When Reyna woke up from her dream, it was still dark out.

Fish and Lee were still sleeping on the floor in their sleeping bags, and all was silent.

“What?” Reyna mumbled to herself aloud as she stumbled off the couch.

She looked around her at the room, nothing seemed any different but there was something a bit odd about it now. She figured she just needed a glass of water, so she tiptoed into the kitchen for a drink. Glancing out the kitchen window, she could see the backyard, as well as the next house down the street. Seemed like the neighbors were sleeping peacefully.

“Long night for me I guess.”

Waking through the kitchen, she thought back to her strange dream, usually she would record something like this in a dream journal, but she didn’t have hers with her at the moment. This dream would have stood out from the others however, her dreams usually involved a lot more people, and she had never had a dream this vivid before.

She sat down on the living room couch and set the glass on the table just next to it, there really was something uncomfortable about the room now, something that wouldn’t let her go back to sleep. It was almost too quiet.

Wait, too quiet?

Reyna glanced at the window, it was still cracked open a bit, but she didn’t hear anything outside, not even a few bugs. What was making things so quiet?

She sat up and got a better look, she didn’t see anything moving outside, which wasn’t exactly odd. The neighborhood was dark, it seemed like everyone was in the midst of a peaceful sleep.

Except for Reyna.

Reyna was very awake.

Especially when she saw what was in the middle of the road.

It was a yellow janitorial bucket and a wet floor sign.

Reyna was fully awake now, or at least that’s how she felt, after all she must have still been dreaming if she was still seeing the bucket from her dream. It was far too much of a coincidence to not be related.

Though there was still a part of her that had to admit, she was far too lucid to be asleep.

She stood there for about five minutes, with a feeling in her chest like someone on the brink of making a rash decision, she really felt like checking this out, but she was almost concerned by her own curiosity. It’s never safe to go outside alone, at least it never feels like it is, the shadows alone are enough reason to stay indoors. The shadows indoors are somehow more friendly, familiar.

She had her jacket on before she realized what she was doing, she had slept in her clothes, and the jacket was just by the couch. She opened the window and climbed outside. Climbing out a window is an interesting feeling, and there was no going back now. She walked through the front yard and (after looking both ways) stepped into the road towards the bucket. She still couldn’t hear anything, though she could swear she saw some small birds on a power line.

When she got to the bucket, her attention was immediately drawn to the wet floor sign, there seemed to be a note on it, and a strange symbol that reminded her of those conspiracy theory videos she always saw online. Reyna picked up the note, and the first word sent a chill down her spine, she did not feel safe here anymore.





“Reyna.”





That’s what it said, right at the top. Not like a gift basket, not like a title, just a statement. “Reyna.”

Flipping the note to the opposite side, more words could be found, forming a simple concise message.





“The Artist.”





Reyna looked around at the houses as if this was a practical joke, but there were no laughing faces in any windows or doorways, no cameras or announcements that they were ‘on camera!’ The road was just silent, though she did hear a faint humming coming from a nearby tree. At least there were still birds, albeit apparently sleep deprived birds. But then even the birds stopped, the world was silent again, almost as if the world were empty and she was completely and totally alone.





And then she heard a loud sound of tires scratching against the pavement as if someone had made a sharp turn. The world was full of light for a moment as the headlights shone directly into her eyes, Reyna quickly jumped to the side of the road, landing safely in the grass.

This rouge driver completely ran over the bucket, splintering the mop in two, they continued down the street for a bit, and then without warning swerved straight into the side of a building.

Reyna gasped in shock and pulled out her phone to call the police, light started coming on in a few houses as people had apparently heard the crash all down the street.

“Hello? Officer?” She was having trouble forming words.

“This is the police, what is your emergency?”

“I nearly got run over by a crazy person in a van! He crashed straight into the diner!”

By this time Reyna was already running over, she gave the information to the police and made it to the van, it suddenly occurred to her that the driver might not be safe, though Reyna didn’t exactly feel that anything was safe just now.

“Hello? Is anyone in there? You nearly ran me over!” She then stopped for a second before angrily yelling out, “Hey wait a minute! I could have died! Oh my gosh I could have died, what’s wrong with you!?”

Reyna realized almost immediately that she was yelling at nobody but herself, and calmed down after a moment, the car had apparently completely caved in the wall of the diner, and one of the back doors of the car seemed jammed open from a crooked angle, the contents of the car pouring out.

