"And lift! There you go! Keep those knees high in the sky, ladies! This one's going out to the glutes! Keep that heart rate pumping!"

  "Alright! From knee-ups, we're going to go straight into a deeeep squat. That's right, I want you to really feel it! Just because we're cooling down, that doesn't mean you shouldn’t stay active on the way! I want you to go down into that squat and hold. That's right, count it with me, we can do this!"

  "One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Nine! Nine! Nine! Nine! Nine! NIne! NiNe! NiNE! NinE! NInE! NiNE! NINE! NINE! NINE! NINE! NINE! NINE! NINE! NINE! NINE-

  ~Recorded VHS video, playing live, Hour 11:34

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  Knock knock knock.

  A different beat than my last visitors. Considerably less violent, for one thing, though no less hurried. Even tracking the differences in the sound, the ways that the weight behind the impact is so distinct, I can’t help but feel a bit tense as I head down the stairs and look through the peephole.

  A flash of dreadlocks, rich dark skin, and a dark blue parka.

  “It’s chilly as fuck out here, girl! You gonna let me in or what?”

  The doorknob lock, the higher latch, and the chain all rattle as I open the door, one step at a time, tracking each step as if to reassure myself as I make way for Jay to make it in from the cold.

  “Shit! Fuck! Winter wind coming in, got me freezing my ass off!”

  I let out a giggle- it’s rare to see him curse so much outright, but minor discomfort? That’ll absolutely do it.

  “What a loss it would be, to see such a tuchus reduced to nothing but a frozen hunk on the side of the road. Quit whining, I’ve got the kettle on. You’ll be fine.”

  He shivers audibly, blowing a raspberry as he does, but shakes off his jacket, putting it on the hanger and beelining for kitchen-

  “Hey! It’s my kettle! Don’t-”

  “I’m a professional! Your idea of good tea is my idea of flavorless water, and I am cold! Let me work, woman!”

  I don’t even bother trying to stop him; he’s already past me and well on the way to manhandling my kettle and meager tea supplies. Frankly, it’s insulting that he’s going to somehow manage to make better tea in the five minutes I’m looking away than I can with half an hour of prep and as many ingredients as I can get my hands on.

  But I’m not above being the tiniest bit insulted if it means that I get tea as good as I know is coming.

  I take a seat in the living room, in sight of the kitchen, and get back to work as he waits.

  By the time he’s back, I’m almost done covering the floor in paper and paint supplies.

  “So,” he asks, handing me a mug; “what’s all this about, then?”

  “So, remember the fact that there’s living meat in my building in a bunch of cracks you can’t see for some reason?”

  “Kind of hard to forget, hun.”

  “Right, well, I figured, if there’s cracks here, chances are there are way more somewhere else. If I can find them, then maybe, just maybe, I can figure out some of the pieces that I’m missing.”

  “About…”

  “Oh, no clue. But something’s going on.”

  He snorts, taking a sip (and conveniently, reminding me to take a sip myself. It is, predictably, delicious- somehow he’s managed to get the sweetness just right, and it tastes a little bit like honey, though I know I don’t have any in the house).

  “Ok, fair enough. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you, hmm? Last time I saw you, you were in a depressive episode as bad as I’ve ever seen, and now you seem to have swung really far the other way. Coming off a bit manic with all… this.”

  He waves a hand, and, unfortunately, I can’t really say he’s wrong.

  I’ve got about six full notebooks spread out around me, half of them scribbled in, half of them open and waiting for further input. I’ve got a sheet of watercolor-paper on the floor, with about half of a hand-drawn map on it, detailing an amateur but functional rendition of the town of Hollow Springs. Between these parts, I’ve got a few printed newspapers (had to dust off my printer for those, it’s been a while) with circled phrases, tacked-on sticky notes, and an otherwise eclectic variety of mess all around.

  In summary, it looks like a scaled down, theatre-kid version of that one Pepe Silvio meme, and probably doesn’t make me look particularly sane.

