Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today.
Oh how I wish he'd go away.
- "Antigonish"; William Hughes Mearns
~&~
The planet was a wasteland. A cold, colourless desert . Nothing but dusty, vaguely brown-coloured rocks for miles in every direction; crags that could slice your palms open if you tried to scale them; the landscape, sharp and jagged. There didn't seem to be many places something could live. Small insects and spiders, maybe. Lizards at a push.
But we'd been told there was no life here. No creatures to see nor microscopic specks to grow in a dish. Nothing. Which really begged the question: what were we doing here? There must have been a reason. We wouldn't be here for nothing.
Perhaps the view.
A dense sky, painted dark blues and rich purples that gradually got lighter and whiter to the offing - the point where the rocky distance touched the horizon. And millions of bright glowing stars, twinkling and falling, some bigger than others, some blue-white and some a barely noticeable glimmering red. The perpetual crescent moon, barely visible but so close it seemed to take up half the sky on that side of the planet. And the other moon. The one that looked like a huge, gaseous planet, pale yellow in colour, encircled with rings reminiscent of Saturn. It was close enough that you could almost touch it, yet washed out and faded like the sickle-shaped satellite to its left.
That was only one side of the planet. On the other, a blazing yellow sun shone in a bright blue sky, never setting, frying everything not protected by a specialised suit. There was no wind. No rain. No cloud. Nothing. Just a still, dead rock, hurtling dangerously through the solar system. Every few weeks, a solar eclipse with a totality lasting up to three hours would plunge the planet into ice and darkness. Or so we'd heard.
We didn't stick around long enough to find out.
~&~
"I don't believe nothing lives here," said the blonde girl.
A man with brown hair laughed. "Don't worry, we're the only ones. Nothing's ever lived here before."
I glanced around the hallway with interest. Interest, because this entire house, so utterly normal and cheap in its design, was already waiting for us. Nobody questioned it. Nobody seemed to think that this building that felt lived-in was already here, in this supposedly uninhabited world. I didn't question it either. I should have.
Though nothing was out of place - not the furniture, not the pictures hanging on the pinstriped wallpaper, not the 19th century clock not ticking on the wall - nor was there even a speck of dust to be found anywhere, the place didn't feel deserted.
Or maybe it did.
Deserted. Evacuated. Abandoned. As if someone had been here. Very recently.
But that was impossible. The only things alive on this planet were the five of us. Not even a microbe or a virus or little bug-like speck. Nothing.
As we moved further down the hallway, the group split up. Two carried on toward a white-painted door with a plastic handle that gleamed gold. Another two went right, following the hallway to what I could see was a kitchen with stairs just by the entrance. The deep, spring green carpet continued through to the adjacent living room. Without the lights on, that area was bathed in shadow.
I turned away. We'd known this place was going to be here. Or rather, we'd known there would be a place for us. But we hadn't known the details, and as with anything new, it was always best to investigate first.
I took the hallway to the left. Five of those same doors, painted glossy white with golden-coloured plastic handles - two on the left wall, and three on the right - were all only slightly ajar. The first left led into a small study with that old green carpet and a mahogany fireplace, the wood varnished bright and sleek. The first on the right, to a cupboard under the stairs.
But there was another door, right at the end of the hallway. Wide open. It led down a step or two into a small, square room with red bricks making up its walls. The floor seemed to be pale wood, maybe pine, one minute then concrete the next. A small utility room attached to this. I took a few small steps in its direction.
I stopped. Something...was there. Something that hadn't been there before.
People. People standing and chatting and laughing. Barely there, like shadows, but there all the same. Some seemed to flicker, though never enough to fully disappear. Others were just black shapes. Silhouettes of people without feature nor solid form. Imprints of things that weren't there any longer and shouldn't be there now. And when I inhaled, sharply but quietly, they stopped.
Smiles melted off their faces like water trickling down the drain. Each of them turned to face me, expressionless as mannequins, arms held limply down by their sides. Though no emotion showed on their faces, I felt their shock in the air. The same shock I bore at seeing them. I'd thought we were alone in here. They must have thought the same.
The longer we stared at each other, unmoving, unblinking, hardly daring to breathe, the harder my heart beat in my chest. Something wasn't right. Like I'd made a mistake. Like we'd made a mistake. Like we should not have come here.
