\It was early morning in the Kowloon City Cortex, and a piercing whistle blew, stirring the inhabitants of the stomach out of their restless slumbers. Nguyen Duc crawled out of a puckered orifice onto the metal gangway hastily bolted to the stomach wall, standing with slimy hair and bloody fluids dripping from his malnourished figure. Three children to the left of him crawled out of their holes as well, disheveled, dirty, and starved, wearing rags that used to be clothes.
Giang, Duc's only friend, slept in the hole immediately to the left of Duc, and pried himself out of the tight orifice, his back crackling painfully as he stood up. Duc smiled faintly to reassure him, Giang meeting the smile with a hopeless gaze. Near the far-off esophagus, low-lying smog filled the air with greasy rainbows as light from bio-luminescent slime filtered through the clouds. A second whistle blew in the distance, and Duc could taste bile on his tongue. It was collection day.
Duc led his companions to join the small line of similarly shabby children from gangways above and below him walking towards the pit. Their shoeless feet met with moist, spongy ground as the metal gangways converged to a path carved into the stomach lining of the Kowloon Kaiju, irritated blood red as the trodding of dozens of feet wore the flesh raw.
"This could be a very profitable venture, for both you and your family," The man with the prim suit told Nguyen Bian. "Your skill as a pearl diver would be unmatched within our company. You'll be set to make a pretty penny, and could be set for life."
They trudged through viscera and fleshy giblets to the pier jutting over the stomach-lake, the acid steaming and bubbling, Giang getting seared by a rogue droplet splashing on his arm. Giang tried to stifle his squeal, coming out as a high-pitched whine. Duc leaned back and patted his arm, the only consolation he could afford to give.
The pier had multiple pulley systems line on the edge, rusted and aged. The pier was only six months old, and yet it looked a hundred times older, as acid flung from below eroded the sturdy steel struts supporting the structure. Duc guessed that this pier will only last a few more weeks, at best.
Three managers manned the pier, wearing an assortment of relatively new protective gear, the company logos barely visible from the corrosion sustained from work in the stomach. Each manager held a dozen suits, more resembling chain mail than scuba gear, and a bucket of tools. They walked up and down the rows, distributing the equipment.
The sharp edges of the suits reopened angry scabs and irritated open sores as the children donned their gear, gasping in pain as they did so. The managers slapped children who weren't fast enough, threatening them with an unprotected dive into the lake if they hesitated. Duc kept his eyes down, shoulders hunched, hurriedly putting on his suit. No need to get involved.
They were in a boat, speeding towards a small island, the wind forcing the clean, salty air into Duc's lungs. As they arrived to the island, their guide escorted them to a metal door, sunken into rock, and opened it. A blast of foul air smelling of waste and decay made Duc dry heave. The guide led them down a corridor, whose wall's gradually changed from smooth stone into that of pulsating flesh and muscle, the steps hewn from bone and cartilage. Duc wanted to run back, back to the fresh free air, but his father had a tight grip on his shoulder, looking grimly ahead. The tunnel opened up, allowing the three to see where they would live the rest of their lives: Kowloon Walled Cortex, the burgeoning city built into the brain of a sea monster.
The managers escorted the children in the first row to the pulleys, clipping them onto the thin wire. The children fell into the acid below, not even the sound of a splash making it to the pier. In unison, all the children on the pier unconsciously held their breath, each hoping that the divers would survive, as to not incur the managers' wrath.
They waited, and waited.
After a seeming eternity, small LEDs on the pulleys blinked from red to green, activated by the divers below, and the managers engaged the pulleys again. The divers each carrying objects, whether hurriedly stuffed in a bag or grappled onto using hooks. Large chunks of precious metal and pulsating organics were retrieved from the pit, never human in origin, but valuable nonetheless
Still steaming with acid, the retrieved objects were first appraised, still held by a child dangling over the stomach, then brought up to the pier for cleaning, the diver forced to scramble onto the pier on their own. If the item was worthless, the child would be sent back into the pit for another round. One diver, a 12 year-old, was sent back into the pit three times in a row. He didn't come back a fourth time, only a disintegrated empty suit, dripping with melted viscera and acid.
"You will be working in the stomach, of course given all the amenities you could ever want." Said the man, a smile too wide to be comfortable plastered on his face. "Your first day is tommorow, but the men upstairs told me to pay you upfront."
The man escorted Duc and his father to a small house perched on the edge of the stomach, hastily built and ramshackle. As the glowing slime faded and created a simulacra of night, Bian stayed awake, stroking the check that contained more zeroes than he had ever seen in his lifetime.
Soon, after hours of waiting, it was Duc's turn. Giang was right next to him, suited up in comically overlarge gear. As they stepped over the edge in sync, they held their breath for the dive, facemask automatically whirring into place before the plunge.
Falling, falling, then entering into the froth. The liquid cloudy, eating away at the mask. Duc frantically groping for anything to bring back. He dove farther swimming
Duc's friend gets a tear in his suit, and dissolves into the acid in front of him.
he comes up, is inconsolable.
the managers try to hit him to make him go back to work.
he tackles one as he thinks of his father, who died similarly. the man plummets off the edge and melts into the acid.
Picture, if you will, a super-powered pigeon being smashed into a flattish pancake by a free-falling plane hijacker. Now erase that picture from your mind, because that is a spoiler for this story.
Completely unrelated to the first two sentences of this tale, Billy-Bob Johnson was born in the town of Atlanta, Georgia, and was a fun-loving boy. His hometown was the location of the world's busiest airport, and clogged the sky with smog and noise. His father worked as an airtraffic controller, a long and stressful job, that never left time for poor little Billy-Bob Johnson. They were a poor family scraping to make ends meet, but his mother worked at the airport gift shop, and was able to smuggle items and food to her family. Soon, mugs, t-shirts, hats, and underwear, all plastered with plane and plane-adjacent iconography, lined the shelves and stuffed the drawers of the household, making it appear as if a topologist moonlighting as a hoarder lived there.
This life, meagre as it was, was not to last. Billy-Bob Johnson's father, Robert-Bob Johnson, was killed in a freak accident involving two cups of coffee, a model plane, and a potted petunia plant. Soon afterwards, Billy-Bob Johnson's mother, Mary-Bridgette Johnson-Mayer, was also killed in a freak accident, this one involving a model airplane, a stack of t-shirts emblazoned with the logo "Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Customer for Life," and a pebble. These horrible accidents left Billy-Bob Johnson alone, afraid, and lit a spark of something inside of him that he didn't understand until much later.
