Creepypasta/TheOtherkin

The Mysterious Symbol

This is a long creepypasta posted in January 2012 on /X/ by a female tripfag with the Tripcode * !/EpMBjVMsU .

The author claims it to be a true story and, knowing Otherkin, they just might be telling the truth. If you have any friends who claim that Otherkin are simply "harmless" you may want to point them to this story. Harmless insanity can always make the leap to dangerous....

Warning: This one is very, very long.

Chapter 1: TEP and Gia

Use scrollbar to see the full text Hi /x/. I need your help. I don't expect you to believe most or any of this, but I literally have no one else to turn to. Reluctant as I am, there is a small chance that one person out of however many visit this place a day could help me, so here we go. For those who appreciate tl;dr, this involves walk-ins and sigils, I think? For those willing to listen, I'll need to share a few backstories so you can get the scope of what's been going on. Heaven forbid they lurk on here and recognize these stories. Then I'm really in trouble. Obviously, names have been changed, and some of the details will be vague to avoid stalking of myself or the people involved. Anyway, in an effort to get to the good stuff, I'll spare you the intimate details on the background. I'm your typical success story from the age of Occupy Wall St, and by that I mean I majored in the effect of horse poetry on French cinema and couldn't find a job after graduating. Thrust into the adult world with student loans and my parents shockingly against putting up their deadbeat kid, I found myself in desperate need of job and to a lesser extent a life. I couch surfed until the road and my meager savings ran out, which put me in a tiny tourist town by the ocean. Facing eviction from my shitty apartment and being forced to live in my even shittier car and half-starving, I spent my days looking for any and all work to do. That's where The Enlightened Path comes in. I'm certain every city has a shop like this, and I'm equally certain they all look the same. Located in the aging artistic part of town, the squat brick strip of buildings is a sad monument to urban decay, but TEP makes the best of things. The outside is covered in fading psychedelic murals with a giant eye vomiting a rainbow dominating the main wall. The large window out front always has some display of healing crystals or books on how to focus your qi. Windchimes and suncatchers usually hang from the awning, unless they've been ripped down or stolen. It's got its own charms, I guess, but it's not the sort of place I would ever willingly venture into. In the interest of full disclosure for you /x/philes, I'm a skeptic. If it goes bump in the night, I'm more likely to investigate it with a baseball bat or call the cops rather than sit in my bed and cry. I've yet to hear a prophecy that doesn't sound ridiculous. No offense to anyone here, of course. It's always interested me, but as of this point in my life, any creepy experiences I'd had could be explained away easily enough by a bad trip or wind. This shop was different though. This shop called to me, mostly through a Help Wanted sign in the window. I was so desperate to make rent that on a lark, I decided to apply. The interior of TEP is exactly what you'd expect. It's dark and the air smells of whatever incense best reflects the owner's wishes for the day. There are shelves of books and various crap collected ranging from antique dried coral and geodes to totems and charms. The back is dominated by a large plastic fountain and a circle of chairs, marking this as a gathering place. My interview was less than standard. It involved sharing tea with the owner, a nice lady named Crystal. Heavyset with hair that hadn't been cut since the summer of '69, somehow she mixed a reading of my vibrations with a frank discussion on how I was not under any circumstances to come into work fucked up unless it had been approved by management. I may or may not have lied through my teeth about my interest level, but let's face it, when you're facing another day fueled by cardboard pizza and ramen, you'll be interested in anything. Apparently she liked me or at least took pity on how fast I devoured the honeyed sunflower seeds on her counter because I got the job. Part time store bitch with the understanding that if it needed to be done, I would do it. I would not judge. I would not ask questions. I would provide polite and prompt service and start my education on all things New Age and mystical immediately. Which is to say, I pretty much sat behind the counter and told kids who wandered in that no, we did not sell bongs. No, I did not know where they could get pot. I mean, I did, but anyone dumb enough to flat out ask like that isn't getting any help from me. The first week went by smoothly with only a few of the “regulars” coming in and out. A few refused to talk to me and archly asked for Crystal herself, who remained in the back office to monitor my work. Some were more than happy to chatter about their chosen obsession, but I got the feeling this reaction would have been no different had Crystal replaced me with a cardboard cut out. My first true test came that Thursday evening, when Crystal asked me if I wouldn't mind covering one of the weekly meetings held at TEP for true believers of all kinds. There was free food, so I agreed, and that's how I met the otherkin. That afternoon, I was in charge of moving any and all iron to the storage area and hanging a large heptagram in the door. By closing time, snacks were arranged on a table near the chairs, and soothing woodwind music was piped over the ancient sound system. While candles couldn't be lit for various fire code reasons, the