It’s been around sixteen hours since I found the first one.
A human face, drawn across my bedroom’s floorboards with what appeared to be some kind of dark chalk. No amount of scrubbing would remove it. Believe me, I tried. It was as if the young girl’s icy glare had been etched into the splintered wood with an unknown yet perpetual purpose.
I still don’t know who the face belongs to. And if that doesn’t change in the next eight hours, I’ll almost certainly be dead.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s pull back to Thursday morning. That’s when the message hit my inbox. An unexpected start to the day if ever there was one—I hadn’t spoken to Jed Storrie in years. Certainly not since we left high school. And even then, it wasn’t exactly like we talked. A more apt description would be that Jed spoke and I listened, usually while under siege from his relentless torment. Even back then, Jed’s behavior was as puzzling as it was painful—at times he’d come across as something resembling a friend, coming over to my house for dinner after school, my family totally oblivious to the turmoil he was putting me through. And then, in an instant, he’d just straight up turn on me. No warning, no trigger that I was ever aware of, nothing. Just a senseless onslaught of spite. Verbal, physical, and on bad days a hefty helping of both. High school was a misery for me, and it took some time to even contemplate trying to get over it. Deep down, I don’t think I ever really have.
So yeah, the message came as something of a surprise. I’d not seen Jed on this particular social networking site before, not even in that ‘people you may know’ section (AKA the list of people I most certainly do know, and make a calculated effort to avoid). I’d sure as heck not sought him out on it. But there he was, his message nestled in my inbox, its content leaving no doubt that this was really him. Jed Storrie, the dismantler of Camden D. Cortfield’s dreams, hopes, and happiness circa 2000-2004.
Even more surprising was what Jed had to say after all these years, completely out of the blue—he seemed sorry. Like, legitimately sorry. This message was a straight up apology, along with an invitation to grab beers and discuss his adolescent behavior.
“And Camden, listen man, I totally understand that you in no way owe me anything. Nothing at all, man. There’s no reason why you should feel obliged to accept this offer, and if you don’t, I’ll get it. I will SO get it, man. But I really hope you do accept. I need this, man. Maybe it will help you, too.” Disproportionate usage of the word ‘man’ aside, I couldn’t help but feel drawn into this unforeseen whirlwind of regret and penitence. I guess you could say I was captivated by it. Was the person who made my juvenile life complete and utter hell really this sorry? Does he genuinely care about my feelings, and how he almost fractured them to a point where I felt like I didn’t deserve to exist?
Against my better judgment, I responded. Not right away; no chance I was giving him that level of satisfaction. And besides, I had to think about what I was going to say. And as it turned out, I had to think real hard. This resulted in the rest of Thursday seeming almost like a fluttering daydream—though I did go to work, I barely recall actually being there. (Fortunately enough, mid-level management at this particular modest-sized printing company doesn’t command utmost levels of attention, and winging my duties in a stoic state of autopilot wasn’t exactly uncharted territory.)
By the time I made it home, a middling apartment in a mediocre building nestled slap bang in the heart of an achingly ordinary town, my brain felt set to burst with the deluge of thoughts and questions gushing through it. Talking them out seemed like the best option, although I didn’t yet feel comfortable reaching out to friends for feedback or advice. Come to think of it, I’d never really spoken to anyone about what I went though. I guess I was too embarrassed, or worse, worried it’d change people’s perception of who I am today. And so I decided to simply brainstorm aloud to myself. I live alone, and my neighbors are all-too aware of this, so I’ve no doubt they heard my pontification through our apartments’ paper-thin shared walls. Perhaps it sounded like I was reciting lines for an upcoming audition—the part of the dreariest, most “oh woe is me” character in the history of performing arts.
It didn’t work. I was still left with nothing. And the most humbling part of it was that I’d spent YEARS thinking about all of the things I wanted to say to Jed if we were to ever again cross paths. With that fresh in my mind, I resorted to Plan B: pouring myself an obnoxiously large drink, sitting back in the most comfortable of my three chairs, and sheepishly starting to type something. Anything.
An hour passed, a bottle of wine disappeared, and my inner editor had whittled each meandering burst of creativity down to two solitary sentences. “Thanks for this, Jed. Let’s grab a beer sometime.”
How exactly does one respond to their teenage tormentor’s desperate pleas for forgiveness? I guess very fucking sparsely.
