Marissa clicks the heavy door of the classroom shut. She slides to the floor, clamping a hand over her mouth. She checks the window next to the door. 

It’s dark. Quiet. 

The classroom across the hall has a curtain pulled over its window, the hall to the left empty except for a bulletin board of posters and a statue hidden by the corner.

Marissa dares to breathe, exhaling a quiet, shaky puff of air. She crosses in front of the whiteboard, pressing herself into a tight corner, the walls decked with posters and a mostly-empty bulletin board. The blinds on the larger windows in the back are drawn, only pale shafts of moonlight peeking through the dark room. As long as she doesn’t make herself noticeable to the door, she’ll be fine. She takes another breath.

This is what I get for walking through campus at night, Marissa seethes. She knows better. Any type of night walking is dangerous, unfathomable stalker creature or not. It was extra dangerous with her phone battery dead. She can’t call 911 or have a friend come pick her up. All she has to do is wait this dude out, then run like Satan’s about to snatch her ankles to her car. She’ll drive to the police station to report what happened, then go back to her shared student apartment and sleep for 12 hours. Her professors would understand.

There’s an itch in the back of her brain, like she’s missed something. Marissa’s gaze darts around. Windows are closed, the door is shut, she’s well away from the window next to said door. She didn’t miss anything, she’s sure she’s safe.

Her eyes follow the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on the far wall, stacked with peeling, old children’s books. On one side of the shelf is the door to the room, and the other is a short beige closet with a little red wagon on top. Next to that is a bright red book cart holding messily-organized binders and textbooks, then a counter in front of the back windows. What is she not thinking of?

A small eek sounds from nearby. 

Marissa’s heart leaps to her throat. The beige closet, the small wagon on top is rocking back and forth on its wheels. Spindly fingers sharpened to points wrap around the door. That thing’s smile splits its face in half, long clip-like teeth bared, eyes rippling and stretched into long ovals. Too-long arms and too many joints crack as they pull themselves out of the tiny space. It looms like some sort of deranged animal, tattered clothes that look similar to a circus ringmaster’s suit hung off its boney frame. It has some approximations of humanity, like short blonde hair cut to just above its chin, but it’s a disturbing fake idea twisted onto something unreal.

Marissa scurries to the professor’s desk, tucking herself underneath in the gap for a desk chair. She muffles the air from her nose and pulls herself as small as she can. That shouldn’t have been possible, it can’t be possible! She lost it at the back entrance, how did it follow her!? This isn’t—it shouldn’t- 

She tucks her panic into a tight little ball in her chest. She needs to get out alive, first and foremost. Get past whatever that is and get out. There’s a soft, eerie laugh. It rattles around her skull, makes her head hurt. Something scrapes, like nails on a chalkboard, on the desk above her head. The computer monitor on top crunches as it hits the floor.

“I know you’re there.” Its voice is breathy, like a whisper. “I can hear your lungs.”

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck! What to do now!? Long, spindly fingers stretch over the edge, dangling in front of her eyes. It’s practically right on top of her!

Oh, duh. It’s practically right on top of her.

Marissa crouches and shoves. She throws all of her might into tipping the desk. The creature squeals like a pig as it’s caught under the weight. Marissa books it, throwing open the door and sprinting down the hallway. Except- no. This isn’t the same hallway. It opened up onto a student seating area before, with exit stairs on the right and a door to the upper part of campus on the left, but now the hall ends at a fork. She can’t afford to stop. She goes left.

The halls have spun themselves into a maze. She goes right, then left, then right again, or was it left? She can’t tell anymore. They whip and snarl and tie her up in knots. There’s too much noise and not enough, a vague stench of something sweet bleeding into her nose.

Marissa trips.

She slams to the floor, head spinning. Panting, she tries to get oxygen back into her body, ambling to her feet. Why her? She’s a good student; she volunteers at the local food pantry every other week. She’s good to her friends, her girlfriend. Why her? What sort of divine retribution is she enduring?

