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Dear Ben,This will be the last thing I ever send you. I don’t even know if you’ll remember who I am by the time you read this. For your sake I hope you don’t. For my sake, and for everything I’ve lost, I had to write you this story. One you’re apart of, and one that never happened. I have to tell you the story of how I disappeared.I’ve got no idea when this whole thing actually started. There’s simply no way to tell how much of my life slipped away under my nose before I could ever even know. There’s no telling what all it’s taken from me. There’s no telling how long it’s been eating.Four nights ago. That’s the first time I noticed something missing. Less than a week, and a lifetime of difference. I had a lot back then, a lot to be thankful for. I’d just landed a new IT job, my first actual job out of college. Me and Grace were able to finally move out of the ratty one bedroom place we had to a real house in Cypress. Wyatt got his own room just after his first birthday. Me and you had to wait fifteen years for that. Grace was able to quit her retail job and stay home with Wyatt, which is what she’d always wanted to do. Lord knows she deserved to be able to after all she’d done to help me finish my degree. You helped us move in that weekend, you, Anne and the girls. I remember we sat down under the patio in the back yard talking about all of y’all coming over in the fall to grill and watch football. Things looked so hopeful. But that was a different world than the one we’re living in now.It was late Tuesday night, a little past nine. Grace had just retreated into our room, starting her nightly fight to rock the baby to sleep. While she was doing that, I was going to head back to the old apartment and grab the last few loads of belongings that needed to be moved. By Tuesday night, most of the boxes were residing in our living room and I’d made almost five trips Monday after work, but there still remained about two car loads left. I remember looking at it all Saturday after you and I had worked all day to move the big stuff, knowing all that was left, and asking myself how so much could fit in our little hole in the wall.I snuck out as quietly as I could to my car in the garage, being careful not to make a sound and wake Wyatt. He’s a really light sleeper, and I didn’t want to make the already difficult task of getting him to sleep any more of a burden on Grace. I was able to get out of the house without much of a sound, and started my car. It wasn’t until I was halfway down the street when I realized I had forgotten the keys to our old place.I turned the car around, grateful to have only gone that far. The drive between our apartment and house was a solid twenty minutes, and I’d already made the mistake of going all that way without a key once that weekend.I opened the garage door into the kitchen with just as much caution as I had left with. The house was completely dark, save my car’s low beams shining through the open door into the kitchen. It was just enough to see where the key should have been, a little key ring holder right next to the pantry. I say should, because it wasn’t there. It was missing.An annoyed sigh left my mouth. I’d left them on that key ring the night before just in case Grace needed to run and grab something urgent. God only knew where they’d traveled to in those 24 hours. The whole reason we only had one key between us in the first place was because of Wyatt’s excessive need to play with them. Even after we decided maybe the house keys weren’t the best toy for an 11 month old to be playing with and got him some play baby keys, he’d only ever be satisfied by the jingle jangle of the real thing.I looked out at the sea of boxes crowding the living room, hoping I wouldn’t have to go searching through them. Flipping on my phone flashlight I started carefully opening drawers in the kitchen, hoping maybe Grace had used them and just put them back in an odd spot. Her soft lullaby was still filling the silence of our house. It’d still be a good while before I could ask her.I moved at a snail’s pace trying every drawer, trying to be as quiet as possible. I probably could have gone quicker, made a little more noise since we had a much larger buffer of space in the new house, but having lived in such a small apartment for so long and having woken the baby by even the slightest of movements had trained me to be overly hesitant. Every creak felt like a shout, no matter how careful I was.My search of the drawers proved barren. I started on the living room, trying my best to dodge around our scattered boxed belongings and scan the floor with my flashlight, keeping my eye peeled for a glint of anything shiny. Still nothing. I decided it was probably going to be easiest to just wait until Wyatt was down and I could ask Grace if she’d seen them. If not I could at least flip the lights back on and actually see where I was looking. I turned back around to snake back through the living room to turn off my still running car, when I felt my foot catch against a stack of the boxes and send me stumbling over. What followed was a crash that probably could have been heard three houses down.As I lay there in the immediate aftermath, draped over now crushed boxes of plates and silverware, I clenched my eyes and thought “Please don’t wake up. Please don’t wake up”That tense silence didn’t last more than a second, though and I started kicking myself as the shrill cry of my son rang out through the house. He was soon joined in concert by our dog, Spot, howling and barking to no end. The next thing I heard was the twist of a doorknob and flicker of a lightswitch.Grace’s concern was visible on her face, though it shifted into irritation once she’d seen what I’d done to her plates. She asked if I was ok, and other than my pride, I was. I went ahead and took the opportunity to ask about the keys. She said she hadn’t seen them, that she’d needed to go back to get some stuff for Wyatt’s room and couldn’t find them earlier. Maybe I hadn’t put them back? I knew I had but I wasn’t about to try and blame her for losing them while she was shushing the crying child I’d just woke. I apologized a few times, gave her and Wyatt both a kiss, and tried to make as graceful an escape as I could back to the car.Flipping the lights on, I carried out a very half-hearted search through my floor board, in-between my seats, and in my center console. I knew for a fact I had put them back on that key ring the night before, and just as I expected, the search came up empty. The last load would have to wait until tomorrow.My phone buzzed in my pocket, a text from Grace.“If you can’t find them, just drive over there and see if Michael will let you in. He let me in last year when you were working nights and accidentally took the keys with you.”“Michael?”“The security guard.”Worth a shot. I shut my car door and backed my way out of the garage. Twenty minutes later, I arrived at our old complex. I pulled up to the front gate and threw the car into park. A lone security guard sat stationed in the guard shack. He was an older man, maybe late fifties, and definitely not cut out for night shifts anymore. His feet rested up on the desk in front of him, while his head slumped away from me and towards a propped up iPhone blaring some schlocky old horror movie at max volume. I rolled down my car window and tried to catch his attention. When my voice didn’t work, I tried knocking on the glass, gently at first but that was also ignored. A couple of slams of my fist against the sliding window and he finally jolted awake, brushing his fallen hat out of his face. He slowly rolled his chair over to the window, wearing his displeasure very openly on his face.“Can I help you?” He cracked through the remnants of his sleep after sliding the glass open. I noticed the yellowed name tag ironed on to his shirt. Michael. A flicker of hope.I explained the situation as politely as I could, hoping it would help my chances. The look on his face didn’t change. With a huff, Michael rolled away from the window and towards an ancient relic of a computer sitting on the desk where his feet had been elevated moments earlier.“Valid ID and unit number.” He said blankly, reaching his arm out towards me. I retrieved my wallet from my pocket and handed over my driver’s license.“322.” He clacked away on the keyboard for a moment while I waited in awkward silence. All of a sudden, the keys stopped clicking and Michael’s apathetic malaise turned to confusion. He brought the ID close to his face, moving his eyes from the humming screen to my ID and back again.“You sure about that? 322?”“Fairly certain. I’ve only lived there for three years.” Michael began to shake his head while scrolling down a list of apartments and names.“Well I’m not seeing you listed here Mr. Ward, so I’m afraid I can’t help you.” He flipped my drivers license back through the window and onto my lap.“What do you mean I’m not listed?” I asked, taken aback.“I mean there’s no Daniel Ward that lives at this complex, and there’s no one listed in 322.” It suddenly dawned on me what must’ve happened.“Look man, they probably already pulled us from the system because we just moved. We’ve got to be out by Friday, I’ve got like 4 or 5 boxes left in there, just let me come get them and you can get back to your nap.”“Sorry, not without something to prove you live in that apartment.”“What about my parking pa-“ I turned to grab the parking pass that hung from the rear view mirror, but stopped mid sentence when I realized it wasn’t there. I put my head in my palm out of frustration. I must’ve already thrown it away without thinking. “Grace.” I snapped my fingers. “Grace Ward, she’s my wife. About a year or so ago you let her and our son into 322 because I had the keys. Does that ring any bells?”“Buddy, I can’t remember what I had for lunch. Look, if you think there’s been some kind of mix up you’re going to have to just come back when the admin is here. That’s not my job. My job is keeping people who don’t live here out of the gate, and according to the system, you don’t live here. I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do. Have a good night.” I got the impression he really wasn’t all that sorry, but I saw I wasn’t going to get anywhere and waved him away. He slammed the window back shut and resumed the position I’d found him in. Defeated, I turned the car around and started the trek back to the new house.By the time I got home, Grace and Wyatt were soundly asleep in the bed. I went through my nightly routine and collapsed down next to them. I was still tired from the move, tired from work, and