Warm.
Sticky.
Gross.
That was my first thought as I shifted and felt something wet squish under my hand.
Then came the smell.
Blood. Thick. Coppery. Way too close to my face.
I opened my eyes—
—and stared straight into a wall of black fur.
"EeEee—!"
It was high-pitched. It was embarrassing. It just... came out.
I rolled off the thing like I'd been electrocuted, landed hard on my back, and scrambled away like a crab on caffeine. My shoe slipped in something warm.
When I looked back?
Yup.
Gorilla.
Massive. Dead. Still ugly.
Same one that had crushed my shoulder and tried to chew my arm off like a snack bar.
I stared at it, panting, heart hammering against my ribs.
Then I looked down at myself.
Torn hoodie. Blood everywhere. One sleeve shredded. But my arm—
Fine.
I touched my shoulder. Rotated it. Flexed my fingers. Nothing.
No pain. No bruises. No blood gushing out.
"…Huh?"
That wasn't right.
I should be dead. At the very least, in three pieces and halfway to the ER.
Instead, I was sitting in a pool of blood, completely intact.
"Oh no," I whispered. "Is this a coma? Is this hell?"
I checked my pockets, my hoodie, everywhere. The green crystal? Gone.
No glow. No voice. Not even a receipt.
"Great. Love that. Mysterious crystal guy saves me, then disappears like a cheap mysterious character knock-off."
I leaned back on my elbows and stared at the sky.
No clouds moving. No sound. Just distant sirens and the kind of silence that made my skin itch.
I was alive.
I was fine.
And I was absolutely losing it.
I started to move again on my way to my house .
I wasn't sure what I am feeling at first. My legs just shaked. Out of the zoo, down the blood-streaked sidewalk, past two overturned trash bins and what I think used to be a food truck.
I should've gone straight home. That was the plan.
Get to my family. Make sure they're okay. Lock the doors. Maybe pass out for a year.
But the longer I walked, the more I felt it.
A pressure.
Faint at first, like my chest was buzzing from caffeine. But I hadn't had coffee. Or food. Or anything besides adrenaline and trauma stew.
It didn't hurt.
It just... tugged.
Every step I took, it pulled a little more. Not like something dragging me, but like a magnet inside my ribs, humming low and soft.
And then I saw the house.
It looked completely normal.
Single floor. White paint. Blue roof. Front yard half-dead like someone had forgotten to water it for a month. Curtains drawn. Mailbox crooked.
If you looked up "harmless suburban house" in a dictionary, this one would be yawning in the photo.
But my stomach dropped the second I stepped near it.
The air changed.
Heavy. Cold. Electric.
I stopped walking. Took a step back. Then forward again.
It was like standing in front of a subwoofer—low vibrations you didn't hear but felt in your bones.
"Okay," I muttered. "That's not ominous at all."
I turned my head to leave.
And that's when it pulled.
The sensation inside me—the crystal, the energy, whatever it was—it yanked. Not my body. My insides. Like my soul hiccupped toward the door.
I blinked, breathing fast.
"Nope. No. No thank you. I'm not going in creepy death-house number five today."
But the buzzing didn't stop.
It climbed into my throat. My fingertips. My jaw.
The window near the front porch flickered—just for a second.
A faint green shimmer pulsed behind the glass. Then it was gone.
I stood there, heart pounding, trying to decide between "investigate potential cosmic horror" and "run and pretend I saw nothing."
The door creaked open.
On its own.
Just a crack.
Just enough to whisper, Come in.
I swallowed.
Then I did the dumbest thing imaginable.
I stepped forward.
Apparently, I had a death wish now.
The air inside was worse. Thick and stale, like the house hadn't been opened in years. Every breath felt like it stuck to the back of my tongue.
I didn't call out.
Didn't want to.
The buzz in my chest had dulled, but it was still there. That crystal—whatever it did to me—was reacting to this place. I could feel it.
The house looked... untouched.
Coat rack by the door. Shoes neatly lined up. A family photo on the wall, everyone smiling like they weren't currently hosting a demon rave in the basement.
I crept past the living room, keeping my steps light.
Then I heard it.
Voices.
Low. Chanting.
Coming from beneath the floor.
I froze. My hand touched the edge of a shelf to steady myself, and the wood felt warm.
Not warm like sunlight.
Warm like a body.
I found the basement door by accident. Just around the corner near the kitchen—slightly open, shadows pooling like ink at the edges.
My gut screamed at me to leave.
But my legs had other plans.
I pulled the door open a little more, just enough to slip inside. Each step down the creaking stairs felt like I was walking into my own grave.
The chanting got louder.
I stopped halfway down and peeked through the railing.
There were seven of them.
All cloaked. Faces hidden. Standing in a loose circle around a symbol carved into the floor.
And in the center...