  Sarah’s asleep, and the other two are… vaguely out, or in their rooms, or not bothering me, and so commandeering the space was pretty easy. It’ll be cleaning it up after that’ll be tough.

  I take in a long, deep breath, the scent of fresh tea slightly alleviating the smell of wet paint covering the space around me.

  And I get to thinking.

  In the time since I last saw Jay? I died.

  I haven’t told him.

  I’m… fuck. Not sure if I want to. Not sure if he’ll believe me, for one thing- coming back from the dead’s a step beyond “magic wall meat”.

  Yeah. Alright. I brought him in, so… I guess I have to tell him some of it. It’s only fair.

  I breathe out, nice and meditative and slow, and take a sip of her tea.

  “Alright. So. Lot of shit’s gone down since last week.”

  “Ilia it’s been five days since I saw you. All in the same week.”

  “Shut up, this is important.”

  He does.

  I didn’t mean to make it snappy, but…

  Sip of tea. Important for composure and mental health. He waits, letting me set the pace/

  “Ok. Ok. So.

  “Someone came to my work. Someone… weird. I wasn’t sure who they were, at first, and then things got weirder. We sort of… threatened each other? And then we split. I went home. Something followed me.”

  “Wait, something-”

  “I decided I didn’t want it following me to my house, where my roommates live, so I went to the construction site next door.”

  He pauses. Waits for me to say something. In the silence-

  “The exploded crime-scene construction site next door?”

  “Yeah. That one.”

  I take another sip. My right arm, the one that was taken and came back, twitches, just once. I don’t think Jay notices.

  “Anyways. I… I got hurt, and it thought I was dead. The weirdo from the bar came back, and she helped me out a bit, and I managed to get home. We talked, she gave me her card (her name’s Leisha, by the way), and… I guess I sort of bottled that whole thing up, and kept going to work.”

  “Oh honey, I didn’t- when I said you should go back to work, I didn’t mean if you were in danger there! You don’t-”

  “That’s not the important part. I-”

  “Not the important part? Ilia, you were attacked! You said you were hurt? Where-”

  “Jay!”

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  My voice is too loud. I can hear a shake in it.

  I haven’t… haven’t talked about what happened yet.

  The house is quiet. I don’t want to disturb the other people here. That’s not, like, the most important part of this, not by a long shot, but I don’t want to, so it adds to it.

  Fuck.

  “The important part, Jay, is that I’m not the only one. There are other people out there with these weird-as-fuck powers, or sight, or whatever you call it, and somehow, they know about me. They visited me. One of them outright attacked me, and apparently, it might do it again if I leave the house after dark.”

  Jay’s tea is in his hands, but he’s not drinking it. He’s just staring at me. Quiet.

  “And! Important bit! The sheriff came by. Last night. Knocked on the door, tried to talk, all that shit. Didn’t say anything, didn’t let him in, he and his little buddy left, but, and this is one of the important bits, but, I heard them talking before they left. Something about the feds.

  “So. There’s other people with some kind of weird powers. I don’t know the through-line yet, but they exist, and they have some way to get information about me, or at least know I exist enough to do a search on me. And, coincidentally or not, there’s some kind of federal pressure on the sheriff’s office, and either because of that or because of the mess next door that they don’t know I was involved with, or they’d have arrested me, they came knocking at my door.”

  My mouth stumbles as I reach the end of the sentence. I… think I expected to keep going? That’s annoying. Makes sense, but still annoying. My hands are jittering, as I speak, nervous energy trapped without the outlet of speech, and I wrap them tighter around the mug.

  It’s warm, and it smells earthy and sweet, and it tastes nice. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

  Jay puts his cup down on the living room table, a short thing in front of the couch, and joins me on the floor.

  “Is it ok if I give you a hug?” he asks.

  I don’t feel up to talking anymore, ironically, so I just nod.

  We stay like that for a while. I don’t quite find it in me to let go of the her tea, and I spend a lot of time trying not to let the lump in my throat turn into something unproductive, traitor that it is, but I do lean my head into his.

