His voice was lower, heavier, but still laced with that sick croak like a throat filled with ash and frogs.
Night was almost here.
And Inconvenience was coming.
The door creaked like it had forgotten what hinges were.
Old wood, cracked down the center, vines crawling like slow veins across its face. They stepped in, careful, closing the door with a soft pull. No lock. Not anymore. Nothing locked in this world. Nothing stayed out either.
The room was filled with black. Not dark—black.
Server towers stood like coffins, tall and silent. Plastic skins warped by heat long gone. Black cords spiderwebbed the ground. A nest of dead veins.
But not all cords were black.
They saw them. White strings, thin, almost hair-like, slithered through the black mess like whispers through a crowd. Smaller, but wrong. Too clean. Too placed.
They crouched behind one of the server towers. Dust filled their nose. Vines climbed the boxes like they belonged. The cords didn’t move, but the white ones pulsed. Just slightly. Like breathing.
Curious. Or maybe reckless.
They picked one up.
Sticky.
Soft.
Their fingers pressed it and it pressed back. A pulse. Like something was holding the other end. Or being the other end.
They pulled. Gently.
The string pulled back.
Not hard. Not violent. Just… matched.
They pulled again, testing. The white line tugged in rhythm, like it liked the game.
So they set it on one of the black cords—thin rubber, old tech, limp.
The string gripped it.
And pulled.
The black cable dragged across the floor like a lazy snake. It wasn’t just pulling—it was moving things. It was hunting.
Their breath caught. They had an idea. Not sure if it was good. Most things that worked in this world weren’t.
But they stood slowly, axe still gone, but not unarmed. Ideas were weapons. Fire was one. Fear was another.
Behind them, a sound.
Creak.
Step.
They knew that voice would come before it spoke.
It slithered under the door, even though it hadn't been said yet.
“Little friend,” Inconvenience cooed from the dark hall beyond the wood, his voice now heavier, realer. “Don’t you like hide and seek?”
Night had started.
And the real monsters were awake now.
They waited until the door groaned like it remembered pain.
Inconvenience stepped through, shape warped from what he once was. White skin like chalk under moonlight. Hair gone gray, except one black strand that cut across those red eyes like a curtain with a secret behind it. His knees bent the wrong way. Ankles twisted with every step. Each movement felt like it shouldn’t happen.
He didn’t see them.
Not yet.
He walked the hall, body crooked, humming in a voice that sounded like something dying under water.
Then gone, around a corner.
That was the cue.
They opened the door and slipped out, steps fast but quiet. The stairs had been taken by moss, but not enough to hide the creak in the railing, the echo of movement up a stairwell not made for escape.
They hit the roof door. Rusted. Red with time. They pushed it open, not caring if it scraped.
They cared more when they slammed it shut behind them.
The growl from the floor below was instant.
They hid behind a bulkhead vent, squat and bent metal, the kind meant for air that never came. Wind pushed their hair where the ties had loosened. One strand stuck to their face with sweat.
They waited.
Not long.
The door burst open.
Inconvenience entered, teeth too long for his grin. That voice dragged behind him, rotten and sweet.
“Little sheep,” he sang. “You run and hide, but I find you. Always.”
He stepped further in.
That’s when they moved.
From behind the bulkhead. No hesitation.
A slap. Fast. Center of his back.
He barely flinched. Just made a small grunt.
Then the sound: zipk. Not metal. Not pain. But connection.
A white string, clean and thin, now stuck to him. Going from his spine to beneath the rusted door—back down into the place they’d pulled it from.
He laughed at first. A ragged bark.
Then he lunged at them.
And the string pulled.
Not gently.
Hard.
His body jerked back, off his feet. Face cracked into the floor. He screamed, but it wasn’t rage—it was confusion.
He got up. Charged.
Pulled again.
Slam.
Again.
Drag.
He clawed, kicked, scrambled, but every time he gained ground, something stronger dragged him back.
The string held.
Whatever it was connected to wanted him.
He roared. Begged. His voice not clever now. No riddles. No songs. Just panic wrapped in broken language.
They stood and watched. Not with joy. Not with cruelty.
Just intent.
Monsters hunted each other. He said so himself.
Tonight, they gave the world back one of its own.
The string pulled again. He disappeared back through the doorway.
Silence returned to the rooftop.
They didn’t move yet.
Not until the wind did.
He ran again.
And again the string pulled him back like an invisible leash made from something older than rope.
Inconvenience hit the rooftop with a loud scrape. He twisted, cursed in words not meant for mouths, bent his limbs in angles no spine should know. But he never broke free.
They watched him without a blink.
Then, they turned.
To the edge of the roof.
Down below, the street lay torn open. Holes like mouths. Cracks deep enough to vanish into. The earth itself tired of holding still.
And there—moving through the creaks and the breaks—them.
Humanoid shapes, but not human. Covered in brown scales that shimmered like dry bark. Bodies armored by something that grew instead of clothed. But their faces—those were wrong in a different way.
Pale white.
Ghost-white.
As if made of bone or chalk, untouched by sun or sin.
Their eyes were mirrors of the moon. Silver rings with no warmth. No scar gave them this look—it was how they were born. If born was even the word for it.
They watched silently.
And they were being watched in return.
They counted: one… two… five… twelve…
Twenty-seven.
A still number. Not moving, but not resting.
Behind them, Inconvenience let out a scream. Not of fear, but of failure.
They didn’t flinch.
They turned to him, asked something we don’t get to hear.
But he answered, voice like gravel soaked in rust.
“Little sheep,” he rasped, smile cracked, “this world is great big… but you nor I… have any knowledge of it.”
They stared at him.
The pale blue of their left eye caught the moonlight and turned it into something sacred. The bruise still lingered around it, but the glow didn’t care.
They looked back to the street.
The monsters didn’t move.
Then up—to the sky.
It was like looking into an ocean above the world. A sea without a floor. Stars drifting like lanterns lost at sea. Deep colors moved—violet, blue, black—and in those colors, whispers.
Then back to Inconvenience.
He had stopped running.
Now he twisted, pulling at the white string on his back, turning his body like a coiled spring. He tried biting it. Twisting around it. Nothing worked.
