the Matron hissed. "Ignore them. Into the shadows between the towers. Let them strike at nothing but air!"
The Yokun nodded as they advanced, Marcus at this point being carried on the back of the sister that held him captive. They snaked their way between the skeletal frames of the foundry pits, slashing away the life of any who dared to stand in their way, and Marcus spared a thought for all the innocent ratmen who had died by their scaly hands this day. If he knew his comrades like he did, they would seek to pay such deaths back tenfold…
"There!" the wounded sister shouted. "The wall comes into view!"
She was right. The thick, dark outline of Fleapit's East guard tower loomed above them, and the three assassins wasted no time in scaling the bricks with their bare hands and dispatching the crossbow-wielding guards atop the battlements with as much ease as a child cutting through a cake.
And when then they looked beyond the walls, they saw nothing but an expanse of darkness waiting for them.
"Let us fly!" the youngling spat.
But as she made to leap and finally be free of the putrid waste of a city, the Matron held her back.
"Sister," he said. "Look below."
The youngling's face was flushed with frenzy. Clearly her wound had caused her no small amount of trepidation – certainly more than she'd let on. But as Marcus watched the three of them step to the edge of the battlements and look over the side, he couldn't help but feel a swelling of pride within his chest.
An army of eighty Spineripper-mounted Marrow rats waited below, gazing up at them while their mounts leaped to claw their way up to maul the assassins.
And at their head was someone all too familiar to Marcus.
"FORWARD!" The great hulking image of Festicus roared above the din of his baying horde. "FOR THE SHAI-ALUD!"
The Shai-Alud couldn't be prouder. Not that he had any time to dwell on this.
The Yokun that held him put the edge of her blade to his throat.
"Do not come closer, filth of the underworld!" she hissed. "Or the human dies!"
"HAH!" Festicus roared up at them. "Be going ahead! We are coming to avenge our Brothers' deaths! By the Unclean, your heads shall be resting upon my spike by the end of this day!"
"Skittering rodent!" the young snake spat, but the Matron held both her charges back.
"We go higher," she said, nodding up at the smog-producing towers of the foundries they had just cleared. "Let their bestial mounts try and follow us there."
The three Yokun followed their Elder's plan without flaw, managing to clear the walls just as the first of Festicus's legion leaped to claw at their legs. The mounts had speed on their side, but the snake-women had stealth, and Marcus doubted they gave off any particular scents the Spineripper's could sense that he could not.
They had effectively blinded the army that had been lying in wait for them.
The Yokun leaped through the foundry pits and latched onto the towers with their claws, sheathing their Wakizashi's and scaling to the top of the highest tower, Marcus being dragged up after them wrapped in the tail of his captor.
He watched the legion of Festicus bark up at the women as they made their ascent, seeing the floor of Fleapit disappear entirely as they cleared the first of the smog-clouds above.
"Sister!" the youngest then shouted. "Where are we bound?"
"To them!" the grey Matron shouted back, pointing up at the last of the Glitterpaks that were floating by above. "We ride them out. Take out chances on the dead winds of this accursed place!"
Marcus was shocked by the level of dedication on display here, even as he tried wriggling against his captor's surprisingly strong tail.
The Yokun finally made it to the top of the foundry platform, seeing the Glittperpaks float by with almost lifeless abandon above the city.
"Finally!" Marcus's captor roared. "Let us fly!"
"Wait," the Matron ordered. "I don't like this. I will take-"
"We go!" the impatient snake that held Marcus roared. "I will not spend another second in this cesspit!"
She launched herself without waiting for her Sisters command towards the first Glitterpak she saw, trailing through the air with the dexterity of an Olympic gymnast, all while holding Marcus coiled in her tail who already knew, by the flickering color patterns that shone across the Glitterpak's body, what was about to happen.
"Sister!"
The youngling's call was not heard as the snake-woman made to grab the spiky folds of the Glitterpak's body and watched her hand simply cleave through thin air. Her eyes bulging, tail finally uncoiling, she let out a shrill scream as she plummeted towards the fifty-foot drop to her death with Marcus falling behind her.
He looked into her eyes as he fell, seeing the desperation that smeared across her face in the end. That's when he saw that, for him, there was actually no hatred there. There was instead merely a sense of duty. A duty that, the Yokun knew, had now been brought to an abrupt end.
Marcus would have assumed he'd meet the same fate as the bearer of those desparate eyes, but suddenly felt another lithe tail wrap itself around his waist from above, knocking him against the corrugated metal of the foundry silo and suspending him just below the lip of the platform. He watched as the snake-woman hit the ground – becoming nothing more than a wet puddle of burst flesh.
The other two cursed as the youngling pulled him up, pinning him to the floor and bringing up her Wakisahsi to slit his throat then and there.
"Sister," came the warning voice of the Matron.
"Tsk'althoka!" the young snake cried. "We would be better to end his life here and now, Matron! We would be doing this entire world a favor!"
"It is not the Matriarch's will, Sister."
"My brood Sister is dead!' the youngling screamed. "I – I will have vengea-"
"Yeeva," the Matron said quietly, placing an affirming hand on the young snake woman's shoulder. "She knew the risk. We all did."
The hard eyes of the young snake met Marcus's in that moment, and the latter was surprised to find what looked like tears welling up in the assassin's predator eyes. Such tears were abruptly wiped away, however, as her hand flew to grab at Marcus's arm.
"What…what is this?"
Marcus followed her eyes to see the small, almost imperceptible almond-shaped eyeball iris that was strapped to his sleeve, almost like it had been sown in there intentionally. Unless one had the perception of a hawk, there was no way anyone could have noticed it. Hell, he hadn't even noticed it himself.
So when the Matron snake shook her old head in disbelief, he was just as surprised as she was.
"A marker," she said. "The result of a basic incantation that allows the owner of the device to track the one implanted with it. Who knew these little beasts were capable of employing such rudimentary magic in such a clever way?"
"Devious, sneaky little wretches!" The young Yeeva spat. "You knew about this, didn't you, piss-blood?"
Marcus shook his head desperately – an entirely honest answer delivered at the same time as he made the realization: Skeever had briefly brushed his arm as the snake women had led him out of the palace, hadn't he? So he must have…
Skeever, Marcus thought. You really are a cut above your kind. If I get out of this, I swear I will raise you to the ranks of legend among your kind.
A sudden clanging of claws against iron drew the attention of the Yokun then, and both snakes turned to see the challenger that had finally come to face them on the platform.
"Be thinking you can outrun me?" Festicus said as he regained his breath from his ascent. "I am Festicus of Clan Marrow! Be meeting my eyes, for in them will you be seeing your death."
If you are enjoying Fantasy General, consider supporting the story on Patreon to read + 10 advanced chapters

Chapter 23 - Into Space
Previous Chapter
The trip up to the ship didn’t feel like 90 minutes. Even though it was longer than the trip to the Pem Temple, Trix' first time leaving the atmosphere and watching her planet shrink in the viewport was such an unimaginable experience that she would have thought less than 10 minutes had elapsed. But the clocks on the quickboards don’t lie, and nearly forty minutes had passed in what felt like four. Soon enough after the shuttle reoriented she found herself gazing where Ji told her they were heading.
At first there was nothing more than a pinprick of light, just as small and bright as the others that burned in her vision. And wasn’t that such an odd sensation for her, to see the stars so clearly without any flicker at all? Yet this star grew brighter as they approached, and before long she could actually see it begin to take shape.
The ship was much longer than she had expected. She’d seen images in her classes and on the vid channels of her own species’ ships, which tended to be very wide with wings stretched out on either side. Of course a species that lacked wings would design things differently! Their ship resembled, if anything, an odd looking triangle from afar.
As they approached she could make out much greater detail. The ship was, to use one of Ji’s words, sleek. The front was narrow but it bulged out behind what she thought must be the bridge. It expanded both horizontally and vertically, with spires and struts jutting out at regular intervals between hexagonal plates. Everything looked the same bronze color that was on the Uniforms that the crew had been wearing during their first day on the planet, and it gleamed brightly in the void of space.
“Various EM, Radio, and Gravitonic sensors.” Ji pointed out each array as they’d come into view. “Not aerodynamic and ugly as sin but with no atmosphere to drag on they don't interfere with handling and there's good reason to have them on multiple points of the ship. They can retract behind those big hex plates, we call ‘em ablatives, if we get attacked or there’s a risk of accidental damage.”
Behind the sensors the bulk of the ship was a long stretch that took up fully two thirds of its volume. According to Ji, this was the living space and ‘amenities’. One large darker colored block on the side of the ship indicated the Hangar bay, where the shuttle was now being piloted. Beyond that, the rear of the ship expanded up and down in large bulbous cylinders for the main engines.
The shuttle approached the bay and the huge door silently slid up and out, exposing the interior of the ship. Unlike the bronze exterior the inside was made of a more silver grey metal that shone faintly. Even though it wasn’t as reflective as the exterior, it seemed to glow brighter all the same as the shuttle approached.
Unlike the previous landing back on the planet, when the shuttle touched down the grav plates fully absorbed the impact, leaving Trix entirely uncertain whether they’d landed or if the shuttle was just floating in the bay. The huge door swung back down slowly, sealing off the bay from the endless emptiness of space beyond, and the hissing of atmosphere repressurising around them was all she could hear for several seconds.
At last, the shuttle’s rear hatch opened and Trix cautiously stepped out into the ship itself. The gravity of the shuttle and the ship was tailored to humans - only a few percentage points less than on the planet below. She’d been warned about this, and now as she stood in the large bay she wondered whether the sudden rush to her head was due to the gravity, something in the air, or maybe even something else.
For a fraction of a second she caught her breath as she realized that she was breathing in alien air, but then her mind caught up and she realized she’d been breathing it for some time now. There was some odd sweetness to the air here, something she couldn’t place. But it wasn’t unpleasant - in fact somehow she felt better now than before. Maybe it was just knowing where she was and the fact that nobody else on the planet had been invited up here before her. Either way, she ruffled her wings experimentally, then stretched them wide as she felt the warmth of the ship’s air as it circled through the bay.
“Okay, calm down now. We’ve got lots we gotta get to.” Josh laughed at the display of the Avian woman with her arms and wings spread wide. “Not that I don’t get how you feel. First few times on a new planet or a station is exhilarating. But unfortunately we’re on the clock here."
“Stuff it, J. We have time for her to enjoy herself a bit. Or are all those diagnostics ready to go the second she walks in?” Ji lightly punched Josh’s shoulder. “I’m gonna take her down to the pool deck since we have the armor open so she can get a good look around while you do your thing.”
“Fine, fine. It’ll take a bit to get her added into the med database, and since we’re here and all I might as well get a baseline EKG while we’re at it. Go have a bit of fun. I’m calling the moment the tests are ready though.” Josh waved as he left the bay, leaving Trix with Ji and Ma’et.
“This way to the pool deck, Feathers.” Ma’et took the lead immediately. “I’ll chaperone while we’re up here. Got nothing else to do until you two need a taxi back.”
“Oi, this ain’t like the captain’s little tryst at all!” Ji complained as they walked down the hallway. “I’m just trying to be nice to her since this is her first time in space, is all.”
“Sure, right. You say that now and a week from now you’ll be sneaking off to the woods together to have impromptu dance parties.”
“Fuck off.” Ji grumbled at that, then grinned at Trix. “Actually, I think you’ll like this bit. Back on the station when we first met your people, the Security Chief was Sovalin. The captain was totally infatuated. S’why we’re here, I’d bet. He got the hots for the her and invited her out dancing. I’ll show you the video later, it’s goddamn hilarious.”
Trix had no idea what he was talking about but that was nothing new. While working on the Aircar she noticed he tended to just talk. A lot. Whether or not people were listening. His sister said he just loved to hear the sound of his voice, but Trix didn’t mind. These humans had really amazing voices, even when they weren’t singing.
The main living part of the ship wasn’t quite as big as it had looked from the outside, and it didn’t take them long to reach the pool deck. It was one of the rooms towards the front of the ship, and the pool within it wasn’t exactly small. Wouldn’t qualify as Olympic sized, but still reasonably large.
“I gotta agree with the Captain on this one. He got rid of a lot of the useless clutter and amenities but I’m glad he kept this one.” Ji walked over to a panel on the wall near the door, and slapped it. As Trix watched, a large section of the hexagonal plating lifted free from the outer hull of the ship, swinging back on some unseen articulated joints, to expose a huge window that covered the front and both side walls. The view was phenomenal, and she could see her homeworld bright and huge before her.
“It’s amazing how big it is even when we’re so far out.” She remarked, and Ji cocked his head at that. “You know, it’s kind of odd. Humans have troubles dealing with scales. We’re so used to working with things in front of us - within a few meters - or traveling short distances in our daily lives. A lot of people don’t realize that even at ten thousand kilometers the planet’s still so close to be that huge. I guess that’s another similarity we share with you guys?”
Trix nodded, looking out. “I think you’re right. I don’t think in terms of thousands and tens of thousands when I think of how far away things are. It almost looks close enough to reach out and touch from here… but it’s so much further than that.” She pressed her face up against the window, staring out. “I’ve seen it so many times on screens but never like this…”
Ma’et kicked off her shoes and sat down on the edge of the pool, dipping her feet and calves into the warm water. “I guess when I saw your people on the station I assumed that coming out here and seeing views like this was the norm for you all. I didn’t really think this was a big rare thing.” She shrugged and gestured out there. “To me this view is pretty and all but not really unusual. I see it all the time when we fly around. I guess I understand a bit more what the Captain’s trying to do here.”
Ji nodded, and leaned back against the wall, watching Trix as she stared down on her world from above. “We’ve been an extrasolar society for all my life, and yours. I can’t even imagine being stuck planetside forever.”
The trio sat in silence for a few minutes, as Trix stared down at the globe before her. Suddenly she stabbed her finger against the reinforced glass. “There! I can see the valley! That’s where the Presh are. Where my Teff is. And the captain and the others, I guess.”
Ji walked over next to her and peered out. “Kinda hard for me to make it out from here. Too many clouds in the way.”
“Really? I can see it over there. See that big swirl? Look down and to the left. There’s the valley rim, the big mountains east of my home. You can tell it’s them because only the ones in the very middle are high enough to have snow cover.”
Ji squinted down at the planet, then shook his head. “Nah, not close enough for me to make much out. If you want, we could go up to the Bridge and pull up the…”
“Sorry to interrupt the fun, guys.” Josh’s voice rang out from the overhead. “But Ji, you should be in the fabber bay prepping the gear for the shuttle. Ma’et, would you be so kind as to lead our guest to Medical?”
Ji grumbled something obscene under his breath, and punched the door access. “Fine then. Ladies, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go do grunt work for the next two hours. Trix, when you’re done with the scans have Josh call for me. I could use your help loading up the shuttle.”
“What about me?” Ma’et stood up, shaking water from her legs as she did. “I got nothin to do until you’re leaving. I can help out if you need.”
“Fine. I’ll give you some of the light stuff to caOWFUCK!” Ji was interrupted by a sudden kick to the shin. “Okay, okay, you can help out too!”
Ma’et snorted. “Just be glad I took my boots off to soak. C’mon feathers. Let’s go check in on the big dork while the little one mucks around with the fabber.”
—--
Trix stepped through the door into the Medical suite, and waved to Josh. He didn’t even bother waving back, his attention focused on the screens in front of him.
“Good, you’re here. If you would just go ahead and disrobe, we can begin.”
“Yeah, I… wait. EXCUSE ME?”
Josh waved it off. “C’mon, this is Medical. There’s nothing there I haven’t seen bef…” He suddenly straightened up and coughed. “Oh. Shit. Sorry. I was running entirely on autopilot there for a second.”
“Uh huh. Care to explain what you meant by that?” Trix folded her arms in front of her chest as she stared at the larger man.
“I’m sorry.” Josh shook his head, and walked over to one of the walls. “It was truly force of habit. Here on the ship I’m more or less the doctor, even though I only have medic training. As a result, I’ve seen all there is to see of the crew. So most of the time they don’t bother with a privacy drape.” He opened a drawer and began to rummage through it. “It’s a consequence of being stuck on a ship for up to a year or more away from the rest of human society. Sooner or later everyone is so comfortable around one another that modesty stops being an issue.”
He moved to another drawer, this time pulling out a thin white gown. “Uh, it ties in the back, and the wings will probably get in the way, so… if you want I can call Ma’et in here to help you?”
Trix took the garment (If you could even call it that; it seemed little more than a sheet with two holes for her arms and a couple of ties on the back) and shook her head. “No, I can manage. Leave the room while I change.”
Josh left, and after a few minutes he heard a knock on the door. When he returned, Trix had simply wrapped the gown around her waist and tied it in the back. He was on the verge of making a comment about going topless in front of him, until he recalled that for her species the chest wasn’t an immodest area.
“Alright. Go ahead and lay down on that table. Normally we do this face up but with the wings, we’re going to improvise.”