Blood.
So much blood.
It dripped from old bones, twisted candles, and something... else.
Two objects rested in the middle of the circle.
One looked like a severed arm, long, pale, and stretched out with fingers unnaturally still.
The other...
A wing.
White feathers stained in crimson, too perfect, too clean—and somehow wrong.
It wasn't human.
None of this was.
"Sh-"
I clapped a hand over my mouth before I made a sound. My legs shook.
What the hell is this?
A murder? A cult? A movie set?
No.
This was real. Too real.
I turned, slow, ready to sneak back up the stairs—
—and then everything stopped.
My head jerked sideways—hard. Not by force. Like something inside me snapped.
Suddenly I wasn't in the house anymore.
I was somewhere else.
Fire.
Everywhere.
The sky was bleeding red. The ground cracked beneath my feet, cities shattered across the horizon like broken toys.
I saw people running, screaming—my family.
My sister. My mother and father.
A child I didn't know, crying on the street.
Behind them, things moved. Monsters. Shapes too big, too wrong to understand. Wings made of shadow. Jaws that didn't stop.
A black sea of madness spilling from a single crack in the sky.
A portal.
I saw it.
And I saw ....myself?, older—stronger—but standing too late over the dead bodies of my family.
The world is in chaos.
Because of the portal?
Tears start falling from my face.
Then,all of a sudden,a loud but calm voice echoed through my head.
[{Close it or everyone dies}]
It echoed through my head so many times that I have to cover my ear out of desperate.And just like that—
—I was back.
Back in the basement.
Back on the stairs.
Breathing hard. Shaking. Sweat clinging to my skin like glue.
"What the hell?"
The cultists hadn't noticed me. Not yet.
I wanted to flee right away. But I couldn't anymore. Not after seeing after seeing these visions.
I am not sure if it is just my hallucinations or something.My breathing was loud. Too loud.
I backed up a step on the stairs, careful not to creak.
Phone. I needed to call someone. Cops. Anyone.
I slipped my hand into my hoodie pocket, pulling it out with trembling fingers.
Screen cracked. Battery red. Of course.
I tapped the power button and swiped up, eyes flicking back toward the basement.
The chanting hadn't stopped.
Steady. Low. Like a heartbeat.
I opened the dial screen.
9-1-1.
The moment I hit the call button, I remembered the sound settings. I fumbled to silence the phone, heart slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Too late.
Bee-deep.
The sound echoed in the stairwell like a scream.
I slapped my hand over the phone, praying no one heard it.
Please don't look up.
I crouched lower. Waited. Counted seconds.
One...
Two...
Three...
Still chanting.
No footsteps.
I let out the breath I was holding and checked the screen.
Calling...
The call didn't go through.
No signal.
"Seriously?" I whispered.
I tapped again. Nothing.
Just the spinning icon.
Like the universe itself was telling me: Nope, you're on your own.
I stared at the screen for another second. Then turned it off and slid it into my pocket, forcing my hand to stop shaking.
I could still leave. Still run. Pretend none of this happened.
Maybe I'd wake up in my bed and this would all be a sleep-deprived hallucination.
But the vision...
The fire. The sky. My family—
I gritted my teeth.
No. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but if that portal opened... if that was real...
I had to stop it.
Somehow.
The house felt like a trap. Silence except for those awful chants downstairs, low and heavy, like something was choking the air.
I needed a plan. Fast. Panic clawed at my throat. I roamed around the house looking for anything I can use.
I ripped open the kitchen cabinets, hands shaking. Bottles everywhere — rubbing alcohol, cooking oil, cleaning spray. None would work alone.
Then.. right under the sink, a small propane canister. My heart slammed. Portable, pressurized, deadly.
I grabbed it like it might explode in my hands.
A lighter. Some rubbing alcohol. My hands were slick with sweat, trembling so bad I almost dropped everything.
My fingers shook as I stared at the propane canister.
I'm not a killer.
Not like this.
Not like them, but still—
Was I going to be one if I did this?
I backed away, heart pounding so loud I could barely think.
What if I'm wrong? What if this only makes things worse?
But the chanting… the way the air felt heavy, like the world was about to snap.
The visions hit again—fires swallowing cities, screams I couldn't stop, faces I loved turned to ash.
If I don't act… if I don't do this horrible thing…
My throat burned, tears stinging my eyes.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, trying to steady myself.
But the gas valve called to me, a silent hiss waiting to be unleashed.
Every instinct screamed no—but fear drowned them out.
I twisted the valve, slow, terrified.
The hiss grew louder, the room filled with poison.
I lit the lighter, the tiny flame trembling in my hand.
I threw the canister down the stairs.
Slamming the door shut felt like slamming shut a piece of my soul.
I ran, breath ragged, shaking.
What had I just done?