Cold Relics

Hi, everyone. Not sure what subreddit to post this, so I’ll start here. I’m not one to keep a journal, I don’t do social media, and I don’t even like talking about myself. But I feel compelled to share this in case something happens. I’m hoping I don’t end up on someone’s “strangest disappearances” video, or make a record for most amount of body parts found in different states.

I must already be coming off as paranoid or dramatic. I’m a nobody, really. I keep to myself and live and work in a quiet part of the northeastern US. I’m a bit of a recluse who hides from the world, and I like conformity and a safe space. Over the past couple years, though, I’ve tried to come out of my shell. I traded my nightshift for daylight to force myself to interact with people. I’m even sort of trying to make friends, which isn’t easy in your mid-thirties. But one old guy, the worst co-worker I’ve ever had without a doubt, set me back. I’ve regressed.

You’re probably familiar with scary stories about a night security guard who notices weird things going down at the building he watches over. Well, that’s somehow become my reality.

For close to a decade, after I lost both parents, I fell into a mental and social health spiral that had me living out of my car and driving cross-country working temp jobs. I didn’t want to form connections or put down roots, so I stayed adrift. I’d say about seven times out of ten, I worked in night security or stocked shelves, so I could avoid people. Problem is, I was never completely alone, and when it’s just you and one or two other people, they tend to reach out eventually. Get chatty, want to buy you a drink or something. That was my cue to move on. I know. You don’t have to tell me it’s a shitty way to live.

A few years ago, I wanted a change. The reasons don’t matter; suffice to say I was trying to turn a page. So, I settled down in a small apartment and got a day job at a large distribution center for a retailer you’re all familiar with. There isn’t much nearby it, but it’s off the interstate and is an easy drive.

The first few weeks were miserable for my socially awkward self. The job kept me on my feet all day fulfilling shipments, and most of my coworkers were always trying to strike up conversations with the newbie, who would often go into survival mode whenever a simple hello was thrown his way. It was hell. And exactly what I needed to rejoin society. Four months in, and I was improving. I asked for extra shifts and made decent money. It wasn’t a fulfilling or mentally stimulating job, but it was rewiring my brain and helping to pull me out of a pit.

Then he came along and ruined it. With wages being what they are and saving difficult for some, a lot of old folks need work, I get it. But why pick something physically taxing? And with the way he behaved, how did he get hired in the first place?

I won’t say much about him, unless I get a lot of requests to do so for whatever reason, but his behavior got on my nerves enough to make me change jobs. Same location, since there wasn’t much else in the area that appealed to me. I ended up filling a vacancy in the night watch. In other words, I’m right back at a familiar spot. With any luck it’s only for a little bit, but I’d rather be doing the same old than having to deal with a curmudgeon for one more day.

If you’ve made it this far, you must be wondering what’s the point of this story, where’s the meat. About a week into my new posting, I started to notice strange things happening. This sounds cliché, but I need actual advice here if anyone has some. I get that it’s my job to watch the screens all night, do the rounds, and investigate anything out of place. I am a veteran at this, and while I’ve never had to beat someone up, I have called the police five times over the years at other sites and even used pepper spray once.

When I first started, the guy who trained me told me a story of when he found three homeless people who’d been hiding and living in a grocery store distribution center. They scared him when he found their home in the warehouse and he got ready to fight for his life, but in that case, they just ran off and were never seen again. Ever since I heard the story, I’ve felt prepared for my own similar discovery. And this is coming from a very nonconfrontational person. Why would someone like me repeatedly take this job? For the other 99% of it, when nothing happens and I get to spend a nice night alone in a place full of products that I wouldn’t otherwise know existed and are, I dunno, interesting to look at.

Truth is, while I dread the day I have to fight an intruder, once fear and adrenaline are pumping through my veins, I’m pretty levelheaded and even chill in tough situations, the kind of events that would make others panic. Not sure why I’m like that. Some quirk in my survival instinct, for better or worse. I hate a steadily creeping problem or worrying about a future hypothetical bad time, but once I’m in the moment and being tested, I mostly stay calm and logical.

Anyway, here are the things I’ve noticed, in no particular order:

Moving shadows briefly appearing in the camera feeds.

Motion sensors going off, but nothing is on screen in playback.

Several times, I’ve found a door to the outside ajar or unlocked.

Misplaced or used items, like tools, bandages, pain killer pill bottles, and various food in the grocery section. I’ve found discarded wrappers and drink containers in cold storage, but nothing yet in the frozen section. I’ve sometimes found trash in the bins in the break room which are emptied at the end of each day, so for some reason, our prowlers on occasion deal with their litter.

And after all this, I haven’t seen anyone on the nearly three dozen cameras that monitor the interior and exterior of the building.

Nothing valuable has gone missing yet, but the thefts have been bad enough for management to notice inventory discrepancies. Screwdrivers, drills, crowbars, and saws are among the more “popular” items.

Sometimes while I’m doing my rounds, the security office phone will ring, which I have to answer. This forces me to abandon my patrol, giving someone a chance to sneak by. And no one is on the phone when I get to it. Usually when I work this job, I’m paired with someone else. I don’t know why the company, or at least at this location, won’t give me a partner.

Only one other guy has this job currently, on the weekends. He’s told me of similar occurrences. Management has replaced locks and added a few cameras, but has yet to take any serious action to tighten security.

I’ll also mention that the building has had repeated issues with isolated black mold. I’ve found a few hot spots myself, even though there’s never any sign of dampness in those areas. Crews have come in during the day to take care of it, but it keeps happening. I haven’t asked about the mold, but I’ve heard management referring to the colonies as “stubborn.” I’m not certain if it keeps coming back, or if it’s just hard to scrape off or kill in the first place.

The mold is a separate issue, but I figured I’d add to the list of unsettling crap that goes on here. The building is in otherwise good condition.

How should I handle this? I hesitate to get the police involved until I have some solid evidence of repeat intruders or squatters. It always turns into a big thing, and if the cops can’t do anything, then I’m the one seen as not doing the job right. I don’t get paid enough to try my hand at detective and forensic work. I’m almost ready to call the place haunted, which might explain away the motion sensors going off and the shadows. But not the thefts and half-eaten food.

Sure, I can go back to the day shift and let someone else deal with all this before my failures become a problem, but I really don’t want to be around that creep. Is there something I’m not thinking of here? Some easy way to find out what’s going on?

It’s far-fetched, but maybe current or former employees are raiding the place and know how to avoid all the cameras. But that’s a lot of effort for some low-grade criminal antics. Still, I’m thinking of setting up hidden cameras of my own to catch them. The problem with that stupid idea, is that if they’re found, I could be accused of spying on my co-workers or whatever. If I want to go that route, I might have to set them up and take them back down every night.

Or I may get some footage the first time I try. And also avoid getting stabbed by drug addicts.

[The second post, made six days after the first]

Well, this blew up. I didn’t think so many would be invested in this.

Some good suggestions on what I could do, and it looks like most of you want me to go ahead and put up cameras. I’ll just have to be smart about it. No, I can’t afford infrared ones, nor will I be cracking open a kit from the warehouse. Losing my job I can handle, but I’m not going to spend any time in jail over this.

What surprises me is how many of you want to know more about the weird old dude that made me move to this position in the first place. Fine.

He’s in his seventies, I’m pretty sure. He’s a stubborn loner who has to work the floor in his own ways, knows nothing of teamwork or cooperation, and responds to us in what basically amounts to grunts, or at best, barely coherent mumblings. He’s also bad at social cues. At lunch, if there were no empty tables in the break room, he’d go hide somewhere to eat. He’d glare at us from across the sorting machines and mutter angrily if anyone made a mistake. About the only thing he didn’t do was physically touch anyone or file complaints of his own, but it’s clear that he doesn’t really like anyone and must hate the job, despite always showing up on time and working all day, even while keeping to himself.

He also has a habit that is just annoying, in that he complains about everything contemporary. I’d say that he’s out to constantly remind his younger generation coworkers about how “the old days were better,” but he isn’t even really making a point to any of us, or care who is listening. Remarks about the halcyon years, whenever they were for him, just get mixed in with all his other ramblings throughout the day, every day.

No offense to all the Gregs out there, but it’s never been a name I’ve been fond of, so I’m going to call him Greg instead of revealing his identity. No matter what someone does, I’m not going to put them on blast for the internet. Though he probably isn’t even online enough to find out about whatever doxing and shaming might be done to him, potentially because of me.

Greg isn’t about to be fired anytime soon as he has an annoyingly strong work ethic, so when a position on the night shift opened up, I took it—and I’m still hoping it’ll just be temporary. It beats having to put up with him all day, and hearing about him from everyone else, but I don’t want to stick to the solitary position for too long and go back to being a socially inept vampire.

I’ll add that I’ve never said a bad word about Greg at work. If he has a list, I shouldn’t be on it. Whenever people joke about or ridicule him in my presence, I just nod along and keep quiet. It’s not that I don’t think on the reasons I dislike someone, but I’m too much of a wimp to say stuff out loud or confront anyone. I guess it could also just be called having manners, or not talking shit. Either way, I’m sure that I’m just another face to Greg. He likely hasn’t even noticed yet that I stopped showing up during the day.

That’s about all there is to say. It’s not like I’m going to interview him.

As for the update, I’m wishing I had already set up some cams, because last night got really messed up. The past few days were otherwise fine up until then, nothing out of the ordinary weirdness. Another problem with this warehouse is the acoustics. Sound bounces around so much that it’s like I’m in a mirror funhouse for audio. It makes it difficult to pinpoint sound sources, and I’m sure that the person or people I’m dealing with scatter the moment they make enough noise for me to hear them.

Case in point, last night. There was a guy wailing at the top of his lungs for a good five minutes or so, and I still couldn’t find him before he disappeared. Maybe if I had already been on the floor, I would’ve had a chance, but I was up in the security room when the wild, pained screams started, so I lost some time. I swear, these cameras are useless. There are so many, but none of them are pointed where they need to be looking.

Imagine you’re me, working alone at two in the morning, in a huge building that is just about the only island of light in an area surrounded by darkness for miles. You check the feeds and wait for motion detectors to go off while you browse on your phone. For no reason, suddenly somebody’s filling the place with echoes of bloody murder. You look at the screens, see nothing. No choice but to leave the safety of the office and head down to look for a potential maniac. And then the screams stop, and you’re soaking in the silence again.

Could it be a co-worker or a disgruntled guy that got fired or quit? If they’re homeless, what the hell are they doing out in the middle of nowhere—how’d they get this far into the boonies? This isn’t some building in a city that people can slip into on any given night. We’re out here because of the central if not remote location, distribute to two dozen stores in the region, and because we’re easy for trucks to get to, being right off the interstate.

I looked around for a while and didn’t find anyone, no surprise. On occasion, we take a late delivery that I need to supervise, and this was one of those nights. Once I was alerted that a semi had pulled in, I headed to the back to unlock the roller shutters, where I’d get to watch two dudes unload pallets of cat litter and trash bag boxes. It’s when I’m nearly at the shutters that I finally locate the murder scene.

Okay, not really. I mean, I hope not. But there was a big pool of blood on the floor, along with some shredded gauze. Not enough blood that someone certainly died, but still more than I’d ever seen in real life. I took a picture and went into the loading area to assist with the delivery. Maybe my priorities are messed up, but I wanted to get that out of the way.