—--
The complete battery of tests that were ran took close to three hours to complete. First there were the scans. Scans that were designed for Humans, that didn’t have wings. Wings that didn’t fit easily into the rounded structure that performed one of the tests, and so they’d had to improvise it. Luckily not every scan needed her to fit inside of a very tight tube, but others involved placing small sensors all over her body. Even with the drape she still felt like there was a blow to her modesty as Josh slid the sensors under her feathers along her chest and arms.
She’d nearly lost all modesty again when trying to RUN with the sensors in place, and only a frantic grab at the drape as it fell kept her from exposing everything to the Medic. He’d chuckled at that and earned a glare (And, she noted mentally, a kick to the shins like Ma’et had given Ji. But later). Finally he’d taken a blood sample from her, and that was the most unpleasant experience of them all simply for how surreal it had been.
Josh placed a small cuff over her arm, which automatically wriggled and adjusted in an EXTREMELY uncomfortable and off putting way. Once it had finished, it tightened up around her arm and several small ampules on the outside immediately began to fill with blood. It was, as Josh promised earlier, painless. Yet somehow that made it even more creepy. Being injured enough to bleed that much should have felt like… something! But she didn’t even notice it. Even after the cuff was removed, all she saw was a single tiny pinprick of blood, and after it was wiped away - nothing.
Through it all Josh said very little, a comment here or there about how the tests differed when done on humans who lacked feathers. By the end though she was thoroughly sick and tired of being told to place her arm here, her leg there, to lie down here, to shift her wings like this or like that. When he finally stepped out to let her change back into her clothes she’d found herself distinctly less enraptured with the Humans and this trip in general.
“Samples are in the fridge, minus the vial that’s going through the analyzer now. All the rest of the data is on the logs and the system’ll be doing analysis on it for the next few days at least. Time to head back to the hangar bay.” Josh pressed a hand against the console he was working on, and the entire unit slid into the wall. “How you feeling?”
“Fine.” It was the truth, at least physically. “How much longer until we’re back on the planet?”
“Once the shuttle’s loaded back up, we can leave right away. Unless there’s anything you want to see while you’re up here?” Josh opened the door and began to lead her towards the shuttle bay.
“Maybe. I dunno. I’ll talk to Ji first.”
A couple minute later, the duo walked in to the Hangar. The shuttle had already been loaded, and Trix noticed that next to the extremely large pile of boxed up gear, they’d put a large bench in the middle of the Shuttle itself, just as Alex had said they would several days before. Being able to sit back without pressure on her wing joints would make the trip a lot more pleasant.
“Sup, Trix. Got a surprise for ya.” Ji waved to the two as they entered.
“Hey, Ji. Got everything loaded up already?” Josh glanced inside the shuttle. “Thought it’d take you a lot longer than that.”
“Yeah, well, I cheated. Taped it all together and looped a few grav collars around. Banged a couple walls but the boxes are meant to take a little impact and we weren’t going super fast.”
“S’fine. Your ass on the line if anything’s busted when we land though.”
Trix was peering at the huge stack of boxes, and reached out to shove against it. They weren’t light. “You moved all these at once?”
“Yup!” Ji pointed to the wall of the hangar bay, at some odd looking belts. Each one had a large circular pad with two lengths of fabric jutting out of it. “Grav collars. They generate a small anti-gravity field that lets us reduce the weight of bigger objects for transport. One of those would let you lift your aircar with a single finger. A half dozen and you could carry around this shuttle on your shoulder. Not that I’d recommend it, even without weight it has tons of mass and would cause some damage in here.”
Trix stared over at them, and tried to envision picking up the shuttle. She failed. “Are we going to take one down to work on the car?”
“Nah. They’re power hogs so we use them sparingly. But speaking of your car…” Ji was sitting against a large oddly shaped piece of equipment, covered with a thick tarp. He stood up and patted the tarp. “Told you I had a surprise.”
Trix came over to look, and lifted the edge to peek under. Ji lightly slapped at her hand. “Uh-uh. No peeking. If you’re gonna look, do it right. Grab it and pull it all off.”
Trix gave him a brief glare, then grabbed a handful of the thick and heavy fabric an yanked hard. It slid off easily, exposing a huge bright green plastic form. “Wait… is this…?”
The entire surface was covered in bright green trees and leaves. The front had a bright spot that had to be a sun, with rays of light beaming through the gaps in the branches. “I remembered when we were removing those absurd fins that you didn’t like the big gaps they left in your aircar’s body. And I remembered you told me that you loved seeing the morning light through those trees near your hab. So I fabbed a new body to look a bit nicer. What do you think of it?”
Trix let her hands glide over the smooth plastic, staring down at the image. “It’s amazing.” That was all that came to her mind, and Ji grinned. “Glad to hear it. Honestly, not what I WANTED to do… I was hoping to get a full programmable liquid paint job done but we’re kind of low on some of the materials we’d need for programmable pigmentation. If we had more time and resources, I’d make it so every time you took it out you could make it look different. But…” Ji shrugged. “We can always add on to it later.”
“It looks absolutely amazing.” She lifted a leg and sat down where the seat would go. For now it was just as smooth and slick as the rest of the body, but they’d move the grip-textured padded seat over once they landed. “I don’t know why the bunters always use that ugly gold color for their frames. This looks so much more vibrant.”
“Glad you’re happy with it, feathers. Now scooch off so we can load it up. We’re done up here once that’s in.” Ma’et poked Trix in the side. “We gotta get it in the shuttle and I ain’t carrying you on it.”
—--
After landing, the next few days went by all too fast. Trix spent the next few days removing the old body of the aircar and installing the new one, aided by Min and Ji whenever they weren’t off installing various components for the Matriarchs elsewhere on the planet. The work was extremely delicate but with the two engineers helping her out, it was completed much faster than she’d have been able to alone. Of course, if she was alone she would have taken it out stock, and gazing down at the finished product she thanked the stars yet again that the Humans had arrived.
Before the aircar was a large, wide vehicle with four independent thrusters spread out in a square pattern around it that would propel it up in the air, before a powerful turbine would kick in and thrust it forward. A series of fins and flaps angled out in every direction would keep the aircar stable and moving forward with incredible precision. In its way, it was actually more capable of incredibly tight turns and precise movements before.
But now, after the modifications it was incomparable. The body was now slimmer, the thrusters were now paired front and back. The thrusters had been boosted and angled, so that they’d not only keep the car aloft but also give it a fair amount of velocity, even before the turbine added its own thrust. While the lack of control surfaces meant it couldn’t turn as tightly as before, the large tail rudder and flaps added to the rear of the machine still gave it impressive amounts of agility. In all, it sacrificed a moderate amount of control for an incredible amount of speed.
A Soranet Ten was already a racing machine designed to leave its competitors behind. While other models such as the six or eight boasted incredible control used for all kinds of aerial tricks and displays, the Ten was a racing machine designed for pure speed. And after the modifications made with the Humans’ help, the Aircar she’d rebuild almost from the ground up made the original Ten she’d ordered look downright sluggish in comparison.
Actually learning how to control the car was an experience in and of itself. She’d never owned a Ten and so its reasonable speed was already exhilarating for her, and a challenge to control. Now, though, she had to learn an entirely new vehicle that nobody else on the planet had ever flown. Even the Humans had to admit that while they redesigned it for speed, they had never actually flown a car quite like hers before.
She’d gone on practice runs throughout the Presh valley, at slower speeds and altitudes, as she adjusted to the new vehicle. Slower was, of course, relative - those who saw her practicing had no idea the actual raw power her car could produce and the speeds which it was capable of. No one except the two engineers and Trix herself was fully aware of how drastically these minor changes made, and they were determined to keep it that way.
The next firelands challenge was still a week away, and she’d spent most of that week practicing. Sometimes with one of the engineers present, sometimes with both. They’d watch and film her practice runs with Par, and then they’d rewatch and go over them to identify ways to improve her flights. Each time she felt like she’d learned some tiny little trick or another, some small way to improve her control on the car. The biggest trick, she’d learned on her own, when narrowly avoiding crashing into a tree after over correcting a turn. That one she kept to herself, never mentioning it to anyone else.
“Not looking too shabby out there.” The various comings and goings of the Humans had reached a lull, and today they’d all gathered around to watch her practice on her aircar. Alex was watching with interest as she’d completed an incredibly tight hairpin turn around a large tree trunk (Well above it, for safety, but using it as a course guide), then rocketed off into the sky. “She looks like she’s going, what… hundred-fifty kilometers per hour?”
“Closer to 90 on a tight turn like that, but on a straightaway she’s been averaging closer to 200. The car itself can handle quite a bit more than that. We actually probably overdid it with the adjustments, since I think it’d top out at closer to 300.” Min was watching her quickboard, making notes as she reviewed the latest practice run. “Before we started any adjustments the car would have topped out right around 180 to 190 kmph. We were trying to double the speed and got fairly close. Whether or not that’s a good thing remains to be seen though.”
Alex watched as Trix entered different part of her practice course, this time dodging and weaving around Habitats. She was at a reasonable altitude so that missing a turn wouldn’t result in her being slammed into the side of a building. “Still I have to admit I’m impressed with those turns. Those are some tight turns at a pretty significant speed. She’s got to be catching some pretty big G’s.”
Ji glanced over at Min. “She’s got quite a bit higher tolerance for major G-forces than we do. At least for short periods. That turn there was close to 13 gees and she didn’t lose control for a second. Min’s been actually trying to chase down info on what they can actually handle in terms of forces, but near as we can tell they never did any big centrifuge tests like the ones back in the early space age back on Sol.”
The whine of the turbines suddenly grew louder as Trix flew directly overhead, then pulled up to climb at at almost a 90 degree angle before banking around in a wide circle. Alex thought he could hear her laughing, but the distance was great enough he could easily have been mistaken. “She’s definitely in her element up there. And I don’t just mean with the feathers and wings. I don’t even know if I’d be comfortable being up there on a ride that isn’t enclosed. Riding a cyberbike around is one thing, but that…” he pointed up. “That takes cojones.”
“You know, in a matriarchal society like this that might almost be considered an insult.” Josh watched as she went into a steep dive through a simulated canyon, then slowed suddenly at the ‘bottom’. “But I don’t think I’d want to be up there either. A shuttle or fighter’s one thing. But strapped on top of a glorified drone is too much for me, thank you.”
“So tell me again how the race works.” Alex asked Ji. “You said there’s projectiles?”
“Yup. They fly along a course at a specific altitude. The goal is to reach the end of the course as fast as possible. What makes it tricky is that there’s custom turrets set up along the course to track and shoot at the racers. The shots aren’t damaging, they’ll deform the body and they’re covered with a paint that’ll leave a mark where they hit to ensure there’s no doubt when one does hit. The usual way to proceed is to dodge around while flying, but of course the more you dodge the longer it takes to get to the end.”
“And what happens if one of those shots hit a racer directly? What happens if someone falls off their aircar during the race?”
“The shots are soft enough they won’t actually penetrate through the suit the racers wear. They can still break a bone easy enough but unless you’re fantastically unlucky there’s little chance of an actual fatality from the shots. As for falling off, the straps are pretty secure but it’s not impossible. The races have a spotter who flies at ground level behind the cars so if something does happen, the spotter’s there to catch the racer.”
“This is sounding a lot more organized than I initially thought. In my mind I guess I saw it more like impromptu street racing or something. Cyber bikes going out into the desert and flying around the flats to impress each other.”
“Nah, cap. It’s still pretty informal since nobody really needs to register to race or anything. You just show up when everyone else does and you convince the Nof to let you run the course. Sometimes that convincing requires a little palm grease if you get my meaning, but I’d bet that her car’s special enough they’ll let her run it without extra incentive. Especially when we come along as her cheering section.”
“No bet. But I do have one question. If they’ve got spotters to catch the racers in case of an emergency, but her car’s so much faster than any others… will the spotters actually be able to keep up with her on the ground?”
Ji and Min exchanged a glance. “Uh. Huh. That’s a really good question. I think I’d better actually make a quick phone call or two.”
Alex grimaced at that. “Yeah, Ji, I think you’d better.”
—--
“THIS is informal?”” Josh stared around at the view they’d arrived at. The “firelands” were an active volcanic plain, but there was very little actual fire or magma visible. Black rocks and darkened soil from past eruptions and magma flows dominated the landscape, but here and there trees, shrubs, and various plant life had managed to take hold in the otherwise barren area. It wasn’t even truly that warm, compared to many other locations on the planet - it was downright cool and pleasant.
What was truly unexpected was the stadium-style seating at the starting point of the race, and the large video displays intended to show those who were assembled to watch the racers attempt the course a live feed of everything happening. The course was long and winding, and without the screens the participants would have been out of view for the majority of it. Still, seeing more or less permanent infrastructure set up for the races made it feel significantly more official than the Humans had expected.
The presence of an extremely large shaded ‘VIP’ seating area also contributed to making it feel like an official event and not just some informal group of racers.
“I wish you had informed us you were planning to attend,” Boralanof, the Matriarch of the Nof had been as surprised as anyone when the Human shuttle had touched down nearby. She’d heard the rumors, as had most people, that the Humans had taken an interest in aircars during their stay with the Presh. But seeing them attend a challenge with their guide outfitted to be a participant wasn’t something anyone had deigned to inform her about.
“Well, truth be told we wanted to keep it a secret. Actually, at least four people knew we were going to be attending, but we swore them to secrecy because we wanted it to be a surprise.” Alex sat opposite the Matriarch, a local drink in hand. Josh had brought a number of drinks from various different locales for the group to try out. “Humans have a long history of performing dangerous and extreme stunts for fame and glory, so once we heard about this course it piqued the interest of my crew.”
“Four people knew?” Borala raised an eyebrow at that, and glanced over at the event’s organizer. She was fighting to keep a smile off of her face, and failing quite badly. “I won’t say I’m happy to hear about that, but if it wasn’t done out of malice I won’t press the issue.” The look on her face said otherwise.
“Well, our Racer is going to be flying something a bit unique really. And we wanted to take some precautions and make sure everything will be safe.” Alex shrugged and took another sip of the odd beverage. It was quite good, a slightly fermented but sweetened drink.
Borala beckoned to the organizer, who pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it over. The Presh challenger - ‘Trksehn’ on the list - was the eighth challenger of the day, out of nine total. “It looks like it may be some time before she is up. I take it that was on purpose?”
“Well, yeah. Her aircar’s unique. She’s been modifying it with our engineers.”
Borala sat up straighter immediately upon hearing this. “So the car… is of human make?”
“Nope. She bought a,” Alex glanced over at Ji, who yelled back “Soranet Ten!”
“She bought a Soranet Ten, and our engineers thought it could be improved. They worked together on it practically from the time we set down on the planet.”
Borala hid a sense of disappointment at that. She’d hoped it would be something entirely new, an insight into how the Humans approached transportation and transit technology. To hear it was just a modified standard unit was a bit of a disappointment. “So why put off her display until the end of the day?”
“Two reasons, really. First, we humans have a saying - ‘Save the best for last’. It’s a fun way to build up anticipation for something that’s going to be special. Second, if all goes as planned it might be a bit discouraging for anyone who goes after her. We don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun in participating but we won’t really be able to hang around to modify a ton of cars afterwards if this goes well.”
“And if it doesn’t go well?” Borala reached over to rub at one of her wings, at an irritating itch between her feathers.
“We try not to tempt bad luck by talking too much about that. But one way or another it’s going to be an interesting show.” Alex grinned and lifted his cup for another sip.
“Whatcha think of that drink, Al?” Josh had a sly grin on his face as he watched the captain drinking his beverage. For some reason, though, he’d asked in English instead of the local language.
“It’s interesting. Kinda like a cream liqueur but not very strong. Sweet though. What’s it made of?” Alex responded in English as well as he glanced down at the slightly off-white liquid in the cup.
“It’s a fermented milk product. Kinda like Kumis back on earth.” Alex narrowed his eyes at his XO. “Okay. And what’s that shit eating grin on your face all about? And why turn off the translator?”
“C’mon, Al. Think about it. Are there any cows out here on Kiveyt?”
Alex glanced back down at the cup. “No. So they have some other domesticated critter for milk?”
“Nope. They don’t.” Now Ma’et had started snickering and Ji was just staring at the cup. Min had her hand over her mouth as she stifled her laughter.
“Well then… oh. They... oh.” Alex set the cup down on the table. “Okay. Gonna get you for that one later.”
“Is there a problem?” Borala looked at the Humans who were obviously laughing at the Captain and his sudden unease.
Alex immediately switched back to translating his words. “Nope. No problem. Just one of my Crew volunteering to clean out the septic systems when we get back up to the ship.” He gestured out to the stadium and the large viewscreens. “So when do they start?”
“The first challenger will be entering the course within the next fifteen minutes.” The challenge organizer chimed in, as she flipped back to the first page on her clipboard. “The first challenger is from the M’rit Teff. By tradition the first to challenge is the one who got the furthest during the last event and she made it halfway through the third flame.”
“Third flame?” Josh wandered over to stand near Alex. “We’re pretty new, can you explain a bit more?”
“Each section of the challenge is demarcated by a flame. As a challenger passes each flame the projectile speeds increase, and they’re fired more frequently from the turrets. There are four sections, four flames in total.” Borala explained to the Captain as she pointed at a large indicator of the course map above the screens.