lighting was pooled around the circle. One at a time or in groups of two and three, they filtered in. There is a certain energy involved in large gatherings of the extremely socially awkward. It's carried in the forced laughs, odd smells, and twitching hands rubbed on cargo shorts every other minute. Not even Crystal's feel good vibes and heavy incense (and mind you, we did break out the heavy shit for this one) could counter the strange buzz in the air. It was electric. I would call it ominous if I hadn't once wandered into a table top tournament at the gaming store about a block over. First to arrive, as I would find is pretty typical, were couple both at the twilight of a rough middle age. Marci, a fairy elf, was a woman who'd put a strain on the term Rubenesque, though she always wore a corset and fairy wings. She insisted they were handmade to mimic her own wings as they look on the astral plane. Apparently the astral plane loves the hell out of some cheap glitter and spray paint. James was a psychic vampire and her sometimes lover. He most often carried a cane and wore a top hat with the jack of hearts or the ace of diamonds in it. He claimed to have a small harem who allowed him to psychically feed off of them. Smug does not even begin to cover them. Both will tell you all about how they believed in Otherkin long before Usenet ever existed. At length. Usually while trying to stroke you, each other, or themselves. Immediately they began questioning Crystal about who I was and why I was allowed to sit in on the meeting. Crystal assured them that I was perfectly safe. They then attempted to shock me by referencing BDSM, an obscure Changeling series, and just generally being too alternative for any normal pleb. At last they admitted I might be alright and introduced me to the mouthbreather tagging along behind them like a crowned prince of poor parenting. I could never figure out what Matt's relation to Marci and James was. He was either their actual son or spiritually adopted, and if he wasn't a juggalo in his spare time, I'll eat my hat. Last I checked, Matt had yet to figure out what he was for sure, but most weeks he felt like a wolf or a werewolf. He howled at me and then went to the back to fix his eye makeup. I wish I were kidding. A few other fairies, vampires, elves, therian, and other such folk filled out the small crowd, but most just acted like I wasn't there, which was fine by me. I was surprised to see one of the counter guys from the gaming store stroll in along with a twitchy vampire with a patchy beard. Michael the gaming guy was tall with extremely light blond hair and pale eyes. If anyone looked like an elf, it was him, but he wasn't part of the circle. His best friend and ride home from work was that vampire named Jake, who was also a decent guy. Happy to see me there, he hung out to mooch pizza with me, and we talked about gaming or how shitty this town was. Just before the meeting was about to start, she walked in. I don't know if it was a natural lull in conversation or if the room had gone quiet for her entrance. The latter is entirely possible. Marci and James might have been the old guard, but when she was still around, she was their queen. There's no question about that. Caramel skin still somehow pale with big dark eyes and pouting lips, she looked like someone's neglected doll. She was all limbs and long brown hair, and she never wore a bra. She always smelled of lavender. Her name was Gia, and just one look at her told you she was daddy issues given flesh. Gia waltzed in and zeroed in on me without a word. She took my hand and stroked the inside of my wrist while staring at my eyes. She was silent the whole time and drifted towards the chairs a few moments later. I should have run far, far away right then and there. If I'd known what was going to happen, I would have. That's not me trying to be dramatic, /x/. That's the honest to god truth. I usually didn't pay much attention to the meetings for the first few weeks. Mostly they talked about their lives or shows they were watching. For a few minutes they discussed how difficult it was to be an otherkin, vampire, or therian. Mostly it was a therapy and socializing session for people who otherwise didn't get out much. My time was spent messing around on my phone or watching Gia when she decided to show. It was almost impossible not to. Much to the dismay of Marci and James, the others gravitated around her like vines creeping for the sun. There was just something about her smudged eyeliner and fragile curves that drew attention to her, and she knew it. I'm sure she knew it. She would curl up into the fetal position on a chair some days and hardly speak above a whisper. Other days she'd discuss her dreams at length, no matter how nonsensical. Every once in awhile, I'd catch her staring at me, or at least in my direction. It wasn't always focused. It was always creepy as hell. It didn't take him long for Michael to notice Gia's interest in me, but he didn't speak up until the fourth meeting or so. “I wonder which one likes you,” Michael said with a nervous laugh. Let's be honest; he did a lot of nervous laughing. I asked him what that was supposed to mean. “She says she's a vessel for walk-ins. Those are like spirits that wander in and hang out in your head. I wonder which one of those is interested in you.” As much fun as it might have been to see if crazy and sexual prowess have an exponentially positive correlation, there was truly no telling how many diseases she might have collected in her quest to teach daddy a lesson, and the vibes I was getting off of her were nothing but bad. Maybe Crystal was finally starting to rub off on me, or maybe huffing incense every day for nearly a