THE AMBIGUOUS RORY FELTCH

The air tastes of salt and mineral. Gritty, like the rock gnawing at the boy’s torn knees. A groan echoes when he hunches over, eyelids scraping open. His mind is a muddled haze.

The boy can only remember three things. His name is Rory, he’s twenty-two years old, and he hasn’t had a night of rest in a long time. He can feel it in his bones, in the way his hands don’t bend as fluidly as he’d like. They jerk, as though connected at the joints with loose string. Everything else—where he is, who he is—remains just past his fingertips; a barrier built in scattered memory.

“You’re lucid,” a voice says, guttural and alien. “Good. We can get started then.”

Rory’s vision bends and twists, focusing on cracked stone the color of burned clay. Chips of it set lodged under his nails. He blinks, raises his head toward the voice, and is met by a ring of observers. There are twelve in total, all wearing smooth, black masks. Eyes gaze through them, wide and white and unblinking. They wear suits with red ties. Their arms—just long enough to scream inhuman—rest clasped in front of lanky chests. Only one stands out amongst the rest.

They’re shorter than the others that tower, donning a white mask instead of black. In their hands, they clutch a kitchen knife, rusted and dripping crimson.

The sight is something from a dream. Yes, because this must be a dream—a nightmare. Surely Rory will wake soon.

And yet, real, striking fear flashes through him, strong enough to send a shock through his chest. “Where am I? Who are you?” Rory never believed he’d be one to ask such panicked questions. Ones he knows will never get answered. But fear has a way of turning one’s rationality to muck.

The figures’ masks flicker with shadows. They say nothing. They wait, watching. Perhaps they’re waiting for Rory to calm.

He does not.

“What do you want from me?” He scrambles back, still on rough ground, eyes wide enough to sear against the damp cold. When the figures don’t make any movement, he steals the opportunity to look at his surroundings.

The room is built of stone. A cave at the heart of the world. Darkness stains corners, smothering the light. Smoke gathers at the ceiling. It churns like a building cyclone. The air clings with sweat, saturated with condensation.  

“There’s nowhere for you to go,” says the figure on Rory’s left. It’s as though it speaks into him. An inner voice. It makes his head feel too full, stifled. It’s similar to a bad cold leaving him all clogged up.

If the figure were to take of their mask, would their lips even be moving?

They continue. “It’s best if you save your energy.”

Rory’s shoulders tighten. He swallows, saliva thick, almost dry. “What is this place?”

The silence that falls is heavy, beating on Rory’s back like a guilty conscience. His fingers grapple at the floor, flooding with tremors.

Rory opens his mouth to spew another set of panicked questions.

The figure raises a hand, and his words break and snap, catching in his throat.

“It’s time to play a game.” The figure approaches, kneeling. Rory scurries away, but they lash out and grip his chin with those wrinkled fingers. “It’s vital you listen; the rules will only be given once.”

Sweat spills from Rory’s skin, dripping from his brow bone. The sweatshirt he wears—a deep red sporting ancient stains—is suffocating, chafing his neck.

“In five minutes, a door will open, and you will be sent into a maze.” Their head tilts, eyes gleaming through the mask. “Once released, you will have five minutes to run before the seeker is released upon you.”

“The seeker?”

They point to the figure with the knife.

Rory lurches, ripping his chin from their grasp. “You can’t be serious.”

They lean on their heels, looking down a covered nose. “You have two options, Rory Feltch.”

The boy recoils at the use of his name.

 “There is an exit hidden in the maze. You can find it or hide until the game is over. You must choose.”

“What ensures the game is over?” Rory’s teeth feel tight in their gums.

“When you’re found, of course.”

The boy glances at the seeker and averts his gaze once more. “I’m assuming I’ll be killed if I’m caught?”

The figure remains silent, unblinking behind the mask.

“What if I refuse to play?”

The figure stands. “The game will start regardless. If you remain here, it will simply have a quick end.”

A shiver skitters under Rory’s skin. “This is so messed up.”

“You have three minutes remaining. I urge you to ask questions now.”

Rory flexes his fingers—standing. He teeters on his feet, pinches breaking in his back from laying on rugged ground. He sways and steps from the figure. “Why did you pick me for this? Why couldn’t you have gotten someone else?”

“It’s simply nature.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Silence.