Stillness sat on the rooftop like a god waiting for an answer.
And they knew.
The stillness wouldn’t last.
Dawn broke like glass.
The light bled over the rooftop, brushing against them first, then creeping toward Inconvenience. He had changed again.
No longer snarling, no longer spring-loaded and mad with the need to kill. His limbs had shortened, though still long enough to be wrong. His eyes, though red, didn’t burn.
He looked… bored.
“That was fun,” he said, gravel in his throat and no murder in his voice.
They didn’t answer. They hadn’t slept. Just watched. Waited. Let the night crawl over them like a blanket full of teeth.
Now, as the sky softened and the world cooled, they walked to him.
No sudden movement. No tension.
They reached out and pulled the white string off his back, let it fall to the rooftop like it had no weight at all.
Then they left.
Down the rusted stairs, through the ivy-wrapped doors, past the halls that had heard screams, and into the world again.
The street was different.
Where there had been cracks like wounds, holes like open mouths—now there was nothing. No scar, no mark. Just the ghost of what had been.
As if the world decided to hide what it didn’t want them to remember.
Inconvenience stood beside them again. The same creature who once tried to kill them without a second thought.
But now—he walked like a shadow that followed too closely. Not friend. Not enemy. Something else.
And what did they think of that?
Who knows.
Days passed.
Time didn’t knock. It just slipped in when no one was watching.
They walked now with something new.
An axe.
Old and rust-bitten. But not simple.
At the base of the handle: a black box, wrapped in duct tape. Black wires climbed the hilt like vines, reaching the blade’s edge. Around the head of the axe, electrical tape bound it all tight. A single red button gleamed from the box, waiting for a thumb that knew what it wanted.
The weapon hummed with a quiet promise.
Their right sleeve still torn.
Their left eye, light blue as ever, catching what little light the gray skies offered.
And ahead: Brooklyn College.
Far from where they'd once been.
Its walls were broken, fallen like tired giants. Windows shattered. Trees growing through floors that had once been classrooms. Nature reclaiming memory.
And beside them still, like an itch you never chose to scratch: Inconvenience.
He said nothing.
Neither did they.
“You gonna stop putting that string on me at night?”
Inconvenience’s voice rolled out like gravel soaked in spit.
They shook their head.
No.
And that was that.
Brooklyn College had offered little—some canned food, dusty bottles of water, and books from the library now swallowed in vines and mold. The walk back was quiet. Gray, like everything else lately.
Inconvenience at their side again, pacing with those sideways-bent knees and twitching arms.
Until he stopped.
They turned. Waited.
His voice was lower this time. Less joking. Still wrong.
“There’s one of what you call ‘Hearing Wreaths’ up ahead. I would go along... but I have nothing to do with you.”
That last line twisted out strange.
Like a warning, or maybe a farewell.
They watched him for a while.
He didn’t blink. He never does.
Then he turned and walked away, like a paper bag caught by wind.
They looked down the road.
Nothing there.
No white husk, no nightmare in the shape of something once human.
But they didn’t doubt Inconvenience.
He never jokes about the ones that can really hurt you.
Still—no shortcuts.
Why would there be?
Even if there were, would they take them?
They started forward.
The road stretched long, cracked and empty. A silence walked beside them.
Then, it stepped out.
From shadow, from nothing.
Long.
Thin.
Wrong.
Its skin wasn’t pale—it was blank.
Like paper soaked and stretched over bone, dried under cruel light.
Its limbs moved like they didn’t understand human rules. Too many joints. No mercy in its shape.
Fingers spread wide enough to cover a face.
Its ears hung low, trailing like rags soaked in static.
And its head—
Gone.
Not cut.
Just… not there.
From just under the eyes, upward, was an open window of black, glistening tissue. A half-brain pulsed, wet and slow. Tendrils of black blood curled inside, swimming in the absence like smoke beneath ice.
Its teeth? Perfect. Too perfect.
Tongue, black.
Nose? A skull’s grin.
It stepped forward.
They didn’t run.
They bent, slow, placed the food down. Water. Books.
Things that mattered, once.
Then straightened.
The axe was in their hand.
Still rusted. Still wired. Still waiting.
They looked into the hollow above the creature’s face.
The Hearing Wreath.
And the Wreath tilted its head, just enough to show it was listening.
It didn’t take a minute.
They reached into their pocket.
A coin—rusted, nothing worth more than a flicker. They’d found it weeks ago, maybe. Maybe longer. Time didn’t have manners anymore.
They flipped it.
Clink.
It hit the cracked pavement near them.
The Hearing Wreath turned.
No eyes above its cheekbones, but it heard. It always heard.
It drifted toward the sound, body wobbling like cloth underwater. It stooped, searching, white fingers too long and all wrong.
That’s when they moved.
One hand pulled out a lighter.
The other, a can of body spray—half-used, label peeled, flammable as memory.
The lighter sparked. Caught. Wavered.
Then: flame.
They sprayed.
It roared out blue.
The jet caught the Wreath’s half-brain—black blood hissed, lit like tar-soaked string. The open head cavity burned first. The creature shrieked—its voice a sound not meant for ears, like glass cracking beneath frozen lakes.
It writhed.
It burned.
And it fell.
The black blood flared in ribbons, turning ash. A sure kill.
They stood there, flame still shaking at the end of the can, until nothing moved. Until no part of the creature twitched.
They left.
No trace. No trophy. No laugh from Inconvenience trailing behind them.
Just wind.
Just steps.
They returned to the old house.
The one from before.
From her time.
When Alyssa was alive.
The house looked like a ghost of itself. Walls warped, nature curling through the windows and cracks like time growing fingers.
But the Bible still sat on the table.
Not dusty. Not rotted.
Just there.
Nature taken it by vines.
The guitar by the door still leaned the way she left it. Strings curled but not broken. Wood chipped but not caved in.
They placed the food near the sink. Water next to it.
Books from the college on the table beside the Bible.
The place was quiet.
Life was stale—but here, in the memory of something warm, it was better.
But were they still the same?
Or just another thing time had twisted?
It was day.
Or becoming day.
They sat on the roof, legs crossed, eyes cast east.