“How often do people make it through all four sections?” Josh asked.
“It’s not common, but it does happen once every few years. We leave the shot patterns the same until someone completes all four sections, then we change it after a successful run. The best challengers can watch and learn the patterns and timings to make it through.”
The first challenger was preparing on the ground in front of the stadium seating. She wore a tightly fitting jacket and her wings were each covered with what looked like a leather sheath. Her aircar was incredibly similar to the one that Trix had before Ji and Min had gotten involved in modding it, and as they watched she mounted it and attached several straps to the frame. She put on a helmet in the end, and they all watched as the thrusters spun up and smoothly lifted the car into the air.
Each of the Humans watched as the challenger soared up to some predefined point, before hovering there in anticipation. Borala lifted a hand as a signal, and on the other side of the area, near the large screen, a Sovalin hefted up a massive hammer. They swung it against a large bell, ringing out once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth strike, the turbine kicked in and the challenger shot forward.
Almost immediately, a video drone took off after the challenger to keep the image of them on the screen. The turrets on the ground began to track, and the first shots rang out as they fired the ‘obstacles’ at the challenger. The first flame was rather slow, and the Aircar barely had to do more than strafe a bit left or right to dodge the projectiles. Long silver streaks burst into the air, before falling back down in graceful arcs as the rider soared along.
The stadium was full of cheers and waving as the car soared past the first flame on the track marker, designated by a large pit full of fire. Now on the 2nd stretch the turrets on this section were definitely more capable. The shots that were fired off in a steady rhythm came much closer to hitting the car, often missing by less than a couple of feet. In lieu of the rapid pace the challenger had to throw the aircar into tight twists and turns, dipping down and rising up as they rode.
“No wonder they had all those control surfaces. It almost looks like trying to ride one of those mechanical bulls they have in a dive bar.” Alex commented as they watched. “Still, her speed went way down. Par, what do you clock her at?”
“Judging by the visual data, her speed is rapidly changing. At the slowest she’s close to 40 kilometers per hour, but at the fastest she’s closer to 90. With the twists and turns I would put her average at 60 kilometers per hour.”
They watched as the car crept forward slower, finally passing the second flame to reach the third flame area.
The car dipped and dodged wildly as the turrets took aim, at one point even going into a spiral that made Alex wonder if she’d lost control. She was still making progress but even slower now, and by the time she’d reached the halfway point they could see that the turrets had her number. Three fired at once, and while she managed to dodge two of the projectiles the third flattened itself against the front right thruster. Immediately the turrets firing stopped, and as the soft bullet fell away from the aircar they could see a bright silver smear marring the surface where it had landed.
“Same as the last time.” Borala noted. “That triple volley has been brutal to the latest batch of challengers.”
The audience was still wildly cheering, and the rider soon flew back, raising a fist triumphantly before touching down in the large clearing in front of the crowd.
The next few challengers didn’t fare nearly as well. One tried for pure speed and attempted to just power past all of the shots with only a few simple strafing motions to attempt to dodge. It worked well in the first flame, but they were tagged right before crossing the second. They completed their section of the course much faster, though they didn’t get nearly as far.
“So what matters the most here. Speed or distance?”
“When two challengers fail in the same flame, they are judged based on how many obstacles they dodged and how far they proceeded. Only the attempts that reach the furthest flame are valid, so if no other challengers reach the third Flame then the previous victor will be walking away victorious yet again.” Borala clarified. She reached out to a cup of her own and took a large drink. “Perhaps the trial this time has been made too difficult. In the past three events none have yet reached the fourth flame.”
Ji said nothing as he left the shaded viewing area, heading down to the clearing where the challengers were assembled. Trix had yet to bring her car out, opting to keep it a surprise for as long as possible, but as each challenger before her completed their run hers was coming up quickly.
“Did I say anything to offend him?” Borala had noticed his absence.
“Nah. He’s just going down to help his friend get ready.” Min replied in his stead. As usual she had her quickboard out, but on it she was monitoring a live diagnostic feed from Trix’ modified car. She’d installed unobtrusive sensors all around the frame so if anything was going to go wrong, she’d know long before anyone else. Even the driver.
“Alright. But why hasn’t she joined the other competitors down there yet?”
“Well, like we said - we modified her car quite extensively. So much so that we’re worried that if she brings it out before her turn, it might distract people from the other runs. We don’t want any ill will, so we decided to hold off until it was her turn to actually bring it out.”
“That’s rather kind of you, but surely you must realize that makes me all the more curious about it?”
“Well, yeah.” Alex grinned. “But the anticipation is part of the fun!”
—--

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

[Just gonna give a bit of a blurb up here, hope you guys like the story cause there's more for this planned, had it wiggling in my head and decided imma make a short few chapters out of this idea]
When Mankind jumped for the stars and reached them, we weren't alone. We jumped headlong into a galaxy with its own diversity, cultures, and people with histories stretching far beyond our times, times so distant we weren't yet diverged from the hundreds of other primate lineages.
But this was the first test by our new neighbors. The first time Humanity was given its chance to establish itself. The first time we entered the yearly Contest of Worlds.
“Welcome participants, to the ten-thousandth Contest of Worlds! In the final bout for Ordhakon Prime and Gholek, the Reavo Crusher, and the hundred cycles undefeated champion since their induction into the Galactic Forum, the Poyukant!” the announcer shouted out over top the ancient arena that was used for this specific contest. Surrounded on all sides by stands of aliens who had paid top-credit for this opportunity.
The Contest of Worlds was simply that, a contest between the varying worlds of the universe in shows of strength, cunning, technological power, or even comparisons between the worlds we evolved on. It seems the Olympics weren't a special concept, at least the spirit of it wasn't.
But that's why I was here today, one of Mankind's best and brightest geneticist’s and bioengineering, with the wondrous backing of humanity's one and only Collective Systems Powers, the associated states of H. sapiens all ready to prove themselves.
With me were about four life-crates with our entry into this grand event. See, the Contest of Worlds had different events for the year. This year it was Evolution. A game that was designed to pit biosphere against biosphere, the strongest, most dangerous, life from the contestants' respective homeworlds. Even extinct species were on the table, it seemed, with the advanced nature of the genetech the ET’s used and the age indicator on some of these animals I was seeing.
That was the other thing, no info on the contestants aside from the basic size, weight, and temporal ranges.
“Handler ‘Goddard Dougal Dixon’, are you ready? It would appear the CSP and ‘Earth’ are up next to go after this bout.”
One thing about the universe that shocks you when you get out into it. The cultures. No matter what, there's always some dissonance. Seems were in the minority that felt they had evolved past animal blood sports for the sake of profit and entertainment. But, some things make the universe go around.
I took a drag off my smoke before answering the ET. It was tall and lanky, with three legs that bent inwards, giving it a tripedal bow-legged stature on top of radially symmetrical feet with about six wide toes. It's upper body was shaped like a stalk of bamboo with three arms coming from a bulge at the middle of the stalk, all possessing six fingers. A half-spherical mass of compound eyes that settled for a head stared intently at him, tripartite mandibles clicking just below the eye mass.
“Yeah, we'll be ready, Earth Subjects 1-4 are ready whenever you need us to come up.”
Short, simple, to the point, no need for the pageantry and pomp. Quite a few people might disagree with me on that but hey, they're watching the “pageant” right on screen just the same as I am. The “Reavo-Crusher”, a rhino-sized beetle-like creature that possessed a set of crunching mandibles and a rather nasty set of tripartite claws, was currently on its back with a set of teeth in its unarmored belly, ripping into the brain it had within its abdomen. It's killer? Standing nearly a full two and a half meters, and stretching over seven and two thirds at the least, it was a lean and muscled quadruped, equipped with a set of articulate slicing and crunching teeth, all on individual bones that let them move in ways that allowed a type of mouth dexterity that had to be seen to be believed. Each of its legs were double jointed, allowing it move in oddly disconcerting fashions that should have been impossible from initially seeing its anatomy. On top of all this, was the fur covering it. Shining and sleek, it could refract light into any color of the rainbow… or all light itself to become a nearly invisible haze. The Poyukant, considered by the ET’s to be the strongest and most dangerous land predator across the galaxy. Technically, it was extinct as well. It had died out several million years ago, at the hands of the Ordhak in their infancy.
“AND WE HAVE A WINNER, THE POYUKANT! PLEASE FORM LINES TO COLLECT YOUR EARNINGS BEFORE THE NEXT FIGHT!”
I stared up into the screen, another drag from my cigarette as I sat back on the chair. All around me was the assessment team getting the first fighter from Earth ready, as we were up in turn. It would be a first for me, sending something out to kill or be killed for the enjoyment of others and it gave me a pit in the bottom of my stomach as I watched the first crate, only reaching my chin, be pushed to the entrance wall. I patted the side of it before looking inside through the top grate.
The first round was supposed to be small stuff, smaller animals before they got grander and nastier in size. And this was one of the nastiest little fuckers I could have brought for this.
“[Ladies], [Gentlemen], and [Neuters] of all ages, this upcoming bout will be special! For the first time in several hundred years, a new race has come to test themselves in the Contest of Worlds! Humanity, representing Earth, Cradle of Homo sapiens!”
A rather lukewarm cheer met the welcome for Mankind and my face popping up on the view screens. It irked me slightly, but it was expected. We're just the new kids on the block, and it's not likely we've got something truly new for these “nice” folks to see. They're wrong of course, but that's just part of the fun.
“And their opponents, the Ordhak, representing Ordhakon Prime, the Cradle of Ordhakind!”
A white furred, almost ferret-like alien stepped forward on all fours, before raising up on its hind-legs, standing in an almost s-shape as its jaws gave a horrendous smile, the teeth opposable similar to their extinct friend waiting in their pen.
“On the side of the Ordhak, is the Ruscala! You know this little fella well, having witnessed it rip the throats from previous weight division fauna!”
From the other side of the arena, barreling out of its life-crate on the other side, was an eight legged creature that resembled a scorpion the size of a house-cat, if only slightly. Its tail instead of a stinger ended in a thagomizer, while its legs were all tipped with three triangular claws. Its head was mounted on a short neck, jutting forward with its mandibles coming up almost tusk-like from a leech maw that extended vertically. Uniformly it was one of the ugliest things I'd ever seen, covered in a rough green and gray exoskeleton.
“On the side of the newcomers, Humanity, is the Honey Badger! A strange little creature if I've ever seen one!”
Ambling out at its own pace, the adult male Honey Badger stepped onto the sterilized dirt and artificial turf that made up the arena’s battlefield. He sniffed the air, picking up a strange unfamiliar smell as his opponent caught almost immediate sight of the terrestrial mammal with four black beady eyes.
Springing forward with its hind-most legs, the Ruscala tumbled straight into the badger, causing the thickly furred mustelid to start hissing and spitting. Grappling on, the xeno-insectoid bit onto the back of the neck… before finding its teeth caught in the rank oily fur, and pulling back to find it could not actually grip the underlying musculature, the skin too loose.
The badger would reveal another defense, as it began to violently whip itself around in the animals mouth, quickly dislodging its teeth before the animal suddenly disengaged off the mammal, buzzing and hissing itself as it began scraping against the ground, specifically focusing on the spiracles on its legs and abdomen. A pungent aroma was filling the arena, as the Honey Badger had sprayed this strange-smelling bug thing that had attacked him. Hissing and approaching, the Honey Badger was kept back as the Ruscala kept swinging its spiked tail. However, the Honey Badger misjudged himself, as when he went in for a nipping bite to try and get the creature to make a mistake or misstep, the thagomizer instead was embedded in his front right leg. Hissing, the Ruscala lunged back at the Badger, the two rolling and tussling in the dirt, finally biting, clawing and scratching each other, blood red and green straining the ground before a sudden shriek pierced the arena.
Shooting out and away from the whirling ball of hate it had helped to create was the Ruscala, its tail ripped off, and shooting blood as it shrieked. Rushing forward and missing an eye, the african mustelid lept and grabbed onto the back of the alien vermin. Being larger and having a heavier weight, the African Armored Tank used this to its advantage as a swift bite was delivered to the back of the Ruscala’s neck, before violently shaking and scratching into an open wound on its exoskeleton.
Dimly screeching, the Ruscala attempted to keep hitting the badger with its tail end, only managing to splash the two in green blood. The Honey Badger held the alien in his sharp jaws before ripping upwards, pulling off a large chunk of exoskeleton, causing a renewed, if futile, struggle with the Ruscala. The exposed back of the neck exploded outwards as the badger gripped back down, and began chewing into the back of the neck meat.
Convulsing, the alien insect died, before the Honey Badger shook it. Realizing the strange bad-tasting bug was now dead, the Badger sat down, panting, before going back to its life-crate, a lulling sound beckoning it back in.
Meanwhile, I smiled as I watched the little guy get pulled out of his crate, asleep due to the aerosol drugs we put in there. He'd earned some rest, and would be getting a nice time healing in the “goo-tank” as I like to call ‘em. Stem-cells, oxygenated liquid, nanomachines and different chemicals turned into a veritable healing broth, and kept its occupants sedated while doing so. I watched the black and white mustelid be gently set inside, his part done.
I watched the next crate be brought up as the intermission began, and I also watched as I saw the Ordhak Handler seemingly getting his ass ripped by someone on a hologram display in front of them, if the scrunched up teeth and lips and backwards leaning ears meant anything like it did in Earth fauna.
This was gonna be interesting, especially the next fight. I hope the ET’s like their beef…

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

Story: “I wish I’d never watched that video. I thought I’d grow out of shit like that by the time I’d hit 20. Yet there I was, off my tits on some choice MDMA Geoff hooked us up with, touring through some kind of hardcore sadomasochism site; the kind of videos you’re surprised aren’t on the dark web. If you ever stumbled across the Pain Olympics or 4chan you’ll know what I’m talking about.
​
When I was a teenager mates and I would gather round a PC screen, playing chicken to see who could watch the most extreme content without leaving the room or puking. This was like that, but with a tablet and nobody is sober.
​
In my defence it wasn’t my idea. Luke’s cousin was down for the weekend. Young lad, about 16 I think. Not too bright but kept himself to himself, which meant he wasn’t going to get us caught sneaking him into the rave underage. As usual, afterwards we found ourselves at a flat party, and then in Luke's bedroom. It wasn’t until about 4:AM, when those who were able had sauntered off to get laid that the usual rounds of ‘spliff and internet’ began.
​
This was when Luke’s cousin started suggesting weirder and weirder shit. We all thought at first that it was just the Mandy. He was young after all, and teenage desire to be seen as edgy mixed with comedown anxiety was a plausible explanation.
​
After a while though, one of us (I was too fucked to remember who, but I hope it wasn’t me) started to entertain his suggestions. Everybody there enjoyed horror films after all. We’d had more than one 4:AM Saw or Hostel marathon after a night out. What was the harm?
​
Soon enough we found ourselves in the familiar group-cringe and out loud "OHHHHH!"s. There was then, of course, the unending debate over whatever macabre footage we’d just put ourselves through was real. We’d dug to the point of a woman using a kitchen knife to scalp herself, and a man pulling his own toes off with a pair of pliers, when we found... it.
​
Luke’s cousin was in control by that point. We hadn’t noticed how quiet he’d gotten. He sat there on the floor, legs crossed, leaning forward every so often to click the next video. Had this look on his face the whole time, like he was searching for something specific. He never skipped anything though. No matter what the video showed he just sat back, watching whatever it was making the rest of us make melodramatic retching noises unfold.
​
Once one video finished he scoured the algorithm's suggestions for the next. He’d ignored all of ours by this point, so we’d stopped bothering. We were more than a few blunts into our session, and holding our focus on anything other than the rich conversation about which of the girls we knew would be a good smash was difficult.
​
I remember him sighing disappointedly at every video he found, except for the last. When he found THAT one he licked his lips, rocking slightly.
​
He must have known. No way the creepy little fuck found it by accident.
​
When he clicked play we all knew this one was going to be different. I'm not sure how. Call if instinct. Something was off about it, which when you consider the kind of website we were surfing said a lot.
​
Before the footage started the rest of us had been laughing and joking in a blunt-smoked haze. The vibe of the room switched in less than a heartbeat. The moment sound started to seep from the tinny speaker, every chemically stimulated mind enraptured by the figure on the 12 inch tablet screen.
​
It was a girl.
​
Younger than us, but older than Luke’s cousin. Pretty, but not in the conventional sense. I say pretty because she wasn’t exactly hot. Not the kind of looks you try and buy a drink. She had a pleasantness to the eye that I can’t really put in words.
​
To describe her would make her sound plain, almost ugly; drooping cheeks, large eyes surrounded by make-up done a little too much, lipstick ever so just the wrong shade of red, hair that had been brushed but was in obvious need of a wash. Not the sort of girl I’d give a second or third look under any other circumstance. In that smoky room she was all I could think about.
​
The first two minutes of footage were her staring at the camera in front of a grey wall. The shot was well lit and the camera was expensive, all the lines and imperfections of her face were visible. Her mic was clearly pricey, too. When she finally parted her lips the sound of them peeling apart was quite audible. The breaths between her words came through as though she were in the room with us.
