I Solved The Fermi Paradox | CreepCast

41:20Her face was gushing blood from her eyes, nose, mouth, maybe even the pores on her skin. I stood, paralyzed, just staring. She noticed me. The thing began making cooing noises like it was trying to entice me to come over. I dropped my groceries and sprinted out of the store. They sure look hostile, but do we know for sure, I wondered. Something knocked on my door. There was a pause, then scratching. I tried to ignore it. Now that I could see the creatures, there was a connection. I heard them all the time. Little laughs or sighs. I felt them too on a few occasions. One that appeared to be made entirely from fog and teeth had even taken a nibble out of my shoulder.

42:11I'd call that a little hostile, though. Maybe it was only hungry. Or curious. Scratching on my door turned into pounding followed by silence. Matilda was typing.

42:23Hunter:I think they might be like us. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are ugly. Dublin added. Cheshire, who communicated entirely in emojis, added a laughing face to the chat. There's the usual chorus of LOL and pop culture gifs. So immediately they have to kill Cheshire. The smoker has dull teeth. Ribbon posted. But a razor tongue. Are you okay? Calico wrote. Not at all. I saw the girl in the mirror. Or was the mirror in the girl? What? Ribbon, are you steady, friend? Borrow asked. yeah yeah ruben's doing great yeah it's kind of like uh i don't know what's that thing where i saw the girl in the mirror or the mirror and the girl uh i'm trying to think about like visual well it doesn't matter good i think it's funny how ruben's like it's a board to talk about the weird hallucinations of other dimensions you see and then a girl's like this one has a razor tongue and there's a mirror girl and then borrow's like whoa whoa whoa hold on that's not a mirror on a girl whoa we did that with each other a lot are you steady which was the polite way of asking if the little hairline fractures we all felt to our sanity were beginning to crack ribbon was typing again they told me you're next after me waltz well you know maybe maybe maybe it's a little too harsh or maybe maybe we could i do like that idea of uh i do like this idea of like a group of people basically from an outside looking in would look like a bunch of like almost psychopathic people talking about like the insanely weird shit that you would never see right or even saying stuff like oh it was the girl in the mirror or the mirror and the girl whatever but then it i i i I like the idea of checking in and being like, has, has this person completely snapped?

44:26Hunter:And I hope that we get to see that though, to see like, do they try to help? Or is it just a thing where it's excommunication? You just like have to sever the tie. No, I think they just kill them. If I had to guess, because considering they can touch them, are they, they're all in the same, are they all in the same town? Have we established that? Or because it says, they're typing, but they all went to the same place. They all had the same procedure, this procedure, but they're talking online. we're talking like a chat right right right right well that's what i'm wondering though i just didn't know if the procedure happened in the redacted kansas place whatever or if it's like oh i had the same uh the same thing but i live in a different area but i assume that they are all just got it from the same spot i reckon yeah i felt my stomach drop through the floor my apartment was boiling but i still began to shiver ribbon has left the chat the others spent ten minutes trying to convince me everything was fine, that ribbon was only worked up.

45:22I lied and told them I wasn't worried. You're okay, Waltz. Matilda sent me in a private chat.

45:29Hunter:Stay steady and contact me anytime if you need to talk. Thank you. I signed off and closed my laptop. Outside, the rain was picking up, tapping at my window like a guest, asking to come in. My television was humming quietly on the wall. I glanced up and saw that it was a rerun of a show I'd watched a dozen times. Only now, I saw that the comic relief character had a second mouth on their throat, their head flopping up and down every time they told a joke. That was the closest I came to ripping my new eyes from their sockets. My fingers stopped when I pushed down my eyelid. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

46:08With nothing else to do, I turned off the television, got in the shower, and didn't leave my apartment for the next week. one new message I will say it's just funny to imagine that like Andy Griffith is on the TV and he sees Don Knotts with the neck and he's like that's it I'm going blind are you digging this so far um I'm in it doesn't have me yet but it has I still feel like I'm in the build up phase

46:35Hunter:this year I'm focusing on limits how much I'm spending how many things I'm working on and definitely how many streaming subscriptions I need And that's where our sponsor Rocket Money comes in. The unfortunate truth is that it's easy to spend money. But finding unnecessary costs might not be. Running a business or controlling your personal finances takes planning and budgeting. And with so much going on, it can be easy to overlook things. Well, today's sponsor Rocket Money is here to help. Show RM logo here. Rocket Money is an easy-to-use app that helps you save more and manage your money better.

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47:45Hunter:I use Rocket Money to help guide me in hitting my savings goal for the year. And I plan to use it again this year to hit a new goal this year. This year. This year. This year. The script shows you to know it's this year. Whether you're planning on buying a house, going back to school, or just planning for the future, Rocket Money has got you covered. Take control of your finances today. Go to rocketbuddy.com slash creepcast to get started for free. You can also scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Unlock even more features when you sign up for premium. That's rocketbuddy.com slash creepcast or click the link in the description to get started for free.

48:19Hunter:Text overlay, try for free, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thank you so much for RocketBuddy for sponsoring this episode. Back to the episode. Yarrg. This episode is sponsored by Tushy. If your idea of clean is dragging dry paper across your backside after a long day, I've got bad news for you. Tushy helps bring maximum comfort to your bathroom trips and ensures such a pleasant experience every time. Yeah, I like to spray water up my butthole because it makes it clean. Tushy's e-bidets instantly modernize your daily routine, making it cleaner and healthier. I love using Tushy because it gives you two-in-one benefits by reducing irritation, preventing micro tears while using less toilet paper.

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49:37Hunter:No power tool is needed. Every Hello Tushy bidet comes with a 30-day hassle-free return and 12-month warranty. Give your routine the freshest start for a limited time. Our listeners get 10 % off the first bidet order when you use code CREECAST at checkout. That's 10 % off your first bidet order at HelloTushy.com with promo code CREECAST. Thank you to Tushy for sponsoring this episode. you're back to the episode. I was laying on the couch wearing the same flannel pajamas I'd lived in for the last two days when I got the notification on my phone. My apartment, never in danger of being confused with the palace, was an absolute disaster of pizza boxes and empty six-packs.

50:21I'd set makeshift alarms on my doors and windows by stringing together some of the loudest looking bottles. The alert was an email from Cheshire. It wasn't the first they'd send me, but it always made me anxious. I'd asked them before where they found my email address but didn't get a response. Usually, Cheshire would send me odd pictures. A house, a hospital, a tree surrounded by glowing lights. This message was different. For the first time, Cheshire used words.

50:52Hunter:Are you there, Waltz? I need your help. They found me. Can you call me? Can you call me as soon as you can, ASAP? Don't use your own phone. The email ended in a phone number. I stared at the screen for a long time. It was blind and bright in my dark living room. The shutters were closed and my sense of time was becoming flexible, but I knew it had to be sometime after midnight. For a moment, I considered deleting the email, closing my laptop and hurling it out the window. I didn't want to get involved. But Cheshire sounded desperate, and at the end of the day, our weird little group was the nearest thing to family I had left.

51:32A bunch of lab rats with machine eyes who could see monsters. Maybe we were friends. We were something, even if we were only online. Don't use your own phone. There was a gas station down the block that had one of the last remaining payphones in Baltimore. Possibly the world. Realistically, I'm sure there were others, but that was the only one I knew about. And it was only a block away at night. Every fiber in my shaky soul wanted to wait until dawn. But Cheshire said they needed my help immediately. A tiny slice of my deepest lizard brain uncoiled for a moment. What if it's a trap?

52:11Hunter:That's paranoid. I said out loud, standing up to hunt for some almost clean street clothes. Cheshire was a friend, kinda, and besides. Other than the biting fog and a tall shadow that had slapped me, none of the creatures so far had actually been trying to hurt me. Maybe they weren't hostile. Slammed a Red Bull for my Uber Eats delivery before opening the front door. The hallway outside was dim. No signs of motion or life at all. I made my way to the elevator, hesitated, then took the stairs down to the street instead. head. Baltimore slept, but restless. The city never turned all the way off.

52:51There were always lights, traffic, trash. It wasn't pretty, not all the time, but after spending so many years in the dark after I got sick, being able to see the beautiful mess again never failed to give me goosebumps. I drank in the skyline, tried to memorize the rhythm of tall buildings, pressing shadows into the cloudy night. Okay. I said, breathing in air and smog. Okay. Every streetlight shadow made me skittish. Every distant hornhawk made me jump. But I made progress. Sneakers chewing up the sidewalk, bringing me closer to the gas station. To a phone. To a friend. Can you spare a light?

53:33I very nearly shit my pants. I did yelp and spin to find a man leaning against a nearby wall just outside of the yellow haze of a streetlight. His face was covered by a cloud of smoke. There was ash in his voice, a rasp of a lifelong smoker, probably something heavy like cowboy killers. I... I... I don't smoke. Pity. The man croaked, stepping into the line. When he did, his limbs and neck stretched and became wire thin. His body warped, split, and bubbled and then collapsed in on itself as he walked out of the glow of the lamp. Now he was close. He smelled like cigarettes and cordite. I couldn't see his face, only the cloud of smoke.

54:21It moved with him like a veil. Those eyes don't belong to you. Gimme. I ran. other figures began to emerge from the shadows i stayed in the lights as much as i could dashing from street lamp to street lamp a massive figure with a bloated body and lots and lots of thin legs ran up the side of a skyscraper i passed by a store window and saw a woman's face pretty and furious reflected back at me her eyes were shining and i realized that they were mirrors catching and amplifying the light. She screamed when the glass shattered, but I was already halfway down the block. I made it into my apartment at a dead sprint.

55:05Once I was behind a locked door, I slid to the floor, shaking. The adrenaline dump made me nauseous. I threw up what was left of the pizza and gin in my system. Dawn was burning behind the window shutters before I pulled myself together. One new message. I left my phone on the table when I had set out for the gas station. Another alert was visible on screen. Numb, moving like a zombie. I opened my laptop to see a new email from Cheshire. We regret to inform you that you're being hunted. The sentence was punctuated by a winking face emoji. End of part two.

55:45Hunter:End of part two. The, uh, so real quick too, just to, just to make sure I'm on the same page. So he's in Baltimore. He's doing all this stuff. The outside world is... Which is believable as the edge of the universe, by the way. Yeah, Baltimore. Yeah, Baltimore.