Spindly, sharp, cold spines prick at the back of her neck. She chokes. Cracking, too-long fingers wind their way around her throat, tilt her chin up almost like her mom would when trying to scold her. The thing, the motherfucker, the whatever-it-is grins down at her from the ceiling, ovular eyes stretching with delight.

“It is time.” Its fingers break the skin on her jugular. “For your final bow.”

​Kayd Johanson is a 21 year old Southern Utah University student set to graduate in Spring 2026 with a degree in English. When they're not drowning in schoolwork, they like to draw, write, play excessive amounts of Minecraft, and talk about their favorite cartoons. Their favorite piece of horror media is The Magnus Archives, and yes, they will talk about that too. They currently live in Cedar City, Utah, out of their grandparents' basement to cut down on college costs.

Harrow James has always been a believer, ever since she was a child. A believer not just in God, but in institutions. In elders. People who exist to protect her and those vulnerable like her from the dangers of the world.

Tonight is the first night that faith will be shaken.

Until the angel, she never once thought that what she for so long thought were shields could actually be cages. Until the angel, she never thought her belief might by influenced by the fact that she has never once ventured outside of her small town of Parthas, Nevada. And since marrying, barely even out of Columbia, the acreage she came to live after she was wed to her husband Paxton. Until the angel, Harrow never truly wondered what else is in the world outside her borders.

It comes to her—because that's how she comes to think of it, that it came to her, that it chose her—one night. Like the burning bush. Like the ophanim.

She is sleeping next to Paxton when she's awoken by the explosion. Looking outside, she sees the boys in the barracks, Columbia's faithful farmhands and protectorates, have already begun to move. The lights in the small church down the hill are on, so that means the sisters are awake. She can hear movement in the farmhouse all around them as people wake, rally. A lighter sleeper than her husband, Harrow has to wake him, shake his shoulder gently, then more fervently when she doesn't just hear the reverberations, but see flames over the hill.

But the flames are wrong. They are colors not of this earth. Colors she doesn't have names for. Because they're not flames, not really. They're light.

Everything is quiet. Everything is still. Like Harrow, everyone is watching. It takes everything she has in her to be quiet. To not move.
​
"Paxton, honey," she says, "Something's happened. I'm afraid."

Pen slipped on the mask, pressing the temporary adhesive against her skin. She tied the silken strings around the back of her head, draping her wavy, black hair over them. She straightened her skirt and nudged the mask up. Her world narrowed as the mask crowded her peripheral vision.

“I can do this,” she told herself in her bright customer-service voice. Her masked face in the mirror reflected an unwavering grin.

Pen flung open the door, the gray light of early morning illuminating a perpetual flow of grinning people, people, people, shuffling along the sidewalk.

Some wore stiff masks like hers, their faces screwed up in a rictus of grinning lips and deep smile lines set against white, unmoving plastic. The Stiffs took meek steps, giving way to those with second skins. Their masks were so perfect as to be indiscernible from their true faces. The only tell was their strained grins or unlined foreheads.

Pen shuffled into the flow. The travelers barely gave an inch.

Five sweaty, uncomfortable blocks later, her chin tickled as the adhesive loosened. She darted and dodged into her office building and ducked into the bathroom. As she patted her skin dry with paper towels, she dug in her pocket for more adhesive. Popping the top, the slightly chlorinated smell of glue filled her nostrils.

She grimaced as she swiped the stuff onto her skin. She pressed her mask back into place and counted under her breath.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”

She gave it a tug. The mask clung to her face, her skin stretching as the glue did its job. Pen tried to arrange her face beneath the mask to match her reflection. She fake-smiled. The skin beneath her mask pulled tighter.

She walked out of the bathroom and stepped into the elevator. Jammed shoulder to shoulder in a gray box, Pen avoided eye contact. When the elevator dinged for her floor, she stepped out, plodded across corporate-blue carpet, and slid into a gray cube.