The sun was climbing. Slow. Unbothered.
Its light spilled gold across the shell of the world.
Their left eye—pale blue—caught the first shard of it, and it sparked like frost over glass. Their skin, torn and cracking across the knuckles and the bare right arm, didn't flinch at the chill. The wind brushed past but said nothing.
It felt like a sigh.
But something was off.
Was it them?
The world?
Time, perhaps—failing to stitch itself together clean. Or maybe just the wind forgetting how to move.
They stood.
They went back to the knight.
The sword still stood, sunk into that white-lined circle in the earth, where no grass dared grow. No vines, no moss. The mark of something bound and waiting.
They stared at it.
They knew what lived beneath.
They could feel it—breathing there, like a lung beneath soil.
Axe at their side.
But no reach for it.
No fire in the wrist.
Not yet.
They didn’t move to fight.
Not because they feared the monster.
But because they hadn’t proved something—to themselves, to the world, to the air.
So they turned away.
Back toward the Target store.
The mannequins were still there.
Still blank. Still wrong.
They passed them without flinching.
They looked away from the mirrors.
Somehow, that took more strength than the axe ever had.
Clothes hung limp, but they didn’t pause. They only grabbed blankets—warmth mattered. Fabric didn’t.
They weren’t running from being dirty.
They were just… with it.
They found food, what little still had life in the can. Water in sealed jugs that hadn’t grown strange.
They took a basket. Rolled it out behind them, the little wheel squeaking like it remembered the world.
Then they went home.
To the place that barely remembered them—but didn’t turn them away.
It had been ten days.
Not that they were counting.
But time had taken its toll.
And it showed.
Their body moved the same—but slower. Like gravity whispered louder now.
Their eye—blue, still—but it sat different.
More open. Not with wonder. With weight.
Dread, maybe. Guilt, definitely.
The kind that builds in silence.
They had stayed in that house. The one Alyssa once walked in. Laughed in. Lived in.
She had been something to them.
Not mother, not quite sister.
But friend fits in a way that aches.
Inconvenience had been different—less warm, less safe—but still there. And now, not.
They had both been voices.
Even if they didn’t talk much.
Even if one rasped like gravel in a cracked throat.
Still—when someone talks, the world answers back.
Now?
Just them. Just the floor underfoot.
Just the walls, the roof, the wind.
But not quiet.
No, not quiet. Because the monsters kept coming.
Every day, another thing with teeth and hunger.
And they kept fighting.
They didn’t lose. But they didn’t win, either.
There, in the house, they sat still now.
Axe near the door. Books on the table. Blankets folded, unfolded, folded again.
Something turned behind their eyes.
Something heavy. Like a coin being flipped—but slower.
A choice was coming.
Not a simple one.
No line in the dirt. No voice calling out rules.
Just the world, whispering:
You could die here. And maybe that means something. Or you could live. And maybe that’s the harder thing.
Because this world—this ruin—takes.
It always takes.
But maybe, just maybe…
If they went on, it might give, too.
They didn’t move yet.
But they would.
Soon.
The police station still stood, barely.
Nature had its claws in the stone now—ivy like veins, vines like bone.
The gnome—the one that once sat on the desk like it had secrets—was gone.
They didn’t seem surprised.
Just walked in. Quiet steps over fallen papers and mold-stained tiles.
The sun outside was dry, high, unsympathetic.
But inside… something waited.
In a desk drawer, long jammed and rusted, they found it.
A pistol.
Not new. Not clean. But it clicked when they pulled the slide.
It would do.
A couple of first aid kits, half-used and still smelling of gauze and chemicals, came next.
They took what mattered.
And left.
The streets they walked were old friends now—cracked and soft, filled with nature and time.
Midday led them to Ranger Rd.
At the far south.
Where the land gave way to Jamaica Bay, and the air turned wet and silent.
That’s where they found it.
A bunker.
Concrete. Thick. With a door swallowed by vines, tight shut.
They stood in front of it. Felt something.
Not danger, exactly.
Not threat.
Just… wrong.
A stillness that didn’t belong to the world above.
They didn’t stay long.
Some things are best left closed.
So they walked back. All the way home.
When night came, they didn’t sleep.
They thought.
Deep.
And when the sun began to rise—just before it cracked the sky—they moved.
Axe in hand. Pistol at hip.
Blankets tied to a pack.
Books left behind.
And something new in their chest.
Not joy.
Not exactly.
But hope has many masks.
And this one… looked like a plan.
Franklin Ave was asleep.
The wind stirred paper and weeds, but nothing else.
The Loden Apartments stood like teeth—cracked, tall, yellowed by time and weather.
They walked in without pause.
The walls that were once polished now wore dust like skin.
Mirrors cracked.
Marble floors dull with years.
They moved like they’d been here before.
Room 253.
Fifth floor.
The door wasn’t locked, but nature had claimed it—ivy through the peephole, moss on the hinges.
They pushed it open. Wood groaned.
The apartment was empty of people, but not of weight.
Then: a photo. Left on a side table. Half buried in dust, and the faint trace of someone’s handprint long ago.
They picked it up.
We don’t know what they look like.
But we know the figure in the photo wore a white hoodie.
They were smiling.
On their shoulders sat a little girl—light brown hair, hazel eyes, a shirt the color of earth, with words faded by time.
The image didn’t feel posed. It felt caught—real. Mid-laugh. Mid-life.
And then, the voice.
Creaking and faraway.
Not a sound we could hear, but something they did.
A name, spoken like an echo through wet wood:
“Ellie.”
The world didn’t shift, but something inside them might have.
They held the photo close.
It was dust, but also root.
A tether to something that wasn’t survival.
Something human.
They stayed in the apartment for a while. Looked around, but found nothing else they needed.
And then they left.
Back through the dying light.
Back down the streets.
Back to their claimed home.
But now, carrying more than what they came with.
They stood at the edge of the wide white circle, sword still sunk in the park earth like it had never been touched.
They stared. Long. Like they were measuring something: not just the sword, but themselves.
But they didn’t take it.
Not yet.
They turned, and walked.
The wind pulled at their clothes, but they walked steady.
Gun.
