Joanne stood at the entrance of the forest near her university, peering into the dark pathway leading in. She took a quick breath to calm down, trying to push down her strange intuition, and walked inside. The leaves and twigs crunched beneath her soles, the constant chilly breeze rustling the dense canopy that kept out the sunlight. She stopped a few times to tie her laces, which kept coming undone, but otherwise remained set on the trail leading to the Pond. Several people, nearly two dozen, had gone missing here for periods of time, but mostly reappeared again out of nowhere, completely changed. And among those people was her younger sister, Melanie.

About half a year ago, the sisters were walking along this very trail, taking a breather from their homeworks. Melanie had gone on ahead at some point, and suddenly disappeared around the Pond. Joanne was absolutely devastated by her disappearance, returning everyday to try and find her sister, but she had vanished without a trace.

It was also thanks to her search that she learned Melanie was not the only one who had disappeared here. Many others had been seemingly whisked away into thin air, completely gone from the surface of the Earth for weeks, months, or even years, only to reappear suddenly one day, wearing strange expressions, all roughed up, traumatized and weak. Luckily for Joanne, Melanie had also returned after four months of disappearance, but she was also changed.

One day, as Joanne did her daily search of the forest for Melanie, she suddenly saw a soaked figure dragging themselves out of the Pond with groans and whimpers. She rushed over to help and only managed to recognize her younger sister after the person had stopped thrashing around like a wild animal in her grasp.

“Melanie! Melanie! It’s me! Joanne!” She frantically yelled, looking over her sister with panicked eyes. “What on Earth has gotten into you? Where were you? You–”

Melanie suddenly stopped moving, staring deep into Joanne’s eyes which stunned them both into silence. Joanne finally got a good luck at her lost sister; her hair was unkempt and messy, her entire body dirty and covered in some strange looking wounds, but most distinctively, her eyes had lost their hopeful glint, worn down by dread and fear.

“Joanne-” her sister murmured, voice raspy, repeating the name a few times before her eyes turned vigilant and frantic again, scanning around. She then desperately tried to say things, screaming fragments of sentences like “Leave”, “Pond”, “Danger”, “Away”, and “Joanne” several times, before passing out unceremoniously as the other called an ambulance.

Melanie was now in rehabilitation, traumatized and different from her old self, but back and alive, which Joanne was already immensely grateful for. However, she couldn’t help but wonder about what exactly had happened to her sister and how on Earth she had ended up how she was now. So here she was, standing before what she has determined is the root cause of it all; the Pond.

It was this endlessly deep, black void of water the size of a small swimming pool, almost entirely stagnant. The people having returned from their disappearances were said to have crawled out of it, as Joanne witnessed herself, but some also said that there were strange ripples on its surface right after a disappearance as well. No one has tried to enter it however, due to superstitions, urban legends and simply because it was such a strange space.

As Joanne took another step towards the Pond, now less than a meter away, she felt her laces coming undone again. With a slight sigh, she bent over to tie it while thinking back on her endeavors to get the police to take a look at this spot. However, as she did so, her body suddenly lurched forwards and she felt herself lose her balance. She had no time to think whether she had stepped on a lace and tripped or if something had pushed her as she felt her face hit the ice cold water of the Pond, her entire body following suit.

The water became completely opaque, the outside world seeming so far away as Joanne thrashed, trying not to keep sinking downwards. With how deep down she was going and the less air she had in her lungs, she felt her body and her eyelids specifically growing heavy, her heart beating faster than it ever had as her world went black.

After an indescribable amount of time, she woke up to a harsh howl of wind battering over her face and the ice cold feeling of her drenched clothing seeping into her bones. She took huge gasps of air as she pushed herself up on her forearms, lifting her head as best she could.

What greeted her was not the bottom of some pond, nor the forest or even a hospital ceiling, but the bloodstained sky of a ruthless world, worse than even the most terrifying of films.