  The hug is nice. It’s warm. I forget how nice it is to be touched, when you haven’t been in a while. A very animal-brain sort of need, but a very real one nonetheless.

  Eventually, he breaks away, and I let out another exhale, sipping more tea. It’s only lukewarm now, but it’s still quite nice.

  “So… I’m sort of mad you didn’t tell me, but only a bit. That’s a lot to deal with. Getting attacked isn’t some minor thing, and I’m really sorry you went through that. I… don’t know that there’s a lot I can do, but I don’t want you to feel like you shouldn’t tell me about something scary happening to you because you’re worried about what it’ll do to me.”

  “That’s not… entirely fair.”

  He shrugs. “Ok. But you got hurt, and I didn’t know about it, and that makes me sad. Fairer?”

  I give a little grunt (I’m not feeling up to a full scoff), and he takes it as the assent I intended it to be.

  “Ok. So. After all that… I’m assuming you didn’t tell me any of that because you were coping and managing. Super valid, totally tubular- but a few days isn’t really enough to cope all the way, and I… don’t know that your new painting style is all that helpful.”

  At this, I perk up- that’s easier. Like, way easier.

  “Actually, this is something I can use your help with. Even a fresh set of eyes could do a lot here.”

  I set my tea down next to Jay’s, then pick them both up and pull the drawing out from beneath them, pushing my laptop out of the way with my elbow as I do. By the end of the maneuver, I’ve got two mugs in one hand, a drawing in the other, and a laptop on the verge of falling off the edge- but I can show everything I need to.

  “So! Someone attacked me, and I met someone else who helped, but also wasn’t, like, my friend. They gave me a card to contact them, and I will, that’s in the plans, but not yet. I don’t want to go until I know at least the very basic stuff, things I can figure out on my own and can cross-reference against whatever they say. To that, I’m using the tools that I have, primarily that I can see meat walls.”

  “Weird way to phrase it, but go off.”

  “Literally no normal way to phrase it, fuck you. Anyways, since I’ve seen you, I managed to try some stuff. I can’t do everything I could in the game, but I can do some, and that some involves mostly being able to make stuff out of available materials. I can use non-living stuff, but only the smallest amount. I have to figure out conventional engineering the hard way, while the meat-stuff kind of just… happens naturally as I build, so long as I have an idea in mind. And I need to know the lay of the land. I’m in unknown territory, and a city planning map ain’t gonna cut it.”

  “So… the map-drawing is for trying to figure where everything is, but on, like, the supernatural front?”

  “Exactly. I won’t be able to know for sure unless I go in person and check it out, and even that’s not guaranteed, but it’s a start. I figure if I can find the weirdest places in town, cross-reference that with parts that are mostly isolated in some way, and then reference that with previous events in the newspaper or old gossip columns, I can build a map of likely weirdness. I don’t have time or feel safe just driving around town looking, but this strikes a middle ground of maybe giving me some direction, even if it’s not guaranteed.”

  “You said that twice, that it’s not guaranteed. What do you mean? Like, the map isn’t guaranteed, sure, but not even if you go in person?”

  “...it’s not always the same.”

  He stops, pivots, and full-body turns to face me.

  “Ilia, that is what I would call a deeply unhelpful statement, and sort of basically some kind of omen. What does that mean?”

  I let out a long sigh-groan, letting the noise rumble as the air leaves.

  “Ok. So… the first time after playing the game. When I went to the ‘Roast. I saw an eye in the back of your head.”

  “You what?!”

  His hands are already up and feeling his scalp, his eyes wide, and I have to reach out and bap him on the elbow to get him to focus back on me.

  “It’s fine! It’s not there anymore, I checked. Last time I saw you, it wasn’t there, and it’s not there now.”

  “Well what does that mean?! You just see eyes in the back of people’s heads sometimes?”

  “I… guess so? I don’t know!”

