July 4th, 2017

Matt Roiland, Jay Jannette, and Carter Lee (the boy in flannel) sat upon a dock on the opposite side of the Ashley River to the place Doctor Harlan stood seven years prior, gazing out at the fireworks booming far and above them. Matt took two puffs on one of their pipes, and passed it to his left. Jay took a much longer hit, and passed it along to Carter. Carter held it in his hand for a while before indulging in old Aunt Jane. Stoned out of their wits, their immediate surroundings took a back seat to the spectacle of fireworks in the distance.

They sat for over an hour, Matt sometimes dumping and packing their bowl, Carter sometimes forgetting to hit it and lulling them into a motionless serenity, until Jay urged him to hurry up again.

The finale was beginning as they finished their second-to-last bowl.

“Hey Carter, wouldjya mind hurrying up over there? Some of us are trying to enjoy our night, y’know,” Jay called.

Carter had set the bowl down, paying little attention to it; they were, after all, higher than satellites, and so it was no surprise that they failed to notice the creature clinging to the rails behind them. Carter picked up the pipe, and held it up to his lips-

Only for Matt to smack it from his hands in one swift motion, sending the thing skittering across the dock. Carter stared after it, and then turned his attention back to his friends.

“What the fuck didjya do that for, Matty?”

“W-wuh-worm…?” Matt replied.

“W-wuh-worm? What are you, high?” Jay teased.

“No! I mean, yes, but, look!” Matt snatched the pipe from where it lay, and held it bowl-first for them to gaze at. A small white thing slithered and writhed, barely noticeable under the ash.

A splash from behind them drew their attention. Jay and Matt rushed to the rail, gazed down into the water on that side, but Carter moved in the other direction. His reddened eyes locked on the thing, and widened. His heart thrummed in his chest as it, and a dozen more of it, retreated into the murky depths.

The trio left immediately, and disposed of their paraphanelia in a trash can on the trail leading back to their car. For the length of their walk, they found themselves jumping at shadows. Halfway down the trail, Carter came to a dead stop, his heart thumping loudly. Matt and Jay held hands tightly, and continued several paces forward before noticing their friend was lagging behind. Jay turned to look for him, and her breath caught in her throat.

They tell me that there were more of those things, the worms, hanging from the trees. Thousands of them, strung across branches and dangling from leaves like some sick, twisted confetti. Matt refused to turn, gripped Jay’s hand tighter. “We have to go,” he told her, and tugged. Carter, however, was transfixed by the writhing horrors overhead, and Jay was not one to leave a friend behind. She let go of Matt’s hand and rushed back to Carter, gripping him by his sleeve and yanking him forward. It was a struggle- one step, then two, but finally, he started moving. A thick mist was rolling in, breaching the tree line, obscuring their vision. Jay and Carter moved with greater urgency, and soon caught back up to Matt, who had waited, still as stone, for his girlfriend to return to him. He gripped her right hand tight, and Carter gripped her left just as tightly. She squeezed both hands back. The three began running, even as the fog closed in, even as the worms began to rain down on them, even as they swore they saw figures moving on the edge of the trail, figures not unlike those they’d glimpsed swimming in the river.

They came barreling out of the mist, and into the trail’s parking lot. They broke contact, Matt sliding across the hood of Jay’s car, Jay quickly fishing her keys from her pocket and jamming her finger against the unlock button.

Beep beep, the car sounded with a click. Carter was the first to try the door, but it didn’t open. His heart thumped.

“Wrong button!”

“Fuck!”

“Damn it, Jay, I love you, but hurry the hell up!”

Jay fumbled with the keys, nearly dropping them, but managed to slam the correct button twice. The car clicked and beeped again, and now the doors gave, swinging outward in response to the trio’s prying hands. Carter was the first in, then Jay, then Matt. Without buckling up, without turning on the lights, without making sure the doors were even fully closed, Jay jammed her key into the ignition, twisted it, and tore out of the driveway. None of them looked back this time. Only when they reached the highway did they, one by one, buckle up and make sure their doors were shut. Jay locked them, and drove in silence. They did not return home or stop driving until late the next day- because they contacted and met me at my house that same night. I rode with them as they recounted their tale, offered them what comforts I could, fed them, refilled their gas tank, and saw the boys home. Jay dropped me off at my house at 12 PM. Much has happened since then- much is still to come. There are only a handful of weeks left before September 21st, and still so much more to recount to you. But, I suppose, it’s best to conclude a chapter, before starting another.

When we pulled back into my driveway, a chilling thought crawled up my spine and into my mind. “Jay,” I said, just before I shut the passenger side door behind me, “get out of your car.” She stared at me quizzically, and then complied. I joined her on the driver’s side, and then crouched down, gazing under her seat.

