Just Visiting

This is creepy.

“A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastas and urban legends in the world.”

Whether these stories truly happened, or most simply fabrications, is for you to decide.

These stories make in teen graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Hey everyone. Hope you all are staying cool. Not sure whether it's like elsewhere, but Minnesota has been enjoying our seasonal May temperature swings.

We went from about 45 at the start of the month. Two, uh, uh, 92, awesome. This is being my first summer at the station.

“I'm not sure what their procedure with air conditioning is, but hopefully I can finally get a chance to talk with someone in maintenance about it.”

I guess I always assume radio stations to be relatively cool as far as the EEC is concerned because all the equipment, but I guess I was wrong there.

It was like I'm in a sauna at the moment. So before I start to sweat on the mixing board, let's make sure to shout out and thank our new patrons, Dan Nuka, Samantha Young, Rzeek Brown, Mason Newton, and Molly. To see how you can get rewards like logo merch and bonus episodes for supporting the show, please check out the donation tiers at patreon.com/creepypod. And speaking of merch, a shout out to our April writer drawing winner, Deirdre Coles, who won some free creepy merch in our drawing. As a special thank you to all of those who write for the show, if your story is selected for production, you're automatically entered into a drawing for free merch.

Because without the writers, we wouldn't be here. Okay, onto the show. First up, a deeply lonely man follows a woman into a surreal nightmare realm, or love, death, and obsession blur into something far more terrifying. From writer Jimmy Furrier, creepy presents, just visiting.

I had always suspected infidelity in my relationship, but I've always had to say a tendency to forgive to avoid solitude.

Repeated arguments, abuse, even catching them cheating red handed, always forgiven. It had to be better than being alone, right? What made me wise up and leave one might ask? Nothing, in fact. I was left after asking her who she loved more, me or the sidepiece.

You can guess, you'll come. This left me in a particularly exploitable position. Desperate for love and attention from, well, anyone. And so started my visits to what I can only assume, were hell. Her name was Rose. That she was beautiful.

Curly red hair that held on me sunlight like a halo. Eyes of emerald, perfect skin. Looking up at me with puppy eyes from my lap as she asked if I still worked at the pharmacy. As I broached the topic of relationship, she reverted to encourage me to go to a doctor to get some prescriptions for anxiety, you know, because of how hard I was taking my breakup, and maybe we could

share some zanies and cuddle. And off for a physical affection was all I needed. I understand that these are not redeeming qualities for a person half.

“I'm not trying to be redeemed, well, is it sympathy or anything?”

This is a warning about that damn forest. I did go to a doctor, exaggerated the symptoms, although I doubt had if needed to, and I was sent out my way with multiple meds. She was more excited than I had ever heard her when she saw the big pill bottles. Rejunky looking for a fix when I think about it now.

But she was pretty, I was lonely, and desperate. We made plans and I found myself with her head and my lap again. Something on the TV is back around noise. She was tossing back pills like candy, inside a panic, but I lacked the courage to speak up. She must have known her own tolerance, she had to.

Calling me a peach before laying back in my lap and going back to vibing.

“My concern stormed back as she turned the pill bottle over in her palm,”

in the deafening silence of an empty bottle, screamed into my soul. Not a single pill, falling into her hand. My face must have turned stark as her eyes met mine. She placed her hands on my shoulder softly and calmly informed me that she'd been popping pills since middle school, and her tolerance was insane.

I couldn't risk being a nag and losing her in the process. I couldn't sufficiently hide my panic though, as she reached into her own pocket and pulled out three white pills shaped like little bars, and covered my mouth with her hand and held my swallowed them, hushing me like an upset toddler until I relented and swallowed.

For the first time in months, I dissociated from my traumas.

Slowly but steadily, the calm caved into the weight of nausea.

“The room shifted, my head spun, I wanted to go through all up, but I couldn't stand.”

Not because of my symptoms, but because I didn't want to disturb her. She looks so peaceful. This beautiful curls of red, the last thing in my memory, is a slipped into a world of black. I woke to harsh buzzing of fluorescent lights. Intense light piercing my closed eyelids.

I raised my hand guarding my eyes as I opened them slowly. When my vision came into focus, I realized that I was already standing. I was in a sterile, blinding, white on white tile, waiting room. It was tight, maybe about five by five feet. There were four white chairs set up across from each other, perfectly aligned.

I thought I saw a silhouette of a chair for a second.

But on second look, nothing was there. A nurse stood across from me in the doorway. She wasn't dressed in typical scrubs. Her outfit looked to be from the 1980s. A pristine, snow-white button-up dress with a white collar and a white nurse's cap. She smiled the way you do when you've reached the end of your shift in a customer walks in at 9.59 when you close at 10.

She looked familiar, but I couldn't place it. Choose fit, tall, brown hair tied up in a bun. Her tan skin made pale by the bright lights. She stood out like a void in an abyss of white. Are you just visiting or staying? Her voice distorted an echoed like a fever dream, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

“I'm sorry. I asked confused. Are you just visiting or are you ready to stay?”

If you'd like to stay, take the right hallway. If you're just visiting, take the left. I asked where I was to know her response. I turned back a look for the door and must have entered through only to be met with a wall of solid white. Not door anywhere to be seen. In her sclerly explain, I can visit through the left hallway or choose to stay through the right.

She sat silent, no matter any question I posed. After nervously clearing my throat, I let her know, just visiting. I blanked and she was gone. Her absence made me uneasy. I felt like prey in the open with hidden predators.

I inched forward and looked right the left. The right hull stretched out of my range of vision. Just as stark white as the room before, an eternity of white with no one in sight. The left felt warm, like sunshine gently falling upon me. There was this delicate little window, flanked on each side by yellow on white checkered curtains.

Through the window, I could see an endless canopy of trees. A ladder leaned against the window. I felt safe. I turned to look back into the white void, but it was gone. I was now in a wooden treehouse.

Radio, magazine, chips spread about on the ground. I opened the window to climb down the ladder and immediately heard the nurse again, as if she was speaking right into my ear. Enjoy. I turned back to a still empty treehouse and tried to call my unease.

Every moment before reaching the treehouse felt wrong.

“I couldn't place it, but I knew the window felt safe.”

I hurried and climbed down the ladder. My bare feet met with a soft green grass at the bottom. I could see nothing but trees in every direction. The only variation being a tight grass trail directly in front of me that stretched into the dark shade of the forest ahead. I felt like there were red flags, but I couldn't get past the visuals.

The vibrant green grass growing in the deep shade of the trees were nothing should be able to grow. The sparse light shining through the canopy, thin beams of light fighting the darkness.

Trail faintly lit, so candles were placed on the ground along the entire path.

Wall of trees so dense that looking in between only revealed more trees. I walked down the path for at least an hour.

