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WesternPaladin

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He waited for a moment while the front page of Prose refreshed. There was a now-familiar red dot on the “Activity” icon in the top right of the screen. Without waiting for the page to load fully, he clicked on it.

OnyxCity started following you.

2 hours ago

He blinked several times, releasing his grip on the mouse. The last time he’d seen those two words used so close together was almost a year ago, continents away. They reminded him of the smell of those old books bound in some type of leather no-one had ever seen; of the ship they’d found drifting with no sign of the crew on board, and of dark mountains shivering under strange stars.

He pushed it from his mind. It had to be a coincidence. Nobody could possibly have known about that expedition to the Antarctic - they’d managed to keep it out of the press, though it had cost them a fortune. And that was without counting the promises made and favors owed to every government with an interest in the frozen continent. Certainly there was nothing amiss with this person’s profile: a close-up photo of an ordinary-looking person, presumably OnyxCity herself. An address for her personal website.

And here was some blank verse, posted just a day ago. It was a somber, reflective piece about the protagonist’s emotional state. Little, it seemed, to distinguish it from the other poems that went up on Prose every day. He raised an eyebrow when he reached the closing stanza, which had an odd rhythm unlike the rest of the poem. Even though the poem was mostly made up of short, everyday words, it ended with the word “firmament”.

He closed the poem and navigated to another of her posts. This one was about summer, and its imagery was suitably light and breezy. It was only four verses long, and the fourth verse’s cadence again shifted dramatically compared to the other three. Its rhythm was jarring, even as it spoke of an eternal green meadow, and a chill crept up his spine.

He stared at the screen for a minute, and another, not blinking, until it felt like his eyes were on fire. Then he leapt to his feet. It took only a second to reach the trunk he’d brought on the Antarctic expedition. He hurled the papers on top of it to the floor, threw it open, and started rummaging through its contents. He’d used the ciphers a thousand times, and he more or less knew them by heart, but in a situation like this, he had to be absolutely certain.

It took him hours to copy every one of OnyxCity’s poems onto paper. It took him more to make the calculations and transpositions for each one in turn, starting with the oldest and going all the way to the most recent. Evening slipped away to night, and the sun rose again outside, but he didn’t notice as pages torn from his pad piled up around him. Even as he found a description that matched no planet in the solar system, he tried to imagine it might still be a coincidence. Even as a collection of haiku became an incantation to the King in Yellow, he still prayed he had made a mistake in his calculations. Even as her most popular short story concealed a quotation that exactly matched a passage from the Mad Arab’s writings, he still half expected to wake up at any moment.

He pushed the pages to the floor, his hand shaking. On his monitor, the browser window was still open to Prose. By reflex, he pressed the refresh button again. There was a new post on OnyxCity’s profile, a mere ten lines worth of rhyming couplets. His head swam as he performed the calculations one final time. The pencil fell from his nerveless fingers.

For the one who has read and understood. He awaits you in Stethelos.

Winter was setting in early.

At least, that's what I told myself to excuse why it was so cold.

I retreated further into my sweater, relishing the warmth in my torso and wishing I had worn more clothing. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I stared at the ground in front of me and focused on not tripping over anything in the field. The dry grass crunched under the sound of our footfalls.

@Miggie walked beside me, better prepared for this sudden cold than I was. She had a scarf around her neck and black fingerless gloves on her hands. Her lipstick was the same shade of burgundy as her jeans and, as always, her face was on point. From the first day I saw her, she only seemed to have gotten prettier. I made a mental note to ask her, once we got back to the hotel, if she could teach me how to makeup. In this instance, Miggie was the mom I never had.

Just the thought made me feel extremely guilty.

If Miggie was my mom, then @Lsu11, or Lisa, was definitely my godmother. She was always looking out for me from above and making sure things worked out. She was the clear, cloudless sky in my life that I could always depend on to warm me. Lisa trudged on ahead with a smile on her face like always, @paintingskies at her side.

If there was a single one of us that I had to look up to, it would be Sam. She was the palm tree in the hurricane that always made it out still in tact. Sometimes her trunk would bend and her leaves would get frazzled, but you could always depend on her to come out stronger. You could see the thunderstorms in her eyes, but you knew that she had sunshine somewhere in her, even if she didn't feel it and told you it wasn't there.