At the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Orphanage for Wayward Youths, he finally came to terms with his situation. Billy-Bob Johnson stared up at the bright sky, lined with white skid-marks created by planes travelling to parts unknown, and thought, "wow, these planes are the root cause for the tumultuous plane-crash that is my life. I am going to steal a plane and teach it who it's messing with." Spawning from his hatred of planes that only the Unabomber and the inventor of the zeppelin could hope to match, came a nefarious plan. From that moment forward, whenever someone would ask Billy-Bob Johnson what he wanted to be when he grew up, he always said, with a big smile on his face, "a plane hijacker." The person who asked the question would always return the smile, always politely made their leave, and always hurriedly whisper to their spouse to never let their child play with that strange little boy.
Eventually, Billy-Bob Johnson stopped talking about planes to his peers, and gradually his strangeness was forgotten. He developed friends, met a girl, and was regarded as almost normal by everyone. Billy-Bob Johnson graduated at the top of his class, and became a respectable member of society.
Now, the art of plane hijacking, while now complicated by 9/11 and the subsequent tantrum the civilized world underwent for the next twenty years, is still an art-form to this day. It requires a deft touch, a memorable name, and a tasteful selection of weaponry. Now, while Billy-Bob Johnson had two of the three requirements down from the get-go, he always struggled with the second. He would secretly spend hours in his room, and reams of paper, jotting down every combination of given names and surnames that he could think of, finding nothing that satisfied him.
In the Pacific Northwest, there lived, briefly, a time-travelling pigeon. This pigeon, let's call him Steven, had obtained this power after being struck by lightning created during the Mount Saint Helen's eruption. Steven's jaunt as a super-powered being, however, was short lived, as immediately after being struck by lightning, it was impacted by one falling D. B. Cooper, who had just jumped out of a plane nine years earlier. The velocity of D. B. Cooper caused Steven to implode, but not before Steven created a triple-backed Mobius hyperbole wormhole, depositing his corpse and D. B. Cooper directly into a cell within Paramax, a top-secret, inescapable prison adrift among the eddies of nothingness surrounding our universe like a comfortable, being-annihilating onesie.
D. B. Cooper tried telling the Paramax guards that he was wrongfully imprisoned, and that he needed to be released in order for him to complete his daring heist. The guards, however, ignored him, because while they didn't quite remember putting Mr. D. B. Cooper in the cell, they just assumed he was antimemetic or something, and left him be, giving him the occasional meal or two and kindly taxidermized Steven, as the guards rightfully assumed a stuffed pigeon made better company that the rotting corpse of one.
I was head of a prosperous household, once.
The men, strong and pigheaded, the women, fair and kind, living alone, with naught but ourselves to rely on.
I would play with the children, in all my forms. They recognized me for who I am, and respected me, but I was not one to shy away from fun for long.
We would go on adventures on bright sunny days, investigating frogs in creeks and birds in trees, always returning home when Mother called, letting us eat a banquet of botvinya and pelmeni. Any trespassers were dealt with, I made sure of that. My family never knew, and were blissful in their life.
But, the winds of change forever blow, and it was not to be forever.
The men, drafted into wars far beyond our home, with dull grey faces, dressed in dull grey clothing, with dull grey spirit to fight for a country that didn't care for them. The women cried and begged, but the men, their faces gaunt and determined, so different from their childish faces of joy and happiness not that so long ago, remained steadfast, and left.
The house felt empty for many years, the children more somber, the food less plentiful. Mother looking out the window, for children she thought would never come home.
But yet they did. In pieces, both in mind and body. Broken for a country that didn't care for them, fodder for a machine of blood and tears. Children kept up and night because of the screaming, hushed by Mother, her hair mussed and her spirit broken.
Food rarely came, now. The children became thin and tired, never wanting to explore or dream. The men not able to work. Hard winters made it worse. They buried the first child, with me looking on.
The men in black came, taking my family one by one, accused of crimes they didn't commit, me helpless to stop them, as my spirit had drained away many years prior. Dragged away, to fates unknown and better left unknown. Eventually no one but I remained.
The house was cold and empty, no longer a home. I roamed amongst the bare rooms, the cobwebbed attic. No one to talk to, no one to protect. The mice, scampering between the walls, seemed saddened and isolated. Sometimes, I thought I would hear talking, screaming, giggling, but it was only memories, eroding fast against the tides of time.
The house became weathered and worn. Windows were broken and doors came off their hinges. Now the whistling wind was my only companion, even the mice abandoning me. I became weaker, fading, falling asleep, dreaming of bright sunlight days and the joy contained within.
Awoken with a stir, to the sound of hammering and sawing, I saw dozens of men rebuilding and repairing my house. I could almost shout for joy, but my spirit was still faded. I only observed and waited as they rebuilt my house, purpose unknown.
cue narration, cool and gritty
ACT I, SCENE I:
Narrator: It had been another long day in Sloth's Pit, where the magical and deadly never sleeps. For Sergeant McCallister of MTF Squad Iota-13, it was another Tuesday. But as the sun set over the nexus of crime and cryptids, McCallister needed something to keep him on edge.
The Pegasus' Perch was busy as usual. The hubbub of patrons and drunks was a comforting drone against the ears of regulars. Glass clinking against glass and the scraping of forks against plates provided additional background music. It was like any other night, and the people were enjoying themselves, until the doors slammed open, and McCallister walked in. The normally noisome crowd went silent as everyone stopped and watched the newcomer, eyes glinting with a suspicious stare.
Narrator: All members of Iota-13 were disguised as normal law enforcement, but the clientele knew something was off about McCallister. His masculine, cutting jawline outed him as a man's man, tougher than nails, and ready for anything the world could throw at him.
McCallister frowned, and stroked his jaw, which he wouldn't exactly call "masculine" or "cutting." He noticed a few teenagers sitting in the far corner of the restauant grinning and snorting with barely disguised laughter. McCallister ignored them and walked to the bar, the floorboards groaning conspicuously under his hefty weight.
Narrator: Even the bar and all of it's patrons knew not to tangle with McCallister, who on this very day had executed five abominations in the Blasted Woods, and had personally detained three criminals looking to destroy the town he loved so much. Now, all the world's riches couldn't distract him from a nice cold beer.
He hears narrator, and is confused, asks patrons of bar what it is, they don't really care
Walks around town, narrator following him. Everyone doesn't care even though they hear it. Old man tells him it only goes away after doing something heroic, the "climax."
Spends entire week being followed by the narrator, complains.
Finally, he stops a crime in the dumbest way possible (tripping and knocking over robber of convenience store?)
Voice reluctantly goes away.