“The tree line finally broke and I laid my eyes on a small cabin in a circular opening ahead of me.”

It was a small, simple, log cabin, hardly any weathering. Cozy. I did a double take once my eyes met with rose and I ran over. She placed both for hands in mind and kissed me deeply, pulling my body to hers and wrapping me tightly in her arms. I looked around the home to see various photographs of us over time, over what must have been years.

I was so deeply focused on the photographs that I didn't notice there was a saying something to me. Every photo was similar, only very slight changes in us over time. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something did not belong. Like other times in my life, I ignored these feelings. Rose loved me here.

“I turned and apologized, asking her to repeat herself.”

"Clear," she said sweetly. "What?" I asked confused. "Clear!" The paramedic yel does he jumped my heart again. I started coughing, trying desperately to breathe through the foam blocking my throat and nostrils. He's awake. Hang in there, buddy. We're going to take good care of you.

I hung my head off the stretcher, spit and ratchet trying to get the thick foam strangling me out of my mouth. Paramedic helped and then sat me up, telling me to relax. I asked where Rose was and he inverted his eyes immediately, pretending to look at my vitals or something. My eyes wild up with tears and I put my lower lip, trying desperately not to cry. Paramedic put his hand on my shoulder when he noticed.

The rest of the ride was silent. She was dead far before anyone found us. My heart was broken. I felt so scared and anxious. I caused it death, or at least didn't do all I could to prevent it. I cried repeatedly day after day until I felt nothing.

I felt as though someone hollowed me out. I was a shell. I woke up each day feeling nothing but hate for myself and my cowardice fueled by a selfish need to be loved. I didn't need. I didn't move for my bed. Why should I? This was my damn fault. Continuing my life was pointless.

You can recover from a breakup. You can even talk to that person again in the future if you really wanted to. You kill someone and that's it. There is no recourse for failing to render aid because you wanted fucking company. In failing to hack on reasonable concern and exchange for company, I became the reason she was gone from my life.

I was fading from dehydration and starvation.

I never afflicted on anything that happened with me in the forest until then.

I remembered that voice. Are you just visiting? Or are you staying? I remembered the waiting room, the nurse, the window, and rose. This was the solution. In coming close to death, I was able to go to rose, where we had a life together, where I hadn't failed the saver.

I knew that I had a 50 pack of single-edged razor blades sitting on my bathroom counter.

That night, I dragged one of those razor's deep up my arms in the bathtub. A searing burn running along the razor's line. The heat from the cuts distracting me from the pain. It felt like my anguish found release through the deep gashes. At times, I felt like I caught bone or tendon, and I'd have to adjust for the smooth cut to continue. The second wrist was much harder, as I definitely cut some tendons on the first go.

The hot flow of blood dripping into the ice bath I'd made. Figuring cold water would give me the best chance of surviving, and the time it took for my friend to get here and get me help. Alex, core Alex, she had been my best friend most of my life.

“The havoc I'd recon her life during these events is shameful, honestly.”

She'd always been the most reliable, trustworthy person I'd ever known.

And I chose to abuse that. A simple non-descript goodbye tax would be sufficient to hint to my intentions. Never too selfless to hurt others with my selfish desires. I never knew how bleeding out felt. The speed you go from lightheaded to having your body fail you is dizzying. I closed my eyes, heads still spinning, and slump into the icy water. Just visiting? Or are you ready to stay?

The familiar bright lights pierced my vision through the mine fog as I tried to steady myself.

Briefly as I looked around, it appeared as though two of the chairs in the lobby were occupied.

“However, as I rub my eyes and look back to the same spot, and empty room greeted me.”

I refocused on the nurse and briefly pointed to the left. She continued to stare into me, seemingly dropping a bit of the customer service facade for the blink of an eye before self-correcting and nodding. Right this way. I looked back at the chairs, still empty before looking back into the hallway, where the nurse had again vanished. I walked into the split and took a moment to investigate the right hallway.

It didn't give me any sense of dread this time. Just confusion is I fail to grasp the eternity in front of me. I couldn't properly assess the floor, ceiling more walls. The white was so bright that it appeared as though it dropped into a mine shaft of pure light. I turned and found the same quaint window, but something was off. The wood appeared to have a very faint red tint that some of the edges when I got close. The radio on the ground crackled with static. The magazine's now missing,

bags of chips empty. The green canopies largely unchanged, but for the paper thin red edges on the leaves

“in bark. In joy, I heard again. Same as before, but this time was there a sinister undertone?”

Was I overthinking the situation? Almost dying twice can change anyone I'm sure. But was I also losing it? I descended the ladder again. I couldn't be sure but the path ahead of me between the trees felt tighter. A small change, but I could still comfortably walk through. There's a different vibe this time. Like the edges of the leaves turning in the fall. This time there were tiny red buds on the branches. No larger than a pea. A deep maroon color

that seemed to glow. I walked between the trees from much longer time to go around. It felt as though I'd spent an entire day walking, and I began to panic and hyperventilate. I ran. I even went back to see if the ladder was in sight, but all I could notice was darkness around the thinning beams of light, and a touch of red tint in the beams. Gast, I fell to the ground in the open circle of trees.

Relieved that I reached the end I looked up and saw Rose looking down at me. A little thinner than before. Eyes beautiful, but how the mysterious looking them that I couldn't quite pin down. I focused as hard as I could to take in the details around me and tell Rose kissed me.

conversation. It felt as though she was simply feeding off whatever I personally needed to feel good,

“to feel safe. This didn't set off the red flags that clearly should have.”

When entering the house a second time, I noticed two distinct changes from my last visit.

One, Rose would not let me go from the second she touched me. Two, there were little red dots in the tree line and all the photos. The fruits I saw before, maybe? Again, I tried talking to Rose about her death, but she turned the conversation to anything else. In my normal, cowardly fashion, I yielded and just ran with it. Until her face warped into a sad but deadly serious expression. I can't believe you do this to

me. She said to me in a voice that was not her own. This time I quickly realized that I was

waking up, because I did. All I could see was red mist in the sky. Alex had gotten to my home

“quicker than I had anticipated and was waking me up. I didn't want to leave, but just as before,”

it was not my choice. I felt the sharp pain of my friend Alex slapping me as hard as she could across my face and trying to shake me awake. She slapped me hard, three, four times, screaming at me to wake up. Still in a delirium, wanting to hang onto that special world, my voice freaked out a week. I don't want to go yet. Alex, not knowing when I was actually referring to assured me that she'd make sure I lived. She wrapped my forms tightly and pulled me out of

the tub. I smiled and was about to joke with her, but as soon as I opened my mouth, she cut me off with a unique mixture of rage and sadness and chastising me. She yelled about myself asiness. The damage this event could do to everyone in my life. We didn't speak through us to that night. Or at all, since the incident for that matter. The trauma of finding me like that and understanding that my intention was for her to find me in that state. Was that something she could

handle? So, rightfully, she needed some space. Something in me was wrong, no. Broken.

