Fleshgait | CreepCast

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I am so excited for this spa day.

Candles lit, music on, hot tub warm and ready.

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Welcome back to Creepcast!

Today we are reading an infamous story by a beloved author that we love, Mr.

Imperial.

You know,

is it Imperial Collective or is it Imperial

Incentive?

Well, invective.

I think it's supposed to be incentive.

I've always said incentive, but now that I'm looking at it, it might be invective.

I'm going to say Imperial.

Yes.

Hi, Travis.

We've read a couple of his works,

that being

It Breathes, It Bleeds, It Creams.

That's not what the story was called.

What was the last one we did?

In Sorceled in the Earth.

Ensorceled in the Earth, which was one of my my personal favorites.

Basically, like

kind of like another feed the pig, less, uh,

less sewer slides, but you know, it's that.

Um,

but apparently, his most famous story is ash is actually Fleshgate.

In both of the comment sections and on the Reddit and stuff, we see people be like, oh, you know, they keep reading this story, but they won't read his most popular story, which is this Fleshgate meme.

So today we're going to read Fleshgate.

Yes.

So

if you grew up like I did listening to like Mr.

Creepypasta and a bunch of like Creepypasta YouTubers, you've heard a lot of Travis's stories, even if you aren't familiar with him by name.

Travis Coleman, by the way, is the author's name.

We've talked about before how prolific this guy is.

He has, I think it's over 100.

Maybe not 200, but over 100 like stories posted online.

Actually, I I think it might be 200 because we looked at that collective image one time and there were just so much stuff this guy's written.

Some of his more famous stuff is Ad Nauseum, Ad Mortim, Ad Infinim, Abraham Stagger.

All of these were like triple platinum on like OG horror YouTube back in the day.

And I remember listening to Fleshgate when I was like

13, 12, or 13, and I don't remember the events of it, but I remember I was really scared.

So this is definitely

this is definitely one of the kind of like OG peak era creepypasta time when this was posted.

I remember everyone used to compare the fleshgate.

They would speak of it in the same breath as like Wendigo's or the Rake or Skin Walkers, like weird things that run around in the woods.

So this is going to be something that's like a bit of an old monster story.

We haven't touched it like a monster story in a second, have we?

It's been a minute.

I remember we talked about some of the rake stuff back then, but honestly, that's the last time I can think of.

Yeah.

Well, I remember.

Oh, here it is.

Here it is.

Okay, so this image I'm about to send you.

Hold on, let me just send you the link.

So we'll throw it up on the thing, too.

So I remember seeing this image going around, and I remember the picture for the Fleshgate on this scared me so bad.

Hold on.

I don't even think this is...

I think what happened is after Travis wrote the story, Fleshgate went on to become its own thing.

Kind of like, you know, people started to make stories about it aside from just Travis's original narrative around it.

But there's a chart that would go around that'd be like, this is the difference between the goat man, the fleshgate, and the skinwalker.

And yeah, I'll just think I'm

a salvage for the fleshgate.

Which is a good sign.

It's so bad.

Which is a good sign because I love that people are like, you definitely know that people, the reason that they had those differences, I bet back in the day, were people like, oh, I'm so scared of Fleshgate, but they were actually talking about like the goat man or something.

Yeah.

So I bet people are like, no, no, no, because I bet you they all live in some kind of woods, they're all in the woods, they probably all have some kind of goat-like, weird form or something like that.

But what they do is distinctively different, I think, is my betting thing.

So, Fleshgate, I mean, there's obviously similarities, right?

Yeah, well, of course, of course, that's you know, that's what makes it fun.

But I love the idea of someone being like making a graph, being like, don't be fooled, as if it's like a survival guide or something like that.

Back in the day, I swear to God, God, survival guides were so popular.

It was insane.

Like, I remember when the peak,

even when I was younger, it was like the peak time for zombie movies.

And there were so many zombie survival guide books, like published works that you could get in like Barnes and Noble, you know?

Monster survival guides, all these kinds of things.

So, so popular.

So I'm ready to take a little stroll back and see how this feels.

Also, anytime I get to read,

some of my favorite episodes are when when you've read it as a prepubescent boy, and then I have no idea what the fuck is going on.

And I think that's what's going to rein to happen today.

Of course.

I think, now, I don't want to misquote, I'm pretty sure Travis is the one that came up with the flesh gate originally.

There is a chance that word kind of existed online, kind of like the rake, and then he made the narrative out of it.

But...

To my knowledge, he's the only guy that's done any like substantial narrative with it, even if he didn't come up up with the term.

But I think he came up with the term.

Because I'm looking at his story and like the most recent ones, like the oldest ones are like eight years ago, nine years ago, stuff like that.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's him.

Every time I hear anything gate-related, I just think of the gate, that movie from 1987,

which is just a fun little, when you're a kid, super fucking horrifying movie.

But yeah, anytime I hear the gate, it makes me think of that.

Yeah, it's this film from like the late 80s, mid to late 80s, whatever.

And it's just about like people move into a house, I'm pretty sure, and then like they uproot this tree, like they're getting rid of a stump, and that opens up this fucking gateway to hell, basically, and all these creatures start pouring out.

Yeah, and this kid's like, What's going on?

That kind of thing.

Mom!

And it's like these fucking horrifying things walking around, and everyone.

And you know, in typical 80s, 90s fashions, the parents are just like, Would you shut the hell up?

Of course, of course.

I guess I, I guess, I'm gonna have to do this myself.

It's like a fucking, like, an eight-year-old.

It's so stupid.

But it's awesome.

The gate rules.

Anyways, made me think of that.

So,

all right.

Well, Fleshgate, man.

Let's let's get into it.

Let me turn off my lights to really set the mood.

Oh, thank you very much to everyone who has subscribed to the Patreon.

The support over there has been fantastic.

Hope you guys enjoyed that exclusive episode from some of the comments I was reading.

It seems you all do.

So we appreciate that a lot.

And thank you all for your donations and time.

Patreon will be linked below if you want to support us.

But again, thank you guys so much for the support you've already shown.

Yeah, we have

a song and an episode up.

First episode, be completely transparent.

It's a bit of a crash out.

So sorry about him, you know.

So we'll just apologize for that one moving forward.

But then also too, just want to take time and say,

be sure to check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and give us a nice rating there.

It really does help.

So let's jump in.

Fleshgate.

Fleshgate.

Months later, I can remember all of them, down to their slightest idiosyncrasies and quirks.

They were my friends, and they're gone now.

There's a hole in my life where they were.

Sometimes I'll remember something they said or did, and it'll hit me like a ton of bricks.

They're gone now, and I'm only left with memories of them.

I'm sorry for being maudlin and bringing everyone down.

But I think this is the only way I can really introduce my story and explain why I feel like I have to type this out.

I think that writing this is the only way I can learn to accept that.

I'll try to keep these downer tendencies to myself as I'm writing all this down, but I can't make promises.

I know that being the third will in a group can be a terrible thing, but I can think of something worse.

Being the fifth will.

If you're the third will, that makes your group a semi-functioning tricycle.

If you're the fifth will, you're left to some obscure car from the 50s that no one remembers or cares about.

Imagine not being able to follow the end jokes and shared history of one couple and multiply that by two.

Getting stuck as the fifth wheel is twice as bad.

That was the frame of mind I had as we all piled into Ian's car to go to the Gilla National Forest for our hike.

I will say that being the fifth wheel is one of my favorite things ever.

I love that.

It's an act of terrorism, first off, being invited as the fifth wheel.

So anyone who is there has to say you're all now a part like you have to suffer.

And I will I take inside jokes and then not only do i pretend that i kind of know what it is but then i will tell you an inside joke from the person that is not there and it is going to be hostile it's going to be it's going to be a complete takeover of the conversation to where i will not be invited in the situation again

so this is a thing that's happened to you before oh multiple times i think being the fifth it's kind of it's i'm not like super common but people are like well and my friend i don't want to you know you want to come hang out but the worst is they don't tell you when you're the fifth wheel like Hey, we're gonna go get drinks, or you know, we're gonna go do this X, Y, Z, you know, and then they just kind of throw it on you, and then you just show up there.

I see exactly, and then it becomes it becomes a complete and total fucking takeover.

Have you like purposefully entered into a fifth wheel scenario before?

Oh, never knew, never, I would never go, I would never go into hell, you know, willingly.

It's always, it is always against my better judgment.

Showing up, I feel like that happened to me a couple times where, like, I was probably with Kayla, but a friend's like, hey, you want to go out or whatever?

And I'm like, sure.

And then I show up and it's him and his girlfriend.

And I'm like, well, now,

why am I here?

Like, this is weird.

You didn't even let me invite mine.

What are we doing?

Yeah, that's the worst part, too, is whenever you

is whenever you go to...

You basically like go like, hey, we're going to hang out.

Let's just say we're going to get dinner and go play pool, have some drinks, hang out.

You're like, oh, that sounds like a good time.

And then she doesn't tell you that it's with like the friend.

That's like the word, like the most boring friend with her boring fucking husband or girlfriend or whatever it is.

And then you're like,

again,

thank you so much for that.

Yeah.

At that point, then it becomes a hostile takeover because then they're referencing all kinds of shit that I have no idea.

But I will pretend.

I will pretend and I will.

It's just very petty.

It's all very petty.

And I recommend that's what anyone does.

If you're ever put in that situation, laugh at every joke hard, way too hard, belly laugh, shortle,

and then always follow it up with you laugh, you do,

and you do, uh, yeah,

yeah, two years, yeah,

yeah.

No, that makes me think of this.

That's my favorite thing to do because it is

so, it's so gay, dude.

There's nothing worse than having someone do, yeah,

yeah, no,

following up with no, yeah, yeah, no.

Actually, that reminds me of the

thing.

You go into a deal.

People don't know what to do.

They get thrown for a fucking loop, dude.

I'm glad you have all of this mapped out.

This is a really big deal to you.

Sorry.

Sorry for that.

No, it's okay.

You can talk if you need to.

This is like a deal.

I'm going to, so anyway, the Gilla National Forest is in New Mexico.

It's 3 million acres, 2.7 million acres.

It's the sixth largest national forest in the United States.