​
She talked for a whole five minutes before anything interesting happened. I don’t know when the lads had last focused on something for that long at that time in the morning. Maybe never. Luke, Hunt, Jack, Lyle, and I, all sat on the mattress and bean bags, hypnotised by the movement of her puffed lips whispering semi-nonsense at us.
​
She spoke a lot about necessity and excess, about evolution and optimisation, deconstruction and renewal. Subjects that didn’t really seem to be linked to me at the time. It goes without saying I understand it all now, but then it just came across as meaningless word salad.
​
It didn’t matter. I would have listened to that face read even something as dull as the bible for five hundred years if given the chance.
​
She said her last words and held up a potato peeler. I didn’t think much of it. I was too lost in those dark eyes of hers. She asked us all to remember that everything we do is to achieve perfection. Something like that, at least. The exact phrasing doesn’t matter, it’s the idea that counts.
​
Perfection.
​
The room (with the exception of Luke’s cousin) jumped in unison when the footage cut to black. The switch was accompanied with a loud crash; the sound of something heavy landing on the lowest notes of a grand piano.
​
YOU CAN TRY THIS AT HOME
​
The words appeared letter by letter in a white typewriter font. Sporadic detuned piano notes played over the scrolling text, along with muffled grunts and the scraping bangs of god-knows-what being dragged across a floor.
​
The hair on my arms stood on end. I wasn’t grinning and laughing any more. I was still high, but barely. From the quick glances I exchanged with the rest of the lads I could tell they were in a similar state.
​
Everybody except Luke’s cousin, of course.
​
He didn’t look away from the screen, his eyes bulging, left one slipping into a slight twitch every time a new character of the message appeared. I happened to be watching him when the next scene started. The look of excitement disgusted me almost as much as the footage that inspired it.
​
The camera had been moved about ten feet away from the woman. For some reason this didn’t affect the definition of her face. The wrinkles of her top lip, the poorly concealed spot on her nostril, the blobs left over from over generous application of eyeliner and mascara. All were just as clear as when she had been a few inches from the screen.
​
She wasn’t smiling anymore. Her drooping cheeks were slick with tears, and they wobbled in time with the trembling of her jaw. Her large eyes stared into the camera, into us, pleading for help both sides of the screen knew wasn’t coming.
​
She was still holding the potato peeler next to her head. Unlike her bottom lip, her grip was steady. We could see her clothes now, too. She was wearing a skirted suit, and an expensive one at that. My plan for after Uni was to go into banking. I’m versed enough in tailoring to recognise quality fabric when I see it. The sobbing woman had on the uniform of the financially successful.
​
The men stood either side of her were naked.
​
They were each a few feet taller than her. An impressive feat, since even though she was sat down you could tell the woman was tall (the length of her slender legs was a testament to this). The naked men were wider than her too, by a considerable margin. To say the sweating figures were morbidly obese would be an understatement. How their stubby legs supported their weight was a mystery to me; the hanging belly flab almost touched the floor. Their skin shone with grease, sweat and dirt, and were it not for the fact I knew it's impossible, I would have sworn under oath that I could smell the pungent odor of curdled milk whenever I looked at either of them for too long.
​
The one to her left was holding a transparent bucket, filled with a clear liquid that I hoped was water. To her right was a silver tray. I can’t comment on what the men looked like. I couldn’t see their faces through the orange shopping bags over their heads. The cheap plastic was fastened in place with about a half dozen zip ties round each man’s neck; the crinkled skin pulled so taught that the shapes of their faces were visible. A pair of orange bound skulls on the peaks of twin mountains of glistening flesh. The only movement from either was the steady in-out of the bag being pushed and pulled by laboured breaths.
​
EXCESS IS THE ENEMY OF ACHIEVEMENT
​
There was another piano crash.
​
The letters didn’t scroll out one by one this time, but appeared as a single block. They only hanged around for about half a second before the video took us back to the dusty floorboards, grey wall, sobbing girl, and her hulking guardians. Except, she wasn’t sobbing anymore. She wasn’t smiling either. Even though her gaze was directly into the camera, her expression was blank. Still laced with an unexplainable magnetism, but the perk and spark from the segment where she spoke to us was gone.
​
She raised the potato peeler in front of her face.
​
Before I knew what was happening she dragged the blade down in a single, uninterrupted motion.
​
She didn’t wince, didn’t flinch, didn’t register in any way the sharp metal slicing through the bridge of her nose. The removed flesh rolled itself into a damp curl as she peeled. It fell to the ground with a wet splat that was far too loud for comfort. Scarlet gushes joined the streaks of dark make-up her earlier tears had dislodged. Pale bone was visible in the wound. The button tip of her nose hung on a thread from where the peeler had found its way too deep, and she had to yank it out. The blood pooled at the dangling chunk, dripping on her expensive skirt.
​
She didn’t even blink.
​
Someone threw up. I could smell it, although the sounds of the hurling felt like they came from some other world. I was lost in the woman on the screen. I couldn’t look away, and I didn’t mean that my curiosity got the better of me. I was actively trying, putting so much strain into turning my head that veins on my neck began to bulge. My eyes throbbed. The tiny muscles used to move them left and right screamed, threatening to tear from the force I put on them.
​
Didn’t work.
​
I was helpless, sat on the dirty carpet unable to stop watching as she dragged and dragged the gleaming metal. On occasion the blade would get clogged. When this happened she would reach into the bucket, whisking the utensil around to remove the debris. Clouds of red bloomed in the water. The whole time her expression stayed unresponsive to the curls of skin piling up on the floor, the crimson wetness that consumed the lower half of her face, the open holes where her nostrils used to be.
​
She should have screamed, but didn’t. Part of me knew it was more accurate to say she couldn’t. That part of me was the one that wanted to scream too. I was paralysed, paralysed and terrified. No matter how much strength of will I mustered, I couldn’t turn my head away from the screen, couldn’t shut my eyes, couldn’t focus on anything other than the scraping of the peeler.
​
Adrenaline and panic took over my mind. My body though, my body seemed to be getting different messages from the girl shearing off her own nose slice by slice.
​
To my absolute disgust, I had… um… 'pitched a tent'. I had never felt uglier, more repulsive, in my life. I’m not a psycho, or a pervert.
​
I'm not!
​
All I wanted to do was NOT watch. The footage must have tapped into something deep, some latent human infatuation with violence in all of us. That’s the only explanation, surely. It’s not like a video could hijack your body.
​
AH, BEAUTY, SUCH MINIMALISM
​
The piano crash was louder this time, closer to the microphone.
​
Again the words only last about half a second.
​
When the trio returned, the small nub of exposed bone was gone. A triangle of open flesh lay at the centre of the woman’s face, her nose now in wet spirals on her lap and around her feet.
​
The cheeks were next.
​
It was around the time that teeth started to be exposed that I hurled. The entrapment was so strong by this point I could no longer steal quick glances at the boys, but I could hear many of them doing the same. It was a struggle getting the vomit out. I couldn’t bend over far enough due to the paralysis, and had to cough it out mouthful by burning mouthful.
​
One of them was laying on their back when the video started. I could tell by the gargled crying that it was Hunt. I felt a tear fall down my cheek, unable to look away from the woman peeling her lower jaw down to the bone as the wails behind me coughed into drowned silence. Somebody managed to get out an almost inaudible whimper.
​
Even though my vision was blurred with tears I could still make out the half-skeleton in the video. I watched the screen, spitting up the occasional chunk of regurgitated kebab meat, as the blurred figure reached to her right. The woman took two objects from the silver tray that I couldn’t quite make out. The orange headed blob next to her didn’t move, but even through the watery haze I could still just about make out the steady rhythm of its breath beneath the bag.
​
For the first time in my life I was happy to be crying. The weakness in character put up a partial shield, blurring and censoring whatever I was about to see once the woman had positioned the objects next to her dripping half face.
​
YOU WILL WATCH
​
The crashing came from behind, the unseen pianist slamming on the keys only a few feet away. Something forced me to blink, and I mean that in a very literal sense. It wasn’t voluntary, it wasn’t a reflex, it was done on command. A command from who, or what ,I didn’t know. My eyes slammed shut and were quickly wrenched open again by an indescribable and overbearing impulse. All traces of tears were gone. The video swam back into focus just in time to catch the downwards swing of the hammer.
​
Exposed jawbone swung outwards, the chisel following through and digging itself in the underside of the lolling tongue. The limp muscle fell to her throat with a wet slap, hanging there behind the dangling jaw for all to see. The girl was calm when she placed the tools in her lap and reached up for the partially detached bone. Her expression didn’t change when she tweaked it loose, discarding her own jaw on the floor with the skin peelings as though she had just picked a scab.
​
On top of everything else, the stiffness in my jeans hadn't subsided. Were my stomach not empty I would have vomited again, as much from self disgust as the nightmare Luke’s cousin had pulled me into.
​
SEE WHAT SHE GIVES FOR YOU, SHE REMOVES ALL BUT THE MOST NECESSARY FEATURES
​
The unseen pianist was closer now, but what concentration I still had was focused on Luke’s cousin. I could just about see him out of the corner of my eye.
​
He was blinking. I noticed that straight away because I couldn’t unless ordered to. Laying on the floor, less than ten inches from the screen, his young face was illuminated a ghostly blue by the light from the tablet. I couldn’t pull my attention on him much (the video wouldn’t allow it), but I could have sworn he managed to shoot the occasional gleeful glance at the rest of us. I was able to notice him enough to see how his wide grin didn’t falter, how the joy in his adolescent eyes didn’t fade as the woman on screen reached towards her own with the steel ice cream scoop.
​
My own eyes burned with each steady flick of the woman’s wrists. My eyelids howled at me, fighting a losing war to close themselves, trying even though it was hopeless to shield my mind from the sight of those bloodied once-white orbs plopping to the ground. I had to cough down empty heaves when the second one rolled towards the camera, the fading pupil locked on my own. It was judging me, and I knew why.
​
The reason I nearly choked on my own vomit wasn't just because of the footage though. The disgust was far more at my own body than at anything the video forced me to watch the girl do to hers.
​
I could feel the wetness in my boxers the moment that first eye squelched on the floorboards. Every spasm haunted me, every muscular convulsion scarring me for life. Outside of the nightmare, before it, I had earned the half-joking nickname of "big shagger on campus". I’d never hated myself for it before now.
​
It wasn’t until the girl started removing the skin of her brow like a face mask that the twitching stopped.
​
My brain must have worked out that shutting my eyes wasn’t going to happen. My extremities went numb, the heavy knot in my stomach became a rising lightness, an unpleasant floating sensation that nights of being blackout drunk had left me all too familiar with. The room spinned one way, my insides another. The space behind my eyes prickled. I could feel myself slipping into a blissful unconsciousness. I urged the process on. I was desperate to be out of the nightmare, and if passing out was the only way then so be it.
​
The hand had other ideas.
​
SHE OBLIGES, SHE OBEYS, SHE COMPLIES, THIS IS ALL FOR YOU
​
I could feel the clammy grip on the back of my head.
​
The fingers worked their way through my hair, pulling and tugging to make sure I had no respite from my own depraved nature. Every time my head lulled forwards it would be wrenched back, the fog of unconsciousness fanned away again and again. I could hear sobs and whimpers from every direction. Every direction that is except where Luke’s cousin sat. I could feel his grin, the cracks of his laughter flecking my wet face.
​
The hanging smoke in the air, that stodgy scent of cheap weed and even cheaper cigarettes, grew thicker by the second. It snaked through my mouth and nostrils, coating the inside of my lungs with heavy phlegm that left my breathing like that of a drowning man. I gagged for a final time, blood and bile spewing onto the already vomit sodden carpet.
​
PERFECTION
​
The crashing in my ear canal timed itself perfectly with the moment the woman grasped her own hair and pulled.
​
The scalp came clean off, the fluid motion leaving a glistening skull caked in chunks of red and purple.
​
The text came just as my brain had time to process the final masterpiece: the girl stood tall, proud even, with the two sweating mountains of fat either side of her, the plastic of the bags on their heads still moving with that slow in-out rhythm. The floorboards they stood on were awash with blood, a pile of fleshy curls at the woman’s high heels, a single eye staring at the camera on top of it.
​
Perfection.
​
The word sliced through the crystal image. My dick recoiled the instant it was cut off from the shaved half-face. To my shock and self hatred, I was wincing from the sudden removal of the eyeless stare, the tongue lolling free on a jawless neck. My head swam, joints ached, eyes burned. Yet through the taste of vomit and heaving of raw lungs only one thought crossed my mind.
​
Perfection.
​
As soon as I could move I didn’t hesitate. I heard shouting behind me as I slammed the door; Luke and his cousin at each other, Lyle calling hunts name over and over, Jack screeching incomprehensible gibberish. I didn’t care. I booked it from Luke’s room and out into the hallway without looking back. I don’t really remember the journey to my end of the building very well. I remember taking off my clothes as I ran, throwing the vomit crusted t-shirt and soaked pants into the corridor. I left my phone, keys, wallet… I’m usually protective of the necessities but in the wee hours of that morning they didn’t matter.
​
Nothing did, save for removing as much of what had transpired from myself as possible.
​
People laughed when they saw me sprinting naked through the halls, but the laughter quickly turned to shrieks and startled mutters as they came close enough to see the blood and puke slathering my lips. Somehow I kicked down the door to my room. I’m not a strong guy, but desperation and adrenaline meant the old hinge gave way after two blows.
​
Once sure the door was firmly barricaded by my wardrobe I screamed my way through an hour long shower. With the temperature up full the water scaled my skin, at one point leaving actual blisters on my forearms, but it wasn’t hot enough. Neither was the bleach I grated in with a scouring pad from the kitchen. Once drips of reddish water started to drip from the end of my shame I gave up, collapsing into a sobbing heap on the tiles.
​
When I woke, the shower was still on but had long since run cold. I dragged myself into my bedroom, glad that the curtains were still closed. Once I remembered that I had lost my phone, my laptop informed me it was 17:30. I’d slept for about 13 hours. Usually I don’t dream after a session, the spliffs and lines take care of that, but on the tiled floor my dreams had been vivid, more lucid than I had ever experienced.
​
Perfection.
​
The word rang and regurgitated over and over in real time, over half a day of formless contemplation of the meaning behind the word the revelatory film had instilled… has instilled, within me.
​
Perfection.
​
I checked Facebook and awoke to a horde of messages. The lads had been busy whilst I slept. Luke had killed his cousin. About ten minutes after I had gone the argument turned into a fist fight, although from Lyle’s punctuation-free 1000 word long message, I could tell it was less of a fight and more of a murder. Before Lyle knew what to do, Luke had grabbed his cousins head, smashing the grinning face into a mirror over and over again until the nose was flat and shards of glass found their way through eyelids and into grey matter.
​
Hunt had choked on his own vomit, but that’s no surprise. After killing his cousin Luke tried to rope Lyle and Jack in to helping roll up both bodies in a duvet to dump somewhere. When Lyle refused, Luke had gone at him with a shard of glass. Jack was in no state to do anything, so Lyle grabbed him and they both legged it. The status update at the top of my news feed let me know what happened to Luke once they’d gone.
​
Charlotte, Luke’s flatmate, was going to need therapy for a long time. Maybe forever. She was never one to shy away from details of her grievances online, and this time was no different. Her recollection of events would have been harrowing had it not been for my awakening. Upon barging through his door to investigate strange noises she had found Luke, naked, kneeling on two face down bodies. I imagine she didn’t stick around long enough to find out who they were, or she had been told not to by the police she later mentioned had arrived, but I knew. He was laughing, crying, screaming, every emotion it was possible to feel; a shrieking monster surrounded by the dead and shards of bloodied mirror.
​
The part that would truly disturb Charlotte, the part that would give her recurring nightmares of what should have been any normal morning, was what he clenched in his hands and mouth. Three sets of severed male genitals. Judging by her capitalised paragraph, Luke had a large wound between his legs that confirmed one of them was his own.
​
Perfection.
​
Flicking my eyes back to the message told me things hadn’t gone much better in Jack and Lyle’s flat. They lived on the seventh floor, a fact that Lyle wasn’t quick enough to stop Jack exploiting. To prevent exactly what Jack had been planning the large windows only opened a few inches. Lyle heard the glass smash, but was only able to kick the door through in time to catch the sight of Jack’s ankles disappearing beyond the sill. By the time Lyle reached the window Jack was a red crater on the concrete. A quick glance outside my curtain showed me at least six pairs of flashing lights. The door supervisor was talking to a police officer, pointing up at my window. I knew what I had to do, but didn’t have long to do it.
​
Perfection.
​
Lyle’s message had ended there. There was no further communication from him but I didn’t need any. Lyle was smart, he would be doing the same as myself I imagine. Maybe he already has. There was a couple of ambulances outside too, and they don’t take away the dead in ambulances. Or maybe they do? I’d never been around a dead body before last night, so I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert. Something in my gut told me that Lyle was in one of them. I could sense him, awakened mind to awakened mind. I could see him sat in that ambulance, the paramedics shrieking, his head free of the unnecessary baggage that would have allowed him to see their frantic tear stained faces. Not long now Lyle. I’ll be with you soon.