A part of me yearn to return and receive the affection and attention I'd always selfishly desired.

This wasn't over. I needed to go back. This would be difficult, however, because, rightfully so, I had been committed to a mental health facility. Because of the constant watch, I could hardly devise a plan to go back. I had to decide between waiting out the watch period or figure out a way to get hurt here and, like the extent my stay, potentially indefinitely. The bright side, being immediate medical help, well and thought I reflected on the changes in Rose's world.

The small changes didn't bother me so much. But that look, that little glint in her eye stuck with me.

“Is that what real love looked like? I honestly had no qualms in staying in that place this time”

if I was able to go back. The only concern being the way to best. What if choosing to stay didn't lead me back to staying with Rose but oblivion? Suicide watch came with its own frustrations. The blankets were so thick that it couldn't be tied and so tough there's no way to shred it. There's nothing protruding from the wall, no sink, no water pooling in the toilet. So against my wishes, I didn't try to go back until I was released.

I worked at a restaurant to while back. There was fans of time when people going to the walk in freezer and then not going again for hours unless you worked with a smoker. I also knew that if I acted like I belonged, no one would notice me going into the freezer. It took me less than an hour to die in a freezer that I called and an attempt to possibly preserve me for the possibility of resuscitation. It was also the guarantee that someone would

find me within an hour or two to call for my rescue. I was able to walk in, ask for a table and wait a few minutes before leaving a 20 on the table and walking you into the freezer without being noticed. If you think the waiting to freeze to death would be absolute torture, you would be correct. Let's also agree that I deserve it. I made use of the hand wash

I needed to make sure I'd freeze faster than I was found. It was torture.

In negative 10 degrees my skin felt cold at first and began to burn until I lost feeling entirely.

I shivered uncontrollably. It hurt to breathe. It was time my breath screws shallower. I realized this when I tried to wipe my nose and completely missed. I leaned my face against a middle rack. Not long after that, I fell asleep. My coordination wasn't any better upon arriving in the waiting room. I was falling over myself, looking through a thick visual fog around me grasping for purchase.

“Why did I still feel cold? What was happening to me?”

The other times I came here and was unburdened by the injuries I'd inflicted on myself.

Once the room focused, I'd distinctly notice three of the chairs were occupied.

They didn't go away in a blink this time. The waiting room was plunged in darkness except the corner of the room, with the sole remaining chair. The buzzing was harsh and grew with intensity into the room fell into black, and just a suddenly the familiar bright white returned. The occupants of the chairs were gone and the nurse returned. Only this time, everything was so different. I noticed her clothing was stained with streaks and

splashes of red, smeared hand prints on her apron like wiping your hands clean on your pants in the kitchen.

“Separations in the tile all now occupied by drops of red liquid solely crawling to the floor.”

The room smelled like blood. "Are you just visiting?" or "Staying?"

This time spoken to a girl of blood. Blood ran down her lips and she gave me an eerie full-toothed smile. My heart began to race and the hair on my arms and neck started to stand up. Her eyes were so cheery but disturbing. I was deeply unsettled by the new scene around me. I had to leave. There was no calm to be had here. I didn't want to stay in this place. Surely it would be a fate worse than death.

Just visiting? I stuttered nervously, deeply shaken by the changes. The nurse did not disappear as she did my prior visits. The sound of shoes removing themselves from a sticky floor echoed in the room as she moved and stepped to the side, holding out her hands in the direction of the hallway had frequent it. Hands visibly bloody. I wanted to leave but approaching the nurse didn't seem safe.

The lights flickered in the three silhouettes returned, all pointing to the same direction as the nurse. I ran. As I passed the nurse, she snatched me by the back of my shirt, stopping me cold in my tracks. She was unnaturally fast and strongly being struck by a snake. My panic breath stuck in my throat. She slowly pulled me close, no matter how hard I pulled away, she pulled me close with no effort until our noses were touching.

The smell of blood heavy in my nostrils. In joy, she said mysteriously before releasing her grip. I turned to face the window, now broken and jagan, bloody hand-crens near the window frame and curtain. The words stay written on every wall in the floor and the ceiling.

“This was all wrong. How did everything go so wrong so fast?”

The radio now admitted what sounded like a hundred people screaming in hagan through static before bursting into fire. The fire was spreading quickly. I opened the off center window, getting caught on an exposed shot of glass that opened my palm with a sharp sting of pain. I kicked out the window and looked down over the canopy. The leaves on the trees now are deep red. Random glowing red orbs visible in the distance.

The wind pushed through the tree tops, giving the appearance that I was staring down into a shifting ocean of blood. I found out much too late as I descended, but a large part of the ladder was missing. I tried to climb back up, but the hanging beam holding it up snapped. Dropping me would add to be 30 feet into the trees. I smashed into branches before being thrown

the wind knocked out of me by the fall, to see that I couldn't locate the path, not like before

“at least. Even the trees were different. They looked like people twisted painfully together.”

Their flesh overflowed by bark, arms outstretched reaching for freedom that would never come.

Their faces frozen in screams of pain all around me. A red mist was falling. It tasted exactly like what I thought it would. When I got to my feet, I felt the sharp jagged, red grass cut into the soft flesh of my feet. I fell back into my hands to relive this sensation, a scrambled and crawled under the exposed roots of the tree. I found an opening to small enough for me to fit through sideways. I squeezed in, held my breath,

hoping for the best. Each step put me face to face with these twisted trees, unless often shining red fruits with red curly hair like strands covering the skin. Every misstep into the grass led to more agonizing shards in my feet. I found in my extremely slow progression to the house. If you touch these fruits, they stuck your skin immediately with a searing pain. When I'd rip away from it, a thick red

nectar would actively drip from the broken hairs. I hypothesized that these fruits, these trees, fed on people. I was drowsy as this happened a few times, but I had to persist. I couldn't stop here. I didn't want to end up twisted into the flesh of these trees. This slow crawl took days. I felt no hope for making it out alive. But after an eternity I stepped into the open clearing. The house had to crep at mass falling in on

itself. I didn't see rows in the opening, not at first. I was trying to look through the ruins of

the cabin to find some clues to what happened. The photos were torn and strewn about the ground. Took some time, but I was able to piece together one photo. I froze as I studied it. It was just me, I thought. As I investigated the background further, I noticed none.

“Fathom will be tall creature in the back of the photo. The only thing that separated it,”

and its blood red hair from the rest of the tree line was its thin white body. A human stretched 20 feet tall. So thin it appeared as though pale white flesh was draped directly over bones. The eyes glowing a burning red like the fruits around me. I looked around cautiously, shaking nervously only to see her look at me from across the tree line. She looked even thinner than before. Two more things stood out.