A single worm was crawling towards the bag of leftovers we’d brought back from breakfast. The leftovers were mine, thankfully; the boys had finished eating in the diner, and Jay had refused to eat at all. Nose crinkling in disgust, I snatched the paper bag, marched to the end of my driveway, and dropped it into the trash bin. I could hear the garbage truck a block or so over; I’d stand outside and watch to make sure there were no escapees.

When the truck finally came, I returned to Jay, who had simply stood, face pallid and eyes wide. “You told me that you hit the wrong button- you accidentally locked the car and couldn’t get in, right?”

She nodded.

“Well… You must’ve left it unlocked in the first place.”

We spent three hours combing her car for any stragglers, cleaning it as thoroughly as we could, before she finally felt comfortable getting in and driving off. I took special care to burn the clothes I’d worn that morning, and to thoroughly rinse and bleach the bin I’d dumped that bag into.

Be careful what you bring into your home, reader. You never know what might be infested.

Good night, Reader.

And, soon, I fear, Goodbye.

"Once you get into cosmological shit like this, you got to throw away the instruction manual."

*-Stephen King, ‘It’ *

Upon arriving home later that day, James sent Stephen and Rose up to their room, and made sure they closed their door behind them. Then, he turned his attention to Carla. She was the first of the triplets, a whopping two minutes older than Stephen and Rose. Her hair was raven black like her mother’s, her eyes brown, like her father’s. She clasped her hands together, and dug her toes into the carpet; her gaze crawled around the room, resting anywhere besides Doctor Harlan’s eyes.

“Well?” Harlan asked his daughter.

She did not respond.

“Why didn’t you tell me you brought a stray dog into the house, Carla? Why did I only find out about it this morning?”

Carla remained silent. James ground his teeth in frustration.

“Carla, baby, I love you, but this is ridiculous. Did Miss Smith make you bring Mug-mu-“ he growled, shaking his head. “Did Miss Smith make you bring that mutt into my house?”

No response, save for a… Was that a giggle? Harlan’s eyes widened.

“You know what? That’s it. Go to your room, Carla.”

And she did, her lips curled into a smile all the while.

Several hours passed, in which Doctor Harlan indulged a cold beer and a warm bath. Afterwards, he cleaned his children up, embracing each in a warm hug. By the time the last of the triplets was washed, the time was 8:00 PM. James gathered Stephen, Rose, and Carla together, got them buckled into the car, and drove to the Old-Fashioned Ice Cream. James selected for himself a triple-scooped fudge cone, Stephen chose a double scoop vanilla, while Rose and Carla picked out two single scoop rocky road cones. The family of four then drove out to the Battery, Downtown. In this case, the Battery is directly referencing a waterfront section in the city of Charleston, which overlooks the Ashley River. One might find a parade of boats smothered in Christmas lights, haunted ghost tours, fireworks, or a myriad of tourists, depending on what time of year they visited.

As the fireworks shot up into the sky, James Franklin Harlan felt at ease- truly at ease- for the first time that day. He hadn’t noticed it before, but there had been a great deal of pressure built up in his head since that morning, and it seemed to have finally, fully dissipated. He looked around at his children; at Stephen, who sat a bit away from his sisters and skimmed through his little digital camera, admiring the photos he’d been taking. Carla, who was sharing her cone with Rose. And Rose, who, between licks of ice cream, hid behind her sister to escape the booms of the fireworks. Harlan leaned back, sighing contentedly. The only thing that was missing was his wife.

But it was best, he supposed, not to dwell on that. He’d found a new love, after all-

(You sick fuck,)

In his work and in his children. Combatting the disease that claimed his wife, and raising the little monsters they’d made together.

As the fireworks boomed overhead, something else was happening below.

Carla leaned over the edge of the battery, her family captivated by the light show, and grinned. A wave crashed against the wall, splashing her face with salty wetness. She swiped at her eyes, and thought she could see…

Yes, yes, god help them, there it was, its body bloated from the water. What appeared to be an adult hand pressed outwards from its belly, strained against its impossible skin. The fingers were nearly visible through the flesh, thin and skeletal but horribly, undeniably alive. Carla did not cry out, for she knew (for it told her) that her father could not know, not again. Her siblings could, in time; yes, she knew (it whispered to her,) that her siblings would come around… But not her father. Not before the other two, anyway.

From the creature’s eye, a three foot long insect, not unlike a tapeworm, crawled free. It sagged down Muggsy’s snout, and formed into a strange puddle on the rocks. It climbed up the wall, its body almost melding to the concrete, and then into Carla’s cupped hands. Her face showed nothing short of bliss as she brought the worm to her ice cream, and watched it tunnel into the once delicious treat. She returned to Rose’s side, grinning, and held out her cone. “You can finish this,” she giggled. “I’m stuffed.”

“Really!? Daddy, Carla’s letting me have almost her entire cone!”

James was far away, his thoughts clouded by emotion. “That’s wonderful, dear,” he said, and mussed Rose’s hair. Odd, he thought to himself. The pressure had returned to his skull; weaker than before, certainly, but… Back, nonetheless.