Mike groaned as he woke up to a horrible headache and waves of pain all over his back. The feeling was made up of some soreness from sleeping over hard material and sharp twinges of pain as though his back had been torn open. His hands moved to rub at his temple, but he felt the thick leather of his biking gloves and his helmet. Opening his eyes, he saw that his face shield was cracked, a strange web pattern stringing across the glass. Through the tinted glass, Mike did realize however that his surroundings seemed to be glowing gold.

He slowly stirred, trying to move his body as more pain shot up his spine. He sat up on what he recognizes as one of those round mirrors in the intersections of underground parking lots and took off his helmet. Before him were scattered tons upon tons of gold and glittering objects, going from smartphones and pocket mirrors to things as large as a washing machine and an off-road vehicle. Everything was hoarded into a vaguely round shape, tracing the sides of the large circular cave Mike was in. It was a space with a single large opening at the top where light came in, thus making the objects shine.

As Mike looked around some more, he saw his motorcycle as well, the metal distorted in the middle as though it was crushed by something large. He had also realized that most things in this room were broken and showed similar crushing or even contorting marks on them, as seen on his bike but also the washing machine, which made a nearly hourglass-like shape like it was squeezed in the middle. His helmet in his lap had also sustained large damages, notably a huge dent near the top which correlated with the spot at the center of where his headache radiated.

Thinking about his wounds, Mike tried to turn around to see his back, wincing as he felt more pain with his movements. He reached back with his hand and tentatively dabbed at his jacket, retreating his arm back immediately as his glove touched something soft and his back burned. Bringing his hand before his face, he realized there was blood on his gloved fingers and also bloody traces on the mirror he had lied down on. He used the mirror to take a look at his back and gasped as he saw long open gashes that had cut cleanly through his jacket and into him, maybe made by large claws or talons.

Mike’s brain quickly wound back to what had happened before he had woken up or fallen asleep. Did he doze off on a ride and get into an accident? As the gears turned in his head, he managed to remember with some effort that he hadn’t fallen asleep, but was hit on the head by something large and hard which had made him pass out immediately. As he worked his way backwards in the timeline, he vaguely recalled seeing a large shadow on the road, covering him and his bike completely from above.

‘Was it a bird? No, it was too big for that. A plane? But the wings weren’t rigid lines.’

As Mike kept trying to recall more details, a loud noise of wings flapping followed by a loud thud from above him snapped him out of his mind. Looking up, he had found the culprit for his predicament.

Slowly entering the cavern was a dragon bigger than two buses one behind the other, slinking into the cavern with a shiny wheel cover in his mouth. The object was then dropped into the center of the nest with a loud clatter as the huge creature turned towards Mike, eyes glowing brighter than all the treasures it had hoarded.

I opened my eyes in a pitch black space, with no visible boundaries in any direction. I was sitting at an office desk as I typed away on an old computer, the dull keyboard clicking echoing faintly. A single lightbulb hung by a thread infinitely long coming from a spot directly above my head. The halo of light flickering occasionally, the screen of my computer doing the same. I kept on typing away, writing nonsensical words, phrases and symbols that I couldn’t read or understand. Everything was eerily calm, including myself, just neutral and impersonal.

Suddenly, another lightbulb clicked on from my right, revealing a male figure dressed in office wear; a white shirt with a blue tie tucked into a pair of cheap-looking navy suit pants. I couldn’t see the man’s eyes, but I could see a smile. As he approached towards me, the hanging light followed him from above perfectly like a spotlight on a stage.

« Still here? » He asked casually.

« Yeah. » I replied coldly, still typing.

« You know, » the man continued, now standing beside my desk as he leaned against the taller railing of my cubicle. « You don’t have to do all this. You could just let someone else make the changes. »

My hands finally stopped for a moment as I threw him a glance. « No. » I said dismissively, before getting back to typing.

The man’s eyebrows furrowed and he scratched at his temple, perhaps out of annoyance. « Geez, » he sighed. « I don’t know anyone as persistent as you. »

I looked at him and said again in a brisk tone. « I don’t trust anyone else to do it. »

The man suddenly stopped scratching at his head and stared at me. « Don’t be so crabby, » he retorted before adding in a hushed whisper. « That’s why you look like that. »

That comment threw me off as I turned to look at him again. « Like what? »

He looked back at me flatly. « See for yourself. »

When I turned back at my computer, what greeted me instead was a huge round mirror, reflecting a strange looking thing.