​
Perfection.
​
Moving the barricade, interrupting my flatmates romantic dinner, ignoring their screams as I threw the fridge in front of the door, stabbing them until they made no more noise, finding the potato peeler at the back of the cupboard- all of these I found easy.
​
I had purpose now.
​
I made sure to add the bed to the wardrobe when resealing my bedroom door behind me. I needed time, a resource that the hammering on the door to the flat beyond the barricade told me I didn’t have. I could hear somebody shouting my name. A deep male voice, human in a way that I soon would not be.
​
Perfection.
​
I grasped the potato peeler in my hand. My palms were sweating, but not from nerves. It was anticipation. No, not anticipation… excitement. The same excitement I used to feel in that moment where a girl throws you down on her bed and unhooks her bra. The plastic pressed into my fingers felt realer than any woman I’d ever touched. I gazed at myself in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes, a hooked nose, lips dried out from too many cigarettes and late nights. All of it holding me back, all of it clouding my vision for so long. I didn’t wince as the peeler made its first incision.
​
I’m so glad I watched that fucking video. Perfection”
​
Verdict: this is a confirmed creepypasta and it was written 3 years ago and released on nosleep. It is also nicknamed the perfection creepypasta. When I read this for the first time I was scared myself but I realized it was a creepypasta and not a true story and luckily a lot of times creepypastas are scarier than real life. I don’t have much more to say about this but don’t believe everything you read. Perfection

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.
My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.
That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.
So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.
The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.
“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”
***
Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.
I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.
“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.
“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”
“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.
“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.
“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.
“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.
“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.
But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.
I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.
Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.
Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.
I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.
“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.
***
I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.
“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.
“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.
I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.
***
Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.
“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”
“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.
“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.
We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.
I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.
“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.
“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.
“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.
I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.
I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.
Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.
It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.
It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.
“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”
“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.
We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.
As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.
I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.
Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.
A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.
“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.
The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.
“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.
“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.
“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.
“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.
“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.
“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.
I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.
All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.
***
As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.
We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.
On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.
“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.
It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.
A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.
I was home.

[Part 24]
[Part 26]
“That’s weird.”
I crouched on the edge of a large, grassy area, the chest-high vegetation over our heads in this position, with various trails blazed through it by passing animals. The rest of the children waited behind me, hunched low on the balls of their feet, eyes to the clouds like wary rabbits watching for a hawk. The sky was clear and bright at noon, the temperature high enough to make me wish I could shrug off my jacket.
Lucille squatted next to my left, having attached herself to me so that she’d become my default shadow at this point. She eyed the lensatic compass in my hand, and the two of us frowned at it in hushed concern.
Swallowing a nervous gulp, I nodded in agreement with her statement, watching the needle of the compass twitch, spin, and change polarity every few seconds as if it were alive. “Must be a ton of electromagnetic radiation here. Better keep our eyes open. There could be freaks around.”
Today had proven to be gentler, the rain stopping sometime in the night. We’d all woken up close to nine the previous evening, sore, blister-ridden from our march, and hungry. I’d taken a small crew of six with some camping pots a few hundred yards off site and managed to heat up enough stewed beans to feed everyone before withdrawing to the factory. Our dinner hadn’t been a cheery affair, however; true to Chris’s words, the cookfire drew a small pack of Birch Crawlers, four juveniles from what I could tell, who prowled around outside for a long time. We had to sit in silence, bunched around our fire, and wait until the beasts gave up trying to find a way inside. Even after the predators left, Puppets clicked and chittered through the forest for hours, the white-eyed fiends scampering around the swamps to scoop out crayfish with their grimy hands. At one point, I spotted a lone Bengal Tiger by the western edge of the waterline, one of our old Carnivore Cove residents, with a new coat of thick brown-and-tan striped fur, and two long saber-like teeth protruding from its mouth. Speaker Crabs played their ghostly tunes late into the night, and Bone-Faced Whitetail bugled from somewhere further south, a symphony of the new world all blended in a sound both terrifying and fascinating to the wide-eyed urbanite kids.
All this had made the departure from our dusty old sanctuary that much harder for my wards to accept, but they followed me into the orange, red, and gold embrace of the autumn wilderness with resolute faith. They’d seen too much not to trust me, and I didn’t have to argue with the more stubborn members of the group anymore. Together we’d tramped to the green blot on the topographical map, and now that we sat on the edge of the grassy expanse, I found myself as the one having doubts.
I have no way to measure any background radiation. It might take a hot minute to search for whatever is supposed to be here, and who knows how many rads we’ll take in that time frame? Not to mention what kind of stuff might be living in this grass, mutated leeches, giant ticks, some kind of super-mosquito . . .
Shuddering at the skin-crawling idea of Breach-born parasites wriggling up my pant legs, I slipped the compass back into my pocket. We would just have to be quick. If Rodney Carter could make it in here, then the radiation couldn’t be lethal . . . or at least, I hoped so.
Turning, I raised a hand, and made a silent wave at the others.
Let’s go.
Deeper into the grass we went, weapons at the ready. I forced myself to breathe slow, let the focus slide over me, and crept along with primal caution. On the back of my tongue, I tasted the starchy blades of the grass, and the wet mud at the roots. My ears picked up the slight crunch of gravel particulates under the surface of the muck, remnants of whatever mining company had laid a gravel pad here decades prior. I caught the buzz of a fly a few yards to my left, and the muffled whirr of my compass spasming in my pocket, the needle in constant motion. Every color became more pronounced, the brown rush grass dried in the breeze, the turquoise blue sky, the chocolate-colored mud that squelched under my boots. Cool fall humidity lay heavy on my skin, and plants tickled my arms as I slid by them.
At the opposite end of the field, we came up on nothing.
I had the group make a wide loop around the outside of the clearing, searched the ground, the grass, the surrounding embankments.
Nothing.
Down the center we went in a crisscross pattern, spread out at arm’s length in a long row to comb through the area like a search-and-rescue team.
Still nothing.
In the roughly 20-acre stretch of ground, there were no buildings, no marks, only grass, a few dead tree stumps, and mud. It made no sense, and my frustration mounted as the anxious thought in the back of my head reminded me that we could be catching all sorts of poisonous radiation.
Stopping in the center of the field, I stood upright, and rested my hands on both hips in an angry huff.
So, was this some kind of stupid joke? No one’s been here in a while, Jamie couldn’t have gotten to it first without leaving something behind for me to spot. Unless she pointed me in the wrong direction to cover her tracks, especially if she was working for ELSAR from the beginning.
Aware of the puzzled looks thrown my way from the others, I pulled my map out again, and tried to make sense of the erratic compass.
Whirrr.
It spun like a propellor, and I shook the little plastic gadget with my teeth gritted in ire.
Whirrrr.
As if to spite me, the needle spun in faster pulsations, and I paced back and forth, ready to blow my cool at the inanimate chunk of hardened petroleum. “Stupid dollar store piece of—”
Whiiirrr.
Crackle.
I froze, and stared at the compass, the needle now spinning constantly without hesitation. Something under my boot had shifted, the sound oddly plastic to my heightened eardrums, and my angst melted into stunned realization.
The compass wasn’t pointing north . . . it was trying to point down.
With bated breath, I back up a few steps, and sank down on my haunches to peer at the grass.
Oh, very clever Mr. Carter.
A smile crawled over my face at a slight tinge of blue under the mud, the old tarp well-concealed under the thick mat of soil, roots, and grass. We’d walked right over it half a dozen times, and I’d been standing on top of the woven nylon flap while I fumed at my poor compass. From the air, it was invisible, from the ground undetectable; only magnetism could reveal it.
Pulling a cheap camping knife that I’d been given at the Castle from my belt, I gripped the stems of the wet grass and tugged upward, using the blade to dig at the roots. With a wet snap of plant-life giving way, the sod came free, and the children crowded around me in an excited cluster as I pulled the tarp aside.
A square metal cover sat underneath, painted slate-gray, with spots of rust here and there. It swung open on creaky hinges to reveal a hatch further recessed into poured concrete. This one was made from heavy steel, and smeared with a thin film of protective grease, a central hand-wheel in its core to open it like some kind of bunker door. Even with all this, it was a set of blocky, white painted letters on the door, that made my mind whirl like the compass needle.
Silo 48.
Daring to hope, I reached down, and yanked on the hand-wheel.
Clunk.
It turned in a smooth, well-oiled motion, and the sound of locks retracting echoed through the expanse beneath as the thick steel hatch rose upward on pneumatic struts. Stale air wafted up from inside, the cold scent of concrete and iron, and a metal ladder bolted to the interior wall led down into the shadows. It had a metal safety cage around it to prevent workers from falling through the already claustrophobic entry tube, and there wasn’t a visible bottom from where we sat on the surface. Even for my eyes it was dark, and something about the strange hole in the ground felt off, unnatural, misplaced.
I borrowed a flashlight from one of the boys and stuck my legs into the shaft to rest both feet on the first rung. “I’ll go first. If it’s safe, I’ll call up to you, and the rest of you come down to meet me. I don’t want anyone waiting around outside, just in case.”
“What if something grabs you?” A younger member of the group looked with nervous dread at the shadows beneath me.
Meeting the eyes of the older ones, who waited in silent expectation, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “Close the hatch and run.”
Their worried faces drifted further and further away as I descended, the flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, both shaky hands clinging to the ladder. It seemed like the seconds dragged on into hours, the climb downward never ending, and the square of sunlight became a golden postage-stamp high overhead. I had no idea how far down I would have to go, and my stomach churned at the haunting prospect that perhaps this was one of the Breach’s cruel tricks, that I would end up climbing forever, that there was no bottom to this hidden pit. What if I had crawled down inside it like an unsuspecting fly to a carnivorous plant in the Amazon, unaware the tunnel waited to gulp me down, smother me in darkness, and digest my bones?
You’re psyching yourself out over nothing. It’s a freaking tunnel, Hannah, made of concrete just like a sidewalk. Someone had to have built it, and Carter made it out, so you can too.
In that spirit, I put one foot out to take the next rung and jolted with surprise at the sensation of a hard floor under my heel.
Clicking on my flashlight, I swept the weak yellow beam over my surroundings, and curiosity overwhelmed my fear.
I stood in a circular tunnel, spacious and industrial, with metal supports on the walls, and diamond-plate steel on the floor It was cooler down here, and I guessed that I had to be at least sixty feet underground or more, the walls behind the I-beams molded from poured concrete. Electric lights hung from the ceiling, encased in protective wire cages, skinny round conduit bolted along the ceiling like bundles of shiny snakes. Unlike the abandoned brick factory, this place didn’t lay under a thick curtain of dust, but almost seemed brand-new, as if someone had been through to clean it just yesterday. Everything remained dark, however; the lights didn’t flicker to life, no machinery hummed, the air as still as a tomb.
A sign screwed to the wall caught my eye, white metal and square, with the words ‘escape hatch’ painted on it in black, an arrow pointing back the way I’d come. Another in similar style pointed forward, and my blood went cold with the words illuminated in my flashlight beam.
Launch Control Center.
In my head, Carter’s raspy voice echoed like the tolls of a bell, sinister for the desperation in his death rattle.
More important than the beacon . . . don’t trust anyone . . .
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to walk on, one hand on my pistol, though something in my brain told me I wouldn’t need it. The mysterious notion gave me little comfort, the absence of any mutated life forms all the more foreboding. A place like this couldn’t be part of any mining operation. No, this was too technical, too clean, too militaristic for coal or minerals. Someone had designed this place for something more secretive, something horrible, something dangerous.
Dangerous enough for Rodney Carter to give his life to defend it.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular room, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Holy mother of God.
An array of big metal boxes stood along one wall, covered in dials, switches, and indicators from an era before touch screens. In the center of the floor sat a metal desk with two chairs behind a set of ancient-looking computer monitors, a few binders and folders stacked between them. Radio equipment lined another workstation by the back wall, and headsets at each retro-styled swivel chair gave the space a distinctly governmental air. Several round analog clocks on the wall were labeled for various locations, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington D.C, among others. A stairwell at the back of the room had more signs, pointing up to ‘Crew Quarters’ and down to ‘Secondary Command Systems’. Off to my right, a single tunnel led deeper into the complex, with a lone sign that read, ‘Blast Boor 8’.
Shutting my eyes, I held my breath to slow my racing heart, and focused as hard as I could on the stillness around me. Everything came back strange, stunted, numb, like my new abilities struggled to claw through the low hiss of static that I hadn’t notice in my ears up until now. From what I could tell, nothing lived down here, yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel secure.
A brief search of the stairwell revealed a lower level with a similar setup to the first, and an upper floor of rooms with cramped bunks, and a tiny bathroom. No one appeared in either, and there wasn’t any blood, signs of struggle, or even scraps of torn clothing. It was as if the crew of this facility had just got up and walked out not five minutes ago.
At the base of the escape ladder, I called up to the tiny yellow square of light. “Okay, come on down.”
Somewhat comforted by the echoes of their eager feet on the iron ladder rungs, I ducked back into the control room, and walked to the central desk.
A newspaper had been tucked into the folders on one side, and I sat down in the right-hand swivel chair to tug it free.
“What on earth . . .” My brow knit together, and I blinked in confusion.
The first newspaper was dated 1953, far too old for a facility that seemed to have passed inspection only last week, and the headlines were crammed with strange text. I hadn’t always paid the best attention in history class, but I knew enough to understand that the words printed on the oddball paper shouldn’t have been correct. The more I read, the more my spine tingled with a bizarre wonder that I didn’t fully comprehend.
Disaster averted! Whistleblower reveals atomic strike narrowly called off after U.S.S Seraphim vanishes during naval exercise. Washington and Moscow agree to hold de-escalation talks.
Stalin dead from stroke! Massive protests rock USSR in demand for change. Marshal Zhukov seizes power in Moscow, abolishes gulags, and vows drastic reforms.
An era for a change? Kremlin agrees to open trade deals with the west as Zhukov drafts new Russian constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Eisenhower leads charge to end racial segregation in US with widespread Congressional support.
From bombs to space-rockets: U.S and Russia form joint moon exploration taskforce in historic alliance treaty. NATO and WARSAW Pact dissolved, while Mao surrenders to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. Former Communist bloc to open their economies to free market reforms.
Bewildered, I scanned the pages over and over again, waiting to see a political watermark, a gag label, something to let me know these were fake papers made for a joke. But the more I read, the more I sat there in stunned amazement.
They were real.
I remembered my conversation with Mr. Koranti, about other places, holes in reality, and interdimensional crossovers. Could it be true? Had there been a timeline where the Cold War didn’t drag on for decades, where the arms race withered out, and where the authoritarian regimes of the world toppled under the will of their own people? Just the thought had me both excited and heartbroken; excited that such a better place had been possible after all, and crushed that we, in our reality, hadn’t seen such times. What if our version of earth was the wrong one, a defective one, a nightmare for other dimensions that had done things right where we had erred? What if we were the Chaos-driven version of human history, a blood-soaked tale of endless violence that we never managed to shake? If this was evidence of Order succeeding in other timelines, then what did that mean for ours?
Desperate for answers, I shuffled to the next paper, and read on.
Rural Tennessee communities evacuated after mysterious power outages cause havoc: bystanders say military weapons test released ‘monsters’.
Operation ‘Olympic Hammer’ exposed! CIA heads indited on testing electromagnetic superweapons in plot to attack former Soviet Union. Global support pours in to assist with biological cleanup of Polk County.
‘Worse than we thought’ International teams urge calm as contaminated zone in Tennessee widens. Russia pledges aid, reports similar ‘hot spots’ in Irkutsk. China unable to maintain order in remote regions as anomaly phenomenon spreads.
State of emergency declared in Washington as mutant attacks rise across nation. Moscow reportedly dark. Beijing in chaos. Military preps for experimental ‘containment’ strikes within continental US.
Icy terror sank through me as I reached the last headline, no further papers on the desk, as if these had been the last to be delivered. The Breach. They’d found one too, or perhaps created one from the sounds of it, their covert superweapon enough to open a rift just like Koranti had spoken of. In their quest to restart the Cold War, the conspirators in the CIA had ripped open a doorway to Chaos, and unleashed mutants all over the world. Despite all the treaties, all the peace deals, one wrong step had doomed them to a cosmic apocalypse that looked eerily familiar from the grainy black and white photos on the front page.
Fools. They could have reached for the stars, and they threw it all away. Stupid, proud fools.
“What is this place?” Lucille stepped out from the dark behind me, and the rest of the children emerged one-by-one from the tunnel, examining the room with curious eyes.
“Not sure yet.” Pulling one of the technical binders out, I flipped it open and started to read. “Just don’t touch anything, okay?”
With all my concentration, I dove into the pages, devoured the complicated pamphlets in record time I would have been amazed at how fast my reading comprehension had improved, if it weren’t for the words that jumped off the pages at me.
Automated self-loading silo . . . XM91 Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicle . . . Peacekeeper Two delivery system . . .
My eyes rose to the console in front of me, and I noticed two sets of keyholes, with one holding a little metal key.