Isn't that cool?

That's awesome.

Isn't that 800?

I love that.

It's really cool.

Okay.

Forest, I love that.

That's cool.

Anyway, also, while I've looked at it, it looks like this story was posted in 2016, but the post I sent you earlier, that's the chart, is 2025 or 2020, or sorry, 2015 or 2014.

This feels like a 2013 story kind of thing.

Yeah, I think it was posted here 2016.

I feel like Fleshgate's older.

So maybe then, similar to the rake, the name Fleshgate existed.

Then Travis just made the story that became popular, basically.

I know that's a weird opening to give to all of this after my depressing introduction, but I want you all to have an idea of my mindset.

I'm not quite sure I know how to describe all this, but I do know that I need to tell someone.

I need someone else to know what happened and help me come to terms with it all.

I think the only way I'll be able to explain this would be to help you see from my perspective as much as possible.

So there we were, driving down to Gilla for a hike, with me feeling like the fifth wheel wedged between two of Ian's friends who I didn't know.

Three of us were cramped in the back seat, while Ian and his girlfriend were up front.

I look back at that unnecessary bit of moping back in August 2016 as one of the the last few moments of normalcy I would have in my life.

I tried to make the best of the situation.

I really did.

Ian was always the more social of us.

Our mom used to tell us that Ian could make anyone his friend, but that once I had a friend, that I kept them for life.

It was one of those parental platitudes that was given to reassure a socially awkward child that there was nothing wrong.

Unfortunately, it would take me almost 19 years to learn that that wasn't true.

Instead of taking my therapist's diagnosis of social anxiety disorder following a breakdown after an office get-together as a means for seeking treatment, I used it as an excuse to cloister myself off from the world.

I stayed in my apartment when I wasn't working and told myself that I was just doing what was best for me.

Of course, Ian decided that that wasn't healthy and convinced me to go on a weekend-long hike with him.

It wasn't, you know, this is actually insane because I'm preparing to go on a big hiking trip myself.

So there is an entire tent set up behind me right now.

Right.

My room.

If I had the capability, I would crawl into the tent for this video, but I feel like the camera would not reach down there.

But this is perfect setting.

It wasn't until I showed up at his house at 6 in the morning on Friday after taking the day off work that I saw that he had invited others along.

I think he saw it as a means of getting me help and breaking me out of my shell by introducing me to his friends.

Unfortunately though, with Ian's extroverted nature, he didn't realize that I liked being in my shell.

It was comfortable.

It was safe.

A turtle doesn't like being broken out of its shell.

It dies.

After a brief introduction, where I caught no one's name except for those I already knew, my brothers and his girlfriend Jessica, due to morning grogginess and the rushed greetings, we packed up the car and left for our hike.

It took three hours of mostly awkward silence for us to reach our destination.

Ian tried to make conversation, but my short responses and the other sleepiness killed them off fairly quickly.

I will say, it seems that our narrator is a loser a little bit.

Yeah, our narrator fucking like he just refers to himself as a fucking turtle, dude.

That and also the fact that Ian's being like, so how's how's how things?

Playing any games lately?

And he's just like, no, really?

No.

Yeah.

It's a fucking

sneak.

He has a big,

he has like a big, like, thick turtleneck shirt on.

He just keeps like putting his head into

it.

Boom.

And they keep slugging his head in.

Like, who the fuck brought this loser?

Like, any.

I'm not going to lie.

It's going to take a lot for this man to be brought back.

I did not like the turtle thing.

The turtle thing really, that really kind of crushed me.

I was like, this guy fucking sucks.

A grown man referred to himself as a turtle.

A grown man referring to himself as a turtle, and then a girlfriend named Jessica.

What the hell is that?

That is rough.

That is rough.

It was like getting hit with a baseball bat twice in the head.

But yeah, short,

short responses.

I like how they even know.

Yeah, but my responses suck.

So it is what it is, though.

They have to deal with me.

I'm already here.

Yeah.

Not only am I going to be kind of the awkward invite, I will become a problem.

I will become a turtle.

I will be rough.

I will become a turtle, of course.

Yeah.

What's that, buddy?

It's my scratching post.

He's like a couple of brooms fucking nailed to a tree, and he keeps rubbing up against them.

Do you want to get drive-through?

No, it's okay.

I got it myself.

He has just like a bowl full of tomatoes and he just starts like biting them.

He's just eating raw cabbage.

Yeah.

But he's like reaching down.

Like he's holding the bowl up to his neck, but reaching down with his head to like bite off pieces of it at a time.

Yeah, doing that nice turtle thing where they open their mouth real wide, they stick out their tongue.

They do.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what he's doing right now.

We got to bring him because he's the turtle mutant and he'll protect us.

My mom said that.

My mom said the turtle kid won't.

He's been like looking at us and we just feel bad.

I mean, he can come on the hike.

Mom said that if we.

we,

yeah, bring the turtle kid.

Mom said, if we don't bring him, the turtle kid will shoot up the school.

Yeah, the mom, mom said, that turtle kid's been

pointing a gun at the front of our house for the last two nights.

Come outside.

So we keep saying, no one else, no one's around.

You rule, turtle kid.

Did you ever watch that movie, Master of Disguise?

Yes, please do not go into the Turtley Club thing.

but you know that you know that right yes i know okay master of disguise god dude okay do you want to know the best do you know the best piece of movie trivia ever about that film

while they were filming that scene 9-11 happened

9-11 happened

as he was doing the am i not turtling enough for the scene

for the turtle club

so someone alerted them on set and they held a moment of silence while he was dressed as

a giant turtle person

holding his head down.

Do you think he stayed in character?

Is he a method actor?

Wait,

what?

Can you turn on the news so I can see?

The towel was.

No.

That's a bit peculiar.

The towel

couldn't be broken thing then.

Neat.

He's like moving the shell around too, like his big shell body.

He said Al-Qaeda, didn't it?

Al-Qaeda.

In a turtle costume.

Looks like they're waiting in the air.

I'm on the ground.

Yeah.

So

that guy is the one who's sitting in the front of the car now.

Yeah.

That's where I remember.

Just because he used the word turtle.

Yeah, of course.

Yep.

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We found the parking lot near the Gilla Cliff dwellings.

As we unpacked our gear, we took a moment to bask in the beautiful sight that sat perched above us.

It's hard to believe that someone could carve an entire town into the face of a cliff.

700 years ago, people managed to do just that.

Given that the parking lot was empty except for us, we would find out why later, and I was in need of some social lubrication, we split a six-pack of beer and took in the Majesty.

Here's a picture in case you're wondering what the area looked like.

As we finished our beers, got everything prepared, and used the restrooms, Ian explained what path we would be taking in detail.

What we didn't know, and what my brother had failed to tell us, was that the West Fork Trail had been closed all that summer due to flooding.

To be honest, the path wasn't that dangerous.

They had just opted not to clear it due to the recent floodings, so it would be a bit more of a rugged hike.

While it wasn't perilous in itself, it did keep us from encountering other hikers, which would cause us a lot of problems when we actually needed help.

Ian figured that we can make about two or three miles per hour and we would be able to complete the Gilla Loop, which was about 30 miles long with enough time to get back on Sunday and be ready for our respective jobs on Monday.

with no one any the wiser that we had backpacked a closed section of the national park.

As his explanation was a bit heavy on names and locations, some of which I can't recall clearly, I'll opt to include a picture rather than spend a page writing out everything.

For the sake of simplicity, this is the path we were planning to take.

Picture's not loading on the website, but it just says a simple loop.

So I imagine the plan they were supposed to take is just a simple loop.

It's just a picture of a fucking mountain with a red circle.

I just like the idea.

I just like the D.

All right, so the picture.

Well, I can't see the picture.

For some reason, it's not loading for me.

Also, I want to say, too, does two to three miles an hour seem crazy?

You'd have to be fucking hauling ass, right?

Two to three miles per hour.

If it's flat, if it's flat ground, that's fine.

They're like on a treadmill, you're going speed 12.

All right.

Think about that.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, no.

That's speed two.

Two miles an hour.

No, no, no.

I'm saying, no no no no no no i'm saying if i was going six on the treadmill uh-huh that's an hour that's takes an hour to do one mile at speed six

and that's like you you're like right you're like jogging you're like running so i'm saying that these people my mind speed are like speed six on the treadmill is six miles an hour six miles an hour no no no that shouldn't be it because i've i've done it Oh, wait, no, you're right.

You're right.

Never mind.

Okay.

You're right.

I'm thinking of a whole walking thing.

Never mind.

My bad.

I fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

As long as you acknowledge that I'm correct and you're wrong, that's fine.

I'll cut the move on.

No, no, don't cut it.

Don't cut it.

That's an important distinction.

I just, you're

cut that.

That was great.

Hey, Harry, real quick.

No, do not cut that.

Hey, do not cut that, Harry.

25 minutes.

There's just a simple cut that I want the editor to make.

If you could make that happen, thank you so much.

Absolutely not.

I have no, no, no, I have to.

Thank you.

Got the green light.

I have, I have.

In addition, I'll include a more detailed map of the entire area.

My bad.

I was doing your job.

My bad.

I was doing your job.

My bad.

I was doing it.

Your joint, Harry.

I have a gun.

Okay.

We're not cutting that.

We're not cutting that.

You said that.

I'm yawning because that's how bored I am.

I'm yawning.

I'm bored.

Okay.

All right.

So, speed two.

They're walking two on a treadmill.

I'll include a more detailed map

area, so I can't orient myself.

If you want to retrace the trail we took, you plan on following along with the oh, my bad.

Sorry, I was doing your job again.

Sorry, go ahead.

Go ahead, see it.

See how easy it is.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

You're so so good at it.

In addition, I will include a more detailed map of the entire area so you can orient yourselves if you want to trace the trail we took.

If you plan on following along with the path, as I tell you about the experience, all I could say is, good luck.

Even as I stare at it now, I feel just as lost now as I was then.

I was just going along with the group and trying to keep a positive mind about everything.

I wanted to try and do a better job of getting to know Ian and Jessica's friends.

I think my circumstances have finally begun begun to set in.