56:04Hunter:There's still normal human beings, though, in the city. It's just the ones that they can tell that they can see them, right? Almost like the guy asking for a light, whatever, and him responding was an indicator to be like, oh, you can see me? And then he's like, you know... I wonder if that's also why he's like those eyes aren't yours. Like he's, he's like, how the fuck are you able to see me? Yeah. If that was a test or something. It also seems like, do you think that the email he got was just to lure him out of the apartment so he could get, um, yes. Okay. Yeah. I don't think his friend was actually at the phone because he gets back and that's where the email is like, we regret to inform you with the emoji.

56:45Right. Yeah. So they've killed, they've killed at least those two right the first one and then cheshire well i was wondering there

56:53Hunter:for a second if like in the group of friends of the seven people if uh any of them were like plants by the people who who implemented the eyes you know like somebody who is like almost like they're an experiment or something because the way that the story is reading it almost reads a little bit like the uh the moon is on fire a bit where it's just these obvious things are out there and they're like it's just someone feeling almost like they're going through psychosis where it's like yeah am i fucking crazy can no one else see this you know so there's like a conspiracy afoot that they're being tracked down because of like maybe it'll turn out the entities are actually fine it's just the people who like can't have us knowing about the entities that are the threat they're doing the hunting or something right um or it could not i could stick with like and i really like a lot of the descriptions of these multi-dimensional beings how it looks like they keep moving like their shape changes and stuff like that the wire is our brain trying to comprehend something beyond us that's pretty cool the wire thin neck was a lot of fun i also really i'm always a sucker too what was the name of the story isaiah where it's the people at the party and then like they have to hide in the apartment and they hear the person uh like coming in or like grabbing people was that an alien story too that we read was that alien or was that just monsters they're in a party it's like friends at their apartment and they're like oh fuck they like see something i think across the way in someone else's apartment and then they have to like one person has to hide the closet someone hides under the bed whatever and they hear like knocking or like the door breaks open and they have to like basically hide do you remember that i don't think we did that story well well i'm almost paused it was something but anyways it it reminds me of that idea though of like like there's something just super creepy obviously about like you're in your house and someone's like knocking on someone's like right outside or they know that you're in there but they aren't like actively like something is stopping them from just like barging in it's almost like that anticipation is always so much more creepy i was just but i just i just like that with the guy at first it was tapping and then all of a sudden he's just like really loud fucking banging pretty creepy yeah uh part three i really thought you were going to say when you were talking about uh you're talking about something a minute ago about monsters or demons and i thought you were going to bring it back around to the loving relationship of the um the cowboy and his uh eldritch abomination no no unfortunately i feel like that that time has passed that's big of you that's actually like rare you do that so i know that takes a lot of restraint and i respect that thank you part three i was trapped in my apartment Every night it was the same.

59:39Knocking and tapping and screaming and a silence that was too absolute to ever naturally exist in the city. Some evenings I'd find smoke leaking into my living room from under the front door. There was never any fire I could see. I had to cover all of my mirrors since the faces were starting to come in a little too clear. If I missed my first warning, you could find it here. After that, things got uncomfortable. Is anyone there? I typed, cowering in my empty bathtub with my laptop. It was nearly a week after my failed excursion to the gas station, a week since Cheshire's warning or threat that I was being hunted.

1:00:19Each day since, one of the members of our group chat, which I started thinking of as the Blindsight Blues, had gone offline and not returned. First went Ribbon, then Barrow, followed by Dublin, Violet, and finally Galico. now only matilda cheshire and i remained smiley face d smile can you do that smile for the camera

1:00:49There you go. Thank you. I'm just going to see where you did it. I was kind of worried initially when it's like seven characters introduced at once. I was like, man, that's a lot to keep up with. But now five of them are dead. So we don't have to worry about that.

1:01:04Hunter:Yeah. I mean, like, man, between one part, five people just like missing is pretty brutal. This could have been a thing, too, where if this was like a longer story or like an actual novel or something, i'm guessing that we'd probably go through each one of those people or like a star who they all that stuff but would have been cool but maybe it still wraps up in a fun way i mean you could have like a left right game with a bunch of characters but that's also a very different kind of story you know that's more like an odyssey and there's time to spend with everyone also they're in person you can interact with them this whole thing with uh private messages and stuff makes it very uh informal i hope you know every time i think of the left right game i think about all of them standing there and i think of apollo creed from rocky with the gloves and shorts on like amongst them for some reason yeah every time i hear apollo yeah the same yeah yeah that that's a that's a testament to how good the story is because you remember apollo yeah you love my memory is terrible yeah well that's why i mean you love forgetting characters and like stuff you you remember paulo i'm sure you remember bristol and blue jay and all that yeah blue jay's the worst so man i just really love left right game anyway cheshire's reply was not helpful tilda's response came 10 minutes later as a private message i know you're in baltimore can we meet something was scratching at the top strain i leaned over then scrambled out of the bath when I saw a blue eye with a dozen irises looking up through the hole.

1:02:39If my bathroom was breached, I didn't have any good options left. I decided I might as well die comfortably, so I curled up in bed with a soft blanket and a mug full of dark rum. How do you know where I am? I rolled back, anxious but almost comforted. If she was a friend, then I had someone in my corner, and if she wasn't, at least maybe the nightmare would be over quickly.

1:03:02Hunter:Your IP address. You should really invest in a VPN. Is that some kind of cable news network? Tilda, are you still there? Yeah, sorry. I wrote something sarcastic and decided to delete it. Can we meet? I'm in town. A little chill kick stepped its way across my neck. I thought for a moment and then sent Matilda the name of a restaurant and a time to meet in the morning. Friend or enemy, face her soon. But I'd have to make it through the night first. i closed my laptop and prepared to start my new sundown ritual there are some amazing resources online offering advice for protecting a residence from otherworldly incursion step one was salt i visited each door and window in my apartment adding a thin line of salt on the ground to block the entrance i've insulted all of my closet doors just in case next came sage and incense Holy water splashed on the windows.

1:04:00Dream catchers and crosses added to the walls. You can find almost anything in Baltimore if you know where to look. Turns out, there were two mysticism supply stores and one apothecary all within a short daylight sprint from where I lived. Feeling about as protected as a pinwheel farm in a hurricane, I retreated to my bedroom to drink myself to sleep. For the last two days, I've been crippled by migraines. An issue I never had before my new eyes. Not long after the headaches began, I also started to notice strange patches of dry skin on my arms and legs. More than just dry, the spots were hard to touch.

1:04:40Cold. It was somewhere between metallic and crystalline. At one point, I'd thrown up a handful of teeth but found none missing from my mouth after a frantic check. Something was changing in me. Without any mirrors to check, I couldn't be sure, but even my face felt different, sharper, younger. The night before I met Matilda was the worst I experienced. A vicious odor crept in around 10pm, a mix of cinnamon and dust and the port-a-potty section of a summer music festival. My bed began to rock gently around midnight, then not so gently. After less than a minute, it stopped. I pulled myself out of the fetal position.

1:05:26Cracks formed in the ceiling above my bed, opening and closing like gills. Wind blew down from the openings, hot and bitter, followed by a horrible tugging sensation as the air was sucked upwards. The holes narrowed and split into a network of woven red lines. I saw faces in the lines, including my own frightened one reflected back at me by a pair of mirrored eyes. I jammed my lid shut. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Look! A voice shouted in my ear, their mouth so close I could feel their cold breath on my cheek. I didn't open my eyes. Eventually, I might have slept. Smirky. The next sensation I was aware of was a sound coming from outside my window.

1:06:13Something was whistling. I finally opened my eyes to stare at the spot where the noise was coming from. my bedroom was back to normal. The window was covered by both blinds and a drawn curtain. The whistling was pleasant, friendly, some tune I didn't recognize. I felt an overwhelming curiosity to find out who was making the sound. My hand was already on the curtain before I snapped out of my trance and stopped. For a few minutes, I stood by the window, unable to pull myself away it wasn't long before the whistling grew fainter the whistler moving on their way once the night was quiet again well as quiet as baltimore ever got i collapsed on the floor i was breathing like i'd been practicing wind sprints in the stairwell somehow i managed to drag myself over to the corner of my room farthest from the window then i passed out so your opinion hunter that part about the whistler walking by his window is definitely a reference to his, you know, something walks whistling past my window story, right?

1:07:19How do you feel? Because I'm kind of split on it. This one's fine, I think. It's kind of cool. It's kind of neat for the author to be like, oh, well, this thing from my other story could be one of these unseen things, you know, that just crosses over sometimes. So now it would make sense for it to be in this world. How do you feel about that in general when authors will use a previous work and tie it into whatever they're doing now like that.

1:07:46Hunter:I mean, I don't think it's super egregious. It's not as bad as like in a movie when something's like, I don't know, they're like, what's the address? 1414 John Carpenter Drive or whatever. Yeah. Like that kind of thing, I think is a little more. I mean, otherwise it's because if you had never read the other story, it doesn't feel invasive to me at all. I mean, we've read the story, so it does feel like, oh, there's the tip of the cap. but I don't think it's anything especially with the amount of other weird shit going on it doesn't feel like it's too out of left field I think the way you phrased it is a good rule of thumb like if you didn't know the Whistler story that's just another weird interaction it doesn't do anything so the story doesn't stop to tell it but I can see it it's like fan service without it without it ruining everything Like if the entire thing was that I'd be like, it would feel a little self-indulgent, but to me, that's like, I mean, if you're a fan of this writer, which we are, we can catch it and just be like, Oh, that, you know, that's cool.

1:08:49Hunter:I don't think that it's, I don't know if it's the same entity. I think it's just supposed to be like, it's something that is resembling of that. You can be like, Oh yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to be the same entity, but the mechanics are the same where it's like, there's a curtain. He almost looks, but he decides not to look. So it doesn't come in that whole thing. Yeah. Um, I think it's, I think I would agree that, you know, it doesn't halt the story to tell it. And it's kind of cool. Now there have been stories we've read in the past where they've done that and it hasn't been cool. Like what was the story?

1:09:23The one where it just became 20 minutes at the end where they're going, they're walking through vignettes from other stories. Oh yeah. That was my job is watching a woman trapped in a room. Yeah. the whole ending of that was like like 14 different stories that we hadn't read all compressing at the same time that's the story stopping to tell I always wonder if that was

1:09:45Hunter:our I always wonder if that was our fault though for not for like no for not knowing that it's no no the audience has tried to gaslight me on this for so long no it wasn't my fault because if I have to know 16 stories before I can read this story that's labeled my jobs, watching a woman trapped in a room, then label it part 17 or do like do something to indicate that this is part of a greater work. The ending won't make sense unless I've read other work. And I understand like that author, he's written some cool stuff. And I really liked, I wrote a letter to myself, which I could be getting those way off.

