Uber Driving Gone Wrong

Photo by Strange Happenings on Unsplash

I sank into the leather seat and looked up at the car roof after dropping off my last customer for the night.

A sigh escaped from my lips as I sank further into the driver’s seat.

Too drained from working night shifts three times a week the last couple of months, my eyelids gave in and were as heavy as lead.

But the silence did not last for long. A notification popped up on my phone and stirred me up. A customer wanted to be picked up at a quarter to three in the witching hour.

As I was about to call the customer and refer them to a colleague of mine, another notification popped up.

I sat up straight upon seeing the numbers on the screen. $1,000?

I punched in the address on the in-built GPS. $1,000 for a ride twenty-five miles from the pickup location? What were the chances?

Levi, my friend and another Uber driver working night shifts, said, quote, if something’s too good to be true, it is, end quote.

From what he told me, these kinds of customers were almost all exclusively either influencers doing social experiments or teenagers with nothing better to do but prank hard-working people like us for a hard laugh.

As if I hadn’t enough on my hands and mind already, a phone call I did not expect hit me up just moments later and disturbed my train of thought.

Swearing through gritted teeth and vexed more than words could capture, I slowed down and unwillingly answered the phone. How long was she going to keep this up?

“Hello? Joseph?”

“I’m working right now, can you—”

“Don’t do you hang up on me!”

I drew a deep breath, deliberately pausing to calm my nerves and think straight.

“It’s my last shift. I told you that already.”

“You said that two months ago!”

“Just… just give me some more time, all right! I’m working my fingers to the bone to provide for you and the kids, for crying out loud!”

“No…” Annie said, my partner of ten years, adding before I could come to my defence. “If you were truly thinking of us, you’d start getting a proper job!”

I shut my eyes briefly, trying to control the anger soaring through every fibre of my being. ‘Get a proper job’? A smirk crossed my face. What had I been doing all these years?

Had I the energy to snap back at her, I would. But I hadn’t slept properly for too many nights to do that.

“Listen, I’m not in the mood for this, okay? I’ll hit you up when I come home.”

“Joseph—”

I ended the call and tossed the phone on the passenger’s seat. Rubbing my face to the point the dead cells came off, I slouched forwards and rested my head on the steering wheel.

Annie and I were high school sweethearts. I was part of an alternative rock band called ‘The Puppet Master’, a silly name, I know, but it sounded cool back then.

We drew inspiration from Japanese Visual kei bands like the GazettE and DIR EN GREY. We even had an entire friend group, which was all about Visual kei bands and anime.

Annie was a transfer student and joined our close-knit group during the second semester before graduation. The only daughter of an ambassador, she’d been raised in Japan and was a mangaka in her own right.

Our love story, however, did not last as long as either of us thought it would. When her dad got deployed to another country four years later, we lost contact with each other and moved on.

When we met up years later in our mid-twenties, the sparkle between us I thought had long since faded, rekindled.

We moved in together right away and got pregnant two years later. Annie became with a child just six months after giving birth to our firstborn.

It was a tough time for both of us. My dreams of getting discovered, going on tours, and becoming successful never died.

Between working as an Uber driver at night and a cashier during the day, I frequented clubs with my bandmates and tried to get some exposure.

We weren’t big in the night scene, definitely not, but we still had a small following that was loyal to us.

It wasn’t that Annie was wrong. She was right. I barely slept at home and she was left to take care of both kids, two mischievous boys, and the house chores all by herself.

Not to mention, we barely made the ends meet. Had it not been for Annie’s parents, we’d probably be homeless right now.

I was sorry towards her. She was studying medicine when we met and had her whole life before her. When this whole pregnancy thing happened, she quit her studies to take care of our firstborn.

There wasn’t a day where I didn’t feel a pang of ache in my heart for her, but putting all this pressure on me and deriding me for not being enough wasn’t exactly what I needed to hear.

Beep, beep.

It was that customer again. $1,000, huh? How many diapers did that translate to?

Levi’s voice replayed in my mind on repeat. But if this was nothing but a silly prank, then why was this person so persistent? Surely, a prankster wouldn’t go to such lengths to reach out?

I hit them up. Just to make sure someone wasn’t trying to pull my legs.

A young woman spoke up on the other end of the line. Her soft voice was pleasant to listen to. She sounded young, like someone in their early twenties or an eloquent teenager.

“Hello?”

“Hi, uhm, this is Joseph,” I said, adding as the woman did not reply. “The Uber driver?”

“Oh, hi. Are you here yet?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You… accepted my request ten minutes ago?”

I peeked at the app as the woman carried on in the background. When did I press accept? When was I talking with Annie or afterwards? I couldn’t even tell.

“Sorry ‘bout that. It seems like there’s some kind of mistake on my part.”

“You’re not backing off, are you? I really need this ride. Please.”

I scratched the side of my brow and took another look at the address on the GPS. It was literally in the middle of nowhere, the place this person wanted to be dropped off.

Moreover, I was the only active Uber driver nearby, and this person sounded too young for my liking. What was she even doing at this peculiar hour at such a delicate age?

“How old are you?”

There was a slight pause after I asked this.

“Hello? Are you still there—”

“Please, I [unintelligible]…”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

A low tone replaced the airy whisper I just heard. It was as if I was speaking to two different people – that was how different the tone came off to me.

Was Levi right, after all? Were these some bored-to-death teenagers trying to waste their own as well as my time?

“I’m sorry, I already decided to call it quits for tonight. I’ll refer you to my colleague—”

“NO!”

“What…?”

“NO! NO! NO!”

“Hey, is everything all right? Do you need help?”

“S- stay away! I said, stay away!”

I briefly put the phone away to take note of the customer’s name.

“Emily? Emily, is everything okay with you? Hello—”

*inexplicable screams*

The line died.

Without thinking about what the hell I was doing, I started the motor and hit the road. In hindsight, I should’ve called the police and stayed put, but sometimes you do stupid things and you don’t know why.

I tried reaching out to the young woman throughout the fifteen-minute ride. But her phone was off and kept sending me to voice mail.

When I finally arrived at the pickup location, the last thing I expected to find was a graveyard on a wooded hill in the middle of absolute nowhere.

There was no sign of life anywhere I rested my darting eyes. Save from some derelict houses at the end of the narrow route, no one seemed to be living in the otherwise dim neighbourhood shrouded in shades of amber and purple from the rising sun.

“Hello? Emily? Are you here?”

There was no reply. I heard nothing but the frantic beat of my heart and the wailing blasts of wind coming through from the northeast.

