Al was there sitting in the armchair that wasn’t stationed in my room before, but I pulled myself up from the warm and sweaty sheets of my bed. He lifted his head from his paper and tossed it aside on his way to my bedside.

“Hey stay down, you will be fine, but this is the second time this month. You need some rest. Let me go grab your dad.” Al said, placing a hand on my chest gently forcing me to the bed. Al walked out the door and down the hall to my fathers room. It was too hot in the bed and as simple as it was I walked from the room to my fathers room with the IV bag in my hand. I had the excuse ready that I just wanted to stretch my legs. I tiptoed down the hall and around all the boards I had mapped before that made a sound when stepped upon. I placed my ear to my father’s door. I heard the sobs of my father and the comforting of Uncle Al.

“I can’t do this Al, I need her again. I can’t raise him by myself, not when every time I am away, he injures himself or doesn’t take care of himself.” my father said, choking down tears.

“It’s not his fault or your’s. The twins should have kept him closer.” Al said sympathy in his voice, trailing every word carefully.

“This isn’t what I’m talking about.” My father said in frustration “He is only 6 years old and his mother is in the wind. I wouldn’t even have considered coming back to this place if she hadn’t left. Everything was great, she was happy at home and suddenly. POOF.” My father stopped to breathe, finally calming down a bit. “She goes missing in the middle of the day: no cell phone, no purse, no keys, and no suitcase was missing from the house. The police aren’t any help.”

“She has always been strong-willed and I remember the days of highschool when you and her would leave in the middle of the night to do god knows what. I know you miss her and I do too, but it's a crisis nobody is prepared for and she will come back eventually.” Al said. “Now as I have said. He is awake. Let's go see him before he falls asleep again, it's getting late.”

“You are right.” my father replied as he started his march towards the door. I turned and ran back down the hall and into my bed before the door even opened. I wasn’t as silent as before, so I am sure that they heard me, but it didn’t matter. I knew my mom was gone, I had seen my dad cry about it before, but I wasn’t brave enough to comfort him; I was insecure of the fact that she left us and I cried in my own time away trapping myself in self conscious thoughts. Was it my fault that she left? I was an outcast in school and constantly bullied for it along with my weight. I wasn't the biggest in my class nor the most awkward, but I’m the one that got the most attention from the bullies because I let them get to me. ‘Kids will be kids’ I was told by teachers, but that's all they did when the real trouble started and my parents enrolled me into another school. A week after my last birthday, but a month before the end of that school year is when it happened. I came home from school, my father had grabbed me from school, as he got off early on fridays. She was gone, there was no note and her stuff was still there. A day had gone by with no word, then the day after with nothing still. My father called the police. They spent days looking for clues and gathering information on my mom. I was home alone when they came to their answer. My mom was trying not to be found, the detective tried explaining to my father. I wasn’t supposed to hear it, but the newer houses had drywall so thin that you could hear a pin drop. There was a bitter taste in my mouth when my father broke the news. He tried to explain as plainly as he could, but he kept to the lie that mom was having a trip to the spa. I knew he was lying and I confronted him. I said I knew he was lying and she was gone. I saw the tears of my father for the first time. I finished 1st grade, I know it didn't seem like it, but I was smarter than I looked at that age. I was no prodigy, but I understood. My father paced carefully around me emotionally speaking, and our once happy weekends were melancholy leading up to my “graduation” to the 2nd grade until a letter arrived in the mail to my father. He hesitated opening it for a week. It was the invitation to Sinn House.

I woke from my dreamless sleep with a knock on my door. Mike cracked it open.

“What is it?” I said groggily, wiping the corners of my eyes and looking at the alarm clock to confirm the time. It was 8:34 am.

“Dude, there is someone here for you.” Mike said with surprise in his voice.

“Mike, I swear to god if it is your brother with his water gun again. I will break your nose.” I said with the annoyance that can only come from being surprised like that 3 times before could bring.

“No, Atlas. It’s a goth chick.” I flung the covers off of me and hastily recovered a pair of pants from the floors. “Shit. God, I hope it’s not her.” I murmured to myself. I shot each leg into my jeans, tearing the small hole on the knee into one big enough to fit my foot without the ankle. “Stop staring at me and pick up your stuff.” I said as I glanced towards Mike. He stood there in dumbfounded silence for a moment, but the realizing look on his face spoke for him. He rushed to pick up his various bits of garbage and plates that he had neglected to wash. I sprung from my room and to the front door, whatever mess laid on the floor or on his desk would have to stay for the time being. I opened the door to see Layla standing there, looking better than I remembered. Her clothes were a little more modest and the piercings were minimized to flat silver studs. I welcomed her in and the light from the rising sun illuminated the doorway and her figure perfectly.

“Hey neighbor, I saw your car up front. I didn’t know we lived in the same complex.” Layla said with a smile. I was still a little shocked that it was actually her standing in my living room. Mike brushed the crumbs from his shirt and came into the living room with his hand outstretched.

“I’m Mike, Atlas’s roommate and umm who might you be?” he said with a sly smirk on his lips.

“Layla” she said, not bothering to shake his hand. She turned to me after looking around the apartment. If she was disgusted with the place, she made no sign of it.

“I thought you said you had to feed your dog yesterday.” Layla said knowingly that the complex didn’t allow pets of my kind, but Mike answered before I could reply with an excuse.