Photo.
Axe.
Sherry Plaza waited.
They reached the place. The freezer door they’d once barricaded with beds, crates, twisted shelves.
Every object removed, slowly. Quietly.
Then, the door opened.
A cold breath spilled out, like winter had been sealed in and only now remembered the world.
And then—
Eyes.
Yellow, twin moons.
Not blinking, just floating in black.
Closer.
Closer.
A head emerged. Catlike. The kind you’d see sleeping on rooftops before the world broke—only this one floated above a body far too wrong.
The body stood upright. Shoulders like steel bars. Hands not paws. A tail that swayed with unsettling thought.
No sound. Just watching.
They didn’t flinch.
They reached for the axe.
Pressed the red button.
Crack. The blade came alive, lightning stitched across iron. It lit the room in flickers of blue fire.
They stood still.
No fear—but something heavier.
A mistake.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But this—this facing danger, not backing down—that was something they’d learned. Maybe long ago. Maybe from Alyssa. Maybe just from surviving this long.
Dying was not the loss.
Not doing something with it… was.
The beast stepped closer. Its claws flexed. Muscles rippled beneath fur and shadow.
It stood tall. Almost too tall.
And they knew the name.
Old name. Given weeks ago, in a world where monsters didn’t deserve names but still got them.
Cat’rue.
They stared at each other.
Beast to human.
Human to beast.
And though we’ll never know the shape of their face, the sound of their breath, or the pitch of their voice,
we know they did not blink.
It didn’t wait.
Cat’rue lunged, claws like daggers stretched wide. A blur of fur and fang and hate.
They dove forward, slipping under the leaping shadow as claws sliced air where their spine had been.
The beast landed behind them with a thud that shook dust from the ceiling.
They turned fast, axe alive with lightning, and drove it into its shoulder.
Sparks.
A hiss that sounded more like a scream.
Then—
The world twisted.
The walls bent.
They weren’t on the floor anymore—they were standing sideways, now on the wall, then suddenly the next, then the ceiling, spinning view to view.
Each step felt wrong. Their legs didn’t know where down was.
The air smelled like static and metal and fear.
Then—normal again.
Almost.
Their head reeled, but instincts moved before clarity. They felt the cold breath at their neck.
Swipe.
They ducked, a claw slicing inches above.
Still crouched, they twisted, pistol in hand, and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
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The gunshot cracked like thunder.
The bullet hit the chest of Cat’rue, and it staggered, but didn’t stop.
Another swipe. Missed by hair.
They rolled, scrambled, circled behind.
CRACK. The axe, lit with stormlight, slammed into the beast’s back. Sparks flew again. Black blood hissed.
Still, Cat’rue fought.
But they didn’t stop.
One breath.
One second.
One aim.
They raised the pistol to its skull.
The yellow eyes glared, wide and wild.
BANG.
No roar.
No death cry.
Just black blood, and then—
Dust.
The creature collapsed in on itself, shape unraveling like paper in flame, and blew away into the cold air.
Only silence followed.
They looked down at the black blood—thick, oily, and still steaming.
They remembered what Inconvenience once said, long ago now.
“The blood, little sheep… it don’t stop if you don’t burn it.”
They searched—pockets, bags, mind—for fire.
But before they could light anything,
they heard it.
Howls. Not one. Not two.
A choir of hunger, far but too close.
The kind of sound that makes your blood cold and your feet light.
No time.
No fire.
They ran.
Whatever humanity still lived in them, it shivered as their breath steamed in the night air.
That ache in their chest—they still had a heart.
But even hearts freeze.
By the time they reached the house, the sky had turned to tar.
The stars were quiet.
Everything else wasn’t.
The door creaked open with that same familiar sound.
But the house felt… different.
Cold.
Not from air, but from something deeper.
They set the pistol down.
Hung the axe by the door.
Laid the photo beside the books, near the Bible.
This was routine now.
Every day:
Wake before dawn but after midnight.
Read the Bible—always the same page.
Eat whatever could be eaten.
Work the body so the mind won’t rot.
Then out into the wild world of nightmares.
Return before the dark gets teeth.
They weren’t who they were, not anymore.
But—
Was the heart still human?
That light blue eye still shimmered.
But for how long?
Would the heart last in a world like this?
Would they stay themselves—or would they die…
…and keep walking?
The scar from jaw to forehead still pulsed faint pink.
Not fresh, but not forgotten.
The left eye, light blue—too light.
Not from life, but from what’s seen.
The flannel sleeve still torn, jeans still cut,
But clothes meant little when the world bled like this.
They stood in the house alone.
Always alone.
They didn’t speak.
Not today.
Not any day.
In the room—the room with the dirty bed and the creaking floor—
The nightstand held that one thing untouched by rot or dust.
The photo.
A white hoodie.
A small girl in brown.
A smile that looked like hope in a world long past it.
But they weren’t sure if hope was real anymore.
They didn’t have a reason to go on. But that wasn’t the question.
The question was:
Would they go anyway?
And they would.
Because some gates don’t open until you walk through them.
They saw it again—what they fought.
The hairy beast.
The claw marks.
The wrong angles in the hips.
The eyes.
Those eyes.
They closed their own.
Or, for us—their eye.
Then they opened it.
And left the house.
There was a bike by the fence.
Bent in the back tire but rideable.
They didn’t hesitate.
They just moved.
Destination:
The IKEA near the Statue of Liberty.
Why?
Maybe something inside.
Maybe nothing at all.
They reached it just as the clouds split to let in the gray of day.
Concrete, cracked.
Glass, long broken.
The air stale, but still heavy with the scent of damp fabric and mildew.
Then they looked down.
And saw them.
Star-shaped footprints.
Pressed into the dirt and dust.
Leading inside.
They didn’t flinch.
Didn’t wonder.
Didn’t turn around.
Just pulled out the axe.
Thumbed the red button.
Crack—
The blade hissed alive with electricity.
And they walked in.
They walked into the Ikea.
Never once looked to the mirrors—
Mirrors lie.
They never batted an eye at the mannequins—
They remember what moved once when it shouldn’t.
They followed the star footprints, quiet as ghosts.