Two armies battle through forest and fen,
living, and dying, and living again.
At the bidding of ravens, smiles a'beaming,
We raise our weapons, firearms gleaming.
Godless devices in hands of men
Trapping poor souls in a Godless glen
All whilst two ravens slake their thirst
from a fountain of pain, an artery, burst.
While minds and lives were torn asunder,
to the smoke and roar of cannon's thunder,
The laughter of ravens echoes in the night
As soldiers we live, we breathe, we fight.
Battling for days, all the men weary,
The battleground haunted by phantasms eerie.
The spirits of those that the ravens deceived
Fathers and sons, lost and bereaved.
Helmets cracked and shattered by brethren's bone
The ravens' heard cackling the cackling of crones
As dark gases unknown seep through the trees
The smell of rot is carried by breeze.
While men saw monsters no one should see
Ravens taunting another with glee
Brain matter exposed to air, still living
Undying, unbelieving, and unforgiving.
Despite horrors abound we persevered
At the raven's urging, whomst everyone feared
Marching forever, losing limb not life
to the step and beat of the raven's fife.
No one could blame us for fighting this battle
Poor souls full of our last death rattle
Ravens fly above with death's black wings
As we fight a war for princes and kings
Ravens plumbing pain like water in a well
As men march proudly into the maws of hell
Monstrous machines making veins like fire
All caused by ravens' selfish desire
Picking through corpses, soldiers within
Ravens smiling a skull's white grin.
Through fire and flame I led the charge
'gainst beasts and men we did bear arms
through forest and thicket we didn't waver
not one of my brethren death did savor
undying, unmoving we laid in the trenches
cursing the ravens with our rotten stenches
After the fighting was done and the smoke was cleared
and the chattering of the rifles had disappeared
Ravens watching the valley with unwavering stare
Mother Earth weeping, her flesh laid bare.
No life was left in that accursed field
Except for the soldiers, all their fates sealed.
Craters caused by ordinance above
The ravens are smiling, for war they so loved.
In the clutches of life, these men were trapped
Trapped in their thoughts, many minds snapped.
Creatures of flesh plead for release,
writhing and crawling 'mongst filth and disease
men without limbs are sitting in holes,
weeping, crying, bartering for their souls
The Reaper couldn't hear them, couldn't lead them to rest.
For the ravens had roosted, had soldiers' souls in their nest.
-Translated poem "Two Ravens' Deception" from the journal of Lt. Hans Wagner, survivor of the Battle of Husiatyn Woods
Two armies battle through forest and fen,
living, and dying, and living again.
At the bidding of two ravens, mischievous and scheming,
We raise our weapons, firearms gleaming.
Strange devices no man should ever wield
Trapping us forever in this accursed field
All whilst two ravens slake their thirst
from the fountain of pain, an artery, burst.
While men's minds and lives were torn asunder,
to the smoke and roar of cannon's mighty thunder,
The laughter of two ravens echoes loudly in the night
As soldiers we live, we die, we breathe, we fight.
Battling for days upon days, all the men weary,
The ground haunted by phantoms eerie.
The spirits of those that the ravens deceived
For whom none but each other their souls grieved.
Helmets cracked and shattered by brethren's bone
The ravens' heard cackling the cackling of crones
As dark gases unknown seep through the trees
The smell of death and rot is carried by the breeze.
While men saw monsters no one should see
Ravens taunting one another with youth's glee
Brain matter exposed to air, still living
Undying, unbelieving, unforgiving.
Despite horrors continuing, men persevered
At the raven's urging, whom everyone feared
Marching forever forward, losing limb but not life
to the step and beat to the raven's fife.
No one could blame us for fighting this battle
We weren't the ones who listened to raven's prattle
Soviet guns and mortars booming in the distance
Fighting an unending war at command's insistence.
Ravens plumbing pain like water in a well
As men march proudly into the maws of hell
Monstrous machines making mens' veins like fire
All because of ravens' selfish desire
Picking through corpses, owners trapped inside
ravens overcome with Schadenfreude, blind.
Through fire and flame I led the charge
'gainst beasts and men we did bear arms
through forest and thicket we didn't waver
not one of my brethren death did savor
undying, unmoving we laid in the trenches
cursing the ravens with our rotten stenches
After the fighting was done and the smoke was cleared
and the chattering of the rifles had disappeared
The tragedies of that battle were soon seen
Mother Earth weeping, her flesh torn clean.
No living thing stood in that accursed field
Except for the soldiers, all their fates sealed.
Craters caused by ordinance above
The ravens smiled, for war they so loved.
In the clutches of life, these men were trapped
Trapped in their thoughts, many minds snapped.
Creatures of flesh moan, plead for release,
writhing and crawling 'mongst filth and disease
men without limbs and torsos sit in their foxholes,
weeping, crying, and bartering God for their souls
The Reaper couldn't hear them, couldn't lead them to rest.
For the ravens had roosted, had soldiers' souls in their nest.
-Translated poem "Two Ravens' Deception" from the journal of Lt. Hans Wagner, survivor of the Battle of Husiatyn Woods
Albert nervously looked around, checking his watch. How long does it take, he wondered. He had been waiting in the lobby of the nursing complex for what seems like hours, with the CNA gone into the labyrthine halls, long since expanded beyond the walls of the nursing home, and puncturing into extradimensional space, in search of Albert's great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Why did I have to choose the geneology project, thought Albert. I could have done something really cool, like that disintegrating beam experiment. But no, Albert picked the school project that had seemed the most interesting to him at the time: interviewing an ancestor, a minimum of five generations removed. Albert loved history, and after passing up a few relatives that didn't do much noteworthy seriously, who would listen to a oral essay about the guy who helped create the "iPhone", he had tracked down a relative who had apparently fought in one of the biggest wars before L-Day. But hours later, after Albert had gone down to the regional nursing complex, with its elephantine exterior and its endless, forever expanding interior, he had second thoughts.
He waited, and waited. Time seemed to pass slower and slower, the hands of the clock on his ancient analog watch seemed to hold back against the flow of time, forever spiting him and never allowing him to leave the confines of the concrete walls. The hands trembling, trembling, trembling against the strain of holding back time, Albert's piercing gaze urging time to move the hand, to keep flowing, to keep going…
12:30
It had been 15 minutes.
"Okie Dokie, I finally found your grandpa," the foreign noise roused Albert out of a unihemispheric nap. He was confused at first, but his eyes finally focused on the CNA struggling to roll a wheelchair holding an automaton. "He was very difficult to find," said the CNA. "He musta been one of our first patients, I had to go all the way to the back of the archives to find his folder." Albert frowned and walked around to face the front of the robot. It wasn't responsive. It just sat in the chair, with its head focused on the ground. Albert leaned forward and waved his hand in its face.