It was a creature with a human body from the neck down, but its head was the body of a large crab, looking red and angry. I stared in horror as I brought a hand up to touch my face, realizing that it was indeed me. When I tried to yell, I realized with panic that I could no longer make any sounds apart from an underwhelming bubbling noise as the crab in the mirror spat out bubbles. Breathing became nearly impossible as well as I felt myself trying to breathe through the bubbles, crab eyes flailing around wildly as I helplessly stared at my reflection.

From beside me, the man’s voice rang out again. « Crabby. »

I jolted awake at my desk, chest heaving and a chill running along the back of my neck. My hands flew up to my face, finding my human head to my relief, and a small trail of drool running along the corner of my mouth. I looked up at my dimly lit computer screen, a lengthy report still open. I sighed heavily, emptying my lungs and calming down, before closing it shut.

Evelyn woke up to the sound of a phone opening after a dead battery, squinted eyes cracking open. She stood up from her spot at the couch, yawning softly, eyes watering slightly. She had just finished a long project that had taken nearly all of her time over the weeks she had worked on it for. Now that it was done, she found herself bored with a lot of time on her hands and no ideas nor plans.

She made her way into her room, stretching her arms upwards before sitting down, leaning into the pillows on her bed. She then stretched her legs as well, feeling some fuzziness in them from napping while sitting for so long, as she contemplated just going back to sleep while she was still a bit drowsy. However, she took her phone from the nightstand nearby out of habit and flicked it open casually, finding an article open. She guessed she’d probably clicked on it randomly earlier in the day, so she ran her eyes over the title. It read, "Memory and Forgetfulness." Slightly interested, Evelyn straightened her back a little and started reading.

« We all tend to forget things. Whether it be small and unimportant things, like the colour of your bag in elementary school or what you had for lunch last Tuesday, or more important things like your passwords or a deceased family member’s face. As humans, forgetting is impending and unavoidable, for all our memories will succumb to it someday. »

She frowned a little at the ominous sounding sentences, but kept going.

« The worst part of forgetting things is that we don’t even realize we’ve forgotten by ourselves. Of course, in some cases we do, thanks to some outside influence that jogs up our memory, but our minds often still wouldn’t be able to find the forgotten information even with outside hints. So this brings up many questions; How much do we realize we’ve forgotten? Just how much have we forgotten? »  

The page suddenly blacked out, the article disappearing from her screen. Evelyn quickly swiped her finger over the screen, but soon realized that her phone had run out of battery. She picked up the charge on the ground and reluctantly placed her device on the nightstand beside her bed as she waited for it to wake up again. In the meantime, she went back over the article in her mind.

She usually avoided articles like that one since they made her overthink by complicating subjects that she personally preferred would stay simple. Evelyn sat up onto the mattress, staring at the wall before her. ‘What was the colour of my elementary backpack?’ She wondered and pondered, trying to conjure up some old photographs her mother had taken of her younger years, but nothing came to mind. 

A little worried, she tried to recall more useless details of her childhood that were near impossible to remember anyways. ‘Where was my desk in English class?’ ‘What was my favourite dress?’ ‘What did I used to pack for lunch?’ ‘Did I always hate green onions?’ 

To pull herself out of her thoughts, Evelyn stood up and fetched herself some water, grabbing the glass conveniently left out on the kitchen counter. She then absentmindedly made her way over to the couch again, flopping down onto the soft material with a sigh. Feeling a little tired again, Evelyn nuzzled deeper between the cushions, a small yawn accentuating the feeling. So, she simply let herself fall asleep again, ‘Until my phone wakes up,’ she thought.

After about a dozen minutes, her phone lights up again with a ding as Evelyn cracked her eyes open again. Behind her illuminated lock screen was that article, read four times in a row by the same user.

« Oh, how kind of you, » said the blond woman for whom Miller held the door. 