To my dismay, Jed responded almost immediately. He seemed delighted, and keen to meet up as promptly as possible. (“Awesome, man! What are you up to tonight?”) It goes without saying that I didn’t share this full-throttle enthusiasm, and tried shifting focus on this rapidly developing entanglement deep into the following week. I should be so lucky. We ended up agreeing on Saturday afternoon. His choice of meet-up spot also came as something of a surprise—one of my neighborhood bars that I frequent fairly often. Never once had I seen him there before. I couldn’t help but wonder, what if he’d seen me? Perhaps that was the catalyst for him reaching out?
The Lighthorse Tavern is a quiet, cozy, laid back sort of place, which made for an ideal backdrop to host a get-together as awkward as I suspected this one would be. Trudging through the front door, anxiety levels slowly cranking up to eleven, I nestled myself in one of the empty stools lining the bar. Elizabeth was working, which did little to calm my nerves. Hellish flashbacks of asking her out on a date a few weeks earlier still lingered in my mind. I barely recall the conversation, let alone her answer to my booze-infused proposition, although the manner in which she chuckled to herself upon catching sight of me suggested it was a polite but stern no.
I was ten or so minutes early, and Jed made me wait another twenty before gracing me with his presence. Not that I was surprised. I thought to myself, he must feel at least as uncomfortable as me about the whole thing. Right? But make an appearance he did, and the very sight of him instantly made me tense up. A chill crawled its way down the back of my neck, easing into an ice-cold ripple as it slithered down my spine. Muscle memory, no doubt. Though it’d been close to sixteen years since I’d last laid eyes on the guy, my instinctual response didn’t skip a beat. I downed the remainder of my beer in one long pull and hurriedly ordered another.
Jed looked rough. Real rough. Tired and haggard, I immediately detected the stench of stale alcohol as he sat down next to me, his face dappled with cuts and bruises—I couldn’t help but think that Jed looked kinda like I did after a particularly unpleasant high school encounter with him.
It was soon clear that he didn’t want to be in the bar any more than I did. Strange, I thought. His message had suggested that he wanted this more than anything. After what felt like an eternity, Jed found it within himself to muster up something to say. “Hey, man.” Not exactly the most resourceful of ice breakers.
“Hey.” In my head, my voice reverberated with boundless banality.
Jed shuffled in his seat (squirmed, even) before unfurling his attempt at a meaningful conversation. “So, erm, thanks for this. Really appreciate it, man. I honestly didn’t think you’d want to meet up.”
I couldn’t stop looking at his wounds. There was certainly no shortage of them. A deep ridge, burrowed into his left cheek, looking almost like it’d been clawed out by a wild animal. The protruding contusion nestled above—yet drooping slightly over—his right eyebrow. The missing tooth he was oh-so desperately attempting to conceal with each muttered word. What had happened to this guy? One thing’s for sure: the remnants of my ex-bully’s face wasn’t making me feel any less anxious about this whole debacle.
“Yeah, well, I thought it was the best thing to do. For both of us. I mean, after reading your message and all. You seemed…”
Jed nudged slightly closer.
“…Sincere?”
Curiously, this appeared to conjure the blundering, inelegant ghost of a smile. Whatever. Time to cut to the chase.
“Listen. You didn’t have to do this. So why did you?”
Jed seemed surprised by my direct approach.
“Hey, man, you wanna do some shots? I could use something to calm my nerves. This is tough on me, you know.”
Not the answer I was expecting, but based on Jed’s underwhelming disposition thus far, about as gratifying as one was likely to get. The reserves of candor that oozed from his message had seemingly dried up.
“Awesome. Jame-O good?”
I started to relax after sinking the first two. (Yeah, I know. Not smart. Elizabeth no doubt sensed the discomfort radiating from our bashful rapport and decided to try drowning it.) Small talk was exchanged, but nothing of significance was touched upon, even when I tried inciting it. It all seemed rather pointless. What are we doing here? I kept asking myself the question over and over again. What’s the end game in all of this?
“I… I’m gonna hit the head.” Jed was clearly intoxicated, although I suspect this was the case long before he even turned up. “Back in a minute. And don’t be going paying the check or nothin’ like that. Th-this is on me.”
It was right around that moment that things started to get foggy. Not due to the booze; I was near certain of that. God knows I’m no stranger to a heroic dose of the stuff. This felt…different. My favorite Johnny Cash track, ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ was playing in the background (the first and certainly the last song I’d noticed playing in the bar that night), and I started mumbling the lyrics under my breath. At least, until the consciousness began to drain from my body. At first everything was muddled. Light, color, form…my visual palette was suddenly akin to a dropped lasagne. And then it was all just black.
