Feed Drop - Burned by a Paper Sun

Speaker 1 Good evening, gentlemen and gentle ladies of hell. We're pleased to announce that season two of The Gentlemen from Hell will premiere on January 7th, 2026.

Speaker 1 And steal yourselves, a cold day in hell is fast approaching. If you're enjoying the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Speaker 1 It makes a huge difference in helping others discover the series. And as always, thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 2 Your support means the world to us.

Speaker 3 I am a coach and an alum of Girls on the Run. Kids today carry a lot of stress from school pressure to social isolation to overuse of devices.

Speaker 3 We create a space where girls can connect, build confidence, and learn skills like managing emotions, setting goals, and speaking up. Each child's experience is different and families need support.

Speaker 3 I'm proud to be part of a comprehensive solution to youth mental health. Get involved today at EmpowerOurfutureCoalition.com.

Speaker 4 This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car, and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun.

Speaker 4 The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone. from home fires to natural disasters, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens.

Speaker 4 But they can't do it without your support. Please donate at redcross.org.

Speaker 5 A lot of supplement brands chase trends, but if you're serious about your health, we know research-backed science is what actually moves the needle.

Speaker 5 Momentous works with the best brains in human science to create every formula, and every batch is made of pure ingredients tested for safety and does not contain fillers.

Speaker 5 So you get the best long-term results possible. Creatine isn't just for muscle gains, it's essential daily fuel for your brain, body, and long-term performance.

Speaker 5 Momentous Creopure Creatine is backed by leading performance experts like Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr.
Stacey Sims.

Speaker 5 Sourced exclusively in Germany, Creopure sets the gold standard for creatine, delivering the purest form creatine monohydrate that's rigorously washed and never cut with fillers.

Speaker 5 With over 2,000 five-star reviews, over 112,000 customers have seen the results firsthand. With Momentous, the fundamentals are done right.

Speaker 5 Right now, Momentous is offering our listeners up to 35% off your first subscription order with promo code ACAST.

Speaker 5 Go to livemomentous.com and use promo code ACAST for up to 35% off your first subscription order. That's livemomentous.com, promo code ACAST.

Speaker 7 Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 7 Whole Foods Market is your holiday headquarters with everything you need, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner, with show-stopping centerpiece means like bone-in spiral cut ham or bone-in rib roast or even king crab.

Speaker 7 And if you want to take a few shortcuts, no one is looking after all, try the heat-neat sides from the prepared foods department.

Speaker 7 Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

Speaker 8 If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference.

Speaker 2 That's why hands down, you count on Granger for auto reordering.

Speaker 8 With on-time restocks, your team will have the cut-resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift. And you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand.

Speaker 8 Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by. Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 10 Ever wonder why so many people regain weight after stopping a GLP-1? Up to 40% of the weight lost can come from lean muscle.

Speaker 10 This weakens the body, slows metabolism, and makes it easier to put the pounds back on, creating a cycle of dependency.

Speaker 10 Prolon's five-day fasting mimicking diet offers a drug-free way to maintain results and support long-term metabolic health.

Speaker 10 In just five days, it activates fasting pathways to burn fat, protect muscle, and rejuvenate cells, all while letting you enjoy real food.

Speaker 10 Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe at prolonlife.com/slash start.

Speaker 10 That's prolonlife.com/slash start.

Speaker 11 Greetings, gentlemen and gentle ladies from hell. Today, we'd like to introduce you to one of our new shows, an anthology horror series called Burned by a Paper Sun.

Speaker 11 After the great darkness of 1999, shadows tore free from their casters, and the night began to walk.

Speaker 11 Humanity, broken, trembling, and half mad, clings to the last scraps of light as cosmic horrors whisper their soul-shattering truths.

Speaker 11 Across the wastelands of a ruined world, relics of nightmare linger.

Speaker 11 A tower of teeth piercing a bruised sky, forests forever trapped in autumn, murmuring in their sleep, and stars that no longer burn but stare, hungry, wicked, and waiting.

Speaker 11 This is the post-noctom world, where nightmares survive sleep. and madness runs like rivers.
Explore this new horror anthology series wherever you listen to podcasts and enter the darkness.