Throbs pierce Rory’s temples. He grips his head. “What did you do to me? Why can’t I

remember anything?”

Again, the figure says nothing.

A spear of heat lights Rory’s chest behind fluttering nervousness. “You said you’d answer my questions!”

The figure blinks. “I said to ask them. There are things you can know, and things you cannot. You’re not guaranteed answers.”

“Unbelievable.” Rory sneers. “Is this a cult? Some extreme religious insanity?”

“Would that make you feel better?”

Rory scrunches his nose.

They turn, looking across the room. “The doors will be opening now.”

Rory swears, bracing his feet as a deep roar begins.

The sound of stone breaking rumbles the walls. Vibrations light the soles of Rory’s feet up to his knees. He stumbles as dust explodes in a pluming cloud. Broken rubble scatters. A doorway forms, revealing darkness.

“I have to go in there?” Rory asks, hair raising on his neck.

“You have five minutes until the seeker is released.”

A jolt pierces his lungs, and Rory starts sprinting before he has a chance to think. He breaks through the ring of observers, scrambling for the door. Grime fills his lungs, and the darkness greets him like a reaper embraces the dead.

#

The cave wall is ice against Rory’s fingers. He traces his way through the dark, breaths wet.

Since being released into the maze, time continues to move in distorted waves. He can only guess it stems from fits of adrenaline and hysteria, refusing to believe it could be anything close to the supernatural.

Rory doesn’t know how long it’s been. The further he’s traveled, the weaker he’s become, now left to stumble through dark tunnels, energy burned through. Which is what Rory has assumed them to be. Tunnels with no light, no clear direction. He follows the walls by mere touch alone, but there haven’t been any turns. There are no twists or rooms rooting out. And the air around him is stagnant. He moves through the dense mass of it like the wind used to move against him.

Rory’s back prickles unguarded. He imagines the seeker’s hand coming out and latching on his shoulder. He waits to feel the kitchen knife pierce his back, the blade grinding bone.

Rory hopes he managed to get a safe distance between himself and the hunter. While the seeker seemed to have more meat on their bones compared to Rory’s spindly, mantis-like stature, they were short. Hopefully, it will make them slow. Rory takes advantage of his long stride, even as it begins to feel impossible to lift his feet.

“Murderous hide and seek, how fucked,” Rory says, words a murmur.

His jaw grinds, pain twinging in a molar. It’s a cavity he scheduled to get pulled in a week.

He blinks, breath hitching, at the brush of memory. Frantic, he tears and scrapes at his recollection for more, scratching at that inner wall for a taste of something else. He finds nothing.

Rory’s foot snags on a lump. He trips, palms reaching before his head can greet hard ground. It’s not rock he finds.

Rory glides his fingers not over the frigid stone of the cave, but dirt. It’s cold and loose. It soothes his cuts and slides under his nails. “I’m losing my mind.”

He crawls, feeling further. He reaches for the darkness and finds bark. It rises dry and jagged. Rory stands and slides his hands against the trunk. He finds stemming branches, then needles. At once, the smell of pine floods his nose, coating his tongue like sap.

Then comes the brush of wind. A barn owl screeches into the night.

His heart is a madman slamming fists in Rory’s throat.

He feels a way around the tree. And there is the moon—appearing as instant as the start of creation—beaming through the branches and needles. He can see the dirt and grass under his feet. It stains his white sneakers. Spiraling before him is a forest. He tilts his head back and finds stars. He’s out of the cave.

Is this the exit? Has he won the game? Not possible. This was too easy. This has to be a part of the maze.

Rory begins to wonder if he’s on a drug. Perhaps this entire chase isn’t happening at all.

But it has to be real. He can feel the prickle of bark, can feel the soft brush of wind.

A pang knits his neck. Rory whips around, searching. That wall of darkness leading to the cave remains, but he can feel stalking eyes. Someone—or rather, something—is watching. He turns fully, examining the night. A shadow flits to his left.

Rory shoots towards it.

Between the trees is a figure. Not the seeker. This one wears a black mask. They stand unmoving, the gloom playing at their suit, coating it in shadows.

He takes a step back, and again the figure doesn’t make a move to follow. They watch, simply observing.

Nausea filling his throat, Rory leaves that place, feet taking him between the trees. He travels as though following a learned path, as though walking here is second nature.