Last, but not least, was @Lynn in her yellow skinny jeans that did so well portraying her personality. She herself was quiet, maybe even shy, but I knew inside her was a person with fire in their eyes and flowers growing in their chest. I didn't have to look behind me to know she was the only one of us looking up at the sky, probably dreaming about plays she could write or reciting the lyrics to her favorite song.

"Am I supposed to be seeing my breath? I couldn't three minutes ago." Lynn's voice.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "Maybe it's the water." At the other end of the field was a small bridge leading across a trickling stream. It lead off into the forest that surrounded the field at every point. Autumn leaves drifted from their places in the branches and skidded across the wooden slats of the bridge before falling into the stream and drifting away. Those that didn't land in the water were piling up on the ground and against the trunks of the trees.

"Maybe," Lynn responded doubtfully- we both knew it wasn't the water. In truth, all of us knew it was the forest itself that was making the air chillier and radiating the unsettling atmosphere, but none of us would've said it. Honestly, what was there to say? That the trees were 'scary' and that the forest was 'spooky?' No, none of us wanted to seem dumb in front of our newly met friends.

We had all accepted the invitations from the Prose. headquarters inviting us to their gathering of sorts at one of the hotels in the city. The five of us had decided to take a stroll on one of the paths in the nearby woods for some alone time. It was a once in a lifetime chance, being together, and if just for a moment it would have been nice to say in person what we'd been saying to each other over the internet for so many years. But we'd gotten lost when I, with my marvelous ideas, decided I wanted us to go exploring. Now here we were, who knows how many miles away from the highway we'd stopped on the side of. I guess the mighty @Prose profile was mad at us for branching off from the rest.

We paused on the bridge, balancing on the edge of two worlds. The field behind us with its hard, stout grass and the forest ahead with its slender trees.

Sam shrugged her shoulders. "We could go back."

"Or we could keep going," Miggie said. "Not like we know where we are anyway."

I looked around at the others, shrugging my shoulders. "She's kinda got a point."

"Most the time she does." Lynn pointed out. The rest of us agreed silently before walking the rest of the way across the bridge. If I thought it was cold before, this side of the stream was definitely colder. I huddled slightly closer to Miggie, seeking her body heat. The forest floor was made spongy by the fallen leaves.

I gazed up at the tree branches sprawling out above us- at the leaves and how the branches intertwined. A couple crows were seated there, eying us up and down. "Fall is always my favorite season," I said to no one in particular.

Lynn stepped up beside me. "Mine, too. I always love how you can wear shorts and skirts or pants and still be comfy no matter what. Plus, there's Halloween and jackets. I love jackets."

I was about to respond when Lisa called out to us. "I think there's a path over here!"

We all clumped together around the spot. Indeed, it did look like a path. There was a clear absence of undergrowth leading deeper into the trees, even if the path itself was blanketed in fallen leaves. "Do we want to take it?" Lisa asked after a couple moments.

"Might as well." Miggie stepped past us and started down it.

I turned to Lynn, smirking. "Well there you go, I guess."

Inside the woods it was dead still, although the branches in the upper parts of the trees were rustling against each other. The sky was mostly covered, but in a few places where more leaves than average had fallen, it peeked through. I could tell by the color that it was nearing sunset.

The whole scene was veritably aesthetic. What with the colored leaves and the little path and the sky, it seemed straight out of a Tumblr mood board. I was glad I had friends here to share it with me, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was... off.

Sam's voice was swallowed by the trees. "It's cold."

"It's almost too cold," Lynn said, wrapping her arms around herself. Her voice, too, was quieted by the woods. "I don't like the feeling of this." She had just voiced what all of us were thinking.

In truth, it seemed colder than when we were out in the field and the temperature had dropped. And tied together with the overall aura of the forest, it radiated a very ominous demeanor.

I glanced around warily at the shadowed undergrowth, suddenly uneasy. As I watched, it seemed to close in, threatening to swallow us and the entire forest whole. The cawing of the crows reached a crescendo and the tops of the trees shook violently.