That night, Rose had many strange and vivid dreams. She found herself wandering through halls that seemed to have no end and no exits; they existed merely to exist, and served no true purpose. There were no doors or windows, no stairs nor elevators. She wandered down these halls for what surely felt like decades, at least in her mind. The halls twisted and turned, and seemed to writhe, not unlike a worm. Eventually, they grew to be more spacious- or had she simply shrunken down

(become a worm)

Like in Alice in Wonderland? The smaller she got, the more detailed her surroundings became. There were tables now, full of wonderful foods and stationed by faceless yet pleasant people. Beside her walked a golden Labrador retriever, its tongue out and its tail wagging. She petted it, and it nuzzled up against her. On her other side was Carla, holding her hand and guiding her. The tables were stalls now, and there were rides, attractions, wonderful things and all of them free!

(dirt is free, its all a worm needs, worms are free, in dirt they should be)

The dream shifted, and she had the strangest sensation that she had moved. She felt very cold now, at least on the outside, but her heart and her mind were warm and fuzzy, and that was good enough for her. She was still with her pup and her sister, but now they were in their house, gazing at their reflections in the glass door that led to their back yard. Only, it was Carla and Rose’s reflections, not her pup’s. Her pup was outside, gazing back at them.

“Can we let Muggsy in, pretty please?” Rose asked.

Carla beamed at her. “Of course! I knew you’d miss him,” she replied.

Together, they slid the door open.

Time is drawing short, reader. In one month and five days, it will have been seven years since Harlan's tale ended. I must work quickly now, and you- for there is a singular you, somewhere out there, that must see this, so that I might pass the torch, so to speak... Yes, I fear you must learn all that I know, and soon.

Goodnight, reader.

Goodnight.

[[NOTE: Reddit saw it first! All parts of 'My Empire of Dirt' will appear on /r/nosleep prior to appearing on my Prose Page!]]

My guidance counselor encouraged me to write these entries as if I were speaking to someone with zero familiarity of Earth's history, so I guess I should start there. In 2040 A.D., due to dozens of factors ranging from oil wars to a highly deadly, drug resistant, and waterborne strain of the flu. Er... Well, I guess that part's disputable. Some people say it was tuberculosis; others say it was gonorrhea, and others still are convinced that the world's governments joined together to create a super virus. History isn't a subject I enjoy very much, so I don't think I'm qualified to say any one of those theories are correct.

What was I writing?

Oh, right.

In 2040 A.D., due to shortages of oil, a severe drought sweeping most of the United Continents of America, and this super-disease, total war broke out. By the end of it, the UCA was left in shambles, as were China, the New Soviet Union, and much of Europe. The world's population was reduced by more than 80%, and very few powers remained to pick up the pieces.

Within a decade, though, humanity began to thrive again. Within thirty years, most remaining nations seceded into one another, until Earth as a whole fell under a single banner; the Conglomerate. The birth of the Conglomerate on New Years Eve, 2070 A.D., marked the beginning of a new era for mankind; Post Apocalyptia. A constant reminder of humanity's near extinction at its own hands.

My name is Samus Teller. My father was a famous hero working under the Night Corps, responsible for the arrest of more than seventy percent of all small-time villains in Province Eight... Er, the land formerly known as the United States of America...  between the years of 100 and 120 P.A. His name was Kevin Teller, but before retirement, you might've known him as the Cardinal. He trained under some of the greatest martial artists of the last century, and through them, was able to master something that contemporaries might've called Ki, or Spirit Energy.

For just about everyone, getting in tune with Ki results in dramatically enhanced strength, speed, and toughness. Sometimes, though, when you train using certain methods, or ingest certain substances, or follow certain rituals every day for a period of time, it can manifest in special, unique ways. For my dad, his heavy history with mixed martial arts allowed him to develop a special power that he called 'Wind Field.' 

With Wind Field, the Cardinal was able to manipulate the very air around him. He could fly, jettison objects through the air, and towards the end of his career, at the height of his power, he even stopped a category five hurricane from destroying most of the Eastern Seaboard of Province Eight.

Of course, with power like that, comes responsibility. My dad, while a brave man, was irresponsible with his power. Stopping that hurricane threw his Ki out of whack, and his body began to rapidly decline in the aftermath. Within ten years, at age forty, he was barely a shell of his former self, at least physically. His muscle mass deteriorated into nothing, and he spiraled into a deep depression. He recovered, thankfully, and began working from the Night Corps headquarters.

My story starts in 140 P.A., about one week from now. I was born in 122 P.A., about two years after my dad's accident, and grew up in the era that followed him. I watched his fall, and then watched him rise again as a high ranking member of the Night Corps's intelligence division. He's trained hundreds of heroes... Including me, now that I've graduated high school. I'm entering the Night Corps academy in just eight days. I've studied and trained most of my life for this, from running track for four years to doing fifty push ups, sit ups, and squats, every night except for Saturdays since I was in the sixth grade- almost seven whole years now.