tired from the night’s ordeal. I was glad to join my wife and son in sleep.It didn’t last long. I woke up a few hours later and turned to see Grace holding her pillow over her ears. It was Spot. Something had him wound up again, and he was letting half the neighborhood know about it.I heard her mutter something about “that stupid dog” from under the pillow and how she was going to be pissed if he woke Wyatt. I assured her I’d settle him down and flipped the covers off myself. Maybe a little redemption for earlier that night.I made my way out the living room sliding glass door to the backyard. He was all the way on the far end of the yard, his snout hugged up right against the fence, barking with all the fury in his body. I called his name twice and gave a whistle, but he didn’t stop. He stayed tensely glued to the slatted boards, flashing his teeth at whatever he saw behind them. I called again, this time scolding him, but he still didn’t come.Something wasn’t right. He was prone to barking fits but they were never so aggressive, and he usually always minded when I called him. I couldn’t imagine at the time why he was so upset. My eyes looked deep into the thick tangled mess of oak trees and wild brush that backed up to our property line. What did he see?I began to walk towards him. With every step, the air around me seemed to grow colder. It was mid August, but by the time I reached the fence, I almost thought I could see my breath. I bent over to scoop him up and carry him inside when he whipped his head around and bit me on the hand. I yelled out in pain, and he immediately let go, running across the yard to the house.“What the hell? You stupid dog!” I brought my hand close to my eyes to try and see the damage in the darkness. It’d broken skin but not by much, mainly it’d just given me a jolt. He’s never so much as growled at me before. I turned my attention back to the dog, now laying on the patio whimpering. At least he wasn’t barking anymore. What could have him so on edge? My eyes returned to the fence. A chill, from the air, from the fear, I’m not sure which, slid its way down my nerves. I took a step away towards the fence. My mind began to run wild. What was I about to see?I raised myself up and craned my next over the fence to get a good look around. The answer caught my eye almost immediately, with its fluorescent yellow glow reflecting in the light of the moon. A tennis ball, one that had clearly been there a while, almost covered over by vines and thorny brush.I laughed to myself and walked briskly back to the house, trying to warm myself along the way. Spot was still whining next to the door, evidently still upset at his biting me and my scolding him. I slid the back glass door open and let him in. “It’s ok, bud.”He trotted quickly to his dog bed in the laundry room folding himself up into a quiet and content ball. Problem solved. After quickly cleaning the small cut Spot had given me, I marched back to my own bed and climbed back in next to Grace. It’d been a long night, and I was more than exhausted. The clock beside our bed read 1:00. Just a few precious hours left to sleep. Not nearly enough.Sleep didn’t come as easy this second time around. I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, trying to warm myself back up. That chill was persistent, but eventually exhaustion took over and I fell asleep.I woke up to an empty bed and the smell of frying bacon wafting into the room. A smile chased away the sour tiredness from my face, and I rolled out of the bed to face the day. Grace was already seated at the table by the time I got dressed and joined her and Wyatt. I gave her a soft kiss on the top of the head as I took my seat.We spent the morning together eating breakfast, talking about how much we loved the new house, occasionally just looking with joy at our son playing in his little playpen we’d set up amongst all the cluttered boxes in the living room. It’d been a stressful weekend with the move, and all the troubles from the night before hadn’t helped in that regard. But that morning felt like it put it all back into perspective. Life was good. We were young, in love, blessed beyond measure with a beautiful son, a new job, a new home. It was the last time I felt truly happy.She asked me if I was able to get the rest of our stuff last night. I explained I wasn’t able to find the keys, and Michael had been much less helpful than advertised. I’d planned on going over there on my lunch break, but she offered to get it sorted out. I thanked her for being such a good wife.“What was Spot barking over last night?” She asked in between bites of toast. “He was going nuts. At least tell me it was worth it.”“Hardly. A tennis ball.”“Ugh, I get little enough sleep with that one over there. If he wasn’t so cute, I’d say we get rid of the dog.”“Yeah, especially since he bit me when I tried to bring him inside.” I held up my hand for her to see.“Seriously?” She gasped, dropping her fork onto one of the surviving plates from my fall. She grabbed my hand and inspected the small wound he’d inflicted. “What’s wrong with him? Do you think we should take him to a trainer or something?”“No, he calmed down as soon as I let him inside. Maybe a racoon or something was out there too, maybe spooked him. He’s never done that before.”