Another smell comes. The scent of sweat and lilies mold with the pine. Rory drags it in, shoulder hitting a tree. He knows this smell. It’s the same scent clinging to his clothes.

The deeper into the forest Rory goes, the thicker the trees become. Pines snap at his cheeks. Gnats and flies pester his neck. Rory bats them away.

Strange how insects exist here, how the environment shifts with cracks and moaning cries.

The air has a dry bite compared to the damp cold of the cave.  

The terrain turns lumpy and uneven. The ground isn’t as smooth as before but winding. Rory pushes on, and soon, the trees loosen. The forest thins until Rory doesn’t have to weave through them at all.

Rustles and scrapes sound. He wonders how close the seeker is on his tail. If they’re toying with him.

He clutches a trunk. Breaths rake down his nose, curls of smoke forming like he’s got coals settled in his lungs.

He can feel it in his stomach, in the prickle at his neck, he’s still being watched. Perhaps it’s by the silent observers, perhaps the seeker is indeed tracking him, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

Rory gasps another chilled inhale, attention pulling to his feet.

A stone, jutting out of the earth and reaching toward the treetops, lies nearby. The surface of it is coated, stained wet with blood. It’s fresh enough to reflect the moon.

He coughs a gag. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Fist reaching for his nose, Rory searches for a direction promising an indication of safety, no matter how small. Perhaps a burrow or another cave—

But there’s no use in hiding. It would only get him killed. He’d be found within the hour. Besides, there are only trees as far as he can see, and Rory never has taken to climbing with his fear of heights.

His brows twinge. Flashing images of scaling a transmission tower—the remnants of a scolding—whisper in the loop of his ear. A shocking throb beats his temples as the new memory surfaces. A hiss slices his teeth. He can’t even celebrate the victory of remembering something with the itch to keep moving filling his feet.

The pines clear enough for the entire night sky to light the forest, displaying constellations and the moon, now beaming red like a cartoon devil. But far out, the atmosphere bends with a hint of pink. Dawn is approaching.

Now, trees lie scattered. A puzzle missing its pieces. Ahead lies a river running through the valley. The water sloshes and, somehow, Rory knows the current is traveling east. Mist clouds the landscape. It’s dense, damp to the touch. It pulls Rory’s tired limbs, down, threatening to drown him as a sea would.

If he wasn’t being hunted, Rory is sure the scene would be beautiful, almost angelic.

His shoes seep into the mud with every step. He approaches the river and peers in to find black moss and tumbled stone and clumps of tadpoles. Frogs croak from the bank. His socks grow wet. Rory’s stomach twinges once more just as a rustle sounds.

The seeker slides from the forest, mask gleaming white as a candle flame. Arms at their side, the knife dangles towards the ground as they approach.  

A guttural, whining sound rips from Rory. He surges towards the river, leaping into it. With the water coming to his chest, Rory feels the taste of escape. But the stream is too strong, stronger than it appeared from dry ground.

The current sweeps Rory with it. The cold mauls his skin. It splits through him. His legs drag—useless—as he heaves towards the bank in repeated tugs. He’s not fast enough. His limbs battle against him, a puppeteer missing half his strings.

Rory scrambles at the shore, palms sliding through slick mud, skin nicking debris. He catches hold of a rock. It’s a mere pebble of a stone. With one heave, he lifts out, only to slip back into the water. The current takes Rory under.

He hollers, taking in a mouthful of water. It tastes of salt. He’s swept further through the river before he can get his feet steady.

If he doesn’t get air soon—

Rory straightens his legs, sneakers sliding along the river’s slick underbelly. Blood pounds in Rory’s ears. Pressure rises, crushing his chest.

He pushes up, gasping.

The seeker stands down the bank, never seeming to have moved. It observes Rory’s struggle, head tilted at a wide angle.

Rory manages to clamber out of the water and faces the seeker. Drenched clothes pull him down. He hardly notices as he watches them with a glowering gaze, a gaze his mother said attracted trouble.

His eye twitches.

The seeker remains motionless, stare unbreaking.

Rory notes the bank. He grabs a stone. It feels solid in his fist. A chip nicks his skin. Nostrils flaring, he chucks it at the seeker.