The building creaked around them like an old man muttering in sleep,
But they didn’t flinch.
Not anymore.
They never found what made the prints.
The trail simply stopped.
Like the thing vanished.
Or changed.
Instead, they found a cardboard box.
And something inside it was breathing.
Slow.
Rustling, shifting.
They crouched low, ready.
Axe in hand.
But the thing in the box didn't lunge.
It didn’t hiss or growl.
It looked up.
A head. Hairless.
Human—but not.
Skin the color of a cloudy sky before snow.
A blue eye—bright.
But the sclera? Black as mourning ink. No clear detail on the rest—just a vague, soft body-shape. Smooth like plastic,
Still like fog caught in form.
And beneath the eye:
A birthmark. Dark gray.
Shaped like an eye itself.
It watched.
And waited.
They stood with the axe, ready to cut.
But... there was no threat in the air.
No smell of death.
No chill in the chest.
It was small. Childlike.
But they knew better.
Didn’t they?
They should have moved on.
And they did.
But their steps felt heavier now.
Like they left something behind,
Or like something was pulling at the thread of their mind.
Guilt? Maybe.
They turned around.
Went back.
Watched.
The creature stayed in its box.
Popped up when sound echoed through the store—
Something falling.
It would peek,
Then hide.
Sometimes, when it poked out,
It wore something new.
A mask.
Shaped perfectly to fit a face.
Their size.
From chin to crown,
Black eyes,
Sharp little ears on top,
Painted in faded red down the middle—
A smile that curled too long.
A Japanese fox-smile. Or a cat’s grin.
A trickster face.
Made to hide.
Made to become something else.
They stared at it.
It stared back.
Neither moved.
They just watched.
Them and the monster in the box,
Both still,
Both silent,
Both caught in the space between danger and something else.
Then—
An accident. A glance.
Their eye flicked to a mirror.
A moment too long.
And that was enough.
A mannequin moved.
Creaking joints.
Plastic skin that shouldn’t bend.
One step closer.
Another.
They ran.
But stopped.
Mid-stride.
Heart tight.
They turned—
Looked back.
The box.
The little gray monster peeking up with its one blue eye, black-sclera bright.
Something inside them—
Dropped.
Sank like iron in a lake.
Like they’d left something behind that could not be left.
under breath as if a sigh.
Ran back.
Scooped up the box.
Held it tight.
Didn’t look at the mannequin anymore.
Didn’t care if it followed.
Didn’t care if they had made a mistake.
They ran all the way to the house.
Their house.
Alyssa’s house.
Home.
They set the box down.
Stepped back.
Watched.
Nothing for a while.
Then—
A small head peeked out.
Eye blinking once.
Why bring it back?
Why this monster?
Why risk the only shelter they had?
They didn’t know.
Maybe the guilt of walking away.
Maybe it reminded them of something.
Or someone.
Or maybe it was just easier to save one thing,
Than to keep losing everything else.
The thing in the box stayed in the box.
Didn’t attack.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t run.
They offered it food—cans opened with care.
But it only hid.
Eyes wide.
Like it didn’t trust them either.
Like maybe it was afraid, too.
That morning,
The monster—
The little one in the box—
Took a single piece of corn from the can.
Held it.
Ate it.
Then carried the rest of the food into its cardboard world like it meant to save it, hide it, hoard it for winter or war.
And they…
They smiled.
Or something close.
Their mouth moved in a way that looked like hope remembered.
They left after that.
Same as always.
Same routine—
Out before noon, back before dark.
But when they came home that night—
Something was different.
It was walking.
Not hiding.
Two feet tall.
Limbs long.
Gray skin reflecting little light.
Walking like a person might.
But off, like an echo of a body remembered wrong.
The days stretched.
One after another.
Weeks curling into months.
Three months, one week, and six days.
That long in that house.
In the place that was once Alyssa’s.
Now theirs.
Now shared.
They gave the monster a name.
Pandora.
Why?
Does it matter?
Maybe because the monster likes its box.
Or maybe because it was a curse.
Or maybe because all the pain in the world, and one last good thing, can come from the same place.
They watched Pandora like someone reading an old book for the second time—
Looking for things they missed the first time around.
The book dust filled as the rest of the world was.
The monster was brave in pretense.
But soft in action.
A wimp acting like a warrior.
It hated being looked at.
Would hide behind walls or corners if caught in a gaze.
But never left.
Never ran.
Never fought.
Pandora was them.
From the way we see it.
From where we sit.
From the safe side of the story.
But then, this story changed.
A dry voice.
Too high for a boy.
Too deep for a girl.
It came from them.
From the one we don’t know.
They said just one word.
"Pandora?"
Spoken into the dusty air of that broken house.
It was the first time they used the name aloud.
The first since the church.
And still—
Why only these words?
Why not more?
We may never know.
But the monster turned its head quick.
Snapped to attention.
Eyes wide.
Body still.
Not angry.
Not afraid, even.
Just—
Recognized.
As if hearing a name wasn’t just sound.
It was a link.
A root.
A reason to exist.
Was this a new friend?
Maybe.
Or maybe just a name in a world that forgets.
It took a week.
Seven slow days.
But then—Pandora stepped out of the box.
Stepped out of the house.
And followed.
Just like that.
Into the world.
And in some small way, time felt better.
Lighter.
Life—if you could still call it that—felt almost livable.
Like laughter might one day echo in this dead place.
But was it real?
Was this calm just a trick of the mind?
Was this joy just something to pass the time before the next horror?
They hadn’t fought a monster in a while.
Cat’rue had come back now and then—yes.
They’d fought once more, maybe twice.
But it never won.
Never quite made it past their blade or their will.
Other than that, the world had gone... still.
Quiet, mostly.
Just some wreaths of wind.
Some whispers in places you didn’t stay long.
It started to feel like normal life.
But they knew.
It couldn’t be.
This world doesn’t know what fair means.
It doesn’t give peace.
Not truly.
That’s when they saw it.
Laurel Avenue.
An old city street.
But something new had grown.
The plants.
They clawed up from the pavement.
Thick.
Veiny.
Green, rimmed in deep pink-red.