Speaker 9 When William awoke from his year-long amnesia, he found himself standing in a metal room.

Speaker 9 He was dressed in a butcher's apron, its construction a cobjob of stitched-together human leathers.

Speaker 9 The large room, perfectly square and stained with stiff piles of spoiling human remains, appeared nothing less than an abattoir.

Speaker 9 William gasped at the human wreckage, his memory little more than a web of vanishing echoes. Yet he had a faint realization.

Speaker 9 He had done terrible, horrible things.

Speaker 9 A glance into the room's darkened corners revealed strange machines, their sharp edges and mechanical arms stained a dark, stale red.

Speaker 9 His fingers twitched with the residuum of practiced and obscene dexterity that still lingered in their memory. They itched for the legions of knobs and levers scattered across the encrusted devices.

Speaker 9 He stared dumbly at the dripping meat hook in his right hand. Almost as much blood as metal.
The iron tool fell to the floor with a wet thud.

Speaker 9 Ceiling lights reflected off it dully from the recesses in the rusted ceiling. The illumination felt dirty, glowing aerosol of urine.

Speaker 9 With a few strong tugs, the door to the room peeled open, cracking a black, flaking line of congealed gore that coated the separation between door and jam.

Speaker 9 Darkness mixed with flecks of light floated into view, a bile of illumination and shadow flooding the throat of an endless hallway.

Speaker 9 He waded into the shadows with a confidence born of habit. William had walked it many times in the service of unknown, likely wicked impulses.

Speaker 9 A familiar rhythm became the sound of his footfalls. His eyes prepared to seize upon some impending sight.
A light in the dark. A beacon.

Speaker 9 A tiny red light bubbled up from the swirling gloom. At first, it seemed animated, flitting about the shadows, determined to stay out of reach.

Speaker 9 As William's eyes adjusted to the pocket of untried darkness at the end of the hall, he could make out an elevator door. The light was its call button, fixed into the framework of its corroded steel.

Speaker 9 When he made to push the glowing device in the hopes of summoning a way out, a memory broke free from forgetfulness.

Speaker 9 A smile of perpetual starkness, white, curving teeth like an indifferent wall of porcelain, unreflective eyes black as amnesia.

Speaker 9 Something altogether unpleasant lurked behind the door. William took the stairs.

Speaker 9 As he ascended the steel staircase under the glare of conscience and blood-caked lights, he heard the elevator doors open.

Speaker 9 The sound of old machinery straining to perform its prescribed and never-ending chore echoing through the building.

Speaker 9 A terrible voice filled with all manner of elapsed debauchery came at William from the lower darkness.

Speaker 9 Going

Speaker 9 down.

Speaker 9 Williams sprang awake from his usual nightmare, no less composed for the practice. He'd been seeing a therapist for it since he first woke in the metal room over two years ago.

Speaker 9 He was one of the lucky few who could afford counseling after the great darkness of 1999.

Speaker 9 Most of the world had to settle for alcohol and religion, with an ever-growing number opting for suicide.

Speaker 9 Every man, woman, and child on the planet, those who had the misfortune of living through it, had suffered from some form of post-stress syndrome or malady.

Speaker 9 While no one could clearly remember what horrible things they'd done or had been done to them,

Speaker 9 everyone suffered the nocturnal echoes of the worst event to ever befall humanity.

Speaker 9 William, a grain captain of industry, fancied himself a true rationalist, always preferring the science of things.

Speaker 9 As such, he took no stock in the belief that the entire world had been driven crazy by some kind of supernatural event.

Speaker 9 Even if, given the actual facts, the scientific justification seemed wholly inadequate.

Speaker 9 The official line of reasoning concerned a strange, heretofore unknown cycle of the sun, emitting mind-altering electromagnetic waves, which in turn disrupted the sober functioning of the brain.

Speaker 9 In short, it was the star wheeling overhead what drove the world mad. If nothing else, it was a tidy understanding of things.

Speaker 9 Yet it brought no relief for the unfathomable things man had done in the absence of his mind and did nothing to spare him the aftershocks of those deeds when contemplated in sleep.