“Yeah but he’s around Wyatt all the time.” I saw her face change, obvious confusion sweeping over it in an instant. “Wait, you put him inside last night?” My face probably mirrored hers at this point.“Uh, yeah. I let him come sleep on the bed in the laundry room. He was fine after that.”“Did you let him back outside this morning?” Suddenly I understood her perplexed look. I started scanning around the house from the table, wondering where the dog was. I hadn’t had the chance to install the doggy doors yet, so the only way he could get in or out was one of us.“I uh, assumed you did.” I croaked out. We both looked at each other with the same dumbfounded, unsure look, and stood to our feet.“Spot!” We began to call, searching the house. I went immediately to the laundry room. What I found, or rather didn’t find, raised a hundred more questions.I called for Grace and she came running. I pointed out to the empty spot on the floor where his bed had been.“Are you sure you unpacked it already? When you said that I was wondering, I don’t remember seeing it this morning.”“Grace, I’m telling you it was right there last night. I saw him lay down in it.”“Maybe he drug it off to wherever he’s at.” She stammered for an answer.“And his food bag?” I pointed to the empty spot next to the dryer where the almost full forty pound container of dog food was supposed to be. She had no response to that one, and it would be the first of many things to leave us speechless that morning. As we resumed our search of the house, we’d come to find that almost everything of Spot’s was gone. His food bowl, his toys, his doghouse in the backyard, all missing. Grace and I fell on the couch, too dumbstruck to speak. Our family dog had just vanished into thin air without a trace, along with everything related to him. My mind raced to come up with some kind of rational explanation for it and failed miserably. I’d start trying to piece together some logical possibility, only for it to be rendered ridiculous a few steps down the line. None of them seemed very appealing.I kept coming back to the idea that there was someone in the house, that someone took him. But that didn’t make any more sense than any other explanation. How and why would they steal all of Spot’s things and leave the rest of us completely untouched? His belongings were scattered all over the house and yet there wasn’t a single one missed. They were all gone.“Oh my God, Danny.” Grace gasped suddenly, looking at her phone. The first day we’d moved in, we’d taken some pictures of the three of us with Spot in them to post on social media. They were gone now, erased like the rest of the evidence we’d ever owned a dog. She kept scrolling up through her camera roll. We’d had him for two years, our phones were full of pictures and videos with our dog. At least they were until that morning. Just like everything else they were all gone. I pulled out my own phone to check. Same story.“Danny, what’s going on?” Grace asked me, her voice shaky. A pit had formed in my stomach and an oppressive terror lowered itself onto my shoulders. It was fear like I had never known up until that point. The worst part about it was I couldn’t say why. I didn’t know what to be afraid of. Our dog was missing, it wasn’t like someone was pointing a gun to my head. There was just a pervasive sense of wrongness. I thought about the night before, how cold it had been. Why did I suddenly feel so cold sitting on the couch next to Grace? Had it been that freezing all morning?I kept my eyes on my phone scrolling hopelessly back and forth for something I knew should be there. About that time Wyatt started crying, and it somewhat brought us back to the present moment. I checked the time as Grace rose uneasily from the couch to get him and realized it was already 7:50. My shift began at 8, and I had a good thirty minute commute to work.“I guess I still need to go to work.” I said it like I was asking for permission. I felt guilty leaving Grace there, alone in that kind of uncertainty. I could see in her face that she was just as scared, maybe moreso, and while I got to run to work and distract myself, she had to stay here in the middle of it and try to wrap her head around whatever this was.“Yeah. You better get going. We’ll have to figure this all out later.” She obliged, trying to calm the baby and herself at the same time. I put my arm around her and gave her another kiss on the forehead.“It’s going to be alright.” I realized even in the moment how stupid that sounded. What even was “it” anyway? But it was all I knew to say.I started towards the door to the garage before I stopped and turned back towards her. “You think you can go to your moms? I don’t really want you to be here.”