Once the forklift was back in its spot and the guys had headed out, I considered my options. Short term, my night would be easier if I simply cleaned up the blood and didn’t report it. Tempting, but I knew what I had to do. This had gone far enough, and it was time to get the police involved. Now it was warranted, even if I was going to get chewed out for “screwing up” or “slacking off” somehow. As if any of this was my fault.

I returned to the office to make a call, and on the way, I found something I hadn’t noticed earlier. A set of knives had been torn open and left on the floor, and only a single blade was missing—the big butcher one. If there were two crazy people evading me, one had just tried to kill the other. If there was only a single person, then they were even crazier. And if this wacko’s goal was to unalive himself on the property to send a message or whatever, why dress the nasty injury that left all the blood?

Leaving behind the box of knives in case they were needed for evidence, I went back into my safe room and made the call. It took the cops an hour to get out here, no surprise. And while I wish they hadn’t because it would just escalate things further, they brought an ambulance with them.

They looked around, asked questions, reviewed the footage, walked the building trying to get the injured intruder to come out, drove around the perimeter looking for ways they could’ve gotten in, complained about coming out here “again,” and… nothing. Just like me, they had no success. Dawn was breaking by the time the officers left. I filed a report and prepared for the worst. Although I have no idea how my current boss will respond, I’ve had experience with short-fused managers in the past who really don’t like it when any incident happens on my watch, no matter how well I think I took care of it.

Guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

Oh, and I’m not freaked out by the thought of the local vagrant having a knife now. He takes anything he wants, so he basically has all the knives in the building already. Again, I’m oddly calm under pressure. Threats and scare tactics don’t phase me. I’ll be all right.

[The next day, another update is made from the original poster, and this time it also shows up in a different community that might be of more help].

I got some suggestions to bring this topic over to your random dead mall subreddit, so here it is. I don’t know anything about you guys. I just gave into peer pressure. Okay, here’s what I originally wrote from here out:

So I woke up to over a hundred new comments to read through. Guess you never know what might go semi-viral. I can’t believe that a few of you actually want to donate or buy me some IR cameras, too. It’s a little amazing how many people are getting invested in this.

I was going to wait and post again in the afternoon after something would presumably happen tonight, but it’s now four in the morning out here and it’s been quiet for a change. Maybe the cops spooked the intruders? They might’ve left altogether, or could just be lying low. I know all of you probably want it to be the latter so that the drama-porn train can keep rolling.

I did get a wireless camera kit before work tonight, and set up six of them across the building in good hiding spots where there’s no existing coverage. I also aimed a few at areas where I tend to find trash or torn-open boxes with stuff missing. I don’t think I’ll catch anything tonight, though. It’s dead here.

But now that I’m spending the last couple hours before the morning shift starts by tapping out a post on my phone, I might as well talk about a few developments worth a mention.

The evening shift here overlaps with my solo work a little while I get settled in and help with closing, so I can chat with a few of my former coworkers and get up to date on recent happenings. News about the blood and police being called out here had spread, and while I didn’t have much to add, I did get to hear about just how unsettling some of the workers found the whole thing. Big conversation starter all day, apparently.

But also not the first time something bizarre had gone down at this place. There have been years’ worth of weird stories that started long before the warehouse was built. At first, all I’m wondering is why this is the first time I’ve heard about them. I love urban legends and local rumors about the dark and depraved. They could’ve kept me entertained when I was sorting and packing.

“The stories about this area go way back,” one of the older employees interjected after overhearing me asking about them. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something like, “Before the mall, there were the old steelworks that were said to be ‘haunted’ since the 1930s. Before that, it was the same thing with the farms. And before that… history gets murky, but the local settlers refused to build anything important out here, even after they drove away the natives.”

I reacted by asking, “There was a mall here?” Not that I’m sure why. I’m not a big fan of the places, and I don’t really get the nostalgia for them.

“It was called Sleepy Pines,” he said, and now didn’t seem so eager to give me the details. He headed off and clocked out.

I had a dreaded meeting with my boss to get to, but still had a little time to hear about this mall from the others. Before I could get more info, they shifted the subject to a more interesting and relevant topic.

“Did you hear that Greg hasn’t come in the last few days? You think it has anything to do with someone being stabbed here? Guy was always so weird. Better chance he did the stabbing over being the victim.”

“He disappeared?” I exclaimed—too loudly, making it awkward.

“I didn’t say that… But maybe he did? Not like any of us have his number, or would call him if we did. Hey, if he really does never show up again, do you think you’ll ask for your old job back?”

I wasn’t sure yet; I was still processing. I didn’t like the guy, but I wasn’t going to wish that he actually was hurt just so I could work during the day again.

Thankfully, my boss wasn’t pissed off. She was mostly just glad that I did my job without putting myself at risk. It was nice, and a little surprising, to not have to report to a total power-tripping asshole for once.

Shocker: it turns out my position has a high turnover rate. The weekend shift is generally fine for the part-timers that take it, but the weeknights seem to take a toll on whoever’s on guard duty. To the point where it’s difficult to simply get two people here at the same time, explaining why I’m doing it solo.

“It’s the little instances, that build up over weeks,” she explained to me. “There are people in town who had the job and still talk about the things they’ve experienced. The police have been out here over a dozen times this year, though none of our team members have been hurt. It’s all… paranoia? I don’t know how to describe it. Sounds, mild hallucinations, and on occasion, something real like a skittish intruder or malfunctioning equipment. The men around here just aren’t as tough as they used to be, I guess.”

Great. My job slowly drives people insane. Or stresses out others enough into quitting before they reach that point. I’m not one for nightlife or hanging around in bars, so I don’t have much exposure to any circulating ex-employee stories in the nearest small town, which is about twenty minutes away.

Whatever. If Greg doesn’t show up for another week, I should be able to leave the night watch behind, before I see anything really messed up.

All right, dawn’s breaking and another shift is about over. I need to collect my cameras. I’ll look through the footage tomorrow, which is Saturday, when I’m not working. I wake up around three in the afternoon, EST, and will reply to any big questions or comments before skimming the recordings.

[The next post is made at 4:06 PM.]

Um, wow. Sorry I’m a little late, but I just spent the last hour replying to a bombardment of DMs about Sleepy Pines. Guys, I’m not terminally online and I don’t do much research before settling into a new area. Remember, I had no idea there used to be a mall out here until, like, 18 hours ago. I wouldn’t know that it was cursed, haunted, or a corruption in reality or whatever was wrong with it.

I got messages from around thirty people while I was asleep, telling me how dangerous Sleepy Pines was, and how the land itself may still be screwed up. You can stop, I’m in the loop. Maybe not yet as deep into it as the fan club, but I get it. Disappearances, cults, capitalistic pagan rituals… Neat stuff. I’d be the smart character in a horror movie who leaves the hellhole the first chance they get, but I spent most of my money getting out here and need some time to recoup first before packing up again.

But, fine, I’ll look into the stories today. Just stop digitally shouting at me about totems and a couple that went missing. Give me time to sort out the lore myself. Which it looks like I’ll have to do the old search engine way. Why isn’t there a Wiki for Sleepy Pines if it’s gotten so infamous? Someone get on that.

I plan to be back later tonight.

[The follow-up, made around midnight.]

Hey, everyone. I lost track of time. Found myself excavating the rabbit hole more than I expected to. Don’t worry, I still got around to doing my homework. I played the footage from my cams in a small window in the corner of my screen at two times speed while I researched. I’ll get to that.

It took a single night to just about make me a true believer in the insane shit you guys dumped into my lap. After I read the two central stories about the mall, I tracked down other counts made in response. No experience comes close to matching the really “out there” stories of Mike, Jenna, and the girl who visited in 1990 and nearly got sacrificed by self-hating rich freaks in animal masks, but I still really got into all the “glitch in the matrix” observations from others, too. The vast majority of days, the place seemed to operate normally. But then there was that one percent of visits where something inexplicable happened with the staff, or a strange anomaly was seen in the corner of a shopper’s eye.

And it’s obvious when I’m reading a troll post or fan fiction, since they play up the horror and dark unknown aspects too hard. Not to mention all the times rumors recirculated about the Mike and Jenna GoPro footage existing on some obscure site, and people claiming to have seen it. The guy that found their camera hasn’t uploaded it. Best we can hope for is a high-budget recreation. If you want to see it, find an abandoned mall and make the movie yourselves.

Now that I should be as up to speed as the rest of you and respect your efforts and devotion, I’ll give you an update. It’s crazy that I’m now involved in this story, when only a few days ago I was a total outsider with no knowledge of Sleepy Pines or perfume ladies and all the rest. I admit, it got its claws in me.

As for the footage from my own cameras… There isn’t much, sorry to report. I know it sucks to be disappointed, but I’m doing what I can and I’ll keep pursuing this with newfound seriousness. Across eight hours of video from each of my six cameras, there was only a single noteworthy occurrence.

At about two in the morning last night, I caught in the upper half of one of the recordings a moving blur of someone running. Yeah. I have footage of a pair of legs sprinting in the distance, about three seconds worth. It’s not worth sharing, but I think it confirms that at least one of the trespassers, if there are multiple, is still lurking in the building.

Also, the member who was nice enough to order me the IR camera set paid for rush delivery, and it’s looking like they might arrive Monday before I go to work. So… maybe an interesting update is on the way Tuesday morning!

Lastly, and it’s not like this has been a problem yet, but I figured I’d get ahead of it: Please don’t come to the warehouse to try and get access just because you got a guy “on the inside” working here. I don’t need the trouble, and to be honest, I don’t really want to hang out with any of you in person. For me, there’s nothing more socially cringey than meeting someone you only talk to online. I’m a professional. Let me handle this. Thanks in advance.

[Following a quick update on Monday confirming the delivery of the cameras, the original poster returns on Tuesday in the afternoon for an eagerly awaited catch-up. The thread has been buzzing with activity since the morning.]

Let’s get to it. I set up the four infrared cams along with my six normals again last night. I’ll spoil it right away by telling everyone that I didn’t catch a hair of our interloper. They’ve been quiet recently. However, I still have a new discovery I want to talk about that I don’t know how to explain.

Remember our “black mold” problem that comes and goes? Well, along with the IR cams, I also got a lens attachment for my phone, so I can look for heat signatures on my patrols, too.

Now here’s the thing. While messing around with it late last night, I picked up a glob that was a few degrees warmer than the surrounding environment. I moved a few boxes to investigate, and it turns out that there’s a large patch of the black stuff on one of the walls. I hate mold, so I’ve never touched it and wouldn’t have known that… it’s warm for some reason. Is that normal? I get that it’s alive, but still, this is strange, isn’t it?

It was also the biggest colony I had seen yet, and I’ve already scheduled another visit from the cleaning crew. The building is supposed to be getting HVAC work done to hopefully help with the problem, but those guys are booked up. I don’t know why, but we definitely need a new air system.

This mold is nasty. While I was looking at this dull red glob of heat on my phone camera, I noticed flecks of the mass breaking off and floating away into the air—and larger flakes settling into place to join the colony. God damn gross. I hate to think I’m breathing this in.

But it gets worse! I lowered the range of the infrared display to see the more subtle fluctuations in temperature, and the whole screen lit up. There are specks of this warm mold drifting everywhere, looking like snow flurries or irradiated dust. What the hell’s wrong with this building? This can’t be happening only at night. I’m going to start wearing a mask to work, but I’m hesitant to tell others to do the same, at least before I first bring this up with a manager. I don’t want to cause some sort of panic.