Speaker 9 And yet science persisted, every bit the punch-drunk fighter unwilling to quit after the towel's been thrown.

Speaker 9 The relics of the Great Darkness were everywhere, generally due to the lack of funds for their proper disposal.

Speaker 9 Not to mention, some structures were the size of small mountains, having been raised by the lunatic ambitions of entire cities, while others persisted as religious symbols, co-opted by the new mystery sects and cults that grew up in the wake of the darkness.

Speaker 9 A collective, desperate scrabbling for meaning in the madness.

Speaker 9 The building housing the office of William's therapist sat situated directly across from a towering bronze bull.

Speaker 9 Hundreds of feet high, hollow, and once chalked full of countless charred remains. A giant version of the ancient Grecian torture device, the brazen bull.

Speaker 9 But scaled to the size of prehistoric idolons.

Speaker 9 It seemed that the maddened had a penchant for architecture upon the grandest, if bloodiest, of stages.

Speaker 9 Every Tuesday at precisely noon, William parked beneath the shadow of the giant brass bull. Coffee in hand, prepared for a lengthy and ridiculously expensive head shrinking.

Speaker 9 The therapy sessions, however, were going nowhere.

Speaker 9 William's nightmares persisted, scaling the tallest wall of pharmaceutical dream suppressant and tunneling beneath the best-laid hypnotic suggestions.

Speaker 9 But most concerning was that in every dream, William came closer and closer to pushing the glowing button, coming face to face with whatever lurked in the hellish elevator.

Speaker 9 And yet, William wasn't entirely in the dark, so to speak, with regards to the identity of his hidden tormentor. For Great Darkness folklore had given the creature a name,

Speaker 9 the Elevator Man.

Speaker 9 Practically all of the stories of the red-clad lift operator originate within the madness-manufactured city of Tartarus, an unearthly metropolis of hanging black skyscrapers suspended from the ceiling of a vast underground cavern, projecting down into a pit of undiscovered depth.

Speaker 9 The pit itself, an infamous set piece from the Great Darkness, is accordingly referred to as the Hellhole.

Speaker 9 Ranging from the spurious to the remotely credible, various witnesses to the elevator man had been spotted collecting particular persons, all of whom had awakened into the blackened innards of the aforementioned hanging city, into his red-hot elevator bound for hell.

Speaker 9 Or so the stories claim.

Speaker 9 What made the specter of the elevator man so looming for William regarded the specific and infamous location where he awoke from the darkness, the hell scraper.

Speaker 9 The largest building thrust into the blackness of the hellhole. The actual bottom of the hell scraper, or the hellhole for that matter, has never been determined.

Speaker 9 William's therapist, a secretly superstitious man and unofficial adherent to supernatural explanations for the Great Darkness, exuded the sincerity and rich skepticism of a man born to the nuclear age and confronted his patient's anxiety with detached aplomb, deftly navigating the elevator man legend with prescriptive recourse to unresolved childhood stress and radiation-induced hysteria.

Speaker 9 And yet, all the while, the hoary doctor of psychology could only pity the man marked by the devil.

Speaker 9 Even if it meant lying in earnest, everyone needed to scratch out a living in the ashes of the darkness, shrinks included.

Speaker 9 Tuesday after Tuesday, the shrink deflected the grim reality of his patient's fate, burying the man's fears beneath piles of clinical jargon, prescription medications, and breathing exercises.

Speaker 9 Nothing worked, of course, but it kept the coins rolling in and his doomed patient reasonably sedate.

Speaker 9 A trick that generally carried the day when nothing else would was the analogizing of recurrent symbols to a patient's day-to-day life, and then tying everything together into a neat little metaphor.

Speaker 9 With William, the trick was a success, transforming most of his sessions into an hour-long meditation on the nature and meaning of his work.

Speaker 9 It was, in the main, determined that the repetitive and bloody business of William's dark awakening had become the symbol for his sense of purposelessness, unconsciously appointing the task of underscoring his disdain for his career.

Speaker 9 Thus, the nightmare was a metaphor concerning his sense of action without purpose, the mindless swinging of a hook into dead meat for no apparent reason.