Jet black. The darkest shade of nothing you could ever imagine to exist.
I don’t know exactly how I made it to the parking lot, but judging by the condition of my clothes, it hadn’t been a smooth journey. There was a fresh streak of vomit smeared down the front of my shirt, while my pant legs were torn at the knees, blood seeping out from between the shreds of fabric. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I recall there being another person present, looking every bit as panicked as Jed. (I didn’t realize this at the time, but it turned out to be Russell, Jed’s younger brother.) At first I thought they were simply beating me up; it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time I’d been in such a predicament. One of the clearest recollections I have of the ordeal is Jed slicing my hand with some kind of dagger. Not in a ‘I’m doing this to fuck you up’ sense; the manner in which he did it seemed strangely concise. His brother was pinning me down to the ground, though this was hardly necessary. I was barely able to keep my eyes open, let alone fend off assailants. Seemingly finished with the blade, Jed stuffed (what felt like) a book of some kind into the back pocket of my pants. “Are you sure this is gonna work? Will you be left alone after this?” I heard the question, but had no clue what Russell meant by it, and I’m near certain Jed didn’t respond. Instead, he kept his focus on me, saying the same thing over and over. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t want any of this to happen.”
I remember the faint sound of sirens. This clearly spooked Jed and Russell, who promptly fled the scene, Jed drunkenly stumbling as he went, still clutching the dagger he’d sliced open my hand with. I recall the distressed tone in Elizabeth’s voice, who apparently hadn’t noticed Jed and I leaving the bar area. I could hear the shock and guilt in her voice as she called for an ambulance. And lastly, I remember the crushing realization that I’d walked into another of Jed’s traps, exactly like I would’ve done as a teenager. Did it mean I wasn’t any smarter or wiser than I was back then? That I’d learned nothing? My eyes flickered; at that moment, I couldn’t have been happier to concede to the second bout of darkness. I welcomed it. It felt like the only form of solace a gullible fool like me deserved.
*
I checked myself out of hospital shortly after regaining consciousness, and having learning that I was drugged prior to the assault (not that this was a surprise considering the condition I was in), agreed to press charges. The cop I spoke to informed me that Jed, along with his brother, had been in trouble with the law on several occasions over the past decade—narcotics distribution mostly, which was the closest thing to an aspiring career he’d ever expressed interest in at high school. Jed was also serving out the backend of a lengthy period of parole, meaning that once found, this latest bout of misadventure would earn him some serious jail time. The thought didn’t do much to lift my spirits. At that point, the whole ‘what the fuck-ness’ of the situation totally overwhelmed any yearning for punishment or even revenge. Why had Jed gone through all of the trouble to write an apology, invite me out for drinks, only to end up attacking me in the most bizarre manner possible? Nothing made even the slightest bit of sense.
It wasn’t until I got home that I even thought to inspect the book that’d been shoved into my back pocket. It was small, resembling a (very) old-school Moleskine notepad, bound in cracked, vintage leather. Almost all of its pages were blank. Flipping through them, I happened upon a bookmark, nestled three or four pages before the end. It was a thin strip made from the same leather as the book’s binding, and appeared to be the same age (a hundred years, maybe? Its musty, archaic odor suggests it could well be older). The page beneath it appeared to be the only one in the entire book that had been written on—the calligraphy was striking and chaotic, while the words themselves somehow, remarkably, succeeded in making my predicament even fucking stranger.
You have inherited THE MISSION.
The Mission is an ancient obligation wherein the bearer must help and protect three people facing a grave threat. Once the Mission has been completed, the bearer is free from all responsibility and permitted to pass the obligation along to another individual of their choosing.
The faces of three people will be revealed to the Mission’s bearer through a series of images. Look out for them. Be vigilant. Starting from the moment the first face is seen, The bearer has twenty-four hours to identify and make contact with this person. Failure to do so is considered defaulting on the Mission and will be met with punishment.
Punishment will be administered by the Auditor.
After the first protectee is identified and contacted, the bearer has one week to assist all three people in overcoming their plight. A tool and/or weapon will be provided to the bearer for each stage of their Mission. Should additional assistance be required, the bearer is invited to play the eye game. Failure to adhere to the one-week deadline will see the bearer meet with punishment.
Punishment will be administered by the Auditor.