I've been living in a quiet apartment in New Mexico for over a year, and I had no friends because I was a turtle boy.

I would go to work and then home without doing anything else except playing with cabbage and in my

see, there you go.

You're at it, you're adding its own interpretations to it, which is not the job of the narrator.

That's not the job of the narrator.

The narrator must be objective.

Sorry, I thought I read the.

I think I got it mixed up with it.

Okay, my bad.

Sometimes I would spend the entire weekend without saying a single word to anyone or seeing another person because I was on my back with my show.

That's not on there, too?

That's not there.

That's not sure either.

I knew that if I didn't change something quick, that solitude would become the norm.

And that frightened me.

Okay, so when you do your impression of me, it's gone from like a whimsical

choir leader to now just a clown, like a circus clown.

I don't think that's true.

Yeah, yeah, you're like past any closeness of it.

Your hate is getting in the way of your accuracy.

Can I actually try to do a legitimate impression of you?

Because I have been working on it.

My consent in this doesn't matter, so.

Well, I won't do it if you don't want me to.

Go ahead.

Hey, guys.

It's me.

Hey, yeah, yeah.

The Bible.

Yay!

Did you tell me about that?

I never noticed how much you sound like Gypsy Rose, which is just you know, it's

you know what's funny?

Is I thought you were being legitimate, and then the moment I heard what decibel you were in, like where what scale you were at.

Yeah, it's like it was like all right

i'd be curious i need to know if you murdered your mom is your mom still with us

yeah she's still alive on her i wonder if i can take that on face value though from a person like you maybe

yeah

she's still alive on her

That invitation you did just then was closer than your dedicated invitation.

Yeah, no, that's to be fair.

That was, I lampooned a little bit, but not very much.

A little bit, okay.

I couldn't understand you.

You were so high.

It was audible to dogs.

Well, that's Discord's fault, and I have that issue with you all the time.

Our first day was relatively quiet.

We spent a majority of the time taking in the sight, soaking in the sun, and breathing the fresh air.

The hike felt light.

We were constantly moving upward.

As I was unaccustomed to hiking, I frequently fell behind, but I never completely lost sight of my brother's friends.

While we took a break under the shade of a tree whose bark looked like dried scales from some long-dead alligator, I tried to make small talk with everyone.

I fell into a quick conversation with Ian and Jessica about their work and what they had been up to lately.

When it came time to talk to the other two, I only managed to get the conversation going for a few sentences before it shriveled up and died.

So I was, I wasn't really focused on the story when you were doing your impression of me.

I was more focused on my rage.

but that was just like they're just hiking through New Mexico.

Everything's fine at first.

Nothing bad's happened yet.

Yeah, no, he's just basically saying if you wanted to follow, in the section I read, it was just him being like,

Here's a map.

If you want to follow along, good luck.

It's kind of a rough deal.

I'm kind of a fucking social loser, and I'm trying to like, you know, branch out.

Well, it's that the trail was closed, right?

And they weren't supposed to be on it.

Yeah.

I remembered assuring myself that it would be easier when we stopped for the night.

We rested for a while before continuing our ascent up the mesa.

This is where everyone realized how truly out of my element I was here.

The path up the mesa was agonizing for me.

It seemed to never stop climbing up and there was almost no shade to keep the sun from beating down on us.

I was sweating buckets, panting, and wheezing whenever they stopped to wait for me to catch up.

I tried to pretend that I didn't notice their exasperated whispers or side glances.

but it was easier said than done.

They seemed like the outdoorsy type that had been doing this sort of thing for years.

By the time our paths started to level out, I was ready to turn around and leave.

It wasn't until we reached the top and looked out over everything that I realized how foolish of an idea that was.

Even if I was able to convince Ian to give me the keys and let me walk back to the car and go home, I had no idea where I was going or what trail markers we had been using.

I imagined splitting off from the group and tromping through poison ivy, pumbling into a gang of banjo-playing hill folk, or getting lost in the dark and wandering in circles until exhaustion and exposure took me even if i did manage to hike back to the parking lot where was i going to go would i go back home to my empty apartment eat a hot pocket and feel sorry for myself again i decided to tough it out and continue hiking also by the way the hillbilly hill folk would be appalachia by the way not new mexico so yeah i mean i think he's just referring to deliverance

yeah yeah yeah I mean, that's the reference.

And there are, like, what's the film about the New Mexico people?

Oh, hills have eyes.

Like,

sure, but the hillbilly, the banjo is our thing.

So the last thing that, the last thing you want to hear when you're like, oh, wow, this trail in the forest is kind of weird.

Last thing you want to hear from behind you is,

you lost.

That's the last thing you want to hear on earth.

There's been a few times where like I've been

on a river, like walking the bank or...

out hiking or something like that and come across someone's property and they do not like you being there.

There was one time me and my me and my buddies, we we were four willing, and we drove up some road and we walked up to the top of the hill to get a view.

And while we're standing there, we hear someone walk behind us and we turn around.

And there's a guy standing there with a rifle across his arms.

He's not pointed at us.

It's down at the ground.

And we go, hey, sir, is this your property?

And he goes, uh-huh.

And I go,

and I go, would you like us to get off your property?

And he goes, uh-huh.

We just go, all right.

And just

walk straight the way we came.

Yeah.

We made a camp at a dry section of the Indian Creek after having hiked a decent amount.

Ian was confident that we would make it back on Sunday and that the next few days were going to be less intensive.

We ate some food and stowed the rest in a bear bag a ways away from the camp.

We were passing a bottle of whiskey around in front of a campfire we had built when the conversation shifted to the most awkward moments everyone had experienced.

My brother disguised the icebreaker as a conversation starter.

Ian retold his story about the first time he met Jessica at a club where he was way too drunk for his own good and ended up puking into her purse.

Jessica bristled at the old memory and jokingly called Ian an asshole for that.

Each person shared their stories about a bumbling first kiss where their braces got hooked together, locking themselves out of their dorm rooms and their underwear, their cringe-inducing high school edgelord personality, caring for a drunken acquaintance who puked into their favorite bag.

Then the bottle came to me and it was my turn to tell them a story.

I instantly knew what my most embarrassing story was the moment we started the conversation.

I didn't tell them about the door though.

Instead, I made up a story ripping my pants in front of a group of people during a work interview that I had probably ripped straight from a 90 sitcom.

They laughed with me and I felt like a piece of shit.

They had bothered to reveal their most embarrassing moments and were commensurating it in their shared experience and here I was too afraid to tell them the truth, which tells them about the door.

The conversation continued for a bit afterwards as we killed the bottle.

When it was dead, we all went to bed, still pretty drunk after dousing the campfire.

I woke up in the middle of the night desperately needing to use the bathroom.

Still a bit fuzzy from the bullet whiskey, I tromped out into the woods to do my business.

It wasn't until I was almost done that Nadia's voice cut through the blackness.

She asked me if I had a lighter.

Since I hadn't heard her approach, the sound of her voice made me jump.

It would have scared the piss out of me had I not just gone to the bathroom.

I mumbled something about having a lighter back around the camp.

She told me that she had dropped hers and asked me to help her look for it.

but I was too out of it to be any good to anyone, so I told her that we'd look for it later.

I vaguely remember her mumbling a protest as I stumbled back to my sleeping roll.

It wasn't until I woke up the next morning that I realized how stupid I'd been.

Apparently, they had heard yowling in the surrounding woods all last night.

They thought that the second could have possibly belonged to the Mexican grey wolf, but no one was sure.

Ian knew that they inhabited the area but were very uncommon.

I paled at the thought thought of being mauled by a wolf while out peeing in the middle of the woods.

I decided next time I would wake up Ian before going out into the woods to answer the call of nature.

Packed up a while later after a light breakfast and continued on our hike.

The second day was a little better.

The overbearing sun I suffered under previously was hidden behind heavy clouds across a number of rivers as we followed the 157 to 279 junction.

We went along Little Bear Canyon as we headed towards the TJ Corral, which was towards the end of the hiking loop.

As the path hadn't been cleared yet, we frequently had to dodge patches of poison ivy and stinging nettles that had grown emboldened by the season's flooding.

I fared much better on this hike, and despite nursing a slight hangover, I felt like I was doing a much better job of getting around with my pack and clunky boots my brother had loaned me.

We made camp around midday and purified some water from a nearby river.

boiling and adding iodine tablets to them, as the last section of our hike didn't really have many opportunities for potable water.

I think that maybe our encounter last night with the yipping and yowling wolves had added a bit of seriousness to the hike that there wasn't as much joking around or conversations this night.

We talked a little bit but mainly just had something small to eat while we stared into the campfire.

Ian and Jessica were the first to call it for the night.

I stayed up with the others for a bit but we were mainly silent.

The other two slowly went off after a bit and I decided to enjoy the warmth a bit longer before getting ready to go to bed for the night.

Just as I had finished dousing the fire, I remembered Jerry coming up to me and asking for the map.

He told me he wanted to plan out the rest of our trip and that there was a spring nearby that we should really visit that wasn't too far out of the way.

I grabbed the map from Ian's pack and gave it to him before turning in.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of Ian rustling around his bag.

He sounded angrier the longer he searched.

He knocked mess kits into each other as he peered deep into the pack for something he was missing.

Frustrated that he wasn't finding the item he was looking for, he turned the bag upside down and dumped out everything.

He was practically ready to tear out his own hair, and it seemed like he had spent the entire morning looking for that one thing.

Wanting to know what was up, I walked up to him and we started talking.

He asked, Hey man, you see the map anywhere?

I can't seem to find it.

Where's Jerry?

I gave him the map last night, so he could map out a little detour on the trip so we could visit a spring.

Why don't you ask him?

He probably knows.

It was then that Ian said something that changed everything.

Jerry?

Who are you talking about?

Do you mean Oliver?

Don't tell me you thought his name was...

No, I'm talking about Jerry.

Tall guy, kind of lanky.

You're joking, right?

He looked confused for a few seconds and made a questioning sound like a really old computer trying to process something moments before it catches on fire.

The pieces clicked into place and Ian shouted, Who the hell is Jerry?

Getting the attention of everyone in the area.

He, what?

Some guy asked you for a map in the middle of the night and you just gave it to him?