"Hellooo," Albert said pensively. "Anyone hoommeee?"
He then tried knocking on the metallic skull, which produced a hollow ringing sound, like knocking on the bottom of an empty bucket. He turned around to the CNA.
"Why isn't he talking? He seems… empty," asked Albert.
The CNA tutted quietly and looked at his patient's folder. "It says here that he is one of the oldest patients we have," he explained patiently. "He was caught up in a battle during World War One and was recovered with and that he was one of the first patients to get a prototype exo-skeleton, one of the first of its kind as a sort of experiment. So you see dear, you grandpa has been through a lot, and no one comes to visit him often, so he's just coping. It could be for the best, a man who sees what he sees never comes out the same way." The CNA looked sadly at the limp robot, and then handed Albert a folder and a holo-disk.
"What are these?" Albert asked, opening the folder to see a large DECLASSIFIED stamped diagonally across the pages.
"Those are your grandfather's records," replied the CNA. "They talk about what he went through, along with the CD. Read it, maybe it'll help you with your oral report." The CNA patted Albert on the shoulder, and then walked back down the halls, shoes clacking against the tile, echoing forever forward, but quickly dwarfed by the screams and moans of the hyper-geriatric that not even the best soundproofing could dampen. Maybe its better he's one of the quieter ones, Albert thought with a shiver. With some difficulty, Albert wheeled his metal grandfather into the atrium, parking him next to an empty couch, and sat down beside him, the ancient springs of the furniture squealing in protest.
Albert opened the folder. Might as well, he grumbled internally. Came all this way and wasted all this time, I guess I'll learn some history while I'm at it. His love for history quickly slipped away however, as his brow furrowed at the terminology used in the medical report. "antimemetic therapy," "repeated amnestic scrub," and "Buteo-Series Mk. LV Experiment #42" were all foreign to Alberty, even with English as his first language. He skimmed the rest of the document, confused by the big black boxes in place of dates and names. If it's declassified, why is it still all covered up, wondered Albert. Hoping that the holo-disk would have more answers for him, Albert dug around in his sweatshirt pockets and found his old musty pair of Torches™1, blowing the dust out of the side port and plugging the holodisk in. He then slipped the glasses on, and was treated to a three-dimensional view of… a burnt down forest.
"Here in the ruins of the Husiatyn Woods, is one of the most famous battles to have ever taken place in record history," droned the faux-Morgan-Freeman-narrator. "For while in our post-death world a violent battle with no fatalities is commonplace, this forest is the one of the only places in the world where one such battle occured, before the Reaper retired."
The documentary rambled, taking Albert on a prolonged and profoundly boring tour across Europe, following the lives of two boring men and their boring scheme for world peace. Every so often, he would pause the holo and look at his grandpa sitting beside him, the servos in his neck rusting and his eyes dull. The only sounds emanating from him sounded… empty. Automated. The shallow, rhythmic pumping of ancient man's computerized lungs beat in time with the small flicking of his eyelids, lubricating the pair of lifeless, pale marbles. None of the motions were human, they were too regular, too premeditated. No sign was given that anything organic resided in the metal husk. Though small, his movements assaulted Albert's ears, as there was no other sounds besides the helpless attempts of the fan above to stir the air, and a faint noise in the air that could almost be construed as distant screaming.
Shaking his head, Albert tried to focus on the documentary. He tried to mentally grasp the French names, and the complex politics of the war, but he was constantly shaken out of focus by a noise. The winding hallways and random intersections of the forever-growing complex acted as a funnel, connected directly to Albert's ear. A dripping faucet, the murmuring of two CNAs, the faint crackle of an intercom, the godamned rhythmic noises coming from his relative. These noises, while at the edge of his hearing, or maybe because they were at the edge of his hearing, were grating. Albert couldn't focus, he couldn't think with these little annoyances.
Screw this, He thought. Might as well do this at home. He got off of the threadbare couch and activated a digi-map popup on a nearby desk, puzzling his way through the tangled, floating mass of blue neon tubes that represented the meandering corridors of the retiring home. After locating the exit, Albert started off on his quest of leaving, but then paused at the doorway of the atrium and looked back at the sad oxidized metal scrap heap sitting in the wheelchair behind him. Albert sighed and walked back to his grandfather, grabbing hold of the handlebars. "I can't really interview you for my project if I leave you to rot in here," Albert said in an exasperated tone. Heaving and Hoing Albert pushed his geriatric relative, trying to ignore the annoying Doppler Effect that occurred as he passed by hallways leading to rooms full of rot and rust, listening to the screaming growing louder and fainter over and over as the duo passed by more and more hallways.
Finally, the dull, buzzing glow of the lighting strips on the ceiling was replaced with a beautiful, soft, natural lighting of the sun as they headed closer to the exit. Albert began to hear the bustle of the outside world overpowering the whispering noises that cowered at the edges of his hearing, pushing them away and filling his senses with the wonderful din of living humanity. But before they could escape from the claustrophobic, narrow passages of the nursing home, they had to fight one of the worst monsters of the modern world. One that Albert did not think he could fight. One that made experienced, professional adults shake and shiver and quake and quiver.
Paperwork.
After what seemed like eons, Albert finally dotted the last t's and crossed the last i's (he wasn't quite sure he had those in the right order), and passed the stack of release forms and waivers to the bored secretary. He then waited for more eons to pass as the woman with the dated 10's haircut carefully (or spitefully) looked over each and every one of the forms, making sure that each and every one was filled out properly (which of course they weren't, he dotted the t's and crossed the i's) and then made him redo some of the signatures with what might have been either a spiteful glint in her eye or the reflection of the sun through the front doors. Finally, she allowed them to leave with a condescending wave of her arm. As the pair left the building it almost seemed like his grandfather blinked faster as his eyes adjusted to the glare of the afternoon sun, the apertures of his robotic eyes contracting to pinpricks. It also almost seemed like he was breathing more through his nostrils than before, as unfamiliar scents assailed his brain and his nostrils opened wide to experience these new sensations. It also seemed like his neurons fired at a slightly faster rate, connections unused for decades finally being traveled by electrical signals once again, elevating his brain waves to just be just a tiny bit higher frequency than delta. All of these assumptions are correct, but all of them slipped beneath Albert's notice as he hailed a cab to take him and his living luggage home.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at Albert's apartment. It was located in the drabest building of the drabest block of the drabest section of the city, but it was home. The ugly gray facade of the building contrasted awfully with the bright sky, extending into the blue like a great middle finger to the natural beauty of the world. Albert stepped out of the cab, and pulled the wheelchair ungracefully out of the trunk, and then pulled his grandfather out of the passenger seat with even less grace. What Albert lacked in grace he made up in determination, and he muscled his grandfather into the wheelchair, his limbs askew and pointed in awkward directions. The cab rolled away as Albert waved a half-hearted goodbye to the driver, no face to look at other than smooth featureless metal, custom made for each driver so that the rich wouldn't have to look at their destitute owner's grimy demeanor. Albert turned towards his building and wheeled up the stairs leading to the door. Albert was starting to feel afraid for the safety of the wheelchair's frame, as the clunking and the rattling of the wheelchair grew louder as he forced it to ascend each step. When they reached the landing approaching the door, Albert patted his jeans for his keys. He patted his jeans again. Goddammit, I forgot my keys again. He wearily went over to the worn and dilapidated call box, and located the nearly-broken button to his apartment. Pressing it, he heard to the all too familiar grating buzzing sound. Soon, a crabby voice crackled out of the speaker.