The phone’s red call light blinked.

Blinked.

Blinked.

“Ready to get started, Penny?” her supervisor’s voice sliced through the air, cold and belittling.

“Yes,” murmured Pen.

The air around her grew colder as she felt her supervisor’s disappointment. Pen tried her reply again.

“Yes!” she exclaimed in her customer service voice. She didn’t look at her supervisor. Instead, Pen sat down in her gray chair and picked up her beige headset, jamming it over her ears.

Another thing pressing against her head.

Pain sliced through her skull.

She pushed the “Accept” button.

“Hello, thank you for calling Agnosty International. How may I help you today?”

The day wore on. A blur of falsetto tones. Her bright words decorated the gray air around her, filling it up until there was hardly any room to breathe.

The afternoon rolled around, and the words pressed against her mask, against her skin. Sweat puddled under her chin, loosening the adhesive. Her headache thumped against the hard shell. Her exoskeleton.

Pen’s voice faltered, drifting to a real, exhausted tone.

Her mask migrated across her face, sliding to the right. Her limited vision narrowed, drawing the wall of her cube in flat lines.

Pen’s racing heart sent shocks to her throat, narrowing it along with her vision.

“Why am I doing this?” she asked aloud. She knew the answers. Bills, expectations, obligation. Being a “good member of society.”

“But really, why?” she thought or said aloud; she wasn’t sure.

“Excuse me?” asked the muffled voice at the end of the line.

“Excuse me? Excuse me?” Pen murmured. “Is this a real person?” she wondered. “Who is real?”
The mask slipped again, covering both of her eyes.

The world blanked. The person still spoke, but she couldn’t hear their words.

“I have to go,” Pen’s voice echoed in her mask, jamming spikes into her head. She removed the headset.

Stillness filled her. The gray murmur of the other reps muffled by her wonky mask. Closing her eyes, she saw blue and red sparkles zipping across her lids. Her eyelashes scraped at the mask’s interior. She tried to sit completely still.

“Penny!” Her supervisor’s voice jostled her. Pen jolted up and adjusted her mask. The world came into focus, the gray walls.

The phone.

Her dangling headset.

She turned toward the voice. Her supervisor’s skintight mask heaved into view. Faint lines showed her where the mask ended and the supervisor’s hairline began.

Pen squinted at the woman, her headache clamping onto her forehead.

“What happened there, Penny?”

A smile gleamed from that face. Pen’s stomach churned. She could hear impatience bubbling up behind the false brightness.

“I’m sorry. I don’t feel well.”

“You’re sick?”

“I have a migraine.”

“Time to go home, then.”

“Right.”

“Here,” her supervisor handed her something. “For tomorrow.”

Penny looked down at the tube of superglue. Then, up to her supervisor. The smile didn’t falter. The eyes, glinting with impatience, crinkled in permanent pleasure. Penny pocketed the tube.

“See you tomorrow.”

The next morning, Pen slipped the mask on, pressing the adhesive against her skin. She tied the silken strings around the back of her head, draping her wavy, black hair over them. She straightened her skirt and nudged the mask up. The superglue tightened.

She watched her reflection in the mirror through the delighted eyeholes. The smile lines along her face stretched picture-perfect and would remain in place for days. Her skin prickled with sweat. A headache loomed in the back of her skull.

Her grinning mask bobbed in a river of smiles. Someone stepped on Pen’s foot as she pushed her way down the busy sidewalk. Another mask elbowed her as it pushed off the sidewalk and into a large, beige building. Her smile never faltered, even when she tripped and scraped her hands bloody. She pushed herself back to her feet, grins swimming past. Pen’s unchanged face smiled back, her steps taking her bloody hands and bruised knees into her office building.
​
Pen’s grinning head bobbed to the beat of red drops dripping against foyer tile.