Speaker 9 In no time, the idea formed the basis of a windy dissertation concerning the essence of William's life, which he was only too happy to indulge. Doomed men, he believed, should be given their way.

Speaker 9 Over the course of many sessions, various other symbols and themes were discovered, each shedding revelatory light upon William's many unresolved subconscious conflicts.

Speaker 9 One of the most important symbols came when William described his high-yield salary as mere repayment for feeding devils. His work as a stock market analyst was just a way to keep the monsters happy.

Speaker 9 And so the phrase, feeding the damned, became conversational shorthand for William's professional life and his recently uncovered resentment of it.

Speaker 9 William sat at a cafe just next to Coffin Park, a post-darkness recreational space made from giant empty caskets that once piled into the sky, wondering about his strange dream.

Speaker 9 He discovered a moment of clarity, a space more often encountered while showering or just waking up.

Speaker 9 Contained within the naked revelation that had been waiting for him at the bottom of a year-long pile of rationalizations, both purchased and homemade.

Speaker 9 How had he elbowed aside all the tales of the elevator man?

Speaker 9 the missing persons alleged to have been taken back to hell, and the police warnings of a maniac abducting and possibly killing anyone who'd found themselves in the city of Tartarus.

Speaker 9 Of course, his therapist had answers for all of it, and the meds to back them up. But at the moment, next to a park better suited for the dead, the truth was laid bare.

Speaker 9 He would be called upon

Speaker 9 and taken.

Speaker 9 It was upon the eve of the third anniversary of Man's Darkest Hour when William dreamed of pushing the call button, triggering an awful departure from the dao routines of his recurrent nightmare.

Speaker 9 After the button summoned the elevator, he watched as a new lighted fixture emerged from the darkness, a glowing dial indicating the current position of the incoming elevator.

Speaker 9 The floor numbers were indistinct, red and blistering, giving off heat as they denoted the elevator's approach.

Speaker 9 William broke into a mad dash at the pretentious ringing of the car's arrival, making for the stairwell at the other end of the darkness.

Speaker 9 The words spoken by the elevator man were no longer assembled into a question, rather arranged into a statement of fact, if not a command.

Speaker 9 William erupted from sleep, screaming and clutching the air.

Speaker 9 Unfortunately, he hadn't escaped from the nightmare.

Speaker 9 He felt the rumble of an approaching elevator car in his bones. Heard the straining gears and winding lengths of cable clanking and wheezing between the slats of his closet door.

Speaker 9 A glowing button appeared where the handle should have been. The lights of an open lift car began to shine past the wooden laths.
At last, the lone tinny note of an arriving elevator.

Speaker 9 William was already running for the stairs, screaming. From behind, he heard the elevator doors open and an all-too-familiar voice now raised in obvious irritation.

Speaker 9 Going

Speaker 9 down!

Speaker 9 After nearly falling down the flight of stairs, William raced for the front door, snatching up his car keys along the way.

Speaker 9 He reached out to open the front door, but only a glowing red button stood out from the wood.

Speaker 9 And above the door frame, a rusted floor indicator dial, its red-hot hand indicating the car's current elevation. Steam hissed into the room through the spaces around the door.

Speaker 9 Gears growled from underground. The determined, if antiquated machinery approached.

Speaker 9 William understood the going theme well enough not to try another door, and instead exited his residence by smashing a chair through his dining room windows.

Speaker 9 Once seated within the relative safety of his vehicle, he sped into the darkness, straining his eyes for an isolated red light, his ears pricking for the sounds of droning motors and turning gears.

Speaker 9 He placed a number of frantic phone calls to his psychologist, trying to remain composed through each breathless message so as not to warrant confinement to a mental hospital.

Speaker 9 An altogether different species of post-darkness hell. The aging head shrinker received and reviewed every message, but only after letting each settle harmlessly into voicemail.

Speaker 9 His hands shook at the awful implications of the horrible truth that peeled his decidedly non-Euclidean faith.

Speaker 9 While hoping his well-paying client a painless death, he realized with a primal certainty, hope had no place after the the darkness.