Their tops opened like alligator mouths, slow and wide, with a center stem the color of meat.
Pink.
One looked just like a mouth peeking from a hole.
Waiting.
Listening.
Below them—flowers.
Bright, unnatural.
Green fading to yellow, then bleeding to pink.
It looked alive.
It looked hungry.
They felt it in their ribs.
In their jaw.
Dread.
Pandora didn’t.
It walked right by.
Carefree.
Like the world was for it.
Like it didn’t see the teeth hidden in the dirt.
They followed Pandora.
Axe ready in hand.
Buzz quiet for now.
But was there a need?
Or just a thought of fear?
They didn’t know.
But they kept walking.
Pandora stepped into a house.
They followed.
No real reason.
No sound choice.
Just something inside them said—go.
The door creaked open behind her.
And they stepped in.
The house stank of wet things and dust.
Vines threaded like veins across every wall.
Leaves curled around light fixtures and spilled across the floor like old paper.
Still, something felt familiar.
Not just the smell.
The shape of it.
They knew this layout.
Left door.
Right door.
Hall ahead.
Photo frames hung crooked like always.
They walked slowly.
Hands brushing the wall.
Then stopping on a photo.
A girl.
Maybe six? Maybe nine?
At the beach.
Normal clothes, striped towel.
Smile wide enough to crack the frame.
The photo had faded, browned in time.
But the feeling behind it hadn’t.
They put their fingers to the glass.
Lightly.
They knew the face.
Maybe the name.
But that didn’t matter now.
They stepped through the hallway and into the living room.
Pandora was there.
Rummaging.
Digging through drawers with curious hands.
They watched her for a moment.
And something in their chest slipped.
They were hoping for something.
They didn’t know what.
But they didn’t find it.
Then—
Snap.
Their body snapped tight.
They froze.
Because they heard it.
A voice.
Female.
Firm.
Guarded.
“Hello?”
They didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Pandora froze too, ducking down behind a chair like a startled cat.
They slipped behind the wall, silent.
This was not a world where strangers meant safety.
This was not a voice to answer back.
They stayed still.
Listening.
Waiting.
They stayed behind the wall.
Still as the vines that hung like ghosts.
The kind of still that only comes when every part of you is listening.
They saw it then—
Not the speaker.
Not danger.
But a frame.
Perched careless on a stand near the old chair.
A photo.
Three people walking in a park.
The first—
Brown hair tied up neat,
Black shirt,
Brown-and-tan flannel, just like theirs—
Back when it had both sleeves.
Blue jeans. Smile like a held secret.
The second—
A little girl.
Ellie.
They knew her now.
Knew her like breath.Sitting on someone's shoulders of the third person.
No flannel. No face shown.
But it was them.
They knew it without proof.
Because grief doesn’t lie nor does truth.
And time—
Just stopped.
Like the world decided to hold its breath too.
The voice came again.
Closer now.
“Is someone there?”
It shook through them like a pulse.
Old and familiar.
Known.
Feared.
Held.
They didn’t answer right away.
Not with movement.
Not with thought.
Just stood there,
Like they could freeze the moment and never let it end.
But something inside them stirred.
An instinct.
A memory.
A name.
It spilled out of them like a whisper falling off a rooftop.
“…Natalie…”
The word cracked the air.
Not boy. Not girl.
But this is theirs.
The voice didn’t matter.
The name did.
Because in a dead world,
Some names still echo.
And as everything else stood still—
That name didn’t.
They stood frozen.
As if time—real time—had truly broken.
Then came the sound of footsteps.
Soft. Steady. Familiar.
Around the corner walked a girl.
Brown hair tied up neat,
Black shirt clinging to the shape of days that once were,
Blue jeans marked by survival.
It was Natalie.
And at the sight of her,
Their frame gave out.
Not in weakness—
But in the unraveling way a tightly wound thread finally lets go.
Natalie saw them.
Her eyes wide.
Not with fear—
But with disbelief.
“How are you alive? Why are you here? What happened to—!?”
She grabbed them by the arms,
Fingers curling into the fabric of the flannel and skin.
The sleeve on the left—gone.
The edge rough and frayed.
She spoke—words flooding out.
But from them,
Only silence.
Only a breath held back behind unseen lips.
But the smile they gave—
It broke them.
Wide. Big.
Honest.
A rare thing in a world of ash.
Then came the gray.
Pandora.
Small and uncertain,
Stepping out from a nearby corner like a shadow trying to learn light.
Natalie flinched.
Moved instantly—
Body between them and Pandora.
Knife drawn. Instinct alive.
But a hand touched her shoulder.
Their hand.
Natalie turned to look.
They nodded.
No word spoken.
But it said: It's okay.
Natalie didn’t trust easily—
Not anymore.
But she trusted them.
Even if her eyes flicked to the childlike creature with unease.
She asked about the axe.
They showed it.
Pressed the red button.
The blade sparked to life.
A hum of electricity danced around its edge—
Storm caged in steel.
Natalie was stunned,
But they just shrugged.
Like it was just another piece of the puzzle they carried.
They talked.
Just a little.
Fragments of memory.
Names not said,
But shared.
And then, tears.
Natalie cried openly.
The kind of crying that comes from somewhere you can’t name.
Somewhere deeper than pain.
And for them?
Just the one eye.
That soft, light blue.
We don’t know if it wept.
But it glistened like it might
They left the house together.
Pandora first — its small, deliberate steps carrying no fear. Then Natalie, clutching a few dented cans she had pulled from a cabinet thick with dust. And last, they stepped out, the photograph tucked safely away.
It was a photo of Natalie, a little girl named Ellie, and them — their Face a blur.
The door shut behind them with a hollow click.
The street outside lay quiet except for the wind moving through cracks in the asphalt. The plants were still there — thick stems rising from the concrete, their leaves ridged and split like they had been gnawed on by something with too many teeth. The veins along their surfaces pulsed faintly, as though carrying something alive.
Pandora walked past without slowing, its strange, boxlike body cutting a shape against the gray light. Natalie followed, her boots brushing against a frayed vine that curled back as if shy.
They paused. The air had shifted — not louder, not quieter, but different. The plants seemed to turn toward them, faintly trembling. Their stomach tightened.