He flashed a smile at her, letting her enter his home first before he did, closing and locking the door afterwards. The two made their way into the house, the woman glancing around curiously in his living room as Miller hung up their jackets and headed for the kitchen.

« Take a seat, make yourself comfortable. I’ll get us some drinks and snacks. »

The woman chirped a reply, turning her attention to his bookshelf, then the television. Miller proceeded to make a picture perfect butter board and sliced some homemade sourdough to go with. Once he was satisfied enough with the board, he turned his attention to drinks.

« Do you feel like tea, coffee or wine? I have some good French wine if you like the last option. »

« I’ll take you up on that offer then, » his guest agreed with a chuckle.

Miller took a bottle from the little cellar and popped open the bottle. A few moments later, he emerged from the kitchen, bringing the board and the basket of bread to the coffee table in the living room first. He then brought two filled cups over, hanging one to the woman first. Once he finally joined her on the couch, they then proceeded to find some random TV show and chatted about little nothings, the girl very enthusiastic about it all. 

« This is indeed a nice wine! » She exclaimed as she tasted it, swirling her cup gently. « My, you have to tell me where you got this from. »

Miller smiled again. « I can give you a spare bottle if you’d like. Just remind me. »

The woman’s eyes lit up slightly, her mouth curving into a grin. « You are very kind indeed, » she said a bit teasingly while Miller just chuckled as an answer. 

As time passed slowly, Miller got to know the woman more as they both drank, his guest visibly more affected by the liquor than he was. She made a short comment on his tolerance, which he simply deflected with habits and genetics. Soon afterwards, the woman leaned softly onto his shoulder and fell asleep, an empty glass in her lap. Miller then put down his glass and gently got up, making sure not to startle her. 

He took her into his arms in a bridal carry, then made his way down the stairs to the basement, carefully placing his sleeping guest onto a padded table. Miller then dragged over his little chariot of tools, rolled up his sleeves and wore two pairs of gloves. He ran his fingers over the array of sharp knives, muttering to himself.

«  So there are still people who fall for the kind ones, » he said, picking up a scalpel before getting to work.

The heels of my boots tapped on the tiled floors, the sound echoing in the building as I roamed the empty hospital hallway. It was the dead of night, my usual shift. Some weak rays of moonlight shone in from the windows at the very edge of the hallway, only a tiny patch of tiles were illuminated. 

Being a security guard for a mental hospital is already scary enough to most people, but night shift goes the extra mile when it comes to horror movie vibes. I scanned each of the closed doors with my flashlight as I walked passed them, listening for uncommon sounds and noises. Most nights were pretty calm and uneventful, nothing movie-worthy really, so I wasn’t expecting nor hoping for anything to happen tonight in particular.

As I turned into another hall of doors to the ‘resident’s’ rooms, I did a quick flash of the entire corridor and something caught my eye. Near the wall at the edge of the hallway, one of the doors seemed to stick out slightly. I immediately made my way over to check, flashlight honing onto that door in particular so I wouldn’t lose it amidst all the other identical ones. The closer I got to the door, the more an apprehensive feeling started to grow in my guts.

When I finally got close enough to see the door clearly, I realized that it was slightly open, as though it wasn’t closed properly. I was told of the very few vacant rooms and there shouldn’t be one in this hall, so I tried to push the door open straight away. I felt some resistance from behind it, but it felt like some kind of fabric which dragged against the flooring. Soon afterwards however, I managed to get the door to open, finding that it was a bedsheet on the ground.

I quickly directed my flashlight and my gaze to the room itself, more specifically the bed. Under the moonlight entering from the window, a narrow metal bed was revealed, empty. The sound of a pair of bare feet running on tiles then made its way into my ears, coming from the next hallway. Immediately, I turned back towards the hallway, grabbing my walkie-talkie as I called out to some other guards on the lower floor.

« We’ve got someone trying to escape! »

Amanda opened her eyes to a beautiful beach side scenery. The typical palm trees and white sand, the blue sky and sea, as well as the folding beach chairs and a brightly coloured parasol. She sat down onto the chair leisurely, a coconut with a thick straw and a bright pink little umbrella appearing in her hand. Just as she had wanted. 