This isn’t normal, right? To have mold spores a couple of degrees warmer than the air, floating throughout a building? I mean, I guess I could be looking at harmless dust particles, but that doesn’t explain why they’re warm. Or do tiny airborne things just show up like that, and I’m freaking out over nothing?

I only have one more announcement today. If Greg doesn’t show up in the next few days, we’ll consider his position vacated, and guess whose job it is to clear out his locker? As long as what’s inside isn’t something I need to report to the police first, like, say… a dead body, then that could make for a good update. Don’t set your expectations too high, but given how strange he was, I figure there has to be something weird in there.

[Two days later.]

Guys. What the hell. You’re all the only reason I’m even still working in this building as of this moment, since I have a crippling fear of disappointing a horde of people on the internet I’ll never look in the eye.

Last night I discovered that four of the warehouse cameras had been tampered with. It’s strange. Their time and date still tick to hide the fact that the actual video is frozen, and when I’m glancing at over thirty feeds, it’s not like I’d really notice a, what would you call it, glitch? Or some kind of corporate espionage? I’m not sure yet. My boss is looking into it.

I can’t say when this started. Me finding out was more of a fluke. These four cameras are pointed at low-traffic areas towards the back of the building, and don’t monitor much shelved inventory. We got one aimed at an emergency exit door, two covering what’s basically a utility corridor where things like circuit breakers, climate controls, and a janitor closet are, and then one more looking at a rolling shutter loading door and just the corner of a gardening supply shelf.

On the night of my discovery, I mapped out their coverage areas and realized that their outages meant that we had no eyes on a pathway from a never-used door to a loading and stock area, with access to building systems on the way. It’s possible someone could have been sneaking out or in by using the blind spots for months. Maybe years? It’s certainly a security gap, and it’s hard to believe I’m the first to catch it.

How I did so isn’t all that interesting, but I know some of you are curious. Just after official closing, someone rammed a gardening shelf with a forklift, knocking down several heavy bags of potting soil. There wasn’t time to clean it up the night of, and I wasn’t expected to do it alone, so it would be dealt with first thing in the morning.

At about eleven, an hour and a half into my shift, I was mindlessly checking the cameras like I do countless times a night. And it jumped out at me. Right where there was supposed to be broken-open bags of dirt, on the feed with the corner of a shelf, I see nothing out of the ordinary. No mess at all.

At first, I’m thinking maybe someone did go ahead and clean up before heading out. It’s not like it’s urgent enough to go investigate right away, but when I’m later doing my first walk at midnight, I go back there—it’s as far from the security room as possible—and see that the soil is on the floor. Huh. Weird.

I return to my chair, and now the camera’s showing the spill. But I know what I saw, and I don’t often second guess myself. I rewind, and the spot becomes clean again. Then right as the timestamp’s clock hits 12 with four zeros, the bags are on the floor like they’re supposed to be.

My investigation was basic. We have safety cones that I knew would be easily visible on the monitors, so I spread them across the warehouse wherever cameras were pointed and found the four feeds that didn’t “update” to show them. After I marked the trouble cams and packed away the cones, I skimmed the recordings in reverse. We keep 48 hours of video, so while I couldn’t go back too far for a deep dive, I felt confident I’d get an idea of what was happening.

These cameras operate normally from six in the morning to ten at night, capturing everything at six frames a second. But starting at ten, that becomes one frame every two hours, meaning the feed is a frozen snapshot that only refreshes four times throughout my night shift. The forklift accident happened a few minutes past closing, when someone was in a hurry to get it parked and head home. The incident itself wouldn’t have been captured.

The cameras have now been taken down for a full investigation. I’m glad that my boss seems to be taking this seriously and like a true security concern. Seriously, something this specific can’t be just an obscure malfunction, right? I have to think that the cameras were sabotaged directly, or the software that controls them was altered. I just can’t wrap my head around why.

The lapse could give a thief free rein for two hours, but only in a specific part of the warehouse that isn’t even near valuable stuff. And if they were using an emergency door to get in and out, it should’ve been setting off an alarm. The rolling shutters could theoretically be opened, but even if I haven’t had eyes on them, they’re loud. I’d be able to hear them from across the building. And on top of all this, we’ve only had the minor problems with missing inventory.

Sorry to bore some of you with all this menial but creepy ass stuff, but I wanted to be detailed because I’d appreciate some input. Whatever ideas you guys got, I’m all ears. Since we now have no footage of that blind spot at all until we get some new cameras, I know where I’ll be putting my personal set.

[The next day.]

Nothing on my cams from last night, but I’ll keep at it.

Not much else to say, but at this point I want to keep you all in the loop day by day. Really the only thing to mention this time is that I went to work a few hours early so I could talk to my boss about getting my old position back, what with Greg unlikely to return.

Don’t get discouraged. I plan to work the afternoon to closing shift, so I’ll get to keep up to date with whoever takes my spot when we’re in the building together for a half hour. I’ll tell them about my investigation, and let you guys know how this all plays out. I’m not doing anything amazing here or out of the ordinary. Might as well give them my cameras as well.

Speaking of, I thought up a little present for everyone. As thanks for the help before I’m done being a vampire again. How about a live stream tomorrow night? I’ll give a tour of the warehouse, and even open up Greg’s locker. I hope you can appreciate the idea, since I’ve never done any sort of streaming before and it’s way outside of my comfort zone. Also aiming for no technical problems. The wi-fi is pretty good at work, but it’s supposed to be storming tomorrow night so who knows what might happen. Makes for good ambience, though.

No, I wouldn’t have even thought of doing this if I had a hard ass for a boss again. I don’t think I’ll get in much trouble even if she somehow finds out.

One other bit of news just worth a quick mention. When I was at work early to put in the request, I found out that the land owner was in the building. I asked some employees, and apparently, he stops in once a month to, like, look around? He’s not otherwise involved with the company as far as I know.

I dunno, maybe it’s nothing unusual and I’m just grasping for straws. It sounded like he was asking management about the security problems. I guess if people are getting hurt, breaking in, and stealing on his land, that’s enough reason to poke around and find out what’s being done about it.

I wouldn’t bring this up if it weren’t for the fact that he put me really on edge. Maybe more so than Greg. The showrunners here were chatting with him like they were all old friends, but this guy… he’s tall, has slicked back hair, looks like he never smiles, and was over dressed in a dark business suit that could’ve come out of the 80s. Real Patrick Bateman energy. I get accused of exaggerating my first impressions, but I feel like I’ve always been sensitive to a person’s “vibes.” His were off.

This place… I feel like it’s trying to move on from a past some might see as cursed or haunted, yet it can’t help attracting the strange ones.

All right, enough of that. To anyone who wants to stay up late with me, the stream begins at midnight tomorrow, EST. Technically as soon as we rollover to Saturday. Treat it like one of those ghosthunter shows. It’ll probably start off with high hopes of seeing something scary, and then nothing happens. Manage your expectations is what I’m saying. Either way, should be fun.

[Within the first minutes of May 25th, 2024, the late-night stream goes live. What begins as an amateurish and dull broadcast with less than a dozen viewers unexpectedly, over the course of the night, reaches many esoteric and darker corners of the internet and peaks at over 10,000 viewers. Secondary recordings of the stream exist online, and debates on both the authenticity and explanations around the following events are ongoing.]

At first, the operator gives viewers time to join as he checks his setup and confirms it’s working. Typing can be heard over the sound of heavy rain on a metal roof. The camera is pointed directly upward at a dim ceiling light.

At 12:10 AM, the broadcast begins proper when the camera pans around the security room and is tilted up and down. The motion is smooth. Either out of shyness or desire for continued anonymity, he is careful not to reveal his face. His opening words are light and timid. He will gradually speak with more confidence as the long night wears on.

“Okay… Test, test… You hearing me? Looks like… chat’s saying yes. All right. Cool. Well, there aren’t many watching yet, so I’ll start things slow and see if we get those numbers up. Still, not bad for a first-time live streamer, maybe. I normally think this form of entertainment is stupid, but, heck, it kind of feels like I’ve gotten to know a few of you over the last couple weeks. Um… so… I don’t have much of a rig going here. No lights, no external mike. But I do have a gimbal, so it should look nice for everyone, at least. And I’ll stay in landscape.

“Can you hear the rain? It’s a little scary out here. News is warning that there could be flash flooding in the area. No worries, though. The building is up on a mound. Worst case, I get my own island for the night. Ah, yeah, so… Might be in over my head here. Maybe I should’ve loosened up with a few drinks first.

“Anyway… This is the security room, where the magic happens.” He pans the camera to show the monitors that surveil the warehouse. “I know you guys want to see me crack open Greg’s locker, but that’ll be in a bit. Hoping to get, like, thirty people watching first. We’ll start with that tour of the building. It won’t be that exciting, but, ya know, I figure some of you might want to see what occupies the space where Sleepy Pines and its many… uh, stores and… memories once existed. So, fun fact, I compared satellite photos and mapped out the coordinates, and it turns out that my office up here sits at about where the mall’s main entrance marquee used to be. The warehouse is also around twenty feet higher up than the mall was.

“Hm, no one else seems to be joining yet, so… guess we’ll start.”

He proceeds down the stairs and walks the building, throwing in minimal commentary as he gets documentary-style footage of the sorting machines and endless shelves of various bulk products. To any outsider, this would be a very uninteresting stream. But for the Sleepy Pines enthusiasts watching, there is subdued excitement around simply getting to see what exists where an infamous shopping mall once was. The chat is buzzing with Dead Mall memes and trivia.

By 12:30, he arrives at the rear corridor where the security cameras had been tampered with. He slows down his movements, giving the viewers a chance to inspect the area for themselves and perhaps see something he had missed. Nothing stands out to the audience, and he soon arrives at the shelves that were just out of view of the cameras that once monitored the area.

“Here’s where the dirt incident happened. No evidence left of the soil. I read some theories that maybe there’s a hidden entrance or something here? Like into the shelves, or between them? That’s kind of ‘out there,’ guys, but I did check anyway. Well, as you can see, it’s all pretty solid, and crowded with heavy bags of mulch and dirt.” He jostles the stacked metal for a moment, and then walks around the large tower of gardening inventory. “You can barely see it, but these shelves surround one of our load-bearing columns. Just concrete and rebar back there. I already spent a few hours looking around this spot, trying to find some reason for the hijacked cams. Nothing.

“Moving on, here’s something you all wanted to see. Uh, one sec…”

He switches over to the IR lens attachment, painting the world in mostly cool blues and purples, with a few warmer regions of dark red.

“The crew was just here yesterday and scraped away all the mold, so I can’t show you any of it. But if I dial up the sensitivity… like this… There, you can see the ‘hot dust’ still floating around. If the bit rate isn’t crap. Like I said, this dust is everywhere, wafting throughout the building. I don’t have this problem with the infrared camera at home. What do you think it is?

“I reread some comments last night, and was reminded about… What if this dust or spores, or whatever, was in the air back at Sleepy Pines? Only, no one noticed because IR tech was too expensive for most people? And there are also theories that… maybe the mold is actually that stuff on the walls in the original Dead Mall story? You know, that can, what’s the word… like, transmute matter? To the point where it reverts a place into what it was in the past? I… I dunno, without a totem—like a real one, shaped by a true believer… Um…”

He trails off, then returns the camera to normal and checks the feed.