month was finally taking its toll on my braincells, but the pit of my stomach informed me I wanted nothing to do with Gia. The only decent side effect of her unsettling attention was that most of the otherkin left me alone. Even Matt restricted his dealings with me to asking when the pizza was going to get there and brooding in his folding chair like an obese gargoyle. Besides, I had other things to worry about. My rent situation was at least stable, but it was around this time that weird shit began to happen around my apartment. I didn't live far from TEP in one of the many generic complexes with shit brown vinyl siding and interior carpet from the late 80s. It was a step above the crack dens a few blocks over though, so that was good enough for me. Occasionally Michael and Jake would come over for movies or whatever happened to be in my PS3 at the time on my days off. By then Michael was a friend, and Jake was actually tolerable once he took out the fake fangs and stopped ranting about Twilight and the death of the modern vampire for five minutes. It was during one of these afternoons off that the doorbell rang. Unless I was ordering out, no one rang my doorbell. Not even Michael, for all his anxious manners, bothered to do much more than bang a few times and ask if the door was unlocked. Jay refused to pause his speedrun of Castlevania, but Michael rose with me from my threadbare and busted couch to see just what was up. A peek through the eyehole told me nothing, so I slowly opened it, ready to slam it fast in the event of some crazy homeless type or a Jehovah's Witness. Sitting on the landing before my door was a turtle. To be specific, it was a box turtle that had actually been painted. In some sort of red ink along his shell were what looked like eyes. I've done a shitty paint so you can see what I mean. For those keeping track at home, that's the sigil or whatever that soon becomes important. A quick look around found no one nearby who might've dropped the little guy off, but considering he'd landed on my doorstep, I felt obligated to try to wash him off. For all I knew, the stuff was toxic or would keep the lady turtles away from him. Walt, as he came to be known, ended up crashing with me in a pretty sweet tank I set up. Whatever the paint was, it wouldn't come off, and I didn't want to be responsible for sending him out in the wilderness to die alone and disfigured. Strange as it was, I figured it was just some addict playing pranks or being insane. When I found the same symbol drawn on a piece of paper shoved into my mailbox a few days later, I became more concerned. When that thing started appearing all over the place, I bought a new baseball bat. Every few days it would pop up in some new location. On my car windshield at work, taped to the lamppost outside my building, chalk on the sidewalk in my parking space... At first I did my best to ignore it or shrug it off, but the instances became bigger and bigger, and even I couldn't deny that it was clearly centered on me. The creepiest occurred about a week before shit went down. I like to jog in the mornings. It's my one consolation to my body for all the garbage I usually shove into it, and it helps clear my mind. Plus, it's cheaper than a gym membership and if I'm lucky, I can get home in time to sleep again before I have to head into work. Shortly after arriving in this sleepy tourist town, I found a decent route from my building, down a few streets, through a park, and out to the beach. Not a bad way to spend a few hours, all in all. On this particular morning, the air was tinged with the smell of wood fires and crisp fall chill, and the sun was sluggishly pulling itself up above the horizon. It was perfect jogging weather, and once I hit my stride, I was gone. I barely remember pausing to make sure the streets were clear before crossing them, so wrapped up was I in the high of it. Only when I hit the park did I stop dead in my tracks. Like a lot of greenspaces in this area, this small park is dominated by a massive, ancient oak tree. It's famous for surviving hurricanes and causing the death of a man who tried to cut through one of its lower limbs with a chainsaw. That kind of old oak. Normally it's draped with Spanish moss and looking majestic as any benevolent emperor, but as I rounded the bend in the path, I had to blink and make sure I wasn't losing it. Bathed in the soft red light of the early morning, the tree was covered in pieces of paper hanging from white string. When I say covered, I mean what looked like close to fifty or more, though I didn't exactly bother counting. In red and orange, the eye was painted on them, though one side was without the slash through the middle. When the breeze off the ocean blew through them, it looked like they were all winking and blinking at me. Needless to say, I didn't bother sticking around to take in the sight long. I got the fuck out of there. Yes, this might make me a pansy, but in retrospect, it was a good idea. Trust me. By this time, I was more than a little concerned. The tree made a minor segment on the local news, though they attributed it to some punk kid defacing public property or possibly a new terrifying gang, which is always the popular fallback for anything. Michael suggested I report this to the police, but what was I going to say? Walt aside, none of the vandalism had been permanent or hurt anything, and I doubt they'd put out an APB for sinister turtle painters. Jake suggested I talk to the otherkin group about it, but there was no way I was throwing them this kind of fodder. Not yet, anyway. Besides, they had other issues to keep them up in arms. Gia had disappeared again, and this time she'd sent a nasty email saying she had