"Yeswhoisitwhatdoyouwantnosolicitinggoawaythebillisinthemail." Even though Albert had braced himself, the verbal torrent hitting him still caught him off-guard.
"It's me Grandma, I forgot my keys again. Can you let me in?"
After listening to some distorted mumbling about the darn youth of today always being so forgetful and the new brain-mods making them less reliant on themselves or something along those lines, the snikt of the automatic lock disengaging was heard, and the door hissed open. "Thanks Grandma," Albert said, even though he knew the intercom was already shut down. He wheeled the wheelchair into the lobby and maneuvered it into an elevator, taking it to the eighth floor. When the elevator doors dinged open, his eyes were assaulted by the puke yellow and bile green that the designer of the apartment building thought would be a good combination for the walls and carpet. The disgusting dim lighting in the hallway was the only point of interest, at least from all the flies' perspective, which gathered around the lighting strips like they were fresh carcasses.
Albert came to a stop next to room 294, his destination. Albert engaged the brakes of the wheelchair and knocked on the door, two loud and crisp knocks, echoing down the hallway. Albert didn't hear anything behind the door. He waited at the door with his hands in his pockets. Albert was the kind of kid who got bored very fast, and so he took a deep breath and let it out with a quiet long pwoosh. Looking for anything to distract him while waiting for the door to open, he eventually laid his eyes back on his grandfather, as still as ever. He tried to keep time with his grandfather's automated breathing, but the robotic lungs were too robust, and he couldn't beat them with their long, drawn out inhalations that seemed to last forever. Then Albert heard a rustling from behind the door, the robotic tapping of his grandmother's legs.
The door creaked open, and the smooth, porcelain face of his grandmother peeked from behind the door. "Took you long enough," she rasped, her smoker's voice at a stark contrast to the perfection of her artificial face.
"What do you mean 'took you long enough,' I was the one waiting here for ages," Albert replied, fiddling with the brakes, trying to figure out how to release their grip on the tires.
"Don't talk back to me young man," she retorted. "I don't help put the roof over your head to let you talk to me in that tone. I'm in half a mind to ship you to Kowloon and see how you like living there. Disrespectful little brat." It was at this moment that she then realized what her grandson was fiddling with. Her deep violet eyes contracted and dilated, representing the only emotion she could present on her ceramic face.
"B-U-T-E-O series #1? Boy why are you bringing an Original into our house? It's bad enough trying to feed our entire family, and now you want to bring a stranger over for dinner? What were you thinking you-"
"Grandma listen," Albert quickly cut her off before she got fully into "rant mode". "He's family, and he's not an Original, at least not technically I don't think so. I brought him over so I could interview him for a school project. And anyways, I don't think he eats anything. The guy at the nursing home said that he hasn't been visited in a long time, so that probably means no one cared for him in forever."
It was a cold evening, with the bite of frost snapping at exposed flesh like a hungry dog. The day had been full with drifts of snow sprinkling down from above, and now the few remaining dregs were making their way to ground, the infinitesimal differences in between each flake were impossible to see as they piled up on the sides of the road in banks. The streetlights provided a pleasant backdrop to the snow, as the warm orange light gave each drift a welcoming glow, as if to welcome passerby to crawl inside of it and doze off, dying of hypothermia shortly afterwards. Trevor tried to ignore the temptation of a nice nap as he talked on the phone.
"Hey Susie, did you get home alright? How's Autumn's driving?"
"Yeah I did, Autumn only swerved a couple times, the ice around the roundabout is a bitch. Are you almost home?"
"Nah, I'm still walking." The school was only a mile and a half from his house, and basketball practice made it so he always missed the buses. Trevor figured that since he can't drive yet, he might as well walk home to help himself exercise. He regretted that decision severely as he trudged through the soft snow.
"What? I totally could've convinced Autumn to drop you off at your house, you don't have to walk all the way back, especially in now, when it's absolutely freezing. Plus, I don't like you walking around the shopping district, especially with what happened…"
Trevor was cutting through the abandoned shopping district to get home. Most of the stores had declared bankruptcy during the recession, and the rest had moved out after they found out that closed up shops on either side of their's made for pretty poor business. No one cared enough to buy any of the buildings, so it was nothing more than a ghost town, with not even the plows coming in to clean up the snow off the street, nor any squatters to shack up in the empty, hollow buildings. It was if the entire city had abandoned this part of itself, like blood retreating from a hand in the cold, leaving it to be frostbitten, wanting it to be forgotten.
"Please don't, I don't trust her driving enough to let her take me home, especially with this weather. And it's only a little bit cold, I can handle it. The only reason why you think its cold is because you always wear opened-toed heels."
"Heyy, you don't need to be mean, I have a sense of fashion, unlike you. And don't think that I can't hear your teeth clattering like maracas, why don't you bring a coat to school."
"I don't need one."
"Bullshit, you forgot to bring one, didn't you."
"I can neither confirm nor deny that statement until I hear from my lawyer. Sorry Susie, but that's the law."
"Ha-ha. When did you become a lawyer?"
"Right after you started to win every argument. I had to find some way to go toe-to-toe with you."
"What happened to being in the NBA? Never took you for a office-job type of guy."
"Well, y'know, I'm doing part-time. That way I can school the refs by being the best rules-lawyer in the game."