My counselor said it'd be smart to keep track of events in this journal, so that I don't forget my determination, and so that I can see how far I've come at the end of this. Well... I'm not going to shy away from that suggestion. This book will be proof...

I'm going to be the greatest Hero this world has ever known!

[[I felt like trying to write a Shonen Anime styled series. Let's see how it goes. #battlenobattle]]

The Waykeepers are as stitches, welding together the fabrics of nature and civilization. They patrol roads large and small, from the greatest highway to the smallest game trail; utilizing secret potions and powerful brews, they can convene with nature itself, often times utilizing their abilities to negotiate peace treaties with beasts, or to locate criminals hiding in the confines of the wild world. From crafting a home out of living wood, to befriending a creature as wild and mighty as a lion, the Waykeepers are, individually, forces to be reckoned with. If united, they could well rule the known worlds.

I took one long hit from the southpaw, and then passed it along to my left before dissolving into a mildly painful coughing fit, which caused me to laugh hysterically. The room was dark, save for the bright blue christmas lights lining the ceiling which, to everyone's awe, created a sort of supernatural, ethereal atmosphere. The speakers boomed, drowning us in the blasphemous rhymes and rhythms of artists ranging from future to frnkiero and the patience. 

"Is that a tattoo on your arm," I ask, knowing it is, in fact, a tattoo. I'd intended to ask what it said, but I was already forgetting both the words I spoke, and the words I'd planned to speak.

"What? Yeah. What?" Everyone laughs. No one knows why.

That was a regular occurrence in my life for many years. It began in my gap year, after high school. It followed me through my handful of semsters in College, where I studied animation, story design, acting, and a slew of other fine arts. It followed me through adulthood, when I couldn't find work and resigned myself to lingering at the bottom rungs of the Food and Bev business forever. It followed me right up until now.

My friend is dying. I glance at her tattoo again, chuckle a little. "Still there, eh? Guess it is a tattoo." A quip I've made for decades now.

"What? Yeah. What?" Not a quip. Her dementia is acting up again. She stares at me, her eyes void of recognition. Tears well up in my eyes, and some impossible pain grips my throat. We both laugh. Neither of us knows why.

[[Note: Reddit saw it first. All parts of 'Empire of Dirt' will be posted to Reddit/r/nosleep, prior to appearing on my Prose page.]]

I sat in a boat on the Ashley River, vape and tobacco smoke wafting around, mingling with the cool night air of Charleston. My hand was crap as crap could be; an ace and a two. I either had a whopping three, or a risky fourteen. I could hit, and potentially go too far. I could hold. I could double down. I could just… stand. I looked around the table, sizing up the other three players, until my eyes settled on the dealer. I leaned forward, picked up the joint we’d been covertly passing around the circle, and took a long hit before passing it to my left. I held the smoke in for a moment, my eyes still locked with the dealer’s… And then I breathed out, heavily. As the smoke passed by my face, I held up two fingers. “I’m good.”

With a total of fourteen, I won the round. No one, not even the dealer, had totaled higher than twelve; none of them had bothered to make any sort of strategic move. By standard rules, the dealer was supposed to take hits until he totaled seventeen… But he didn’t. It was a perfect storm of impossibilities, resulting in an equally impossible success on my part. Likewise, perfect storms are often the cause of some of the greatest travesties in this world. I spent the rest of the night high and a hundred dollars richer.

As I mentioned in the comments of my first post, I did take a trip out to Folly. I took a walk in the area that I assume Doctor Harlan spent his last Fourth of July on. And I found something… Interesting. More on that, and on Doctor Harlan, later. First, however, I dug up a bit of lore about a certain mutt.

The first sighting was, if you’re willing to go by folk tales and a few darker corners of the internet, sometime in the 1700s, not too far from Doctor Harlan’s former place of residence in Charleston, South Carolina. A tribe of natives supposedly passed this tale on to a friend, who passed it on to his friend. Like a game of telephone, the tale was spread and diluted, rehashed and recycled to form half-baked campfire stories with which to frighten boy scouts. Before I learned of Doctor Harlan and his fate, I might have ignored these events entirely. I might have let them slip through my ears and gone on about my day with a smile, none the wiser to the true nature of this thing we call life.

Unfortunately, once one starts down this path, it is all too easy to pass the point of no return. And so, without further ado, it is time again for my warning, reader. Stop reading. Exit out of this tab and find something less soul-sucking to feast your eyes on. Forget about Doctor Harlan, his children, and the curious nature of the Hound, known to us only as Muggsy. Put the mystery surrounding the murder-suicide that took place on September 21st, 2010, out of your head. There is only misery of a perpetual nature to be gleaned from it.