It slams into their shoulder—sending them stumbling but a step—and sinks into the muck. They look at Rory, head angling further. They lumber forward.

“Go away!” Rory bellows. “Get away from me. I don’t want to play this game.”

He can see their eyes through the holes of their mask, unnaturally wide. Extraordinarily white. It sends his knees unsteady.

Rory races across the valley, shoes sloshing. Trees dart by in dark blurs. With them—standing at the trunks’ sides—are more observers. They do not participate in the chase. They do not shift apart from the subtle turn of their masked faces as Rory sprints past.

He can feel their attention like Satan’s embrace on his skin.

Ahead, he sees a treehouse. A single room made of wood, two windows dotting its exterior. Warmth shines through the panes. The light is yellow with promised heat. Below the structure, a rickety ladder with too many exposed nails offers a crooked path inside. Vines wrap up, diving into the wood’s veins.

Rory remembers having a treehouse of his own. One his father built before he was born. It was unstable, couldn’t even hold a woman’s weight. That didn’t stop Rory though. He would nestle himself there, small frame squished in the one secure corner. It was the only place he couldn’t be touched.

His temples throb, turning his vision hazy. It feels like he’s running sideways.

He needs to get away. If the seeker is this close, if they found him this easily, perhaps he should hide until they pass. But there’s nothing here. There’s no covering to provide protection. There is only the river, the pines, and the treehouse in this valley. Hiding in the treehouse would be obvious. The treehouse would get him killed.

Rory levels a long look at the ladder leading to the room with two windows, before leaving the light behind.

#

The sky brightens as the mist dissolves. Vibrant purples and reds smear behind fading stars. It’s beautiful, otherworldly, despite the circumstances.

Rory grows worn, so worn he can’t bear to run. Shivers attack his joints—in swells of muscle—from the soaking cold. He needs a change of clothes. At this rate, he could die from the elements before the seeker reaches him again.

He wheezes, hands heavy as anchors. Rory leans his head back, eyes squeezed shut.

How much longer must he endure this? Of all people, why did it have to be him? Rory can’t remember hardly anything about himself, but surely, he wasn’t so terrible of a person to deserve such torment.

A ripple glides through the wind, sending leaves and branches rustling. It sounds like cracking bone. This, Rory has learned, is the sound of change. It’s the audible shift of this land as the very ground molds, as the trees bend and twist, as the world shapes itself anew.

Rory opens his eyes to find a house. His breath hitches enough to send him choking. The alteration of the environment is something out of a fantasy film, so far from the reality he knows, it’s impossible to get used to. Rory hopes he won’t ever have to adapt, that he’ll be long gone before he has the opportunity.

Still, he takes a moment to observe the new scene forming inside the valley.

The building stands short and stub, painted with chipping yellow as pale as bread guts. A humble porch hugs the back door. The grass lies untrimmed. Overgrown. Vines and weeds attack the foundation. The invasive creepers consume the house, an ailment.

Rory’s shoulder bumps a tire swing, the center filled with rainwater.

He should continue past the home. This would be as obvious as the treehouse. But Rory has grown too tired to run. There might be resources inside. Fresh clothes, maybe some water. He’ll just stop for a moment. All he needs is five minutes to change.

He approaches the door, porch sighing with each step, and looks through a frosted window. No light lies within. Rory tries for the handle. It rattles—locked. He groans, teeth gnawing his cheek.

There’s a wooden sign hung on the side of the house. It’s shaped in the form of a duck, color faded and flaking, just like the remnants of the house. Rory stares at it for a long, heavy moment. His fingers twitch, neck prickling. Rory removes the sign, the motion familiar.

A key lies on a nail behind it.

It’s cold inside the house like the heat was shut off after missing a bill.

Rory stands in the kitchen, unmoving. Half the cabinets are missing doors. Some only hang by a single hinge. There’s a pile of dishes in the sink, molding food and drink residue lining glass and plastic. Flies waft the air above, greedy for rotting leftovers. In the fridge, Rory finds a molding cucumber—black juices seeping on the shelf—a jar stashing a single pickle, and a half-empty water bottle. He grabs the bottle and gulps it down, not noticing a taste.

He chucks the empty bottle into the sink. It knocks against a plate and lands on the floor. He leaves to examine what rooms rest beyond the kitchen.