“Okay, cool. We got some more viewers. I guess, uh… I guess we can get to it and open Greg’s locker. When we find, like, weird sex toys in there, we’ll all have a good laugh and I’ll wind things down. I still have to do my job, and—”

Following some distant thunder, the lights in the building flicker and go off. He keeps still and quiet as the dim glow of backup lamps appear, though it’s too dark for the phone camera to pick up anything but specks of light.

“Almost gave me a heart attack… Only a storm, for those just joining. I’ll check the circuit breaker while I’m back here, but we’ll probably have to wait for the lights to come back. I’m not opening that locker in the dark. Hold on…”

The glow of his phone’s light hits the breaker box, which he opens with a key. He checks the large array of switches, remaining calm throughout. A few of those in the chat seem to be genuinely concerned, but most simply laugh off the power outage as a nice little boost to the stream’s “spooky factor.”

“Hm… Well. Doesn’t look like anything flipped. But you can see the crazy number of circuits you need to run a place this big. Oh, wait, this last switch was tripped. Uh…” He shines his light on the label of the switch in the lower right corner, and hesitates. “Apparently, it’s ‘disused.’ Don’t know what that’s about, so not gonna be touching it. All right, back to the office.”

He shuts and locks the breaker box and continues on, now lighting the way with his dedicated flashlight. The camera only picks up the shapes and shadows that the beam illuminates, making for an eerie journey back to the comfort of the monitor room. Our host doesn’t seem bothered, but some of the chat members, whether role-playing or not, are getting a little uneasy.

“Used to be, they’d shut off most of the lights in a warehouse after dark. Now most places don’t bother. It’s all LEDs, anyway. Cheap to run and they last… you hear that?” he whispers sharply all of a sudden, and swings the phone and flashlight around, back toward the rear corridor. Nothing is audible on the stream. “… No? None of you? Damn. I definitely heard something.”

He looks around a few moments longer before resuming his trek, now with a speedier gait. The chat slows to a crawl, as if to keep it quiet for the host’s sake. By now, there are over fifty watching—probably still mostly from the dead malls subreddit where the stream was announced.

After navigating around and between hundreds of tall shelves in the dark, the lights come back on just as he reaches the stairs. A sigh of relief is heard.

“And they’re back. I didn’t plan any of that, by the way.” He goes up the steps, and surveys the warehouse from above for a bit. “Don’t see anyone, or… anything moving out there. Let’s be sure.”

For the next ten minutes of the stream, nothing remarkable happens. Our host and his audience spend some time looking at the camera feeds after he runs a post-reboot system check. Everything appears to be normal, likely to the disappointment of a few watchers. Finally, just before one in the morning, he gets on with the show by fetching a hefty pair of bolt cutters from a tool rack.

“Okay. Sorry about the delay, but I needed to check out the security system anyway because of the power outage. Let’s crack open that locker and see what Greg’s been hiding. Back downstairs.”

On the return trip to the floor, he appears to hear something again, but says nothing. The camera lingers on the warehouse rows, and once more, the phone fails to pick up any audio. He proceeds into the employee lounge, and then into a room full of narrow lockers. Greg’s unit is in the back, and doesn’t stand out in any way. It’s painted in a plain gray, like all the others.

“As you can see, it hasn’t been opened,” he tells the audience, and gives the padlock a tug. “Now just to be safe, in case there really is something messed up in there, I’ll open it off screen and get a glimpse at the contents first. I also sort of need both hands to use the cutters.”

The camera is placed on the floor, and the sound of metal getting sheared apart can be heard. The locker door creaks open, and our host is quiet for longer than expected. Whatever is inside has taken him off guard. After several more seconds, he lets out a low mutter.

“Just… what the hell… Guys, you aren’t going to… Man, I, uh…”

Unable to find the words, he picks up his camera and shows the audience. Packed tightly on the locker’s shelves are dozens of clay creations of all sizes. Some are simple, others are intricate, a few have carvings that depicts nothing discernible. Most are small, but several are sizable. Those on the top shelf are the biggest and most detailed, almost looking like actual art. They’re also the only ones that seem to be made of a brown clay, instead of the more common light gray. But something is off—they look artificially colored, as if stained.

“Look at all these…” he says and touches some, knocking one to the floor. “And they’re just… dry? Like, not even baked? What was he doing in his spare time? I assume we stock clay somewhere, but… did he bring these from home? Yeah, I see the chat. You all jump right to totems, but, come on, how would he even know about them? It… it has to be some weird art project.”

The commentary begins to scroll faster than anyone can read it, but at a glance, there is clearly a division between those that think this is all just fake or a setup, or an example of a genuine urge to create idols. It remains unknown if such a desire stems from knowledge of their prior existence, or from a form of psychosis that can arise in certain individuals who spend time on the land.

“They aren’t as serious as the totems in the stories,” he continues while examining a few, and tossing them on the floor—since they’re destined for the trash regardless. “But these ones on the top shelf… Shit! Oh, that’s gross. You see what’s under them? Like, pools of dried blood, I think… I won’t be touching those. If he’s been mixing freakin’ blood into this clay, then I could get, like, hepatitis. Okay, fine. I’ll look at one. But not here. If you guys are making me… I don’t know, ‘evaluate’ it, I’m going to do it right. There’s a workbench upstairs.” He reluctantly but carefully grabs one of the stained objects and carries it away. “Weird ass old man. Swear to God, if there are fluids in this other than blood…”

Upon returning to the “viewing deck” that connects to the monitor room and where a large window offers a vista of the warehouse, he places the object on the table. After shoving aside equipment that was being repaired, he turns on a lamp and studies the perverse statue. It’s the size of a typical flower vase.

“Well… it feels and sounds hollow, so maybe there’s something inside. I read through all the theories about these things, but who knows how they actually work or what they do. So, for science, let’s open it up. These engravings don’t look all that interesting, but maybe more thought was put into the contents. There’s something rattling around in there.”

Using a hammer and several heavy taps, the object breaks apart and its material spill out on the table mat. He zooms in for a closer look, though all there is to see are nail clippings, strands of hair, and a tooth.

“Huh. Gross, but I expected worse. That’s definitely his hair, so he must be using… parts of himself to give meaning or ‘power’ to this thing. That might be both disturbing and narcissistic. Anyway… I see that a lot of you want me to open up more of the totems. I was planning to end the stream around now, but if you really want me to, I guess we can break a few more.”

He stands up and turns to head down again, but immediately freezes upon noticing a sudden change in the warehouse. It’s now bathed in darkness; all of the lights past the nearest few rows of shelves have gone off.

“What the hell… When did that happen? I didn’t hear any thunder…”

The audience watches as another section of lights flickers, dims, and goes out. It’s as if a growing void is encroaching on the last illuminated area in the large building. The host, though perturbed, still doesn’t panic.

“Okay, that’s not normal. I’m going to check the monitors to see how this started. It’s like… circuits are going down one after the next.”

He rushes into his office and narrates what the viewers see while tapping on the keyboard, “Most of the cams are down. Rewinding… See that? The lights began shutting off just minutes ago. Starts from the back, spreads fast, then slows down… Yeah, screw this. I’m leaving. I mean, if I can…” He switches to the external cameras, and they show him the bad news. Under the pouring rain, the outdoor lights reflect against a growing lake of water. “Shiiit… Am I trapped?”

Two more interior cameras lose their connection, and he leaves the room to update us on the warehouse. The darkness is coming closer, swallowing the light as swaths of LED tubes go dead. He doesn’t budge from the perceived safety of the second floor’s observation area.

“No, these are not special effects or me setting off timers or some shit. This is really happening,” he snaps. “And now I’m marooned. Tell me I didn’t do this. That totem was pathetic—me breaking it didn’t cause this.” He picks up one of the landline phones, but no dial tone is heard. “Of course. I’m ending the stream to call for a rescue. I’ll try—”

All of the remaining bulbs go out. The video feed becomes a flat black. Not even emergency or backup lights can be seen in the abyss.

After several seconds of breathing, things resume in infrared. Our host approaches the glass for a closer look. What he sees out there, in a chasm with no light visible to the eye, is chilling in several ways. The walls, floor, and ceiling are covered in a dark purple, showing that they’re cold. Even the shelves and inventory have retained some ambient heat. What’s more, the building now has a rough, cave-like structure, as if coated by a rugged material. At the same time, the dust is hotter than ever and eerily suspended in the air, unmoving.

He stares as his camera does, unsure of what to say. The only sound is heavy breathing. We watch as the miasma of mutagenic dust throughout the building begins to glow like a field of stars, hotter and hotter, nearly blinding the infrared sensor. For one more small moment, it’s quiet. Then with no warning, the dust rockets in all directions, slamming into the ceiling, walls, floor, and everything in between, pelting the viewing window as well. The specks move with such velocity that their scattering is only captured on two frames of video.

It’s unknown what happens immediately afterwards. It sounds like a powerful shockwave hits our host, but there is no shattering glass. Whatever he is stuck by, we hear him hit the floor with a thud, and the stream goes offline a few seconds after the dust “activated” in whatever way it did.

The chat window explodes with reactions, and once it automatically shuts down, the viewers swarm the thread for the stream to continue their debates and concerns. Some still say it’s all an elaborate prank, maybe even shot on a soundstage against a green screen. But that wouldn’t account for the fact that there is flooding in the area, and when the leaked number for the security desk’s phone is tried by numerous users, they only reach a dead line.

While waiting for the stream to come back, or any response from the guy who has become the new major player in the Sleepy Pines saga, the story spreads like wild fire around the Dead Mall community and a bit beyond, as well. Though given the late hour, its power to attract the uninitiated masses is muted. What’s good to see is that while many want answers and beg for more video, many more send their well-wishes and hope the streamer is okay.

Efforts are made to contact the nearest rescue crews, but the flooding has knocked out a bridge and even further isolated the already rural corner of the state. A silver lining emerges when newer forecasts show the rain starting to dissipate. Although better weather won’t do much for our friend if he’s already met with a strange, unique, terrifying fate—or if the building has collapsed from the full activation of a totem, which has quickly become the leading theory on what happened. But from where, and by whom, is an unknown.

After 93 minutes of anxiety and getting friends to wake up and join in on the event, the stream miraculously resumes. The video is lower in quality and drops frames often, but it remains decent enough. Our survivor continues from the monitor room, lit only by a backup light. Notably, from here out he mostly speaks in whispers. Some copies of the recording have incorporated AI to enhance his voice.

“Is it going through…? How’s the picture? Wow, you’re all flooding back. Sorry to worry everyone. I didn’t black out… Or maybe I did? It’s more like I’ve just lost time, about an hour and a half. Guess that’s a symptom of this sort of thing, isn’t it? Like when the Sleepy Pines girl was in the washing machine, and…

“N-never mind. I got knocked off my feet, and then next thing I know, I check the time and… Well, as you can see, the power is out. So… no cameras, but maybe mine are still out there. No Wi-Fi, either. Hoping my cell connection holds out. I’ve been hiding here, working up the nerve to go into the warehouse to see what’s happened to it, and… try to find an exit. I think I can do it if you’re all with me. It’s weird. You aren’t here in person, but it’s still like I have a personal army at my command. Jesus, there are thousands of viewers now…”

With that, he stays fairly quiet for a while, letting the viewers experience what’s ahead without unneeded commentary. The journey will speak for itself, and he seems to know this in advance. For those who have spent years drawn in and captivated by the mystery of Sleepy Pines, the land, totems and their belief-fueled power, and what it all means, this night is already proving to be a holy grail of an event. And the chat box reflects the solemn solidarity; despite the thousands of viewers, text usually scrolls by slowly.