found something better and wasn't coming back. Naturally they were all delighted to be utterly offended by this. My problems were nothing. I kept my windows drawn most of the time and traveled with mace on my keys. Most nights I couldn't sleep without waking up at the slightest sound. As far as I was concerned, I was one crack rock away from this lunatic finally getting tired of fingerpainting and having his way with my tender flesh. As the days went by with my stress level somewhere near a pretty mare at a zoophile convention, I started to look more and more strung out. Crystal finally ordered me to take a few paid sick days off and come back rested when she caught me napping during sitar hour. She sent me home with some cleansing tea and told me to get my shit together or I was going to be looking for another job in the sweetest terms possible. Unwilling to lose the one thing keeping me off the street, I went home that evening and forced myself to get a grip. There was no reason to be so bothered by some artistic asshat with too much time on his hands. I fed Walt, took a long shower, splurged for Chinese, and even drank some of Crystal's disgusting tea in an effort to calm my nerves. Finally, I popped some sleeping pills and retired to my bed with the TV still on in the living room. This, I told myself, would convince the crazy stalking me that I was still awake and not to be pounced upon. I wasn't thinking entirely straight by that point. After next to no sleep for about a week, I slept like the dead. If I dreamed at all, it was color and sound without meaning. I only awoke when the sound of clicking near my head forced me out of my dreamstate. Coming around slowly, I realized a few things. 1) Both of my wrists were handcuffed to my bed. 2) My legs were in the process of being spread and tied as well. 3) The TV was still on in the living room and the bedroom door was open, casting flickering light across part of the room. 4) There was someone in the room with me, whispering to me. 5) There was a terrible smell in the air along with the strong scent of lavender. 6) I was fucked, but only figuratively. I hoped. By the time I came around enough to realize all these things, it was too late. My legs were tied apart, and no amount of mostly useless kicking could loosen them. As adrenaline finally got its lazy ass in gear and started fueling my senses, I became more aware of the person in the room with me. Long hair, long legs, pale skin... I'm sure by now you guys have figured it out. “Gia, what the fucking fuck are you doing in my house?” I demanded. That's paraphrased, but I'm sure it was something just as eloquent. “Shhhhh,” she hissed through a wide grin as she crawled up the bed towards me. “Shhhh. He's talking to me. He loves you. He's always loved you.” Her hand slide up my side towards my breast, and rather than give into the unholy porno vibe going on, I finally started losing my shit. I struggled and kicked in an effort to get her away from me, but it was all hopeless. The most it did was make her grip harder, which is pretty damn unpleasant for those of you who don't have similar anatomy. “Shhhhhhh,” she said over my yells for help. I was praying my anonymous neighbors would actually do something rather than pound the wall and tell me to shut the fuck up. Stranger things had happened, after all. I was currently in the middle of them. “Shhhhhh,” she said again when I paused my struggling. “He wants you. Together, we will have his child. Don't you see? I knew from the moment I saw you that he would want you. You're perfect for him. You're perfect for us.” There's just something about dealing with a truly insane person that puts the nerves on edge. There's a manic charge about their movements, and it shines in the whites of their eyes. I can't put it into words exactly, but I knew the minute I looked at her that Gia was definitely long gone. The lights were on, but whoever was home was not interested in anything involving logic or reason. To make matters worse, she was covered in something dark and foul smelling, almost metallic in nature. At the time I should have recognized the scent, but I had other things on my mind. As her hands wandered over my body, I felt the cold realization sink in that I might very well be in for a bad time here. Her tongue came out to lick my cheek, and I nearly gagged from the stench of whatever was also matted in her hair. That might well have been shit. I'm not entirely sure. “Gia,” I said slowly, trying to keep my voice calm. “He doesn't want me. You're the only one who's good enough for him. You should just let me go and keep him all to yourself.” I had no idea who “he” was, but this was the best thing my brain could come up with. I hadn't yet reached that surreal calm state, but it was coming. “No no no no no,” she cooed. “He's seen you. He wants you. Now, we're going to have his baby. Aren't you excited, *?” As she pushed my shirt up, I noticed the shine of one of my kitchen knives. had seen marks on Gia's arms at the meetings. I figured she cut herself. She was exactly the type, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if she did it on cam for the internet. As the knife sliced into the skin on my stomach, I realized that I did not have what it takes to self-mutilate. It fucking hurt, but I kept still in the hopes that she'd stay superficial rather than straight up stabbing me. I wish I could tell you I kept my cool, but the truth is I'm amazed I didn't piss myself. I was positive she was going to rape me and then kill me, and all that was left was to determine the order. In a bizarre moment, I found myself miserably wondering if my parents would bother taking care of Walt or just release him into the wild