What was this feeling, though? As if I was being watched. Stranger still, what was the customer doing in this harrowing graveyard at such an odd hour? It made little sense.

“Emily? Do you need help?”

When I searched the entire graveyard for the third time and still found nothing, I made up my mind to return to the city and from there call the police.

As soon as the headlights switched on, however, something in the direction of the blinding lights caught my attention. Was that… Emily?

I stepped out of the car and headed towards the silhouette who stood with her back turned towards me. Her long, black hair reached to her waist and she was dressed in a white nightgown.

Swaying gently to the breeze, she kept murmuring something as I drew closer. I couldn’t hear what it was at first, it sounded like something a drunkard would ramble up, but then I heard it as clear as day.

“He’s going to kill me…”

“He’s going to kill me…”

“He’s going to…” I stumbled backwards and fell as she turned her pallid face towards me and screamed her head off. “… KILL YOU.”

Crawling backwards in the hopes of reaching my car and getting the hell out of there, I nudged something sharp and stopped dead.

A bloody knife. At first, I thought I had cut my hand while trying to get away, but I wasn’t bleeding anywhere.

I glanced up as the young woman appeared before me. Her neck and body were twisted in opposite directions, and her hollow, wide-set eyes fixed on me, as an invisible force dragged her through the wilted blades of grass and left behind a trail of blood.

I stumbled back on my feet and followed the invisible figure to a shallow pit. Both the woman and the thing that dragged her all the way here faded away. The shallow pit turned into an unmarked grave.

I frowned as I touched the damp soil. It was newly dug. What on earth was going on?

The hum of an engine coming through startled me out of my dire thoughts. The headlights of what could only be another car soon followed and illuminated the vicinity, only to switch off as soon as it pulled up next to my car, which had still its headlights turned on.

“Damn it!”

I kept my head low, crawled as far away as I could without making a single sound, and cowered behind a headstone veiled in a thick layer of patina.

Reaching into my pocket to call for help, I realised too belatedly that I left my phone in the car.

Shit! Swearing under my breath, I glanced towards the blazing light as a figure showed up.

It was a man. I couldn’t see his face, though. I was too far away from him. But it was a man; I was positive.

He looked around himself before turning off the headlights. Although I couldn’t see it clearly from this angle, I knew he now had my phone in his hand and was trying to unlock it.

I turned away and rested against the headstone. My chest rose and fell to the cadence of my frantically beating heart.

There were so many questions whirling through my mind, but none of them put me in greater distress as the one taking over every inch of my brain right now.

What was Annie going to tell the kids? That their father, who they hardly saw growing up just… just abandoned them and disappeared from the face of the earth?

It wasn’t that I tried to neglect my duties as a father and husband. I was just… trying to make a living for my family in the only way I knew – by composing music.

A smile crossed my lips as the footsteps behind me grew louder.

Annie said she fell for me after seeing me play the bass during a school outing. I had a fling with another girl back then. What was her name, again? Right, Laura.

She was a nutjob, man. She was… crazy. I thought I was in love with her until Annie transferred to our high school and took my breath away.

I still recall the first time I laid eyes on her. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I didn’t believe in love at first sight until she came along.

But now that I thought things over, had I the chance to go back in time right now, I would’ve done everything I could to stay away from her.

I didn’t deserve her.

I was a failure.

I messed everything up.

If only I could turn back time and…

Holding my breath, I stared up at the towering shadow that fell upon me. The upside-down view of a familiar face greeted me with a wolfish grin.

Before I could speak up and voice my doubts about the mysterious man’s identity, he bludgeoned me to death.

As my head hung loosely from my bloodied neck, the man dragged me through the grass and towards another shallow pit next to the unmarked grave. I couldn’t even turn my head and take another look at him.

When he rolled me into the dark pit and covered me with soil, he turned my head so I could finally look him in the eyes.

“I don’t know how you ended up here, Joseph, but I clearly remember telling you to be careful.” He paused. “This? You brought it upon yourself. When something’s too good to be true, it’s not.”

I moved my lips, at least I thought I did, but no words escaped from me. He observed with a tilted head from where he squatted as I struggled to speak and keep the crimson liquid from suffocating me to death.

Everything plunged into darkness.

The grains of damp sand smothered me out of air and got stuck in my throat.

Under me and from either side, a heap of rotting corpses screamed their heads off and fought to reach the surface and escape from their deadly cage. I was the only person of the opposite sex.

The spell, which left me unable to speak, let up and I regained back my senses.

Like the others below me, shoving and ripping one another apart to get out of this suffocating darkness, I screamed at the top of my lungs and dug my nails into the hard soil until blood covered my face.

Phone Call

Photo by Sebastiano Corti on Unsplash

“Are you sure we’re not lost, Jason?”

I took a gander at my pregnant wife, Marissa, before turning right for the third time. Unlike many of our peers who married young and became pregnant before they hit their thirties, Marissa and I met one another late in life and married in our thirties.

Doctors and friends alike told us we wouldn’t be able to get pregnant and that we should settle for an adoption. After trying for five years without any results, we gave up all hope and prepared the paperwork to adopt a toddler.

When Marissa became with child, the last thing I expected was this growing trepidation in the pit of my stomach. I never considered how attached I would become to our unborn child. With each passing day, I learnt something new about myself and understood with what heart my single mother raised me in the ghetto.

But the blessing didn’t last for long.

A phone call came through in the dead of night. Jordan, my big brother, said Mum had taken ill and probably wouldn’t make it through the night. Marissa insisted on coming along seeing the distraught state I was in.

We were halfway through the countryside and what should’ve been only a one-hour drive to the southeast. But when we passed the two-hour mark, both of us knew that something was amiss.

I knew this route like the back of my hand. I grew up in the countryside and knew my way around these parts of the country better than anyone. But that night, something or someone hindered me from finding my way out of the vicious loop.

“What does the GPS say?” I said.  

“I’m not sure…”

“Put in the address again.”

“Like this?”

I briefly peeked at the phone screen. Since this was the countryside and we were in the middle of a single-lane road through the meadows, our surroundings were pitch-black.

“Delete the ‘e’. No, keep the ‘s’, just—hold on.”

When she typed it wrong again, I seized the phone without letting my eyes off the windshield. As I typed the last letter, something in the middle of the road caught my attention and I hit the brakes.

Lurching forwards, I looked up to take another look at what I could only describe as a huge tree blocking off the route ahead.

Catching her breath, Marissa, “Why’d you stop? Jason?”

“Stay here.”