She was naked, and her hair no longer was to bright red curls, but matched the leaves of the tree. Just visiting? She asked through an obvious sarcastic sympathy, angrily, before laughing. Took a moment for me to gain composure,

for it to finally click in my brain. To look in our eyes when I visited last, it was

hunger. This thing, whatever it was, was not rose. I could certainly not go back into the tree.

“I almost died on my way here. There was no latter back up. So what could I do?”

The creature dressed in roses flash Mr. Realize that I knew. Their jaw fell slack and her body began to twitch. The movements were inhuman. It insect-like. The eyes rolled back into an empty void, leaving red glowing sockets. Her limbs and body stretched into the tree tops. The thing crumed sweetly. Come here, baby. Before quickly stomping in my direction. A scream. I ran into the wreckage of the house and tried to look for any place that was safe.

You reached its long limbs into the broken window and swiped at me. I threw anything I could at it. Kicked scratched and bit, but the assault didn't slow. I was running out of time, in the trip through the forest left me fatigued and to shovel. I noticed the beam holding on to a loose part of the roof. I could kick it, but that could kill me if the roof came down. I had no choice. I kicked with all the force I could, hearing a loud crack in my legs I did so.

A sharp electric pain shot up my leg and I couldn't pull weight on it.

trapping the monster's arm beneath. That thing led with most unsettling screech I'd ever heard.

“It sounded like metal beams twisting, stretching, breaking. I limped out and could see no”

real option for escape. The length of the monster's limbs meant that even though it was pando is almost able to grab me most anywhere within the open circle of trees. I had to wait for the right moment and squeeze back into the trees from which I came. I'd limped as fast as I couldn't felt right before the tree line. I was trying to stand up and hop into the tree line sideways as I had come in. I was halfway in when I felt digger like nails slashed down across my shoulder blades

all the way down to my hamstrings. I fell into the tree line and kicked along the ground trying to push myself further into the trees. The thing began to scream "stay" over and over again, further I pushed myself into the trees. I felt the burning as the fruits above me

“started to fall and stick all over me. I exposed back my neck and one on my right eye.”

The burn was unreal. I tried ripping them off but I was so weak. The monster screamed again. It's time sounding more human, scared and frantic. All I could do was scream along as the life faded from my body. I woke up, strapped down to a hospital bed.

I'd never been more ecstatic to be in a hospital than I was done.

I could see out of my right eye and the pain in my back and leg were unreal. I was told I lost my eye to frostbite. They were unsure how, but I'd also broken my femur. Suffering was all I was able to do in my condition. No one came to visit. I guess the times I've heard others through hurting myself had produced a sort of diminishing returns.

“I was a lost cause and was on my own. Through the pain I felt relief. I kept having flashbacks”

of that horrible place, whether it was in the form of nightmares or daydreams. I kept going back. I'd be sitting up in my bed, eating the bland food I was provided and fond of a panic the moment I saw the nurse come in with a blood bag. I couldn't bear the sight of that color anymore.

Through my experiences and self-reflection, I did make a critical decision.

I couldn't go back there. Whatever I had to do to stay away from that place, I would do it. I was no longer going to put my selfish desires for love and affection first. What I needed to prioritize was my survival. I repeatedly chose to try to live a dream that would never be.

What I should have been doing was accepting what was, because in all my reflection back on that place, I made several realizations. When the fruits stuck to me, I felt my blood flowing into them. This was confirmed when I ripped the one from my face and tasted the meaty bloody fruit. It was less like the fruit and more like a ball of fat with arteries. That place was feeding on me and possibly countless others.

The next, I determined that the nurse must have been some type of amalgamation of people in my life who have gone out of their way to take care of me. Mostly made up of the one who had saved me from myself the most. Alex, whoever the nurse changed on the last visit, was rage other than the smile. Every part of her seemed to see as I passed her, which made sense given what I put everyone through. And most importantly, the chairs.

On each of my visits another would fill. The first visit, a quick flash of a body in a chair.

The second, two, and so on. The last visit, all of one chair was filled. That could mean that the next time I go all four chairs will be occupied and plunged into darkness. The remaining empty chair illuminated by the soul light left. Go out. Four bodies, four chairs. That take away my ability to choose, without four of my chances squandered on stupidity,

would I be forced to stay. Not that I want to return to the just visiting hallway regardless. And if that awful red forest with that pale monstrosity was my destination on my last visit,

If I couldn't choose, and I had to stay?

Either way, next visit was sure to be my last. That brings me now to my final thoughts on those events.

“Everything taught me one important thing to sort yourself out. You need to have an honest”

conversation with yourself. His honest as you think you need to be, you're wrong. It'll be the most difficult experience in your life. Because truly, there is nothing redeeming or satisfying and discovering how pitiful you are,

or how much fault you hold in your failures.

Allowing others to control your decisions, trying to build your happiness on the backs of others, refusing to stay in the life you live and visiting the lives of others to reach and suck whatever happiness you can, living by curiously through others, living the life you wish you had. I've made my choice. I will stay as far away from that hell as I can. I will live in the moment and take care of myself. I share my story to help you make a choice.

Are you just visiting? Or are you ready to stay? The red forest awaits your decision. Then next, after his brother's death, a grieving man encounters a terrified stranger in a rain-soaked graveyard who claims a forbidden play may have unleashed something terrible into their lives. For mightor Simon Bleak and a narrated by Jimmy Frayer, creepy presence, final words.

It was beside a cold wintery graveyard, with icy drizzle, spattering against the wind screen of my car, and crews calling rockously overhead. Therefore the very last time, I re-read the final words my brother ever wrote. My baby brother changed. Six years younger than me, and the sensitive one in the family. Who were most people saw only a shy and awkward man. I saw the gleam of wit and intelligence that burned in his eyes. And I knew the joke was on them.

That his inner life was way more vibrant and deep than any outward expression revealed. Went without saying. To me at least, he had been my opposite and almost every respect,

but he and I had always been close. Best friends as well as siblings. But the bond that time had

not listened. I was the first one he had revealed any of his poetry, too. Several years before any of it saw print. And all that we lived apart after leaving home. Not a week went by that we

“hadn't spent at least two nights hanging out. I think I probably knew him better than anyone else”

life. But even I couldn't help him out in the end. One he took his own life. Washed his existence away in an overdose of pills. I think I was more shocked than anyone. Shocked that in turn transformed into anger. And then into a dark despairing guilt. Go that I hadn't been able to help them. I hadn't seen what was going on with them. That despite our closeness and bond, I had failed to notice that he was in real trouble.

And worst of all knowing that in this is time of greatest struggle and hardship. You obviously felt he couldn't confide in me. Couldn't turn to me for help. He must have felt so alone. I opened the glove compartment, removing the paperback copy of his only published work. Running my fingers over the title and author's names.