Fortunately for Reyna, (and whoever the driver was) it wasn’t blood, it was paper. A backpack had fallen on its side and its contents spilled out all over the sidewalk. Notes and doodles and typed up reports, all apparently stuffed into the bulging front of this backpack, one of the pages landed directly at Reyna’s feet. She kneeled down to pick it up, it was a poem. The title was short and simple, just like any good poem title, but in her current situation, something about the title told Reyna that her life would never be the same ever again.





The poem was entitled “The Author.”





———





When most people watch their reality crash around them, they cry, some lash out, and some retreat into themselves and never come out. Sunny was part of the majority, and it was making it really hard to drive.

“What the heck what the heck what the- oh gosh my eyes.” He swerved into the left lane just in time to avoid a dead deer in the road, a sad reminder that some things were having worse days then him. Some things don’t escape.

He needed to stop soon, but he wasn’t ready to stop. Sunny just wanted to drive, drive for hours and hours and never stop. You’re vulnerable when you stop driving, when the travel stops and the in between time ends. But he’d have to stop eventually if he didn’t get gas now. The idea of being trapped out here in a world he no longer understood or trusted, especially without gas, was not one he wanted to linger on.

Pulling over to check his phones gps, as any responsible driver should, Sunny was relieved to find out there was a gas station soon up ahead. Lucky he checked too, this was the last one till Yachats.

It was one long stretch of road to the gas station, with huge pines on either side. Usually, this view would take Sunny’s breath away, but there was no time for beautiful things anymore. Sunny was scared beautiful things were gone for good.

Some part of Sunny regretted delaying so long by grabbing the photos, but some part of him shut it up. He would be grateful he didn’t lose them later; he was sure of it.

Pulling up to the gas station, Sunny couldn’t help but notice how neglected it seemed. The gas station sign, still standing high above the pines, was weathered with years of no repairs. The ‘s’ in ‘gas’ wasn’t even on straight anymore. The gas pumps were faded in color, and one of the nozzles was laying on the concrete in a puddle of unused fuel. The fluorescent lighting from inside the building didn’t make it feel any more welcoming, but Sunny would take what he could get.

Parking his van out front, Sunny went into the station to buy some supplies and also what he considered a well-deserved meal. Opening the glass door, he was immediately hit with the scent of five-year-old hotdogs and potato chips, he welcomed it gratefully.

“Woah” a voice said to his left, “was not expecting uhh anybody this late.”

“Sorry,” Sunny apologized, “I wasn’t expecting me to be here either. Do you have any food?”

The man behind the counter was silent for a moment, but then he gave a slow and small smile. “Yeah. Yeah! Sure, we’re a gas station kid, of course we got food. It’s in the back. My name’s Jim by the way, Jim the uuuhh gas station employee.”

Slightly confused by this stranger’s odd greeting, Sunny replied “Oh okay. I’m uh going to get that food then.” And walked awkwardly towards the shelves, Sunny was usually alright at social interaction, but something about this Jim guy didn’t really make much sense. Regardless, Sunny was far more interested in getting some food to eat than anything else.

There’s something about a gas station that can make you simultaneously uncomfortable and at home. A gas station grounds you in reality, it’s usually a stop on the road, a place you’ll always know the layout of despite never having seen. A gas station can be any shape or any size, but it’s always a gas station. It’s an in between, a liminal space in its purest form. There’s something comfortably on edge about it all, like it’ll never change no matter how much it should.

Sunny did notice something out of the ordinary though, in between the shelves of potato chips, cheap candy, and packets labeled ‘meat’ was a black duffle bag half open on the floor. Sunny didn’t place much value on it, no value that is till he subconsciously walked over to it, only to hear Jim over his shoulder, somehow closer than he was a second ago.

“Hey, kid.” He said, putting his hand on Sunny’s shoulder. “What’s your name?”

“It’s uh- it’s not your business, sir. Wh-“ “oh isn’t it?” Jim’s grip tightened on Sunny’s shoulder, and Sunny began to figure out the situation.

Sunny was a fairly tall guy, just over six foot even, and was athletic enough to take most normal people in a fight if he needed to. He was also a bit of a bookworm however, and his otherwise chill demeanor served to mask his athletic ability well. Nobody could blame Jim for the mistake he had just made, but that didn’t change the world of pain he was about to be in.