The first thing that arrested me was the clean cut. Someone barricaded the roadway on purpose. As soon as this thought crossed my mind, I looked around myself in the shadowy depths and tried to locate anything out of the ordinary in the wooded vicinity.

“What’s going—”

“No, stay there!” I said without looking at her. “Lock the doors and stay put.”

I saw nothing that could explain the angst taking hold of every fibre of my being. The only thing I could tell for sure at the time was that I needed to protect my family.

Something was in the offing.

Typing in 911, unsure of what to say to the operator, something moved past me and disappeared into the wilted thickets. I paused and held my breath.

A maniacal laughter reverberated throughout the vicinity. I spun around in place, trying to locate the source of the strange laughter. How many were they?

I stumbled backwards as I pressed the ‘call’ button, careful not to make any sounds and make it back to the car in one piece.

“This is 911. What’s the address of your emergency?”

“I- I don’t know, I’m not sure. We passed the highway an hour ago, I think.”

“Where were you headed, Jason?”

“We were—I’m sorry?”

“Isn’t this Jason speaking?”

“What’s—”

The woman’s voice morphed into a deep, slow tone.

“What have you done, Jason?”

“W- what is this? Some kind of nationwide joke?”

“What… have… you… done… Ja-son?”

I glanced at the phone screen. What the heck? The phone number on the screen was a jumbled mess of random letters and symbols.

“Hello? Who’s this?”

The deep voice now turned shrill, like a disturbing cross between a moan and a scream.

“Ja-son, Ja-son, Ja-son…”

The phone slipped through my grasp, but the voice continued to ring in my ears. Blood gushed out of my mouth and seeped out through the corners of my lips.

I bled from every hole and pore. The crimson liquid, sticky and warm to the touch, soaked me wet at an unprecedented speed.

I gasped. The voices faded away. Buzzing, another phone call came through from an unknown caller. I picked up the phone and observed it ring for a few seconds.

“Hel…lo?”

“Where have you been—Jason? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

I looked over my shoulder upon hearing her voice on the other end of the line.

My legs gave way under me and I fell with the phone clutched tight in my hand.

The disfigured body, cold and stiff, stared right back at me. She held her belly. The look in her hollow eyes was that of a woman in great distress through the windshield.

“Jason? Are you there?”

As I placed the phone in my ear, the skeletal figure gasped to life and spotted me.

“Ma… rissa?”

“Is everything okay? You’ve been acting so strange lately. Did something happen between you and Jordan?”

The living dead crawled out of the car.

“W- what do you mean?”

“You stormed out in the middle of the night and didn’t return for weeks. Something’s different about you, I can tell…”

“Different?”

“You keep talking to yourself and…”

The cadaver drew closer. It was bleeding from its legs.

“And?”

The voice on the other end of the line faded away.

“Marissa? Hello—”

The deep voice, which sounded muffled and as if underwater, returned.

“What have you done, Ja-son? What have you done to our ba-by?”

I looked up as a shadow fell over me and shrouded everything in shadows. The creature’s belly ripped apart from within. Something pierced through my throat – something that lurked inside its bleeding womb.

As I collapsed into the pool of blood and convulsed, the voice on the phone kept growing louder and shriller, purposely trying to jog my memory and make me remember what I had no recollection of.  

When I took my last breath, everything returned to normal.

The phone call ended.

The whispers faded away.

And… the beat of my wretched heart picked up.

Coming back to life a second time, I stirred awake with a gasp and glanced at the clock. It read four past one o’clock in the witching hour. When a minute passed, a phone call came through and made my chest rise and fall in an unnatural rhythm.

It was Jordan.

I didn’t answer the phone.

When it finally stopped ringing, I shifted my gaze to Marissa, who slept soundly beside me. I snug close to her and wrapped my arms around her, placing kisses on her delicate shoulder.

I missed my mother’s last moments. She apparently told Jordan not to call me for some reason, although he ended up calling that one failed time after she fell asleep.

When we met up at the maternity ward two months later, my brother told me something that would forever stay with me.

Quote, Mum kept telling me to not call you. When I asked why, she said you’d know the reason, end quote.

Was this a mother’s intuition at play?

As I held my son and he wrapped his tiny hands around my thumb, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of ache within my soul.

That night, when I picked up that phone call, did Mum know that something wicked had set its eyes on me and my family?

Gate of Hell – Part V [Final Part]

Photo by Gabriel on Unsplash

“They’re looking at us,” whispered Tom through gritted teeth as low as he could.

Edmund cast a look around the shadowy darkness where the faceless people watched their every move and didn’t tear their hollow eyes from them.

Why were they staring at them like that? It was so creepy. Had they done or said something, he’d understand at the very least, but those things just… watched.

“Hey, Edmund!”

“What is it now?”

They were halfway across a rickety bridge as dark as coal when Tom brought his attention to something he hadn’t noticed before. Then again, it wasn’t so strange he missed seeing and hearing it.

The wailing spirits in the crimson river screamed their heads off and tried to drown out all the other noises. Thousands, perhaps millions and billions of people, cramped in the bloody river and flowed to the current of macabre tunes.

“Look over there! Look!”

Edmund followed the boy’s gaze to the distance. There, through the pitch-black darkness blanketed in walls of fiery fire and drowned out by harrowing screams, a peculiar train emerged.

“What in the whole world…?”

“Do you know what that is? Edmund?”

“No, I…” Edmund briefly looked away. A thought dawned on him, one that he thought he had long since forgotten. He sought Tom’s eyes. “It’s… it’s that train!”

“What are you talking about?” Tom said in a hushed tone, acutely aware of the faceless people drawing closer now that they were reaching the other side of the bridge.

“It’s that train that took my mum with it! I- I’m sure!”

“I don’t understand. Edmund? You said she died giving birth to you. Hey! Edmund!”

Edmund averted his eyes. Thousands of questions spun in his dire mind and disturbed his thoughts. What was that train doing here? Here, in the abode of the damned!

Could it really be…?

Those nightmares of his mother screaming for help, could those really be real after all? But what if he was mistaken?

He… he had to investigate and find out the truth! But this was easier said than done. Had he come here all alone, he wouldn’t bat an eye and follow the train to wherever it went. But he promised Tom that he’d bring them both home.

“Tom, the thing is… I have these dreams, nightmares if you will, that I’ve had ever since we moved here…”

“Nightmares? What kinda nightmares?”

“That train… I keep seeing it. And then I’d hear my mum’s voice calling my name. I… I think she needs help.”

“How do you know it’s her, though?”

“Who else would it be?”