Rory moves through the short halls without hesitance. As he goes, he imagines a bedroom to the left, a half-bath to the right, and finds them there. The rooms are cluttered with junk. He ruffles through drawers and closets, finding nothing—not even a spare pair of underwear.

He goes past the kitchen once more and into the living room. The space houses a couch covered in cigarette burns, a brown stain at the front door, and a tube television with a baseball bat sticking through the screen. This house must have been abandoned long ago. They don’t make tube televisions anymore. Now it’s all sleek and smooth flatscreens.

The air is quiet as a crypt, making Rory’s ears buzz.

He eyes the room, breaths coming in clouds just as a shadow passes outside the window. Steps creak and Rory’s form tenses enough to convulse, aching more than his tormenting head.

He inches to the window, draws the curtain a finger’s width, and sees the seeker standing at the front door. Rory tugs at the collar of his sweatshirt.

He can’t run. He doesn’t have the energy to go any further. And if he did escape, what then? The seeker will just come back. They clearly know this world. Rory needs to act. No more hide and seek. No more games. He needs to do something while he still has strength remaining. For survival.

Rory peeks out the window again.

The seeker raises a fist. They knock on the wood three times. The beating sounds like a hammer crashing down on a catacomb. It pulses through the walls.

A meek, almost moaning cry spills from Rory’s lips. The anguished sound drags up his throat.

He scrambles for the kitchen, tripping over soaked shoes. He grapples for a drawer. He doesn’t understand how he knew—or if some greater power offered him a lick of luck—but there’s a kitchen knife. It gleams with wear and rust, but it’ll do the job. He races for the living room.

His head pounds. It wallops like an angry father, making him shake.

The doorknob burns when he yanks it open. With a scream tearing through his vocals, Rory plunges the knife into the seeker.

He rakes it out, grips it with two hands, and stabs again. Again. Again. The blade rips through muscle and knicks bone. It scissors away until the life is fully taken. His cries break through the dawn. The sound is a mewling call of a desperate animal. He spears and screams until his voice croaks, until the seeker is lying in the entrance, blood seeping like the river.

Rory’s screech fades, and the ringing silence returns. He chokes—eyes squeezed tight—at the smell of metal painting the cold air. He drapes limp, head hanging low.

The seeker’s mask slips free.

Rory looks at them, and his eyes tear wide.

His head splits with pain as another memory returns. He screams, flying from the corpse, slipping in pooling blood.

He recognizes her. He knows the horrified lines of her expression, her dull, brown hair and ashen skin. He knows this woman. Her name is Nova, she was his neighbor, and this is not the first time he’s killed her.

#

Rory fell into a fit of insomnia following his termination. He should have known the job wouldn’t last. Because who was he kidding? With his fear of heights, he wasn’t fit for the work of repairing transmission cables. But it had been the only position hiring within a twenty-mile radius of his home and he just so happened to have minor experience with electrical wiring, picked up from his mother. He couldn’t afford the cost of gas to look any further, and his heat was to be turned off if the next bill wasn’t met. Rory was desperate.

But he blew his first day of training. Second day on the job, he was sent up a tower with the manager. He didn’t last five minutes. He swore the wind was trying to tear him down. Even though he was stable, strapped in, it felt like he was falling. Each gust brought ghostly hands grabbing his shoulders, pushing and shoving. They threatened to send him over.

Rory was prone to panic attacks, ones that gripped his throat and made it hard to breathe. During those moments, it was impossible to focus or make clear of his surroundings.

It seemed his manager didn’t take well to having a subordinate hyperventilate a hundred feet in the air. Once they made it down, Rory got chewed out and sent home. It was suggested he not return for his next shift. Rightfully so. In a way, Rory understood. But he needed money. He needed money fast. Winter had come. If he couldn’t make those bills, first it would be the heat, then the water.

Rory paced his living room that evening. He worked his way around the room, mind swimming under the pressure. When he couldn’t take it anymore, needed an outlet for all his wound energy, Rory grabbed the nearest object. The baseball bat was settled in his hands for a moment before finding a new home through the television screen. Rory didn’t have the energy to pick up the shattered glass.

Smashing his belongings did little to relieve his stress. The insomnia that followed helped even less. At first, he would lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering when the entire foundation would come crashing down. Lacking medical insurance meant no doctor, so Rory took to drugstore medication. He tried everything in his local market. None of it did anything apart from making him so rugged with drowsiness, he couldn’t form proper sentences. And sleep never came.