I crashed into the back of Miggie and the images melted away. I peeked over her shoulder to see why she had stopped and through the trees I saw a house about a hundred yards away.

"Sorry. Why is there a house out here?" I asked, then squeezed my eyes shut. I had a tendency to blurt out my questions before I thought about the answer.

"I guess we're closer to the road than we thought." Miggie muttered.

As we neared the house, I realized that it was most definitely abandoned. The windows and doors were boarded up, even though some had been smashed through again, and the roof was sunken in in some places. The tree branches completely blotted out the sky here, leaving the area in shadows and the ground without foliage. Spiderwebs sprawled out in the corners of the dilapidated porch.

Lisa cleared her throat. "I don't mean to be a Debbie downer, but it's about night and I'm not sure if we should walk through the forest at night."

We all stared at each other in palpable silence. "Do any of you have reception yet?" It was Lynn.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, tried a call, and sighed as it didn't go through. "Nope." The other's phones didn't work either. "I kind of agree with Lisa, guys." I said, biting my lip. "I don't really want to walk through this forest at night either. Maybe… we could stay on the porch? I don't know. I just don't want to go inside."

"It probably wouldn't be safe anyway," Lisa pointed out. "I agree and say that we stay on the porch." Lynn, Sam, and Miggie nodded their heads in solemn agreement.

I picked a dead branch off the dirt ground. The others looked at me with a face that said, "What is that for?" I shrugged, and said, "I do not deal with spiders."

The three little steps of the front porch creaked as we walked up them. I took my branch and waved it around in front of me, taking down webs and hopefully scaring away the spiders in the process. I wasn't aiming to kill them, considering I was the one that had come into their home and chased them out of it. I just couldn't deal with them being near me. Once I was satisfied, we sat down across from each other- some with their backs on the railing and some on the house.

We sat in silence for awhile, in which I spent picking at my fingernails. It was a bad habit of mine. "Sorry I got you all lost," I mumbled.

Lynn shook her head, placing a hand on my shoulder. "We all agreed to go with you, so it's on all of us."

Sam sat forward. "Yeah, and besides. This'll do for some good inspiration."

I smiled even though on the inside I was squealing from their kindness. "Thanks guys."

Soon, the sounds of insects died out and were replaced by the silent nightlife. An owl hooted in the distance.

Miggie's stomach rumbled and she placed her hands on her stomach. "I'm starving."

"Me too." I agreed, giggling with her. "Also, thirsty."

"Wait. Did you see that?" Lisa blurted.

"See what?" Miggie asked.

"I saw it," Sam said, her eyes wide. I could barely see her in the darkness.

I looked over my shoulder at the tree line, shivers wracking my body. "Uh… no. But that's honestly terrifying that you saw something."

Lynn scooted closer to me. "What was it?" We stared at Sam and Lisa.

"I don't know. It was white, I think," Sam said, her eyes darting back and forth. "It moved too quick to get a good look at it, but it looked like…" she trailed off.

"A person." Lisa finished.

I decided it was a good time to make a joke. It was how I handled stress. "Oh my god, it was the demogorgon from Stranger Things."

"The what?" They said in unison.

I gaped. "You haven't seen Stranger Things?!"

"I have." I jumped as a voice came from behind me. Lynn screamed. I whipped around to see a- a purple ghost? I squinted my eyes in confusion. The ghost was definitely a lady and she was holding a chicken in one arm and a martini in the other.

"Why are you purple?" Sam asked her.

The purple ghost took a sip from her martini, then set it down on the porch rail before stroking her chicken. "White was already taken."

"Fair enough," Miggie said, her stomach rumbling again.

The purple ghost turned to look at her. "I would offer you some food, but I'm afraid humans can't eat the tasty morsels we ghosts can."

Lynn piped up. "What's your name?"

Purple Ghost Lady turned to look at Lynn and me, but her chicken continued to stare at Miggie. "It's @AnitaRosner, but you can just call me Anita. This here," she gestured around at the trees. "is my forest. I see you've already been acquainted."

"It's very pretty," I said. "But we've kinda gotten lost in them. Are you able to show us a way out?"

Anita stroked her chicken, deep in thought. "I suppose I could. But since you've trespassed in my woods, I'm afraid I'm going to need to ask you all for a favor. It's written in the Ghost handbook that I must.