1:10:25And if I am editor beat me for it. But like there are like, it's not that they're a bad writer. There's a lot of good stuff, but like that interconnected web of stories they have is so complex that it's like, I'm not like, like I want to read the stuff and I want to engage with it, but I don't want to commit to another Marvel universal, Marvel, universal Marvel cinematic universe kind of thing. You know?

1:10:51Hunter:Yeah. Well, I mean, I was so far with this story, which, which also to clarify, it's a free country, right? Whatever you want, do whatever you want. if you and your audience like it have fun i'm just not going to enjoy it is my point but go ahead the uh now that we're just a stop a stopping point here even with just talking about kind of where we're at this story so far i think it's fun i think the only thing that is i i keep finding these parallels at least so far while i'm reading this where i'm listening and it's the kind of randomness that we have had in other stories where there's a lot of like very heavy character stories like Tales from the Gas Station or I Work at a Voodoo Shop or Lucille's snack store or whatever the fuck that was called.

1:11:38Hunter:I think like there's this thing where there's a vignette of like weird things, right? Like we're kind of like right now I don't really know who this main character is and I like that's like been the biggest thing so far in the story and this could turn around. We're only halfway through but if I had to just, you know, air out some stuff now that we have some time is like i don't this whole idea of like then something was in the drain looking at me there was a giant beetle that walked across the skyscraper there was a thin wiry thing that went through the the you know whatever there was a man who walked past my window it's like these are interesting creepy vignettes but they don't none of it so far is really serving um anything that's like latching me or kind of making me freaked out it's happening so frequently too that nothing feels like a like a threat or nothing feels like uh nothing feels like it's standing out because it's so it's so heightened everything's so heightened versus something like tales from the gas station you're so focused on that main character and kind of the the vignettes of what happens each each night that makes them feel a little more special or like it makes these like little there is a collection of like odd things but you but you have that central character to kind of grounds you the same way with like i work at a emergency watchtower or a radio broadcast station or whatever it's like yeah i'm i'm i'm down to have all these kind of weird vignettes but i you know i wish i i wish i knew the character more to understand like how they're feeling what are they going through i know that our character is like freaked out and he's like oh these eyes but that's about it and i'm hoping that that kind of so far that's just where i'm standing at and i'm hoping that that kind of opens up a bit more it's just give me a bit more with the character and give me a bit more with uh you know more of these threats are like just let me in a bit more besides just describing um you know creepy stuff that's happening that doesn't really go anywhere or it's just kind of him being like oh and then running off yeah i think it needs to i think it needs to do more with it uh i'm willing to accept we're still in the build-up phase oh sure it's been going on for a bit i'm just saying this is where i'm at right now with my thoughts yeah yeah yeah oh yeah yeah if it was to just keep that momentum i would totally agree but i feel like with him wanting to meet the girl and stuff we're gonna get to some more meat sure on the bones i would hope soon yeah i was just a little nervous once it's like we skipped from part two to part three and then five people died or five people have now exited the chat that doesn't mean that they're not going to come back i mean who knows right but i just For me, honestly, that was kind of relieving because I needed the board cleared.

1:14:15Because I'm like, there's no way with this story structure, I'm going to care about seven people. Right. Right. But now it's like, actually, just two. Everyone else died. I'm like, oh, all right. Well, that makes it easier, you know. But we'll see. Mid-morning light filtered in yellow and haze through my closed blinds, waking me. Calvary had arrived. I was safe. A long night had left me cramped and sore. I stood, cracking my back, one hand against the wall as leverage, and I tried to twist the other direction. I found my hand stuck to the drywall. Not only stuck, but merged. It was hard to see where the wall began and my flesh ended.

1:14:56I struggled, ripping, pulling, trying to escape. I braced my foot against the wall to help, and that became trapped as well. Everywhere my skin made contact, I bled into the surface. It drew me in until I was fully submerged. Claustrophobia nearly fried my sanity. I was only held for a minute or less before becoming suddenly unstuck and falling back into my bedroom. Stopping only long enough to grab my phone, keys, laptop, and wallet, I left the apartment to wait for Matilda at the restaurant. I was still wearing my pajamas. At that point, I had zero shits left to give. Are you here yet? I glanced around from my booth after reading Tilda's message.

1:15:41The diner was nearly empty, caught in the limbo between breakfast and lunch and not fancy enough for a brunch. I'm in the back, the booth in the corner.

1:15:51Hunter:I'm in the red flannel. Before I'd finished typing, a small blonde woman darted into the seat across from me. She's wearing a denim jacket covered in patches and novelty buttons as well as aviator sunglasses. Try not to look at my reflection in their lenses. I thought it was you. I just wanted to check before inviting myself over. Uh, hello, Matilda. I'm Waltz. Well, my real name is - Don't! I don't need to know, and I - And you're sure as hell not going to learn mine. No offense, but you look like ten pounds of horse shit somebody stuffed into a doggy bag. Some offense taken. It was a hard night.

1:16:27Hunter:Sorry. Yeah, I know the feeling. Have you heard from any of the others recently? No, not recently. The last one before you was really Cheshire. It was a week ago and there were some issues. Tilda's lips closed in a hard line. Cheshire is up to no goddamn good, Waltz. They... It's pretty good. What is? Matilda and Waltz. Waltz and Matilda. You don't get it? Is this like the VPN thing? Oh my god, bro. Please kill me. Get me out. Must have been the win. Must have been the win. This must have been the win. Yeah. Tilda only sighed and stole a sip of my coffee. We sat in silence for a minute while she chewed her lip.

1:17:10Suddenly, Tilda leaned close. Don't freak out. She said, pulling off her sunglasses. I freaked out. Shh, chill. Tilda said, glancing around with empty eye sockets to make sure no one had noticed my yelp. Your eyes. Yeah.

1:17:27Hunter:You don't have any. You're very observant. Alright, so I was actually fine with the You're Very Observant line until you read it in that donation. You're very observant. There you go. I fixed it. Yeah, you put some stink on that I feel like I didn't deserve by giving it the quirky millennials ring at the end. She has empty eye sockets. It doesn't matter. It's the wind. I focused on my breathing until I felt like a rabbit who just ate a burning cherry bomb. What? Is that an expression? I don't know. What happened? Told them to put their glasses back on. I ripped them out last week. Tried to get them back to whatever the thing was that wanted them.

1:18:10Oh, did it work?

1:18:12Hunter:They took the eyes, but I can still see the creatures. I can still see everything. I think the eyes are like... Like a seed? Does that make sense? They planted those fucking eyes into our skulls and something took root. Other parts of me are changing. Last night, I started floating for nearly ten seconds. Have you noticed any? Yeah. That bad, huh? Drain the rest of my coffee. I'd rather not talk about it. Whatever's happening? I think you and I are the only ones left. Cheshire is sending me cryptic emails, pictures, and weird shit. And all the others have gone dark. I've got somewhere we can go and I've got a plan, but I'm scared shitless to try it on my own.

1:18:52Hunter:Are you with me? I looked out the window. There was a wasp nest the size of a Ford Fiesta Dangling from a stop line across the street The nest was pink and wet The insects that floated out from the hive Were covered in hundreds of wings The wasps were each as big as a seagull Sure I told Matilda I guess I'm in Isaiah I know, I know, Hunter I know, I'm here too I'm here too, I can see the story I can see the same story, I'm here We are floating Dangerously close To something that is I know You know what's weird so far This is part 4 of 6 That we're on right now And I know People say Hunter Oh god they complain so much Well you know what dude It's our show And I'm going to have to say what's on my mind Which I'm not going to dive in Because we haven't finished the story We don't know what happens right i'm gonna give it i'm gonna give it at least that respect but i will say i was really stoked on the setup of like in the docked in the hospital and like recovering and seeing visions in the hospital and stuff i thought we were we might linger there a bit more you know i mean yeah but i mean i don't know i just this idea of the uh

1:20:22Hunter:it's a lot of good stuff in this story i'm gonna be honest man careful i feel like you're careful i feel like we're in for it it's just i mean there were some like there was some some wording choices and stuff like that previously that i kept thinking to myself like in a lesser story really the really because the author lesser story I would have like like made a joke about or whatever but like I'm fine I'll keep going but then her walking in there and it doesn't just say sunglasses it says she's wearing aviators she's wearing a patch jacket she's wearing a patch cool she's a cool alt girl that's just like you I just pictured the I just pictured the the trope in a movie where it's like it's like the girl in the movie that's like her dad's a mechanic.

1:21:18Hunter:Just give me it. She's the one who fixes the car. Oh, thanks. Yeah, your carburetor is messed up. What's up? My name's Delaney. Is that kind of thing? No, it's always one of those gender neutral names like Jesse or Taylor or something like that. Yeah, my name's John. Well, that's not John. I would call John a gender neutral name. They're all gender neutral. You can name whatever the fuck you want. Listen, we don't know. We're jumping ahead of ourselves. We're jumping ahead. No, no, no, no. I'm just telling you, man. Isaiah, listen. We're jumping ahead. Let's give it time. Here's the thing. We are seasoned.

1:21:57Hunter:We've read a lot of stuff. I think we might be being a little presumptuous here, right? For the sake of the viewers, for the sake of ourselves. Well, maybe let's go on with the next one with an open mind. No, I'm not. I'm not. I have a very close mind. My mind's closed. No, no, no. My mind's closed. You can come back at 9 a.m. for breakfast, and then there's going to be an hour break, and then it'll serve lunch, and then an hour and a half break, and then dinner at 4.30. But until then, my mind is closed. Isaiah, let's go in with an open mind. How does that sound? No, I don't. COVID killed open mind businesses.

1:22:34Everyone switched to the difficult 9-5 cycle.

1:22:39Hunter:You know what? Actually, I really like this. So part four, I solved the Fermi paradox and I regret it. And this one, it's machine hearts and electric eyes. Huh? Gosh. You like that? Tell me that's not the title of it. Would not believe your eyes. Machine hearts and electric eyes. They make me want to have gay sex. There it is all the way around. I'm in a cornfield in the state of Kansas. and I plan on kissing a monster he's 12 feet tall and speaks a different language and I'd rather unearth a monolith and have sex with a monster right in my dreams in my dreams we're coming slowly the uh actually we should get someone someone write that story a farmer who's uh married, wife and kids.