What did change that however was the long scratching noise Sunny could hear coming from the parking lot.

“What was that!?” Jim spun around, clearly a bit on edge, and releasing some less than family friendly words. “I knew I should have left early!”

“What were you even doing here?” Sunny was finding it hard to focus on the moment. “Gosh darn man, it you really chose a bad night for-“

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Jim was swearing under his breath between each sentence. “Oh man, oh man I’m not ready to go to jail.”

Sunny was afraid that jail would be the last of this man’s problems, but instead took the opportunity to check what was inside the bag.

Carefully cracking open the already unzipped opening to the bag, Sunny was a bit worried that he wouldn’t want to see or touch what was in that bag, he was a little relieved to see it was full of money instead.

“You were.. robbing a gas station? Holy cow man this place is in the middle of nowhere how long did this-“ “four years.” Jim interrupted. “I’ve been stealing a bit of every sale that’s come through here for four years, and something just had to happen the day I was gonna bail.”

Jim’s nervous temper was apparently rising as he reached to his back. “I didn’t think I’d have to use this, but I never did think much anyways.” He was holding a gun.

Sunny was about to object, he was about to put his hands in the air, he was about to tell Jim to calm down, that it didn’t need to go like this, anything to buy some more time. But Sunny didn’t have any more time left, the sound came to his ears before he could even think it, a loud, sharp, and long noise that would send a freezing chill down the spine of anybody that it was directed at.

It wasn’t a gunshot, it was a screech.

Then there was the gunshot.

Fortunately for Sunny, Jim was too scared out of his mind to have decent aim, and the shot went straight into the ceiling and disappeared. Jim, swearing, shambled over to the window, gun ready.

“There’s cops in the woods! You called the cops on me didn’t you!?” He spun around again, a panicked insane grin on his face. This was a desperate and pathetic man, but he did have a gun, and that gave him some authority.

“Alright! You’re gonna listen to me! huh!? You’re gonna go out there with your hands in the air, and I’m gonna follow you! And we’re gonna walk right to your van and get the %#$& out of here! You hear me?!”

He was breathing incredibly heavily, but then again, so was Sunny. “I hear you! I hear you! Listen, you just need to-“ “NO.” Jim interrupted. “You listen! I am not getting dragged down to prison after all this work! I have earned this you hear me?! Now just shut up and put your hands in the air!”

Sunny didn’t argue, Sunny honestly didn’t even listen. He was too busy looking behind the man with the gun, and to the glass door behind him.

“HEY, h-hey! Look at me! What are you-? What are you looking-?”

Jim took a quick glance behind him to the door, and his quick glance quickly became a slack jawed stare as he saw the red glow in the dark eyes of a hunched six-foot-tall purple praying-mantis-like figure with large skeletal claws.

The next few moments were a blur of sounds and visions that Sunny could hardly take in, the scream of pure horror that came out of Jim’s lungs were only one upped by the gunshot and shatter of the glass door, all to be one upped again by the blood curdling cry. Sunny dashed to the other end of the gas station and jumped behind the counter, peeking out around the right side of the counter Sunny only saw enough to know that Jim had been thrown back against the freezers of drinks. The creatures head snapped directly to Sunny, only adjusting slightly when seeing his eyes sticking out the side. The creature somehow knew he was there before even seeing him.

A million things raced through Sunny’s mind all at once, several relating to his previous encounter and just how many of these things there were. Forefront in his mind however was this ‘how on earth am I supposed to get out of this?’

Jim’s groan could be heard from the freezers, the monster only briefly glanced in his direction, apparently entirely uninterested. Sunny figured this at least was good, regardless of how messed up this guy was, he had probably taken enough of a beating already.

Taking another quick look around the gas station as he shuffled over behind the hot dog machine, Sunny scanned for potential exits. He could hear the creature quietly approaching, but he did see a back door behind a shelf of Jim’s personal items.

He wasn’t sure why the thing was going so slowly.

Then it slammed its hands into the hot dog machine and flung it against the opposite wall, which Sunny took as a chance to run for his life. He got up off the dirty floor, nearly stumbling as he ran for the door. He turned into the door and out through a short hallway with a whiteboard. The whiteboard, covered in what appeared to be Jim’s future plans, was torn off the wall as the monster tore through the room, getting stuck on a crate and jammed into the small doorway. Sunny pushed open the back door and dodged a torn open trash bag, he ducked around to the front of the building jumped into the driver’s seat of his van.