Amanda was a lucid dreamer. Every once in a while, she’d try to make the most of her abilities by making up an entire world for her to enjoy to her heart’s content. Sometimes it was real places that she had been to, while other times she made up the sceneries with her imagination. Whenever she told people that she could lucid dream, they’d all call her lucky, which she agreed with. Lucid dreaming was fun, and she found it to be quite a pity that only less than a quarter of the population could do so regularly. Speaking of other lucid dreamers, Amanda had never thought that she was any different from others like her. Sure, she had vivid dreams, but didn't we all? There’s also how she’s a very vivid visualizer when she’s awake, which probably explains it.

In the meantime, Amanda stood up and made her way into the ocean. She walked into the waist-high water, which felt comfortably cool, and began to swim. She quickly covered a few meters to test herself, then flipped onto her back and floated with leisurely backstrokes. She stared up at the bright sky, the white clouds, the seagulls that flew by as she thought of them. How wonderful.

Just as she tried to stand up again, Amanda suddenly realized that her feet couldn’t touch the floor of the ocean and she felt a small wave of panic. She usually made sure that the waters in her dreams were shallow enough for her to touch the bottom ever since she learned of Thalassophobia, which she might have. She writhed in the water, trying to feel for sand or anything. After several long moments spent splashing around, she realized that she must have made a mistake in what she called ‘setting up the dream’. 

Out of instinct, she looked down. Beneath her feet was dark water, seemingly endless as it stretched downwards and into an endless abyss. She started to panic, trying to swim towards the shore which was suddenly so far away. The faster she tried to swim, the further she seemed to float, which only made her more frantic. She kept throwing glances down at the bottomless seawater, trying to bend the dream to her will once more, but her surroundings refused to change. 

Suddenly, Amanda subconsciously thought; ‘There could be something down there.’ The moment that stray thought entered her mind, the dream acted on it instantly. The sky darkened and she quickly stared down at the water. It had become so much darker, even her toes becoming hard to see. She looked up at the shore again, but it was gone, leaving her stranded in the middle of an ocean as far as she could see.

All of a sudden, Amanda felt something grip at her ankle and she was dragged down into the water immediately after. She tried to scream, to break free, drinking in large amounts of seawater in the meantime. She started to gasp and choke, panicking as she tried to will herself awake.

Luckily, it worked. Amanda’s eyes opened abruptly, her lips parted as her lungs kept fighting for air. She closed her mouth slowly and took longer breaths to calm down, letting her tensed muscles loosen. Suddenly, a taste and a small piece of something hard appeared on her tongue. Something far too familiar. Amanda smacked her lips and recognized the distinctiveness of the same salty seawater she had nearly drowned in in her dream.

Immediately, she jolted up and spat out what she had in her mouth, a small bit of sand and sea salt lying innocently at the center of her palm.

An old pickup truck slowly made its way up the short hill to his house, the engine coughing and sputtering afterwards. Samael hopped out from the driver’s seat after he parked it at the intersection between his front and back yard. He turned his head to look at the large, heavy bag in the cargo bed and sighed. A meal first, he’ll take care of it later.

Samael made his way into the kitchen and opened the fridge to get some leftovers. He was being a bit lazy not cooking, but hey, you shouldn’t waste still perfectly good spaghetti. Once the container was placed into the microwave, he picked up a dog bowl from the ground and scooped in some dog food. He walked to the back door and shook the bowl.

« Codes! » He shouted towards the woods. « Cody! » He tried again, but his dog still hadn’t appeared out of the shrubs where he usually played. Samael shouted a few more times, before shrugging and leaving the bowl a short distance from the door. He then walked back to his microwave, got his now heated spaghetti and ate.

The supper was as eventful as you’d expect, which was extremely boring. After all, Samael was a (painfully) single man in his late thirties living with just a dog, who wasn’t even here at the moment. He washed the single dish in silence, wiped the table and started playing a song on a pocket radio. He grabbed a flashlight and car keys and left once again.