1:23:41Hunter:It was unearthed. Unearthed a monolith. He's like, what the hell is he? Oh, oh, oh. Hold on, I didn't know that detail. So the farmer had a family that he abandoned for the monster? That kind of creates a complicated character dynamic. That's a new development. I still think, I do like the wholesome Chungus version where it's just a guy being like, I don't know. Personally, I like the idyllic life. I really do like the perfect life of this farmer and this monster. But it does make for a more interesting kind of like a broke back mountain kind of conflict of a man who is like, who has a family and then he has to like basically, but he has a true love, you know.

1:24:24Hunter:You can't fight love, Isaiah. And that's what he has for this eldritch creature. And if anything too could happen is he's like, oh, and it could be a really scary first interaction that he has with this monster, right? What the? Yeah. Who the hell are you? whatever, and then he sits there, and then the monster grabs his head, and he's able to speak to the monster after that. He sits there, and then he starts seeing some weird shit, too. But then the first time he interacts with the monster, it's like, whatever, all that stuff. And then the next time, he's like, so you came back to me. I can understand you well.

1:24:58Hunter:You know, it's like, and now they're able to communicate with each other. I see, I see. That's a good plot development, I think. I don't know. I think maybe the farmer had a family then left it because I don't want the idea to be that our monster is a homewrecker or anything. No, he has to be. But see, that's the thing, though, Isaiah, is that you can't fight love, right? The thing about this farmer was living a fake life before that is the whole thing. And I think that there's going to be a spot where, yes, the wife, the children upset. Maybe even the kids are like, you ruined my fucking life.

1:25:35Hunter:But then in years come, they're just like, he can gain the respect back. He gives the family the respect they deserve because he's not living a fake life anymore. And I'd like to make myself believe. Machine hearts turn slowly. Yeah, all right. So this, yeah, the story title. I'm just telling you, man, after the I guess I'm in thing, it's like, all right, you better. you better stand up straight and act right in this next part i'm gonna we have got to go with with open people that our viewers are going to be livid where this is a horror story tell us do you know how much it drives me up a wall in these stories when they make them quirky when it's like oh here's a cool horror concept or something oh and then they'll drag in a shut up shut up i've never been quirky once there's never been an instance of me in my professional career where you could ever describe me as quirky.

1:26:35I have been aloof and potentially even whimsical, but never quirky.

1:26:41Hunter:Whimsical. Fuck you, dude. God. Fuck off. I've been whimsical. I think there's a stage early in my career where the adjective of whimsical would certainly apply, but never quirky. You know what? What I can't. You know why? You know why? because whimsy can add to a story but quirkiness debases a story that's the difference that's the difference oh you're being too hard look i i am i am because i cannot tell you how many times you've been doing one of these episodes and i'll be really into it and i'll be excited and going and then monster is the care yeah yeah in waltz is a character who's like like they wear a bow tie or they have like suspenders or they sound like...

1:27:25Hunter:You know, and I'm going to still keep it up in mind. Machine Hearts and Electric Eyes, I'm very excited. No, no, you let me speak! Shut up. I'm telling you right now, I will say there was an arrow that went through my body as soon as the word aviator sunglasses was typed up. Because I was like, oh god. It's just the specificity of like, yeah, they're aviators. yeah just say sunglasses just say yeah exactly that's because you know that's how it was meant and like for me it was like it was like a shotgun rack and then the shot because the shotgun rack was a denim jacket with patches and i'm like she's buying me right she's yes but she can still see because the thing has seeds which is like part of the story or whatever okay so it's like a seed okay okay so that i just want to make sure because at first i thought it was she can see because the eyes have granted her the ability to see it rooted i understand i remember that part but i'm just saying that i didn't know if it was a thing where it's like she's blind but she still sees like visions or those creatures but she can't see but i mean it doesn't make sense because she like moved over but yeah no so she's like it's like it's like daredevil for marvel he can effectively see yeah like yeah um no for me the shotgun rack was denim jacket with patches and then the blast was the aviator you know what part four part four let you want let the story let the story when you know what you know hold on hold on i'll give it this i'll give it this right tales from a lonely broadcast station right there was a point in that story where i forget his name that character showed up and he was he was literally wearing suspenders in a bow tie the assistant or whatever right the assistant yeah uh and i was like here it goes here and We ended up liking that character a lot.

1:29:11He was awesome. And it did not overstay its welcome. Like he said a couple kind of like funny things or like kind of cringe things or whatever. And the rest of the story did not suffer for it. The world and the setting stayed creepy, stayed consistent, and he was fine. So maybe this story will do the same.

1:29:30Hunter:The Tales from a Lonely broadcast station also had a more tongue-in-cheek approach from the get-go. I think this one was set up in a cool kind of you're like okay where's this going and then it's it's all the quirky chunga stuff only hurts when you're halfway through and then it just whips you in the fucking it just shows up it just shows up yeah but i you never know keep my eyes open keep my my heart and my soul open right machine hearts and electric eyes it's gonna be the name of my uh my memoir go ahead part four MHE is the initials for machine arts and lectures would be mother horse eyes MHE and that just makes me remember how much I miss mother horse eyes what the fuck are you talking about mother horse eyes eyes it's two different MHE it's two E's I'm just saying it made me think of mother horse eyes and I miss it.

1:30:30That's all I'm saying.

1:30:31Hunter:Alright. You don't want the entity in Mother Horse Eyes to show up in a denim jacket with buttons and aviator sunglasses? Did you imagine? That'd be awesome. Actually, now I'm on board. I'm fully on board. Alright. That would actually be... Imagine you get to part 85 of Mother Horse Eyes and it's like Mother had cool aviator sunglasses and went, speaking through the cicadas we've got to stop the queen because like the CIA people come out of the flesh interface and they're like guess we're back in action or no Slim Shady starts playing guess who's back back back back as Charles Manson's coming out of a flesh I created a monster but no one wants to see a monster Slim Shady at Top Lilla cancel Eminem yeah right I love I love those videos so much I heard I heard good luck with that one I could hear the smirk in your voice I hated that part 4 say the title I don't want to say this say the title Hunter if you want me to interact with the story positively I can't say the title say the title you have to you say it every time part four I say part I solve the Fermi paradox and I regret it machine hearts and electric eyes yeah like they get hit the CSI like whatever whatever they do that was at CSI Miami they do the yeah and it goes into the theme

1:32:26yeah it's CSI Miami Matilda's plan involved an RV a long drive and possibly an assassination more likely a persuasive interrogation she assured me

1:32:39Hunter:no no no Isaiah come on more likely a persuasive interrogation stop you put in the sass no that's what that's just a regular read more likely a persuasive interrogation. She assured me. Does that mean torture? That sounds like torture. Matilda grinned. It's only torture if Cheshire doesn't spill their guts. There you go. I knew you had a landmine. No, no, no, no, no. That was you. You can't get on to me for my attitude and then pull one of those out. No, I was holding a burp. That's why it sounded like that. Okay. No. Okay. Hit the first line again. until the grand it's only torture if Cheshire doesn't spill their guts because if they don't then we spill their guts guess who's back back again again trying to cancel M &M good luck with that every time why does this do well we don't know what it is it could be good it could be good is there is there an audience of people out there who's like i like when i start reading oh my i start reading scary stuff but then it gets silly oh yeah yes dude yes a hundred percent who are they who are they i don't think i've ever met one yeah who are they i think they're the majority i think i would i would say that i would say i would say that this is like i i think that there'd be a lot of people i think that we're we're skewed it too much being bad there's a lot of people who'd be like i wasn't really enjoying it until they fucking derailed the story and made me want to i don't care i don't care i don't oh wait you're talking about i thought you were talking about us no that's what i'm saying we are doing no no we are doing we're the ones driving the car yes i am in fact driving my car for bridge you are no no no i'm saying that we as hosts are ruining the story, all right?

1:34:44Hunter:And it is our job to give an unbiased approach to this story. We never give our opinions, Isaiah. That's what makes this podcast so good. You're right. You had me up until that line. Here, Isaiah, hold on. Ready? Ready? Okay. It's only torture Cheshire doesn't spill their guts. Because if they don't, then we spill their guts. We all know what makes this podcast so good is that it is simply an audio book and we don't discuss how we feel or our opinions about anything related to horror storytelling. And the only reason people watch is for us to shut up and read the story. So why don't we just shut up and read the story?

1:35:30You can't find audio books of these things online. No. Anywhere. They don't exist. No one does readings of scary stories. That'd be absurd. you definitely come to this podcast for that because no one else is doing that apparently so yeah it would make sense to complain when the hosts of a comedy horror podcast talk about comedy or horror

1:35:50Hunter:because if they don't we spill their guts trying to cancel Eminem I see good luck with that oh

1:36:07you know and it also like it just deflates all the stakes you've set up in a story because i thought this was real i thought this was a scenario that humans were going through and they were worried and scared and it's like would a human who has seen demons and it now has to battle with the supernatural the other and stuff you're looking at the wrong way we'll spill their guts you're looking at the wrong way you're looking at the wrong way because now you have to

1:36:29Hunter:hope that the story ends their ends the lives of these characters and it doesn't keep them alive and that's what keeps me on board is that something's going to go on and everyone's like yeah but we like it once again part four part four machine hearts and electric eyes let's see what we can do here machine heart I'm not going to read that in accidents because that's just the whole reddit thing of they always put that in to just be like Oh, here's links to the previous story. No, no, this is an actual line, though. This was not how I pictured my life going when all this started, but at least now I wasn't alone in the mess.

1:37:09There, are you happy? There you go. I fixed my eyes on the road and made a mental note to never get on Matilda's bath. Oh, my fucking gosh.

1:37:20I'm so mad. I'm so mad right now. Because I was into it. I was into it.

1:37:25Hunter:Okay, don't cancel Eminem in front of Matilda. got it

1:37:34Hunter:okay Matilda is the real slim shady she has stood up let me know you never get on your bed alright

1:37:47look if like I said earlier with the whole connect a hundred stories in one universe thing if you like that if you like stories like this more power to you I don't so I'm gonna act accordingly so then just read and just you know what try to sit back and enjoy how's that sound we were heading west on the interstate towards california west towards cheshire and maybe some answers all around us spring was waking up trees caught between life and death cars zipped by us like fighter jets dodging a blimp matilda's rv was an aged patched up winnebago with maroon strips on the side and a carpeted interior that might have been white ones.