The restlessness overcoming him lasted longer than he ever experienced before. It carried for weeks, a pattern tormenting Rory with an hour or two of rest a night. When Rory did manage to sleep, he experienced fixes of paralysis. Demons and nightmares seemed to flock outside the house. They scraped at windows and cried into the night. When he woke, Rory swore gleaming eyes watched from the shadows.

Tension grew. It rose like a spright, a housemate Rory couldn’t evict.

His mind was a clutter of cobwebs and Rory was afraid.

It was one early morning—at the peak of his stress—that the foundation finally crumbled.

A migraine had been brewing for days, contorting between his brows, climbing Rory’s head and down his nape. Rory couldn’t take it. He threw ratted quilts and stained pillows on the molting couch, popped a combination of sleeping pills, and begged some greater power for pity. He just wanted five hours of sleep. Nothing more. That alone would be a blessing.

With his rest, the demons came. The ghoulish, skeletal things crept in the dark outside. He saw those haunting eyes glowing through windows, red and angry.

Rory couldn’t move. He could’ve wet himself with that fear as beasts scraped at the walls.

When Rory managed to rip from the paralysis, he went to the kitchen, gulping down water. He leaned over the counter, gasping, sorting through jumbled thoughts. His shirt clung to his skin.

A knock sounded. The three soft taps split through Rory’s head. His tongue twisted. It felt too large in his mouth.

Eyes crazed, he looked at the door.

Another knock.

Flashes of the devils in his dreams came.  

Rory yanked open a drawer and took a kitchen knife, worn from use.

His steps thundered as he charged the front door. He couldn’t let them in. They were coming for him, and he wouldn’t let them.

The cold nip of winter bit Rory’s cheeks, and there was the demon. It stood short, ready to tear him to pieces.

“Hey, Rory. Your mail was delivered to the wrong—”

For the first time in weeks, Rory’s movements weren’t sluggish. They were precise. Violent.

His screams were unintelligible—lighting up the morning—casting the demon out.

But Nova cried louder. Her chokes clipped and gagged until the only sound left was Rory’s pants and the sloshing of iron slicing torn entrails.

#

Rory sits slumped over, knees biting stone. He’s in the room he was brought to before the chase and before the killing. The entrance to the maze is gone, filled with cracking stone. There’s no way out, no sign of escape. As if Rory even has the energy to plan such reckless schemes.

He can’t take his eyes off his palms. Blood has dried in the deep grooves of his skin. It’s caked under his nails. Caked all over him, really. His clothes are soaked through. His pants drip splashes of red from where he knelt in the puddle Nova left behind. The smell if iron is pungent, enough to leave him dizzy. And his head, it pierces, as though a needle is digging around the organ.

“Tell me. What is this place?” Rory’s words split, aching.

“The game has officially come to an end.”

Rory slams his fist to the ground, skin tearing on rock. “Answer me!” He looks under his brows at the masked figure. There’s only one this time, no sight of the past ring of observers.

“I am begging you. I’m already on my knees.” Rory says this with the extension of his arms and a chin tipped toward the heavens. “What more do you want from me?”

They watch him, hands clasped, form unmoving. “You have not figured it out.”

Rory scratches at his cheeks, at his chopped hair sticking out of his temples like wings. “No, I don’t know. I killed that woman, but—”

“It wasn’t the first time.”

Rory chokes.

“Have your memories returned?”

The stagnant air is stifling. Rory can hardly breathe it; it feels too full in his lungs. He shakes, hunching his shoulders. “Am I going to die? Are you going to kill me?”

“There wouldn’t be a point.”

Rory’s attention flits to the figure. Their eyes gleam white through the holes of the mask. And something about their gaze, the deadness that seems to cloud the air, has Rory voicing the question that’s been floating in his head since he first woke. “Did you drug me?”

“You are sober. There is no greater truth than that.”

Rory scrambles to his feet, swaying. “Then what?” He looks around like the truth will be plastered on the walls. He shakes his head. “What happened to me? Where am I?” 

They click their tongue, three times. “You were seen murdering that young woman.” The masked figure starts walking a circle around Rory. Slow. Their feet hardly scrape the ground. “You ran when you regained your senses, do you remember?”