Samael started up the engine and drove towards the little forest behind his house, parking right before where the road narrowed down to a width where he couldn’t drive anymore. He hopped down the truck and tackled the load in the bed. With a grunt, he got it to fall onto the ground and he dragged it from there on.

With a clear destination in mind, he tugged the long bag across a small trail he had prepared a few days prior, leaving a long trace in the dirt behind him. After but a few minutes, he finally got to a tiny clearing near a big oak tree, where waited his shovel, a few more tools and a small pit. With a few huffs to catch his breath, Samael wore his thick gloves then zipped open the bag.

« Time to get you in the ground. » He said in mock-cheerfulness, grabbing his shovel to deepen the small crater he had started working on the day before. Once he was content with the size of the hole, a size at which even he could lie down comfortably inside, he walked a few steps to drag the bag closer.

Suddenly, a nearby shrub started to rustle and Samael whipped around, alarmed. What came out of the bushes however was a black and white dog, its fluffy tail standing tall and wagging excitedly.

« There you are Cody! Gave me a fright! »

The dog trotted over happily, dropping a long stick-like object into the pit his owner had just dug. Samael squatted down to give the dog some pats with one hand and reached into the hole with the other, pulling out a long bone recognizable to him as a human femur.

« Oh, Codes! Why’d you dig this up? You bad dog. » Samael sighed while the dog simply panted at him, seemingly smiling. « Now I gotta find which pit you got this one from. »

A shadowy figure lurks on the edge of a cave, observing the hoards of creatures roaming mindlessly in the cavern beneath. In a blur of black, they hop off the side of the ledge, landing softly on a protruding part of the wall without alerting any of the monsters. These jumps would’ve been terrifying enough for most to back out, but not for a renown treasure hunter, and especially not to this treasure hunter on the heist of a lifetime.

The (self-proclaimed) best Treasure Hunter in the continent, known as Orion, had been on a mission to find the Great Necromancer’s Tome of Spells, among other precious things, for several months now. After a few run-ins and brawls with other bandits and thieves who tried to leech off his clues and progress, Orion had now finally reached the necromancer’s lair, the tempting treasure just a few more tunnels and caves away. He didn’t rush things however, because as one of the most experienced treasure hunters there is, he knew that a burst of impatience could end his career, and life.

Orion stepped onto firm land again after crossing the small canyon of beasts and dusted himself off quickly before continuing down the tunnel again. After crossing a few more rooms and caverns filled with traps and all sorts of ominous symbols, a pair of large stone doors finally came into view. The burial chamber, aka the treasure vault for him. After carefully inspecting the doors and sibling 3 hidden mechanisms, he ultimately pushed them open, the heavy grinding of rock against rock filling the cavern. Soon, Orion was greeted by the sight of a dimly lit space, with a few magic stone powered lamps illuminating some spots and a couple of bats flying around.

He immediately walked over to the large altar-like box in the center of the room, avoiding a few more fake tiles along the way, and ran his hands along the top of the cover to clear the dust. He threw a quick glance over the superfluous threats carved in ancient languages and ignored them just as quickly, planting his feet behind him and pushed with all his might. With a deafening thud, the huge lid of the stone coffin fell to the side, revealing a mummified set of bones surrounded by jewels, charms, artifacts and scrolls. Funnily enough, despite all his exploits and efforts, the Great Necromancer wasn’t able to prevent his own death or resuscitate himself. Orion chuckled and flicked the corpse on the forehead, then reached for the precious tome it held in its grasp. 

After a few minutes of prying the book from the former necromancer’s hands, paying a lot more attention to the volume than the crumbling fingers, he held up the priceless treasure in his hands, staring appreciatively at the large gems embedded in the covers. Orion grinned. After months of searching and tracking, it was finally his.

« What a nice artifact you’ve got there. » A cheery voice suddenly came from behind Orion, who immediately shoved the book into his bag and turned around, trusty daggers now in hand. It was a face he knew well and hated even more.