Still, they moved on.
The path back to the base was uneven, littered with fragments of brick, shards of glass, and the pale shells of insects long dead. Natalie kept talking — about the way things used to be, about the places she’d passed through alone, about the rules she’d made to keep herself alive. They listened, giving answers when they could, though their words are lost to us. Whatever they said was enough to keep her talking.
The base waited for them — a two-story house with windows fogged by years of dirt, walls leaning slightly under the weight of time. The steps groaned as they crossed the threshold.
Pandora went straight to its box in the corner, folding itself down until only its square form remained in the dimness.
They sat with Natalie in the living room. The air was still, dust floating in the pale light that fell through the curtains.
Natalie broke the quiet.
“So… a monster named Alyssa saved you?”
The question hung there. They didn’t answer. Not out loud.
Hours passed like that. The house made its own slow sounds — wood settling, wind pushing faintly against the roof.
When night fell, Natalie took the upstairs bedroom. It was overgrown with vines, patches of moss blooming along the walls. The smell of damp earth clung to it.
They stayed on the couch downstairs, close to the living room. Maybe because it gave them a clear view of Pandora’s box. Maybe because the fire axe leaned against the wall within reach, its trigger ready to spark the blade alive with electric light. In this world, where monsters claimed every space as their own, safety was not something to leave behind.
Morning crept in, the light weak and colorless. Natalie was already crouched near Pandora’s box, speaking to it in a low, patient voice. Pandora’s black eye-slots with blue eyes stared back, unblinking. It had no mouth to answer with.
They stood near the window, looking out through the grime-coated glass. The outside was a blur of shapes and shifting shadows, as if the world beyond had forgotten how to hold its own outline.
Were they thinking of the monsters they had faced?
The ones they had ended?
Or the ones still out there, waiting?
Maybe they were thinking of the world itself — how it had broken, why it stayed that way, and why they were still here in it.
Nothing made sense.
And still… they stayed.
A day passed.
The air in the house was heavy, carrying that damp smell of rotting wood and growing vines. In that time, they had learned something — not small, not forgettable.
They had gone up to the roof in the late afternoon, climbing through the narrow attic space and pushing open a hatch that groaned with rust. The shingles were warm from the sun, crumbling slightly under their boots. From up there, the neighborhood stretched in every direction — a broken grid of houses sagging into themselves, yards overrun with moss and thorn.
And in the distance, moving between the skeletal remains of streetlights, they saw them.
White beasts. Thin, too thin, their limbs long enough to touch the ground without bending. Their heads cocked at unnatural angles as they moved in sharp, twitching bursts. Hearing Wraiths.
They watched for a long time. The creatures’ pale hides shimmered faintly in the weak sunlight, almost glowing against the ruined streets. Even from here, the air around them felt wrong — like sound itself bent toward them.
They made sure nothing in the house made a noise after that.
Later, they tried something new. Paper and pencil. If Pandora could not speak, maybe it could write. But when Pandora’s sharp, mechanical fingers scratched words into the page, the markings weren’t words at all. Lines bent in ways that made the eyes ache, symbols that shifted slightly when looked at too long. Neither Natalie nor they could make sense of it.
The next day, dust floated in the stale air like drifting ash. They sat with Natalie on the couch — the cushions sunken deep, vines snaking along the torn fabric. Pandora was in its box, still and silent in the corner.
They spoke, but whatever they said slipped away from us. No echo. No record. Only the rhythm of their voice without the meaning.
Natalie told them she didn’t know what had happened — not to her, not to them, not to the world that had become this. She looked tired when she said it. Honest, maybe.
They were about to answer when their gaze caught on something — the far wall, half-hidden in shadow. The vines clinging to it were trembling, curling inward as though something moved beneath their surface.
Pandora was still in its box, but it shifted just enough to tilt its blocky head and shake it slowly. No.
They didn’t understand what it meant.
They turned back to Natalie, saying something meant to steady her, to soften the weight she carried. But before the last syllable could leave their mouth, their body locked.
Stiff.
Breath caught halfway.
Not a single muscle obeyed.
Through the corner of their sight, their blue eye caught Natalie’s face — but the expression was wrong. Too wide. Her lips pulled into a grin that kept stretching. Her eyes dimmed, the white fading into flesh until they were nothing but smooth skin.
Her hair thinned and vanished strand by strand. Clothes faded into nothing, leaving bare skin without detail, without shape — a blank form. Then, from the base of her spine, a tail emerged, smooth and skin-colored until the end, where it twisted into the perfect outline of a heart.
Her hands lengthened. Black claws grew like splinters of night from her fingertips, narrow and glistening.
They didn’t know what Natalie was anymore. But it was not the one they had walked with, not the one who had laughed nervously on the way to this place.
Pandora moved now — slipping from its box, slow but certain. Its mechanical body angled toward the thing that wore Natalie’s skin.
They remained frozen.
The air felt sharper, like it might cut them if they breathed too hard.
Pandora slipped out of their sight, sliding into the shadows like smoke.
The thing they had thought was Natalie crouched closer. Its mouth stretched wide, revealing teeth black and jagged — more like shards of shadow than bone. The air around it seemed to thicken, vibrating with the low hum of something alive and wrong.
It lunged, and the first sound was a snap — a chair splintering behind it.
Pandora had moved, landing atop the couch and smashing the back of the rotten chair into the beast. The creature toppled forward with a grunt that was more crack of wood than voice.
And just like that, they could move again.
Their fingers wrapped around the axe’s handle. Sparks ran along the metal, electricity snapping and dancing like liquid lightning over the cold iron. The smell of ozone filled their nose.
They didn’t think. Not really. Not consciously. Fear and survival and reflex ran the show.
The axe swung. The arc of it cut the air, humming with energy, and landed squarely into the creature’s arm. Black blood oozed from the wound, thick and glistening, smoking faintly where the sparks kissed it.
It opened its mouth to scream, to roar, to shred. But Pandora moved faster.
It shoved an old, rotting pillow into the beast’s mouth, stuffing it deep. The creature struggled, claws scrabbling at the couch, but Pandora held fast.