The other keyhole was empty.
Wait a second.
Horrified, I dropped the binder and leapt to my feet. Now it made sense why Carter had guarded this place with his life, and why ELSAR wanted the key coordinates. Somehow, in some way, this place had slipped through the veil of time and space to land in our reality and had brought its deadly secret with it.
A weapon so powerful, so dangerous, that even the deep pockets of ELSAR couldn’t get hold of one.
“What’s wrong?” An older boy cast around with his eyes in suspicion, but I ignored them all, and took off toward the tunnel marked ‘Blast Door 8’.
As if running in a nightmare, I couldn’t move fast enough, and the others sprinted after me in fear. I spun the hand-wheel, let the hydraulic springs crank it open, and raced on through more flights of metal stairways, more blast doors that counted down from eight, until I stumbled out into a massive shadowy chasm.
Stopping dead in my tracks at the safety railing, I stared out at a half-dozen white-painted tubes that rose from the gargantuan shaft toward the closed double blast doors above. They were huge, easily as tall as two school buses parked end-to-end, six of them held in a turnstile-like system of brackets that reminded me of a rotisserie rack at a gas station. The compass in my pocket cranked with a hysterical whirr, and the letters painted on the aluminum skin of the objects made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
XM91.
The children thundered into the launch shaft after me, and their eyes bulged at the deadly giants that stood in quiet mechanical slumber within the hidden bunker.
“Is that . . ?” Lucille squeaked, her jaw slack as she sidled closer in timid uncertainty.
“Uh huh.” I gripped the cold railing with white-knuckled hands, my stomach tied in sick knots. “Those are nukes.”

[Part 24]
[Part 26]
“That’s weird.”
I crouched on the edge of a large, grassy area, the chest-high vegetation over our heads in this position, with various trails blazed through it by passing animals. The rest of the children waited behind me, hunched low on the balls of their feet, eyes to the clouds like wary rabbits watching for a hawk. The sky was clear and bright at noon, the temperature high enough to make me wish I could shrug off my jacket.
Lucille squatted next to my left, having attached herself to me so that she’d become my default shadow at this point. She eyed the lensatic compass in my hand, and the two of us frowned at it in hushed concern.
Swallowing a nervous gulp, I nodded in agreement with her statement, watching the needle of the compass twitch, spin, and change polarity every few seconds as if it were alive. “Must be a ton of electromagnetic radiation here. Better keep our eyes open. There could be freaks around.”
Today had proven to be gentler, the rain stopping sometime in the night. We’d all woken up close to nine the previous evening, sore, blister-ridden from our march, and hungry. I’d taken a small crew of six with some camping pots a few hundred yards off site and managed to heat up enough stewed beans to feed everyone before withdrawing to the factory. Our dinner hadn’t been a cheery affair, however; true to Chris’s words, the cookfire drew a small pack of Birch Crawlers, four juveniles from what I could tell, who prowled around outside for a long time. We had to sit in silence, bunched around our fire, and wait until the beasts gave up trying to find a way inside. Even after the predators left, Puppets clicked and chittered through the forest for hours, the white-eyed fiends scampering around the swamps to scoop out crayfish with their grimy hands. At one point, I spotted a lone Bengal Tiger by the western edge of the waterline, one of our old Carnivore Cove residents, with a new coat of thick brown-and-tan striped fur, and two long saber-like teeth protruding from its mouth. Speaker Crabs played their ghostly tunes late into the night, and Bone-Faced Whitetail bugled from somewhere further south, a symphony of the new world all blended in a sound both terrifying and fascinating to the wide-eyed urbanite kids.
All this had made the departure from our dusty old sanctuary that much harder for my wards to accept, but they followed me into the orange, red, and gold embrace of the autumn wilderness with resolute faith. They’d seen too much not to trust me, and I didn’t have to argue with the more stubborn members of the group anymore. Together we’d tramped to the green blot on the topographical map, and now that we sat on the edge of the grassy expanse, I found myself as the one having doubts.
I have no way to measure any background radiation. It might take a hot minute to search for whatever is supposed to be here, and who knows how many rads we’ll take in that time frame? Not to mention what kind of stuff might be living in this grass, mutated leeches, giant ticks, some kind of super-mosquito . . .
Shuddering at the skin-crawling idea of Breach-born parasites wriggling up my pant legs, I slipped the compass back into my pocket. We would just have to be quick. If Rodney Carter could make it in here, then the radiation couldn’t be lethal . . . or at least, I hoped so.
Turning, I raised a hand, and made a silent wave at the others.
Let’s go.
Deeper into the grass we went, weapons at the ready. I forced myself to breathe slow, let the focus slide over me, and crept along with primal caution. On the back of my tongue, I tasted the starchy blades of the grass, and the wet mud at the roots. My ears picked up the slight crunch of gravel particulates under the surface of the muck, remnants of whatever mining company had laid a gravel pad here decades prior. I caught the buzz of a fly a few yards to my left, and the muffled whirr of my compass spasming in my pocket, the needle in constant motion. Every color became more pronounced, the brown rush grass dried in the breeze, the turquoise blue sky, the chocolate-colored mud that squelched under my boots. Cool fall humidity lay heavy on my skin, and plants tickled my arms as I slid by them.
At the opposite end of the field, we came up on nothing.
I had the group make a wide loop around the outside of the clearing, searched the ground, the grass, the surrounding embankments.
Nothing.
Down the center we went in a crisscross pattern, spread out at arm’s length in a long row to comb through the area like a search-and-rescue team.
Still nothing.
In the roughly 20-acre stretch of ground, there were no buildings, no marks, only grass, a few dead tree stumps, and mud. It made no sense, and my frustration mounted as the anxious thought in the back of my head reminded me that we could be catching all sorts of poisonous radiation.
Stopping in the center of the field, I stood upright, and rested my hands on both hips in an angry huff.
So, was this some kind of stupid joke? No one’s been here in a while, Jamie couldn’t have gotten to it first without leaving something behind for me to spot. Unless she pointed me in the wrong direction to cover her tracks, especially if she was working for ELSAR from the beginning.
Aware of the puzzled looks thrown my way from the others, I pulled my map out again, and tried to make sense of the erratic compass.
Whirrr.
It spun like a propellor, and I shook the little plastic gadget with my teeth gritted in ire.
Whirrrr.
As if to spite me, the needle spun in faster pulsations, and I paced back and forth, ready to blow my cool at the inanimate chunk of hardened petroleum. “Stupid dollar store piece of—”
Whiiirrr.
Crackle.
I froze, and stared at the compass, the needle now spinning constantly without hesitation. Something under my boot had shifted, the sound oddly plastic to my heightened eardrums, and my angst melted into stunned realization.
The compass wasn’t pointing north . . . it was trying to point down.
With bated breath, I back up a few steps, and sank down on my haunches to peer at the grass.
Oh, very clever Mr. Carter.
A smile crawled over my face at a slight tinge of blue under the mud, the old tarp well-concealed under the thick mat of soil, roots, and grass. We’d walked right over it half a dozen times, and I’d been standing on top of the woven nylon flap while I fumed at my poor compass. From the air, it was invisible, from the ground undetectable; only magnetism could reveal it.
Pulling a cheap camping knife that I’d been given at the Castle from my belt, I gripped the stems of the wet grass and tugged upward, using the blade to dig at the roots. With a wet snap of plant-life giving way, the sod came free, and the children crowded around me in an excited cluster as I pulled the tarp aside.
A square metal cover sat underneath, painted slate-gray, with spots of rust here and there. It swung open on creaky hinges to reveal a hatch further recessed into poured concrete. This one was made from heavy steel, and smeared with a thin film of protective grease, a central hand-wheel in its core to open it like some kind of bunker door. Even with all this, it was a set of blocky, white painted letters on the door, that made my mind whirl like the compass needle.
Silo 48.
Daring to hope, I reached down, and yanked on the hand-wheel.
Clunk.
It turned in a smooth, well-oiled motion, and the sound of locks retracting echoed through the expanse beneath as the thick steel hatch rose upward on pneumatic struts. Stale air wafted up from inside, the cold scent of concrete and iron, and a metal ladder bolted to the interior wall led down into the shadows. It had a metal safety cage around it to prevent workers from falling through the already claustrophobic entry tube, and there wasn’t a visible bottom from where we sat on the surface. Even for my eyes it was dark, and something about the strange hole in the ground felt off, unnatural, misplaced.
I borrowed a flashlight from one of the boys and stuck my legs into the shaft to rest both feet on the first rung. “I’ll go first. If it’s safe, I’ll call up to you, and the rest of you come down to meet me. I don’t want anyone waiting around outside, just in case.”
“What if something grabs you?” A younger member of the group looked with nervous dread at the shadows beneath me.
Meeting the eyes of the older ones, who waited in silent expectation, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “Close the hatch and run.”
Their worried faces drifted further and further away as I descended, the flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, both shaky hands clinging to the ladder. It seemed like the seconds dragged on into hours, the climb downward never ending, and the square of sunlight became a golden postage-stamp high overhead. I had no idea how far down I would have to go, and my stomach churned at the haunting prospect that perhaps this was one of the Breach’s cruel tricks, that I would end up climbing forever, that there was no bottom to this hidden pit. What if I had crawled down inside it like an unsuspecting fly to a carnivorous plant in the Amazon, unaware the tunnel waited to gulp me down, smother me in darkness, and digest my bones?
You’re psyching yourself out over nothing. It’s a freaking tunnel, Hannah, made of concrete just like a sidewalk. Someone had to have built it, and Carter made it out, so you can too.
In that spirit, I put one foot out to take the next rung and jolted with surprise at the sensation of a hard floor under my heel.
Clicking on my flashlight, I swept the weak yellow beam over my surroundings, and curiosity overwhelmed my fear.
I stood in a circular tunnel, spacious and industrial, with metal supports on the walls, and diamond-plate steel on the floor It was cooler down here, and I guessed that I had to be at least sixty feet underground or more, the walls behind the I-beams molded from poured concrete. Electric lights hung from the ceiling, encased in protective wire cages, skinny round conduit bolted along the ceiling like bundles of shiny snakes. Unlike the abandoned brick factory, this place didn’t lay under a thick curtain of dust, but almost seemed brand-new, as if someone had been through to clean it just yesterday. Everything remained dark, however; the lights didn’t flicker to life, no machinery hummed, the air as still as a tomb.
A sign screwed to the wall caught my eye, white metal and square, with the words ‘escape hatch’ painted on it in black, an arrow pointing back the way I’d come. Another in similar style pointed forward, and my blood went cold with the words illuminated in my flashlight beam.
Launch Control Center.
In my head, Carter’s raspy voice echoed like the tolls of a bell, sinister for the desperation in his death rattle.
More important than the beacon . . . don’t trust anyone . . .
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to walk on, one hand on my pistol, though something in my brain told me I wouldn’t need it. The mysterious notion gave me little comfort, the absence of any mutated life forms all the more foreboding. A place like this couldn’t be part of any mining operation. No, this was too technical, too clean, too militaristic for coal or minerals. Someone had designed this place for something more secretive, something horrible, something dangerous.
Dangerous enough for Rodney Carter to give his life to defend it.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular room, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Holy mother of God.
An array of big metal boxes stood along one wall, covered in dials, switches, and indicators from an era before touch screens. In the center of the floor sat a metal desk with two chairs behind a set of ancient-looking computer monitors, a few binders and folders stacked between them. Radio equipment lined another workstation by the back wall, and headsets at each retro-styled swivel chair gave the space a distinctly governmental air. Several round analog clocks on the wall were labeled for various locations, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington D.C, among others. A stairwell at the back of the room had more signs, pointing up to ‘Crew Quarters’ and down to ‘Secondary Command Systems’. Off to my right, a single tunnel led deeper into the complex, with a lone sign that read, ‘Blast Boor 8’.
Shutting my eyes, I held my breath to slow my racing heart, and focused as hard as I could on the stillness around me. Everything came back strange, stunted, numb, like my new abilities struggled to claw through the low hiss of static that I hadn’t notice in my ears up until now. From what I could tell, nothing lived down here, yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel secure.
A brief search of the stairwell revealed a lower level with a similar setup to the first, and an upper floor of rooms with cramped bunks, and a tiny bathroom. No one appeared in either, and there wasn’t any blood, signs of struggle, or even scraps of torn clothing. It was as if the crew of this facility had just got up and walked out not five minutes ago.
At the base of the escape ladder, I called up to the tiny yellow square of light. “Okay, come on down.”
Somewhat comforted by the echoes of their eager feet on the iron ladder rungs, I ducked back into the control room, and walked to the central desk.
A newspaper had been tucked into the folders on one side, and I sat down in the right-hand swivel chair to tug it free.
“What on earth . . .” My brow knit together, and I blinked in confusion.
The first newspaper was dated 1953, far too old for a facility that seemed to have passed inspection only last week, and the headlines were crammed with strange text. I hadn’t always paid the best attention in history class, but I knew enough to understand that the words printed on the oddball paper shouldn’t have been correct. The more I read, the more my spine tingled with a bizarre wonder that I didn’t fully comprehend.
Disaster averted! Whistleblower reveals atomic strike narrowly called off after U.S.S Seraphim vanishes during naval exercise. Washington and Moscow agree to hold de-escalation talks.
Stalin dead from stroke! Massive protests rock USSR in demand for change. Marshal Zhukov seizes power in Moscow, abolishes gulags, and vows drastic reforms.
An era for a change? Kremlin agrees to open trade deals with the west as Zhukov drafts new Russian constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Eisenhower leads charge to end racial segregation in US with widespread Congressional support.
From bombs to space-rockets: U.S and Russia form joint moon exploration taskforce in historic alliance treaty. NATO and WARSAW Pact dissolved, while Mao surrenders to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. Former Communist bloc to open their economies to free market reforms.
Bewildered, I scanned the pages over and over again, waiting to see a political watermark, a gag label, something to let me know these were fake papers made for a joke. But the more I read, the more I sat there in stunned amazement.
They were real.
I remembered my conversation with Mr. Koranti, about other places, holes in reality, and interdimensional crossovers. Could it be true? Had there been a timeline where the Cold War didn’t drag on for decades, where the arms race withered out, and where the authoritarian regimes of the world toppled under the will of their own people? Just the thought had me both excited and heartbroken; excited that such a better place had been possible after all, and crushed that we, in our reality, hadn’t seen such times. What if our version of earth was the wrong one, a defective one, a nightmare for other dimensions that had done things right where we had erred? What if we were the Chaos-driven version of human history, a blood-soaked tale of endless violence that we never managed to shake? If this was evidence of Order succeeding in other timelines, then what did that mean for ours?
Desperate for answers, I shuffled to the next paper, and read on.
Rural Tennessee communities evacuated after mysterious power outages cause havoc: bystanders say military weapons test released ‘monsters’.
Operation ‘Olympic Hammer’ exposed! CIA heads indited on testing electromagnetic superweapons in plot to attack former Soviet Union. Global support pours in to assist with biological cleanup of Polk County.
‘Worse than we thought’ International teams urge calm as contaminated zone in Tennessee widens. Russia pledges aid, reports similar ‘hot spots’ in Irkutsk. China unable to maintain order in remote regions as anomaly phenomenon spreads.
State of emergency declared in Washington as mutant attacks rise across nation. Moscow reportedly dark. Beijing in chaos. Military preps for experimental ‘containment’ strikes within continental US.
Icy terror sank through me as I reached the last headline, no further papers on the desk, as if these had been the last to be delivered. The Breach. They’d found one too, or perhaps created one from the sounds of it, their covert superweapon enough to open a rift just like Koranti had spoken of. In their quest to restart the Cold War, the conspirators in the CIA had ripped open a doorway to Chaos, and unleashed mutants all over the world. Despite all the treaties, all the peace deals, one wrong step had doomed them to a cosmic apocalypse that looked eerily familiar from the grainy black and white photos on the front page.
Fools. They could have reached for the stars, and they threw it all away. Stupid, proud fools.
“What is this place?” Lucille stepped out from the dark behind me, and the rest of the children emerged one-by-one from the tunnel, examining the room with curious eyes.
“Not sure yet.” Pulling one of the technical binders out, I flipped it open and started to read. “Just don’t touch anything, okay?”
With all my concentration, I dove into the pages, devoured the complicated pamphlets in record time I would have been amazed at how fast my reading comprehension had improved, if it weren’t for the words that jumped off the pages at me.
Automated self-loading silo . . . XM91 Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicle . . . Peacekeeper Two delivery system . . .
My eyes rose to the console in front of me, and I noticed two sets of keyholes, with one holding a little metal key.
The other keyhole was empty.
Wait a second.
Horrified, I dropped the binder and leapt to my feet. Now it made sense why Carter had guarded this place with his life, and why ELSAR wanted the key coordinates. Somehow, in some way, this place had slipped through the veil of time and space to land in our reality and had brought its deadly secret with it.
A weapon so powerful, so dangerous, that even the deep pockets of ELSAR couldn’t get hold of one.
“What’s wrong?” An older boy cast around with his eyes in suspicion, but I ignored them all, and took off toward the tunnel marked ‘Blast Door 8’.