He returns to the viewing booth and picks up the biggest flashlight he can find, which he uses to send a revealing beam into the darkness. The observation area has been spared from the transformative effects of the black matter, but outside, past the thick particles of dark dust now easily visible even without an infrared camera, is a jungle of amalgamized corruption where time and space has imploded into a fractal-shaped mess of geometry that vaguely resembles gnarled tree roots, with limbs that terminate in objects and samplings of places from the past. At this distance, it’s difficult to make out finer details, but it’s certainly clear that the warehouse is now without definition.

Our intrepid explorer breathes in and leaves the room—grabbing a crowbar on the way out, for anything potentially crawling around. The totems have the ability to create hollow mimics of living beings, at least for a brief time, and the extent of their behavior and potential for hostility isn’t fully known.

Upon reaching the ground floor, he looks for any available ways out, but the inelegant eruption of the black matter has covered all of the doors. He’s left with no choice but to head to the back, all the way on the building’s other side.

Within a minute since his arrival on the ground floor, he already sees the night’s first anachronistic anomaly. The light sweeps over a large box, and he brings it back so that we can examine an unpowered vending machine, partially emerging—or forming from—a mound of dark goo. The design and art of the machine is impeccable, looking straight out of the early 90s. It’s also empty of food, which is just as well since anything “edible” will have previously been something that was not. A shelf, perhaps, or the toaster oven it held.

He soon has to start walking on twisted, melting material to proceed. It crunches like snow under his shoes, and he checks his feet often with the light and camera. By now, his gimbal is basically mirroring his every head movement, and he may no longer be fully conscious of it being separate from his body. The camera work is excellent, in other words. Chat never complains.

A source of light stands out after he rounds one of the intact rows of shelves, or more accurately, a row that has only been partly converted and transitions from warehouse shelving to a mishmash of half-realized furniture and appliances. The light comes from several arcade machines, freshly hatched from the gunk and lacking any artwork—or buttons, for that matter. The screens flicker rapidly between blacks and blues, their power source a mystery.

Proceeding deeper in, he observes and highlights the empty racks for the audience, and says what’s on our minds, “The inventory is missing… All of those everyday items must be like fuel. Gives a totem raw material to mold into… things like that…” he adds as the flashlight and camera point upward.

Dangling down from the unseen ceiling is a particularly large tendril, and attached to it is what appears to be an entire random and nondescript corner of some part of Sleepy Pines. The tile is shiny and clean, the two walls are solid without cracks or seeping goop, and there’s even a single pillar that supports nothing. Thing is, the geometry is warped and nothing is in correct proportion.

“God, what a mess. Euclid fans are wincing,” he jokes.

At the end of the row, we reach a break in the warehouse between sections, where a forklift is now mostly embedded into a poor recreation of the Sleepy Pines fountain. Its basin is dry, as the tar-like mutagen cannot create water, and in fact seems resisted by it. The fountain can’t hold water anyway, as it is split in half by a fissure that descends into light-absorbing darkness.

Also in the area: a classic Sears sign that has melted into the floor, though its letters are slightly off and only the E is illuminated. A payphone is attached to the side of a column by a single thread of gunk, showing the strange matter’s strength. The mall’s famous red Corvette has been remade and phases through a stack of wooden pallets—and even if it hadn’t, it’s still twisted and deformed into shapes no industrial machine could make. Nearby, a circular clothes rack, that holds nothing but duplicate pairs of blue jeans, has manifested like an artificial tree sprouting from one of the building’s cleaning stations.

“Why is it like this?” our host whispers and scans over the objects several more times. “It’s like… two locations are just crammed together. Wherever it is, maybe the totem that activated is… malfunctioning? Did it trigger on its own?”

He pauses his thought upon hearing a strange croaking sound from… somewhere. Light and camera spin around to find the source, but see nothing. It was unmistakably organic, however; there’s at least one being or creature in the place. And as he scans his surroundings, there is another notable occurrence.

A second source of light suddenly fills the immediate area, and he quickly finds the reason: one of Sleepy Pines’ old skylights has materialized directly above, letting in some moonlight dulled by cloud cover. The transforming effects of the totem are extending to the building’s exterior.

It’s a sight worthy of attention, but he doesn’t linger, since the light has made him further stand out to anything moving around. He goes on, deeper into the warehouse and potentially closer to the source of the corruption. And this is where we begin to delve into uncharted territory. Past the mall, before Sleepy Pines. The more distant history of the land, violently pulled out of time and poorly reconstructed.

There is a well-defined space where this transition begins. We go from the mall’s “Grand Opening” banner draped down from a tower of copy-pasted front doors, to rusted industrial pipes and girders. They blend together within a span of a few feet, like smeared three-dimensional oil paint, and we find ourselves trapped within a nightmarish factory of some kind that, like the distorted mall segments before it, continues to fuse with the warehouse of the present and the tar-like substance that has birthed temporal chaos.

A lopsided sign erases any doubt on where we have stepped. The words “Vicker Brothers Steelworks” hang down from chains that fade up into darkness.

The totem is pulling from the days of the foundry that operated between 1939 and 1964. Mortar shells were cast there during World War II. The building nearly burned down twice, and cost fourteen workers their lives over the years. The worst of the accidents, a large spill of molten metal, claimed three victims. I’m not mentioning these facts to claim that the site was cursed, but out of curiosity concerning the nature of the totems, if they have one at all. Why capture such a miserable time and place? Did someone want to preserve it as people did Sleepy Pines? Were they even aware of the strange instruments, or have the urge to create them? It’s likely the totems are merely observers, forms of data storage, and advanced 3-D printers without allegiance or disposition.

Whatever they are, they have long memories.

And the one that is active now—or was destroyed upon use—seems to have dug into the collective memory of glowing metal, which appears as bright reds and oranges in the dark. Molten steel pours down shelves and misshapen elements of the factory, yet doesn’t flow; it’s all frozen in motion. Nor does it seem to exude actual heat despite the glow, and our guide demonstrates this by holding his hand near a stream of hot slag. Upon feeling nothing, he touches it directly to no effect. He even pushes it inward. It has the consistency of a gel.

“Weird…” he remarks. “And it’s just, like… room temperature.”

Another croak. It’s coming from above, somewhere nearby. No time to dally; it’s possible he’s already being hunted.

Only seconds after he leaves the moonlight, there is yet another worrying incident. Even for this twisted place, it is unexpected and I wager most of the viewers are as startled as the streamer. Gunshots ring out and echo across the cavern. Muzzle flash lights up some of the back half of the building, but is too far away to pinpoint. There is shouting, as well—coherent and human, yet also too muffled by distance to make out clearly. Audio enhancement will later reveal the shouting to be something like, “Get out of my way! Move, mindless things!”

Our story’s protagonist freezes up again, and waits until the danger may have passed. Whatever creature is lurking at the top of the shelves is lured in by the activity, and it can be heard clumsily scrambling away. There’s no need for our friend to give us his thoughts. It’s obvious that one of the intruders is about, they’re armed, and they seem to have some familiarity with the imitations of life that may be up ahead—or is at least not afraid of them.

When he does press on, it’s more cautiously and quietly than before. It isn’t long before the twisting pipes and metalworks of the foundry section begin to transform again.

Some of the rows of shelves become fences, or warp into twisted windmills and portions of grain silos. He passes through the front of a 19th century barn, its doors bent out of shape and splayed open. Oil lanterns glow dimly and hang from the building rafters, but have no living flame inside. There are small fields of pumpkins and dead pigs, not that they were ever truly alive… though maybe they could squirm about when first created earlier in the night.

Totems can restore material, but their full effects don’t last long. While we aren’t sure of one’s true potential in the hands of a proverbial master, we know that the dredged-up past Mike and Jenna saw was only stable for a few hours, with complex “life” forms degrading the fastest. What isn’t known is what occurs once the imitation world shuts down completely, and what all it might take with it. Mike and Jenna weren’t heard from again after they witnessed that ending, and if our friend can’t escape, he might be the next to find out.

Oddly, the visit to the land’s agricultural past stretches for only a hundred feet or so, despite the area hosting farmland for well over a century. Theories developed after repeated viewings of the stream that the length of time doesn’t corelate with the size of a place’s representation. Rather, it may have been how beloved or remarkable that place was to those that knew it. The idea that I more subscribe to is similar: it’s really about the number of people that once passed through this corner of the world and kept it in their memories. That would explain why the rural display covers less ground than a once-popular mall that survived for a fraction of the time.

Whatever the truth, after the sampling of farm life we leave civilization for good and are on the way to the expected epicenter of the night’s events. Once he passes by a few log cabins, his sweeping beam of light only illuminates the solid black bark of large pine trees. An entire forest, endless at first glance, stretches outward with little room to maneuver. The actual canopy and pine needles aren’t visible, if they exist at all. Like an AI-generated mistake, the giant trees seem to be all trunk, and disappear into the dark ceiling. They might even keep going into the night sky, but we’re trapped inside and can’t be sure.

A few steps into the woods, more croaking. It’s deep and deranged, the noise of a monster. His video feed shaking as his nerves begin to finally fray, he aims the camera upward. His light hits a solid black creature, hanging from the bark at least fifty feet above. We aren’t certain if it’s blinded, or already falling to pieces and bumbling, but either way it comes crashing down and nearly crushes the explorer. Its bulk explodes on impact, and what’s left writhes and contorts as new masses grow and split open. The grotesque scene culminates when a melting human head of an obese woman briefly emerges from the thing’s shoulder, lets out a guttural groan, and vomits up… empty perfume bottles.

The creature then goes still and silent, and continues to degrade, with some of its inky flesh dissolving into dark smoke. After witnessing this, our narrator responds in a way that may have finally broken some of the tension that night which had left viewers at the edge of their seats. I remember letting out a laugh while watching live and filling the role of chat moderator.

“… Okay,” he mutters, steps over the corpse, and continues on.

Really, what else is there to say?

The trees are deceptively non-labyrinthian. As big as they are, they were formed from rows of shelving and consumer goods, so there is still a straight path through them. The only thing of note in the forest trek is the occasional odd chanting in a dead language, source unknown. By four in the morning, we emerge from the woods and step into the inner circle of the corruption.

The sights ahead are the strangest yet, but they aren’t what gets his attention right away. After entering a dimly lit area and immediately ducking behind a tree before the audience can see it, he makes a quiet announcement.

“My cams just pinged my phone—they’re in range… Hold on, just have to minimize the stream and check… Hm… Lost four of them in the mess, but two of the regs and one IR are still running. Signal’s not strong enough to see their feeds, though. I’ll have to get closer. Problem is… Well, look at this…”

He pokes the camera out, and we get our first glimpse of what we will come to call the “ritual lands.” I’d compare it to an animatronic tour from hell. Understandably, he hesitates to step into this domain, but there’s no other way through. The “performers” do seem too invested in their activities to pay anyone walking by much mind.

Time periods have converged in this place, and maybe due to the closer proximity of the totem, the moving imitations of humans here are immaculate. At least for soulless, mindless copies of people the land has remembered. As he begins to navigate the twists and turns around each site, we quickly get an idea of just how blood-soaked the cyclical local history has become.

There’s no order or organization, and the characters and their duplicates don’t appear to acknowledge those outside their divided set pieces. But we can see how many times these “rituals” have happened, and all their many forms.