You handed our stuff to some random stranger you met in the woods?

I tried to explain myself and tell him that I knew Jerry and that he did too since I remember hiking with him the day before, but I couldn't find the words to convey that point.

It was here that Jessica stepped in and asked what was going on.

He invented vitriol.

How fucking stupid are you, Evan?

Some random guy named Jerry comes up to you in the middle of the night asking for our shit and you just give it to him?

Jesus Christ.

We need that map to get around smoothly since the trails out here haven't been cleared.

Ian shouted for about 15 minutes while everyone became aware of our situation.

Jessica managed to calm him down enough so we could figure out our next move.

While we weren't completely screwed, as Ian had memorized a large portion of the trail markers, it was going to be a lot harder to navigate the necessary junctions to bring us back around to our car.

Packed up all our stuff, making sure that the guy hadn't taken anything else, and we left.

The entire hike, I could feel Ian's eyes drilling into me.

The last time I had seen him this furious was just before before he got into a fight with Aaron Fredlinger and beat him to a pulp.

He got suspended for a week and Aaron got a black eye, busted lip, and never said anything about our mother again.

Each time we came across a break in the path, we spent a few minutes while Ian tried to remember where to go.

The fact that the trails had been closed and the paths were overgrown only served to make everything more difficult.

I think that's how we made a wrong turn and began wandering on the faint trail.

I don't actually know if that's where it went wrong since we didn't have the map at the time, but that's my best guess.

Further away from home, safety.

Towards midday, tensions had reached a critical point.

Ian frequently mumbled things that would make a sailor blush while Jessica tried to hide the fact that she was close to crying.

Oliver attempted to lighten the situation by telling everyone that we just had to follow the compass and we would get home safe and sound.

Oliver's girlfriend didn't say much.

She just stared quietly at her feet as she walked.

I think she had the right idea since Lucas was constantly misplacing his footing and slipping.

He looked like he had downed a fifth of vodka and was now trying to walk home on a tightrope while being randomly shocked with a cattle prod.

The realization twisted something deep down inside made me want to throw up.

I stopped walking and began talking to Lucas.

What's going on with you, man?

Ian, still pissed at me, took this opportunity to vent a bit.

Huh?

What are you talking about now?

Lucas is bumbling and twitching all over the place.

Don't be a dick, man.

You know he has an

late-stage multiple sclerosis.

We told you before the hike started about uh we told you before we told you before the hike start oh my god we told you about whatever we got it

we told you before the hike started about his condition there it is just

a fucking

whatever's so funny like

they'll get it i just fucking put me down god damn dude they've heard it enough times they'll know what it is worthless dog that's all i am goddamn dude so no you're not i love you we love you it's okay um

the uh it seems like

the uh jerry last night for some reason evan thought that he was a part of the group maybe it tricked him into that maybe that's what means why i couldn't find the words at the time like when the quote-unquote jerry walked up to him it gave this it like filled in his memories to be like oh yeah jerry we know that guy long enough for him to get the map but when he's gone it's like um

who was that i can't figure out why i gave that guy the map you know yeah well i mean that would be horrifying first off yeah the guy that is like what are you talking about that that would that'd be insane i also like that the story which not to i'm getting kind of sucked in but the uh i do like that the story's kind of taking this like blair witch stuck in the woods you know don't know really how to get your way out kind of vibe i i i always love that trapped in trapped in uh a maze that's a forest is just super fun also just so scary so that it's so easy to do you know Yeah.

This is also very

Goatman, you know?

You know, the kids in the woods, like some strange person.

Like, you know who that guy is, right?

You recognize him, right?

Well, I do like the difference, at least with Goatman, it's like, it's kind of cabin in the woodsy, you know?

Like, it kind of reminded me of like an Evil Dead kind of vibe of stuck in the woods, imposing force trying to break its way in.

But, you know, a story like this, out in the open, you've already interacted with something you don't know, that kind of vibe.

Yeah, which

is the supernatural element a lot.

Yeah.

I do like the similarities of how the goat man did that too.

Of like, that was the kind of big reveal in the goat man where it's like, you know, oh, I, there was eight people here before, but now there's only seven.

Like that kind of, yeah, you know, those little fun twists are fun.

So I'm curious to see how it and how it kind of develops here.

As soon as he said it, the events came rushing back to me clear as day.

I recall Dean pulling me to the side and telling me about his friend's diagnosis and how this was likely going to be his last opportunity to undertake a long hike like this so we had to help him and move slowly.

I remembered watching him scramble up the trail and thinking about our own mom and her illness.

It brought back bittersweet memories of birthday wishes given to us from hospital beds, infusions with disease, modifying therapeutics.

Alumtuz.

You know what?

Someone's smarter than me can read that?

They got it.

Put it up.

Flash up on screen.

Alumtuzu Mib Lemtrada.

And hearing her sob quietly to herself in the middle of the night when she thought we were asleep.

Guilt flooded over me, and I stepped forward to apologize to Lucas when it happened.

Lucas growled at me the instant I took a step forward, and he dropped to a hunched position on his hands and feet.

It almost looked like his skin was bristling at a possible threat, and I could see his broken and decaying teeth as he hissed at all of us before taking off at a hopping stride into the woods.

He moved like one of those CGI monstrosities from the last Planet of the Eight movie.

His shaky and unstable balance was replaced by a more natural and animalistic gait as he loped into the distance and disappeared amongst the trees.

The last thing I saw was what I assumed were its clothes sloughing off of its body, revealing that they weren't actually clothes, but grey folds of skin.

Oliver was the first to talk.

What the f?

As soon as Oliver said those words, it was like a switch had flipped that set everyone to panic mode.

We began to run along the trail as if it would do us any good.

The only thought in my head was to put as much distance as possible between me and that thing.

I think it took a good 15 minutes for us to run out of energy with our heavy packs and the disorienting nature of the woods.

As we tried to catch our breaths, I surveyed the area around us and came to a terrible realization.

In our panic, we had run off the path and were now even deeper in the woods.

Yeah, we tried to make sense of what we saw.

I just remember Ian mumbling the same phrase over and over.

What the hell was that?

What the hell was that?

What the

The short answer is that it was Lucas.

The long of it is this.

There was no Lucas.

Not really.

Sorry for interrupting the story in the middle like this, but I think now is the best time to try and explain everything.

I know how confusing this all seems with Jerry and Lucas.

The truth is, I did that because I don't think I could have appropriately explained it to you without you first experiencing it from my eyes.

I don't know what to call those things, but they do something to your mind.

They insinuate themselves into your memories.

They wrap themselves up in a wall of your recollections, and even though you know something is wrong, you can't quite put your finger on it.

Your group of four friends could grow to five and you wouldn't be any the wiser.

Part of you will stupidly admonish you forever wondering how many there were.

You look at it and you recognize the face.

You remember events.

You can recall getting drunk at a bar together.

You have memories of them crying on your shoulder after a rough breakup.

You can recollect everything that happened between you, but none of it's true.

I don't know how it does it.

Crawls into your head somehow and makes you see things in a way that benefits them.

It can mold memories, but it can't mimic human movement.

It walks on four claws, not two feet.

It growls, hisses, and snarls.

It doesn't talk.

It infiltrates, observes, and waits.

It was hunting us and trying to drive us deeper into the woods.

It was succeeding.

Man, that's so cool.

That is such a terrifying.

Like, I've seen the mimic concept, you know, like Skinwalker or whatever.

Sure.

Done so many times.

But the idea that it implants itself into your memories is horrifying.

Yeah.

It makes you think of the SCP, the cousin Johnny one, where it's like, it makes you just think it's like he's a member of your family.

But also, I like how it's doing something super weird.

And it's like

somehow putting itself into your memories to where it's like, you know, I told you this and that, you know, and it makes you think that you have seen him before.

But I love also the animalistic nature of like driving you off and like kind of like making it easier to pick you off one by one by driving you into the woods.

Like, I just like

that mix of like supernatural with like actual like predatory animal behavior is kind of sick.

Yeah, no, it's awesome.

I like um like in the beginning, it's like, oh, Jerry, we know Jerry.

Here's the map, Jerry.

And then now being like, um,

um,

this,

like the person's been there walking all day, and it's like, oh, you remember he had multiple sclerosis.

This was his last hike, like all these fake memories, but it's like countered by him walking, like the way a dog when it's up on two legs tries to walk where it's leaning side to side, it doesn't know what it's doing.

That's such a freaky image.

That's awesome.

We never really reached much of a conclusion about what that thing was, but we did reach a consensus that we had to get out of here as soon as possible.

I watched Ian as he looked around the forest and came to the same realization that I did.

We were lost.

He didn't tell the others.

I think he realized that panicking would only get us in more trouble.

Instead, he told us to follow him.

With the shock of our encounter setting in, we could do nothing but follow his lead and hope it all worked out.

As we walked, we could hear the sounds of distant animals yelling and calling out to each other.

The terror of our situation deepened as the others whispered that those were the same noises they had heard the first night out in the woods.

Whatever this thing was, it was following us and calling out to other things in the area.

At the time, I couldn't stop stop thinking about one of them barreling out of the underbrush and sinking its black and rotting teeth into my neck before the rest of the group could react.

I remember brushing the thought off and mentally reassuring myself that there were six of us here, and we had only actually encountered one of those creatures.

If violence was needed, we outnumbered them.

Wait, didn't he say there were five?

Yeah, he's the fifth wheel.

Yeah.

I mentally reassured myself, don't worry, there's just six of us.

Rottro.

Yep.

As the day pressed on and we seemingly wandered south in an attempt to pick up another trail that would lead us back to the parking lot, I couldn't help but shake a nagging feeling in the back of my mind.

It felt like I had forgotten some important fact that I should have never forgotten about.

It wasn't until Oliver mentioned his wish of being back in the car that Jessica stopped dead in her tracks.

We all turned towards her, but knew what was coming the second she asked.

We only took one car down, right?

Ian snapped, more fearful than frustrated.

Of course we did.

Remember how cramped everyone was in that tiny ass Prius with all our camping gear smashed in the trunk and on our laps?

What about it?

Yesico went white, as if this were the first time that Ian had ever raised his voice to her.