1:38:27The old machine rumbled when I pressed on the accelerator. The engine seemed to take the pedal's input as more of a suggestion than a command. We struggled to keep up with the highway speed limit. Tilda had her feet on the dash. It's just her feet on the dash. It's fine. No, because I know how it's saying it. I know how it's saying it. And like, she's just a cool girl who doesn't live. Oh, I'm sorry that there's a cool girl, Isaiah. I'm sorry that there's a cool girl in a story. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know what? Make her goth and mean to me and then maybe we'll talk. But until then, I'm not interested.

1:39:09Matilda had her feet on the dash, window down, a perennial cup of coffee in her hand. she kept her sunglasses on even after I promised her missing eyes didn't bother me

1:39:20Hunter:do you really think Cheshire is going to be that easy to find we've got his IP address and I'm a natural born bloodhound baby

1:39:35Hunter I need something about the farmer and his monster quick ugh

1:39:42Hunter:I didn't know I could bend like that. All right. You didn't have to take it straight there. Because, like, the whole swangle was really what was tying me to this narrative. But, of course, no, no, no, no, no. Is this why they called a Chinese finger trap? No, no, no, no, no. The whole, the reason I was playing with you on this one, passing the ball of yarn around is because it was the one wholesome bit you've had in like months. So we were going to leave it there. And even then your wholesome bit still involved gay intercourse. But you know what? I was fine with that. That was a peace treaty. But then soon as soon as I'm in a vulnerable position, you immediately make it into a galator.

1:40:37Hunter:No. Hand me that roll of brawny paper towels. I need to wipe this up. See, you ruined it. You ruined all that. You ruined everything.

1:40:54I came to you just then in confidence. I came to you as a friend who needed something and you rejected me.

1:41:01Hunter:We've got his IP address and I'm a natural born bloodhound baby. Matilda held one small hand out of the window running her fingers through the breeze I really can't believe both of you walnuts forgot to use a VPN or disguise your signal in any way walnuts I wanted you to know every single quip is like a gunshot to me

1:41:29Hunter:just a giant a plock out of smoke and you're just on the floor Sorry, I didn't realize I was living in an episode of Get Smart. What? How old is this person? That was the... All right, I didn't realize I was living in an episode of Get Smart. Get what? The man from Uncle? I don't understand the words you're saying in the order you're saying them. Mission Impossible? Okay. That one, I got.

1:42:04Like whatever, man. Yeah, you're right. Why should anyone care about your story? Like, I don't care. It's monsters. Who cares, right? It's just quirky and funny. I don't care. Who would care? That's stupid to care. Why would anyone care about stories? That's dumb. Am I being too harsh? Yes.

1:42:22Hunter:Did you say yes? Yes. There's going to be a large minority of people. I don't care. I don't care what they say. I don't care what they say. I really don't care what they say. What I care about. is I feel like a dozen times I've been super invested in a story and they're like, what if we were like Batman? What if this was like a comic book story? What if we were like Batman? That would be pretty cool. You know what? I think that you have to at least admit that people, I mean, like, even if it's not your cup of tea, this author, it's, I will say, because of what we've read. Marie on the Moon was not like this.

1:42:57Hunter:What we've read. Something walks whistling past my window was not like this. What we've read so far, this author probably was just like, I want to write like a comedy thing or I want to write something. That's like a little, little less serious or like a little, it has a little more, uh, it, it, it has like a different care. Like he's writing a different character here or they are writing a different character here. That's different. So at least there's versatility in what they're doing. You know, we can't, we know they can do this. It's just, this is probably just what they were interested in writing.

1:43:23Hunter:So we need to at least show respect in that way. Okay. I'll do that. I'll do that.

1:43:32we drove all day alternating who had the wheel every two hours whenever we needed a rest stop we would pull over onto the shoulder the rv had its own bathroom kitchen even a shower honestly it was a pretty princely way to travel twice that day matilda signaled me to make an emergency stop she'd sprint from the winnebago into the trees and brush that lined the highway then i'd hear the sound of vomiting dilda told me she was fine but she looked pale like me she had strange dry patches of skin that shine like dull knuckles her neck was also red on both sides of her throat some was setting washing the sky and a gradual shade of violet when we started looking for a place to park for the night we passed a massive accident dozen cars wrapped around each other.

1:44:23Ambulances and fire trucks and cop cars swarmed, lighting up the evening with red and blue lights. One truck had crossed in the median and lay flipped over in the grass. There must have been a terrible fire because the vehicle was barely a shelly, blackened, warped. I saw paramedics lifting a covered stretcher into an ambulance. Standing over the entire scene was a shadow covered in stars, nearly as tall as the tree line entire galaxies rotated across the absolute darkness of the creature constellations drifting like leaves on a pond the entity turned in my direction and cocked its head curious felt a deep

1:45:03Hunter:chill there was this pull and jesus watch the road snap back and looked at the road a horn honked garvia drifted over halfway into the next lane sorry sorry sorry said correcting our course what What the heck, dude? I thought I saw... I snuck a glance back towards the accident fading in the rearview mirror. There's no star-filled shadow leading over the wreckage anymore. Never mind. A few hours after sunset, we pulled into a rest stop. Matilda navigated the RV into an empty space in a gravel parking lot under one of the sparse light poles. There was a cluster of trees around us and a picnic table.

1:45:44Across the lot was a bathroom and some vending machines. We raided the ladder for a quick dinner, then went to bed. Matilda in the back room, me on the pull-out couch. I stared at the ceiling for a long time. Shadows from the light outside crept in through the blinds, painting streaks across the kitchen. There was a tiny TV, but I didn't want to wake Matilda. I was just beginning to drift off when I heard something whistling outside the Winnebago. My heart made a nearly successful escape attempt from my chest. The sound grew louder and louder. I peeked at the window directly above my bed, and faded as the whistler moved past us.

1:46:21I lay in bed and held my breath until it was gone. I didn't sleep that night. On day two of our road trip, Matilda told me more of her plan.

1:46:29Hunter:When we get there, you'll hold Cheshire down while I slug up a few times, just to let them know we're serious. Then we'll ask Cheshire about the cryptic emails and make them tell us everything that they know about the eyes and the creatures. What if they don't know any more than we do? Uh, swallowing a yawn. Or what if trying to beat the answers out of Cheshire doesn't work? Betul to crack delicate knuckles. Oh, the beating will work. The beating always works.

1:47:12she looked at me with a blank face that stuck out her tongue i winked and turned on the radio

1:47:18Hunter:it was a gorgeous day what perfect hold on she looked at me with the blank face then stuck out her tongue i winked i winked and turned on the radio what kind of weird silent interaction was that you told me that if i didn't have anything nice to say shouldn't say anything at all oh so the beating will work the beating always works and i don't have anything nice to say about it so i guess i should just keep reading right hunter yep should i continue hunter i said yes i've said Yes, like three times I haven't, it's the Discord thing, if you speak You have to speak longer than like half a second Or I just don't get it Yes See, I heard that one, thank you Okay It was a gorgeous day Perfect for a drive Sun soaked the road We had the heater running To counter the dawn chill But there was a warm edge on the wind That suggested the cold was only temporary I tried to focus on that over the alarming condition of Matilda's skin.

1:48:34Sometime during the night, the red patches on her neck had turned yellow-purple. Thin scars and parallel lines stretched across each blemish. I also noticed that Tilda was hiding her right hand from me, keeping it tucked in the pocket of her denim jacket or hanging out the window. Her condition was troubling. Not that I was doing much better. I caught sight of my face in the mirror. metallic spots i'd seen earlier were fading but now the veins in my neck and cheeks had darkened to the point they were clearly visible little scratches that appeared in clusters around my eyes giving me the appearance of someone who had gone through a briar patch face first i felt dizzy and my joints were sore as we pulled into a fast food place to grab breakfast i prayed that we'd find cheshire and that they'd have some kind of answers clouds began to spill into the sky around midday puffy white at first clouds quickly darkened and the nice day i'd predicted became dreary rain lashed at the windshield faster than the old rv's wipers could keep up we rocked and rattled with every gust after an hour it became clear we were pushing our luck so tilda found an exit to a half empty mall we parked the rv and spent the rest of the day sitting on the cramped couch together watching horror movies.

1:49:54I woke up after dark. The gentle hum of the rain on the window and the warmth of the Winnebago must have put me to sleep. I felt something present against my shoulder. Apparently Matilda nodded off as well. Outside, the world was bright white, lit by the parking lot's infinite rows of fluorescent lamps. beyond the glow of the lights the sky was dark clouds obscuring any stars i told his glasses it slipped off as she slept eyes or no she was fox featured

1:50:32eyes or no she was fox featured stunning and lovely i tried to wake her up but she She grumbled and held her arms out. Took me a moment to realize she wanted a lift. When I did, I felt a little rush and smiled. I carried her to the bedroom, took off her shoes, tucked her in, and then slipped out to return to the couch, closing the door between us. I was still grinning as I fell back asleep. The smell of smoke caused me to snap awake. My first thought was fire. Then I saw the figure sitting on the edge of the couch. So close he was almost touching my feet. You're not looking so good. Smoker croaked.

1:51:18In the dim light, I could see that he was wearing a wrinkled and stained grey suit with the shirt untucked in no tie. Same cloud of smoke hung over his face, hiding his features, though I thought I could see the outline of a trilby. of a trilby hat through the haze. Am I dreaming? Smoker grabbed my leg. I yelped. He pulled my foot towards his face. I heard the crunch click of a jaw unhinging and started to struggle. Smoker dropped my foot and I jumped to my feet.

1:51:55Hunter:Did you feel that? I was shaking, standing with my fist raised. Yeah. Then they're not dreaming. Sit down. An invisible force slammed into my shoulders. I fell to the floor, then dragged myself into a sitting position. The smoker sighed, causing a puff of smoke to blow out. I warned you about the eyes. I offered to take them from you, but now it's too late. The seed is planted and you're nearly ready to bloom. Do you feel it? My face was tight. I reached up and touched my cheek. The veins there were as hard and cold as stone, stretching against the skin. What's happening? The usual change. Matilda screamed from the bedroom.

1:52:41I tried to stand up, but the same unseen pressure knocked me down. The smoker stood over me. Then he was gone and I could move. I ran to the bedroom door. It was locked. Matilda screamed again and I heard whispering. Fuck the spooky shit.

1:53:01I kicked the door. Twice was enough to snap the cheap lock. The room was dark and looked empty except for Matilda. She was curled up near the top of the bed, one arm raised to protect her face. Matilda, where is it?