In an untouched old growth forest, a forgotten tribe’s shamans encircle a radiating yet frozen fire. Inside it is a wooden totem, or perhaps in this case, an effigy. They pray and watch it burn. In another iteration of this ceremony, they instead sacrifice a hog and wrap its entrails around a totem of bone. Later in the walk, past further animal sacrifices, the tribe covers their faces with crimson as they kill one of their own, for the sake of their coveted dark god and an ongoing desire to preserve their land or village… or to transform it into something else.

And this time, some tribesmen turn towards the camera with questioning or threatening gazes. It’s frightening, and makes our friend move faster, but this also happens with other groups on occasion. Yes, every group of people that came into contact with or became aware of the land’s nature eventually created their own ritual to give power through belief to an object—that seemingly willed itself into being created and used.

We see destitute and desperate farmers, killing one cow to… well, who can be sure? Make the rest of the herd healthy? Enrich the soil, bring rain, instantly sprout a crop? Maybe just build them a few barns?

The steelworkers became particularly cruel in their bid to keep business alive. The rugged men covered in heat-protective gear and soot go from making totems out of steel, to bashing in a goat’s head, and finally to dropping one of their own into a vat of molten metal. Sacrifice is always where it leads, as their beliefs become more and more demanding and insular. Inflicting pain shows their devotion and power, and then mysteriously, each reign comes to an end and the land goes quiet for a time. As if it devoured everything about them.

Sleepy Pines, being a shopping mall that existed in an era of connectivity and communication, survives in memory because of those things. But little is known about the local tribes, farmers, and steel mill. And why is it that records of strange objects and ritualistic groups just… don’t exist? They shouldn’t have all been so secretive as to disappear from history entirely.

I think the “breathing earth,” as it was referred to by Sleepy Pines’ owner, eventually sates some need or hunger and takes it back. The gifts, the power to mold and create, all of it. It inhales more deeply than usual and leaves the land a blank slate, with no trace remaining of those who knew of the nature of this place. And so, a once beloved shopping mall slowly dies, and the people who managed it were never heard from again.

Of course, the mall’s ritual site also appears many times. More so than the ceremonies that happened before them. Pierce Colchester and his little group of capitalists performed many rituals over the years, using a variety of animals, but failing on the one night they tried to offer up a person.

It was difficult for me to see those rituals on the stream, those business types in their animal masks, spilling blood across the white tile of the mall. It kept bringing me back to that night where I met them, back in 1990.

That’s right. If you hadn’t figured it out yet, I was the girl from the “prequel” story. Still living on a tropical island far away from all of that, but still entranced by a piece of land. Someone had to write up a report, or a story for that night at the warehouse. Mostly because of my firsthand account, the community voted me in to be the author.

And since said story isn’t really my own, I’ll keep it going.

Among those in animal masks, the man who sees himself as a rat seems to track the camera each time he appears in one of the annual rituals to improve or revitalize the mall. I don’t know if the videographer notices. His pace is now frenzied, and he voices his concerns about becoming a sacrifice himself.

Near the back of the warehouse, the ritual sites stop manifesting. There’s nothing left but the black matter and warped remnants of the shelves. It may be the eye of the storm, where there is too much chaos for anything to be created. Yet even here, a few things still survive in the tar-like muck.

“I can see my camera feeds now—from the ones that still work,” he says quietly. “Not sure where they are, but they show my flashlight. They’re covered in dead pixels, too… I think the IR one is pointed at me. Y-yeah, I see myself waving at it… Uh, hold on, I’ll try sharing the app screen.”

After some tech fumbling, he mirrors his phone and we see a thumbnail array for his cameras. Those that haven’t been mutated or crushed by the event have a whole mess of pink dead pixels. On one cam, they’re clustered on the left of the frame. On another, the right. On the infrared feed, more to the center.

“So… when a camera’s pointed toward an active totem, its sensors get gradually damaged, right? I… I wonder if we can use the dead pixels to, like, triangulate where it might be in all this mayhem? Then I could destroy it.”

The chat agrees with his idea, and he sloppily starts flipping through the three remaining feeds and using his beam of light to see where the cams are aiming. There’s nothing visible to the eye, no glowing idol that would be easy to spot in the darkness, so this is all we have.

On the fifth switchover to the infrared camera, two figures are suddenly seen standing behind our explorer. While he’s warm, they’re bright hot.

“Ah, shit!” he nearly screams as those at home jump in their seats.

He turns around to confront the pair, but doesn’t say a word. We are left with a “third person” view made up of cool and warm hues for a moment.

He composes himself, lets out a cough, and switches the stream back to his phone camera. Lit dimly by an indirect glow from his flashlight, we see the faces and eyes looking back at us. They’re pale and their expressions are vacant, but they’re otherwise just as real as any of the people in the ritual displays.

“M-Michael? Jenna…?” he murmurs in a kind of solemn reverence. “A-are you… Can you understand me? What… what happened to you two?”

They’re quiet. We don’t know how closely they represent the real missing couple, or what they’re thinking—if anything. They could be sizing up a potential ally, or prey. It’s Jenna that blinks first, so to say. Her eyes drift over to something off screen. The camera doesn’t budge.

“Down there,” she says flatly. “It’s below.”

“Below? W-what, I don’t… You mean the totem? It’s underground?”

Mike then speaks, just as stoically, “If you stay… when it all stops… you go… inside. Destroy it. Or run. Hiding… won’t work.”

Jenna stares right into the camera and a glimmer of life flashes in her eyes. “You’re doing… what we wanted to… Do people… remember us?”

“The land remembers…” Mike adds.

This is the scene in any ghost movie where a character struggles to have a conversation with a spirit. It’s not something anyone can prepare for.

Still, he tries, telling them, “Yeah, of course. You two are… you’re pretty much legends. And over ten thousand people see you, right now.”

Mike works his face into an eerie smile for the camera—but he smiles nonetheless. He even raises an arm as if to wave, but looks disappointed as it instead crumbles away into dust. Neither one of them is stable enough to stay for long. And we know they’re only mimics, copies of the originals, wherever they are now together. Even so, to see something like this live… I’m at a loss for words that can describe the feeling and reactions from the community.

There are at least a few dozen questions we all want to ask the echoes of Mike and Jenna, but we can’t be selfish when a life is in danger. And, while it’s subtle, it seems like the two expend a great deal of effort just to speak at all. Our ghost whisperer moves on, leaving the original explorers in peace.

Not long after, the flashlight finally hits the back of the building. He’s made it to the rolling shutters and looks around for a way out, which may not be so obvious what with the exterior lights also gone and it being a dark night.

We don’t see it, but he finds something else first and reports, “I found one of my cameras. Hold on, I’ll try to… Damn, it’s really stuck in the black stuff… Or is that a melted shelf? Maybe I can…”

We hear him strain a bit, but it’s unclear if he frees one of the wireless cameras. The next time he says anything, it’s after his light reveals the circuit breaker box, which has mostly melted into Dali-painting ooze.

“Guessing that’s why there’s no power.” His beam continues on, scouring the scorched and deformed wall for an exit. “Come on, give me a way out…”

We can barely see a loading door, as it’s coated in the goop. And then another one, warped and bulging inward so much that it obviously can’t open. But the last of the three, near where the gardening supplies once existed…

A forklift has been used from inside the building, and its prongs are dug into the shutters to force them open—partially; the forklift must’ve given out or the rollers jammed. There is a gap at the bottom, some two feet tall. More than enough to escape through. Has somebody already done so? Or… was someone else let inside?

He doesn’t waste time thinking about it, and runs over to his chance at freedom, kneeling and sticking the camera out into the night air to show his audience a potential end to the nightmare. You can tell by his breathing that he’s excited, more than ready to go, and chat urges him to get out.

And yet, he hesitates. He’s doing the worst, stupidest thing he can do: picturing himself as a hero, maybe even the one person who can put an end to centuries worth of rituals, obsession, and mindless cruelty.

“… Guys, I know I should do the smart thing. But…” He turns his camera back to the darkness. “What if I could… Look, I see the messages. You want me to save myself. This isn’t an ego or pride thing. Thing is, I’ve got no real family or friends. I should be the one… right? I bet a few of you want me to run just so nothing changes here, so the ‘curse’ can continue and you get more stories. Well, that might happen. Nah. Nah, screw it, I’m going for it.”

Against his better judgment, he leaves the exit behind and starts looking around again for where the totem could be. Not many agree with the choice, but he still needs our support. Hard to imagine being completely alone at this point.

With the choice made, the chat gives suggestions about how to find a way “underground” in a building without a basement. Is there a hidden staircase somewhere? Maybe even an elevator?

It’s actually me who reminds him about the camera sabotage from before, and that he must have been onto something. Being a moderator, my message is more noticeable, and he responds a few seconds after my comment.

“The blind spot… Yeah, the back of the gardening shelf is worth a second look, now that they’re all empty. Assuming I can pick it out in this mess, with everything blending together. It should be… right…”

The search yields results when a thin sliver of light, at ground level and facing the back of the building, shows up on the feed. He gets closer and we see the warped metal shelving blocking it, cleared of all stock like the others. Not only that—the large storage fixture has somehow been moved, as if it could swing outward on a hinge. Because it can.

“The hell…?” he mutters, then grabs a support bar and moves the whole big thing along its axis as it audibly scrapes against the floor. “It’s like a hidden bookcase door. And the pillar behind it… I see the line of light down there, but… come on, there’s no way.”

His beam shines across one of the building’s vital columns—and he finds an unexpected metal latch, embedded into its coat of black matter. His hand reaches out and, with effort, pries it open. A large, curving door that must have been well-hidden for years is gradually pulled out from the load-bearing support.

Behind it is a small room that takes up a fraction of the total size of the column; it’s a tight squeeze. The camera pans up and down, revealing nothing but an inactive lightbulb and a ladder descending into a dimly lit hole. Even in his bewildered state, he has the good conscience to not point his light down there and announce himself, and actually turns it off entirely after a moment.

“Uh, wow,” he whispers even more quietly than before, but directly into the microphone so we can hear it. “This is insane. This couldn’t have been added later—this, whatever it is, was built with the warehouse. It doesn’t look like any of the black stuff got inside, but if there’s a light on down there… Shiiiit…”

Barely taking any time to think it over, he holds his breath, gets on the ladder, and starts a tricky descent, given that he’s still holding a gimbal and phone that must be wearing on his hands by now.

“It doesn’t go down too far, but the signal’s probably about to get worse. Man, what am I doing with my life…”

He lands on solid ground and turns toward a very strange room. It’s more of a concrete corridor, maybe sixty feet long but only ten feet or so high and not much bigger wide. The low ceiling makes what’s inside feel even more out of place, because the narrow room is designed like a classic old movie theater—the kind with crappy seats that existed before stadium seating. The chairs even look ripped out of the 1970s or 80s, and while only two fit on either side of the aisle, the rows fill up the space all the way to the front of the room, where a dirty and damaged silver screen hangs. All the setting lacks is a projector and speakers.

“Each new thing, more and more bizarre,” our friend remarks and looks at the ceiling. “There are string lights on the walls. Maybe the ‘disused’ circuit can power them. Only source of light I see right now are a few lamps on the floor—between the… theater seats? Are those oil lamps?”

He goes to the third row from the back for a closer look, which includes a touch test. The chairs, no cup holders in sight, are in various stages of disrepair, with some leaking foam. But there’s no black matter to be found in the room, and none of the stuff breaks off from the plain brown and tan upholstery.