“Secret songs of a soulful city by James Barriston. This is all that was left of him now.”

This small collection of poetry. Just over a hundred pages long was now the sum of his short existence. Besides a few photos on a social media account in the memories that those of us who knew him held in our hearts. The quote from Jorge Luis Borges echoed in my mind as I opened the cover and

an incarnation. That was one of my brother's favorite quotations. There's I sat there alone. I tried to feel his presence in the words on those pages.

“Words that now contain the only remaining essence of him in this world. But the truth is I just”

felt alone. I missed him terribly. The hollow void churning in my heart. Never be satisfied with

mere words. I set the book aside. Although it contained so much of my brother was something of him in every line and every phrase. It wasn't enough of him to make me feel his presence. Now I now at least. The pain of the laws was too raw, too sharp. I reached into my jacket pocket and removed a folded piece of note paper. Something I had also carried with me since his death. I found it on his desk in the small apartment he rented. He was as far as I can tell his last words.

The very last thing he wrote before passing out of reach. Well, whatever unknown state

“waits for us eventually. The words were cryptic, bizarre and unsettling. I think I must”

read them a dozen times. Trying to understand what they might mean. But I never had.

They weren't anything like his usual work. And I couldn't make out if they were meant to be part of some new fiction he was composing or sign of something darker in his mind. His stands amidst the dust in the white tower. His broken crown scraping, crumbling stone. As he watches the world fade beyond the window. Like a photograph, like a photograph left out in the sun, bleached a vibrancy, devoid of color and meaning. His tattered rose brushed trail through the

“grid and did leaves covering that cracked floor. We're sparing over the rough flagstones.”

There, a song in its head was sparing over and over. Like the echo of a dead screen.

It is the cry of a city of a populous plunged into chaos and darkness. Of a world bathed in the blood red of an alien sky beneath the black blazing stars of a distant solar system. It's all gone now. All dead. Everything dies in the final act. Even the stars will burn out. It's all just a matter of time. I slipped the note inside the front page of his book to stirb his ever by its tone and content. Wondering just to what was running through his mind

when he wrote it. I sighed and rub my eyes. The sleepless nights of the past weeks were taking their tone. My hands were jittery from too much coffee. I didn't even want to think about what it was doing to my blood pressure. But I need a caffeine to keep myself functioning during the day. And each night, I found myself turning more and more to these systems of jacked angels in an effort to help myself fall into some semblance of unconsciousness. I rolled my head slowly

on my neck, feeling each click and crack. I was seriously out of shame and not looking after myself properly. Had Joanna still been living with me, she'd have put her foot down a long time ago, made me sort myself out. Would have forced me to stop wallowing and grief in self-pity. But we had separated it a little over a year now. Some of it was all down to me in my own mismanagement to keep myself functioning properly each day. Being alone was probably a bad idea right now.

But I really didn't want to be around people. Grief had stoked my already latent

state of mind. Ironic then, that when I opened my eyes, it was to see a woman standing at my

“brother's grave. That lay only a row were too in from the fence. She stood so still,”

seemed so pale and faded into an overcast afternoon light. That at first I thought I was imagining her,

or perhaps seeing some spectral figure standing amid the stones. It was only when I saw a ragged coat flap in the breeze, and I saw her shiver as the cold rain, soaked her. Then I knew she was real. I opened my card door and she turned at the sound. She appeared startled to see me. For a crazed moment I thought she would run away. Like some frightened fawn darting into the woods. Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.

I called over. She stared at me for a moment. And a flicker of recognition crossed her cold

“frightened face. Before she asked, if I was Andy, yeah, how do you, she interrupted,”

explaining that James told her about me? Even shown her photos from when we were both growing up. I was about to ask another question when she shivered again, rain dripping from her coat, and she drew it closer about her. Hey, do you want to get out of the rain? I asked, gesturing at the car.

When her brow furrowed, I added, just to sit here for a bit. That's all.

She glanced down at the grave and then nodded. Quickly weaving her way through the stones in the graveyard gates. I turned on the heater as she slipped inside. She pressed her cold hands against it. Better? I asked, she nodded. She looked worse than I did, shaking from the cold, wrapped in a thin coat. Racket it at the hem and sleeves and soaked from the drizzle. She could only have been in early 20s, blonde hair pasted to her scalp, her pale sunken eyes framed by dark rings.

But what I couldn't help but notice were the scars on her wrists. Some of them looked all too recent and set alarm bells ringing in my head. She told me her name was Katherine. When I asked if she and James had been close, she looked momentarily startled, even hurt that he hadn't mentioned her to me. I ran through all the memories that were churning in my mind. Something I had been doing a lot lately.

They seemed to roll in like endless, cresting waves to batter at my brain. In the end, I had to shake my head. That troubled me. Because it wasn't like James to keep secrets. At least I didn't think it was. I don't think so. Not that I can recall. She shrugged. When I got the sense that she was trying to put a brave face on things. And she wasn't surprised really, not given how they met at all. She told me that they

met online. About 10 months ago, through a shared interest of sorts. There was a group, sort of a chat group, really. For people who like obscure authors, rare books and books, they didn't want

“people seeing band books. That's what a thing. That sounds like James. I told her sadly.”

You like collecting works by forgotten writers. She said that specifically is what you're them together. She was a big fan of Kirill, Bonfiglioli, and Anne Radcliffe. And James was the only other person she'd met who knew anything about the writing. That's also started them off anyway. In the end, there were three of them who used to chat a lot on there. James, Katherine, and another guy from somewhere in New England. They didn't know

as real name. But he called himself Paladmask 95. They used to talk for hours about this stuff.

And she didn't just mean once band books either. Not like Katherine the Rhine to kill a

mockingbird. No. They were interested in books that they still don't want people to see. Or even know about it. It won't be on just that at some point though. I'm guessing. I asked. Her eyes flicked at me and alarm. I just mean. I had it. They seemed heard. I didn't know your name.

“And now you're here at his grave. So he had to be more than just friends of metal line, right?”

She let out a deep breath. Explaining that they both worked out eventually. They both lived

less than an hour apart. So they hooked up for a coffee once or twice. And things went from there.

I wish he had told me I'd have been happy for him. It's just I shook my head. The words all sounded petty and selfish. He was my brother. But we were close, you know? I just thought we didn't have secrets from each other. I thought we could tell each other anything. Guess I'm having a hard time learning that he had a life I knew nothing about. Makes me wonder if I knew him at all. She told me she knew he had loved me.

“And that I was a huge part of his life. She wondered if he had shut me out of this to try and protect”

me. She had drawn her arms about her now. She was trying to retreat behind the barrier of flesh and cloth. She said the things between the two of them were going really well. But things were pallid mask 95 were getting kind of intense. He started telling them about this book he knew about.