He hadn’t, but as the pieces are fed, shining slivers of memory emerge. They’re blurry, but Rory can feel the sensation of panic, the sour taste of regret.

“It seems you didn’t recognize Nova Roberts until it was too late. You escaped through the back door and went to the woods. You got far before tripping and hitting your head. You crawled your way to a cave and collapsed there.”

Rory feels his skin, finding a seeping ridge tearing through his temple. A tremor skitters through him. “Is it true?” His breaths come fast. The thick air seems to wrap around his throat.

They stop and look at Rory, tilting their head. “There is no reason for me to lie.”

Rory’s attention darts back and forth as ideas piece together. He starts, “Am I…am I dead?”

The mask glimmers, those white eyes finally blink. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

True anger, a fiery wave of it, grips Rory.

“Do you know who I am, Rory Feltch?”

“A bastard would be my guess.”

A chair appears—instant—like it was always there. The masked figure settles into it with a sigh. It’s the first hint of emotion. That brush of exhaustion is almost human. They fold their arms, suit creasing. “Some would see me as a god. Others, a curse. I am neither of those things. The principal of my very being lies closer to humanity.”

Rory remains silent, hoping if he does so, a proper answer will be pulled from this being’s throat.

They lean back and stare at the ceiling obscured in churning smoke. Rory catches a glimpse under their mask and sees wrinkled skin.

“I am torment. I am the very guilt you feel,” they say. “I thirst after memories. It’s my personal feast.”

Rory stands rigid, arms tight at his sides.

The masked figure taps their fingers and gaze at Rory. And now, now knowing what this being is, their eyes gleam brighter, more haunting. They stare right through Rory’s chest, and he swears they’re seeing straight into his soul. “You murdered someone. That fact haunts you. But your anguish serves a greater purpose.”

Rory’s nostrils flair. “A greater purpose for what? To you?”

The being says nothing in return.

And something about the figure’s behavior catches Rory’s eye. They aren’t simply carrying themselves with the relaxation of a powerful entity, but it’s like they’re…bored. They’re responses are quick. Repetitive. “Have you told me this before?” he asks.

The figure hums and Rory is sure a smile lies spread on the lips beneath the mask. “Your memory is a rather delicious one.”

Rory collapses in a heap. The ground doesn’t bite, doesn’t tear at his skin.

Was there ever a point to the game, or was it simply a way for this great being of torment to feed off his memories? Memories of the valley, of the chase, flood Rory. Was there even a way to escape at all? These are all things he could ask. He might even get answers. Rory can’t find it within himself to care.

The figure watches, silent.

Rory’s expression pinches. He gnaws and bites his lip, tearing chapped skin. He licks away blood. “Do you have another name other than Guilt?”

They click long, lumpy fingernails against their mask. “I have more than even I can remember.”

Rory tugs at his sweatshirt, eyes tapered shut. “Why me?” It was a final, lame attempt at getting an answer for this suffering. Killing Nova was no small matter. It will be stashed in his conscience for the rest of his life, haunting his dreams and impacting every decision. And Rory asks this question to the being before him and to no one at all.

If only he could turn time. If only things unfolded differently. If only he hadn’t grabbed for the knife—

“You humans always ask that question. Why are you special? Why were you chosen?” They hum again, too human of a tone. The sound wraps around Rory’s ear like a lover’s tongue. “What makes you think you alone are receiving my full attention? Your guilt is not enough to sate me. I am everywhere, in everyone. I told you once before, this is simply nature.”

Rory opens his eyes to find the masked figure standing before him, hand outstretched, waiting. “Come, Rory Feltch. It’s time to play again.”

---

Rory's story has been a work in progress for over a year now. It's one that came from a nightmare I had in high school and couldn't let go. Something about Rory's character grips me. It's impossible for me to let him rest. But I am far from satisfied with my writing in this piece. He enthralled me, and yet, for the entire project, we were working on different rhythms. We couldn't align with one another. Every couple of months I would take the piece out, work with the structure, and put it away once more. I had considered sending the piece to some literary journals, but I just can't seem to get the first half of Rory's adventure right. Which is why I chose to post it on my blog. I hope you managed to get some enjoyment from Rory's torment.