« Draven. » He huffed angrily. « You sure seem confident for someone who walked over the roads I paved. »

Draven shrugged, a smirk on his face. « How does that matter? I could just kill you and settle our score here and now. »

The two men circled each other threateningly, all the while throwing taunts and threats at each other. They both wield daggers and have a similar fighting style, something that horribly irritated Orion. Out of the two, Draven was actually a bit stronger (Orion would never admit this) while Orion was swifter and lighter, making them about an even match. Once they had gotten a bit away from the altar, as to not damage any of the objects inside during their fight, their blades soon met, a sharp sound of metal colliding joining to the echoes of their barked insults in the cavern. Soon afterward, the room became a chaotic arena, daggers glinting and knives flying all over the place.

Suddenly, a shrill scream interrupted their duel, catching both treasure hunter’s attention. One of the throwing knives had struck a bat near one of the corners of the room. It flapped its wings a few more times, before falling onto the ground with a thud. With a click, the tile the bat fell onto sunk into the ground and an ominous rumbling noise shook the cavern. Orion and Draven stared at the dead bat, then at each other, then finally at the back wall of the altar room where a hidden door was being opened. A pair of bright eyes peered at them from the darkness of the newly opened secret room, followed by a flash of sharp teeth and a deep growl.

In unison, the two enemies cursed together and bolted for the exit.

A camera begin’s its recording with a dull beep and a girl pops into the frame. She wore simple, adventure suited clothes and smiled at the camera, waving. 

« Hi everyone! I’m Cecilia. In case it’s your first time watching, I like to explore mysterious and creepy places, which I document up on here! » She spoke cheerfully, a huge contrast to the place she now showed by flipping the camera. It was  the middle of some woods, the thick clouds visible between the widely spaced trees, the entire atmosphere very gloomy. 

« As you all can see, today is just perfect weather for exploring by ‘Cecilia standards’, so I couldn’t miss the opportunity to share with you all this weird door one of my viewers recommended to me! » The camera focused on an ugly cement square protruding from the ground, seeming awfully out of place amongst the leaves and barks.

The angle of the camera rolled and shuffled as noises were heard, most likely the girl pinning the camera onto herself to free up her hands. Her forearms came into view, showing that the camera was now possibly hanging around her neck. 

« Right then! Let’s go! » She cheerfully exclaimed, hands giving two excited thumbs up before she walked towards the door.

When she turned the rusty handle, the door refused to budge at first. But after a few comments from the girl and a few more hard tugs with all her strength, it finally opened, revealing a flight of stairs going downwards. 

« Well that’s quite creepy. » The girl said casually and grabbed a flashlight from somewhere outside the view of the camera. « Anyways! I’ve got my flashlight so let’s head on down! » A round spot of light shone into the darkness, revealing nearly endless stairs. « That’s quite the long way down haha— »

The video suddenly turned to a chaotic static, image and sound completely battered and jumbled up. Once the static cleared and the footage went back to normal, it now showed a grim underground path akin to a sewer with a man-made underground river beside the ledge on which the girl walked.

« Geez, it’s so stuffy in here. And also kinda smelly. » An arm waved around in front of the camera as though to dissipate a smell in the air. « Don’t tell me I was told to explore a sewer, that’s just boring and nasty. » 

The girl sighed and kept on walking, the camera following the directions in which her body turned, the flashlight drawing lines along the dark and damp surfaces. Some pipes lined the walls and the ‘hallway’ stretched on, although there was a visible end to it. The entire tunnel was shaped like an upside down half-moon, the river running down the middle between two ‘platforms’. She walked on the right side of the water.

« Oh, I think I see something, » the girl spoke, pointing the flashlight at the edge of the tunnel. The camera shifted and was lifted to a higher level, then the lenses zoomed in. With the magnified picture, a rusted metal door was visible on the last wall. After a few words from the girl, the camera bobbed quickly as she ran to the door and managed to push it open after much effort.

Suddenly, a room was revealed. It was much bigger than the platform she was just on, the space opening up on the right, about the size of a small gymnasium. The ceiling was the same height as the tunnel, just about 3 meters above the girls height as she held the camera to give viewers a better view of the room. Strange and rusted cogs and wheels were everywhere all over the walls, one stacked above another in a disorderly manner. With a short exclamation, the girl found a stuck-up shape at the end of the room and headed for it.