"Hey, so I was wondering, Why don't we go down to the…
Trevor was lost in his head, Some of the streetlights were out of commission, either flickering or or burnt out, forcing Trevor to walk into the inky puddles of blackness spawned by the lack of light. That always filled Trevor with apprehension, as he was still a bit afraid of the darkness. He still kept the light on in the closet while he slept, which was so embarrassing that he hadn't even told Susie, even though they had been dating for three years. He skirted and danced around the darkness, keeping his time within the black at an absolute minimum, which made his progress a bit stop-and-start. Still, it was better to cut through here and slog through an inch or two of snow than to talk the long walk around the district, regardless of what other people believe of the place. It wasn't like anyone lived here who would've kidnapped those kids, so logically there's nothing to worry about.
Rrring, rrring
Rrring, rrring
Trevor was yanked out of his thoughts and paused next to an alleyway.
Rrring, rrrring
The noise was coming from down the alleyway. It sounded like an old telephone, the ones that people used before dinosaurs went extinct and polio was still around. Trevor peered down the dark alleyway, where he could make out the shapes of an overfull dumpster and several overturned trash cans.
Rrring, rrring
Maybe its coming from inside the dumpster, and its haunted with the ghost of an abandoned phone, thought Trevor, but was quickly snapped back to reality by Susie.
"Hey man, where did you go? I asked you something."
"Sorry, Susie, not now. I found a haunted dumpster, I'm gonna go investigate."
"Wow, that's random. But, don't come crying to me when you get stabbed by a crackhead. Ten bucks says that you're gonna be found in a ditch."
"Thanks, that fills me with so much confidence, can really tell you care."
"If you don't call back in ten minutes, should I call the cops?" She said it jokingly, but Trevor was in half a mind to encourage her to do that.
"Nah it's fine, I think I can take on a tiny phone."
Trevor edged towards the alleyway with hesitation, plowing a mound of wet snow with his sneakers shuffling forward, as he tried to psyche himself up to go down the alleyway. Eventually, his curiosity won out over his fear, and Trevor started down the alleyway, his head cocked curiously. Following the sound he was led past the dumpsters and trashcans, stepping carefully over the overturned bins. He was led deep into the alleyway, where almost all light was swallowed by the towering buildings flanking him. Trevor paused for a moment and fiddled with his phone, turning on its flashlight, which was a warm, kind beacon in the black void created by the giant, brutalist buildings on either side of him. He kept Susie on the phone, filling his voice with a false bravado in an
"Why the hell would someone call a payphone in an alleyway? I didn't even know you could call payphones."
"Just pick it up already, I want to know who's calling."
"Jesus, hakuna your tatas, lady. I'm just taking my time."
"Whatever, just answer it."
He shrugged and moved to answer the phone.
"Maybe it's Morpheus and I'm the new chosen one."
"Or it could be a drug dealer and you stumbled across a nation-wide criminal empire."
"I'm going to say a 50/50 chance on both options."
Trevor picked up the phone off of its hook switch, grimacing in disgust as the sticky and grungy handle of the phone came into contact with his hand. The phone was tenuously connected with a threadbare cord to a kiosk which was covered with graffiti and stale chewing gum, a testament to the abuse it had sustained throughout its service. Trevor raised the phone to his ear. "Hello, who is this?"
"Trevor, is that you?"
The connection seemed strained and fading, the voice from the receiver coming out distorted and thick, shifting in and out of different octaves.
"Susie? What?" Trevor raised his cell to his other ear. "Susie, how the fuck did you call me on a payphone, you ass."
"What? I didn't call you on a pay phone."
"Well I got a chick on the phone who's asked who I am, and she sounds just like you except really fucking garbled. Is this a joke?"
"Trevor listen. Ditch hope luck autumn drive good."
Trevor felt a strange sensation in his ear, the kind that happens when you stick a cotton swab too far into your ear.
"Susie, shut up."
"Trevor listen ditch hope luck autumn drive good."
Susie's voice was changing. It was becoming more distorted and covered with static, like she was going through a tunnel. Trevor gave up on deciphering the word spaghetti. The weird feeling inside of his ear was growing stronger, now almost painful, like clogged ears during plane rides. Trevor decided he deal with Susie first and the pain second.
"Susie, stop it with the bullshit, I'm hanging up the pay phone now, byeeee."
"I'm not calling you on the pay phone idiot, are you high or something?"
As he lowered the phone, he felt a sharp, tugging pain in his ear, like an ant had crawled into his ear canal and bit into his eardrum. "OUCH, what the fuck…"
He looked down at the receiver. Long, curly telephone cords sprouting from the speaker, leading past his peripheral vision. He pulled harder on the phone, leading to a piercing pain in the side of his head and ear. He put his cell in his pocket and felt his way up the bundle of cords with a trembling hand. It led to a smooth connection with the side of his head, as if the cords had drilled into his skin, burrowing underneath. Trevor pulled harder on the phone, which did nothing but make the cords stretch. Panicking and in a bout of adrenaline, he grabbed the cords and yanked as hard as he could, screaming from the pain as blood erupted from his torn ear, the cords writhing and wriggling like worms in his hands, chunks of cartilage and bloody skin still attached to the ends of the wires.
Trevor threw the receiver against the phone box and backed up against the opposite wall screaming, his hearing ringing and eyes blurry. He slid down the wall, cradling his ear. He could faintly hear Susie screaming tinnily from his phone, but he couldn't decipher what she was saying.
Blinking rapidly to clear his vision of tears, Trevor alternated wide-eyed glances between his hand covered in blood and at the pay phone; the receiver dangling and swaying from its frayed wire-exposed cord, its extant cords retracting back into the speaker with a wet noise similar his grandma removing her dentures. The kiosk began rattling and shaking violently, as if trying to pull itself off of the wall and right at Trevor. Trevor frantically grabbed the wall behind him and pulled himself up, skirting around the pay phone as close to the wall as possible, trying to stay the furthest he could away from the kiosk.
POP
The kiosk bounced off the wall and landed on the ground with a clang. Trevor halted in his steps and in his breathing, the silence almost deafening as his mind raced and wondering what his obituary would read.
Trevor, 17
Trevor didn't do much during his life. He played basketball and video games, and died via phone on the 10th of this month. He is survived by a girlfriend and two parents.
The thought didn't encourage him much. But he was snapped back to reality away from those dark thoughts when the phone box started rattling again. Trevor heard another clanging noise, but it wasn't immediately obvious to Trevor what was happening. It was only when he saw the back of the phone box catapulted against the dumpster did he understand.
There was something living inside the phone box.
"TrEvoR, diE in diTCh," the voice from the receiver groaned, now sounding nothing like Susie, and more like a sound coming from a broken vinyl record.