1:53:14Hunter:She slowly lowered her arm. John, I think it was... There was a girl. Her eyes were... Waltz, they were awful. She bit me. She bit me. I could see a bloody ring just under Tilda's wrist Small teeth marks are clearly visible Why? What did we do to them? There was a little Mark Wahlberg on that one Just a little bit I could hear him speaking through her All I could do was shake my head Will you stay here tonight? Hey We could drop the floor, Walt no funny business just I feel better if you slept in here okay okay don't get hard

1:54:11Hunter:also I fart while I sleep so I hope you don't mind anything stinky

1:54:21um you know what i can i actually have something to criticize other than just oh the obvious other than the obvious i don't like that matilda was introduced as like a character who knows what she's doing and is capable and has done things like torture and stuff for some reason to get this stuff done and she's like and Waltz is kind of like just a klutz who is afraid who she's rescuing and then as soon as she brings him along she suddenly needs rescued and she becomes the weak character who needs comforted and blah blah blah okay

1:55:00Hunter:Isaiah you can try to cancel Eminem all you want you're right you're completely right I agree Part five. I got into bed. There's still a sentence left. Oh, I got into bed. Then immediately out when Tilda asked me to switch on a light, finally settling in till the lifted my arm and move close to me. We say it like that until the pigeons outside announced the break of dawn part five, part five. All right. Only 10 more parts. Do what? Only 10 more parts. No. No, you don't get me this time. I get me this. I checked. I checked before we started.

1:55:48Oh, you know how like, yeah, like when Kanye was doing all of his Kanye stuff, people would be like, he made graduation. He made graduation. You know, he made graduation. Right now I'm like, bro, you cannot compare.

1:56:04Hunter:You cannot compare. motto to fucking Kanye's Nazi rants, dude. No, I'm not, I'm not saying it's, it's in the same sense that graduation was as culturally impactful as, you know, Marie on the Moon. It's like scaled. It's not the same kind of issues at all. I'm just saying that right now, I, like many were with Kanye, for good reason, was having issues with the work of an artist, but the previous work was so good that I'm like, we gotta give, we gotta give credit where it's due, right? That's all I'm saying. We're on part five. At least. We're on part five. You want to read the title? I solved the Fermi paradox and I regret it.

1:56:48We chase the cat. Cheshire cat, probably. The what? The Cheshire cat.

1:56:58Yeah. Yeah. That Cheshire cat. And also I was right about the entities not being bad per se, trying to save them from the people making the eyes and bear trap and blah, blah, blah. Matilda was sick. She tried to hide it, but the farther we drove, the more clear it became that she was falling apart. Little cracks kept appearing in her skin. They were thin, almost scratches, and under them, something caught in the line. the fingers on her right hand were fusing together and the lines on her throat had widened and turned a reddish purple more than a few times that week i saw told to sit down looking either short of breath or dizzy wasn't very much better the dark veins spread throughout my body hard enough that i could feel them when i pressed down on my arm or leg there were like thick wires threading over my muscle and bone rough gray patches were also popping up all over my body and my limbs were so stiff in the morning that tilda sometimes had to pull me out of bed we started sharing the rv single bedroom after the night we ran into the smoker and the girl with mirror eyes so all things considered it wasn't an entirely bad trip this is not how i pictured my life going this all started at least would you like to stop and see the world's third largest ball of yarn Tilda asked she was riding shotgun

1:58:23Hunter:Tilda Tilda the kind of girl to pass a semi and try to get him to honk

1:58:35dang it

1:58:36Hunter:he must be having a bad day I love you saying that because I feel like I feel like that's something they would write into one of these stories It's like a thing cool people do She was riding shotgun Feet up on the dash and window down as usual We were somewhere in the Midwest More than halfway to California Cheshire Fields stretched out around us Flat and green and endless I looked over to one and saw a man In a 12 foot tall Altrich abomination Barreling through the hay Lovers The sky looked like it could spit out a tornado any second, but there was no rain. I was driving, thumping along on the steering wheel of the song on the radio.

1:59:20At that moment, the monster seemed so far away. I told them with their sunglasses and a quick grin, so very close. I opened my mouth to reply when I felt my stomach curl in on itself like an alarmed armadillo.

1:59:36Hunter:Gotta stop! I mumbled, swerving to halt on the shoulder. Thankfully, we were the only vehicle inside on the two-lane highway I barely made it into the bathroom before a guise with neon blue fluid came bursting out of my mouth Are you okay? Tilda asked, knocking on the door Yeah, I feel fine But maybe we saved the yarn for the return trip? We drove on for most of the afternoon Matilda and I didn't talk about the weird things we saw along the way But I could sense things were getting worse for her I know they were for me Some nights I would look out at the sky and see unfamiliar stars and impossible configurations.

2:00:16Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck. Some nights I call it a draw. But I still wake up. Once I'd woken up to see something like the northern lights outside. Only the ribbons of color were all shades of red. Something massive swam through the lights. A black shape the size of an aircraft carrier covered in dangling tentacles. one of them brushed the top of the rv and the vehicle shuttered press myself into the bed holding my breath hold a stir next to me but didn't wake up see stuff like that i like like separate it from everything else going on just these descriptions of like sky beast and stuff like that that's all really cool to me oh yeah i like all that oh yeah most of our encounters with the creatures were like that.

2:01:03Bumps and close passings, oddities observed at a distance. The majority of entities ignored us. Maybe they didn't notice us at all. A few came near or at least followed our path, usually with way too many eyes. I always sensed curiosity from those run-ins, but I only ever felt in danger once. The day after we missed the yarn, Matilda and I were having a picnic lunch at a rest stop, discussing our plan of attack for when we finally found Cheshire.

2:01:32Hunter:If you hold him I can hit him until he tells us how to reserve to reserve whatever the fuck is going on with us. I nibbled that sandwich that I can no longer taste. I just don't know. I feel like we should have a more nuanced approach. You want to hold him while you hit him? We don't even know Cheshire is a he. We don't know anything about them. They might not even be human. Tilda cut into an apple. Paused. what if cheshire is a cat or like a group of cats all working together i fucking hope not i the rest of my sentence died in my mouth the picnic area was surrounded by more fields a mode of green bordered on one side by the highway and the other by a thick forest standing just outside of the tree line was a tall figure with a long thin neck it was hard to tell at that distance at least 200 yards but it looked like the creature was at least 12 feet tall The thing was standing still facing us.

2:02:28Its head dropped down, turning the top of its body into a question mark. Maybe it couldn't support the weight of its own skull. Something about the creature reminded me of a time I'd walked into my garage and heard a hissing sound. It was only a few months after I'd originally lost my sight. The world had gone dark, and every noise stood out. I wasn't sure what kind of animal made the hissing, but I'd backed out of my garage and slammed the door. there's danger in the sound sense of violence coiling i got the same vibe when i looked back at the tall thing on the edge of the field get in the orfy she turned to where i was looking and froze when she noticed the creature tilda even took off her sunglasses to get a better look with empty eye sockets what do you think she began floppy

2:03:24head floppy head the clever name i mentally assigned the monster began to stumble towards us through the tall grass rv i shouted jumping in i told it was right on my heels diving in on the passenger side for a panicked second i couldn't find the keys floppy was moving faster now sprinting towards across the field head bouncing like a ball on a string he was clumsy but quick way too quick for a creature that gangly my brain suddenly decided to work and i pulled down the sun visor keys fell into my lap floppy had covered almost half the distance between the trees and the rv before i finally turned the ignition peeled out of the rest area's parking lot so fast i worried we might roll over then we were on the highway gaining speed and i felt every single muscle in my body unclench floppy burst out behind us onto the road fuck shitting fuck i said slamming on the gas the creature looked ridiculous when it ran all windmilling arms and wobbly neck but damn it was fast we didn't start to put it firmly into our rear view mirror until the winnebago was wheezing along at 50 miles an hour drove in silence for a while i think we should limit our stops yeah we made it to the state line that night while we were searching for an exit to another rest stop bar parking lot when tilda bolted up right in her seat look she said pointing around a bend in the hill ahead do you see it i turned to where she was gesturing i did see it tree taller than any building i'd ever seen towered over the horizon setting sun looked shape from below and cast a shadow across the forest blue lights floated around the tree's trunk moving back and forth and wide sweeping circles it was breathtaking and beautiful it seemed so intentional.

2:05:10Like we were being signaled.

2:05:13Hunter:Head that way. Let's see it up close. I wanted to. I really wanted to. Something about the dancing lights and the scale of the tree pulled at me. I felt drawn towards them. A honking horn snapped me out of the lock. We drifted across lanes and cut off a car. I put us back on course and stepped on the accelerator. Maybe we can check it on the way back. Like the yarn. but waltz no no we can't something isn't right oh are you sure yes okay tilta stared out the window at the tree until the sun was fully down darkness and distance hit the shape but the blue lights were still visible for the better part of an hour drifting calling uh i do i do uh i do like imagery of giant trees i think that's cool i think that's just a cool addition to any story We crossed into California just before midnight and decided to keep driving until we reached the coast.

2:06:08That's where Tilda expected to find Cheshire. She was tracking their online activity, sitting at the RV's tiny kitchen table with my laptop.

2:06:17Hunter:Is this really going to take us right to Cheshire? Like, at their front door? Probably not. The IP should give us a basic idea, but we might have to stake out the neighborhood for any signs. Could be at least a few days. I saw Tilda through the rearview mirror, scratching at her cheek. The strange scars on her throat had started to bleed. She saw me looking, sunglasses lingering on the mirror for a moment, and she picked up the laptop and went to the bedroom. We didn't have to search long for Cheshire's house. Tilda directed me down a series of turns until we were in a sparsely populated neighborhood.

2:06:51The area was caught between suburbia and Styx, houses spread out with large yards populated by rusting cars on cinder blocks and stray cats. There was no doubt which was Cheshire's property. A thunderstorm whirred over a single home at the end of the street. I inched the RV closer, then parked a few houses back. The storm was off somehow. Grey clouds jerked and stuttered against an otherwise blue sky. Rain fell in. When I looked closely, I saw that the rain wasn't actually falling. It was rising up from the ground like iron shavings lifted by a magnet. An indigo whip of light also started from the yard and crawled towards the sky.

2:07:34It moved in slow motion like a snake striking in a flipbook. The house was hard to see through the ascending curtain of rain, but looked old and huge and hungry. Tilda and I sat in the RV, surrounded by a beautiful spring day, watching a pocket storm press down on the house. Do we knock?