She paused for a moment before asking.

How many of us are here right now and how many does your car seat?

Anne's car sat four people comfortably, five uncomfortably.

And there were six of us out in the woods at that moment.

Everything happened at once.

Ian swore.

Oliver's girlfriend girlfriend gave a half shriek and a half gasp, while I looked wide-eyed from person to person, trying to figure out which one of us didn't belong there.

Sarah was the only one who managed to say something, and that was...

She hadn't finished her words before her jaw popped open.

I don't mean that it dropped open like she was astonished at something.

It popped open as it dislocated from her face.

The space between her lips was a massive, sickly pink void of inflamed gums that was at least half a foot wide.

She looked at us with dead and dull eyes as she slowly raised a twitching hand up to her jaw and tried to lock it back into a more human-esque appearance.

She popped it back into place with a hollow-sounding squelch of meat and bones shifting as if nothing was wrong about what had just happened before she tried to speak again.

Ian was the first to react.

He stepped towards the failed facsimile of human and swung his walking stick at her face while bellowing, Get out of here!

She hopped back from the attack in a sloppy motion, landed on all fours.

Her body shuddered as if an electrical jolt had passed through her as she slowly backed away from all of us while facing Jessica the entire time.

She hissed at us one last time before retreating deeper into the woods with a convulsing lope.

It took a moment for all of us to regain our composure before we continued walking, while trying to look in every direction at once.

I remember all of her rambling as we walked.

He kept asking, although no one was responding to him.

Did you see how it moved?

You ever see one of those documentaries about mad cow disease?

That thing was twitching and moving like one of those infected cows.

What the hell was that thing?

Was it a person?

What kind of person could do that to their body?

I tried to talk to it.

He rambled for hours before we had to stop.

We had to tell him to shut up because we were worried about that thing hearing us, though that really wasn't the case.

Wham stopped talking because it only served to scare us further.

Besides stopping for the night, none of us actually slept.

Sat around a campfire and listened to the sound of high-pitched whining and yelping coming from all around us.

It seemed like anytime I actually got close to falling asleep, the call would start up and jolt me awake.

We spoke in hushed whispers and tried to figure out what they wanted with us, even though none of us really wanted the answer to that question.

The hours dragged on almost endlessly before dawn broke and we continued our hike.

We spent Sunday hiking around and trying to find a familiar sight.

Without any real sense of where we were and where we were going, our only hope was to stumble across another hiker or find an area with a high enough vantage point that we could survey the entire area.

Fortunately, any elevations we climbed didn't afford a good view of the area, and it was extremely unlikely we could find another hiker due to the fact that the trail had been closed and wasn't cleared.

Even if we did, what were the chances that we would trust them and could be certain that it wasn't one of those things?

Midday through the day, Ian whispered to me, Count the people wearing backpacks.

One of them is with us again.

I casually looked over my shoulder and noticed that one of our group was walking without any gear.

They trailed behind us, but were still in our vicinity.

They moved slowly, but didn't show any of the jerky movements of the previous two.

The thought that it was learning to mimic our movements unsettled me.

Without really thinking, I shucked off my backpack and approached the imposter.

Before they knew what was happening, I shoved them as hard as I could.

The instant my hands pressed into their shirt, I felt something slick and warm give way like the outer layer falling off of a rotten mango.

Their shirt slid off their body into my hands and I quickly realized it was their skin.

The thing was actually naked but gave the appearance of clothes by altering the color of its almost translucent skin.

I dropped the swath of tissue that had sloughed off it and impacted the ground with a wet slap.

The creature toppled backwards and began yelping.

I can only describe the sound like this.

Imagine getting out of your bed in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

As you're feeling your way through the darkness to get out of your room, you step on your dog's tail.

Imagine the startled yelp of pain and the shock that comes along with it now focus on that emotion you felt when you heard that noise that sudden surprise and guilt in reality the sound it made was nothing like a hurt dog it just reminded me so much of a wounded pet that i can't differentiate the sounds here's the worst part i shouldn't have felt bad those things were stalking and tormenting us They were likely hunting us, and I felt bad for harming it.

I shouldn't have felt bad about it, but it wanted me to and so I did.

That's freaky.

Yeah.

That is a weird that's like for a creature being able to put that mind fuck on you is crazy.

Almost like it instantly gives you like a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing.

Well,

why'd they do that?

You know, that kind of like weird.

It's like you're already

kind of loving, almost loving to it, like you care about it.

It's so fucked.

You're being attacked by a monster in the woods, but you feel bad because the monster wants you to feel bad for it.

Exactly.

That's that's freaky.

The thing rised on the ground ground on its back for a few seconds, making a pitable noise.

It reached back with its arms and pushed itself upright on its hands and on the balls of its feet.

Its joints popped wetly and its muscles and bones adjusted to fit this new position.

It crab-crawled away while shrieking the entire time as Ian pursued it with his walking stick, hoping to catch up to it and cave its head in.

It wasn't until the thing and Ian disappeared from sight that I realized that the shrieking wasn't coming from the monster, but from Jessica as well.

It was trying to mimic her response.

With Ian gone and Jessica's screams possibly drawing more of those things to us, I decided that I had to do something.

I stepped forward and wrapped her up in my arms.

She was shaking like a leaf in the wind.

I stroked her hair and whispered that it was over.

Well, this is a little too intimate.

And whispered that it was over.

She managed to choke out something about its face.

All I could make out was that something was terribly wrong with its face.

She calmed down as I told her that everything was going to be alright.

I didn't believe that myself, but it was the only thing I could think of that might bring her comfort.

Ian returned fuming that the monster escaped and I awkwardly broke off the hug.

Ian didn't say anything, just started walking after, motioning us wordlessly to follow.

We continued following him, hoping that he would find the way, but knowing that he probably wouldn't.

Six hours later, we settled down for the night.

It felt like we had been going in circles all day and made absolutely no progress.

For all we knew, the thing could have been tinkering around with our memories and convincing us that familiar landmarks were new and luring us deeper into the woods.

I didn't tell the others, but I think I knew what those things wanted with us.

They wanted to lead us deeper into the woods.

They were trying to force us to exhaustion, and when we were too weak to defend ourselves, they would descend upon us and eat us.

Oliver was right about that.

If that thing is similar to us in any way, then those twitching spasms were likely some sort of pryon disorder that came from eating humans.

After eating some jerky since we decided against having to fire and drawing more of them to us, we reached the conclusion that we would have to sleep in shifts.

I volunteered for the first watch because my insight into the monster's behavior had robbed me of any desire to sleep.

The others went off without so much as another word.

You always put two people on fire watch, by the way.

In a situation like this, you never have it be one guy.

That's a horrible idea.

They were exhausted, and it wasn't until an hour into my watch that I realized that I was too.

Even given the monster's grotesque appearance, everyone needs to sleep.

Yessica joined me about two hours into my watch.

She admitted that she couldn't sleep after our encounter with the creature.

I nodded in agreement.

Both of us had seen something terrible, but the others hadn't.

We talked for a good 30 minutes about what we thought was going on and how everyone was handling it.

She was worried about Ian.

She confessed that he was acting erratic and that he was scaring her.

I wrapped my arm around her for a moment and told her that we were all scared.

She looked in my eyes and told me she was glad I was here and I felt something twist deep down inside me that I had buried a long time ago when I first met her.

The longer she stayed with me on watch, the more personal our conversation became.

She confessed that she and Ian had been fighting a lot recently and that she was wondering if they were going to work it all out.

At the start of their relationship, they were great together.

You made her feel wonderful and comfortable, but now there was something that didn't feel right.

Like there was something missing.

I listened to her talk about everything that was going on in her life and I knew I had to do something.

I knew that if I didn't do it now, I would regret it.

I had to tell her about the door.

She listened quietly as I told her everything.

It was the event that precipitated my breakdown at work and my social anxiety disorder diagnosis at the therapist's office.

Everything started off simply enough one Friday at work.

I was in the lunchroom eating my sandwich and reading a book as per my usual while co-workers talked about their plans for the weekend.

One of them was having a housewarming party and they were inviting everyone at work.

I figured that the invitation was only extended to the people he was talking to until he asked asked me if I'd be able to make it on Saturday.

As it was the first time I'd been invited to hang out after work, I chose to go, planning what were interesting topics to bring up in case there was a lull in conversation, and the bottle of wine I was planning to give as a housewarming gift.

After psyching myself up, I left to go to the party with the bottle in hand and my spirits high.

I convinced myself that I was going to be the life of the party and that maybe if I played my cars right, I could finally find a friend at work that would make the time fly by instead of dragging on.

It wasn't until I reached the house that the false bravado began to crumble apart.

I stopped in front of the neighbor's house as everywhere else already had a car parked there.

It was then that I felt my heart beating like I had just run a mile.

I began heading up the driveway with the wine bottle slick in my hands from my palms sweating.

It wasn't until I reached the front door that I realized that something was terribly wrong.

I was breathing faster.

All that excitement that had been building up since Friday afternoon was now replaced with something else.

Apprehension.

All those topics I had thought up seemed boring, and all the reassurances I had given myself seemed hollow.

I didn't feel prepared for this at all.

At this point, a small part of me whispered something that was stuck with me to this very day.

The voice intimated that they never really wanted me to come out.

They had only given that invitation as a courtesy and didn't actually expect me to come to their house.

It said that if I knocked on the door, that I would be making a fool out of myself.

It told me that I wasn't even comfortable in my own skin, so how could I even dare to imagine that they would enjoy my company?

They wanted to celebrate with their friends.

They didn't want to listen to me fumble or something to talk about.

All those fears flashed in front of me, taunting me, demanding that I knock on the door and make myself look like an idiot.

The part of me told me that I was better off alone and I listened.

I turned around without even knocking on the door and I left.

No one had come in and the music was playing loudly, so I doubt that they would have heard me anyways.

I shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Maybe I saw them watching me from the window.

Maybe I didn't.

Maybe they were laughing at me as I drove away, flustered and embarrassed.

Maybe they went back to the party and joked about the social recluse who had seemingly freaked out and run away from their house while I went home and cried in the shower.

Maybe.

Jessica listened as I told her the story.