As previously noted, once each of the three protectees has been released from their torment, the bearer is able to pass along the Mission to somebody else of their choosing. This is achieved by marking a successor’s right hand with the Blade of Zalk and then entrusting them with the blade along with these very guidelines.
If the bearer attempts to pass along the Mission before their own has been fulfilled — or in any other way attempts to default on the obligation — the bearer will meet with punishment.
Punishment will be administered by the Auditor.
I tried to laugh. I wanted to cry. I was unable to do either.
Ripping out the page, scrunching it into the tightest ball my feeble left hand could muster, and then bouncing it off of the nearby trash can’s rim, I noticed the bandaging covering the wound on my hand was coming loose. It was also starting to burn. Not that I cared. If anything, the pain offered a rather welcome distraction.
*
I couldn’t sleep that night. A fresh emotion had taken control—anger. I could not believe that I’d agreed to meet Jed, and how much I hated him for it. I suppose I’d always hated him, but never quite like this. I wanted only bad things to happen to him, and I debated whether or not I was capable of inflicting some of them myself. I’m certainly not the pushover I was in high school, but still not exactly a force of nature to be reckoned with. So after wising up somewhat, I pondered alternate ways of picking myself back up. None came to me.
I decided to get up and finish (what little) was left of my stash of wine. Tip-toeing towards the bedroom door, not wearing my slippers and keen to avoid the exposed nails poking up from the floorboards, I spotted something down on the ground. At first glance it looked like some kind of smear or blemish reaching out from beneath my bedside rug. I certainly hadn’t noticed it before attempting to turn in for the night. Had I spilled something? I turned on the light and pulled back the rug.
It was a face. A young girl, maybe 8 years old, staring up from my floorboards. After a full minute or so of surveying it in frozen disbelief, I marshaled the courage to crouch down and take a closer look. There was a chalky residue surrounding the scratchy (yet surprisingly detailed) image, the material used to scrawl it emitting a pungent odor. I took multiple washcloths to the image, a wire brush, and eventually, my electric sander. Nothing worked. This girl’s face was seemingly here to stay.
At first, I wasn’t so much afraid as stunned. Who had done this? How had they done it, considering I’d been lying awake all night? Was Jed somehow involved?
The faces of the three people will be revealed to the Mission’s bearer through a series of images.
No. I refused to believe it. Literally fucking impossible. But then I went out into the living room.
The curious notebook sat atop of my desk, the page I’d pulled out from it missing no more. In fact, it was in perfect condition, bound seamlessly to the book’s spine. An additional detail had been added to the page following it.
The Mission’s provided guidelines must not be defaced or discarded by the bearer. A second occurrence of any such action will see the bearer meet with punishment.
Punishment will be administered by the Auditor.
The Auditor. As startling as those two words might sound in everyday life, this guy didn’t sound like the type who’d stop at examining my pitiful finances.
While scrutinizing the “guidelines” with considerably more intent than I had earlier, something caught my eye. At first I thought it was someone peering in through my kitchen window—it would’ve been quite the feat considering I live on the fifth floor of a building with a long-since crumbled exterior fire escape. I took a closer look.
A teenager’s face, drawn into the frosty condensation coating one of the 12” x 12” panes of glass. Like the girl dwelling on my bedroom floor (albeit much smaller), it was notably lifelike. The kid looked familiar somehow, though I was close to certain it was no-one I actually knew. Just a familiar-looking, eighteen-or-so-year-old. An everyday Joe. I felt compelled to grab my cell phone and snap a picture of it—for a moment at least, I debated texting it to someone to see what they thought. For all manner of reasons I decided against doing such a thing, not least when I inspected the photo I’d taken: the face was nowhere to be seen. I took another photo. And then another. Same thing happened. The face was absent, and yet it was plain as day and clear to see on the pane of glass. Out of curiosity, I reached out to swipe away the condensation, but the face remained. Much like the girl in the other room, the image of this kid was going nowhere.
I returned to my bedroom with the intent of snapping a photograph of the girl, to see if the same thing would happen. At this point I hadn’t yet considered the possibility that my sanity was in any way compromised. As outlandish as all of this was, it had so far felt sufficiently “real” for me to take seriously. That came close to changing as I opened my bedroom door.
The face was still there. But it was different. Her expression had changed. The girl had initially looked somewhat peaceful; she was now shrieking with abundant anguish. Bellowing into an unseen, unknown abyss. Her eyes were wide open, pulsating with pain and suffering. The metamorphosis of the image was in equal part remarkable and chilling…it would have taken a significant amount of time to craft, and yet it had manifested no more than ten minutes after I’d left the room.