"Trevor? TREVOR." Susie screamed from his forgotten cellphone, hidden within his pocket.
Trevor backed away slowly as long, spindly limbs released themselves from the interior of the box, like a bear backing out of its den. The limbs braced themselves against the walls and ground of the alley, wobbling and leaning as it started to stand, as if it hadn't stood in years. How the limbs fit within the phone box Trevor didn't know, and Trevor didn't care. All he knew was that the kiosk was now standing up, the head of a monstrous, 15 foot tall thing, one with the right amount of limbs but with too many joints.
The creature was skeletal, like the frame of an even larger monster. Its body looked like scaffolding, and Trevor could see right though its ribs and to the graffitied brickwork of the opposite wall. The steel of its body was rusted, aged, and creaked with every movement, like it was a creation from decades ago, left to rot. It looked like it couldn't even support its own weight and oversized head, but it stood regardless. Each limb had several different joints contorting the arms in strange and awkward angles. Pulleys and gears held the whole thing together, spastically contracting and relaxing the joints, curling and pronating the arms until they were in the shape of a velociraptor's forelimbs from Jurassic Park. The neck of the thing (robot? automaton?) disappeared into the back of the kiosk, either wearing the box as a helmet on its head, or the the box itself was the head. Trevor wrinkled his nose as the smell hit him, a mix of copper and must, a smell like that of an ancient machine stored for years, forgotten.
The kiosk turned to face him, its box tilted slightly and the phone still dangling by its cord, the voice of something that was definitely not Susie now silent and replaced with a noise similar to a dial tone. Trevor was distracted by its gaze and tripped over one of the overturned trashcans, sprawling backwards. like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck. The sound seemed normal, but something it sounded… hungry. Trevor's heart pounded a thready, off-tempo beat, causing more bleeding to drip down the side of his face, leaving a bloody track. Trevor tried to fight his body, screaming at it to move, but some primeval force inside of him kept him rooted to the ground for fear that if he moved a single inch, the long claws on the ends of long hands on the ends of long arms would eviscerate him. It was a manifestation of everything Trevor had been hiding from since he was a little kid. The arm of the bathrobe on the chair, the mound of clothes in the corner, this was it. This was the thing that he was afraid was lurking in the shadows, looking for him. And his fears had come true. This thing was lurking in the shadows. And it found him.
With this revelation, Trevor broke free of his body's paralysis and hastily stood back up, leaving bloody handprints over everything he touched in his effort to escape. He began sprinting down the alleyway, slipping over snow and jumping over overturned trashcans, leaving a thin trail of dark blood, still dripping from his ear. The phone-monster saw him escaping and gave chase, moving faster than anything that size could ever logically achieve. The phone, still hanging on by the threadbare cord, began playing the dial tone louder and louder, becoming more distorted and lower pitched with each step of the creature's feet. The fast tribal drums of Trevor's heart drilled screws into his ear, intensifying the pain with each beat and step he took. Trevor clenched his teeth and muscled his way through the pain, tears streaming down his face, carving ice tracks into his skin.
As he ran down the alley, lungs freezing with the cold evening air, needles stabbing into his open wounds, Trevor saw lights coming into view bobbing and wobbling outside of the alleyway coming down the street. Maybe its a flashlight from people on a walk! he thought, and then with adrenaline pumping through his veins he screamed,
"FUCKING HELP ME, THIS THING IS TRYING TO KILL ME!"
Trevor saw the light turn towards the alleyway and almost passed out with relief. He had almost made it to the open street when he saw the skeletal, three-fingered hand grip the brickwork of the alleyway entrance, and a streetlight leaning to look right at him. In his shock he stuttered in his pace and tripped, skidding forward past the new entity and into the street, sliding painfully on the rough snow and ice. He spun to a stop facing the alley, where he saw the new threat.
Another monster, almost identical to the one chasing him, but taller and skinnier, with a streetlight for a head. The orange light emitted from the head traveled across the snowy street, coming to a rest upon Trevor as the beast locked gaze with him.
"Fuck, fuck fuckfuckfuckFUCK!" Trevor screamed as he the monster jerked towards him, moving like a marionette created by some demented, sadistic god. He scrambled to his feet and ran down the street as fast as he could, his eyes watering and glasses steamed, His torn ear making him stumble and slow with pain.
Trevor heard a colossal sound behind him, like a car crash. He took the time to slow down and look behind himself. The phone-kiosk-monster had not noticed the streetlight-monster and had collided right into the newcomer as it emerged from the alley. They rolled and hit the streetlight across the street, making it bend and lean across the road. Trevor stopped and hid behind a jacked car to watch what would happen.
The creatures gingerly untangled from one another, a tedious task given the many jointed arms and legs. The kiosk monster stood first, swaying and creaking as it took in its new opponent. The streetlight-monster stood up next, looming above the other, a skinny, towering creature versus the squat, stocky kiosk. The robots circled each other slowly, akin to two dogs greeting one another, obtaining the scent of their new friend. They used their large deadly hands to delicately probe the other's body, feeling into crevices and through gaps in scaffolding, tapping to feel their way. During the short respite, Trevor had an quick argument with himself.
You know, if these things team up, I don't think I will be able to escape fast enough, Trevor thought to himself.
But on the other hand, if they don't team up and they fight, it'll be cool. Trevor's less logical side of his brain said.
Counterpoint, they are giant fuckoff monsters that will kill me regardless if they team up or not, call the fucking cops. The less logical side was quiet for a moment.
…Fair point.
Trevor put his hand in his pocket which still held his phone, left forgotten throughout the whirlwind of events that had happened. C O P S was written on the interior of Trevor's mind like the flaming words of God etched into a mountainside. He fumbled with the phone leaving bloody streaks across the screen as he unlocked it, and realized that Susie was still on the phone, weeping and whimpering. He raised the phone up to his non-injured ear.
"Susie?"
"Oh thank God!! Are you ok what's wrong what happened I heard you scream and all this other stuff and I-"
"Susie, be quiet! Listen, be very very quiet. I need to go, but call the cops, and tell them that I am being attacked, ok? Tell them to bring all the fucking firepower they can. I can't call them myself I need to escape, but tell them to find me at…" Trevor twirled around, trying to find a street sign. "Copper Street, ok? Please call them right the fuck now."