A colonist, an explorer, a native boy; our protagonist changes in each telling. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll simply call him Nathan. Nathan was wandering the wilds near Edisto Beach; maybe he was hunting for his tribe, maybe he was lost and searching for his family, or maybe he was looking for land to settle. Whatever his goals were, they became irrelevant as night fell. By then, only one task remained; survive, by any means necessary. Nathan managed to start a campfire on the beach, and fashioned a perimeter out of several sharpened sticks. He stuck close to the fire, fearful of what lay beyond its warm light.

It was, they say, midnight. The moon hung high in the sky, stars dotted the black void of space as far as the eye could see. Waves crashed down, and the wind roared through the trees. This was a time when nature was still dominant, and so one can only imagine the sorts of howls and screeches coming from the woods that night. One can only imagine the sort of sensory overload Nathan would have experienced, his heart already thumping violently from the terror of being lost.

And so, you wouldn’t blame him for missing the one noise that mattered.

They say it began as a sort of subtle moan, somewhere just beyond the crashing waves. They say that, as the tide rose, the moan grew louder, more consistent, more voracious. Soon it was joined by another moan, and several more. They began to encircle Nathan, and it wasn’t until one of them impaled itself on his perimeter of pikes that Nathan became aware of them. Blackish ooze pooled at his feet as the creature strained to get closer to him. Soon, it was flat on the sand, a pike driven clean through its upper abdomen. Its head was buried in the sand, but its neck twisted, crackling violently, until its eyes met with Nathan’s.

They say you could see maggots, crawling just under the film of its eyes. Its body writhed and twitched without moving, its bones stuck out in several places, and something… Something was trying desperately to get out. Nathan was filled with dread, his fight or flight kicked in, and he stabbed the creature clean through the eyes. Maggots spilled out, and suddenly Nathan’s vision began fading, his body tingling almost violently.

He was, the story goes, found with what would have colloquially been identified as a demon. Modern scientists would have likely labeled it as a water logged wolf or deformed dog. If you paid close attention to the beginning of James’s story, Reader, you can probably guess what position Nathan was found in. He was labeled a heathen, a blasphemer, a witch. You see, no matter how you spin it, Nathan was guilty of one of two acts. Beastiality, or consorting in the worst of ways with a Demon. And, in the 1700s, that wasn’t the sort of thing you simply went to prison for.

Some versions of the story say Nathan was hung. Others say he was burned alive. Others still… Well. Others say he was banished. In his exile, the legend goes that he slowly changed. At first, they say, he was simply losing his sanity. Who wouldn’t, in his situation? But before long, it was said that his skin became black as night. Maggots filled his eyes, he developed severe anorexia, and his hair grew patchy at best. That, of course, is merely a legend.

I promised to address both my trip to Folly and the next chapter in Doctor Harlan’s story, but I fear I may only have time to type out the former. I trust that you, Reader, will bare with me. I will explain the reason for my sudden urgency soon enough. That said…

I spent a few hours yesterday on Folly Beach, putting myself in the shoes of the Old Man and Doctor Harlan. I was able to locate more or less the exact spot Harlan spent that day at. If one were to drive to Folly Beach, they would find a handful of one way roads running parallel to the shoreline. If they took a left, and continued down one of those roads for a moderate span of time, they would eventually come to a dead end, with a handful of parking spaces nearby. Now, if one were patient enough to park their vehicle and hike down a road for a mile or so, they would come to a secluded segment of Folly Beach, complete with large rocks, a bit of wilderness and marshland, and a fine view of an old lighthouse.

I brought my camping chair, a small cooler, and my tablet out with me, and spent the day perusing various forums, exploring the strand of beach, and enjoying a cold beer with my lunch. The day in a poor man’s paradise helped to ease my mind, which was good, considering what happened next.

A small group of teens- a girl with blue hair, a boy with short black hair, and a boy in flannel and jeans with messy brown hair- bumped into me as I packed up my belongings. The girl, who I now know to be named Jay, apologized profusely. The boy with short black hair, Matt, helped me pick up my chair, which I had dropped on my foot. And, finally, the boy in flannel helped me to my feet, as I had fallen perfectly on my ass after yelping in pain, given the aforementioned chair landing on my aforementioned foot.

The teens offered to help me back to my car, which I declined at first. They insisted, however, and so I gave in. The boy in flannel carried my chair, while Jay and Matt continued apologizing to me. I eventually managed to halt the apologies by making small talk, which, damn my mortal brain, led to the topic.

“…Harlan, you might’ve guessed, was relatively shocked to realize his tablet had been on the cooler all d-“

“Wait, wait,” the boy in flannel said. He fished his phone from his pocket with his free hand, and shoved it into my face. “This is you?”

I stared at it blankly, until I recognized my own words. “Y-yes, actually. It is.”

“Right. Sure. That entire forum is for roleplaying. You just pretend shits real, like a-a-a VR game or whatever. How about you take your bullshit story, and shove it waaay up your ass, you fu-“

“Hey!” Jay shouted, shoving him. “Bullshit or not, it’s a cool story. We owe him for hurting his foot, anyway, so be nice, T-“

Matt interrupted. “Wait, what was that part about the old man, again?”