after I was found. “There,” Gia hissed as she finished carving whatever it was into my stomach. She rubbed her fingers through the blood pooling there, making me tense and grunt from the stinging. “So pretty. Don't you understand? It's time now. We're so lucky. When the red rains down, we'll be by his side. We're going to have his baby.” This time I felt the tip of the knife creep up my inner thigh. I had a terrible idea of where that blade was going. I was probably babbling some other rationalization at Gia as to why she didn't have to do this when a loud crash sounded from the living room. The crazy jumped and let out a hiss like a startled cat. She took one last look at me, and for a split second I could read her mind. I know she was considering stabbing me and being done with it, or worse. Then she rushed to my bedroom window, and with what I can only assume was agility fueled by pure crazy, she opened the window and jumped out. I lived on the second story. I silently prayed she broke her fucking neck. I head a familiar voice call out my name from the living room after a bit more thumping. Cautiously, Michael and Jake poked their heads in while asking if I was okay. They both stared once they caught sight of the state I was in. Michael started apologizing immediately for interrupting and spun around, but luckily Jake stuck around long enough for me to start screaming for them to untie me and call the fucking police. Michael was nice enough to cover me up while they found a youtube video explaining how to get out of handcuffs on Jake's phone. After I'd babbled something that was probably not anywhere close to an explanation to them, I asked what they were doing here. “We heard you took off work, and when you didn't answer your phone, we came to check on you,” Michael explained. It was only after I'd finally gotten out and the cops showed up that I found out Gia had carved that eye symbol into my stomach. Not only that, she'd trashed my living room. The furniture was slashed to shreds, and eyes were painted across the walls. The substance was the same rust color she had been covered in, and at last I placed the terrible smell. She'd painted my apartment in her period blood and what may or may not have been shit. I told the police everything, from Walt to the wake up call. She must have been stalking me and followed me around outside of work to see where I lived and where I jogged. We couldn't figure out how she had managed to get into my apartment though. The crash was the sound of Michael and Jake accidentally busting through my balcony door after climbing up in an Assassin's Creed impression, but according to them, that sliding door had been locked. Their excuse for climbing up was that I didn't answer their knocking. My front door showed no signs of forced entry. There was also no sign of her, which means she must've stuck the landing. That was plenty unsettling for me. Needless to say after the cops and press had cleared, my landlord wanted my ass out of his complex. Even though I still had a steady job, I was barely making rent in that shithole as it was. Finding a place to stay on short notice added on to my general state of panic, made worse by the fact that I could not sleep in that apartment anymore. Even with the cops patrolling and looking for her, I had no idea when Gia might be back to finish whatever demon rape she'd started. Plus, I was still waiting for blood test results back because who knows what she'd smeared on me while playing with that knife. Thankfully, Michael stepped up and offered to let me stay at the place he shared with Jake. I wish I could say that Walt and I lived happily ever after. Unfortunately, Gia was only the beginning. I wish I had known that.

Chapter 2: Annie's Art

Use scrollbar to see the full text I moved in with Michael and Jake. The house isn't much, but we at least have locks and an alarm system. Weeks passed, and the incident with Gia slowly faded from my mind. It took some time, but living with others and a healthy dose of scar prevention cream to my stomach helped ease my worries. I told myself it was an isolated event. Gia was crazy and still out there, but with any luck she was halfway to Mexico where she could commune with spirit animals in the desert or dead in a ditch by the interstate. As long as she wasn't near me, I no longer cared. Nearly the next day, I packed up what was left of my apartment, and Walt and I moved in with Jake and Michael. Living with the guys was about how you'd expect. The house was a beat up affair with "character" on the other side of town, and they were nice enough to sacrifice a storage room for me. The minute I moved in, we installed new locks and an alarm system. There was no way I was taking any chances, and anything that could cut down on the nightmares I was destined to have would be worth the extra money. Because of the distance, I'd be spending more on gas, but Michael made up for it by paying me to drive him to work on the days we had similar shifts. I found out he had a form of stress induced epilepsy, but that didn't keep him from participating from Nerf fights, urban exploration, or drinking like a fiend. I'm not sure if that's healthy, but I never argued. Every Monday night, they'd have a D&D session with some guys from the otherkin group and gaming store. About five guys would huddle around the scuffed up dining room table and debate the merits of the plane of positive energy while drinking Jager and Mountain Dew. I know nothing about D&D despite their attempts to teach me, so I usually cooked for them and sat around watching when I didn't have something else to do. I will admit, it was nice. After months of feeling miserable over my nonexistent future and being