“Yeah. Yeah I think I’ll do that.”I didn’t play the radio or anything on the drive to work that morning. I probably narrowly avoided a couple of wrecks along the way too, my mind far too preoccupied with the events of the morning. There had to be some explanation, and I couldn’t shake that deep chill of unease until I found it. I started to think maybe the problem was us. Had we ever even had a dog named Spot? My memories told me emphatically and concretely yes, but the whole rest of the world this morning shouted no. Maybe Grace and I had both just dreamt him up somehow. Maybe we’d completely lost it.I got to work about half an hour late that morning. My new boss naturally wanted some reason for this, but I wasn’t about to sit there and tell her about our disappearing dog and that my best guess for what happened was that me and my wife were insane. I just said my alarm didn’t go off and said it wouldn’t happen again. I got a disapproving look, but I couldn’t bring myself to care after the morning I’d had.The rest of the work day didn’t go much better. I couldn’t bring myself to focus on anything pertaining to work. Instead I spent the morning texting back and forth with Grace. I was so worried about her, even though I didn’t know exactly what I was worried would happen. A few hours into my shift, I got a call from her and excused myself to the break room. She sounded hysterical.“Danny! She doesn’t remember!” her voice came through frantically as soon as I answered the call.“What? Who?” I stuttered out.“My mom. She doesn’t remember Spot!” I felt my stomach drop. We’d gotten the dog from Grace’s mom. He’d been a stray that showed up at her house a few years ago. She’d come to our place more times than I could count, and Spot had been there for every one. There’s no way she couldn’t remember him, and yet Grace assured me she could not. When she told Aria he’d gone missing, she started asking when we had gotten a dog. Absolutely no recollection.But there was more. Grace had gone to our apartment complex to speak with the admin. She’d become good friends in our time living there with a girl named Lindsey who worked up front. Well, when she approached Lindsey to ask about getting let into 322, she acted like she’d never met Grace in her life. She gave the same reaction Michael had given me the night before. 322 was vacant, and had been for a long time.“Danny what’s going on?” she was crying now. That was the million dollar question, the only question I had rolling around in my head. I tried to reassure her as best I could, but I needed reassuring myself. She begged for me to come home and be with her and I promised I would.After we hung up, I remembered what had happened with Spot’s pictures. I opened up my phone, and my fears were confirmed. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it before, but it wasn’t just the pictures of Spot missing. It was everything we’d ever taken at our old place. All gone. I all at once felt sick.That oppressive cloud of fear turned to iron on my shoulders. I immediately called in sick and went straight home, the whole time keeping a picture of Grace and Wyatt on my phone. I spent probably 90% of the drive looking at it instead of the road. I was terrified now, Spot wasn’t an isolated event. He wasn’t even the first. My life was being wiped away, expunged from history and I had no idea how or why or how to stop it. It’s a fear I can’t begin to describe.I made it home to Grace and sprinted to throw my arms around her and our son. I’ve only cried in front of her a handful of times, but this time it felt more than warranted.The rest of that day felt both like a blur and endless. We sat at home, paralyzed by horrified and racing minds. Occasionally one of us would speak up to the other but the conversations were always short. A thousand questions rolled through my head. What was next? Could it take people? What if there were things it already took that we can’t remember now? I looked at Wyatt playing innocently on the floor, blissfully unaware at the strange hell that had befallen his parents. Did we have another child? How could we ever know?Neither of us could manage to eat. Neither of us wanted to sleep. We didn’t know what we would wake up to, or what we would wake up without. I remember just holding Grace in our bed that night, my hands running themselves through her hair, Wyatt asleep on her chest. Both of our eyes were fixed on the ceiling. Neither of us said a word for hours.At some point, sleep must have taken me unwilling into the night, because the next thing I remember is waking up about 2am or so, my body covered in a cold sweat. Grace and the baby were still snuggled up closely to me. A relief. Even more of a relief was the sound that had woken me. Barking.“Spot.” I whispered out hopefully underneath my breath. I flipped the covers off my body and hit a dead sprint out of our room. “A bad dream.” I thought to myself. “It had to have been one long, wild bad dream. It had to be!”Sure enough, as I rounded the corner into the living room, there he was facing me. My beautiful collie Spot, barking his loud obnoxious bark that sounded like the world’s sweetest music. I almost fell to my knees in elation. I felt myself start to laugh as I flew to the door and flung it open.“Spot! Spot! Come here boy!” I patted my thighs for him to come, holding my arms out to meet him with an embrace. But he didn’t come, instead he stayed glued to the center of the backyard, barking away like I wasn’t even there.I called again, less enthusiastically. Nothing. His bark seemed off. More specifically it seemed unchanging, like it was on some kind of loop. Bark. Bark bark. over and over. The same exact sound. I started to wonder why he wasn’t moving. Not just why he wasn’t coming to me, why he wasn’t moving at all. His body was stiff, unnaturally so. Every muscle tensed at once. Only his mouth opened and shut, but even that only slightly and not completely in time with the sound of the howls. On top of it all was that unbearable, ungodly chill that smacked me in the face as I had opened the door.