Three days.
It's been three days since I made this place mine.
At least, I think.
I had made my own time cycle.
The red lightning in the sky moved, back and forth in a straight line as I tracked it. Each time it did, returning to its original position, felt long enough that I could comfortably claim a full day went by.
That was how long it took to turn this rotting, upside-down mockery of a house into something resembling safety.
The windows are still shattered, and the air still tastes like copper and charcoal, but at least now I know every creak in the floorboards, every shadow that doesn't move.
I kept to the back rooms mostly—tucked behind overturned furniture, crawling into crawl spaces like a rat.
For hours, I studied the back door. Not the front. The front was a stage, too open, too exposed. But the back? That was quieter. Still. The street beyond it didn't shift like the others. I noticed.
I watched.
Every morning—if you could call this timeless void "morning"—I sat by the back door with my notepad and scratched lines and symbols into soot-covered paper, tracing routes, movements, absences. That street was different. It was dead. Not just empty, but avoided. And if the monsters in this place didn't go near it, maybe I had to.
During those three days, I built armor. Not metal or Kevlar—just scraps of old jackets and torn jeans, wrapped around my calves and forearms, padded tight with whatever stuffing I could rip from couch cushions. I wound layers of duct tape around them until they felt solid. Not perfect, but better than skin.
Not to mention a rag around my face like a bandana. It helped, but not by much.
The air still burned my lungs, made my head spin if I breathed too deep. So I started training myself—small inhales through my nose, timed and measured. I built a rhythm, one that wouldn't draw too much of this sick atmosphere inside. It wasn't perfect, but the headaches were getting duller. That meant it was working.
No food. No water. No hunger.
That scared me more than anything.
I should've needed something by now. But nothing came. Just silence and this buzzing hum beneath the world, like a wire pulled too tight.
I didn't sleep. I couldn't. There were sounds—things crawling in the walls, brushing past broken shutters. Sometimes the house moaned like it remembered what it once was. I kept my ears sharp and my body still, whispering to myself just to remember the sound of a voice.
Mine.
I made a rule not to say it out loud until the moment came.
Until I stepped out.
"The wind is wrong." I told myself.
It didn't blow—it pulsed, like a lung exhaling poison across the broken streets of this hollow town.
I walked slowly. One foot in front of the other. Houses flanked me on both sides—bloated, decayed shapes covered in vine-like tendrils that glistened with wet soot.
One looked like a house I'd seen in my dreams once. A brown rooftop split down the middle. Shattered glass. A tricycle left upside down by the curb, its plastic melted into the road.
The pavement squished under my boots—soft like wet carpet. Everything had a color, but none of them were right. Reds were too dark. Yellows looked sick. Even the sky—if you could call that canopy of writhing shadow a sky—twitched every few seconds like it was remembering how to move.
Drip... drip... Something wet tapped on a mailbox. I turned. Nothing.
The air buzzed. Always buzzing.
I moved past a mailbox fused to a tendril. It pulsed when I walked by, like it was breathing with me. I didn't stop. Couldn't.
My footsteps made soft thup thup sounds against the sludge-like concrete. My breath fogged out in slow wisps. I spoke once, just to keep my voice from disappearing again.
"Control your emotions. Fear makes you sloppy. Sloppy gets you killed."
I said it like a command. Like I wasn't talking to myself, but reminding myself. I had to hear it. Had to believe it.
The place didn't have a name.
Not really.
But I gave it one today. Said it aloud as I passed a mail slot warped like a screaming mouth.
"The Upside Down."
That's what it was. A place flipped inside-out. A place that was never meant to be lived in. And maybe not meant to be escaped.
But I was going to.
My body was shaking beneath the tape and cloth. Not from cold—there was no cold. Just from tension, from every part of me screaming to go back. But I couldn't. I wouldn't.
I made a promise.
One more step. Another. The street bent to the left ahead, curling around a cul-de-sac I hadn't charted yet. I kept my eyes sharp. Every sound felt too loud. Crkk. A branch breaking? No, just my own boot brushing a loose rock.
Then I saw it.
Ahead, through the dense fog that drifted like mist in a slow current, something moved.
Not a Maw, not this time.
It walked upright.
A figure. Humanoid. Slow. Precise.
My eyes widened.
I dove behind the splintered remains of a fence before I could get a precise look on it. My heart thudded against my ribs like a war drum. Thmp-thmp-thmp. I peeked.
It moved again—head shifting. Then it stopped.
My foot twitched. Muscle memory screamed: Run.
But I didn't.
Because I remembered.
The promise I made.
I would never run again.
Not from this place. Not from them.
I swallowed hard. My breath shallow, silent. I waited until it turned and kept walking. Then I followed.
Quiet as death.
The figure didn't stumble like the others. It walked.
That was the first thing I noticed as I followed, keeping low behind the charred wreckage of a mailbox and a wilted bush crusted with soot. This wasn't a monster.
At least, not the kind I'd seen before. It moved slow, deliberate, like it knew where it was going. Like it remembered being human.
And then I saw the suit. The dull yellow, now soiled and ragged. A hazmat suit.
Not just any hazmat suit...
"That's..." My eyes widened, something within me boiling as I finally realised it.
It was the same kind worn by the men who dragged me toward the gate and shoved me in.
My mouth opened slightly. "No way…" I whispered. "You… you were one of them."
The thought hit like a hammer. I wasn't the only human dumped in this place. He—whoever he used to be—must've been here for a while. His limbs twitched awkwardly, but with purpose. Not like the others. Not like it.