No one was in the apartment except for me. The neighbors had no way of pulling something like this. Nor did Jed, his brother, or anyone else.
Had I done this? The faces? The guidelines?
Did the encounter with Jed finally push me over the proverbial ledge, and leave me in such a compromised mental state that defacing my home with sinister-looking faces in some way made sense? The level of skill applied to the images certainly transcended my artistic merit, and the more I thought about it, the unlikelier the prospect of me being responsible posed as a possibility.
A strange, flickering glow began to slowly seep out from between the pages of the book. I quickly snatched it up from the desk, before thumbing through to a new addition.
179 Broadway, #33B
Downtown, around three miles from my apartment. Did I really want to know what I’d find there? The question weighed heavily on me. But then, so did the prospect of disobeying this latest dose of insanity.
*
Around thirty minutes had passed by the time I got out of the cab and rushed into the luxury tower’s lobby. A soaring, gleaming, ultramodern development. Fuck you money, as my father would say. Not quite what I was expecting, if I’m honest. A dingy, vermin-infested shithole seemed like a more appropriate backdrop to the debacle I was enduring.
A pristinely dressed doorman stood up as I entered.
“How can I help you, sir?”
“I’m here to see…erm, someone. Apartment 33B.”
Someone. Christ. But it was the best I could come up with in the moment.
“You can head right up.” The doorman looked dubious, but apparently not sufficiently so as to turn me away. “Straight down the hall, any elevator on the right.”
Wiping away beads of sweat from my saturated brow, the sleek elevator doors opened up into a lavish hallway. A tight knot formed in my gut as I sheepishly made my way past countless doors towards 33B. What was I doing here? I had no idea whose home this was, or what their connection to my dire situation might be. I must have stood outside the apartment for a full minute before gingerly raising my hand to knock on the door. There was no answer. I pressed the doorbell. The sound of fake chimes boomed out for a borderline eternity, before subsiding into yet more agonizing silence.
Then I turned the door handle. It opened.
Stepping inside, the enormous, labyrinthine space was illuminated only by the neon lights of surrounding buildings pouring in through floor-to-ceiling windows. Power had been cut to the apartment, and judging by the dusty sheets covering what was left of the furniture, it was clear that the place had not been lived in for quite some time. The towering ceilings made the space seem even emptier than it was, and though exploring didn’t strike me as a smart move, I knew that I was left with little choice. There had to be something of significance here somewhere. Something that might help me.
Having searched the kitchen, living room, study, and dining room aided only by my cell phone’s puny flashlight, I stared down a long corridor leading into the second wing of this once ceremonious apartment. A faint glimmer of light was seeping out from under one of the closed doors on the opposite end—the ball of tension in my stomach immediately doubled in size. Perspiration poured down my face. Approaching the room, I reminded myself over and over that no option was available to me other than inspecting the source of this glow. The doorknob rattled as I placed my hand on it—my entire body was shaking uncontrollably. I opened the door.
The stench hit me hard. I dropped my cell phone and gagged repeatedly, barely stopping short of puking. My eyes were stinging, watering up—I struggled to catch my breath. Wiping away streams of tears with my sleeve, I looked up to see a large desk that had been dragged into the middle of what was once a primary bedroom, a man’s lifeless body thrust gracelessly across it. A white sheet shrouded the corpse, pebbledashed with deep blotches of dried, crusted blood. The source of the glow—a glistening bronze dagger—had been plunged into the stiff, the metal generating a strange, shimmering light. My eyes widened.
The bearer is able to pass along the Mission to somebody else of their choosing … by marking a successor’s right hand with the Blade of Zalk
It was Jed’s dagger.
Shielding my mouth and picking up my cell phone, I edged slowly towards the blade. Several inscriptions were carved into it, almost like hieroglyphics, but certainly not like any I’d seen before. Reaching out, the dagger began to shine with more vigor. The radiance was almost blinding before I made fleeting contact with the metal, at which point the light immediately extinguished.
“It was the Auditor.”
I froze. Honestly, I’d never been so terrified in my life than in that moment, even considering everything I’d been through already. The muffled voice came from somewhere inside the room, but I couldn’t be sure exactly where.
“The Auditor. He did this. And he made me watch.”
This time I could detect the source of the voice. I thrust my flashlight’s beam towards it. Jed’s brother Russell, sat in the corner.