“Huh. I think they’re real… Maybe these are from the mall’s—”

He reacts to the sound of approaching voices from ahead, by ducking behind a seat and poking the camera lens out into the aisle. The voices are combative, but muffled, and it isn’t clear where they’re coming from.

We get answers when two figures emerge from the movie screen itself. It’s hard to see in the low light, but carefully watching the footage reveals a large rip down the middle of the screen that acts like a hidden entrance. I’ll mention that the stream is of an even lower quality than before and is lagging and frame dropping badly, but the audio still comes in clearly.

“That’s Greg,” our friend whispers into the microphone. “But that tall guy he’s arguing with… I can’t see his face. Is… is he wearing a mask?”

The stranger raises his voice, and we can begin to hear the conversation.

“And why is this hideous fake theater still up? I told you to tear it down. I want this room to be empty; it’s too important for your little trip down memory lane. The seats alone make it smell like a garbage dump down here.”

“You still don’t understand,” Greg fires back in his scratchy voice. “You never have. This gift requires love, and devotion. You can’t make a shrine of emotionless cold concrete. You have to want to be here, yearn to come back. The cinema was my favorite place at Sleepy Pines. It gave me an escape…”

“What good has your ‘mastery’ over this land done for us? Have you looked at the damage above? Rejuvenation is about finesse and humility. Whatever you did with the totem tonight instead caused so much disorder, that this site will likely be a total loss. It will need to be demolished, and I’ll have to sell the land again. I hated this place, but it takes years to build something I can use. I have to know what you did, so it doesn’t happen again.”

“That’s the owner!” our interloper whispers sharply.

The taller of the old men prattles on, “You know I can’t do this without you. But your artistic talent has waned like your judgment. You made a powerful sacrifice for the totem, but blood and sweat are only part of the equation. Where’s the craftsmanship you had long ago? It’s just you and me now… The others, even Pierce, are all gone. I’m glad it’s you still here, but what were you thinking, bringing this so close to the composer?” The masked man is seen kneeling into one of the rows closer to the front, and picking up a large object that is unmistakably another clay totem… which looks different than the rest. “God sake, I can feel it trembling even at this distance. And you got it within ten feet of the slab? We’ve seen what that does—you get an arc flash; you stuck a fork in the outlet and your second-rate conduit malfunctioned spectacularly.”

“Composer? Slab…? What the hell are they talking about?”

“I wasn’t getting results!” Greg argues. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I tried to ‘jump-start’ the composer. I don’t think it’s dormant like you theorized. No… It’s just… not motivated. I kept telling you, but you wanted to sell the land and get your fuel in any form, so you settled for a corporate warehouse. Where is the love, the desire for success—the connection to the land? It’s disposable. No one would care if it disappeared. Where’s the sincerity in this ugly building?”

“Maybe you’re right, old friend. But everything’s factory assembled now. Soulless walls, heartless construction. We should’ve tried harder to hold onto the mall, I admit. But I’m not ready to give up. Hold this, would you?” The masked man hands the totem to Greg, and without warning, swiftly pulls out a pistol and points it right at the camera. We at home are as stunned as the videographer. “I know you’re there, security guard. Come on. Get up and come over. If I cared about you hearing any of that, I would’ve stopped talking a while ago.” He grows impatient and adds in an agitated tone, “Come here, or I’ll kill your entire family.”

Not entirely surprisingly, our friend doesn’t budge despite the threat. After a few moments, we can see Greg tell something to his partner.

“I see. You don’t have anyone. Fine, I can always shoot you instead. What are you waiting for? Going to make a run for the ladder? I just want to talk. I can’t let you run off into the night. Drop the crowbar and come over here.”

The camera is picked up off the floor and its owner slowly steps toward the two. Out of shyness or fear, he keeps it aimed mostly downward, so we’re denied a good look at anyone’s face.

“Good. Come on, closer. What is that?” the taller man asks. “Some sort of stabilizer? So. You’re filming. Of course you are. Well. Hand it over.”

“There’s no point,” our friend meekly replies.

“How so? I may not be the savviest, but I know how to delete a video. None of this is your fault, but you’ve stumbled into a whole world of things that others aren’t meant to understand. Better you leave no records behind.”

“I’ve been streaming all night—and my battery’s almost dead. Thousands have been watching all this time. Do you… not know that people have dug up everything about this place? The secret’s been out, for a while. You two… You were doing the rituals for the mall back in the 80s, right? Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but… Jesus, Greg, what happened to your hand?”

Our friend finds some spine and aims the camera at his coworker. His left arm ends in a stub, and the object in his remaining one reveals why: he showed his piety by cutting if off, entombing it in clay, and sticking the appendage on top of his newest blood-soaked and double helix-shaped art piece.

“Who is Greg?” is how the old man replies, as the phone camera begins to accumulate bright dead pixels from the enigmatic totem.

The masked man sighs and grumbles. “You’ve been broadcasting…? And showed the world the secret of this land… Ah… Why am I not surprised? You… young people and your need to put your lives on display. Fine. Fine, you know what? It doesn’t matter. Only a few people know how to truly use the land’s gift. I don’t want to remake some gaudy shopping center from the golden age of excess. I only wish to show the world something truly beautiful before I leave it, that can’t be created with human hands. A monument to childlike wonder—a complex masterpiece of architecture. Anything to fight against the bureaucratic and the mundane. But now that I may not even get the chance… You said thousands are watching? Then let’s go ahead and show them something to god damn believe in. Now move.”

During the monologue, the man had shuffled behind our friend and must now have the gun to his back. He is forced through the movie screen, down the other half of the hall, and enters into a large hexagonal-shaped room lit in warm hues by more oil lamps. The chamber has a single other element, dead center.

Holy shit. It’s the mural. It was never taken down, never left the grounds. The last remnant of Sleepy Pines, once seen by hundreds of shoppers a day, is right there, painted on tile and buried under a warehouse. Its detailed dark pines with their intricate brushstrokes and the lower-effort settlers and natives in the foreground are streamed right to our homes.

“Stay at the entrance, ‘Greg,’” the masked man orders. “Don’t bring that thing any closer a second time. I’ll figure out what to do with it in a moment. And you, keep going. Don’t be scared. You and your fans want to see the real deal, don’t you? The totems are nothing in comparison. They’re just conduits, a tool and means to translate our ideas into a language… it can understand.”

“The mural? That’s this… composer thing?”

“No, no. That just keeps what’s behind it hidden. By the way, do you like it? He’s the painter. A good eye for expressionism, but not so much the human form, or historical accuracy. Not that it matters now; I need to take a look under the hood anyway. It’s been too long since I’ve seen what’s underneath. I know I’ve piqued your curiosity, and you don’t want to disappoint your viewers, so I’ll just put this away a moment.” He walks into frame, and we see him from behind as he holsters his weapon and picks up a sledgehammer that had been resting against the mural. He then calls out, “To be brutally honest, my old friend, I’ve wanted to do this since the day we revealed this ‘artwork’ to the public.”

“I put my heart into that piece,” Greg replies submissively.

The man in the mask is unmoved, and takes the hammer to the mural. It smashes into the painted tile, breaking off big chunks with each swing. Our friend really does have a chance to run, but like the rest of us, he wants—needs to see the big reveal of something we didn’t know existed. He documents the destruction of Sleepy Pines’ interned centerpiece unflinchingly.

A large section of tile crumbles off after several hits, taking about a quarter of the mural with it. And this is when the art critic tosses the hammer away, grabs an oil lamp, and shines it on… that something underneath.

“Go on, let your friends have a good look,” he says mockingly. “They’ll never see anything else like it. But don’t get too close.”

Nervously, our host brings the camera in. Despite the crappy bit rate, we can make out what appears to be… thousands of tiny motors? No, more like miniature rock grinders, turning in unison and pulling in air towards whatever lies deep inside the intricate mechanism. Each saw-like component is as dark as the black matter, yet reflective enough to show up from the light hitting it. It’s like a retrofuturistic clockwork monster, but despite being an infinitely complex engine or demolisher, or both at once, the strangest thing is… it doesn’t make a sound.

“What… what is that?”

“We don’t know for certain. We aren’t sure how it runs nonstop, what’s past the hungry spinning blades, or who put it here and why. When Pierce and the rest of us dug this thing up in 1970—and an accompanying old totem that my friend here carelessly misplaced—all we discovered before we started having visions of the totems was that it’s massive and immobile, going down at least five hundred feet. And the ‘teeth’ covering it… eat everything they touch.”

The man demonstrates by bringing the edge of the oil lamp into the gears that move like wriggling dark flesh, and they immediately grab onto it, pulling it in. Metal is effortlessly crumpled, the glass shatters into dust, and even the fire itself looks like it’s consumed. The lamp is gone within seconds.

“You can see why it’s impossible to move and we built a box around it. Only the very top of the structure must be like this, or it would’ve dug to the center of the Earth. Every now and then… it expels very fine particles of varying compositions. Maybe it’s thoroughly digested material, or it breaks down matter to ‘learn’ about it. The only clue about its age is from what it ejects. We had some radiocarbon dating done, and found the dust to be 30,000 years old.”

“And it, what, grants wishes?”

“If they’re possible in a purely physical form, in a sense… if you render it down to the simplest terms. And the totems are the keys to the engine.”

“You used something this… alien to make and maintain a shopping mall?”

“Just as the natives used it to prosper off the land’s bounty, like the farmers after them. We ran the place with minimal staff and upkeep, and made families happy while we made our fortunes. It was… fun. For a while. But then things started spiraling, just like they did with the steelworkers before us. The two of us ran and disappeared into the night, but the others… They couldn’t resist coming back to try and revive their faded husk. I assume they lost their minds and succumbed to the corrupting power here. But we were smarter. We waited for memories to grow distant, for the land to be free of attachment and be primed for creation and reshaping once more.”

“Why are you telling me—all of us… like, everything?”

“Neither of us has much time left. This may be our last chance to leave a lasting mark on a world that is changing too fast. We once thought people would hold onto a well-designed mall for the rest of our lives. But even the composer itself couldn’t save it. And now we’re in an era of mass-produced buildings that go up, come down, and no one gives a damn about. I only want to… put one final unexplainable thing into this world. And I will try. But, like I said, if I can’t succeed… then at least the world will have seen this.”

“You’re going too far again!” Greg cries out. “Just let him go—we can figure it out without any violence!”

The reason for the sudden desperate shouting isn’t clear, until our friend turns around and sees that the masked man is back to pointing the gun at him. And now our favorite night security guard has his back just inches away from an anomalous monstrosity that could break him down into tiny particles.

“I don’t want to shoot you. If I did, I wouldn’t have kept you around so long, or anyone else that did your job. I’m sorry that you got involved, but I need you to do something for me.”

“That’s just like you, after all these years,” Greg can be heard stammering from the back. “Always a cold, calculating businessman, only pretending to feel anything. Do it the easy way—get others, the true believers in miracles, to put the heart in, and when it isn’t enough… show your ‘devotion’ by hurting people.”

“Shut up, would you? We kept our friend here around in case we needed a sacrifice, and this is the moment.”

“You’re a true cynic, you know that? You never want something enough to put your whole self into it.”

Instead of acting insulted, the man—whose mask we still haven’t seen in good light or in full—merely shrugs his shoulders. “I won’t deny it. Now, friend, I need you to want to step into the composer. I have a feeling most sacrifices in the past were done willingly, and are far more impactful. I’ll force you if I must, but I’d rather you offer yourself. You can help bring some elegance back into this world. Come on, now. Is your life really so great? Prove your worth.”