Tom cocked his head. “I dunno, the Devil Himself, maybe? Since we’re in Hell and all that circus – literally.”

“Why would the Devil lure me to Hell? I’m just a kid!”

Tom shrugged. “How would I know? You’re the one who hears and sees weird stuff. Allegedly.”

“You think I’m making all this up!”

“No, that’s not what I—”

Edmund raised his voice. “Look around you, Tom! Do you really think I’m some kinda weirdo, who- who makes up stuff just for the sake of it?”

“Geez! Keep your voice down, dude!”

“You know what? I shouldn’t have told you to come with me!”

“Edmund, for crying out loud! Keep your—”

They both turned in the direction of the booming voice.

“Humans…?”

Tom grabbed Edmund’s arm and hid behind him as the menacing cross between a demon and a werewolf approached. With its black fur and red eyes, it brought the suffocating darkness with it towards them.

“W- what’s that thing?” Tom whispered.

“How would I know?”

Tom was about to snap back at him when the hybrid creature beat him to it.

“Speak! Both of you! How did you get in here?”

Edmund wet his lips. “We… we…”

“Speak or I’ll cut your tongue!”

“We- we got in through that- that portal, sir! The one inside the shipwreck!” Tom chimed in as politely as he could, although anyone could see as clear as day that this thing was anything but a gentleman. It was a brute in its purest form.

“Shipwreck?” the demonic creature repeated. “What shipwreck?”

Tom was about to reply, but Edmund beat took over.

“Where’s- where’s my mum? I keep hearing her voice ever since we moved to Gaddon Township. She’s gotta be here!”

Tom watched with his mouth gaping wide. What had happened to the kid who was so antsy that he couldn’t even form sentences a second ago? But the brute didn’t seem to mind his dare-devil question.

“Gaddon Township, you say?” The creature looked away as if it was pondering something before looking around itself with two lines etched between its thick brows.

“Too many prying eyes here. You two, follow me.”

As soon as they crossed the bridge and followed the hybrid creature, the faceless people retreated to their shadowy hideouts and kept at bay.

Tom leaned in. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if—”

“We’re here,” the hybrid demon stopped dead so suddenly that they almost stumbled into it. “You two stay put and don’t go off anywhere, all right? Nod if you understand.”

They nodded in unison and watched the demonic creature enter what looked like a mighty building in the midst of the fiery pit surrounded by scorching magma.

“Okay, let’s make a break for it before it returns!”

Edmund, “It told us to stay put and don’t move, remember?”

“We don’t even know what that thing is! And you’re seriously gonna do as it says?”

“Well, do you have a better idea then, Mr know-it-all?”

“If you must ask, yes!”

Edmund knitted his brows, trying to figure out whether the blond boy was pulling his legs or being serious.

“Yes…?”

“Yes!”

“Y-es?”

“Yes!”

“So? You’re not gonna tell me what this ‘yes’ is all about or what?”

Tom flashed a proud smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Well, then? Go on…”

“See over there?” Edmund followed the boy’s finger to a group of people setting themselves on fire. “Those people, do you see them?”

“What about them?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“Well, can’t you see what they’re doing?”

Edmund took another look at the strange crowd screaming their heads off while they turned themselves into liquid time and again.

“I don’t get what I’m supposed to see here. They’re literally setting themselves on fire, that’s all!”

“Not those people, dumb-ass!”

Edmund’s eyes became narrower.

When he finally spotted them, the faceless people, he couldn’t help but knit his brows and seek Tom’s eyes as wide as the absent moon.

“Can you please tell me what’s going through that head of yours? ‘Cause I’m lost!”

“They keep following us, don’t you see? It’s like… it’s like they want to tell us something! But as soon as that creature shows up, they just poof! disappear!”

“You ever thought they might want to hurt us, and not that demonic thing?”

“But they didn’t!”

Edmund couldn’t deny this. The faceless people did indeed have all the chances in the world to attack them. Even back when they were in the woods, instead of hurting them then and there, they let them pass without doing anything.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t hurt us later on…”

“Well, I’ll cast my vote for those faceless things. What do you say?”

He was caught between a rock and a hard place. Tom had a point, but something about those hollow eyes bothered him in ways no words could capture.

At the same time, he couldn’t fully trust that brute, either.

“Edmund? Please…!”

“All right. But how are we going to communicate with them?”

Tom shrugged. “I’m not sure…”

“But you’ve got an idea I hope?”

“Well, I thought that kid could lend us a hand.”

“Kid?” Edmund looked at the faceless people again. “What kid?”

“Oh, she’s not one of them… Honestly, I don’t think she’s a demon, either.”

“Who on earth are you talking about?”

“The one on that train! The girl with the sleek, long hair!”

“The tra—that train?”

“Hmm!”

“But we don’t even know where that train went off to!”

Tom stepped aside. Now that he no longer obscured the view, he noticed that the train parked only a few steps away from the gigantic building in front of them. Moreover, the undead passengers were all getting off.

Lo-and-behold! Tom was right. There was indeed a girl not much older than them departing the train among the sea of undead. With her sleek hair, fair complexion and white gown, she looked more like a fallen angel rather than a sinner sent to Hell.

“Hey, Tom! Hold on a sec!”

But the blond guy sprinted towards the passengers before Edmund finished his sentence. When he finally caught up to his new friend and the peculiar girl, they were already on great terms and laughing hard.

Did those two know one another?

He couldn’t tell even if they did. But it sure did look that way – so much so that a strange feeling grew in the pit of his stomach as soon as he noticed how their smiling faces turned expressionless as he closed in.

Was that girl really inside the train? Now that he thought it over, he wasn’t so sure anymore. He didn’t see her inside the train. And as far as he was concerned, she didn’t actually depart the train either, she just… she just was there all along and pretended to join the crowd of undead.

But that wasn’t all. The way Tom stared at him… It was so weird.

Now he recalled why the other kids back at Gaddon Township told him not to play with the blond guy. There was something strange about the way he stared at people.

It was almost as if he tried to pierce through their souls and read their minds with his sinister eyes.

He stumbled backwards without really knowing why.

“Hey, is everything okay Edmund?”

A subtle smirk played on the girl's mouth as Tom reached out to him with a concerned look on his face. Edmund pushed his hand away as gently as he could, afraid that the other would catch onto him.

“I’m… I’m doing okay. Don’t worry.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something…”

This time, the girl wasn’t even trying to hide the wolfish grin on her face. He grabbed Tom’s arm and pulled him away so that the girl couldn’t hear them.

“Do you… know that girl? Tom, you gotta be honest.”