As if running in a nightmare, I couldn’t move fast enough, and the others sprinted after me in fear. I spun the hand-wheel, let the hydraulic springs crank it open, and raced on through more flights of metal stairways, more blast doors that counted down from eight, until I stumbled out into a massive shadowy chasm.
Stopping dead in my tracks at the safety railing, I stared out at a half-dozen white-painted tubes that rose from the gargantuan shaft toward the closed double blast doors above. They were huge, easily as tall as two school buses parked end-to-end, six of them held in a turnstile-like system of brackets that reminded me of a rotisserie rack at a gas station. The compass in my pocket cranked with a hysterical whirr, and the letters painted on the aluminum skin of the objects made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
XM91.
The children thundered into the launch shaft after me, and their eyes bulged at the deadly giants that stood in quiet mechanical slumber within the hidden bunker.
“Is that . . ?” Lucille squeaked, her jaw slack as she sidled closer in timid uncertainty.
“Uh huh.” I gripped the cold railing with white-knuckled hands, my stomach tied in sick knots. “Those are nukes.”

[Part 24]
[Part 26]
“That’s weird.”
I crouched on the edge of a large, grassy area, the chest-high vegetation over our heads in this position, with various trails blazed through it by passing animals. The rest of the children waited behind me, hunched low on the balls of their feet, eyes to the clouds like wary rabbits watching for a hawk. The sky was clear and bright at noon, the temperature high enough to make me wish I could shrug off my jacket.
Lucille squatted next to my left, having attached herself to me so that she’d become my default shadow at this point. She eyed the lensatic compass in my hand, and the two of us frowned at it in hushed concern.
Swallowing a nervous gulp, I nodded in agreement with her statement, watching the needle of the compass twitch, spin, and change polarity every few seconds as if it were alive. “Must be a ton of electromagnetic radiation here. Better keep our eyes open. There could be freaks around.”
Today had proven to be gentler, the rain stopping sometime in the night. We’d all woken up close to nine the previous evening, sore, blister-ridden from our march, and hungry. I’d taken a small crew of six with some camping pots a few hundred yards off site and managed to heat up enough stewed beans to feed everyone before withdrawing to the factory. Our dinner hadn’t been a cheery affair, however; true to Chris’s words, the cookfire drew a small pack of Birch Crawlers, four juveniles from what I could tell, who prowled around outside for a long time. We had to sit in silence, bunched around our fire, and wait until the beasts gave up trying to find a way inside. Even after the predators left, Puppets clicked and chittered through the forest for hours, the white-eyed fiends scampering around the swamps to scoop out crayfish with their grimy hands. At one point, I spotted a lone Bengal Tiger by the western edge of the waterline, one of our old Carnivore Cove residents, with a new coat of thick brown-and-tan striped fur, and two long saber-like teeth protruding from its mouth. Speaker Crabs played their ghostly tunes late into the night, and Bone-Faced Whitetail bugled from somewhere further south, a symphony of the new world all blended in a sound both terrifying and fascinating to the wide-eyed urbanite kids.
All this had made the departure from our dusty old sanctuary that much harder for my wards to accept, but they followed me into the orange, red, and gold embrace of the autumn wilderness with resolute faith. They’d seen too much not to trust me, and I didn’t have to argue with the more stubborn members of the group anymore. Together we’d tramped to the green blot on the topographical map, and now that we sat on the edge of the grassy expanse, I found myself as the one having doubts.
I have no way to measure any background radiation. It might take a hot minute to search for whatever is supposed to be here, and who knows how many rads we’ll take in that time frame? Not to mention what kind of stuff might be living in this grass, mutated leeches, giant ticks, some kind of super-mosquito . . .
Shuddering at the skin-crawling idea of Breach-born parasites wriggling up my pant legs, I slipped the compass back into my pocket. We would just have to be quick. If Rodney Carter could make it in here, then the radiation couldn’t be lethal . . . or at least, I hoped so.
Turning, I raised a hand, and made a silent wave at the others.
Let’s go.
Deeper into the grass we went, weapons at the ready. I forced myself to breathe slow, let the focus slide over me, and crept along with primal caution. On the back of my tongue, I tasted the starchy blades of the grass, and the wet mud at the roots. My ears picked up the slight crunch of gravel particulates under the surface of the muck, remnants of whatever mining company had laid a gravel pad here decades prior. I caught the buzz of a fly a few yards to my left, and the muffled whirr of my compass spasming in my pocket, the needle in constant motion. Every color became more pronounced, the brown rush grass dried in the breeze, the turquoise blue sky, the chocolate-colored mud that squelched under my boots. Cool fall humidity lay heavy on my skin, and plants tickled my arms as I slid by them.
At the opposite end of the field, we came up on nothing.
I had the group make a wide loop around the outside of the clearing, searched the ground, the grass, the surrounding embankments.
Nothing.
Down the center we went in a crisscross pattern, spread out at arm’s length in a long row to comb through the area like a search-and-rescue team.
Still nothing.
In the roughly 20-acre stretch of ground, there were no buildings, no marks, only grass, a few dead tree stumps, and mud. It made no sense, and my frustration mounted as the anxious thought in the back of my head reminded me that we could be catching all sorts of poisonous radiation.
Stopping in the center of the field, I stood upright, and rested my hands on both hips in an angry huff.
So, was this some kind of stupid joke? No one’s been here in a while, Jamie couldn’t have gotten to it first without leaving something behind for me to spot. Unless she pointed me in the wrong direction to cover her tracks, especially if she was working for ELSAR from the beginning.
Aware of the puzzled looks thrown my way from the others, I pulled my map out again, and tried to make sense of the erratic compass.
Whirrr.
It spun like a propellor, and I shook the little plastic gadget with my teeth gritted in ire.
Whirrrr.
As if to spite me, the needle spun in faster pulsations, and I paced back and forth, ready to blow my cool at the inanimate chunk of hardened petroleum. “Stupid dollar store piece of—”
Whiiirrr.
Crackle.
I froze, and stared at the compass, the needle now spinning constantly without hesitation. Something under my boot had shifted, the sound oddly plastic to my heightened eardrums, and my angst melted into stunned realization.
The compass wasn’t pointing north . . . it was trying to point down.
With bated breath, I back up a few steps, and sank down on my haunches to peer at the grass.
Oh, very clever Mr. Carter.
A smile crawled over my face at a slight tinge of blue under the mud, the old tarp well-concealed under the thick mat of soil, roots, and grass. We’d walked right over it half a dozen times, and I’d been standing on top of the woven nylon flap while I fumed at my poor compass. From the air, it was invisible, from the ground undetectable; only magnetism could reveal it.
Pulling a cheap camping knife that I’d been given at the Castle from my belt, I gripped the stems of the wet grass and tugged upward, using the blade to dig at the roots. With a wet snap of plant-life giving way, the sod came free, and the children crowded around me in an excited cluster as I pulled the tarp aside.
A square metal cover sat underneath, painted slate-gray, with spots of rust here and there. It swung open on creaky hinges to reveal a hatch further recessed into poured concrete. This one was made from heavy steel, and smeared with a thin film of protective grease, a central hand-wheel in its core to open it like some kind of bunker door. Even with all this, it was a set of blocky, white painted letters on the door, that made my mind whirl like the compass needle.
Silo 48.
Daring to hope, I reached down, and yanked on the hand-wheel.
Clunk.
It turned in a smooth, well-oiled motion, and the sound of locks retracting echoed through the expanse beneath as the thick steel hatch rose upward on pneumatic struts. Stale air wafted up from inside, the cold scent of concrete and iron, and a metal ladder bolted to the interior wall led down into the shadows. It had a metal safety cage around it to prevent workers from falling through the already claustrophobic entry tube, and there wasn’t a visible bottom from where we sat on the surface. Even for my eyes it was dark, and something about the strange hole in the ground felt off, unnatural, misplaced.
I borrowed a flashlight from one of the boys and stuck my legs into the shaft to rest both feet on the first rung. “I’ll go first. If it’s safe, I’ll call up to you, and the rest of you come down to meet me. I don’t want anyone waiting around outside, just in case.”
“What if something grabs you?” A younger member of the group looked with nervous dread at the shadows beneath me.
Meeting the eyes of the older ones, who waited in silent expectation, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “Close the hatch and run.”
Their worried faces drifted further and further away as I descended, the flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, both shaky hands clinging to the ladder. It seemed like the seconds dragged on into hours, the climb downward never ending, and the square of sunlight became a golden postage-stamp high overhead. I had no idea how far down I would have to go, and my stomach churned at the haunting prospect that perhaps this was one of the Breach’s cruel tricks, that I would end up climbing forever, that there was no bottom to this hidden pit. What if I had crawled down inside it like an unsuspecting fly to a carnivorous plant in the Amazon, unaware the tunnel waited to gulp me down, smother me in darkness, and digest my bones?
You’re psyching yourself out over nothing. It’s a freaking tunnel, Hannah, made of concrete just like a sidewalk. Someone had to have built it, and Carter made it out, so you can too.
In that spirit, I put one foot out to take the next rung and jolted with surprise at the sensation of a hard floor under my heel.
Clicking on my flashlight, I swept the weak yellow beam over my surroundings, and curiosity overwhelmed my fear.
I stood in a circular tunnel, spacious and industrial, with metal supports on the walls, and diamond-plate steel on the floor It was cooler down here, and I guessed that I had to be at least sixty feet underground or more, the walls behind the I-beams molded from poured concrete. Electric lights hung from the ceiling, encased in protective wire cages, skinny round conduit bolted along the ceiling like bundles of shiny snakes. Unlike the abandoned brick factory, this place didn’t lay under a thick curtain of dust, but almost seemed brand-new, as if someone had been through to clean it just yesterday. Everything remained dark, however; the lights didn’t flicker to life, no machinery hummed, the air as still as a tomb.
A sign screwed to the wall caught my eye, white metal and square, with the words ‘escape hatch’ painted on it in black, an arrow pointing back the way I’d come. Another in similar style pointed forward, and my blood went cold with the words illuminated in my flashlight beam.
Launch Control Center.
In my head, Carter’s raspy voice echoed like the tolls of a bell, sinister for the desperation in his death rattle.
More important than the beacon . . . don’t trust anyone . . .
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to walk on, one hand on my pistol, though something in my brain told me I wouldn’t need it. The mysterious notion gave me little comfort, the absence of any mutated life forms all the more foreboding. A place like this couldn’t be part of any mining operation. No, this was too technical, too clean, too militaristic for coal or minerals. Someone had designed this place for something more secretive, something horrible, something dangerous.
Dangerous enough for Rodney Carter to give his life to defend it.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular room, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Holy mother of God.
An array of big metal boxes stood along one wall, covered in dials, switches, and indicators from an era before touch screens. In the center of the floor sat a metal desk with two chairs behind a set of ancient-looking computer monitors, a few binders and folders stacked between them. Radio equipment lined another workstation by the back wall, and headsets at each retro-styled swivel chair gave the space a distinctly governmental air. Several round analog clocks on the wall were labeled for various locations, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington D.C, among others. A stairwell at the back of the room had more signs, pointing up to ‘Crew Quarters’ and down to ‘Secondary Command Systems’. Off to my right, a single tunnel led deeper into the complex, with a lone sign that read, ‘Blast Boor 8’.
Shutting my eyes, I held my breath to slow my racing heart, and focused as hard as I could on the stillness around me. Everything came back strange, stunted, numb, like my new abilities struggled to claw through the low hiss of static that I hadn’t notice in my ears up until now. From what I could tell, nothing lived down here, yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel secure.
A brief search of the stairwell revealed a lower level with a similar setup to the first, and an upper floor of rooms with cramped bunks, and a tiny bathroom. No one appeared in either, and there wasn’t any blood, signs of struggle, or even scraps of torn clothing. It was as if the crew of this facility had just got up and walked out not five minutes ago.
At the base of the escape ladder, I called up to the tiny yellow square of light. “Okay, come on down.”
Somewhat comforted by the echoes of their eager feet on the iron ladder rungs, I ducked back into the control room, and walked to the central desk.
A newspaper had been tucked into the folders on one side, and I sat down in the right-hand swivel chair to tug it free.
“What on earth . . .” My brow knit together, and I blinked in confusion.
The first newspaper was dated 1953, far too old for a facility that seemed to have passed inspection only last week, and the headlines were crammed with strange text. I hadn’t always paid the best attention in history class, but I knew enough to understand that the words printed on the oddball paper shouldn’t have been correct. The more I read, the more my spine tingled with a bizarre wonder that I didn’t fully comprehend.
Disaster averted! Whistleblower reveals atomic strike narrowly called off after U.S.S Seraphim vanishes during naval exercise. Washington and Moscow agree to hold de-escalation talks.
Stalin dead from stroke! Massive protests rock USSR in demand for change. Marshal Zhukov seizes power in Moscow, abolishes gulags, and vows drastic reforms.
An era for a change? Kremlin agrees to open trade deals with the west as Zhukov drafts new Russian constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Eisenhower leads charge to end racial segregation in US with widespread Congressional support.
From bombs to space-rockets: U.S and Russia form joint moon exploration taskforce in historic alliance treaty. NATO and WARSAW Pact dissolved, while Mao surrenders to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. Former Communist bloc to open their economies to free market reforms.
Bewildered, I scanned the pages over and over again, waiting to see a political watermark, a gag label, something to let me know these were fake papers made for a joke. But the more I read, the more I sat there in stunned amazement.
They were real.
I remembered my conversation with Mr. Koranti, about other places, holes in reality, and interdimensional crossovers. Could it be true? Had there been a timeline where the Cold War didn’t drag on for decades, where the arms race withered out, and where the authoritarian regimes of the world toppled under the will of their own people? Just the thought had me both excited and heartbroken; excited that such a better place had been possible after all, and crushed that we, in our reality, hadn’t seen such times. What if our version of earth was the wrong one, a defective one, a nightmare for other dimensions that had done things right where we had erred? What if we were the Chaos-driven version of human history, a blood-soaked tale of endless violence that we never managed to shake? If this was evidence of Order succeeding in other timelines, then what did that mean for ours?
Desperate for answers, I shuffled to the next paper, and read on.
Rural Tennessee communities evacuated after mysterious power outages cause havoc: bystanders say military weapons test released ‘monsters’.
Operation ‘Olympic Hammer’ exposed! CIA heads indited on testing electromagnetic superweapons in plot to attack former Soviet Union. Global support pours in to assist with biological cleanup of Polk County.
‘Worse than we thought’ International teams urge calm as contaminated zone in Tennessee widens. Russia pledges aid, reports similar ‘hot spots’ in Irkutsk. China unable to maintain order in remote regions as anomaly phenomenon spreads.
State of emergency declared in Washington as mutant attacks rise across nation. Moscow reportedly dark. Beijing in chaos. Military preps for experimental ‘containment’ strikes within continental US.
Icy terror sank through me as I reached the last headline, no further papers on the desk, as if these had been the last to be delivered. The Breach. They’d found one too, or perhaps created one from the sounds of it, their covert superweapon enough to open a rift just like Koranti had spoken of. In their quest to restart the Cold War, the conspirators in the CIA had ripped open a doorway to Chaos, and unleashed mutants all over the world. Despite all the treaties, all the peace deals, one wrong step had doomed them to a cosmic apocalypse that looked eerily familiar from the grainy black and white photos on the front page.
Fools. They could have reached for the stars, and they threw it all away. Stupid, proud fools.
“What is this place?” Lucille stepped out from the dark behind me, and the rest of the children emerged one-by-one from the tunnel, examining the room with curious eyes.
“Not sure yet.” Pulling one of the technical binders out, I flipped it open and started to read. “Just don’t touch anything, okay?”
With all my concentration, I dove into the pages, devoured the complicated pamphlets in record time I would have been amazed at how fast my reading comprehension had improved, if it weren’t for the words that jumped off the pages at me.
Automated self-loading silo . . . XM91 Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicle . . . Peacekeeper Two delivery system . . .
My eyes rose to the console in front of me, and I noticed two sets of keyholes, with one holding a little metal key.
The other keyhole was empty.
Wait a second.
Horrified, I dropped the binder and leapt to my feet. Now it made sense why Carter had guarded this place with his life, and why ELSAR wanted the key coordinates. Somehow, in some way, this place had slipped through the veil of time and space to land in our reality and had brought its deadly secret with it.
A weapon so powerful, so dangerous, that even the deep pockets of ELSAR couldn’t get hold of one.
“What’s wrong?” An older boy cast around with his eyes in suspicion, but I ignored them all, and took off toward the tunnel marked ‘Blast Door 8’.
As if running in a nightmare, I couldn’t move fast enough, and the others sprinted after me in fear. I spun the hand-wheel, let the hydraulic springs crank it open, and raced on through more flights of metal stairways, more blast doors that counted down from eight, until I stumbled out into a massive shadowy chasm.
Stopping dead in my tracks at the safety railing, I stared out at a half-dozen white-painted tubes that rose from the gargantuan shaft toward the closed double blast doors above. They were huge, easily as tall as two school buses parked end-to-end, six of them held in a turnstile-like system of brackets that reminded me of a rotisserie rack at a gas station. The compass in my pocket cranked with a hysterical whirr, and the letters painted on the aluminum skin of the objects made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
XM91.