She smiled sadly as I started to cry into her shoulder.

All those feelings I'd experienced outside of my co-worker's house came rushing back.

All the fear, foolishness, and fatalistic failure smashed into me like waves on the shore.

She whispered soothing words into my ear and waited for me to collect myself.

Once I did, she pulled away and told me that it wasn't my fault.

It was there under the moonlight with her face inches away from mine that I did the worst thing I have ever done in my life.

I kissed her.

It was slow, hesitant, perfect.

I looked into her eyes and I saw her beautiful face.

She pulled me towards her as she leaned back.

Lost in the moment, I held her against me while telling her all the things I should have said when I first met her and realized that I loved her.

I held her like that for a few moments.

Afraid that if I let her go, I would lose this perfect moment.

She was warm.

She smelled like wildflowers.

She smelled like happiness.

For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, I felt comfortable and content.

I think he might be kissing a creature.

Might be kissing a creature.

At the very least, he's kissing his brother's girlfriend, which is a no-go, right?

Well, of course but i think could also be creature smells like wildflowers made me think that you know the foresty kind of vibe but then also too i think tongue punching an old an old creature you know they're getting good i don't know also he's a turtle man so i think he's like it was perfect and it's like the she's like

melting on the ground and stuff you're beautiful i think i love you Her face is upside down, and he's like, wow.

Yeah, exactly.

She's like, you're so so beautiful.

He's like, oh, my God, thank you so much.

I'm thinking I love you.

Did you do something with your hair?

Yeah, your hair looks great.

Her fair, like, eyeballs, like, popping out of her face, and her teeth are falling out.

Wow.

Just like my first time.

I don't know when I drifted off, but I do remember waking up in the love-drunk excitement of the previous night.

I didn't think once about Ian or the consequences of my decision.

I only thought about Jessica and the feelings that I had tried to keep buried for so long.

What I did last night was a beautiful mistake.

I convinced her her to cheat on him with me.

I needed to tell him before the truth came out.

I needed him to understand how I felt.

I needed to apologize.

I got up from the ground and stretched.

Kessiko was gone.

I said, yeah, you're so right.

I assumed she had gone back to her sleeping role in the middle of the night.

I walked over to Ian, who was just waking up.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and asked me if I stayed up all night.

The words bled out of me, and once they started, I couldn't stop.

I don't know what happened, man.

We were were just talking one moment, and then the next.

Jesus, I didn't mean for it to happen.

You know, I love you, man.

I wouldn't do anything to hurt you.

It just

happened, and now I can't take it back.

Jessica's cry of surprise cut me off before I could go any further.

Both me and Ian turned to the sound of her distress, and we knew instantly what had happened.

The backpacks with our compass, food, and water had been stolen.

I knew, dude, it knew,

yeah, blinded.

I was just saying, blinded by some monster pussies, crazy.

And then the others, like, solo.

It feels so real.

He's like rubbing her boob.

And it just

cracks like an egg.

It's like falling off.

Exactly.

Whoa.

Naturals.

This is just like

the movies I watch.

This is just like the turtle girls that mom told me about.

It knew.

Don't you see it, damn it?

It knew that we could identify it without a backpack, and it couldn't shape its skin to take the appearance of one, so it stole them away from us.

Now the next time it wormed its way into our group, we wouldn't be any the wiser.

Jessica and I never talked that night.

Jessica had never left my brother's side that night.

They had zipped their sleeping rolls together.

She didn't open up to me about her worries, and I never actually kissed her.

I poured my heart out to a thing wearing Jessica's skin while it was in my arms as it implanted memories of conversations never shared into my mind.

I confessed my truest feelings to an air sats entity masquerading as a person.

I felt sick.

Yeah,

do you think the monster was like kind of like smooth talking a bit?

Oh, for sure.

100%.

It's trying to buy time, so it's going to say whatever it wants to hear.

Is that a banana?

Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

I think turtles are cool, actually.

Oh, Jessica.

I think I might just be happy to see you.

Oh, that's awesome.

That's so sick that you got a big old, you have a big old dong.

And he's like, hmm, my turtley senses are dingly.

I don't think it's weird that you're a turtle at all.

As a matter of fact, I think it's cool.

I think it's cool that you paint your boner green.

Have I told the turtle story on this podcast before?

I don't know, dude.

I don't know.

You're following this up after I just said you painted your boner green.

Well, that's kind of relevant.

That's kind of relevant.

How the fuck isn't that relevant?

Okay,

so my wife's a vet, right?

Wow.

So

a vet that she worked with in a clinic for a while was working at a clinic in downtown New Orleans.

Right.

And she was sitting at the front desk, you know, just whatever, slow day.

And as she's sitting there,

there is a giant window on the front of the storefront.

And at the right side is the door to come in.

And then from around the left side of the building, she sees,

she sees a homeless man.

who is carrying a visibly dead turtle.

Like, like it's like rotted, like the bones and stuff like that.

And he's very slow, but he's holding it with both hands.

And he's walking like along the window.

So that means there's a really long time before he gets to the door.

So the whole time, the woman's sitting there, like, please don't come in.

Please don't come in.

And sure enough,

when he gets to the right side, he opens the door and comes in.

And she's like, hi, can we help you?

And he goes, he's like, I found this turtle.

And then she's like, okay.

And he's like, it's sick.

And she looks at it.

And it's like, there's a little bit of bone in there, but it's just like a turtle shell.

Yeah.

And she was like, I don't think we can, I don't think we can do anything for it.

And the whole time, by the way, she assumes he's wearing shorts because he's wearing like

he has like a long trench coat down to his knees.

Isaiah, please don't tell me that this, this

is fucking the turtle.

And then she's like, I don't, I don't think we can do anything for that.

And then he goes, okay, and he turns around and he drops it.

So he bends down to pick it up.

And when he bends down, he is completely naked from the waist down.

So when he bends over, it's everything on display.

And he picks up the turtle and he walks out.

So

me being terrible.

Sorry if you saw my naked balls.

I just,

they're in the wash.

Well, okay, me being terrible, right?

Because this is clearly a mentally ill man who, you know, doesn't, it was trying, probably in his mind trying to help a turtle.

But I took this story when it was first told to me as he was just trying to find a way to expose himself to like the women in the vet clinic.

So

I just started coming up with bits in my head where like, okay, well, the next time I tell this story, it's about

like he's painted green.

Oh, I see.

Just add alert to it, right?

Yeah.

the next time I tell it, he's not walking to the door.

He's crawling on all fours.

Yeah, the turtle's on his back.

Yeah, the turtle's on his back.

It eventually got to the point where I told this story to someone.

And he was completely naked with a cardboard box around him painted like a turtle.

And he just walks in and he's like, I'm very sick.

Like, rolls over on his back.

Just completely naked.

Yeah.

God.

Yeah, that's it.

That's the whole thing.

Yeah.

Well,

I didn't know that me saying that would trigger such a visceral.

Also, weird.

It's weird that you manipulate the story in such a way.

I hope the people that you've told all these different versions of the story to are like.

Are like, wait, what?

That was a lie?

You know what I mean?

Like, they're like, wait,

what do you mean?

He said it.

He said it so sincerely.

Hopefully you said it so sincerely that it doesn't read like a joke either.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm really afraid.

I think everyone I told it to was a close friend who, like, I told the actual truth later, but maybe I didn't.

Maybe someone out there has the wrong version of the turtle story.

It's just all

intimate members of your family.

You told one to your dad, your mom, and all kinds of stuff.

The original one's completely true.

About him being naked, bending over, stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah.

But me making him into a turtle where the bit is he is the sick turtle so that women at vet clinics touch him.

That was me adding that to it.

So yes.

That's sick.

You're disgusting, man.

I know, I know.

I'm terrible.

Anyway, the story.

The others woke up quickly after hearing Jessica screaming.

We quickly searched around the area, hoping to find some scrap of food or some indication of where our stuff had been taken to.

We found nothing.

It was long gone.

We had no food, no water, and no hope.

We had no way of telling when one of those things was hijacking our heads and pretending to be part of our group so it could distract us.

With our compass gone, we had no means of following a set direction and hoping to pick the trail back up.

In short, we were screwed with a capital S.

Oliver demanded to know what I was doing last night.

He wanted to know how I could be so careless as to fall asleep when I should have been watching over them in our gear.

I lied and told him that someone had come around in the middle of the night to relieve me for my shift.

I didn't mention that it was one of those things impersonating Jessica.

I couldn't bear to look either my brother or his girlfriend in the eyes at that point.

Oliver started to yell but stopped when he saw I was on the verge of tears.

I don't know if it was mercy or disgust that caused him to stop.

At this point, it doesn't matter.

Gathered up the only thing that they had taken in the night, our sleeping rolls, and continued walking.

The hike without water or the prospect of food was unbearable.

We were already exhausted, and the realization that we were soon going to be starving and dehydration only served to sap more of our energy.

Within a few hours of our march, my mouth felt gummy and dry.

While we were still under the canopy of leaves, the temperature was still in the high 80s and low 90s.

It didn't take long for dehydration to set in.

I kept licking my lips in an attempt to keep them moist, but I could feel them beginning to crack as my saliva began to dry up.

As we walked, Oliver picked up his pace and caught up with me.

I looked over at him and knew, without him saying anything, that another one of those things had joined our group.

He whispered, Don't look directly at it.

Just keep it in the corner of your eyes.

I think Zach messes with your mind.

You could explain why you remember that guy that night.

But the rest of us can't.

You saw him, but the rest of us didn't.

Don't get close.

Just keep it in the corner of your eyes.

It's been trailing us for about half an hour now.

I think it just wants to watch and follow us.

I pretended to be cracking my neck and looked at the tackalong in my peripheral vision.

It trailed behind us by about a dozen feet.

In its resting state, its facial features appeared staticky.

I could make out eyes and a nose, but it was constantly shifting and rippling like bubbling plastic.

At this point we were too tired to even bother with chasing it off.

We just kept walking and hoped that it wouldn't try to join the group.

It seemed content to keep its distance and keep us in its line of sight.

It followed us for about two miles before it broke off towards the trees with a shambling, awkward gait.

We were too tired to even try and set up a shift system.