Tom stared down at his feet. Edmund was right.

“Actually… I do know her.”

“H- how do you know her? Tom, look at me! How do you—”

A wicked grin crept on his face. Edmund stepped away, startled more than anything, as he tried to digest what he was seeing.

But as soon as he took a step back and tried to make a break for it, Tom snatched his arm with such speed and strength that Edmund couldn’t break free. This, he thought, was not a human being.

“Hey, Edmund, isn’t it?”

He glanced at the approaching girl.

“Who—what are you people?”

“Do you believe in fairytales, Edmund… Keyes?”

Tom, “You better do! ‘Cause you’re about to join one!”

“W- what are you—”

The steel gates swung open and the demonic creature exited the towering building. When it caught sight of them, its round eyes focused on Tom before shifting to the girl. Before he knew it, the demonic creature leapt forwards and paid his respects to them.

“My Lord, forgive this poor slave who failed to recognise your grace!”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Get up! How many times am I gonna tell you not to call me that in front of other people?”

“Forgive—”

“Enough already! You’re making our guest uncomfortable!”

The girl, “You just had to come and disturb the fun! We were just getting to the fun part!”

Confused beyond anything, Edmund observed the strange conversation going on, trying to make sense of how and when things got out of hand.

Tom dismissed the demonic being with a swift move and cleared his throat.

“You asked me why I believed in the Gospels, right?”

Edmund couldn’t even nod his head.

“But let me ask you one thing before I give you a reply. After all, nothing in this world is for free.”

“I…”

The girl, “Just answer yes or no, stupid human!”

“You stay out of this, Mary. I’ve got this.”

She dropped her head. “Yes, brother.”

Edmund briefly averted his gaze upon hearing the name of the peculiar girl.

Mary…?

Mary as in—he looked up.

“Mary Magdalena. You’re right, Edmund.” Tom paused before adding, smiling wide as if bemused by a sudden thought taking over his mind. “I thought you didn’t believe in the Gospels… but seems like you know more than you let on.”

“I…I…”

“You, what? You seriously thought the Gospels were a made-up fairytale? Come on, Edmund! You can do better than that!” He paused again, taking his sweet time and teasing. “You know who I am, don’t you? I bet you do…”

“You’re… you’re…”

“There you go. Come on, you can say it. Loud and clear, so everybody can hear. Say. My. Name.”

“You’re…”

“Yes! Who am I, Edmund? Come on, say it already!”

Edmund dropped his head with a peal of laughter, turning bright red and wiping the tears of joy away all at the same time.

Tom and his sister exchanged perplexed looks fraught with horror upon observing his maniacal laughter.

“If you so will, I’ll call you by your birth name, Lucifer…. my son.”

Tom and Mary fell on their knees, pleading with him for mercy, as did the demonic creature that observed them in the corner.

“What did I say about luring humans into Hell?”

“It won’t happen again, Lord! Forgive me—”

“And you, Mary, being punished for making foolish humans think you’re the Voice of God wasn’t enough?”

“Forgive me, Father! Forgive this poor spirit and grace her with your divine—”

“And here I was thinking my creations were going wild when it was your doing all along. But I gotta admit, son, opening the Gate of Hell in such a peculiar place, was a clever move indeed.”

Tom wet his lips as he took a gander at him.

“It- it won’t happen again! I- I swear, Father!”

“Since things have boiled down to this and what’s done cannot be undone, I’ve prepared something I think you’ll both like.”

Tom, “Please, Father! I- I won’t do it again! Father!”

“Neither will I! Please, Father, forgive our sins!”

Edmund turned his back to his son and daughter made of the finest fire. As he walked away, slow and deliberate, each step caused an earthquake and turned every nook and cranny into dust.

From their hideouts, the faceless people, once the youngest residents of Gaddon Township, stormed out of their hideouts and charged forwards.

Ripping Tom and Mary’s faces off and exposing their true selves, the faceless people regained their humanity one piece at a time.

When nothing was left of the two wicked siblings made of fire, and Hell no more, the angels descended to the heart of Hell and escorted the children to the only place they belonged.

Gate of Hell - Part IV

Image by kalhh from Pixabay

“Tom! Tom, wake up, already! Come on, dude! You gotta wake up before they come!”

Edmund stooped over him when he warily opened his eyes.

“What’s… what’s going on?”

“You passed out,” said Edmund before letting his eyes shift to the shadows all around them. “Can you walk? Tom! Can you walk or not?”

“Yeah, I- I think so.”

When Tom stumbled up on his feet and looked around, the last thing he expected to see was the suffocating darkness. Where in the whole world were they?

Then he recalled the mysterious shipwreck and the ablaze portal.

His eyes grew wide with terror and he was about to say something aloud when Edmund placed a finger on his lips and hushed him.

“Scchh! Be quiet!”

Tom followed the boy’s darting eyes that settled on the surrounding shadows. That was when he noticed them, too – those faceless people watching their every step.

Gulping hard, Tom whispered, “W- what are those things?”

“Don’t look at them! You never should!”

“W- why?”

Edmund took his sweet time replying, visibly pondering something before speaking his mind.

“You said you believed in that nonsense, right?”

“The Gospels?”

“Hmm! The Gospels…”

“Yeah, I do… somewhat.”

“Then, you must believe in the hereafter I suppose?”

Tom knitted his brows. “The hereafter?” He briefly looked away. “Like… Hell?”

Edmund nodded. “Yes, Hell.”

Tom cast another look around upon realising what the other meant. But how could this be? How could two humans still alive and kicking be in Hell? It made no sense!

“Listen, you asked me about my mum, remember?”

“I- I did…”

Edmund drew a deep breath before he continued. “The truth is, my mum’s been dead for the last ten years. She caught a wicked disease and passed away shortly after giving birth to me.”

“What are you trying to say? What’s that got to do with—”

“My dad said she’s in Hell because she abandoned us! He said all womenfolk who die at childbirth are bound to rot in the bottomless pit and pay for their sins.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“You said you believed in the Gospels!”

“I- I do, I just don’t—”

“It’s written in the Gospels, Tom! My dad said so!”

“What’s written… exactly? I’m- I’m sorry, I’m having trouble following.”

“That with the mist, opens the Gate of Hell!”

“Gate… of Hell?”

“And we’ve found it! We really—”

“You lied to me!” Tom backed away as Edmund tried to reach out to him. “Why would you do such a thing!”

“I… I thought you wouldn’t come here if I told you the truth.”

“Yeah, you bet I wouldn’t! Are you out of your mind! Gate of Hell!?”