stalked by a lunatic in a strange town, I was actually beginning to get comfortable. Maybe the innate understanding that this wasn't going to last made it that much better. It was during one of these gaming sessions that the trouble began again. The usual crew was there, including the DM who insisted everyone call him the Gnome even outside of play because he was short and crafty (his words, not mine) and a guy named Fletch from the otherkin group. The pair were close friends, though they couldn't have been more different. While Gnome, real name Tim, was short and obnoxious, Fletch was a big bear of a man who was calm and pleasant. Fletch was older, but the guys had accepted him as a mentor of sorts. He also thought he was a satyr and had a penchant for running through the woods naked, but as long as he kept bringing us the beer he brewed, I couldn't care less. That night, I was sitting on a stool in corner listening to Jake describe growing a tarrasque in a bag of holding while the game was on a food break. I had Walt out in my lap, and Fletch, who had been uncharacteristically quiet most of the night, looked over at him. His eyes grew wide as he got a look at the faded markings still on my turtle's shell. To be honest, I wasn't really listening to Jake's overly long tale, so I jumped at the chance to politely cut it off. Though sweet in his own way, Jake can go on and on about something when he gets excited, and if he forgets the smallest detail, he'll back the whole story up and start from the beginning. This happens a lot. I aimed to avoid the fourth do-over here and now. When asked what was up, Fletch heaved a long sigh and poured himself more Dew. “It's Annie. She's fallen into one of her funks again, and I'm not sure what to do. This is a big one.” Annie was Fletch's wife and a local artist. I think most of her money came from selling handmade sports miniatures on Etsy, but her passion involved surrealist art in all mediums. I'd only briefly spoken with her once or twice at TEP, but she was always pretty distant, a dark cloud to Fletch's sunny disposition. A large woman, she'd spent the whole time talking to me about how she and Fletch were trying for kids, which left me with images of pieces of biscuit dough slapping against each other. Tim/Gnome asked if there was any way we could help. Personally, I thought there was nothing short of a lithium cocktail that could pull her out of the doldrums, but I kept my mouth shut. My mistake. While Fletch was politely declining, the guys somehow decided that we needed to go over to his place and cheer her up. I say “we” because I was volunteered to bake something for her. Though I was reluctant, I was caught up in their enthusiasm, and I agreed to make some tiramisu or something to take over on my next day off. Had I been thinking, I would've asked him about his reaction to Walt's shell, but it slipped my mind at the time. Fletch and Annie lived in an old cottage just outside of town. We arrived late in the afternoon a few days later and were greeted by an unshaven and exhausted looking Fletch. He smiled a weary smile and pushed three excited dachshunds out of the way so Michael, Jake, Tim, and I could enter. The place was cluttered but comfortable, and front room exuded the same woodsy warmth of the man himself, but we were ushered towards the back of the house. “She's in her studio. She's in one of her moods,” he explained. Till now I'd read and seen accounts of “real ghost stories” where people talked about ominous feelings or sensations of dread, and I'd considered them bullshit. It's so easy to dismiss such things as nerves, and I've even read about ultrasonic vibrations or something of the sort that would inspire the same sensations. Idiots getting hyped up, I thought. I wish I could explain away the things that I felt that day. I really do. I wish I could tell you it was just my imagination, but the truth is, I didn't go into that house thinking I'd see anything strange. Armed with tiramisu and a good night's sleep, I figured we would listen to a speech on feminism, pet some dogs, and be out of there by dinner, but as we walked down the hallway towards her studio, there was something in the air. I can't accurately describe it. It was as if sounds were muffled, like something was pressing in on us from all sides. There was a thickness to the atmosphere that would better fit an oppressively humid day, but the further back we walked, the more the fall chill set in. When Fletch opened the door, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. My hands gripped the glass tray till my knuckles were white. After a few hushed words to his wife, he waved us in. My little group exchanged looks that broadcast varying degrees of “Well, shit” before stepping inside. Fletch spoke in the soft tones one reserves for feral animals or the violently retarded. “Sweetie, some people from the D&D group are here to see us. * from The Enlightened Path brought tiramisu.” The only light came from a dirty window on the far side of the room. In the dim colors of the sunset, I could just make out Annie sitting on a stool before the wall to the left. She was dressed in a large gray shirt covered in paint splotches and frayed at the edges. Her hair was halfheartedly pulled back into a ponytail, but much of it was frizzing to the sides as if she'd been tugging at it in frustration. Slowly she turned around to face us. Her eyes were hooded with thick bags and dark circles beneath them. She looked worn in more ways than one. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe being cooped up in this place meant she'd been sniffing paint fumes, but if anything the room just smelled like cold ozone. “What is it?” she demanded in a flat voice. As Fletch gently repeated, she pulled herself from the stool with a thick grunt and a high squeal of complaint from her seat. Heavy thuds might have been expected given her state, but her footsteps were light, unnaturally so from my point of view. With a vague frown, she considered our cluster. “See?” Fletch said as he put a hand on my shoulder. “Tiramisu. Isn't that nice?” Annie's glassy gaze wandered to me and lingered for a long moment before she lurched in my direction. I felt Michael press his side against mine protectively, but I stood my ground. I'd dealt with one crazy before alone. This one couldn't be that bad. As she shifted to stand before me, I held the dessert out like a peace offering. “It's pretty good. I tried out a new recipe,” I said. After gurgling up a snort at me that sort of sounded like a drunk bull, Annie's sausage fingers reached out and curled right into the middle of the dish. Fletch looked totally mortified, Tim snickered, and the rest of us were stunned silent as she shoveled the creamy treat into her mouth. She made a big show of smearing it around her sagging jowls before scraping what remained off on the edge of the tray. “You think this is going to help?” she asked, spittle flecked with chunks of food flying out from between her thick lips. She continued ranting as she stomped back to her wall. “You think this is worth something? You think I don't know it's all your fault? Fuck off, you gaping cunt! Peddle your processed filth to someone who's been blinded by you!” Fletch sputtered and stared bug-eyed at his wife before stammering out heartfelt apologies. Clearly he was shocked by her behavior. “Uhhh, should we...” Michael began as he started to edge back, but I cut him off. “It's cool. You guys seem busy, so we'll see you another time,” I said with a thin frown. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I wasn't interested. You can tie me up and threaten to rape me for a demon baby, but insult my cooking, and we're going to have problems. We were all turning to leave, and Jake and Gnome were out the door already when Annie spat a yellow blob of mucus at my feet. “See this one?” she cackled as she pointed to the wall. “This one's you!” It was only then that I got a look at just what she'd been doing over there. Before that I was too focused on her, and the shapes had been nothing more than a distorted background. Now they sharpened into view as Gnome flipped on the hall light and illuminated things. Around the edges were smudged tendrils I would call smoke, but there was a fleshy quality about them, if that makes any sense at all. They gave the impression that the eye just wasn't focused enough to take them in, which I imagine could cause a headache if one stared long enough. Closer to the center were shapes of people, but they were bent in terrible ways. Some were either vomiting up other people or trying to swallow them whole; I couldn't tell which. In grays, greens, blues, bruise purple, and a shade of yellow that almost made me smell festering rot and bulbous fungus, they silently screamed and swam in a river of who knows what. As a feminist surrealist, Annie's art had always been weird, but it had never been this dark. Fletch visibly winced when the light shone on it, as if this were a monument of proof that something was very, very not right with the woman he loved. Thankfully, the figure she was pointing to looked nothing like me. I bit my tongue to keep from asking if that was just because she was a shitty artist. When trapped in the gorilla exhibit, one does not poke the animals. Instead, I just rolled my eyes and said something about leaving to Michael that I can't recall at the moment but would ultimately be unimportant. The point is, she didn't take too kindly to that either. “I know it's all your fault! We all know! It was all calm and peaceful till you came here like the fucking whore of Babylon! You and him and them and the rest of the Mousketeers. I see. We all see.” As she continued ranting like this, Annie trundled over to an old desk that must have served as her workbench. There were various sculptures and such on or near it along with a potter's wheel and tools. At this point I froze, as did the others. Her hand wrapped around a large mallet I can only assume was used for clay or wood. I only knew one thing for certain: That thing was not going through me if I had to lob my precious tiramisu at her and book it right out of there. “Soon everyone will see. This, this will be my masterpiece. They'll write about this one, Fletch. They'll tell everyone about this. The whole world will understand, and I'll be famous. We'll be famous, baby. We'll change the world.” She continued babbling about paying bills and what people will see as she placed her dessert slicked hand on the desk. Annie raised the mallet above her head, and I swear time slowed down. Everyone could see what was coming next, and everyone held their breath even if were we all collectively tensing. It's the car wreck scenario. You want to stop it, but deep inside, you know you can't and you can't turn away. Your only job is to bear witness. I had never broken a bone before, so I had no idea what it sounded like. Still, I knew it the minute I heard it, and that was before the awkward slant of her pinky registered. I have no idea if it's even possible to bring a hammer down on yourself with that kind of force, but she did. The impact seemed to echo in the room, but that may just have been inside my head. “LET THE COCKCUNT PATRIARCHS ROT IN A RIVER OF BLOOD AND FIRE!” she screeched just after. I just happened to be the first person to unfreeze after that, and not by much. As she shifted her hand and raised the hammer again, I turned