“Come on, come on!” Sunny struggled with the ignition for a moment, but the car eventually started. “Got it!”

But just as he was about to drive away, he took one last look back to the gas station door, and to the inside to where Jim sat on the ground half conscious. Sunny looked away for a moment, sighed, and put his foot on the gas, quickly spinning the wheel to position the car door directly next to the gas station.

“Alright Jim,” Sunny got out and started dragging Jim towards his car. “I guess you’re going to prison after all.” Jim’s sound of protest could hardly be heard under his short breath, he coughed a few times, and then quit his protesting and fell asleep in the back seat.

Sunny quickly shuffled over to the driver’s seat and spun the van out of the entrance and straight into the purple creature, which had jumped out into the way of the vehicle.

“What the-!?” Sunny just managed to avoid hitting the creature head on, destroying and nearly losing his right-side door. “Alright, hang on.”

He increased the speed out of the turn and drove as fast as he could away from the station, but his escape was quickly followed by a long and high pitched whistle.

“Ow! Darn it my-my ears!” Sunny swerved to the right as he reflexively reached for his ear, narrowly avoiding hitting a tree on the side of the road. His vision was getting a bit fuzzy, and he was started to see everything in shades of green.

“What was that thing?! What are any of these things?!” Sunny heard a shriek and something tearing off the back of his van, then the heavy thud of something on his roof as the ceiling started to shake and collapse. He could hear Jim in the back shuffling weakly to the other side of the car.

Sunny had had a long night, and he wasn’t going to let it beat him yet, he swerved the car to the left and then to the right in an attempt to shake off the creature, but its claws seemed to have a strong hold on the roof. One of those claws reached down and broke through a back window, Jim let out a shriek.

Then, just as the claw was about to slash the weak gas station employees’ neck, it went limp and was pulled back out of the window, and a loud thud and sound of twisting metal came from the roof as the car lurched back for a moment before they continued onward.

They had gone under a sign.

“Hahaha! Yes!” Sunny celebrated with a laugh that was admittedly a little less than okay. “I think we lost him!”

The sign meant two things to Sunny, the first of those things was that the monster would probably have some trouble getting to them anytime soon, and second was that they were approaching a town.





Yachats Oregon was only a few miles away.





———



Alexis ran down the stairs as fast as she could, there was no time to think, there was no time to understand, and there was no time to cry. She needed to run. The green leathery flesh tornado of teeth and shriveled limbs clicked and clacked as it tore at the wallpaper, propelling itself forward with its various black claws. The staircase Alexis had run down was not the only one in the mansion, but it was perhaps the main stair. This stairwell turned inward towards a first-floor balcony with another stair along the opposite wall and two larger stairs going down into the beautiful entrance to the family home. There was a sparkling yellow chandelier, a genuine bear skin rug, and a grand piano, all giving the room a very comfortable feel.

That very comfortable feel was entirely upended by the intense fear that was flowing through Alexis’ veins. Alexis didn’t know why she was still able to run, usually this kind of thing would have her frozen cold, but this wasn’t the usual kind of thing.

She knew she couldn’t keep running forever though.

The final step of the stairs was followed close behind by the form of the thing, chattering louder, scraping and trip ping, like some sort of spider-horse hybrid. Like a wild dog searching for traction on a hard wood floor. It’s eyes still unfocused, it’s arms wildly grabbing at anything it could tear away, it’s mouth dripping with hunger.

Alexis dashed down the final stair, nearly falling onto the railing at the end. She made a run for the front door.

It was locked, somehow it was locked from the outside.

Alexis was breathing fast from running, but she was beginning to realize that running might not be the only cause. She was starting to get a little foggy, even a bit sick.

The thing laughed, it laughed at least in its own way, and then it leaped off the balcony, crushing the piano with its massive weight.





“WHE RE.”

“WHEH- CI- WH ERE-“





It began to chuckle quietly as it began pulling its limbs out of the shattered wood, the eye on its chest still bulging and looking in every direction, focusing on nothing.