"Ok, ok I will, I love you so much, please stay safe ok what happe-"
He ended the call and began to back away slowly from the car, keeping his eyes on the newly acquainted monstrosities. Creeping away, he tried to clear his head, which was getting foggy and hard to think with the ringing and pain in his ear. He prepared himself to run again if he was spotted, taking deep, long breaths to sooth the stitch in his side. You're the top of varsity, you can run a mile faster than anyone else in school, you got this. You're not going to die to this scrap-heap of a fucker. The pep-talk stopped as he heard an awful crunch from underneath his foot. Trevor looked down to see broken glass, a whiskey bottle that someone had threw out of their car window.
The monsters simultaneously swiveled their heads towards Trevor, suddenly remembering that their meal was still here. They looked back at each other and then back towards Trevor, the cogs in their mechanical minds seemingly spinning, thoughts that no one could or should ever decipher whizzing through their aberrant brains. The two creatures decided to resume their hunt, and began walking towards him in their juttering, swaying fashion.
Oh, fuck.
Trevor wheeled around and began running, his stitch in his side burning, breathing flagging, and ear screaming. Tears froze against his cheeks as the cold wind hit him. The once warm blood matting his hair turned cold, a giant patch of aching chill that exacerbated the pain already made by his ear. He most likely was not going to outpace the long strides of the monsters. The kiosk creature was in the lead, ahead of the streetlight creature by a good couple yards, its phone dangling and twisting from its motions. The streetlight creature saw this, and used it to its advantage by grabbing it's rival by the cord and yanking, pulling itself forward and its opponent back. This caused the kiosk monster to face-plant to the ground, snow swirling from the impact, and letting the streetlight gain the lead. The kiosk-head raised its head and shook off the snow, quickly gaining its bearings and grabbing the leg of the streetlight-head, making it slam to the ground with the force of a falling tree. All of this was accompanied by a loud and deep dialtone, that almost sounded angry.
The streetlight-head stood up shakily to face the kiosk-head, its plastic lens over the bulb cracked. The creature began emitting a humming sound, the kind of sound that is made by a bad bulb, and its orange light darkening to a violent red hue. Its right hand flexing and contorting, expressing the monster's rage. As the kiosk creature tried to run past it, the other monster quickly lifted its right arm out horizontally, clotheslining its opponent and laying it out flat on the ground. The dialtone was silenced for a moment as the monster lay dazed on the ground.
While his instincts were screaming at him to run as fast as possible and never look back, Trevor's morbid fascination with the battle going on in front of him overpowered his baser instincts. He backed up further to gain some distance on the two behemoths, and hid behind an alley corner a hundred feet away from the fight. I don't want to get my head sliced off from shrapnel from these two idiots, Trevor thought, perhaps the first smart thought that had been created by his Dorito-encrusted synapses in a while. But I need to know where they are and what they are doing. He took out his phone, fumbling with numbed, blood-encrusted fingers as he opened the camera app. He stuck his arm out of cover, angled the camera to where he could see the fight, and hit the record button. Watching the carnage, Trevor felt a warmth in his chest, partially numbing the screaming pain in his temple. The fight was almost therapeutic, as he witnessed his worst fear battling with itself, taking damage in the battle. It was like those businesses he saw on TV, where people were allowed to bring stressful items into a cell and smash them with hammers. Watching his boogie-man be battered and broken relaxed him in a way he didn't he was able to. Those years of stress and anxiety slipped away, and he felt free, like someone had taken chains away from him that he didn't know he had. Seeing his demon getting hurt was the most comforting and relieving thing he had ever experienced.
The streetlight monster had pinned the phone monster to the ground by sitting on top of it. The struggling of the monster was heard by a dreadful rattling and tapping against the pavement and ice as it tried to buck the streetlight monster off of itself, the dialtone shifted to a high-pitched squeal. Its limbs bent and twisted trying to slash and scrape at its attacker, but despite its many joints it couldn't gather enough force to harm its foe enough. Cords exploded out from the receiver, wrapping around the arms of the streetlight forming almost a cocoon around its arms. The streetlight ripped the cords off like they were nothing but pesky insects, throwing them into the air and letting them rain down the street. The streetlight creature raised its long arm high into the sky, a dark silhouette against the night sky as it rose above the light produced from the non-moving streetlamps. The arm came down like a pendulum in a move that would decapitate and slice any normal person into particles, slashing the face of the kiosk. Large chunks of metal and electronics were sent flying as the arm completed its arc. The dialtone went silent. Dark fluid leaked from the four slashes on kiosk and pooling onto the white snow, as if the thing wasn't entirely composed of metal and plastic, but something more… organic laid within its metal shell.
The streetlight creature shakily stood up, rocking back and forth as it held its left shoulder, which had been damaged in its fall, bent and twisted. In a sickening grinding and shrieking motion it straightened the injured braces, leaving nothing but a small dent behind. The red coloring in its light mellowed until it was back to the warm orange of the surrounding streetlights. If it were blending in, it would be almost impossible for passerbys to tell the difference from the regular streetlights and the monster. Everything was quiet in the street as the creature stood above its fallen foe, two entities that should not exist, could not exist, but did regardless. It was still snowing, flakes dissolving in the warm pool of liquid that was dribbling slowly out of the pay phone, creating steam that gently wafted into the air. The creature looked to the sky, its bulb melting snow as it passed, seemingly pondering and thinking on what it just did. Its shoulders sagged, and its entire body relaxed, as the battle was won.
The streetlight suddenly stiffened. It craned its neck, slowly, looking directly into the camera of Trevor's phone, blinding Trevor with light. A wave of fear struck Trevor, as his childhood anxieties rushed back into him. The streetlight once again turned into a deadly orange hue and hum as it resumed its hunt, basking Trevor in its warm, embracing glow. The screams never reached human ears, muffled by the falling snow and the buildings, just like those of the other children were. There was something lurking in the dark, looking for him. And it had found him.
Post Action Report, 11/15/19:
MTF Epsilon-6 "Village Idiots" dispatched after young male body found dismembered, exsanguinated, and partially consumed in ditch in ███████, Maine. Cause of death similar to the eating behavior of SCP-966. Trail of anomalous activity was traced to defunct shopping district where the remains of a large metal humanoid and a similar living specimen were found. Two squadmembers were lost before the anomaly was contained. Remains of humanoids shipped to nearby Site-██, along with video evidence from the male's recovered cell phone.
Note: Upon examination, both specimens appear to have markings on their bodies similar to anomalies created by GOI 15/225. On their upper back are barcodes and labels above that read "Phone-a-Friend by Dr. Wondertainment" and "Lamp Buddy by Dr. Wondertainment," respectively. Whether they were created to behave in a manner similar to that upon discovery or because of emergent anomalous traits unintended by their manufacturer is unknown.
