#animals

The following document is from a journal found in an abandoned mental facility. Please note that the probability that any of this is real is low, and most likely the result of the patient's broken mind. I doubt anyone will believe me, I doubt any of you who might have stumbled upon this will even care afterwards. This is my story. I’m writing this down because somehow that thing got in here. I don't know how much time I have, maybe an hour, maybe a few seconds before it breaks the door down.

It was a dark, foggy night, as it really should be whenever something eerie happens. I was walking from my dad’s house over to my mom’s. I’d had a fight with my dad about something, the topic of which I’ve since forgotten, and realized at 17 years old that I was old enough and capable enough to walk alone back to my mom’s house, instead of stewing in my room at dad’s. Besides, both of my sisters were asleep already, so I wasn’t worried about them not getting their homework done or needing help…

My parents live up North, and so every Christmas my drive to their house is defined by a lot of grey, brown and white, as well as bitter cold. Never liked the cold. I spent the first 18 years of my life in it, so I think I definitely have an educated opinion on it.

My dog has always been kind of overexcited, running up and down the corridor, jumping all over our guests, relentlessly barking, and so on. I'm aware it's probably my fault for not being strict enough and encouraging this type of behaviour when he was a puppy. However, over the past few days, he has been very quiet. A bit too quiet. He's always hiding under the bed or behind the curtains, and sometimes, he even tries to hide under our linens, which is unusual since he's never been allowed on…

In the murky confines of the Slums, a stray cat and its drone companion, B-12, scuttled along the endless expanse of labyrinthine alleys, the drone's light casting an eerie glow on the moss-ridden walls and dilapidated machinery. The cat, a feline anomaly in this mechanical world, surveyed their surroundings with gleaming eyes, ears perked to the distant hum of rusted gears and sputtering engines. B-12, his thrusters operating on silent, ensured they remained undetected by the wandering robotic…

The first time I visited the Otherworld was when I was eleven. One moment I’d been having some peaceful dream I hardly remember, and the next, I was shooting up in bed with a gasp. I pulled my blanket tighter around myself as I looked around uneasily.

This was supposed to be a radio documentary.

“What’s up with her, Sammy?” Steven grunted, puffing on his half-burned cigarette.

Here they come, around the corner, sliding into the driveway in their family sedan. They’re back from the market, the father’s pockets no doubt lined with fresh 50s. The tires roll easily along the gravel, and I pray that lying somewhere in that collection of pebbles and stones is a glass shard, or a rock sharp enough to pierce the tires.

For most people, the art of programming is to fill desires left unaccomplished in reality. For some, it is to pay their bills in an effort to have a home. And for others, it may not be so heart-warming and wholesome most of the time. It may be to sacrifice. To reawaken. To find. 1995, Lubbock, Texas -

On the morning of Tuesday the 16th of December 2025, I took a dead woman off the stones below the Old Cross at Ardboe.