“Spot. Come here. Now.” I said forcefully. The same barking looped again over and over. Even while I spoke, even when I said his name. My stomach began to twist in knots.“Spot! Here! Now!” My voice raised to a shout. Still no change, no movement. I took a step towards him, yelling his name again. The grass crunched beneath me, frozen. My breath quickly grew short. I took two more. My breath turned to vapor in front of my eyes. Spot remained motionless. Two more steps. My body shook from frost and from fear. I was close enough to reach out to touch him, and I almost did. But I was also close enough to see him.“What the hell is this?” I gasped out, recoiling away from the abomination in front of me so hard that I fell to the ground. The night had been so dark I had only been able to make out little more than his figure from the back door. Now, only a few feet from him and my eyes more adjusted to the darkness, I could clearly see this was not my dog.He was a horrid mismatch of hair and flesh and teeth, all mixed and morphed together back into the crude shape of a dog, but with all parts misplaced. Limbs, ears, eyes, all jutting out from random points, contorted and broken to fit their mold and stitched together with a lace of thick thorny tendrils weaving their way across almost every inch of his body. They were black, black as the night, like someone had dipped barbed wire into motor oil, and likewise they seemed to dig into his skin wherever their thorns were present. At various points, they dove into him or erupted out of him, like they had grown and twisted together with his internals. The snaking vines trailed off behind him, beyond the fenceline and into the forest.I tried to follow them with my eyes to their source, but lost them in the darkness and the brush. The barking loop was still loud, but now I could tell it wasn’t this dreadful crochet of dog parts making it. No, that was just the puppet. The sound was actually emanating from off in the woods, from wherever those tendrils led off to.Part of me wanted to continue on, wanted to confront this monstrosity hiding behind the imitation Spot and get some kind of answer even if it killed me. That part was small. Loud but small. The vast vast majority of my mind and body were petrified from what I was seeing, and pleaded with my nerves to get me the hell out of there. Just as I began scrambling to my feet to run back inside, I heard a whimper. It was the puppet, whimpering softly in pain. I watched as the only eye on it’s face rolled around in its head until the pupil could be seen. Was it still him? I hoped to God it wasn’t. I felt a sudden urge, a strong and violent draw to the creature. Maybe to help it, but more so just to touch it. Before I could even think, almost by reflex, I had laid my hand on one of those dark vines and instantly knew I had made a terrible mistake.Spot’s eye rolled back and his head lurched towards my hand at once, twisted fangs that had been plugged haphazard into his mouth bared to sink into my skin. I pulled away just in time, narrowly dodging the strike. Instantly, I began to run faster than I ever had back towards the house. The puppet Spot suddenly became animated, convulsing and pulling against his restraints trying to break free with intent to maul me. The barbs dug sharply into his skin as he lurched back and forth against their tangled mesh.I slammed the door shut and didn’t stop running. I stormed into the bedroom and into the closet, waking both Grace and Wyatt. Grace begged to know what was happening, but my adrenaline wouldn’t allow me to answer her. I emerged with my 30-06 and charged back to the yard ready to meet the beast. Instead there was nothing. Only our empty back yard, lit clearly by the moon and stars.“Daniel, what’s going on?” Grace came around the corner, on the verge of tears.“Just go back to bed.” I whispered, my eyes not leaving the barren plot of grass for a second.“What? You’ve got to tell me!”“Just go to bed Grace! Go to bed. You don’t want to know.”“I’m not going to do that. I can’t leave you right now.” I took a long breath and sat down on the couch, leaving a seat open for her. She took a seat and we sat there for a while without a word while she rocked Wyatt back to sleep. Then I started to explain what I’d seen. About Spot, about the thing in the woods, about how the puppet had tried to bite me. I showed her my hand where I had grabbed one of the tendrils. A large red blister had formed across my palm, burning like hell. Frostbite.We stayed up the rest of the night, keeping watch from the couch. Every light in the house was switched on. I wrapped my hand and kept it on the gun. This wasn’t just some strange happening. There was something out there, something malevolent, something that was feeding on our life, taking it from us. In a weird way, it brought me a little fleeting comfort. Finally knowing something. I just wish that something hadn’t been so terrifying.Later that morning, a couple hours after the sun came up, I made a phone call. To you. I couldn’t understand why Grace and I were the only ones who could remember Spot or our apartment, someone out there had to remember with us. You had been with us all weekend. You were the last person to talk to us really before all of this had started. If there was anyone besides us, it would be you. I didn’t go into it all on the phone, just said I needed you and that it was urgent. You came over right away. When you got to the house, I sat you down on the couch and just went straight into it.