All three of us turned our attention to Matt. “Uh-uh-uh, right, um… He was an older gentleman, maybe mid 60s or 70s. His name was Carl Roiland, I believe.” The black haired boy scratched at his clean shaven chin, debating heavily.

“What’s the matter, kid?”

“I don’t really know if I should be telling some random ass thirty-something dude this, but I’m Matt Roiland. Carl Roiland is my grandpa. I remember him raising hell about some perve and his mutt out on Folly Beach back before he died…”

Needless to say, my heart started racing. A lot of the conversation is lost on me, partially because I wasn’t entirely sober, partially because I was trying to manipulate the conversation accordingly. In the end, I did it. I set up a meeting with Matthew Roiland’s grandmother, and a few other of his relatives. If this pans out as I hope it does…

Listen to me. Even as I curse this knowledge, I seek more of it. I seek resolutions, where I surely know there are none. You may have guessed by now, Reader, but my stake in the business surrounding Doctor Harlan and Muggsy is far greater than a mere delivery of information. I’m afraid my time is up for tonight, but I promise to return soon enough, Reader.

As I loaded up my car, the teens made their way back out to the beach. I fired her up, pulled out, and drove off, my windows rolled down so that the wind would cool me down and drown out the excited thumping of my heart. I could hear the waves crashing… And a faint moan, somewhere past the horizon.

Goodnight, Reader.

Goodnight.

I meant to post a short sci-fi story in the vein of a Rick and Morty episode the other day, but the drawback to my writing method is that I do it all in one sitting, usually in-browser. This means that I open up a challenge or whatever, and brainstorm ideas as I write. I improvise my stories without much forethought, and then adjust them as necessary. In other words, I'm very much a gardener, not an architect. 

This has resulted in some of my episodic stories to never continue- i.e; the zombie apocalypse stories. Unfortunately, a new drawback was revealed to me as I was writing my latest piece. I was literally three or four lines from being done, when Chrome ran out of memory and timed out. This resulted in all two thousand words of that story being deleted without a trace. I jotted down the important characters and plot points to try and rewrite it at later date.

With that said, I do plan to write more frequently from now on. I realize that my following is minimal, but I like to think there are people who will one day stumble on a short story or poem and be thoroughly transfixed by them. I like to believe that because it's fun to believe, not because I need to believe it. I write because it's more or less one of the only things I'm naturally talented at. Whether or not the contents of what I write can be considered decent, is another matter entirely.

I'll also be continuing some of the other short stories I've worked on in the past few months; the two I can guarantee a continuation of are 'accidents happen' and 'This Empire of Dirt.' accidents happen will be more of a shared universe between other stories, while Empire of Dirt will be a flat out horror story. I may continue Empire of Dirt on r/nosleep, as I feel it might be more well received there than here. If anyone wants to read it, I go by the same handle on Reddit (u/looselyended). I'll also post continuations here, for ease of access.

Thank you to whoever reads this for your time! I hope you continue to read my works. Even if you don't, I hope you continue to read something, because the passage of knowledge is perhaps the only form of immortality we as a species will ever know.

I opened the door tentatively, mainly because it was splintered to hell and looked as though it would fall off the hinges backwards and impale me if I opened it with the kind of gusto I opened most doors with. My sister, practically shaking with excitement beside me, tapped her feet on the ground, bouncing from heel to heel in an overly giddy manner. "Sunlight," she tittered, "warmth, flowers, yesyesyesyes-"

"Shut the fuck up," I grumbled. "Just because it's sunlight doesn't mean th-"

I jerked my arm which, as I predicted, caused the door to unhinge itself. It fell backwards, its splinters digging into my face, chest, stomach, and legs. My sister yipped and shouted, stomping over the door (and, consequentially, my body,) and out into nature. I groaned loudly, and carefully hefted the ancient wooden door off of my body. I meticulously picked some splinters from my good hand, then reached into my back pack to retrieve the Goop. I slathered it up my arms, made sure it covered every wound I'd just received, and let out a relaxed sigh as it expunged the splinters from my skin and patched the punctures they'd left.

Outside, Susanna was spinning in circles, her leather boots set against a boulder, her toes dug into some mushy dirt. I took in a deep breath, ran a hand through my graying hair. It'd been years since I'd been out here. "Alright, alright," I called. "Don't get too comfy, kiddo. We're not staying out long."

"Whyyy not!?" She groaned. She was 25, just half my age, but had never been on the Outside. Most of the City Folk hadn't been Outside either, save for myself and a few other scientists. We'd tried to discuss our findings with the government, but they weren't having it. We were free to come and go as we pleased... But normal citizens were left to believe the Outside was still recovering.

"It's for our own good," they'd said. "Earth has healed? Fantastic. Best to keep it that way."