Speaker 9 Whatever became caught in the headlights as it crossed the road, causing William to swerve out of control, he would never know.

Speaker 9 The car flew from the embankment like a missile, corkscrewing from its uneven launch pad of humped moss and tumorous pavement.

Speaker 9 He cranked the wheel uselessly, tires spinning like black moons in the cold, open air.

Speaker 9 He didn't feel the impact.

Speaker 9 When the world regained focus, William was strapped to a hospital gurney, rolling through narrow hallways, hospital noises everywhere.

Speaker 9 In the limbo between waking and sleeping, he remembered the heft of a meat hook and a monstrous smile upon his soiled face. The sound of a jagged hook tearing through meat and bones screamed.

Speaker 9 Taking of lives for food. Feeding the damned their gruel of human agony.
Pain within and without, day after day after day,

Speaker 9 preparing the meal cart for hell. Served with some bitters made from lives poorly lived, William toiled in hell's endless gallery.

Speaker 9 As often as possible, an overflowing cart disappeared into the depths at the push of the blowing button.

Speaker 9 The blurry hospital corridor moved in and out of his vision, but William's ears picked up the sound of automatic doors.

Speaker 2 Going

Speaker 8 down.

Speaker 9 The words were civil, polite.

Speaker 9 Yes,

Speaker 9 chimed a nurse's voice, just barely audible above the din of a frantic heart monitor.

Speaker 9 And William knew

Speaker 9 it was time to feed the damned.

Speaker 11 Burned by a Paper Sun is a Maltopia production. Today's episode was written by Mark Ansalone and performed by Aubrey Akers.

Speaker 5 Sound editing was completed by Stephen Ansalone, and script editing was conducted by Walker Kornfeld.

Speaker 6 Be sure to rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. And follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Meltopia.

Speaker 13 If you want unique art and animations of Meltopia's stories, visit our YouTube page or click on the link in the show notes.

Speaker 13 And for more exclusive content, such as additional lore, stories, and art, be sure to check out our Patreon at www.patreon.com forward slash Meltopia.

Speaker 3 I am a coach and an alum of Girls on the Run. Kids today carry a lot of stress from school pressure to social isolation to overuse of devices.

Speaker 3 We create a space where girls can connect, build confidence, and learn skills like managing emotions, setting goals, and speaking up. Each child's experience is different, and families need support.

Speaker 3 I'm proud to be part of a comprehensive solution to youth mental health. Get involved today at EmpowerOurFutureCoalition.com.

Speaker 4 This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car, and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun.

Speaker 4 The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone, from home fires to natural disasters, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens.

Speaker 4 But they can't do it without your support. Please donate at redcross.org.

Speaker 14 If you're an HVAC technician and a call comes in, Granger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product, fast and hassle-free.

Speaker 14 And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat.

Speaker 14 With Granger's easy-to-use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.

Speaker 14 Granger, for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 7 Hi, folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 7 Whole Foods Market is your holiday headquarters with everything you need, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner, with show-stopping centerpiece means like bone-in spiral cut ham, or bone-in rib roast, or even king crab.

Speaker 7 And if you want to take a few shortcuts, no one is looking after all, try the heat-neat sides from the prepared foods department.

Speaker 7 Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

Speaker 15 What are you reaching for? If you're a smoker or vapor, you could be reaching for so much more with Zen Nicotine Pouches.

Speaker 15 When you reach for Zen, you're reaching for 10 satisfying varieties and two strengths for a smoke-free experience that lets you lean in for chances to break free from your routine and a unique nationwide community.

Speaker 15 Whatever you're reaching for, reach for it with America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Find your Zen wherever nicotine products are sold near you.
Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Speaker 15 Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 9 Imagine being the wizard of your home.

Speaker 12 With Xfinity Wi-Fi, you can boostify speeds for the moments that count and magically pause Wi-Fi to any device.

Speaker 12 And now you can cast a spell to stop time and keep your internet bill the same for five years with the Xfinity five-year price guarantee. Equipment included no contracts or commitments.

Speaker 9 Xfinity, imagine that.

Speaker 12 And see Wicked for Good only in theaters November 21st. Restrictions apply, select plans only.