Edmund dropped his head. “I’m- I’m sorry. I just… I just didn’t want to come here all alone.” He looked up. “Honestly, I didn’t even think the Gospels were telling the truth. I thought it was all some made-up story…”

“What now! What were you thinking coming here? Do you even know what your mum looks like? And even if you do…”

Tom couldn’t continue upon seeing the dejected look on Edmund’s flushed face.

“You’re right,” Edmund muttered. “I don’t know what I was thinking. We… we gotta find a way out of this place.”

“Well, the portal’s gone.”

“There’s gotta be another way out.”

“And if there isn’t?”

Edmund took his time replying. “There has to be! Tom, I promise you. I’ll get us back home no matter what, okay? I promise!”

Gate of Hell – Part III

Image by Rick Khan from Pixabay

The rusty shipwreck looked like a relic forever lost in time. Algae and other kinds of microorganisms had eaten through its metallic surface and turned it soft and rotten. It was a miracle it washed ashore in this poor condition.

“W- we should return now,” stuttered Tom, visibly fraught with horror at the sight of the massive ghost ship that washed ashore after the storm. “It’s too dark out here and so bitterly cold!”

“What are droning on about? Let’s go inside and take a look!”

“Wait, what?”

Before Tom could get another word in, Edmund rushed forwards and climbed the tilted shipwreck.

“Hold on! What are you doing! Edmund! Get down! Get down before something bad happens!”

But Edmund didn’t listen to a single word he said, and before Tom could make his trembling legs listen to him and advance, the boy disappeared into the shipwreck.

Reluctantly, Tom clenched his jaw and went after Edmund. Why was he so stubborn, he thought, before climbing up to the barely stable deck.

“Edmund! Edmund, where are you! Edmund!”

When no reply returned, panic set in.

What if something bad happened to him? Thinking of the worst possible scenarios, Tom picked up the pace and searched every nook and cranny while calling out to his new friend.

Seconds morphed into minutes, and before he realised it, several hours flew by.

Left with no option but to seek help from the grown-ups back in the market square, he made up his mind to return to the woods, when a sudden clamour arrested him.

It came from the captain’s cabin, which was blocked off by the mizzen and main mast, which collided and now looked like a cross. It was impossible to reach the captain’s cabin.

There was, however, a small gap where those two wooden poles crossed. Without a second thought, he squeezed in through the gap and entered the cramped chamber.

It wasn’t that he did not expect to see anything but the spectacle before him was anything but ordinary, or something a kid like himself could conjure up in his wildest dream.

A mighty portal ablaze with what seemed and felt like a miniature storm within stood before him. Taking a careful step forwards, he stretched out his hand only to retreat in the same second.

Like a black hole, the stormy portal sucked him in.

“E- Edmund? Edmund, are you here? Ed—”

Through the raging storm inside the portal, a hand reached out to him and a shrill scream drowned out as soon as it reached his ears. Before he realised it, his feet moved and the portal took him with it to the abode of the damned.

Gate of Hell - Part II

Photo by he zhu on Unsplash 

“Hey! Yes, you! Hurry!”

Edmund waved the blond boy over from where he hid behind the blueberry bushes across the churchyard. He had seen the kid working the field across Nanny Ruth’s farmhouse down the single-lane road before, but other than that, he hardly knew the boy.

Ever since the strange mist took over their settlement and took his friends with it to god-knows-where, he didn’t once consider that another kid survived The Purge – especially, not this scrawny thing made of bones.

“What do you want?” Tom said.

“The shipwreck! Let’s go see it!”

“What? No! Didn’t you hear what the—”

“Oh, come on! You really believe in all that drivel? Gospels? Hah! More like a made-up fairytale!”

Tom, acutely aware of how close they were to the communion members, hushed him before blurting out the following through gritted teeth.

“Are you out of your mind! What if they hear you!”

“Are coming with me or not?”

Tom sighed. “Do you even know my name, Edmund Keyes?”

Edmund’s eyes grew wide and sparkled.

“Wow! You knew my name all along and still ignored me during the sermon?”

“I wasn’t trying to avoid you…”

“Then what were you doing, then?” Edmund pointed at Tom so suddenly that the poor thing flinched. “You! You were clearly trying to avoid me back there!”

“It’s just… I’m not used to… talking to people, that’s all! Besides, when the other kids were around, you never paid me any attention – not that the others did, either…”

“Really?” Edmund paused for a second to jog his memory. “Now that you say that, I don’t remember ever talking to you…”

“That’s because all you ever did was play with Jordan and- and—”

“But why didn’t you join us then? It’s not like we’d tell you off or something…”

Tom’s mouth gaped wide. “Seriously? I tried, remember!?”

“Oh, you did?”

“You don’t remember, do you?”

Edmund cracked a smile. “I must’ve been harsh on you I guess?”

“Harsh? Harsh! You said I was a loser and told me to scram it!”

Edmund scratched the back of his head. “Hey, I’m sorry, all right? Let’s forget about the past and focus on the present, yeah?”

“After spilling spoilt milk on me, telling me to, quote, ‘go and die’, and then pushing me into the mud in front of your stupid friends?”

Edmund opened his mouth to defend himself, but when Tom continued, he realised that there was no point in defending the things he had done. Since when had he been such a jerk?

“Well, can we at least be acquaintances and explore whatever’s going on at the shore?”

“Only if you promise not to call me a faggot again—wait a sec! You don’t remember calling me that either, do you?”

Edmund, smiling wide, ran for the hills as his new friend ran after him to give him a beating. It wasn’t that he feared getting hurt, for Tom’s hands were literally made of sticks, but because he hadn’t had this much fun teasing someone ever since the fog rolled in.  

When they finally slowed down in front of the forest trail that led to the shore, Edmund glanced at the darkening sky full of twinkling stars. How long had it been since he last saw the stars and the moon?

“Hey, Edmund…”

“Hmm?” he said without looking at the boy.

“Maybe this isn’t such a great idea after all.”

He faced Tom this time. “Don’t tell me you really believe in the Gospels?”

“There’s no reason for me not to.”

“It’s just a fairytale, you know? To scare people.”

“How do you know?”

“My dad told me. He’s an atheist.”

“Ath—what’s that?”

“Someone who doesn’t believe in fairytales,” he said, adding. “Dad said my mum helped him open his eyes and see the truth for what it is when they first met.”

“Ah, I see. But where’s your mum? I don’t remember ever seeing her…”

Edmund hesitated. “It’s a long story.” He then took the lead through the thick woods and picked up the pace. “Hurry now! We shouldn’t be late!”