Unease crept slowly like a cat stalking a mouse and turned to dread, rearing up and wrapping me in tight coils and threatening to swallow me whole. We shouldn't have come here.
My heart pounded faster and faster, but no more could I hear it than I could hear the illusive wind outside or the silent ticking of the frozen clock on the wall. The suspense heated the back of my neck. It made sure its presence was known. And it burned hotter with each second until I couldn't stand it any longer.
Fear is a fickle thing. Sometimes we fear something with such rigid intensity, it seems stupid. A moth fluttering loudly near your face isn't going to hurt you. A spider living peacefully between your undusted ornaments will likely never bother you. You're more likely to win the lottery than to be struck by lightning, so why fear the thunder?
How can something that's not really there hurt you anyway?
"Something does live here!" I called.
No, the spider likely won't bother you. But some spiders are hunters. Some spiders set traps and wait for you to fall in. And sometimes lightning does strike. A person, a house, and everything goes up in flames. Sometimes it's best to leave these things alone.
The spell wasn't quite broken, but something in the air cracked. Just enough for me to shake off that winding, coiling terror. I moved.
It took only four or five steps for me to reach the little brickwork room. But as I went, the figures - these other people - moved too. They both shuffled and slid, somehow simultaneously, out of my vision, behind the open door, just shy of the frame. Like they were hiding. By the time I reached the room, my feet slapping hard against the concrete floor, they were gone. Flickered out of existence like a flame extinguished by breath.
Only... Only they weren't out of existence. Out of sight, maybe. But I could still feel them there. Could feel invisible eyes on me, watching me turn this way and that as I searched for them and tried to figure out what had just happened. They didn't move. They only observed, wordless and soundless. Yet when I turned to look, they were gone. But not gone. Just...not quite there.
"There's nothing there," one of my teammates said, the four of them rushing into the room.
"There was!" I insisted. "There is. There are other ones here. Other people."
"You've lost it," another said, laughing.
They left me standing in there. But those other people, lurking just out of sight...they stayed. They watched me. They whispered in voices I couldn't hear. And they watched. Cold. And unhappy.
~&~
They were there. They were always there.
As I set up my cabin bed, because I couldn't bear to be where they might reach me as I slept, smoothing out the sheets and arranging blankets, they were there. Standing slightly underneath the bed, just in my line of sight. They didn't look up at me. Didn't talk. Didn't move. They were just there. And as motionless as they stood, so did I sit. Terrified to move on my own bed in case they moved.
When I made dinner, standing over the sink peeling vegetables, they were there. This time they stood just outside the door. Black silhouettes against the grey shadows of the hallway, off to the side so I could see their arms and shoulders, slivers of their heads, but not much else. I peeled, they watched. I didn't dare blink. Not even when I turned away to get a pot. If I blinked, they'd move. They'd come into the kitchen. I'd see them properly.
Catching glimpses scared me. Something much worse would happen if they were ever truly there. They weren't meant to be seen. Known. Only perceived as a shiver up your back, or the briefest of glimpses in the corner of your eye in a dark attic or a humid basement. If we hadn't come here, no one would ever know. Which is the way things were supposed to be.
Going upstairs wasn't so bad, but going downstairs, that was when they waited. Though the sun on this planet never set, the living room remained bathed in shadow. And it was perfect for them. They waited stock-still at the bottom of the stairs, the darkest part in the penumbra, just shy of blocking my way. I would dare to pass them, and I would somehow survive it, but it felt like I was playing a dangerous game. It felt like passing by an angry, watchful predator, expecting it to snap at any moment, and knowing even when it didn't snap then, it would. Eventually.
Always watching, every second of the unending day. They never disappeared. Never flickered. I could always see them out of the corner of my eye. And when I looked right to where they were, I found that I could never look away unless someone else stole my focus. If I looked away in those times, at my most vulnerable, they would do something. What? I didn't know. But I couldn't let it happen.
Some days, we explored the unforgiving terrain. Searching, foraging, taking samples, sitting in that punishing emptiness to talk about life and home and the here and now. The team seemed to find a gentle pleasure in all of this. They were excited. A new world, a new endeavour, new things to bring home. Information, experience, laughter, camaraderie.