"Oh, no. Not like a sacrifice or some impossible task." Purple Ghost added when she saw Lisa's worried face. "The media always shows my kind off as selfish and sadistic. But really, I just want you to find my cow."

"Your cow?" We all blurted in unison.

"Yes, my cow!" Anita stomped her foot in frustration. "Oh, sorry. I'm not frustrated with you guys. It's just that my lawn ornament cow, Buttercup, ran away from me long ago and I haven't been able to find her! I miss her terribly so. She was my chickens best friend!" Her chicken clucked as if in agreement.

"That's so sad!" Lynn tried to place a reassuring hand on Anita's shoulder, but she slipped right through. She hesitated before continuing. "I'm sure we can help you find your cow."

Anita plucked and ate the olive from her martini in celebration. "Thank you! Now, Buttercup's favorite snack was Snowdrops. If you'll follow me…"

The five of us followed Anita Rosner around to the back of the run-down house. In a little square garden bed, a clump of snowdrops were growing.

"If you take these and go looking for her, you'll be bound to find her. I would have done so already, but I can't pull them out of the ground, since I'm a ghost and all." She shrugged. "I'm so glad you all are willing to help! It's so tedious filing a report to the ghost council about unwilling human trespassers."

5 am. Call placed to the police. Report of intruder in room. Intruder apparently forced entry through the third story window. Guest moved from room so the lock could be replaced. Due to lack of availability, this results in guests designated Hermit Thrush and Onyx City sharing a room.

12 pm. Phone call of unknown origin placed to room [REDACTED]. Transcript unavailable.

1 pm. Hermit Thrush signs in for a volunteer shift at the first annual Prose convention. 

1:30 pm. Onyx City enters the convention as a guest.

3 pm. Guests near the horror booth report flickering lights, cell signal loss, and lowered temperatures. Maintenance is dispatched to the area, but find no problem with the lights or thermostat. Surveillance footage confirms that Hermit Thrush and [REDACTED] were both in the area.

3:05 pm to 3:08 pm. Onyx City receives a series of texts from an unknown origin. Transcript as follows.

Unknown Sender: Can we meet today?

Onyx City: Who is this?

Unknown Sender: We've already met. This morning.

Unknown Sender: I'm with your friend now.

Unknown Sender: All right then, I'll find you myself.

3:30 pm. Fire alarm triggered in the convention center. Evacuation of all guests takes place. The alarm was triggered manually. Surveillance footage unavailable for room where the alarm was triggered.

4 pm. Hermit Thrush and Onyx City arrive at the police station together. They report being stalked. Excerpt from interview transcript as follows.

Officer: Can you describe the person following you?

Onyx City: I haven't seen him, but I know he's following me. My room got broken into this morning, and then I got these texts.

Hermit Thrush: I did see him though. He was hanging around the volunteer table, and he only left after I got off my shift. We only lost him after I... after the fire alarm went off.

Officer: Can you describe him?

Hermit Thrush: Oh. Right. He's tall, white, and has blond hair. Kind of pale, actually. He was wearing jeans and a red shirt.

Officer: Did you notice anything else about him?

Hermit Thrush: Well, he was wearing gloves which was kind of weird. Um... I can't really remember anything else about him. I'd recognize him if I saw him though.

6 pm. Hermit Thrush and Onyx City leave the police station, accompanied by a non-uniformed officer. Surveillance footage does not reveal anyone matching the description given by Hermit Thrush in the area.

7 pm. Hermit Thrush, Onyx City, and the officer all receive the same text from an unknown number.

Unknown Sender: I AM COMING

7:15 pm. Hermit Thrush and Onyx City check into a hostel without returning to or checking out of the hotel. Records show [REDACTED] was staying in the room next door.

8:04 pm. The officer accompanying Hermit Thrush and Onyx City reports being ordered to assist with a nearby emergency by radio and leaves the hostel.

8:06 pm. Emergency call to 911 placed by Hermit Thrush. Except below.

Operator: 911, please state your emergency.

Hermit Thrush: I'm at the [REDACTED] Hostel, room [REDACTED], and someone is trying to break in. Right now my roommate is holding the door shut but *indistinguishable*

Operator: Are you in immediate danger?