They yanked the axe free and brought it down again — this time at the nape of the neck. The blow didn’t pierce through, but the beast froze. The black blood flowed from its lips and nostrils like a slow, burning river.
Then it came back to them — the memory Inconvenience had shared, long ago, in a world that felt half-forgotten: the blood doesn’t stop unless you burn it.
Without thinking, without hesitating, they fished a lighter from their pocket.
The tiny flame sputtered, fragile, then steadied, a defiant glow against the blackness. They tilted it, leaned close, and let it touch the black blood.
It caught immediately.
The blood flared like oil on water, licking upward with a roar that almost tore the air apart. The scent of smoke and singed metal and something foul rose thickly, filling their lungs.
They didn’t wait. Not for anything. They grabbed Pandora and its box and bolted for the door.
Outside, the night air hit them like a whip — cold, sharp, tasting faintly of ash. Behind them, the house groaned and shuddered. Flames crawled up the walls, chasing the shadows, painting the broken windows with firelight.
They didn’t look back. Not fully. Not yet. They just ran.
But even as they ran, even as Pandora clung to the rhythm of their steps, their blue eye caught the flickering glow through the glass. The flames consumed everything, hungry and ravenous, and in that light, the house didn’t feel empty anymore.
It felt like judgment.
And for the first time in a long while, they felt something heavier than fear: resolve.
After running just far enough from the house—Pandora tucked close to their side—both of them stopped.
74th Street.
That’s where their breath finally stumbled.
That’s where it came back.
The memory.
The sky.
Shifting.
Twisting like fabric wrung by invisible hands.
Human hands—long, thin, and the color of storm-lit clouds—descending like claws across the horizon.
And the blank, smooth head that followed.
No features.
No mouth.
Just that awful emptiness.
Sky Arc.
That was the name they had given it—given him—the day it first looked down at them with nothing at all.
Their left eye—pale blue, washed-out like frost on a window—grew even paler at the sight.
Fear crept in, quiet but sharp.
They turned to Pandora, meeting his wide, dark-sclera gaze.
No words.
Just a glare that meant run.
And they did.
Behind them, the crash came—heavy, final—concrete snapping, metal screaming.
Sky Arc was descending.
Chasing.
Cars lined the street like carcasses—dust-caked, vine-wrapped, their metal frames bowing under time’s slow grip.
They darted around one rusted sedan, vaulted over a crack in the street where a tree root had pushed through the asphalt like a bone erupting from skin.
Pandora was right behind them—small feet slapping softly against the ground.
Then they saw it up ahead.
A collapsed building.
A wall of rubble, choking the road.
Beside it, a sign of the cross—clean, untouched, like something had protected just that shape and nothing more.
Right and left were open.
4th Avenue cutting through the ruins.
Pandora bolted right immediately—instinct quick, body low.
They took one step left—then twisted, following Pandora instead.
That’s when the sound split the street.
A crack.
Deep.
Hollow.
Wrong.
The pavement buckled.
A lump swelled upward.
They stumbled, caught the edge of the street with their foot, and went down hard—Pandora’s cardboard box slipping from their arms, bouncing once across the concrete.
The ground tore open.
A human arm clawed out—
But not human.
Brown scales.
Elbow bent backwards.
Fingers too long, too tight, too hungry.
They didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t try to reclaim Pandora’s box.
They were up in a heartbeat—legs burning, lungs sharp—and running again.
Following Pandora.
The small gray child weaving through the ruins, leading them through walls strangled by vines, roots splitting brick, nature reclaiming whatever people had abandoned.
The world around them felt alive.
Watching.
Judging.
And something beneath the street continued to scrape its way upward.
Another crack split the ground.
Pandora stumbled, feet catching the broken seams of the street as night bled in, the sky bruising deeper by the second. He veered hard into an alley just as Sky Arc struck the rooftop above—impact shuddering through brick and bone alike.
The alley became a cage.
They ran anyway.
The ground kept breaking open beneath them, fractures spidering outward, snapping at their heels. Then—mid-stride—they turned their head back.
Sky Arc had stopped.
The blank-headed shape tilted upward, its body unnaturally still, as if listening to something only it could hear. The sun hovered at the edge of the horizon, red and thin.
Then it lifted.
Straight into the sky.
Gone as the light fell.
The street continued to tear itself apart.
They ran again.
Down 4th Avenue.
Cut across 53rd Street.
Then onto 2nd Avenue—lungs burning, legs numb, their left eye pale blue and glassy, reflecting the dying glow of day.
The NYPD Brooklyn warehouse loomed ahead—silent, hulking.
They forced the door open and slipped inside.
Up the stairs.
Higher.
A final door—onto the roof.
It slammed shut behind them.
They stood there, bent slightly forward, breathing hard. Dry. Empty. Worn thin.
Then came the sound.
A rattle.
Metal ticking against metal—from the AC vents.
Something moved.
A tail slid free first.
Then legs.
A ferret.
Too large.
Its fur was white, but its legs bled into red, as if stained from the inside out. When its head emerged, a stitch-mark scar cut across its scalp—not the forehead, but higher, crooked and uneven.
Its smile was wrong.
Too long.
Split back toward its ears like a blade had opened it.
Purple eyes gleamed.
It dragged a shard of metal behind it, the sound slow and deliberate.
The creature stopped.
They didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
The ferret watched them for a long moment—head tilted, eyes unblinking. Then, without warning, it pulled the metal shard away and let it clatter softly against the rooftop.
Their mind spiraled.
They knew nothing about these monsters.
The Hearing Wrath—its ears sharp enough to catch a whisper, maybe even a thought.
The Cat’rue—what if it didn’t stalk, but waited, nesting where it struck?
The mannequins.
The gnome.
Sky Arc.
Inconvenience.
Inconvenience had said black blood must burn for a monster to truly die.
Had said monsters fed on him like a snack—easy, endless.
And Inconvenience still lived.
Which meant monsters could kill their prey…
And the prey would return.
After time.
After regeneration.
So that meant—
Alyssa.
A monster.
Or something close to it.
One that didn’t kill.
The ferret remained still, purple eyes locked on them, the city humming faintly below—alive with things that refused to stay dead.