A band one. One that they'd never heard of. He said he had a copy. Not a physical copy.

He said those were almost impossible to find now. But he had scanned a copy, a PDF or something. It was an old play called the King and Yellow. She said there were all sorts of weird legends about it being supposedly a cursed play, which brought misfortune, madness or death to those who read it. Wait. A cursed play that brings death? I sat back and stared at her for a moment. But I can see nothing but on his conviction and absolute fear in her eyes.

Sorry. It just all sounds a little like that Japanese horror movie about the videotape that kills you in seven days. I mean, you actually believe this stuff? She said that she did. But James didn't. He wanted to read it. He asked pallid mask 95 to email a copy through to us. She begged James not to read it. Not until they knew more. But as the penny dropped, I felt myself getting suddenly angry.

I tried to rain it in, but a raw red veil of grief and rage seemed to descend across my vision. And I felt my pulse brace furiously.

“You're trying to tell me. James read it and that's what killed him. Is that it?”

She apologized. Since she realized how it sounded. Do you? I said angrily. You know how it sounds. See, I'm still trying to piece my life back together, trying to make sense of this massive hole in my life. And you're what? Spending me some bullshit about fucking killer play. What's wrong with you?

She turned. tears streaming down her face and fumbled with the door latch as she mumbleed apologies over and over. My anger crumbled away that the look of utter despair on her face. Wait, I... I called out, but she had already fled back into the graveyard. Weaving between the rain slick and headstones. I hope in my door and follow it or in. All around the graveyard, the crows were gathering in the trees, like a rowdy mourners. Their harsh calls

Meanwhile, the drizzle had turned into a fine rain. Further adding to the gloomy misery of the

day. By the time I found her sheltering and sobbing inside one of the open mausoleums, I myself was soaked in shivering. She was sitting on a low stone bench and saw the entrance. The once lockable iron grating that was meant to secure the tomb hung open on her broken hinge. Hey, I said softly. She didn't turn or look up. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get angry at you. I didn't. It's not you. Not really. I'm just...

Nothing makes sense right now. Nothing at all. Not since you died.

“How he died. I'm not dealing with it all very well. Listen. Why don't you come back to the car?”

It's freezing in here in your soaked. She looked at me then. Employingly assuring me that she wasn't my. Though what she had said about the book was all true. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small red plastic memory stick. Was she offered to me? Telling me it was on there. It was she said. A copy they downloaded. She hadn't been able to bring herself to destroy it.

Gingerly I took the stick for her. Turning it over in my fingers. It felt so small. So innocent and so harmless. Did you read it?

“She nodded again. I settled myself onto another bench across from her.”

What happened? She had thought it would be safe. Just where it's on a screen. Just a book. But she had been wrong. And what they had downloaded wasn't just a book.

At first it simply had been a story about a city. An alien world that was visited by a mask stranger.

But there was nothing terrible in it. Not until the second act anyway. Then it changed and stopped being just a play. How do you mean I asked? She said it was mine now. I can see for myself if I wanted. But then it would come out one hell of a price. I turned it over on my fingers again.

“The curse, right? She explained that for James that I'd been the nightmares that I got him the most.”

They were bad. They were nights he would wake up screaming, gripping the sheets hard enough to tear them. Sometimes they were even vivid lines gouged into his face where he'd been clawing at his cheeks in his sleep. It's older he'd been at a masquerade ball in a lavish palace. But he'd been unable to take his mask off. He was afraid it was growing into his skin, taking root in his flesh. She often saw him glancing in the mirror when he thought she wasn't looking.

As if a freak he would see the mask staring back at him. As the days went on he got worse. She broke off abruptly at that point as if listening and glanced quickly at the doorway to the muslim. She grabbed my arm. Telling me there was someone out there that she could hear them getting closer to us. I followed her gaze studying the headstones that were visible from where

we sat as far as I could see in here. It was just us out here. She said that someone had been following her since she read that play. An old man hunched, white face really wrinkled and bald. He had puffy hands like they were diseased or bloated somehow. She had started to see him everywhere, alleyways, shop doorways, even in the windows as she walked down the street. I stood up and moved to the doorway, peering out more intently.

She had least scratched at the scars on her wrists. They were stark against her pale skin.

“You want to talk about those? I asked. But she shook her head.”

Her eyes moved to the USB stick in my hand and then the scars to her wrist. She told me that after James died she tried to destroy the copy. When she couldn't bring herself to do it she tried something else.

She never managed to go all the way with that either.

She told me that she wasn't crazy and didn't really want to die. She only wanted to be free of the book and whatever it had brought into her lies. But I said, "You carried it with you?" She grimely announced that if she had it, she knew nobody else could find it. How coarse she knew that was a lie. It was just a copy after all.

“The book was still out there. There must be physical copies hidden away in secret collections.”

Who knew how many copies of this download were floating about? I asked if she contacted Paladmask 95 since my brother's death. But apparently he wasn't online anymore. In fact, there was no trace of him. Not even a user account registered on the group. We fell silent for a moment. Neither sure wanted to say next. We sat huddled in our chilly shelter. Listening to the soft pattern of the rain on the grass and

stone outside. Lost in our own thoughts. She finally broke the silence.

Telling me that she used to come to places like this when she was a teenager. She found them peaceful. Quiet. I smile despite everything.

“Were you Goth or something? She almost smiled back.”

Saying she was just a bookworm in an noisy house. Then are almost smile faded. Now these places seem too noisy for her. Too many ghosts and memories crowded together into one place. The wind stirs the trees outside and the crows took flight. She sprang to her feet. I was growing white. She anxiously asked what that noise had been. It's just a wind in the birds. I said. But she insisted. There had been another noise.

Creeping closer. I didn't hear anything. I returned to the doorway and scanned the rows of graves as far as I could see. There was nobody else inside. No sound beyond the wind in the rain. Yeah, we're still alone. She shook her head and backed further into the mozzling. Growing ever more distressed and assuring me that there was something else out there.

She demanded it to know when I was hiding from her. Then her expression changed. From distress to hostile suspicion. Her eyes narrowing as she asked how I had known that it. Then her expression changed. From distress to hostile suspicion. Her eyes narrowing as she asked how I had known that she would be at the grave today.

But I didn't know you'd be here. I protested. I've never met you before.

I came here to spend some time at my brother's grave. Here's the one who recognized me for my brother's photographs. She called me a liar and continued to back away from me. Look, you're not making any sense. Let's just calm down, sit down and... She stopped me. Telling me she wanted to see my face.

And I've always thought it was shaky as the hand she now held out toward me off. Even though I hadn't moved from the doorway, she was acting if I were somehow threatening her. You can see my face. I said it's calmly as I could. Raising my hands gently to show her. I was no threat to her.

I'm just here for my brother to pay my respects.

“Try to make some sense out of everything that's happened. That's all.”