We just huddled together in an attempt to convince ourselves that we were safer when we were closer together.

But every time one of us got comfortable enough to drift off, those things would start making noise.

The noises started off as a high-pitched yips whose sounds seemed to travel for miles.

As the night drew on, they grew more aggressive.

I remember one time as I was drifting off hearing the grating rasp of my name.

The things weren't just following us, they were learning.

They were perfecting their mimicry.

The thought disturbed me more than the idea of them out there watching us in the darkness.

How long would it take them to become more human than human?

What would they do once they were capable of walking amongst people again?

I drifted off to sleep with that thought beating around in my head like a man trapped in a wall.

We got up Wednesday morning and left without a word.

A small part of my brain nagged at me and told me that it should actually be Tuesday morning, but I knew it was Wednesday.

Why didn't I have any memories of the day before?

At this point there was nothing left to say.

I don't think anyone wanted to theorize on the missing day from all our recollection.

Some of us had been awake all night without any food or water.

The constant stress had completely worn us down.

It was just that, nothing else.

We continued hiking in the same direction we had been going in with the false hope that we would come across someone.

In the end, our hike looked more like a death march.

My feet were covered in blisters that had ruptured and plastered the soles of my feet to my socks.

Every step felt like I was tearing open the sores a bit more.

In an attempt to take my mind off the discomfort, I focused on my brother who was walking in front of me.

He wasn't as much walking as he was limping forward.

He stopped using his walking stick and was dragging it behind him like it was a broken limb.

I watched as he stepped over a rock and the walking stick slipped out of his hands.

He kept dragging himself forward as if nothing had happened.

He didn't even register at falling out of his hands.

It was at that point that I knew something was wrong.

I knew that my brother wasn't my brother anymore.

The evidence of the entire missing memories of the day, the fact that we were going deeper into the woods, and his awkward gait was enough to tell me that.

I just knew he wasn't my brother.

Not anymore, my brain told me.

I quietly picked up his stick as I passed it.

Amy went to call out to him to ask if he is alright, but I shushed her.

I was so sure that one of those things had replaced him and was now leading us deeper into the woods.

I realized that I'd only have one chance at this.

The instant it knew what we knew, it would try and run away.

All it would take was one good swing to the back of its head, and we would be able to take one of those things.

The sturdy stick had a bit of weight to it, about five or six pounds, enough to crack open a skull if it was swung hard enough.

I began walking faster while trying to avoid the underbrush that might give away my approach.

Thing wearing my brother's skin continued lipping forward as I drew closer.

I waited until I was within swinging distance before raising the walking stick above my head.

My heart was beating in my chest and my palms were so sweaty that it felt like the stick would slide right out of my hands.

Kept on moving forwards, completely unaware of what I was about to do to it.

I whispered, I'm sorry, just before I swung the walking stick down with all my strength.

And turned to face me as he mumbled groggily.

Sorry for what?

My muscles locked and I stopped mid-swing and the stick stopped just inches away from his face.

He blinked in surprise before muttering,

Evan, what's wrong?

His voice sounded distant and empty, like he was in between a waking and sleep state.

It was then that I knew the extent of his condition.

He was pale and looked like the slightest breeze would blow him over.

He wasn't one of those things.

He was delirious from dehydration, sleep deprivation, and starvation.

The walking stick fell out of my hands and bounced on the ground next to us.

Dragged my tongue across my lips and I felt I was licking sandpaper.

I whimpered.

Jesus, Ian, I thought you were one of those things.

I almost...

Oh, God.

I'm so sorry.

He didn't react to my apology.

He just turned around, continued walking in the direction we were going.

Amy just watched everything unfold numbly before she started following him.

Amy's a new character, right?

100%.

I think Amy's just a made-up name.

Yeah, because there should just be three of them now, right?

No, because they still have the other two.

I thought it was Evan, Oliver, or Evan.

Ian and Sarah.

Or Jessica.

No, Jessica.

Sarah was one of the monsters.

And then there's Oliver and his girl.

Okay.

But I don't know if her name's Amy.

I can't remember who her name is.

Anyway.

Oliver shook his head sadly, but he didn't look any better.

His eyes were glazed and his lips were cracked and red from rubbing at them.

I watched my brother shambling forward and it reminded me of one of those old voodoo movies where someone is put in a trance and forced to walk until they die from exhaustion.

His mouth hung open and he moved like he was being dragged along on puppet strings.

I picked up the walking stick and began to follow them.

I wondered how long he had left in him and what any of us could do if he just fell over and stopped walking.

I wondered how much longer any of us had.

I don't know how long we walked.

Everything melted together in a muddled malaise at the time.

I remember the sun setting and rising, but I can't recall how many times, even though I tried.

I remembered a muddled melange of sleepless nights and wakeless days.

I remember losing my footing and tripping a few times, but I barely felt it.

The third time, I didn't even realize I was laying on the ground until Jessica stepped on me as she was passing by.

There was no apology.

She was too far gone to recognize what she had stepped on.

I dragged myself to my feet and felt lightheaded but continued putting one foot in front of the other.

Fifth time I fell.

I wondered if it would have been better to just lay down and wait to die.

An excited yawp behind me from one of those sinks drove me to my feet.

It wasn't until we bumped into the sign for Little Bear Canyon that I realized how close we were to salvation.

The post for Little Bear Canyon also had a branching sign that pointed in the direction for TJ Corral, which was only a few miles from where we started at the Gillicliffs dwellings if we walked along Route 15.

Ian was heading in the right direction and we were almost home free.

In my excitement, I began calling to the others to let them know that the end was near.

I looked around me and shouted.

Jessica, Ian, Oliver, Heather, Amy, I know where we need to.

The words died on my lips as I counted the names and realized it wasn't over yet.

The others kept moving as if they hadn't heard me talking.

The imposter shuffled alongside us.

For once, it was easy to identify them.

I don't know whether or not they had let down their guard after seeing our conditions, but this one was obvious.

She moved slowly, but her movements didn't convey her exhaustion.

Everyone else was sweating and looked like the walking dead, but she was fine.

I waited for her to get close enough to follow the trail the others were going down before I raised the end's walking stick and growled.

Turn around right fucking now.

I can see you.

She turned around slowly.

I felt my heart skip a beat.

She looked almost exactly like Jessica, except for a brown tinge to her hair.

She could have been her twin.

I knew what it was planning before it even opened its mouth and asked.

What are you doing, Evan?

Don't call me that.

What are you rambling about?

Please move out of the way.

We're almost safe from those things.

I know what you are.

Heather turned wide at the realization.

She began speaking quickly.

I'm not one of those things.

Please, Evan, you have to remember, there were six of us.

Those things want us to think that there was only five, so they can take one of us without the others caring.

Those things don't want us all.

They only want the weakest one.

Please, let's go before they catch.

Shut up!

I raised the walking stick in my hand and brandished it at her.

Think about it, Evan.

Do I move like one of those things?

Do I speak like them?

That should be enough to prove I'm human.

No.

Beans, my brother.

Yessica's his girlfriend.

I'm your girlfriend.

I sat on your lap in the car ride.

Please don't kill me, Evan.

I love you.

Don't you remember?

Evan, I love you.

I love you.

I lowered the stick that was in my hand as memories bombarded me.

I had met her one night when my brother forced me to go to a club with him.

Heather had been sitting at the bar all night drinking after a particularly bad week.

It wasn't until she tried to stand up and fell into my arms that we actually talked.

I remembered lazy Sundays in bed watching cheesy B-sci-fi movies.

I remembered holding her close to me after making love and hearing her whisper sweet nothings into my ear.

I remembered our life together.

I rasped.

Heather, I'm so sorry.

I didn't know.

She cooed.

Evan, it's not your fault.

She went to touch me and I sprang back like I've been bitten by a snake.

The instant I heard those words, I knocked.

The stick caught her unaware in the side of her face.

Okay, there we go.

Yeah,

started swinging.

Man, that's so scary that it just like floods your mind like you don't know anything.

Man, I felt her jaw give way under the sudden force of my attack.

She burbled through broken teeth.

The second strike dented her temple as the temporal bones shattered.

She kept trying to talk, but it was too late.

Too much damage had been done.

That door was shut to me now.

I kept swinging the walking stick down her head until it splintered and snapped.

I looked up from her twitching body and saw my brother watching me in horror.

Heather.

Oh my God.

I spoke through gritted teeth and regarded him with red-rimmed eyes.

Come on.

We have to go.

He went to keep talking, but I walked past him.

I didn't want to explain it to him.

He eventually ran ahead, invigorated with the prospect of finding rescue on the road.

I looked behind me one last time.

Last thing I saw was one of those things dragging away Heather's corpse.

It looked emaciated and half mad with starvation.

At that very moment, I wasn't afraid of the thing.

Just felt pity.

Whether or not it forced that emotion on me, I'll never know.

I turned away and caught up with the others on Route 15.

We were on the road for 15 minutes before we managed to flag down a car and an ambulance was called for us.

The doctor said that our prolonged exposure to the elements, combined with our starvation and dehydration, triggered the auditory and visual hallucinations we experienced.

It's a typical response you'd be given after hearing our half-dead ramblings about creatures warping their flesh and our memories to drive us to the brink of death so they could prey on us when we were at our weakest.

We spent almost a week there while receiving treatments, recounting our horrific experiences, and then subsequent psych evaluations before we were released.

At our discharge, the doctors told us how lucky we'd been.

Most people don't spend almost 10 days lost in the woods and lift a tail-to-tale.

I wanted to talk to the others about it.

I know for a fact that I can only recall about seven of those 10 days.

Why do I have these massive gaps in my memory?

Why do I sometimes remember things that never happened?

could never have happened.

Why do I remember smelling wildflowers in my muddled memories?

I tried to broach the topic with the others.

Ian and Jessica refused to talk with me about it.

They insist that this was all a byproduct of the trauma, malnourishment, and sleep deprivation.

It's not.

I don't really know Oliver or Amy, so that's off the table too.

I just want to forget.

I refuse to forget.

Here's the thing.

I still remember Nadia asking me to help her.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

I still remember Nadia asking me to help her find her lighter.