“Late?” repeated Tom as he tried to catch up to Edmund. “Late for what? Edmund! Hey! What do you mean?”

But Edmund didn’t reply.

His darting eyes focused on the narrowing path ahead swallowed by the depths of the dense woods. In the shadows, he could almost hear their soundless breathing and feel their icy touch on his bare skin.

The Gate of Hell finally unlocked.

Gate of Hell – Part I

Photo by Brad Switzer on Unsplash

It was the 21st of November 1829.

The storm raged on for over two weeks without respite and blocked off all roads to Gaddon Township. No one understood why or how something like this could happen in their serene settlement, where nothing out of the ordinary ever happened.

When the mist rolled in a fortnight ago and blanketed everything in patches of fog, the last thing the townspeople expected was to be trapped in profound darkness and not see the light of day for two weeks.

The crops wilted, the flowers stopped blooming, and the clear air grew thick with nauseating fumes. Children suffocated to death in their sleep, as did the livestock, the pregnant miscarried and those who tried to conceive were left infertile.

On the seventeenth night, however, the deluge finally retreated and the air cleared up. On the surface, everything went back to normal. It didn’t.

The stroke of ill fortune carried on, and before the townspeople knew, only a handful of them pulled through.

From the twenty-tree children who once resided in Gaddon Township, only two survived what the remaining townspeople now dubbed ‘The Purge’.

One of these two fortunate kids was Edmund Keyes and the other was Tom Baker.

Edmund was a year older than Tom and was the only son of broke homme d'affaires, who relocated to Gaddon Township to take flight from his debtors. The Keyes earned their living working their fingers to the bone as husbandry workers for good ol’ Nanny Ruth.

The elderly woman had never wed and was born and raised in Gaddon Township. She inherited a lot of riches from her parents when they passed away two decades ago. She was now the most well-off person in the entire settlement.

Tom, on the other hand, was the youngest of eight children, with seven of them being girls. The Bakers worked the corn fields for the other townspeople and earned a shilling or two slaving through the day.

Those two, Edmund and Tom, however, had never crossed paths before.

When the parish priest, Mr Gilbert, told everyone to meet at the churchyard the day after the storm faded, that was the first time they saw each other.

“This is a bad omen,” preached Mr Gilbert, taking a short pause to make sure he had everyone’s attention. “Goody Jon, can you please tell these good folks what you’ve told me.”

Goody Jon, an elderly man with a hunchback who miraculously survived what those in the height of their youth could not, stepped forwards.

“Aye, indeed, it is a bad omen, good folks!”

Everyone held their breaths.

“As you are aware, ever since my lovely Rae passed away, I’ve taken a walk on the shore to reminisce our dying memories. Yesterday, when the mist cleared, I found something washed ashore, good people! A shipwreck a hundred years or more old!”

“Why’s it a bad omen, then, Goody Jon? Something so harmless, at that!” someone asked.

“Fool! Don’t you know the Gospels!”

Mr Gilbert, “Please, take a seat, Goody Jon. I’ll take over from here.”

Albeit reluctant, Goody Jon returned to his seat.

“Dear friends, it seems the Judgement Day is upon us all. No, calm down good folks! There you go! Let me finish, ye?”

The commotion died as soon as it happened. The townspeople had a lot of trust in the priest and heeded his every word like they were from the Lord Himself.

“It is of utmost importance none of you goes near the shipwreck. I know it’s harder than what it sounds like. But you must stay away at all times. Is that clear? Goody Jon?”

The elderly man muttered something that sounded like something between a sneer and a swear.

“As soon as the hills of snow melt, I’ll send a word to Bishop Tomas and we’ll figure something out. Until then, no one is permitted to—”

“Aye, we get it! How many times will ya repeat?” someone interrupted. The others agreed, and yet another commotion broke out. This time, however, it took more than a few minutes for Mr Gilbert to calm down the communion and get his voice heard.

“All right, then! Good folks, listen up! Let’s conclude with a sermon and a prayer.”

Büyü – Part III [Final Part]

Photo by Alessandro Benassi on Unsplash

“Hello, hello. My name Mustafa.” The bookstore owner pointed at himself. “Not Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, best leader of Türkiye. You know Atatürk?”

The owner was in his mid-fifties. His round glasses were tinted and his Hawaiian shirt was something you’d expect to find in more tourist-populated cities like Antalya or Bodrum.

Kerem cracked a bitter smile. “I’m sorry, uhm, can I ask a question?”

“Tabii ki de! Ne istersen! Yes, anything you like! You ask, come on!”

“As far as I’m aware, the natives of Turkey are not known for their reading. But the bookstore’s open at night, nonetheless.”

“Türkiye,” he corrected me, leaning closer after making sure we were the only ones present in the bookstore. “Bir sır verim mi delikanlı?”

‘Want me to give you a secret, young man?’.

Kerem frowned upon hearing this. What secret? Wasn’t this just a bookstore operating at odd times?

As if the bookstore owner could read his mind, he retreated with a fake smile and said he was just joking in Turkish. Apparently, even the owner did not know why the bookstore had to be open at such a peculiar hour.

Mustafa was raised in Istanbul, Fatih, and had no real connection to Konya, Karapınar. The only nephew of an elderly couple, he inherited the bookstore along with the couple’s all assets and belongings – on one condition.

Anatolia had a rich history of folklore and myths. The elderly couple believed in ‘büyü’ or, in English terms, ‘magic’. While ‘büyü’ is recognised in the Islamic religion, it is not permitted.

That, however, did not keep the locals from engaging in it. Especially in these rural parts, where the majority were illiterate and superstition ran deep. It wasn’t unheard of to seek a ‘büyücü’, that is, a ‘magician’, when in need of non-urgent help.

The elderly couple had become rich overnight. From what Mustafa could gather, everything changed when they started opening the bookstore at night.

He followed the couple’s will at first and opened only at nighttime. When this became a tiring task and his wife complained about it, he switched things up.

Only one day later, he was on the brink of bankruptcy.

But since he was getting older and had no children of his own who could take over the business, he sought someone who could help him along. That’s where Leyla comes into the picture.

A distant relative of Mustafa’s wife, Leyla uploaded an announcement on social media about the cashier's job.

Someone unknown to both him and Leyla called two days later and told her that he would hit her up in a week.

In a week …

In a week …?

The guys from the headquarters hadn’t phoned him at that point, and Mia wasn’t supposed to be missing, either. What was this? Some kind of messed-up joke?  