Hermit Thrush: YES!

Operator: We are dispatching help right now. Are you able to escape or hide?

Hermit Thrush: *Splintering Noise* Hold that thought.

Call disconnected

8:10 pm. The officer who had accompanied Hermit Thrush and Onyx City discovers there was no nearby emergency.

8:12 pm. Several officers arrive on the scene. Room [REDACTED] had its door smashed down, and there are blood spatters on the floor. The window is open to the fire escape. No one is in the room.

8:13 pm. A surveillance camera identifies Hermit Thrush and Onyx City in a parking garage near the hostel. Hermit Thrush is carrying a knife. They enter a car, but it does not start immediately. A blond man, limping and clutching his arm, comes into view. As he approaches the car, the security feed shorts out.

8:14 pm. Onyx City runs over the blond man. The feed shorts out again.

8:15 pm. The car is gone, but the blond man stands up. [REDACTED] is now on the scene. [REDACTED] throws the man into the back of a van and the feed goes down for the rest of the night.

9 pm. The body of the blond man is found in a dumpster. Cause of death appeared to be a gunshot to the head.

10 pm. The body of the blond man is missing.

Both Hermit Thrush and Onyx City have been put into protective custody. It is unclear whether [REDACTED] was in league with their stalker. Neither [REDACTED] nor the stalker has been found, and the stalker has yet to be identified.

“Hello?” Onyx City answered the ringing phone reluctantly. She had been playing her violin and laid the instrument down carefully on the seat of a chair.

“Onyx City?”

“Ye-es. Who is this?

“It’s B. Meigest, of course. Are you busy?”

“Well, actually . . .Wait a minute! How did you get my number?”

“You’re in the phonebook.”

“Oh, right.” Onyx City made a mental note to get her phone number removed from the phonebook as soon as possible. “What can I do for you, B.?”

“I didn’t know who else to call. The Devil is following me around.”

“I am sure the Devil is not following you around. The Devil doesn’t do things like that!”

“He is. First, he came to my office. I ran into him in the hallway. I was thinking about all the things I could do if I didn’t have to work, and suddenly he was there. He said he wanted to talk to me about a grade.”

“Are you saying the Devil is a student in your class?” That doesn’t sound right.”

“Of course I’m not. I mean he was disguised as someone who might be a student.”

“So, how did you know it was the Devil?

“I saw it in his eyes, and he was wearing a T-shirt with the Ace of Spades on it.”

“OK. What happened?”

“He said he wanted to talk to me in my office about his grade, but I said I had to get to a meeting and he would have to come back some other time.”

“Then what?”

“He walked past me, and when I looked back, he was gone. He disappeared! And I thought I smelled something burning.”

“Fire and brimstone?”

“Maybe. Then I saw him again!”

“Did he come to class?

“Of course not. He came to my house. This time he was handing out flyers for a dance school.”

“A dance school? That seems unusual. How did you know it was Devil? Was it the same man?”

“No, this time it was a girl. She had the same eyes though and the strange thing was, she wanted to talk to me about a barn dance they were having for Halloween! And you know, no one ever has barn dances anymore.”

"What did you do?"

"I slammed the door of course!"

Onyx City considered this for a moment. She looked longingly at the violin waiting patiently for her to pick it back up and continue playing. She couldn’t believe she had listened to all this and tried to calculate how minutes the conversation had taken.

“Are you still there?” B. Meigest demanded.

“Uh-huh. I was thinking about all this. You know, this does sound kind of serious.”

“I told you it was!”

“Look, why don’t you invite me over and we can agree about what to do.”

“You want to come over here?” B. Meigest asked confused.

“Yes, I think that would be best. You invite me over and we’ll make a plan we agree on.”

“Why can’t you tell me what to do on the phone? You don’t even know where I live.”

“It’s probably going to be complicated. Just invite me over, and I’m sure we can reach an agreement.”

“You know what, never mind!” B. Meigest hung up the phone a little too abruptly.

Onyx City smiled to herself. She bent down to rummage through the pile of sheet music at her feet. Finding Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata, one of her favorite pieces, she picked up her violin and began to play.