2:07:54Hunter:Just go say hello or should we be sneaky and have like a steak out? I told her didn't reply. I turned to see her staring at me. Glasses off, empty eyes fixed on me. Her throat was bleeding again. Gentle drips of red staying in her collar. She was wheezing slightly with each breath. I'm scared. I reached out and squeezed her hand. Yeah, same. There's one part left. Final part! Here we go. Read the title, Isaiah. Part six, baby. Final part. Are you excited, Hunter? Oh, man. I can't wait to see what Cheshire is. I'm excited. I think it's really cool. Yeah, also, so far, stories aren't related to the Farby Paradox at all, by the way.

2:08:41I think it's really cool how Matilda's established to be like this cool kind of killer knows her way around town character, and then she's scared, and the hero has to comfort her and keep her safe.

2:08:56Hunter:You know, dude, sorry that she's a fucking human being, man. You know what? You know what, man? Maybe I just hate love. Maybe I just hate love. Maybe I hate being in love. Maybe I hate in stores. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe I'm just an aromantic guy who doesn't care about poetry or writing at all. Maybe that's my problem. Trust me. I know. Wouldn't I know? No. You wouldn't know. You wouldn't know. I sent you flowers time and time again, too. No response. Hunter makes passes at me constantly. And you would think that if I was receptive to it, or if he was receptive to the rejection, you'd get the hint.

2:09:31Here we are.

2:09:32Hunter:I'm sorry, I'm in love. You know what he sent me yesterday, everyone? You know what he sent me yesterday? A bouquet of roses. No, no, he just sent me yesterday. He sent me a photograph of his pants and underwear around his ankles. and he's sitting on toilet so you can't see anything from this perspective but the implications there and he said going through it right now and I said that's a rough one man Godspeed and he said probably the most poetic phrase of his entire life muster seeds into a pot of honey. There's meaning to that there's deepness to it that whatever luck would be wished would be meaningless in the face of oblivion like that.

2:10:21And that is how you described a bathroom experience so extreme you had to text me about it.

2:10:29Hunter:I hadn't heard from you for a while. I just wanted to communicate with you somehow. I was wanting to connect. And that's what I was experiencing. I had a long day. This is also the image you sent me earlier. If you want to check that out. I'll put it on Reddit or something. and you guys can have it for your own devious means anyway part six it's such a strange feeling walking through rain that's rising from the ground till the night debated driving away and waiting until morning to confront cheshire but after an hour told you just stood up and walked out of the rv i followed passed through the yard with this little upside down storm quickly water was cold and had the consistency of motor oil till they hesitated once we reached the porch No, this is just how I pictured That They put these in there You've got to read it This isn't how I pictured things Hold on Compose yourself first Hold on Wow, I love This isn't how I pictured things ending When all this started At least we finally found Cheshire There, is that better?

2:11:41Do we knock? She asked, leaning against the wall to catch her breath The lines on her throat were bleeding again. I could kick the door down. I lied. My legs were stiff. My muscles felt like jello with cement crawling through my veins. Thunder broke gently above us, ramping up until it was a roar. Another jack of lightning rose in slow motion from the ground towards the clouds until the reach for the doorknob. It was unlocked. Fuck it. She said, entering the house. It was like walking into a badass trip. it. Nothing in the house was level. The floors were crooked, walls uneven. The little furniture I could see was mismatched, broken, almost hostile.

2:12:24The entry room was dominated by twin staircases that twisted off into the ceiling. There was a bearskin rug covering the wooden floorboards. Only someone had replaced the bear's head with a dirty blonde wig. I reached down towards the hair and recoiled. It wasn't a wig. we shouldn't be here said turning for the door it was gone there was nothing but a blank grimy wall tilda made a sound that was either a cough or a laugh guess we gotta keep going we pressed on the halls were narrow and seemed to stretch on far longer than they should they were full of blind corners abrupt turns and the occasional dead end Some halls were dim.

2:13:07Others were so bright I had to squint and shade my eyes with my hand. On and on they rolled. I must have walked for more than an hour. Tilda was struggling to breathe the entire time, rasping and stopping every few minutes. I wasn't very much better. Each step felt like I had cinder blocks chained to my feet. One of the hallways was lined with pictures. I tried not to look at them too closely. There were portraits with blurred faces, a landscape under a night sky where a single red star made the paint look like it was bleeding. Halfway down the hall, Tilda stopped. What is... I started to ask.

2:13:44Then I saw the picture. It was an oil painting of Tilda and me crucified to the side of the RV. Limbs nailed and... Oh. That's spooky. Oh, we got our crucifixion. That's scary.

2:14:00Hunter:is that scary hunter are you scared yeah imagine going to a place and then you see an oil painting of yourself you're crucified and it's like how did you get that painting it's creepy that's pretty scary man because realistically you know most people probably don't have a painting like that no um but here's their painting so that's creepy that they have one our faces were both warped with absolute pleasure. We were laughing so hard that our jaws stretched down to our chest. Let's try to go a little faster. Tilda said, turning. Took a breath to calm myself, made the mistake of glancing at the picture again and felt my stomach heave.

2:14:38Tilda waited while I got myself together. Finally, we came to a door. The knob was brass and warm to the touch. I noticed a hum coming from the other side, almost a buzzing. What do we do if Cheshire's in there?

2:14:53Hunter:I don't know, Walt. I don't know what to do anymore. Tilda reached for the knob. All I can do is roll with it. The room was gigantic, cavernous, and uncomfortably human. Thick, hot air slammed into Tilda and me as we entered. The space was dark, with only enough light to pick out silhouettes and shapes. I fumbled for a light switch and, to my surprise, actually found one. Click. Light flooded the room. Hello! cheerful voice called out i think i screamed or matilda did maybe both of us we'd found cheshire he was the size of a bear a never-ending tumble of wet skin cheshire reminded me of a partially deflated balloon somehow both bloated and saggy at the same time his body appeared stuck to the wall flesh merging with wood and a bloody whirl every time he opened his mouth fat black tongue dropped out all the way down to his navel cheshire was also completely naked he shouted bouncing up and down causing his skin to ripple cheshire tilda asked the creature bounced again yes hello friends hello waltz hello matilda waltz and matilda waltz and what the fuck dude what the fuck what the fuck took you so long what the fuck took you to what the fuck took you so long at the beginning of this story you know we had mr wide mouth as a a doctor and we had a cowboy with his eldritch love interest and like i didn't know how good i had it you know yeah it's like that thing from the office i wish you could know you were in the good times before the good times were over didn't know what i had two hours ago rewind through the video right now go look at me then that was a happier man and then uh we're reading we're reading an alien story today called the Fermi paradox hold on that was a different man than the man I am now don't worry I'll do the line I'll do the line better yes hello friends hello Waltz hello Matilda Waltz and Matilda what the fuck took you two so long A shout sent me scrambling for the door, but of course it was gone.

2:17:27I hated that house deeply.

2:17:30Hunter:You're the last two. Why don't you have a seat? Glanced around. The giant room was entirely empty except for a bed the size of a swimming pool in the corner. The sheets were stained and freshly dripping material that looked terribly similar to Cheshire's skin. It sat on the floor, Tilda sat next to me. Come closer? Cheshire asked. We did not. Fine then. Well, you found me. I made it as easy as I could, but you all still took so very long. The others have already gone. Even Calvin and Violet. I thought you might leave before them, but no, no, no, no, no. Calvin went off in his cloud of smoke and little Violet fell into a looking glass.

2:18:16Hunter:She always liked you. Cheshire turned towards Matilda. You've seen them haven't you? You've gotten some visits yes? But now they're gone and you're all that's left. What's going to happen to us? You'll change. You'll become. What? What are we going to become? Cheshire shrugged. At least I think he shrugged. The slabs of flesh where his shoulders should be rolled like waves against the shoulder shore it's not for me to know what you'll become only that you will the eyes are seeds you see you see and once the seeds are planted there's no way to know what you'll grow grow grow and what you've changed you'll need to leave why and leave for where i don't know that either the change will make this world unsuitable the air will become poison the sunlight will become heavy enough to break bone but you're in luck there's so many other worlds and so many many holes between this world and the others cheshire's smile tongue dropping so low nearly touched the ground there's a house with a hundred doors that you could travel forever and never explore at all there's a night with a starless sky where the forgotten crawl back home and a clearing in the woods where the devils dance and lost children decorate the trees.

2:19:47Hunter:There's a dying place where a coward king waits on a throne of glass. And in the middle of it all, a neighborhood sitting on a slow hill, wedged in between a crack and reality. Oh, the places you could go. And in time, you might even learn how to visit here, how to travel back and forth, and how to find hopeless things, how to feed. It don't make any sense. Why me? Why are you doing this to me? Because you were there. Because you needed something from us. Because you accepted a gift and now we're giving you more. Have you felt the call yet? The doors have all certain... The doors all have a certain pull for those who can see them.

2:20:33I thought of the tall tree with its blue lights drifting in the sky. The way it tugged at us and how much Tilda wanted to see it. if we pass something like that again would we be able to stay away? Tilda stood up.

2:20:47Hunter:Enough! I'm tired of listening to you ramble bullshit. You're gonna tell me how to stop whatever's happening to me. I'll hurt you until you tell me. I'll hurt you permanent. I promise I will. Jetshire smiled and smiled and smiled mouth stretching until his face split in half. Something fuzzy crawled out of the hole. It was a skull with a spine attached. all the bones covered in thick black hair. See you on the other side. Skull said in Cheshire's voice, slithered down the mountain of sagging flesh that used to be its body that shot across the floor too fast to follow. Tilda dove with a creature trying to grab hold.

2:21:28Cheshire slipped through a seam between the wall and floor. He was gone. Jesus. Wasn't much else to say. Tilda slammed her fist on the ground. Fuck! Fucking freak! Fucking! Fuck all this! Cheshire's flesh was slowly dripping onto the floor, sliding off the wall like yogurt. It already reeked of spoiled meat and, for some reason, strawberries. Behind the skin was a door. Nowhere else to go. We went through and found ourselves standing outside of Cheshire's house on the porch. The storm had stopped. The sky was a perfect April blue. What now? Maybe we can track him down. Maybe we can... Tilda silently crossed the yard and headed towards the RV.

2:22:14After a moment, I followed. By the time I got inside, she'd already gone into the bedroom and shut the door. It was locked. But Tilda? She didn't answer. I heard her crying. I wondered what it was like for her, crying without eyes. Were there still tears? I sat on the small couch in the RV's kitchen and waited. 20 minutes later, Tilda emerged, calm and pale, sunglasses on. How about we go see that ball of yarn?