Even as the bookstore owner left, he couldn’t wrap his head around what was going on. First, it was the uncannily similar fake ID, then this whole thing about the massacre, and now this?

Then a thought hit him.

Was Mia even missing?

He picked up the phone to call her when he realised that this analogue phone only permitted calls from within the country.

Why hadn’t he thought about calling Mark before he departed?

Then again. Would he be able to? Those people put a tail on him. He could neither return to his apartment nor bid farewell to his friends at the headquarters.

Moreover, was this whole talk about aliens and whatnot just made up?

No matter how hard he twisted and turned the matter in his head, there was no answer – not a plausible one, that is.

The bells rang.

He looked in the direction of the front door made of glass. Whoever had entered was no longer visible. The door closed.

It had only been some thirty minutes since Mustafa left. He hadn’t expected to see a customer for at least an hour.

The entire street was drenched by the downpour, and no one roamed around as far as his eye could see from where he stood behind the counter.

Ten minutes.

Fifteen minutes.

Twenty minutes passed by.

Kerem glanced at the ticking clock on the wall across him and counted the seconds. Apart from the slow and deliberate footsteps reverberating through the store, nothing else revealed the presence of the customer.

Thinking they might need help, he trudged from bookshelf to bookshelf, from aisle to aisle, in search of the customer whose footsteps kept getting fainter with each passing second.

When he reached the last bookshelf, he became acutely aware of one thing.

The footsteps never ceased or stopped.

It kept moving.

Everything plunged into darkness.

The lights switched off.

“Merhaba? Kimse var mı?”

No response. Maybe they couldn’t understand his heavily accented Turkish. He tried again.

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

Still no response.

This was getting ridiculous, he thought. After getting accustomed to the darkness, he made his way back to the counter and fetched a flashlight from the drawer.

Wheezing, he pointed to the flash of light wherever he thought he saw some strange movements. Even so, he failed to catch a glimpse of the person who kept on walking in this haunting rhythm that sent chills down his spine.

He jolted and lost his footing. The flashlight slipped from his grasp and rolled away.

Something emerged from the other side of the window beside him and scared the living daylights out of him.

A pair of youngsters broke into a peal of laughter, pointing at him and screaming their heads off. Relaxing his shoulders, he drew a deep breath before stumbling back on his feet.

The bells rang again.

The footsteps disappeared.

The lights turned on.

No one was near the closing door.

But that wasn’t what made him back away and open his eyes wide. ₺1,000, approximately $29 was rung up on the cash register. How many books did that translate to? More than a handful, that was certain.

As he was having these ruminations, his eyes drifted to the security camera in the corner. Recalling that the owner provided him with a notebook with important information, he rummaged through the drawers until he found it.

“8921…”

He turned on the computer, tapping his feet repeatedly and keeping his darting eyes on the front door. Come on! Open!

The monitor hummed back to life. Opening the computer was the easier part, he noted, than finding the software programme for the security cameras.

Although he wasted a few minutes trying to find it, he eventually succeeded.

“Shit!”

There was no record, only live footage. What kind of bullshit was this? Why in the world—the bells rang.

His eyes drifted from the monitor to the front door. There was no one there. Thinking he must be mistaken, he went through all the footage as thoroughly as possible.

Still, there was no sign of anyone here. Apart from the footsteps, that is.

The lights flickered, turning on and off in a deadly trance, and making a fool out of him.

Fumbling to fetch his phone and call the bookstore owner, he lost his grip on it.

As soon as he crouched down, the lights went off again. This time, however, something was a little different.

The footsteps were not becoming fainter.

Through the gap under the counter, he spotted a pair of red high heels that drew closer.

He held his breath.

The figure came to a standstill in front of the counter. As he stood there, too afraid to make a sound or confront whatever or whoever waited for him, he heard something he could only describe as someone wrinkling a piece of paper.

The strange figure headed for the front door. Only when the bells rang and the door closed did he get back on his feet.

Once again, a large amount of Turkish lira was rung on the cash register. But that was not the only strange thing. As he had guessed, a piece of paper rolled or squeezed into a ball was on the counter, too.

“Kaç.”

Run…? Why? He took a gander at the clock on the wall only to realise it hadn’t moved since an hour ago. Fearing the worst, he picked up his belongings and headed for the exit.

Above him, the flickering lights kept switching on and off faster and faster, almost in time with his racing heart.

When he reached the front door and grabbed the door handle, an invisible force pushed him to the ground.

Crawling backwards, the silhouette of a creature on four legs materialised from the thin air before him.

The lights went amok. The bookstore’s customers showed up on the other side of the windows, screaming in unison with their shrill voices, and placing their bloody hands all over the glass.

Among the sea of spirits, a familiar face arrested him. Mia…?

Her gaping mouth was hollow, her eyes devoid of a soul, and her limbs convulsing with rigour mortis.

The creature from outer space grew taller and taller before him until its head reached the ceiling and beyond.

When it lurched down to get him with unprecedented speed, Kerem noticed another strange thing among the sea of dead souls.

Some were engulfed by flames, others disfigured so that their limbs were all mixed up, and yet others had their stomachs slit open so that their guts were out in the open, hanging loosely.

Through the blazing fire, a man who looked identical to his deceased father showed up. He opened the door with his invisible hand scorched to oblivion, liquified beyond rescue and soundlessly begged him to hurry.

When the thing reached out its meaty tongue towards him, he rolled to the side and leapt forwards with all his might.

As soon as he snatched the door handle and stormed out, the downpour stopped and the darkness of night faded away.

Before him was a busy street during broad daylight full of people from all walks of life. Someone honked at him and cussed him off.

He stepped away from the fast-flowing lane and looked behind him.

The mysterious bookstore faded into the background only to be replaced by a haunting graveyard in the middle of the city.

“What the fuck…?”

“Hi! Kerem, isn’t it?”

Kerem followed the sound of the voice. It was her. Leyla. He wanted to ask a lot of questions, but nothing escaped from his mouth. Not because he lost his ability to speak or was out of words, but because the person before him melted into liquid.

Somehow, he was the only one rooted to the spot and watching the bizarre spectacle.

He must have looked quite out of it because two kids passing by mimicked his frightened expression and made fun of him.

He collapsed.

His feet gave way under him.

As the locals surrounded him and asked if he was okay, his deceased uncle reached out a hand with a reassuring smile.

When he returned home, none of his coworkers in the headquarters knew what he was talking about. Those people he met, they didn’t exist. At least, not in the sense either of them were familiar with.

Had he been subjected to some kind of black magic? What was it called, again?

Right.

Büyü.