to Michael and told him to call an ambulance right fucking now. He started frantically patting his pockets for his cell and pulling it out as I debated putting the tray down somewhere or keeping it just in case I needed to use it as a shield. Meanwhile, Annie had started droning in a singsong monotone voice that reminded me of a Catholic mass I had once been to. I wish I could tell you accurately just what she was saying, but truthfully my mind was too busy running in circles playing survival mode. What follows is the best I can recall. “And they will regret. They will cry and scratch their eyes, and we will mock them. We will bath in their blood and they will eat the capitalist feces they have always suckled, and they will see. We will see. There is fire and blood and pain and beauty and...” The sickening second pounding of the mallet was enough to get the rest of us into motion. I shoved the tray down and ran for her along with Fletch and Tim. Fletch was shouting at her to stop, to put the mallet down. As Gnome jumped for her, she spun around and smashed into the side of his head with the mallet, sending him staggering and cradling it. Michael was yelling the address into his phone and telling the 911 to hurry the hell up. Fletch was able to grab her wrists, but she twisted and struggled, screaming like a banshee. In the blur of the moment, I tried to grab her from behind, but she twisted and snapped at me like a damn pitbull. In a wild jerk she managed to push free and slammed me into the wall just before she pinned me. Squished by her stomach and breasts, I could smell the paint, sweet coffee, and tooth decay as she grinned at me. “I'm going to fucking eat you alive, you cunt.” Right as I kneed her in the damn ovaries, a pale blond blur came running at her from the side. As Michael tackled her like a nerdy linebacker, he probably yelled something heroic like “FUCK YOU!” or “LET GO OF HER, YOU BITCH!” but it was mostly muffled by the flab his face was forced into. Annie went down with a heavy thud, and from there the men managed to pin her down and keep her there. It took all of us to hold her till the ambulance showed up, which thankfully wasn't long. She spit and snapped at his, but by the time the EMTs were there her moaning had quieted into something I considered worse. As they carted her off, Annie swung her feet around and hummed “Maxwell's Silver Hammer,” effectively ruining that song for me forever. Standing there in the aftermath, we all said surprisingly little. Fletch went with Annie and Tim to the hospital, which left us all to pile into Jake's car and head home. Like hell were we going with them. I don't think any of us wanted to be anywhere near that crazy bitch, and though we wished him well, Tim was going to be fine. Honestly if anyone could have used a smack upside the head, it was him. Apparently they blamed it on some craziness cat owners get combined with an already depressive nature. When she didn't get better, they transferred her to the regional psych ward for what they hoped was a temporary stay. Fletch wasn't totally forthcoming on the details, and we didn't press him. I think he was embarrassed on top of being worried for her, and there might have been a hint of protection in his behavior. Whatever the case, Michael and I agreed that we needed an olive branch, one that didn't involve my baking. We offered to scrub that “masterpiece” off the wall for him. I know it was a work of art and all, but being around it day after day, even if he kept her studio locked up, clearly made Fletch uncomfortable. He hated the thing and said as much. He thought it looked like her nightmares, and he didn't see anything of Annie in it. Maybe he just didn't want to. Either way, we took some remover and primer over there a couple weekends later settled in for some satisfying destruction. “So you've basically saved me twice now,” I was saying as we scrubbed the wall down. I'm not an artist, so I have no idea what kind of paint she used. Whatever it was, it was thick enough that primer was going to look weird over it, so that meant taking off as much as we could. Plus, I honestly think we all decided even knowing those gaping maws and pleading eyes were still under there was too much. It needed to be gone. “Nah,” Michael said with a modest smile. “I'm just amazed I didn't spaz out.” I was about to say something else to him when I noticed something. There was something beneath the layers we were scrubbing and peeling away. Again, I have no idea what the paint was, but this was almost etched into the wall along with painted. Conversation died down as, we got to work uncovering it, and once we had enough to figure the image out, we both stepped back to stare at it. “What the fuck?” Michael whispered. Somehow I knew when his eyes drifted from my face to my stomach. I couldn't blame him. Beneath the terrible landscape of bodies was a quickly done image. The figure was crude but definitely in Annie's style. Emaciated and covered in what were either splinters or thin thorns of some kind, it was clawing its eyes own. Behind it was a large symbol. You can probably guess by now that it was the eye. The figure was the slash between the two curves or the pupil, if that's what you want to call it. Totally creeped out, I put down my things and marched right out of there. Call it my NOPE moment. I kept telling myself that it had to be a coincidence or maybe Gia and Annie had talked before Gia went nuts. Maybe this was something the group had shared. I didn't want to believe it was bigger than one lunatic. Of course you probably know by now that I was wrong, but what would you tell yourself to sleep easier at night?

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