I trailed him from a distance, boots sinking softly into the flesh-like road. He didn't turn. Not once. My breath hissed out in short, practiced bursts. One through the nose. One out the mouth. Hssss... hssss... I kept rhythm with my heartbeat. The world pressed in, too quiet, like it was listening.
He passed a lamppost twisted into a spiral, and that's when I saw it.
A Demodog.
The name I'd dubbed these creatures that were simply the Maw but smaller and moved on all fours, like a dog—a devilish dog that looked as though it would be a pet to Satan himself.
It stood still as a statue across the street, half-sunken into the broken pavement. Its chest expanded, thin ribs pushing through stretched gray skin. My legs locked. It should have smelled me. Seen me. Heard something.
But it didn't.
Because it didn't move. Not until he did.
The humanoid figure turned its head slightly, and in that same instant, the Demodog twitched its snout.
My breath caught. No.
Again. A step. The figure walked.
So did the Demodog.
My hand gripped the nearest shard of brick, sweat slicking my fingers, my eyes sharp as a thought occurred to me.
That's no coincidence.
I flattened against the side of a building and whispered to myself, low as a prayer. "They're like... two halves. Somehow."
I needed proof.
I scanned the ground and found a pebble — cracked concrete the size of my thumbnail. I took it. My fingers shook. A deep inhale, shallow exhale. Control your fear.
Then I tossed it.
Tik.
It bounced off the curb beside the humanoid thing.
Both of them — both — snapped their heads toward it. The figure tilted. The Demodog growled.
"Shit...that's proof enough," I whispered. My own voice startled me.
Not coincidence. Not mimicry.
A hive.
One thought. Two bodies. Maybe more. I imagined threads, invisible wires running through the air, tying them together like puppets on the same hand. No radio. No sound. Just... connection.
"They're all connected."
I felt a chill — the kind that doesn't touch your skin but freezes your spine.
If I could distract one... I could distract them all. But if one saw me, they all saw me. And in that case...
I didn't even want to think about it.
I pulled my scarf tighter around my nose. The figure resumed walking. The Demodog turned in tandem. They moved with perfect synchronization. Not like a drill team — like organs in the same body.
I followed, slower now. Thinking.
Why this one? Why was this figure wandering alone? Why not join the others?
Then I saw what "he" was heading toward.
A dome of scorched trees, twisted together into a cage-like shell. Roots like blackened tendons. A nest. Or maybe a hive. I could barely make out shapes writhing inside.
He stopped at the edge.
And so did the Demodog.
I ducked behind a crushed van. My knees ached. Every breath was like breathing in rust. Still, I watched.
The figure stepped forward. A branch curled away from the dome, letting him through.
The dog followed in the same second.
My stomach turned. He was different. Not like the others. I needed to know why. I had to see what he was.
I pulled out the soot-scratched notebook from my back pocket. Flipped to a page marked with teeth impressions. Notes on behavior. Movement. Memory.
Underneath it, I wrote:
Subject Alpha: Humanoid variant. Linked to Demodog via telepathic command structure. Potential control node?
My pencil nearly snapped.
"If I can track him... maybe I can map the mind," I murmured.
Maybe find a way out.
Or a way to hurt them.
The world buzzed louder. Like it heard that thought.
The figure entered the dome.
I stayed hidden, pressed against the van. I had no weapons. No food. No backup. But I had eyes. I had patterns. That was enough.
I turned the page.
Started sketching the dome. The figure.
And labeled the top in jagged black letters:
Hive Control Structure.
I took a moment to make sure I got everything as it was still fresh in my mind. I was still crouched behind the same van. Same soot. Same silence. The dome sat there like a wound in the land. The figure hadn't come out.
"He's not doing anything," I muttered. "Hasn't moved. Nothing's changed."
But then I paused.
My eyes flicked to the edge of the dome.
"No. I'm not alone anymore."
Another Demodog. Just one. It crawled from the trees, silent as a shadow. Sniffed. Waited. But didn't attack.
I watched. Waited. The humanoid didn't acknowledge it. But they moved the same.
"Still connected." I said aloud. "Like a single organism... sharing the same mind." I thought, the more time that passed the more my theory seemed valid, but not complete.
Once again, the Demodog entered.
I clenched my jaw.
It was too dangerous to follow. I didn't even want to think what was inside.
I needed information but I wasn't stupid in how I acquired it.
"I've been here long enough and it doesn't seem like he's coming out, might as well..."
I paused as I stared at the black tendrils plastered against the ground before me. I stared for a second.
"This thing is everywhere..."
I questioned. Like I said, when one knew nothing, everything was good information.
I grabbed another pebble, tossing it as it hit the tendril. And...
Nothing.
This somewhat eased my nerves as I crept toward it, my eyes never leaving it.
"So what exactly is your purpose? Maybe you don't have one. Maybe you're just part of what makes this place hell. If so, what exactly made this place what it was."
I paused as I tried piece together what I just said, but in the next second, I simply sighed as I shook my head.
This was getting me nowhere...
GRRRRLLLL...
My blood froze.
A growl. Deep. Too close.
I didn't even turn. My mind screamed ahead of my body.
'I knew it...'
My theory...it was right—too right. This place. It was all a hive. Everything was connected.
Everything...including this tendril...
I turned slowly.
It didn't have eyes, but I could tell…
It was staring straight at me.
Then, a large mouth that opened like a flower.