I couldn't disagree with them. 

We kept walking for what seemed like days, but I knew to only be hours. We arrived by a lake, perfectly blue and brimming with life the likes of which had never been documented before. While humanity hid underground, the world had kept going, and going, with the aid of nuclear fallout and biological weaponry crafting it nto new and fantastical shapes. Susanna marveled as a serpentine bird drifted by, skimming the water with six talons and snatching up some oddly furry looking fish. 

"It's beautiful, Richie. I can't believe your stories were true...! I always thought you were just... Just telling bedtime stories- oh my god! Is that a Mammoth!?"

"Yeah," I said, my hands in my pockets. I pursed my lips, stared at my feet. The wind kicked up, rustling my hair. "They resurrected them at some point during the war, used them in place of drones for trade purposes after the Russians developed an electromagnetic field that disabled most technology. It worked out, for the first few years... 'Cept when the bombs dropped after the Aussies busted out some chemical weapons..." I kept talking, and failed to notice her picking something out of the water...

My eyes widened as I saw it. Metal shrapnel. "Ow- ow! Richie, look! Fuck... I cut mysel-sel-sel-sel-"

I bit the inside of my cheek, drew out a gun, and pointed it at her head. "R-r-r-ich-ch-ch-"Even as she struggled to speak, her body was starting to twitch and twist into something else. Her words turned into garbled screams. I shot.

"The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

-H.P. Lovecraft

What would you say if you woke up to an unfamiliar creature laying at the foot of your bed, its stomach pressed into your feet, its paws pressed into your legs, and its snout across your thighs? What would you do if it were as black as the night, and seemed to writhe and twist without moving, without breathing or blinking? If it wreaked of death and decay, if you could swear you saw maggots crawling just under the film of its eyeballs, if its bones showed in several places and something inside of it appeared to be fighting its way out? Would you name it? Pet it? Attempt to train it? If you are anything like me- if you are sane- you might leap up, pry open your door, and run to your car, refusing to return even after animal control arrives.

What if, however, that same creature was more than a mere amalgamation of terror and gore? What if it reached into your mind and placed pressure on a few specific areas, flooding your brain with chemicals that made you fall in love with it? Not merely the love a man bears his dog... But something far more horrifying and taboo? Would you succumb to madness in the wake of those feelings? 

Reader, I will leave you with this, before I disclose to you this tale. Our existence is meaningless. We are not destined for greatness, nor are we fated to scrape the bottom of the barrel of the length of our lives. This society, and all of its hazards and consequences, are merely projections that we created to feel some semblance of safety and purpose. But, in truth, we live in anarchy, and we die meaningless deaths. If you cannot accept your place in the Universe, then you, too, will fall victim to it.

James Franklin Harlan was a pediatrician first, a scientist second, and a father third. If he was not preaching to unhearing parents about the importance of vaccinations, and if he was not subjugating rats to various diseases and potential cures for said diseases, only then might he be found reading a brief story to his meek, albeit intelligent, children. If, on such a day, you were to listen in on Doctor Harlan's bedtime readings, you would also hear the love he bore for his triplets. You would hear this love in his carefully crafted, cartoonish voices. You would hear this love in his pauses to explain difficult words or morals. And, perhaps most blatantly, you would hear it in the closing of the stories, in which he meticulously pecked each child on the cheek and forehead before tucking them in. It is this love that troubles me so, my dear reader. It is this love which has rendered me sleepless on many a night.

Doctor Harlan returned home early in the morning on July 4th, 2010. His children were already asleep, and, to his tired eyes, all was right in the world. He greeted the Sitter, shook her hand, and gave her an extra twenty for the cleaning she'd done the weekend past. He locked up behind her, had a shot of whiskey, and climbed the stairs to the third story of his expensive downtown home, where his study was located. Harlan was not fond of working from home on holidays- especially at two A.M., when he planned to take his children to Folly Beach at noon in eight hours. But he'd been forced to stay behind at the Office an extra four hours, and so his research at the lab ran far later than he'd anticipated. Not wanting to stay the night over, he was left to write his papers here, where he could at least wear a bath robe instead of a lab coat.

For nearly five hours, James typed away, backspacing every now and then to adjust his spelling or reword a particularly difficult sentence. It wasn't until 6 AM that he first noticed the scratching coming from the hall, and it wasn't until 7 AM, with sunlight streaming through the windows, that the sounds truly registered in his mind. He stood up slowly, not wanting to startle whatever pest was mucking about out there, and retrieved his phone from the desk's drawer. Harlan crept out into the hallway, and clicked on his phone- only for it to buzz and ring loudly as it shut off. He cursed and jumped, dropping his phone and startling the creature away before he could see it. 

Heart racing, James bent down to retrieve his phone, still cursing. "Damn things, have enough charge to sound a fucking tornado siren but not enough to turn on a fucking flash light..."

"Daddy," one of his children called tentatively, "I think you scared Muggsy with all those bad words."