She started screaming. Frantically for me to take my mask off. I'm not wearing a chin or up to me again. Reaching inside her coat pulling out a long kitchen knife, gleaming sharply. Even in the gloom of the muslim.

Whoa, wait. I urged a spike of panic shooting through me and I took a step back.

Just listen. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm not lying to you.

Look, I'm just going to go back to my car and drive away. That that's all we're done. She was gripping the handle tightly.

“Asking why I had followed her here. And she wanted to see my face.”

She kept screaming at me to unmask. What are you talking about? I took a step towards the door to leave. The next thing I knew she had lunged at me like a cat springing at a mouse.

I fell back against the wall. Arms lifting to fend her off.

Then it was when I felt something slugged me right in the gut, driving the wind from my lungs. But there was more. The strange internal pressure that I couldn't explain to I saw a cat stagger back. I saw the knife handle sticking out of my stomach.

“What have you done? I fell back against the wall sliding down onto the cold floor.”

She was just blanking now. Looking around is as she'd awoken from a dream and couldn't quite work out what had happened. She took one look at me and her face wasn't even paleer than usual. A pallet mask of shock. In a panic, she hurried forward and went to pull the knife free from my body. Leave it! I barked. It makes a pain in shock.

I knew what adrenaline was flooding my body. But I also knew once it wore off the pain was going to get a lot worse. Leave it and call an ambulance. Okay. Now her eyes were wide and terrified. She clutched her bloodless hands tightly together as though trying to ring moisture out of them. She babbled that she couldn't be around the police. Too many questions. And that the man would find her. I tried to reason with her, but she had already fled.

Dirty out of the mausoleum and back into the rain once more. I begged her to come back, but I got no response. My heart was racing. And a white hop burning agony was flooding my whole body. I tried to sit up and instantly regretted it. Any movement brought a sickening and unimaginable pain with it. I feared I would pass out and die then and there. Gradually I managed to work my shaking fingers into the pocket of my jeans and gripped the top of my phone.

From the direction of the car park I heard an engine start up. I realized then. I'd left my keys in the car earlier. Katherine obviously helped herself to a free ride away from here. I used the phone out of my pocket, shaking and sweating. My hands were trembling. So much I was afraid to drop it. I managed to call for an ambulance before my world started to darken and spin. As the pain and shock overwhelmed me.

I fell and done consciousness without knowing if I would ever wake again. The world had seemed hadn't quite finished with me. I woke a few hours later to the smell of hospital disinfectant and the soft intrusive beeps of medical machinery. And began what would prove to be a slow and painful road back to recovery. In times I was so dosed on painkillers it was hard to know what was real and what was in my head.

All in all I was quite lucky. So the nurse is telling me. And I could have done a lot more damage.

I probably would have been pushing up daisies by now. Cathach quickly learned from a visit by the police had not been so fortunate. It seems and her distress panic to escape the scene of a crime. She had pulled out blindly on a busy junction just a mile from the graveyard. It was properly struck by oncoming traffic at high speed.

The car was a total loss. I never found out what happened to my copy of James' book.

Her spinal words which I had tucked inside it. They had tried to cut her free of the twisted wreckage. But what they pulled out was so badly mangled it didn't live long enough to get to the hospital.

“Still that's all in the past. Or that's what I'm trying to tell myself.”

I got home just over two hours ago. Glad to finally get out of that ward. I didn't always hate it hospitals. The smells, the sounds, the constant intrusions and lack of privacy. Most of all I missed having access to my computer. I'll never know a Cathach she saw when she looked at me right before she attacked me. I'll never know how much of what she told me was true.

Or just some craze delusion in her broken mind. Was there any truth to any of it? I keep looking at the memory sticks she handed me. I should smash it. Just slam a heavy paperweight down onto it. Or grind it under the heel of my shoe.

But I can't bring myself to do that. If the play really exists. Is there any truth to any of her story? But I can't bring myself to do that. If the play really exists.

“If there's any truth to any of her story.”

Then perhaps I can find my own answers. No, I can't do that either. If she was right, that would be suicide. I'll keep it. But I won't look at it. Even if it contains all the answers about what's or my brother do is death, even if it helps me understand what happened. I won't look.

It's just not worth the risk.

I mean, not even if it might mean all this tragedy would finally make some sense.

I take a deep breath as I slipped the stick into my computer's USB port. There's a soft war from my computer as the virus checker scans the contents and reports all safe. I will smile at that little irony. I won't look at it. The external drive icon flashes on my screen and I double-click it.

Well, maybe just a quick look. Just the first page. Surely that can't hurt. Can it?

And finally, after discovering the strange bottle of ink in our grandparent's attic,

a young illustrator unknowingly unleashed a sinister presence that begins spreading through her isolated family home. From later Jonathan Farrell, an erid by Rismontanas, creepy presence, ink. The first time Alice saw that ink well. She was in the old attic of our grandparent's house. A dusty forgotten room where time seemed to have stood still.

He was tucked away in a dark corner, half hidden under a messy pile of old books, whose yellowed pages smelled of mold and melancholy. The bottle was small, made of thick opaque glass, with a slightly oxidized brass cap and golden lettering along the rim that had almost completely faded.

As if the years had corroded it.

“Alice didn't remember ever seeing it before.”

Yet something about that object exuded an irresistible charm. Almost as if it were calling her. The house was a rough stone building, isolated in the Umbrean Hills, which she and her younger brother, Mateo, had inherited after the sudden death of their parents. Alice was 27, Mateo 23.

For a month and a half, they had been living there. Trying to piece their lives back together and bring this tired dwelling back to life. Far from everything, with no phone signal and electricity that often left them in a dark.

where the sounds of nature and the creeks of the house filled the silence.

Alice, a freelance illustrator and passionate about drawings in childhood, love to lose herself in the rooms with her sketchbook at her hands. That morning, following her instinct rather than logic, she decided to go up to the attic to seek inspiration

“among her grandparents' old belongings. That's how she found the jar.”

Without thinking too much about it, she took it with her to her room. She took one of her ink pens and dipped the tip into the dark, thick, almost viscous liquid, which looked more like tar than normal drawing ink.

She began to draw lines on the paper, guided by a force that did not seem entirely her own.

What took shape was a face. Thin, elongated with deep empty eye sockets like a business. And an exaggerated smile. One too wide to be human. When she completed the last stroke, a drop of ink slipped from the tip of the pen onto the paper, spreading like a living stain. And then it happened.

“The eyes of the drawing slowly opened and the smile widened even more.”