The children thundered into the launch shaft after me, and their eyes bulged at the deadly giants that stood in quiet mechanical slumber within the hidden bunker.
“Is that . . ?” Lucille squeaked, her jaw slack as she sidled closer in timid uncertainty.
“Uh huh.” I gripped the cold railing with white-knuckled hands, my stomach tied in sick knots. “Those are nukes.”

[Part 24]
[Part 26]
“That’s weird.”
I crouched on the edge of a large, grassy area, the chest-high vegetation over our heads in this position, with various trails blazed through it by passing animals. The rest of the children waited behind me, hunched low on the balls of their feet, eyes to the clouds like wary rabbits watching for a hawk. The sky was clear and bright at noon, the temperature high enough to make me wish I could shrug off my jacket.
Lucille squatted next to my left, having attached herself to me so that she’d become my default shadow at this point. She eyed the lensatic compass in my hand, and the two of us frowned at it in hushed concern.
Swallowing a nervous gulp, I nodded in agreement with her statement, watching the needle of the compass twitch, spin, and change polarity every few seconds as if it were alive. “Must be a ton of electromagnetic radiation here. Better keep our eyes open. There could be freaks around.”
Today had proven to be gentler, the rain stopping sometime in the night. We’d all woken up close to nine the previous evening, sore, blister-ridden from our march, and hungry. I’d taken a small crew of six with some camping pots a few hundred yards off site and managed to heat up enough stewed beans to feed everyone before withdrawing to the factory. Our dinner hadn’t been a cheery affair, however; true to Chris’s words, the cookfire drew a small pack of Birch Crawlers, four juveniles from what I could tell, who prowled around outside for a long time. We had to sit in silence, bunched around our fire, and wait until the beasts gave up trying to find a way inside. Even after the predators left, Puppets clicked and chittered through the forest for hours, the white-eyed fiends scampering around the swamps to scoop out crayfish with their grimy hands. At one point, I spotted a lone Bengal Tiger by the western edge of the waterline, one of our old Carnivore Cove residents, with a new coat of thick brown-and-tan striped fur, and two long saber-like teeth protruding from its mouth. Speaker Crabs played their ghostly tunes late into the night, and Bone-Faced Whitetail bugled from somewhere further south, a symphony of the new world all blended in a sound both terrifying and fascinating to the wide-eyed urbanite kids.
All this had made the departure from our dusty old sanctuary that much harder for my wards to accept, but they followed me into the orange, red, and gold embrace of the autumn wilderness with resolute faith. They’d seen too much not to trust me, and I didn’t have to argue with the more stubborn members of the group anymore. Together we’d tramped to the green blot on the topographical map, and now that we sat on the edge of the grassy expanse, I found myself as the one having doubts.
I have no way to measure any background radiation. It might take a hot minute to search for whatever is supposed to be here, and who knows how many rads we’ll take in that time frame? Not to mention what kind of stuff might be living in this grass, mutated leeches, giant ticks, some kind of super-mosquito . . .
Shuddering at the skin-crawling idea of Breach-born parasites wriggling up my pant legs, I slipped the compass back into my pocket. We would just have to be quick. If Rodney Carter could make it in here, then the radiation couldn’t be lethal . . . or at least, I hoped so.
Turning, I raised a hand, and made a silent wave at the others.
Let’s go.
Deeper into the grass we went, weapons at the ready. I forced myself to breathe slow, let the focus slide over me, and crept along with primal caution. On the back of my tongue, I tasted the starchy blades of the grass, and the wet mud at the roots. My ears picked up the slight crunch of gravel particulates under the surface of the muck, remnants of whatever mining company had laid a gravel pad here decades prior. I caught the buzz of a fly a few yards to my left, and the muffled whirr of my compass spasming in my pocket, the needle in constant motion. Every color became more pronounced, the brown rush grass dried in the breeze, the turquoise blue sky, the chocolate-colored mud that squelched under my boots. Cool fall humidity lay heavy on my skin, and plants tickled my arms as I slid by them.
At the opposite end of the field, we came up on nothing.
I had the group make a wide loop around the outside of the clearing, searched the ground, the grass, the surrounding embankments.
Nothing.
Down the center we went in a crisscross pattern, spread out at arm’s length in a long row to comb through the area like a search-and-rescue team.
Still nothing.
In the roughly 20-acre stretch of ground, there were no buildings, no marks, only grass, a few dead tree stumps, and mud. It made no sense, and my frustration mounted as the anxious thought in the back of my head reminded me that we could be catching all sorts of poisonous radiation.
Stopping in the center of the field, I stood upright, and rested my hands on both hips in an angry huff.
So, was this some kind of stupid joke? No one’s been here in a while, Jamie couldn’t have gotten to it first without leaving something behind for me to spot. Unless she pointed me in the wrong direction to cover her tracks, especially if she was working for ELSAR from the beginning.
Aware of the puzzled looks thrown my way from the others, I pulled my map out again, and tried to make sense of the erratic compass.
Whirrr.
It spun like a propellor, and I shook the little plastic gadget with my teeth gritted in ire.
Whirrrr.
As if to spite me, the needle spun in faster pulsations, and I paced back and forth, ready to blow my cool at the inanimate chunk of hardened petroleum. “Stupid dollar store piece of—”
Whiiirrr.
Crackle.
I froze, and stared at the compass, the needle now spinning constantly without hesitation. Something under my boot had shifted, the sound oddly plastic to my heightened eardrums, and my angst melted into stunned realization.
The compass wasn’t pointing north . . . it was trying to point down.
With bated breath, I back up a few steps, and sank down on my haunches to peer at the grass.
Oh, very clever Mr. Carter.
A smile crawled over my face at a slight tinge of blue under the mud, the old tarp well-concealed under the thick mat of soil, roots, and grass. We’d walked right over it half a dozen times, and I’d been standing on top of the woven nylon flap while I fumed at my poor compass. From the air, it was invisible, from the ground undetectable; only magnetism could reveal it.
Pulling a cheap camping knife that I’d been given at the Castle from my belt, I gripped the stems of the wet grass and tugged upward, using the blade to dig at the roots. With a wet snap of plant-life giving way, the sod came free, and the children crowded around me in an excited cluster as I pulled the tarp aside.
A square metal cover sat underneath, painted slate-gray, with spots of rust here and there. It swung open on creaky hinges to reveal a hatch further recessed into poured concrete. This one was made from heavy steel, and smeared with a thin film of protective grease, a central hand-wheel in its core to open it like some kind of bunker door. Even with all this, it was a set of blocky, white painted letters on the door, that made my mind whirl like the compass needle.
Silo 48.
Daring to hope, I reached down, and yanked on the hand-wheel.
Clunk.
It turned in a smooth, well-oiled motion, and the sound of locks retracting echoed through the expanse beneath as the thick steel hatch rose upward on pneumatic struts. Stale air wafted up from inside, the cold scent of concrete and iron, and a metal ladder bolted to the interior wall led down into the shadows. It had a metal safety cage around it to prevent workers from falling through the already claustrophobic entry tube, and there wasn’t a visible bottom from where we sat on the surface. Even for my eyes it was dark, and something about the strange hole in the ground felt off, unnatural, misplaced.
I borrowed a flashlight from one of the boys and stuck my legs into the shaft to rest both feet on the first rung. “I’ll go first. If it’s safe, I’ll call up to you, and the rest of you come down to meet me. I don’t want anyone waiting around outside, just in case.”
“What if something grabs you?” A younger member of the group looked with nervous dread at the shadows beneath me.
Meeting the eyes of the older ones, who waited in silent expectation, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “Close the hatch and run.”
Their worried faces drifted further and further away as I descended, the flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, both shaky hands clinging to the ladder. It seemed like the seconds dragged on into hours, the climb downward never ending, and the square of sunlight became a golden postage-stamp high overhead. I had no idea how far down I would have to go, and my stomach churned at the haunting prospect that perhaps this was one of the Breach’s cruel tricks, that I would end up climbing forever, that there was no bottom to this hidden pit. What if I had crawled down inside it like an unsuspecting fly to a carnivorous plant in the Amazon, unaware the tunnel waited to gulp me down, smother me in darkness, and digest my bones?
You’re psyching yourself out over nothing. It’s a freaking tunnel, Hannah, made of concrete just like a sidewalk. Someone had to have built it, and Carter made it out, so you can too.
In that spirit, I put one foot out to take the next rung and jolted with surprise at the sensation of a hard floor under my heel.
Clicking on my flashlight, I swept the weak yellow beam over my surroundings, and curiosity overwhelmed my fear.
I stood in a circular tunnel, spacious and industrial, with metal supports on the walls, and diamond-plate steel on the floor It was cooler down here, and I guessed that I had to be at least sixty feet underground or more, the walls behind the I-beams molded from poured concrete. Electric lights hung from the ceiling, encased in protective wire cages, skinny round conduit bolted along the ceiling like bundles of shiny snakes. Unlike the abandoned brick factory, this place didn’t lay under a thick curtain of dust, but almost seemed brand-new, as if someone had been through to clean it just yesterday. Everything remained dark, however; the lights didn’t flicker to life, no machinery hummed, the air as still as a tomb.
A sign screwed to the wall caught my eye, white metal and square, with the words ‘escape hatch’ painted on it in black, an arrow pointing back the way I’d come. Another in similar style pointed forward, and my blood went cold with the words illuminated in my flashlight beam.
Launch Control Center.
In my head, Carter’s raspy voice echoed like the tolls of a bell, sinister for the desperation in his death rattle.
More important than the beacon . . . don’t trust anyone . . .
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to walk on, one hand on my pistol, though something in my brain told me I wouldn’t need it. The mysterious notion gave me little comfort, the absence of any mutated life forms all the more foreboding. A place like this couldn’t be part of any mining operation. No, this was too technical, too clean, too militaristic for coal or minerals. Someone had designed this place for something more secretive, something horrible, something dangerous.
Dangerous enough for Rodney Carter to give his life to defend it.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular room, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Holy mother of God.
An array of big metal boxes stood along one wall, covered in dials, switches, and indicators from an era before touch screens. In the center of the floor sat a metal desk with two chairs behind a set of ancient-looking computer monitors, a few binders and folders stacked between them. Radio equipment lined another workstation by the back wall, and headsets at each retro-styled swivel chair gave the space a distinctly governmental air. Several round analog clocks on the wall were labeled for various locations, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington D.C, among others. A stairwell at the back of the room had more signs, pointing up to ‘Crew Quarters’ and down to ‘Secondary Command Systems’. Off to my right, a single tunnel led deeper into the complex, with a lone sign that read, ‘Blast Boor 8’.
Shutting my eyes, I held my breath to slow my racing heart, and focused as hard as I could on the stillness around me. Everything came back strange, stunted, numb, like my new abilities struggled to claw through the low hiss of static that I hadn’t notice in my ears up until now. From what I could tell, nothing lived down here, yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel secure.
A brief search of the stairwell revealed a lower level with a similar setup to the first, and an upper floor of rooms with cramped bunks, and a tiny bathroom. No one appeared in either, and there wasn’t any blood, signs of struggle, or even scraps of torn clothing. It was as if the crew of this facility had just got up and walked out not five minutes ago.
At the base of the escape ladder, I called up to the tiny yellow square of light. “Okay, come on down.”
Somewhat comforted by the echoes of their eager feet on the iron ladder rungs, I ducked back into the control room, and walked to the central desk.
A newspaper had been tucked into the folders on one side, and I sat down in the right-hand swivel chair to tug it free.
“What on earth . . .” My brow knit together, and I blinked in confusion.
The first newspaper was dated 1953, far too old for a facility that seemed to have passed inspection only last week, and the headlines were crammed with strange text. I hadn’t always paid the best attention in history class, but I knew enough to understand that the words printed on the oddball paper shouldn’t have been correct. The more I read, the more my spine tingled with a bizarre wonder that I didn’t fully comprehend.
Disaster averted! Whistleblower reveals atomic strike narrowly called off after U.S.S Seraphim vanishes during naval exercise. Washington and Moscow agree to hold de-escalation talks.
Stalin dead from stroke! Massive protests rock USSR in demand for change. Marshal Zhukov seizes power in Moscow, abolishes gulags, and vows drastic reforms.
An era for a change? Kremlin agrees to open trade deals with the west as Zhukov drafts new Russian constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Eisenhower leads charge to end racial segregation in US with widespread Congressional support.
From bombs to space-rockets: U.S and Russia form joint moon exploration taskforce in historic alliance treaty. NATO and WARSAW Pact dissolved, while Mao surrenders to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. Former Communist bloc to open their economies to free market reforms.
Bewildered, I scanned the pages over and over again, waiting to see a political watermark, a gag label, something to let me know these were fake papers made for a joke. But the more I read, the more I sat there in stunned amazement.
They were real.
I remembered my conversation with Mr. Koranti, about other places, holes in reality, and interdimensional crossovers. Could it be true? Had there been a timeline where the Cold War didn’t drag on for decades, where the arms race withered out, and where the authoritarian regimes of the world toppled under the will of their own people? Just the thought had me both excited and heartbroken; excited that such a better place had been possible after all, and crushed that we, in our reality, hadn’t seen such times. What if our version of earth was the wrong one, a defective one, a nightmare for other dimensions that had done things right where we had erred? What if we were the Chaos-driven version of human history, a blood-soaked tale of endless violence that we never managed to shake? If this was evidence of Order succeeding in other timelines, then what did that mean for ours?
Desperate for answers, I shuffled to the next paper, and read on.
Rural Tennessee communities evacuated after mysterious power outages cause havoc: bystanders say military weapons test released ‘monsters’.
Operation ‘Olympic Hammer’ exposed! CIA heads indited on testing electromagnetic superweapons in plot to attack former Soviet Union. Global support pours in to assist with biological cleanup of Polk County.
‘Worse than we thought’ International teams urge calm as contaminated zone in Tennessee widens. Russia pledges aid, reports similar ‘hot spots’ in Irkutsk. China unable to maintain order in remote regions as anomaly phenomenon spreads.
State of emergency declared in Washington as mutant attacks rise across nation. Moscow reportedly dark. Beijing in chaos. Military preps for experimental ‘containment’ strikes within continental US.
Icy terror sank through me as I reached the last headline, no further papers on the desk, as if these had been the last to be delivered. The Breach. They’d found one too, or perhaps created one from the sounds of it, their covert superweapon enough to open a rift just like Koranti had spoken of. In their quest to restart the Cold War, the conspirators in the CIA had ripped open a doorway to Chaos, and unleashed mutants all over the world. Despite all the treaties, all the peace deals, one wrong step had doomed them to a cosmic apocalypse that looked eerily familiar from the grainy black and white photos on the front page.
Fools. They could have reached for the stars, and they threw it all away. Stupid, proud fools.
“What is this place?” Lucille stepped out from the dark behind me, and the rest of the children emerged one-by-one from the tunnel, examining the room with curious eyes.
“Not sure yet.” Pulling one of the technical binders out, I flipped it open and started to read. “Just don’t touch anything, okay?”
With all my concentration, I dove into the pages, devoured the complicated pamphlets in record time I would have been amazed at how fast my reading comprehension had improved, if it weren’t for the words that jumped off the pages at me.
Automated self-loading silo . . . XM91 Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicle . . . Peacekeeper Two delivery system . . .
My eyes rose to the console in front of me, and I noticed two sets of keyholes, with one holding a little metal key.
The other keyhole was empty.
Wait a second.
Horrified, I dropped the binder and leapt to my feet. Now it made sense why Carter had guarded this place with his life, and why ELSAR wanted the key coordinates. Somehow, in some way, this place had slipped through the veil of time and space to land in our reality and had brought its deadly secret with it.
A weapon so powerful, so dangerous, that even the deep pockets of ELSAR couldn’t get hold of one.
“What’s wrong?” An older boy cast around with his eyes in suspicion, but I ignored them all, and took off toward the tunnel marked ‘Blast Door 8’.
As if running in a nightmare, I couldn’t move fast enough, and the others sprinted after me in fear. I spun the hand-wheel, let the hydraulic springs crank it open, and raced on through more flights of metal stairways, more blast doors that counted down from eight, until I stumbled out into a massive shadowy chasm.
Stopping dead in my tracks at the safety railing, I stared out at a half-dozen white-painted tubes that rose from the gargantuan shaft toward the closed double blast doors above. They were huge, easily as tall as two school buses parked end-to-end, six of them held in a turnstile-like system of brackets that reminded me of a rotisserie rack at a gas station. The compass in my pocket cranked with a hysterical whirr, and the letters painted on the aluminum skin of the objects made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
XM91.
The children thundered into the launch shaft after me, and their eyes bulged at the deadly giants that stood in quiet mechanical slumber within the hidden bunker.
“Is that . . ?” Lucille squeaked, her jaw slack as she sidled closer in timid uncertainty.
“Uh huh.” I gripped the cold railing with white-knuckled hands, my stomach tied in sick knots. “Those are nukes.”