James glanced up, his cheeks red as he realized how much he'd been cursing... And then his eyebrows knitted, his forehead creased, and he started rubbing at the skin behind his ear- a nervous habit that he wasn't aware he possessed. "Muggsy? Is that one of your imaginary friends, baby?"

His child, Carla, giggled. "No, Daddy! That's our pet!"

"Pet? When did you get a pet?"

Carla clasped her hands and rubbed her toes on the carpet, looking down and around. "Well... Miss Louise and I found him outside a few days ago, and he looked all sad, so we let him stay inside for a little bit... He was sooo cute, Daddy, so we thought... Maybe..."

James sighed heavily, and massaged the bridge of his nose. Of course the damn baby sitter would bring a stray animal into the house without telling him. He suddenly regretted the twenty he'd tipped her, seeing as the random flecks of dirt he'd been seeing in the guest bathroom now had an obvious explanation. They must've been keeping this animal in there or something.

"Alright," James said. "Show me where Muggsy is, Carla. Please?"

After a few seconds of figuring out whether or not she was in trouble, Carla complied. When James laid eyes on the creature, he was filled with dread, disgust, and fear. The time was 7:30 AM. At 9:00 AM, James found himself loading up the car, his triplets taking up the passenger side seat and two of the back seats, and Muggsy taking up the third empty seat. He had a moment of dissociation, but it faded away as he laid eyes on Muggsy. He felt a sudden warmth wash over him as the thing started panting; a warmth he hadn't felt in nearly a decade. The world seemed... Right. 

The family spent their day on Folly Beach. Carla, Stephen, and Rose mucked about in the water, while James sat in a folding beach chair, one hand scrolling down a few medical articles on his tablet, the other lazily massaging behind Muggsy's ears. It was almost 4 PM before anyone showed up on their section of the beach; it almost seemed as if they were being avoided, until then. The two new comers were an elderly couple, saggier than a wet bag of sand, but smiling brighter than anyone James had seen before. As they drew closer, the woman's smile faded into a look of fear, while the man's faded into a look of disgust. James raised an eyebrow. He shot a glance out to his kids, who were building a sand castle beside some rocks, to make sure they were fine.

"Hey," James called out as the elderly man drew closer.

"Hey," the man replied. "What the hell do you think you're doing? This is public property, sicko."

James stared at the man for a moment, still lazily scrolling through his tablet. "What do you mean? Wait, are you talking about my pet? Muggsy's a rescue, damn it, it's not his fault th-"

James found himself ass-first in the sand, a line of blood trickling from his lip. "What the hell-" the old man kicked him square in the chest. Behind the assailant, Muggsy was standing up, its fur on end. 

"You sick little fuck... Take your-your-your whatever that is and go home, before I call the cops on yo-"

"Daddy!" came Carla's scream. The triplets were sprinting towards the scene.

"Oh, you've got kids here and you're doing that? Y'know what," the man growled. He looked around until he saw James's wallet, then grabbed it, snapping a picture of his I.D., of the dog, of James, and of the scene. "Your ass is grass, you god damned pervert." He tossed James's wallet to the sand, turned, and walked back towards his wife. "Let's find a more public place to set up," he grumbled.

Muggsy padded over to James, then sat by him. Without so much as a thought, James began petting Muggsy again. He started to scroll through his tablet

No. His heart skipped a beat. His tablet sat on top of the cooler, untouched by anyone or anything. 

"Whatchya reading, daddy," Carla asked. His hands were still moving. He began to shake.

"N-n-nothing, darling," he said, his voice hoarse and husky. With great effort, he rested control of his hands and got to his feet. He stared down at Muggsy, his brain working over time, searching for information that had gone missing somewhere along the way. The creature stared back at him, and he felt himself growing hot again. Time seemed to slow around him. He fought it, only to feel his daughter tugging at his hand.

"Play with Muggsy, daddy," she was saying.

James clenched his fist.

"We're going home. Now."

He shoved his tablet into his bag, folded the chair, and grabbed the cooler. Stephen and Rose trailed after him, but Carla called out to them. "You're forgetting Muggsy, daddy!"

He turned, his head spinning. It took every ounce of strength he had to focus. It's worse than a bad trip, he thought to himself. "No, Carla, I'm not forgetting Muggsy. Muggsy isn't coming home with us. Hurry along, now."

James turned again and started walking. Stephen and Rose kept close on his heels. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that, to his relief, Carla was starting to follow as well. Muggsy lingered, its head down and its tail between its legs.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story. I wish that it were, for what follows is more hellish than any fictitious work I have ever laid eyes upon. If there is a god, he must have been particularly callous when he heard Doctor Harlan's prayers, for there was no answer. This is your chance to back out, Reader. This tale will leave you more troubled than when you began, and with more questions than answers. If, however, you choose to continue down this road, and to join me in a cynical, hopeless existence, then you need only turn the page.