“Do you remember helping us move this weekend?” I asked.“Yeah, why?” A little glimmer of hope lit up in my eyes.“You did? So you remember the apartment? At Shady Oaks? You remember I lived there? Do you remember our dog? Spot?” I must’ve sounded frantic, you were the first sign of optimism I’d had in so long. It was short lived, though. I saw it in your face just like I’d seen in Michael’s, like I’m sure Grace had seen in her mother and in Lindsey. You didn’t remember. You couldn’t remember. You sounded so frustrated, that you couldn’t remember where we’d moved all our stuff from only a few days ago. You said you didn’t know about any dog, you hadn’t ever been over to my place since me and Grace moved to Houston. You’ve been there hundreds of times.I collapsed next to you on the couch. It was a gut punch, knowing that we really were alone. At least you knew there was something wrong, even though you had no clue to what extent. You knew we had moved a bunch of stuff from somewhere, and you knew you should definitely be able to tell from where but couldn’t.“Look man, I don’t know why I can’t tell you but I can’t. Is that why you called me over here? You think I got dementia or something? It’s just a blank.”“No, no. You’re not alone in this. Nobody can remember it, that’s the thing. It’s just me and Grace.” I started to tell you everything. All the stuff missing, the people at the apartment complex, even the hideous creature I’d seen a few hours earlier. I didn’t care if I sounded crazy. I’d spent the last couple of hours hoping and praying that I was.When I’d finished, you sat there in stunned silence, mouth agape. I guess I couldn’t have expected anything more. The whole house rang quiet, save for the sound of Wyatt’s quiet cooing coming from his room and Grace opening the dryer.“I mean Danny, buddy, I don’t know what you want me to say. Is this supposed to be some kind of out of season April fool’s joke?” You finally scoffed.“I know what it sounds like. I just had to tell someone, man, I’m losing it.”“I’d say you’re already there, bro. I mean did you just hear yourself?” While you were speaking I thought I heard the sound of metal clinking coming from over near the baby’s room. Like keys.“You know there’s something up! Why can’t you remember Saturday? We spent all day moving back and forth. Why can you only remember half the trips? Look at my hand!” I reached it out to show you the palm, a numb black stripe cutting across the skin. “Where do you think I got frostbite in Texas in the middle of August?”“Yeah, it’s weird. It’s strange. I’ll give you that.” I definitely heard keys, and I heard Wyatt’s cooing turn into a giggle. God why didn’t I shut up? Why didn’t I go check? I was so wound up that maybe I could convince you, but why couldn’t I go check. “But it’s going to take a little more for me to jump from that to devil dogs in your back yard and ice vine monsters stealing your car keys.”“Ben, you’re the only person I know to ask. We just need help man. Just pretend for a second it’s true, what could you think to do? I mean I’m worried sick right now about Grace and Wyatt.” I saw your face change. That look, that damned, dreaded look came back and my stomach turned so violently I almost hit the ground. Time slammed to a halt and I begged and prayed you wouldn’t say what I knew was about to come.“Who’s Wyatt?”Grace’s scream ripped through the house and through my soul. I sprinted over to her on the floor in front of his bedroom door. My eyes confirmed my worst fear. The crib was gone. His toys were gone. Our boy was gone. Tears rushed to flood my eyes, blurring my vision of the empty, blank room that had once and never been my son’s.What kind of words could I string together to give you even the tiniest glimpse into that sorrow? I don’t think they exist in any language known to man, and if they did, I don’t have the composure to write them here. Just know that it is more crushing, more eviscerating than you could ever possibly imagine. That was the beginning of the end. There was nothing more to do after that.You slipped out at some point. I don’t blame you. After all I’d just said to you, and then you sit and watch as we melt into hysterics over a vacant room in our house. I’d probably leave too. I wish I could’ve. I wish I could have been anywhere but in that house in that moment. I don’t know if I’ve been able to leave it. I think most of me is still back there.Grace remained in shock, a husk of a woman. For the second day in a row we didn’t eat. We didn’t drink. We didn’t talk. I barricaded us in our bedroom. I knew what would be coming when the sun set.It started around eleven or so. Hell can’t be much worse than what we experienced that night. Listening to a distorted track of our son’s cries and laughs echo through the house, just on the other side of our door. I’d seen the horrible thing it’d made of Spot. I couldn’t bear to imagine, let alone see what it had done tonight. Grace was hysterical, she needed to go to him. To whatever was pretending to be