2:22:43Hunter:Sure. I said, getting up to start the RV. That sounds like a good trip. We didn't hurry. We took our time driving, exploring random exits, stopping off to get out and just walk around. Both of us were dissolving, slowly. Tilda's fingers and toes were growing into each other. We felt lumps of her hair in the shower each day, as well as teeth. She stayed bundled up, shivering even in the heat, always struggling to get enough air. My veins continued to blacken to become hard, pressing against skin that had become as rough as bark. It wasn't so bad. We had good times, even then. Sleeping in until noon, staying up until dawn, always together.

2:23:29We saw more and more strange creatures each day. Buzzers with antlers and human eyes clouds that dragged tails across the ground as they drifted and we saw doors or usually i guess we felt them cheshire was right they called to us pulled us tilta felt them stronger than i did one night we were driving past a hospital and matilda grabbed the wheel tried turning us into the parking lot i wrestled control back and slammed on the accelerator her. Once the building was out of sight, Matilda settled down.

2:24:05Hunter:I hurt so much. She told me, rolled up in the passenger seat. I don't think we can stay here, but I'm afraid to go. We'll be okay. We'll find a way to fix things. Last night, we slept at a rest area near a forest. When I woke up in the morning, Matilda was gone. I found her trail easy enough, bloody footprints leading off into the woods. Soon I started coming across her clothes, her eyes of her hair, all of her fingernails and toenails. The grisly procession led to the edge of a small, still lake. The water was chilly and threatened me with my own deteriorating reflection. I felt the pull then.

2:24:46The lake was a door, a thin spot where the fabric of reality was worn and frayed, a hole into another world. I doubted the lake was deep, but I sensed that I was standing on the cusp of a terrible drop. If I went into the water, I knew I would sink until all light was gone, then further still. I wondered what was on the other side. What things might live in all of that darkness and pressure? Most of all, I wondered if I'd ever seen Matilda again. There was another pull, overwhelming, a riptide trying to drag me down. I panicked and slipped, stumbling away from the lake as fast as I could. That door was not my door.

2:25:32I put some miles between myself and the rest area. Even during that short drive, I felt other doors calling to me. If I stay here too long, I know I'll die, but if I leave, I'd never be able to come back. and who knows what I might be walking into if I cross over. The doors whisper to me, promise and beg and threaten. There are infinite fields, unfamiliar stars, pits, eyes, and hungry things all waiting. I won't be able to resist much longer and I'm so scared at how inevitable it feels. But I'm going to see that giant ball of yarn if it's the last thing I do. just wish i didn't have to do it alone i'm so tired miss matilda

2:26:23Hunter:and that is the end of i solve the far the farmy products and i regret it it was good man it's crazy that he never i don't think he ever brought up the farmy paradox at all he did he said aliens are live for stuff like he said well you know it's the farmy paradox but it's not really that he's like it's just a theory is what he said very beginning you know this is a uh this is a good this is did uh the maria the moon come after this or before this

2:27:02Hunter:before it's an interesting thing to see someone kind of take i the the thing about no sleep and And I'm curious to see this. Is this feels like an idea where each time they were posted, they didn't, I don't think it didn't really feel like there was, I doubt I I'm curious to know if at the beginning of the story, if that's how the writer knew that it was going to end that way. And I feel like a lot of people on no sleep use these parameters and they use these rules that monosleep has to kind of like just try out new creative things or like unravel ideas or see how they connect, connect stuff. Like it's not the same as like a traditional book where, you know, it's like all in a completed thing.

2:27:40Hunter:It's just per like, just whenever you want to do a new post, you just add to it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm curious if this was just an experiment or a thought or something, because to me, this is also, this is a good example of a person that obviously knows how to like make a story, write something compelling. and it seems like somebody just trying to like take a bucket of ideas of things they've thought and utilize them into a story or just like pour them out and they're not sure how to navigate it's like dumping a big uh bucket of puzzle pieces onto a table and kind of just looking at it like and not really like formulating it into a giant picture and just kind of like realizing that there's a bunch of pieces that need to be put together but it's just like that is what it is it's it's a good example of like i mean by the end it becomes almost like left right game in the way that like two people are going it's it's all these crazy things are happening they're mutating they're ascending there's really no end to this journey it is just kind of like a ever-expanding kind of idea but it's it's lessened by which whatever you're about the millennial humor what are the character like that you know that that's like just personal preference but i do think that the uh it's so abrasive and so surreal from the get-go that by the end none of the stuff really has any grabbing weight to it like the the cool like the idea that like matilda's like dissolving the same way that cheshire was and that they're like ascending almost like cheshire to me was like a pinhead s character who's like you asked for a gift and this is like you know we have such sights to show you kind of thing um and then like their physical body decays and they get slip off into whatever unknown world which maybe this story connects with another thing um but this idea that like there's these doorways and stuff and that you know matilda's dissolving she crawls into the lake which is a door there's a lot of like interesting ideas but since the beginning we've seen we've heard of like creatures with a billion eyes looking at them from drains and stuff um i think that it's just a it's an interesting way of showing that like building on you like setting things up to keep building and not uh you know burn out too quick to where there's no way to there's nowhere to go you know like if you if you bust that load early there's no way to uh recapture that magic later in my opinion um so yeah i think uh i think if you look at it objectively even removing all the all my gripes and how furious i am right now just looking at objectively um people have weird experiment done to them they can see supernatural things uh they go to a guy who supposedly knows something they see some more weird things and then the guy uh tells them that they're actually part of a lot of weird things and then he like effectively dies or leaves and then the story ends.

2:30:51So, you know. Also, you probably saw the hyperlinks. All of those things that the thing was describing are other stories from Grand Theft Auto. So.

2:31:03Hunter:So it is just like a hodgepodge of their universe. It's just like throwing your whole catalog into a thing, which is fine. And if people want to do that, I think a good rule of thumb, and this is more so for Harry than anyone else I think a good rule of thumb would be don't don't give us stories that require prior reading or extended universe because there's some people who like them but I ain't going to like them and people ain't going to like what I have to say about them if they do the original concept which the original concept of a guy like of a blind person which they didn't really harp on him being blind very long which is also another thing too I don't even think they mentioned it they're just like I have eyes Only one time, I think in part four or part five, was he just like, oh, well, you know, this is before this is whenever the world was like dark and, you know, whatever.

2:31:51Hunter:And now it's a different it was like a one. It's one line. But I still think like the concept of an idea of like a person getting their eyesight changed and then like you're able to see. Into like an alternate universe or something, though, we've seen that before. I still think that it's a fun concept or even the idea that like you go in for a routine surgery or something and it's like you are being kept by aliens or like you're being experimented on. Like you're like this idea of like the setup of the hospital. I thought was just kind of fun. I just wanted to live there a bit longer. And I mean, it just shows to have like it's it seems like he was the author was writing a story and then halfway through either.

2:32:34Hunter:They just didn't want to. They just didn't care. not that they didn't care that they're just like i just don't know if i like that idea i'm just going to pivot it because we get interested in these characters and then the next beats like all of them are gone it just seemed like it seemed kind of rushed uh versus like there was a lot of angles to maybe set up and like play with some of the characters and you know it just comes down to like how much did they want to invest into the story which it seems currently in my opinion that that was uh the the investment they were like i just want to wrap this up um yeah is how it felt yeah um i agree i would agree with but you know we got gay kansas uh sex and we got some pretty good with the monster and we got the once again mr wide mouth the doctor and that's pretty good i guess it's a uh it's a it's a it's a surreal thing though of seeing i'm always curious if people see stories do well and then they want to try a version of that thing like was it a thing where trying to do a version of like left right game is it like because so many of these stories also lean into characters who experience like weird anomalies and they use the the post format to be like hey so this weird thing happened today you know not that that's necessarily what this was but there was a lot of like tales from the gas station lonely radio broadcast station like all that like it had that that vignette of like very weird surreal things happening to a character but it just didn't have any of the buildup of like making you understand who this person is what do they want whether mode like who it there was all those things and i'm curious if like people see those things they're like oh i'd be curious to try like i'm curious to try to write a story like that you know which there's no problem in that either i mean like just be like yeah you know whatever at the end of the day too isaiah it's like these are just free stories that people are posting out and like just throwing out into the ether to just to kind of be like and i respect at least the idea of like someone want to do a story to be creative and stuff yeah i think that i think even then there's like a misunderstanding of how left right game and stuff like that can maintain like brevity while also being scary because the brevity was never at the cost of the situation or the creatures the brevity was always character based so there would be light moments are like funny comments made between Rob and Bristol but it was never about the monsters or the situation no one turned left and then the character's like let me guess next is right or whatever or they didn't see like Rob's son's dead's wife ghost and being like what's her problem they kept the stuff that needed to be scary scary and then the lightness was between each other whereas all these stories like this one and my property isn't normal and stuff like that love to make the jokes about the threat so therefore they quit being threatening yeah I you know and I do think that stories like the left right game or other stories that we've read that have that brevity I think is just because we spend so much time with the characters you build them up to where you feel like you know them and you have that kind of almost casual cadence with them you know whenever you're looking at something and you feel like you don't know a character i feel like you are the the weird essence like the weird uh what is a centric eccentricities what is it called this eccentric way well just the whenever a character kind of like goes and makes like that big of a change it's kind of it just kind of hits you a bit harder because you're just like well fuck oh i you know i why are we joking like that because we have no build-up to who they are or their character or anything and especially in a story like this where it's like we're three parts in and that's when we get hit with it was a bit tonally a whiplash as well um so i agree but you know my feelings on it have been pretty clear and like you said uh don't be mean so yep that's my thoughts it was a nice you know what i got i'm glad that we got to sit down rehistory today and i'm glad we got to hang out for a bit uh and we thank you guys for hanging out with us as well if you're listening to this on spotify be sure to give us a nice rating there i appreciate you if you're watching on youtube thank you guys and thank you for sharing the story and supporting the authors and also if you uh wanted to get some extra content feel free to sign up to the patreon we got exclusive episodes there uh and until next time guys stay creeped we love you we'll see you then i didn't realize it until after i got done reading but um precisely at the time that i was i was getting on to hunter about uh making it explicitly uh like making the story with the cowboy and the eldritch being thing not wholesome he was sending me uh i think these are vhs or dvd covers for uh gay porn he was sending them to me on discord, um, such as writing with gay daddy.

2:37:35Uh, so he's, yeah, he's, he's sending me these, uh, in the middle of the recording. So if I ever, if you ever see me reading and like, I look over and I'll just stop or do something, just know it's probably something like that. Whatever.

2:38:09Thank you.

2:38:35We'll see you next time.

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