It was a square pillar, a little over a meter tall with a big red button on it. In an unstable handwriting was written in white: 

« ‘Press to play~.’ Huh. Seems… interesting. » The girl considered the choice for a few seconds. « Since I’m already here, might as well! » And she pressed it down firmly.

The moment the button sunk down, a loud metallic ‘clunk’ was heard from behind her and the camera whipped around to find the entrance sealed. The entire room was then bathed in a threatening red light and all the gears on the wall began to turn simultaneously. « What— »

A piercing voice coming from hidden speakers suddenly spoke, making the girl hunch over in surprise. « Welcome, welcome, welcome! To my Games Room! » The voice was high pitched and quivered occasionally, sounding like that of a mad-man. « You are currently inside Room One. If you wish to live, clear the room’s puzzle within the time limit and the next room shall open. If you don’t, well… you’ll die! » A maniacal laughter pierced into the camera’s audio as the girl swore in disbelief, clawing at the door she had entered from, that didn’t even have a handle from this side. 

« This room’s puzzle is: Find the 5 fake gears amongst the 3762 on the walls! Good luck and have fun! You have 10 minutes! » The voice came again, before disappearing.

And the video cuts off.

Inside of a crowded and noisy building, figures and silhouettes stood close to one another in their separate little rooms, as they listened to the static noises and the voices grumbling in the background. The resident’s complexions are all in a rosy shade, indicative of a good and healthy lifestyle, yet their eyes were dark and dreadful as they looked at each other, at the tall ceiling above their heads and the solid ground beneath them. Although it was well illuminated and their needs were taken care of by the Caretakers, the residents of the building lacked freedom and choice. This space was all they’d ever known. 

Ever since their early childhoods, they had been placed into this room and stayed here for as long as they could remember. Regardless of what happened, almost everything stayed the same day after day. After waking up, they’d be fed. After that, they’d walk around inside their rooms for a bit, before having a few discussions with their roommates to pass time. The cycle would just repeat on and on, for days, weeks, months, years even. There were often times when life itself felt stagnant, but there was always one event to change that.

Every once in a while, some Caretakers would come. They’d peer down at the residents from above their rooms, searching and choosing for an individual. Sometimes, it’d be someone from a room from the far ends, other times it was from the rooms in the center. The chosen one would then be forcefully taken from their room to be brought Outside, to be laid upon a surgery table and killed. The Caretakers would take the precious resources each of them carried within them; their precious, modified organs.

The residents lived in fear, which turned to dread over time, waiting for their turn. They all knew that they would one day be taken away from this farm, to be harvested for what they were born with. Although some individuals had succumbed to apathy and acceptance, a few were outraged and pained by what was happening around them. They had heard that they had things in common with the Caretakers, with the ones in charge of this place, with Humans. The resident’s had Human genes inside of their bodies and were similar enough to Humans even without their DNA. So why were they treated so differently? Destined to be born, raised, killed, used, all for the sake of some person they’d never seen before. 

But that was how things were, how a life with less meaning could change and save the more important lives of others. After all, regardless of their few similarities, Pigs are different from Humans.

Hello to you readers who’ve made it to the end!

I’d just like to thank you for taking time to read these picks of my Inktober 2022 short stories!

It was a very interesting challenge to take on for the month since I’d never done anything like this before. This was my first time posting my writing or even writing this much consistently too. It was quite fun to do and the month just flew by! (In all honesty though, I don’t know if I will again since daily writing has been pretty time-consuming, as I’ve come to know, and can be really hard whenever I just run out of inspiration. But who knows!)

These stories were really just daily exercices for fun and practice, random ideas coming from whatever I could think of in 5 minutes, so thank you so much for sticking along, it means a lot! Although I'm in no spot to give advice, to those who write or are considering writing something; if you feel like it, go ahead and try a monthly challenge or join Inktober next year!

So that's all for this Inktober series (unless you'd like my other prompts too) and see you maybe next time!

Hibel :))