him. I had to hold her down, physically to keep her from leaping out of that door. She wouldn’t stop screaming, stop clawing me. It took all my strength to keep her pinned, strength that couldn’t hold for the whole night.At some point she hit me over the head with something. I don’t know what, I just remember waking up on the bedroom floor to sunlight and silence. Alone. So completely alone. The wound she must’ve given me was gone, as was all of our pictures off the walls. Her dresser. Her clothes. Everything. I sat there and wept for a long time. Hours. Maybe the whole day.I knew I couldn’t stay there any longer. I couldn’t be there at nightfall. It’d be over, I had no strength left to fight the pull it would have over me. I left just before sunset with whatever cash I could find. I wouldn’t be back.I found a motel outside of town. I didn’t expect to sleep, but I knew I’d at least be safe for a night. I’d at least be spared those awful terrors. That was an assumption I had, I don’t know why. Maybe because it all started when we first moved into the new house. I just assumed if I left it wouldn’t follow me. That assumption lasted all of three hours.“Danny, please, let me in! It’s so cold out!” I could hear her voice through the heavy iron motel door. It sounded like she was gargling water and trying to speak at the same time. Loud, piercing scratches would come in between her speaking, like it was trying to claw through the door. I threw my pillow over my head, trying to drown out the noise. It didn’t work. I fought like hell to not open that door. Each time her voice came through, it came through clearer and clearer. It was learning, getting better, becoming more like her. I knew I wouldn’t last. I made it through the first night but it would be back again and I wouldn’t last.I called you earlier tonight. I was holding on to some small, resilient, delusional last gasp of hope that you hadn’t forgotten her, that you couldn’t have forgotten her. All the days you and Anne have spent with us. All the times she’s watched the girls. You were the best man in our wedding for Christ’s sake! She couldn’t just be gone like that, our lives had been too intertwined. You may have forgotten everything else, but not Grace. You couldn’t forget Grace. You had to remember.But when you picked up the phone, you asked who was calling and that last gasp was trampled “It’s Danny.” I answered.“Danny?” Your voice was heavy with disbelief and excitement. “Is it really you?” I stayed quiet on the other end of the line. You hadn’t talked to me in years, you said. I finally came to terms with reality at that moment. I realized that all the fight I’d put up in the last two nights had been for nothing. The man I’d been, the person I was, the things I loved, all of that was gone. All that remained was a tearful, woeful stranger. A man I did not and could not recognize, and one that had no place in this strange world I’d never lived in. I was already dead.You asked how I’ve been, what I’ve been up to. So I told you. I told you about this amazing girl named Grace I’d met at school, how she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. I told you about how we’d gotten married, how we had a one year old little boy named Wyatt who was the spitting image of dad. I told you about my new job and the new house we bought, and how Grace was so excited to host and how you should bring the family over some time. It was all a lie, and it was all true, and it was all beautiful. You asked me at the end of the call why I was crying, and I couldn’t give you an answer. I just said I love you and that we’d see you soon and hung up.I’ve been thinking a lot about stories since our phone call. For a minute, while I got to tell you about them, Grace and Wyatt were real again. They were alive again. That’s when I knew I was going to write this email to you Ben. Tonight, I’m going to join my family. I don’t know what waits for me after that, I don’t know what nonexistence looks like. But I know that if you’ll do me a favor, if you’ll write this down in your own handwriting I’ll go on living. Before I left the house, I found a few love letters I’d written to Grace while we were dating, still intact. Of course, the girl they were to wasn’t real. She didn’t exist. But I’d still written them and they were still here. That gives me some hope. If you’ll please do this for me, Ben, I’ll go on living. It’ll be as a character in a fiction, but I’ll go on living. I love you so much man. I’m sorry you can’t remember all the good times we had. If you’re reading this back however long from now, thank you. Maybe somehow I’ll see you again one day. If not, I hope you enjoyed the story.Love you forever,Your Little Brother Danny.I found this scrawled down in an old notebook while I was doing some spring cleaning. I’m not really a writer and I definitely don’t remember writing this. I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve never had a brother. I don’t know anyone named Danny. I’ve read it probably five times the last two days. I keep looking at those names. Anne and the girls. I don’t recognize them. This house feels so much more empty than it did before I read this. Empty and cold.Credit: James A. AugustineXCopyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.

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