The person we believe in fiercely declines with, “No fucking way.”

“Shame… If only you had nostalgia for a Sleepy Pines in its prime.”

The camera pans downward, showing only the concrete floor. We lose our visual on what’s happening at the worst possible moment, and our audio isn’t much better as things suddenly devolve into shouts and panicked screams, mixed in with a few final justifications for performing just one more ritual.

Many of us have been trying to get through to emergency services for hours, but the flooding, their repeated visits to the warehouse, and the power outages have hindered the effort. And now we feel helpless amid the chaos.

Several gunshots ring out, there are sounds of pain and more screaming, and the camera and its gimbal drop to the ground with a thud. All we see is one of the oil lamps; there is nothing helpful in the frame. For the next few seconds, we only hear the ongoing struggle and shuffling feet.

A bright flash then fills the room and momentarily blinds the camera. When the light fades, the sensor has degraded to the point where the image is badly scrambled and pixelated—but we can still see a mask drop into frame.

It’s shaped like a rat’s head, and it blocks the view further.

The video appears to freeze, though there is further audio that sounds like a conversation. A little over a minute after the ratman’s mask fell on the floor… the stream goes offline. Some people claimed to have waited and refreshed for six hours or more. It doesn’t come back.

As dawn broke, the viewers closest to the area descend on the narrow valley where Sleepy Pines once stood. Others join them as the morning wears on. It’s a clear blue day, with a pleasant temperature. They’re eager and ready to spend all of daylight searching the area for our answers, and our friend.

There’s just one problem: there’s no way into the valley. The section of interstate that passes through it is closed, and the two smaller roads that go into the area were partially washed away by flood waters. As traffic in the region backs up and is diverted, someone in our community gets a drone into the air so they can survey ground zero. The aerial footage is also live streamed.

What we see as it flies over a forested hill is astonishing. Where a large building once stood, there is now a massive sinkhole that has taken everything except for a small corner of the parking lot. Nearby, the highway overpass and on-ramps have collapsed due to the rupturing of the land surrounding the void, which is deep enough that the tangled warehouse ruins just barely reach the surface. Fire trucks and construction vehicles are on the scene, with crews who probably don’t know where to begin.

Hope diminishes and we resign ourselves to the loss of our group’s favorite new member. The stream is rewatched and every moment analyzed, but the motivation to post and chat like we used to is dampened. There’s nothing left but more questions, and what seems to be another tragic ending in Sleepy Pines’ legacy.

… And then a new video is suddenly uploaded two days later.

The quality is different. Worse than the phone camera’s highs, but much better than its lows—because the footage isn’t from a stream. It was saved to the memory card inside the wireless camera our friend had freed from the black matter, and must’ve stuffed in his security vest’s pocket. The recording is shaky and only ever faces whatever direction he does, putting it in the style of found footage. We don’t know how it was recovered, as the uploader, another of our regulars, posted it without commentary.

Nothing new is revealed by the second camera until the streamer phone drops to the ground. Picking up from there, we watch amid that panicked shouting as the man in the rat mask appears ready to shoot… but instead turns around and fires several shots into Greg, who had been sneaking up on him from behind for the last few seconds.

The injured old man keeps going undeterred, and he and the ratman are soon pushing at each other. A struggle ensues and words of hate are exchanged, revealing the bubbling toxicity between the two. It’s not all clear, but Greg throws out words like “fool” and “never trusted you,” while the ratman calls him a “traitor” and even an “apostate.” Our friend takes the opportunity to get away from the composer. Yet he doesn’t run.

He turns back to the men as more shots go wild. The fight doesn’t last much longer, and the slightly spryer ratman overpowers Greg, knocking him to the floor. He mumbles some glib remark we can’t pick up and takes aim to finish off the old artist… when our host, who has had a transformative experience over the last few hours, tackles him directly into the shattered mural. We have our flash of light the instant he makes contact with the inescapable teeth, but if you go frame by frame, you can see the former cultist—who long ago once insisted that I be sacrificed—briefly share with us an expression of shock as his mask begins to fall… very nearly revealing his face.

We think the composer reacted the way it did because a larger mass or a living being produces excess energy. Maybe. Once things have settled, our friend kneels to check on his co-worker, who is gravely wounded, but perhaps seems to be at peace with his little rebellion.

What he tells us confirms that this was no recent crisis of conscience.

“I wanted to put an end to it all…” he says weakly, and rolls over so he can point to his totem. “Please. I think if you feed that to it… I tried. I tried…”

“What do you mean? What will… You think it will destroy that thing?”

“I couldn’t get close enough. Wouldn’t let me… I think once you serve it… Powerless to… fight. Maybe if an outsider…”

“I get it. You don’t have to say anymore. I’ll do it.”

He stands back up, and the camera points to the unassuming totem left by the sanctum’s entrance. He isn’t afraid; he isn’t trembling, and his breathing is steady. Nor is there much buildup or time spent thinking on what to do, or what might happen. He barely hesitates at all in going over, grabbing the bizarre idol, and taking it to what remains of Sleepy Pines. There is no resistance in his return walk, and seemingly no contemplation on whether or not he can use this still barely understood power for his own benefit.

He stops at Greg for just a second. His troubled expression changes into a feeble smile, and we can hear him murmur, “Best one… I ever made.”

The top of the buried monolith is dead ahead, and after a final deep breath, our hero tosses the totem into its all-consuming gears.

The result is an explosion of vibrant, continuous flashes of many colors. He is thrown backwards and struggles to get up. He knows he has to, and after some groans and coughs, does so and gives us our last glimpse of the composer structure. It’s on fire, and for some reason, the flames are blue and violet. Greg, closer to the blast, has found redemption but is almost certainly no longer with us. Even if he were, I think we all know he’d only tell his co-worker to run.

The building is coming down. Even in the hidden basement, the walls, floors, and ceiling are cracking. The tremors make it hard for him to find his footing, and the camera itself is being bombarded with invisible energy. Our AI video software will later do its best to clean up the worsening dead pixels and distortions. The results are far from perfect, but the quality is good enough to at least let us see how the story ends.

After scrambling up the ladder, he shows us the warehouse before making his escape. It has turned into a vision of hell. The black gunk is breaking up into smoke so fast that there must be some kind of exothermic reaction; it, too, has caught fire—of the regular color. The entire building is a crumbling inferno, and the mimicked ritualists and other people have devolved into burning, crawling, still menacing blob-like creatures. They come towards the camera, reaching out, either trying to grab him or escape themselves. He remembers that he no longer has an audience, and from here on out moves at a full survival speed.

With the structure moaning and heavy metal crashing down all around him, he crawls under the opening made by the forklift and makes it outside, now bathed in predawn light. Right outside the shutter doors is a sloppily parked black luxury SUV, whose owner won’t be coming back for it.

The ground buckling underneath him, he runs over to his smaller white hatchback, gets in and starts it, and peels out of the otherwise empty employee parking area. The asphalt is coming apart and knocking down the lot’s street lights, and at this point it becomes noticeable that the land is sinking. Whatever is going on hundreds of feet below the surface, everything in the area is about to collapse into the abyss.

The ride is rough and bumpy, but he makes it to the side road that will lead him to safety… If only there weren’t flood waters surrounding the building that threaten to swamp his low-riding car. He stops and considers if he can make it through. Luckily, because the ground is breaking into deep fissures, we watch the waters drain before our eyes in a matter of seconds. He slams on the pedal.

On his right, a segment of the building siding bends inward and the roof partially collapses, but he makes it off of the premises as we root for him from the future. It really feels as if he’s going to make it, and is already in the clear.

He heads toward the highway… only to capture video of the overpass falling apart, blocking the easiest escape route. With nowhere else to go, he goes into reverse and doesn’t even get a chance to turn around—giving us a view across his dash at total destruction. The distribution center drops below the surface as the surrounding field pulls further downward like an antlion pit.

At what must be the edge of the forested foothills about a half mile away from where the road used to be, he feels safe enough to come to a stop and just watch. The land swells up as if from an underground explosion, before undergoing a final collapse. This is followed by many rising plumes of thick black smoke that dissipate into the dawn sky, which circle the new hole in the ground and look a little like a Venus flytrap’s ensnaring tendrils.

Just when we think it’s over, the fireworks end with a bolt of lightning despite the clear weather. When reviewing the footage frame by frame, the powerful discharge can be seen rising from the center of the sinkhole.

The camera then shuts off amid its owner’s heavy breathing, either from its battery dying right on cue, or by getting fried from the energetic outburst. Our last view of the area is of an expanding cloud of dust, debris, and smoke.

But what happened to the star of that night? Was his camera found by one of us, and did the footage show his final moments? I happened to be among a few dozen antsy members who watched the video as soon as it was uploaded, unaware that text was being tapped out all the while. All we had to do was refresh the thread.

“Hey, guys. It’s me. I made it out, even though I was trapped in that valley with nothing to eat for about ten hours before a crew’s all terrain truck was able to bring me back to town. My poor car is still stuck in the valley and I probably can’t get it out until the bridge is repaired. To the local commuters, sorry about the highway. Might be out of commission for a while.

“I can’t believe the whole place came down like that. And also fell into a huge sinkhole. I would’ve gotten back to you all sooner, but my phone is buried under tons of ruins. I even lost my apartment key because I leave my main key ring at my desk. I know, stupid. I haven’t been able to get back in just yet or use my laptop, so I’ve been staying at a motel. Lucky for me one of our members tracked me down and let me use his phone and account to upload the video and post this. Meeting one of you guys in person wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.

“My life’s a mess and corporate is going to ask me a lot of questions about what happened, but I’m resilient. It’s only been a short while, but I can’t say I feel any strange effects from that night, other than a little PTSD no doubt. No urges to create a totem or chop off my hand. I think there will still be more mysteries about this area to look into, but it’s really possible that whatever was here for thousands of years is finally… gone. Unless it has the power to return someday. Or there’s, you know, somehow more of them out there. I may never look at a fancy, very clean building the same way again.

“I guess things will move on like always, even after the destruction of a cosmic horror or forgotten alien machine. But I admit I’m curious about what might, in time, show up in that valley next, so I’ll check in with my awesome viewers occasionally to see how the story continues.

“And, ‘Greg’… I was wrong about you. Thanks for what you did at the end. If you see Mike and Jenna wherever you are, tell them, I dunno… that we made a good team. Okay. I really need some sleep. Later, all.”

The idea that all of this had, or still is happening elsewhere in the world hadn’t really been brought up before. The Sleepy Pines saga seems like it would’ve been something truly unique, but who can say for sure? There’s so much to still wrap our heads around. Like the fact that we were all there, live, and saw the conclusion of a “miracle” that lasted tens of millennia.

Personally, I think that at least one place where the earth “breathed” has exhaled for the last time. As I wrote this story, I realized that, for the first time in years, I felt disconnected from Sleepy Pines, like its long-distance grip on me has vanished. Now all that’s left are some good memories of family visits, bright colorful clothes, fountain coins, Santa, skylights, indoor trees, a little bit of faint Muzak, vibrant neon, and the pleasant kind of “getting lost in a space” feeling.

If you were a kid of the era, you get it. And even if you’re of a younger generation, you might still feel nostalgia for an age of optimism you missed.

People made that time and place special on their own. We still can, and do. No costly wishes necessary.