I could never have that. Because the other ones were always there. Mostly, they stayed in the house, but when we ventured far, they skulked behind crags and in the long, dark shadows cast by that dazzling, hellfire sun. Out there, I felt somehow more vulnerable and yet safer.
With more time spent here, that twisting foreboding in my gut grew tighter, the knots overlapping and squeezing until I felt sick and like I wanted to cry. It wasn't safe. No one listened. We had a job to finish. We couldn't leave yet. But we should. Because every day, I could swear the other ones got closer. Just a little bit. Barely noticeable at first.
Not physically closer. They'd been right under my bed before, I'd stood in that little brickwork room surrounded by them. But they were getting closer to something. Every day felt like a warning. A command to leave.
We didn't know it was already too late.
Days turned to weeks, and I was afraid of the dark. The sun never set, but night still fell on the house, and this dark gave way to an endless space for the other ones to hide in. A lamp on a desk offered a little light, but also shadows. The light in the hallway spilling into a dark room only created more places for them to slink away to. And there was the dark during the day, where they still somehow managed to find shadows to stand in and places from which to watch me. In the dark of night, they were completely invisible, and somehow less of a threat. But in the light of day, where I could see them, that was worse. They didn't like to be seen.
Sometimes they weren't seen at all. Barely, anyway. Just a dark shape in the corner of my eye, gone before I could really turn to see. The way it was supposed to be, once or twice in a lifetime. Then again, I didn't want to see. To see, to think about it, was to acknowledge a nauseating terror churning in my stomach and make it real.
I didn't sleep, I didn't eat. My teammates didn't appear overly concerned. It didn't matter. We were going home soon.
~&~
The day we left, I didn't waste any time. I didn't hang around to collect souvenirs or take last-minute photographs. I boarded our ship and sat rigid in my seat as I waited for my teammates, feeling increasingly like I should be running very fast away from something.
We were too late. I think I knew we were too late. The moment I first saw those things in that little room attached to the utility room, I knew.
So when we'd lifted off, and we could freely roam the ship, and I didn't feel any less watched, I ran. I only made it as far as the corridor.
Then there was blood.
Not mine. My teammates'. Spatters and splatters and wet-sounding explosions and screams and entrails and bones, things I saw but tried not to look at, because the door hadn't even closed yet and I couldn't tear my eyes way but couldn't bare to watch. One of my friends, with only one arm, ran. They didn't get three steps before their remaining limbs seemed to tear from their torso, pulled viciously by invisible ropes.
I fell. Curled up against the wall like a scared child, or an animal, and I hid my face in my arms. The wall was cold against my back. I shivered, covered in sweat, but feeling hot, fingers numb, toes tingling, vision dotted with black spots.
They approached me. In full view for the first time, but still just a collection of dark silhouettes. They moved as an amalgamation of shadowy people. Unnatural. Without moving their limbs. And they slid closer, until all I would have to do is stretch my leg to touch them.
They wouldn't let me look away.
They spoke not a word, didn't move any more. Just stared. And their message was clear.
You shouldn't have come here.
Never come back.
Let this be a lesson.
Those other people who weren't really there, those dangerous and hostile things, told me never to come back. I never would.
But it wouldn't matter.
I brought them home with me.
~&~
(A/N): Let this be a warning to y'all - do NOT. Fuck. With Space Ghosts.
Okay, but seriously. Several months ago now, I had a pretty scary nightmare about what y'all just read. I've always been kind of fascinated with and terrified of Space™, and a lot of my nightmares involve it or space-type imagery. Know what else I think is fascinating and terrifying? Ghosts. And I use that term loosely. Here, it kind of means just like a spooky spectre of some kind and not necessarily the imprint of a dead person. Could be though. Who even knows what ghosts are?
Point is, space is FULL of ghosts. Spooky spectres. Phantoms. It makes me grossly uncomfortable to think of humans in space even without considering the spooks. But when you consider the spooks...
Can we just all collectively agree to save our planet so we don't have to go to space and incur the wrath of the space ghosts? They don't want us there. Trust me.
Would still love y'alls comments :D