Alice was paralyzed. Her hands trembled in the pen fell to the floor. In an instant, a whispered dark smoke rose from the paper, sneaking through the air with sinuous movements. And with it, a whisper penetrated her ears and mind. You gave me form. Alice recoiled her heart pounding. She tore the paper into a thousand pieces with fever

shans and threw it into the fireplace, where she watched it burn, hoping to erase the nightmare that had just begun. But the voice did not go away. That night, she couldn't sleep. Wherever she was, she heard that whisper. Increasingly insistent, you gave me form. Mateo immediately noticed that his sister was upset. Her gaze was distant,

and her movements were stiff. But when he asked her what was going on, Alice just shook her head. She didn't want to involve him. The next morning, driven by a mixture of unease and morbid attraction, she returned to the attic. The jar was there, but completely empty. However, on the floor, there was a long black streak that looked like ink. A thin, but clear trail. As if left by something that had dragged itself out.

Alice's heart raced. Without thinking, she followed the trail. The line wound its weight on the stairs. Slowly descending to the lower floor, sneaking through the hallway like a living restless shadow. It reached the living room, stopping right in front of the old basement door.

It had always been closed. Sealed since the first days they had set foot in the house.

They had tried to open it, without success. But now the lock was broken. The bolt snapped, as if something had forced it from the inside. Alice stood motionless for several long seconds. Part of her wanted to run away, Calmateo escaped from the house itself. Yet her hand moved on its own and opened the door. The air was thick, cold, almost damp. A deep rasping sound came from the darkness.

Like heavy, superhuman breathing. Alice's eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. And that's when she saw it. Next to an old worm-eaten wooden wardrobe, on the wall, was riding in black ink. The other place awaits me. Alice felt the blood freeze in her veins. She slammed the door shut and blocked it with a heavy chair. Panic scratched at her mind. But she tried to compose herself.

She went back to Mateo, trying to act normal, as if nothing had happened. That evening, while washing dishes in the kitchen lit by a dim light bulb, Alice heard the voice again. But this time, it wasn't a distant whisper.

“It was right behind her. Your brother has a face too. Can I take it?”

The voice came out of nowhere. As thin as a whisper behind her. Alice turned abruptly,

imprinted with the same black sticky substance as the ink. There was now a drawing.

“It was Mateo's face. But distorted, screaming and contorted with pain.”

Two wide, lifeless eyes. His mouth opened in a silent scream. Frozen, for eternity. Alice backed away, feeling a cold shiver run down her spine. In a state of panic and guilt, she began searching the entire house for answers. She spent hours rummaging through closets, drawers, and old trunks until at the bottom of a dusty chest in the guest room. She found a worn volume with a leather cover

darkened by time. It did not bear the author's name. Only a title engraved in Gothic letters,

blood, and science. Opening it with trembling hands. Alice discovered that it spoke of

“soul ink. A dark and arcane substance used in past centuries by witches and summoners to write”

their grim wares. A living fluid, endowed with a will of its own. A single stroke. A simple sketch was just enough to give it form. But once started, the ink did not stop on its own. It continued to feed on the will of its creator. The creatures summoned were not mere images. They were entities. Familiers. Presence is seeking only one thing. Freedom. To gain control over that being. A sacrifice was required.

A soul. Alice slammed the book shut. Her heart was racing. She didn't know whether to believe it, whether those pages were madness or revelations.

“But one thing was certain. That creature now lived in their house.”

She could sense it in the sounds. In the whispers that float through the dark corridors. In the mirrors that fogged up on their own. The face she had drawn reappeared everywhere. It appeared on the walls. On shiny surfaces. Even in the water, in the sink. And when Mateo disappeared. Alice knew she was responsible. She found him in the basement.

In the same spot where she had first seen the words. The other place awaits me.

Mateo was standing there. Motionless. His eyes wide and filled with terror. In front of him stood the creature. Now made a flesh. Or rather, liquid and bones. It had a long-jointed body made of thick, pulsating ink. As if every fiber vibrated to the rhythm of an unknown heart. Its face was identical to the first drawing. But now, it was alive and completely free. Its eyes rolled. Its mouth smiled. The creature slowly raised a black translucent hand

and placed it on the boy's shoulder. Now, he is mine too. Alice screamed. She launched at her brother, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away with all her strength. The creature didn't react. It stood there. Motionless. As if enjoying her despair. But the house reacted. It began to shake. Breathing like a huge living organism. The walls swelled and bent like flesh under pressure. The paintings lookwified.

The photographs faded. Every surface was invaded by dark stains. As if ink were spreading everywhere. Impossible to contain. They closed every door, barred the windows with used boards in furniture, tape or glue. But it was all useless. The ink seeped through the cracks, through the crevices and the walls. Even through the light switches. Mateo no longer spoke. His gaze was vacant. His skin pale and cold.

He was breathing. Yet it was as if he were not there. Alice forced him to drink at eat, tried to shake him, called him constantly. But he seemed like an empty shell. Drained of all essence. As if something had torn his soul away. Hand every night, in his sleep, he drew. Not with pens or pencils. But with his fingers.

Increasingly complex enumerous.

Alice tried to erase them, scraping the paint with spatula's and sponges but each time. Under the layer of plaster, she found only more ink. The book was clear.

“To stop the creature, you must break its form. Destroying the drawing is not enough.”

You must eliminate the source. That is, the ink itself. But if it has already merged with the world, or with the body, then there is no salvation.

Alice began to feel it inside herself, too. When she cried, her tears were not

transparent. They were dark. Sometimes she found herself drawing without realizing it. Lost in a trance. Her hand moving on its own. One evening, Mateo opened his eyes. He looked at her, but he was no longer himself.

“He scares me less now. He is everything. He is everywhere.”

And you, you, you are just a mistake.

He whispered, as if in a state of euphoria. Alice gasped, feeling something break inside her,

an invisible thread that until then had kept her anger to hope. She cried, but her tears were not clear. They were dark. Thick, like ink itself. Mateo smiled at her, and that smile was identical to that of the creature. There was no longer any doubt. He was no longer her brother. For a long moment, Alice remained motionless.

“Then the pain turned into a cold, lucid, and relentless determination.”

She decided to end it all. She went to the garage and, with a heavy heart, took the gasoline camp. The one they used to fuel the farm equipment. She went back upstairs and began to spill the liquid everywhere. On the stairs, along the corridors. On the walls smeared with symbols, on the floor still wet with ink. The accurate smell filled her nostrils, but she continued, undeterred. Mateo watched her, sitting on the sofa like an empty mannequin.

He no longer spoke. He didn't stop her. Perhaps he was no longer even able to understand. When every room was saturated with fuel, Alice opened the box of matches. She took one out and held it between her fingers for an eternal moment. Then, she lit it. A small innocent flame danced on the red head. She turned to her brother, a smile crossed her face, sad, broken, full of pain and regret.

But also love. Forgive me Mateo, but I won't leave you to him. And then, she dropped the match. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit CreepyPard.com. You can also follow us at CreepyPard on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative comments share a

light licensing or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the CreepyPard cast production team and the story's author.