Alexis screamed and ran to the dining room, then she took a sharp left turn, ducking into the dark kitchen and hiding behind a curtain under a sink. It was where she always hid from her brother in hide and seek, it was where she had hidden from her brother, it was where she had hid from her life.

She could hear movement and a plate shatter outside, she remembered when she had broken a plate as a child, she had been banned to her room for a week. The movement got closer, a chair shifted across the floor, and there was a tapping noise on the floor.

Incoherent garbling was getting closer.

Where were Alexis’ parents?

Her brother was usually away from the house this late, doing whatever it was he did with his miserable life, but her parents surely would have heard something. The staff would be up and about, right?

Right?

A plastic bowl fell onto the floor in the kitchen, the thing had managed to sneak inside the room without making any noise, the only noise it apparently couldn’t hide when it wanted to was it’s incredibly heavy breathing, it even breathed like it was evil.





“Aaa a aa-a-aa a-“





The noise was like a creaking door, but it came from the thing. Alexis could see its legs outside the curtain, she grabbed desperately at the bottom of the sink, hoping for anything that could help protect her.

There was a plunger, a sponge, and tucked behind some old rags there was a metal box.

She could use it as a blunt weapon, but she knew she wouldn’t have the guts to use it. She knew she wouldn’t have the guts for anything. She would die. She was dying, she was going to die.

She was having trouble breathing.

The spider-like thing moved again, crawling over the tables, and throwing open a door at the other end. Its teeth clattered like its legs as it moved further away.

Alexis broke down there under the sink, she didn’t know how long, and she didn’t care either. She gasped and cried as quietly as she could for as long as she needed until she couldn’t. Until she couldn’t do anything but be okay.

She found there, when the tears gave way to vision, that she was still clutching the metal box.

Half out of a mindless hope, and half out of plain mindlessness, she cracked open the lid.

It was a stash of her brother’s cigarettes and a box of matches.

Her brother, her older brother, the one she usually would have been able to count on, the one who had thrown away everything for these.

He was a monster.

She hated him in that moment, she hated everything. She hated her family and she hated the house, she hated the monster and she hated the world. Her hate burned so bright that she couldn’t see again.

And then she had an idea.

The Dawnshin family home was almost as old as the family itself. The home dated back to the 1800s and was constructed for a very large sum of money by the very best in the business. It was made of the finest and greatest wood and sat in the middle of a beautiful forest. The land was chosen because it was beautiful, its true, but it was also chosen because it was alone. A house alone far out in the woods where the world and the press couldn’t bother them.

The Dawnshin staff back then was large, and several of those families would serve generations and generations of Dawnshins, all the way up until this present day. The same servants’ bells placed all around the building were still used to alert the staff to the needs of the family. Sure, it was a new world of technology, but it was always better to be practical, you save more money that way.

These were all things Alexis Dawnshin knew to be 100% and completely true, she had been taught all of them from a very young age and was expected to remember them and carry it on with the pride expected of a Dawnshin youth. She also knew that there was no true reason to be proud in a family who’s smiles in front of cameras were equally as devoid of all love as when they smiled upon their own daughter.

Alexis got out from under the sink and stood up, she walked to the door she had entered from with the box still in her hand, and she went out into the kitchen. She grabbed chairs, the tablecloth, wax candles, anything that she knew could burn. She piled all of it up in the center of the room, and she lit it, she set all of it on fire and threw in the cigarette too. She didn’t care anymore, the monster that now owned this place was no more of a monster than the previous owners. She didn’t care if she never got out, but she was certainly going to try. The house caught fire quickly, the combination of antique curtains and old wood did wonders, and within minutes the room was up in flames. Alexis rung the servants bell, taunting the creature to attack, but it had apparently already been on its way as it threw open the door.





“HAH A HA- A— CIGARE-CIGA- cigarettecigarettecigaretetetetet-t”





Threw itself into the dining room and plunged its own body straight into the burning curtains, desperately grasping at the cigarettes that burned along with them. It’s cries of hunger turned to cries of intense pain as the fire, wax, and curtains twisting itself into it, melting with its skin and holding it fast in its own pain.

As the fire spread into the family room, Alexis broke a window with a chair, and crawled out onto the cold front lawn. As Alexis ran away from what was once the family home, the last thing she heard was a tormented shriek mixed with the hate dripped syllables of her own name.





“A-aAA—AL-EXX-SSSSSSS-“


Alexis never looked back.