  “Well why was it there?!”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Wha- that’s not helpful Ilia! If you can pull weird meat out of the wall then-”

  “Listen, it’s not there. Ok? It’s just not. I don’t know why it went away, or what changed, but the point is, sometimes things change, or I stop seeing them, and I don’t know why. None of the cracks in the wall have changed, they’re all in the same places, and I can still see all the ones I knew about before, but I can’t rule out that I’ll notice something that goes away when I next check it, or that’ll be a red herring or something.”

  Jay looks at me, gesticulates with his hands, points at the back of his head, and gesticulates again.

  “Ok? But my head? Was it at least my eye?”

  I blink.

  I… hadn’t thought about that.

  “...No. Kind of wasn’t. Way too big, and the pupil was brown, I think.”

  Ok so I had somebody else’s eye in my head?”

  “Maybe! I don’t know how any of this works yet! That’s what we’re trying to figure out!”

  He throws his hands up. “For someone who just told me she saw an eyeball in the back of my head you are being weirdly frustrated about my freaking out about it! This is news to me, girl!”

  I throw my hands up this time, waggling them and giving him a Look?. “Ok? I mean, I can check again, if that helps. I’m not trying to freak you out, I’ve just been seeing and doing a lot of weird shit!”

  “Please do check it out, actually, please.”

  I almost sigh, but… well, it’s actually a pretty reasonable request. I get up and circle around him, looking at the part of the back of his head where I saw something last time. I have to ask him to move some of the dreads out of the way, but I don’t really see any-

  Oh.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? What does ‘Oh’ mean? Ilia, is there an-”

  “No, no, there’s… there’s no eye. It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  I don’t really know how to describe it.

  It looks… inflamed. Swollen, and bloody, but only a little. It’s visibly a different color than the rest of his skin, though not by much- same melanin, different blood flow, like watching someone “go pale” in fright. It’s there, on the back-right side of his head, looking just shy of natural and more than a little medically concerning, made worse by the cut.

  There’s a line in the middle of it, slightly curved, and very clean-edged, like from a scalpel. It looks like a surgical cut, but without any stitches, like it’s recent. It’s also where the blood is coming from. Not much- just a little bit, and mostly dried, but even though it doesn’t look infected or anything, it doesn’t look healed.

  “I mean… it looks like you have a cut back here.”

  Immediately his hand goes for the area… and I watch as it touches the wound and does nothing. The flesh of the area deforms at the contact, but not as much as regular skin, like it’s tougher, or like the touch is lighter than it clearly is. He moves his hand around, and while some of the blood sticks to it, it doesn’t seem to re-open the wound or even really bother it much.

  “Where is it? I can’t feel anything.”

  “It’s… here, let me-”

  I reach out and touch it. Lightly.

  This time, it reacts like normal skin would. It deforms under my touch, and I feel heat, slightly above body-temp, and the wet stickiness of half-dried blood. As I touch it, the shape shifts, the cut pulling back just a little to reveal a deeper redness… and a glint of white. Glistening.

  Huh.

  So turns out, he does still have an eye in the back of his head.

  I’ve seen and touched way grosser stuff than this in the last few days. By a lot. By a shitload. This isn’t-

  Ok. Deep breaths. Look away. Deeeeep breaths. No puking.

  “Ilia, where the fuck-”

  He stops speaking.

  I turn back to look at him, and he’s staring at my hand.

  “...did you get a cut? Like, on my beads or something?”

  I shake my head, and hold my fingers over one of the newspaper clippings so they don’t bleed onto the floor.

  “No. It’s… it’s not my blood.”

  We both stay very quiet for a hot minute after that, as Jay slowly runs his hand over his entire scalp.

  It comes away with a few streaks of red on it… which he sees, can’t not see as he checks his hand, and doesn’t seem to notice.

  “You’re officially freaking me out, honey.”

  I can’t help it this time. A little laugh escapes, an exhale just short of a breath.

  “You should see the kind of shit I get up to upstairs, this is nothing.”

  Judging by his face, that maybe wasn’t the most reassuring thing I could have said.

  +8 (officially! KEEPS GROWING!) chapters on Patreon (one more than last week AGAIN! The value increases!), and more to come!

  And just for funsies, here's the discord!