Looking around the room, I could see that the floor, walls, ceiling, everywhere was caked in gore. Lashings of blood, handfuls of viciously extracted flesh, splintered fragments of bone. The most abhorrent of massacres.
And then there was Russell. His eyelids had been forced wide open and sewn crudely to his brow. The resulting glare—vacant, lost, and by this point sightless—served as an exclamation point to the sickening scene surrounding us.
“He made me watch.”
I managed to look a little closer at Russell. He was holding something. At first it appeared that he was clutching it tightly—the reality was far worse. It was his brother’s severed head, and Russell’s hands were bonded to each side of it. Like his palms and fingers had melted, before pooling and becoming one with the skin of Jed’s cheeks.
“Jed fucked up the Mission. I tried to help him. And for that, I was punished.”
My knees buckled. I started to sob. Russell seemed unmoved. I noticed a human arm under the table, looking as if it had been bent backwards and broken, before being savagely twisted and plucked clean out of its connecting socket.
“That’s what he was bludgeoned to death with. His own arm.” Russell’s voice was bereft of emotion.
“I—” my ability to respond stopped right there.
“At first, I didn’t think it was real. I mean, how could I? The faces, the guidelines, all that shit. Fucking crazy. But I could see he needed help. That the Mission was legit, at least to him.”
I tried to swallow, but the golf ball-sized glob of anxiety that’d moved up from my gut and nestled in my throat refused to budge.
“Jed thought he’d completed it. But clearly, he failed.” Russell’s eyes panned across the room, as if scouring the tapestry of bloodshed that now bedecked it. “And this is what happens to those who fail.”
“I don’t understand—what did he do? What went wrong?”
“Jed found all three people. I don’t know how, but he did. He helped them, too. But by the end he was tired. Got sloppy. He thought the young boy was safe…that the demon, or whatever the fuck it was, had moved on.” With a jolt, Russell switched his attention back towards me. “It hadn’t.”
The demon. My God, what had I gotten myself into.
“Guess he must’ve figured out that he messed up pretty quickly. That’s when he came to me. Told me all about this bullshit. He knew I had a few empty properties waiting to be sold, and like a fucking idiot thought I could help him hide in them before he could pass the Mission on and escape.” Russell sighed deeply. “Again, he was wrong.”
“But why me? Why the hell would he pick me? We hadn’t spoken in—“
“Because you’re an easy target.” And there it was. At least he was being honest.
“Perhaps he thought the sooner he could pass this thing along, the more chance he had of avoiding punishment. Fuck, I don’t know.”
For the second time in one conversation, it felt like I’d lost the ability to speak.
“I’m sorry, Camden.”
It was time to leave. There were many more questions I had for Russell. Where did this Mission come from? Who gave it to Jed? How do I find the people I’m supposed to help? Alas, I couldn’t bring myself to pose any of them.
“Don’t forget it.”
“Hmm?”
“The blade. Jed was meant to leave it with you after marking your hand with it. Guess he fucked up that part, too.”
As if in a trance, without even a hint of hesitation, I yanked the dagger out from Jed’s dismembered carcass and shoved it inside my jacket pocket.
I honestly don’t recall how I got home. My guess is that I walked. And it was barely ten minutes after collapsing in through my front door that it started. The burning.
A sensation that I first thought was anxiety building up in my chest. I should be so lucky. It was digging into it. The pain escalated. A blazing heat, insufferable. It was as if someone—or something—was gouging a white-hot poker into my flesh and twisting it around with fiendish delight. I rushed to the bathroom and ripped open my shirt in front of the mirror, revealing a sight I have no chance of ever forgetting.
A face, looking right back at me. One that felt like it had been tattooed into my chest with pure fire. It was a woman, at least sixty years old. The torment in her face perfectly exemplified how I felt at that moment.
By this point the torture of the entire situation was relentless. There was no letup, no respite. Mere minutes passed before the accursed notebook again started to glow. Two more words had been added, demanding my immediate attention.
Eight hours.
At this point I certainly didn’t need to check the “guidelines” to recall them.
Starting from the moment the first face is found, The bearer has twenty-four hours to identify and make contact with this person.
I peered down at my watch, and thought back to the previous night. The timing seemed about right.
Failure to do so is considered defaulting on the Mission and will be met with punishment.
Punishment will be administered by the Auditor.
So here I am. I have eight hours to find and make contact with the first of these three complete strangers. If I fail, the Auditor comes for me.
I’ll try to update soon.