I recall staying up late and talking with her by the campfire while she smoked like a chimney.

I can recite Jerry's terrible puns that he'd make about almost everything and Lucas' determination at hiking this trail while slowly succumbing to the effects of his multiple sclerosis.

I can recall whispering sweet nothings to Yessica under the glow of the full moon.

I can still envision that moment clear as day, even months later.

I note the conversation we had word for word.

I can remember the feeling of her skin against mine and the the smell of her hair as I pressed myself against her when I reached that one true moment of connectivity.

I remember Heather pleading and begging me not to kill her.

Despite writing this all months later, I can see all of those things clearly.

Sometimes, late at night, I can even remember driving up to Gilla National Park with Heather sitting in my lap, playfully grinding against me and telling me how fun our hike was going to be.

Sometimes I think about that memory more than I should.

Since I can't talk to my brother or Jessica about this, I had to find some other outlet.

I guess I'm writing all this for that one reason.

Catharsis.

In the end, I keep wondering if what I did was right.

Did I make the right choice?

I want you to read this and tell me that I had no other option, that the risk of one of them escaping into the city forced my hand.

I know that's not the case.

Could have walked away or tried to scare her off, but I didn't.

What kind of person can look into someone's eyes, remember all the things they did and the life they had, and do what I did?

Who can have all those memories, still beat someone to death?

It doesn't matter if none of it was real, because in that moment, it was to me.

Who can look at someone and feel such love for them before you kill them?

The answer to that question is simple, now that I ask myself aloud.

I just don't like the answer.

Heaven.

What a nice ending.

It's interesting.

That was fun.

That was fun.

That's the end of Fleshgate, a classic.

That was fun.

It's interesting how similar it was to the Goat Man.

Like, earlier when you were talking about, you know, people making diagrams to differentiate these stories and stuff.

If you read all these at the same time, it would be easy to be like, to mix them.

Because there was even, you know, even in the Goatman, I don't know if they, they were probably all playing on each other, you know, the same way that like...

you know, all the Jeff the Killer stuff, how all those have similar tropes and stuff.

So it's interesting to think that in one part of time, there was like weird,

you know, cheesy serial killer stuff, but then there was also this weird like new age cryptid, the rake kind of skinwalker

trend that was going on as well.

And that's, you know, I wonder, do you think that that kind of, do you think that kind of monster is just like dated to this point?

Or do you think that something like this could be made to an effect this day?

Because I feel like right now the hot thing is like

like uncanny kind of like uncanny valley, you know, kind of thing versus like monster skinwalker thing i wonder if someone could write a new age skinwalker story that would uh

be as effective or be as alluring as it was back in the day i think you could and uh i kind of got the idea for how you would do that while reading this one you would just make it

you would make the interactions non-consequential on first read so you would have like the most effective part of the story to me was jerry walked up to me and i handed him the map then and then later it's like, there was no Jerry.

Like the level of casualness he delivered that Jerry part with made you feel

so comfortable with it that it kind of robs you of what you expected going in.

It makes you second to

reading.

The effectiveness of this is that when you're reading, you're like, oh shit, was there, you know, was there a Heather or, you know, this kind of thing?

Like, it kind of makes you focus on that.

I'd be curious to see one, too, that wasn't based in the woods or something.

Like, if there was any other setting that you could put them in where, you know, does a skinwalker move in to like a house next door?

Is there something like in an apartment complex?

Like something where there's a large group of people, but then also like a large group of people that you probably have never met.

Like I was thinking about that too while we were reading this.

Like if you had a skinwalker that lived in an apartment complex, you probably don't know everybody in your apartment building.

You know what I mean?

So that'd be a fun, effective way of like, can you trust the people that are around you that go in and out of your building every day?

Who knows?

Stuff like that, I think, would be it's also

what I really like about the story.

I do have to say, out of like the goat man stuff like that, um, this is probably this is much better written.

Um, yeah, just like with the actual language to choose and stuff like that, way better, and way better than a lot of the early, like, rake stories and stuff like that.

I think, yeah, um, no, definitely.

I mean, the ending is,

yeah, he's great, he's a great author.

The ending is great because I was questioning myself at the end.

It's like, well, how do we know he went with his brother Ian?

And, like, how do we know?

Because if it's all memories and planted and he's describing it, how do we know that Oliver and Amy were the ones that were going to be able to do that?

It also plants a realistic idea.

It plants, it does a couple things effective for me.

It plants the idea, too, that was all of this just sleep deprivation, like starvation, dehydration, all that kind of stuff.

It does plant that realistic thing where your mind is so fragile that it could have played these tricks on you.

But then then also, I like the idea of

almost like if something doesn't happen, but it's so real to you, is it actually not real?

Or, you know, is it, is it a reality?

Like, there's just something interesting about, like,

I experienced all these things that felt real.

And I don't think you move on from that.

I think that it's like sticks with you.

And to me, that's really, really powerful.

too, of like something could have never happened, but because it, you know, happened in your version of reality, that truth is going to stay with you more than probably the actual reality of what happened.

And to me, that's like the biggest mind function.

That's like the scariest thing.

Awesome memories being formed that never happened.

And you have to like almost come to terms with that like it's fake.

But it's like the, it's the horrible truth that you don't want to accept.

To me, that psychologically is the scariest part of the story for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like the, it's like, I, regardless if it was real or not, that was my girlfriend.

For every sense of, you know, my mind, that was my girlfriend.

And I beat her to death on the side of the trail.

So what does that say about me?

Like, even if that was the technically correct move to do, because that was a mimic, we think.

That was a mimic that he had to stop.

It's like, I still had those memories and I still did that.

So what's that do to me?

It play, it like makes you, it takes like the kind of mimicry.

monster angle and makes you ask questions about yourself like well would i have the capability even if I knew something was fake, to do that to it?

Yeah, could I still if I believe, do I really trust myself enough?

And that's another thing, too, is self-trust.

Do I trust myself enough to make the decision to hit my, what I think is not my brother and kill him?

You know, do I trust myself enough?

Do I like, there's a lot of

There's a lot of just, I don't know,

what's introspective kind of ideas in the story, which really, it's kind of interesting because this is clearly the best written one of these like skinwalker stories and then i would say goat man and then the rake but you could tell that the rake had just such a simple premise that like allowed so many other people to kind of like run with this and have fun and i like that you know you get stuff like the goat man uh which feels more like a cryptid it's definitely a skinwalker but i would say it feels more of like that kind of you know mothman cryptid kind of feeling versus this does feel like an actual if someone's like read the original rake and they're like i want more this would be that story that i would show them this is the thing i'd be like, this is a more realized, fun thing.

And even this was a pretty short story.

Like, you could have gone way more, you know, you could have gone deeper and deeper.

Usually, whenever stories end them this way, where it's like, you know, we did find the road.

And yeah, the doctors say this.

I almost usually read that as the author's just kind of like, and it's done.

Like, I just don't know what to, we're just ending it like this, you know?

But it doesn't feel unsatisfying to me.

It's still, you still get that nice question of him at the end, like Evan basically asking, you know are these things i experienced you know are they real or you know

even even if they're not real i remember it as clear as day and that's like something that i'm gonna have to live with it's such a fun and haunting ending to that uh character's story just the psyche i feel like this character is definitely just broken by the end you know oh yeah yeah he's i mean he was already like the whole thing about the door he already had like social anxiety and now it's like on top of that i can't trust anyone ever for anything and I have distinct memories of beating my girlfriend to death.

So yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the, and I think that it did, it does a good job in terms of full circle moments at the beginning of the story.

I'm awkward.

I really don't even want to go on this deal, but I'm just going to go to get out of my comfort zone.

And by the end, it's just a full thing of I'm awkward.

I don't even know who I am anymore.

I don't know the memories I have.

It's kind of like you establish a nice relationship to find out that it's totally

not real and that these like almost that these you know conceptions that you had about yourself at the beginning are true it's like a vicious cycle of just kind of rinse and repeat you know like i feel like this is going to be that guy's fucking story forever he's going to go out he's not he's going to feel like he makes an establishing connection with someone even if there's not like a fucking weird paranormal aspect to it it'd be like oh i met this person let's just say a girl at this girl but then he gets too in his head about it and then he's just like she'll never be able to like me the way that i like her rinse and repeat you know what i I mean?

It's just kind of like, it's just a vicious cycle.

So yeah, I don't know.

Anytime you get into like those weird things of a character being introspective, it's always just another layer to a character that's just a lot of fun, you know, versus like the goat, the goat man thing.

It's just like, yeah, I don't know.

The shit was kind of spooky up there in the woods.

So hope me and my friends can get it does.

It just doesn't, like, you don't get a feel for the characters in the same way.

Not to discredit Goatman, because I like that one too.

But

yeah,

it was a fun story.

I would recommend Imperial as always.

He's a home run hitter here on the podcast.

Always happy to read his stuff.

Thank you guys for whoever was listening to this on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, all that jazz.

And thank you for our Patreon supporters.

Thank you so much.

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Be sure to sign up.

If you want extra stories, extra content, you know, we've been playing a lot of fun stuff there, so be sure to check it out.

Other than that, I hope you guys have a great rest of your day.

Don't get lost in the woods and, you know, bring plenty of water or just don't go camping.

Don't go hiking.

You know, stay in your apartment, play video games, they won't hurt you.

I swear, you'll, you'll be fine.

Trust me, it'll be okay.

No, uh, thank you guys so much for the support.

Again, check out Travis Imperial Incentive.

Oh, I keep saying incentive, I think it's invective, but I'm gonna keep saying incentive because I'm wrong.

Travis at the link in the description, all this stuff's awesome.

If you enjoyed this, he's got a ton of good stuff.

This is also one of his earlier stories, so uh, the guy, the guy's insane.

So, check him out.

Thank you to everyone on the Patreon.

Thank you for the support.

It means the world, uh, and we hope you guys enjoyed.

Thank you.

Don't you say we will see you in the next one now?

Okay, I already stopped recording.

Uh, hold on, I can do a hunter impression.

We will uh see you in the next one,

and then I go and then I go, I make some quip about the episode: don't beat your girlfriend to death, ha ha.

And then I say bye.

So, bye.