“We don’t have a dog, that’s why we moved in. Atlas is horribly allergic and I can't stand them” Mike tweeted before seeing the look in my eyes that I had used that as an excuse to leave.

“I admit I lied, and I'm sorry. I have never been on a date before and I was feeling...” Layla cut me off mid sentence with a laugh.

“I’m joking, I knew you lived here. It’s alright. I have seen you a few times in the office when you were first moving in. My parents own this place, you probably don’t recognize me. Before I dyed my hair, I was super blonde and I work here, but not really where just anyone can see me.” I felt a wave of relief wash over me; I was thinking that she had followed me to my apartment and waited until morning to follow up.

“Well now that you are awake, do you wanna get some coffee with me?” She said blatantly. I looked at Mike for confirmation since he had work later that morning.

“Dude, it’s fine. I’ll take the bus today.” he said reassuringly. I cracked a smile at Layla, and said yes. I grabbed my jacket from the coat hook and followed her out the door. I was entranced by her as we talked about anything while walking down the street to our local coffee shop. Thankfully the shop was empty aside from the few students lugging their backpacks onto their shoulders before dumping the rest of the cup down their throat. It wasn’t the same shop from yesterday; there were many in this town, but they all had a similar look to them. I ordered for myself and for Layla. We took ours to go as the morning rush followed us at short notice.

We continued on to a local park, sipping our coffee inbetweens jokes and conversation. I caught myself a few times. I was getting a little too comfortable in our conversations. I noticed that I slipped another detail about Sinn House, but before I could scrub away the trail. Layla quickly asked me about it.

“So are you close with your family?” she questioned sympathetically as I slipped the hint that I got a letter from my father last night. I took a deep breath, I knew I couldn’t escape it for much longer as she had been talking about her dad and his trip to the U.K.

“I was close with my dad. In my early school years I was super close to him, but during summer vacations we went to our family’s estate in Texas. After about 2 years of going every summer, I decided that I had had enough and protested our next trip to the point that it was canceled.”

“That must have been nice. I wish my family got to go on vacations like that, but what we got stuck with was skiing in the winter and swimming in the summer.” Layla said. “What kind of stuff did you do there?”

“I don’t really remember a lot of it, but I remember being with family, but when I wasn’t, I guess I was sleeping or reading.” Atlas said knowing full well that wasn’t true. The stuff that I said I couldn't remember was partially true. The days were chopped up and the moments that traumatized me were locked away deep, or at least that was the theory of the therapist. So deep that even my nightmares of the events were hiding from me, but the dread and terror I felt lived on in my waking mind.

“I get it, so what did the letter say?” Layla said, disrupting my thoughts entirely in my numb silence. I shook myself into the present.

“What.” I replied, and she repeated herself.

“What did it say? The letter?” I felt in my pockets recognizing that I had the same pants from yesterday on. I reached into my back pocket and handed the letter to Layla, who opened it and smoothed the wrinkles caused from my haphazard folding of the frail paper. She took a few minutes to read it as I finished my coffee, and stood to throw it away in a nearby bin. I turned back towards the bench and Layla was standing there with a tear on her cheek, She threw her arms around my shoulder and embraced me.

“I’m so so sorry for your loss.” she said. I embraced her back for a moment before we both let go, while both of us blushed, her blushing more than I could have. The rose pink of her cheeks complimented her eyes better than any eyeliner.

“It’s alright, this kind of stuff happens. If I let it bring me down, I’ll never get back up.” I said lacking the solemnness of grief.

“Don’t say that. It’s your family. You need to go.” Layla declared.

“I can’t, I don’t have enough cash to fuel my whole way there. I haven’t seen my family in so long.”

“Well I’ll come with you and we could get Mike to come too.” Layla said with an expression fitting of someone in need of a good adventure outside of their geographical cage.

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“Fine, but we need to get a hotel. I will not be in that house. It was decided and the planning took a day to set up and Mike getting time off work was easy considering that he had never taken a personal day. Layla on the other hand, was a bit more difficult. Her parents insisted that I come over and meet them before they said yes to anything. The meeting was a breeze, since they own the apartment complex: they knew we always paid on time, were generally quiet as mice, and had never really had a problem besides the hole that was knocked into the wall by the couch they had struggled even lifting. It took only a day to organize everything to my surprise. I had underestimated Layla and her capabilities. We were ready to leave as soon as possible until the unthinkable happened and much to my dismay, Mike had invited his brother Will to come with us. Although he was somewhat forced by his mother to bring along the younger brother that I had come to dislike, it didn’t matter when he showed up at our apartment late the evening before we were going to leave as Layla and I were packing the car to leave early in the morning. She had the great idea of rather than stopping for the night half way through the trip, that we should drive through the night. She got the idea when I told her that’s what my dad would do, we had two drivers as I wouldn’t trust Mike or Will behind the wheel of my car. Layla and I would take shifts. She took the day and I took the night. We left early in the morning just as the sun came over the mountain peaks of Utah valley. I slept a vast majority of the way there until we stopped to eat.

Will was claiming that he was so hungry that he could eat a horse, convinced Layla that we needed food and declined the snacks we had carefully selected. He claimed all of them he was allergic to and forced us to stop at a fast food joint for the greasiest food imaginable. I resented Mike for bringing him along, but I could care less. The time came for me to take the wheel. We stopped on a road I was unfamiliar with, but the map app that I used so often assured me that it was the fastest route. 4 or 5 hours passed without incident until I finally saw a memorable sight on the side of the road. A diner and a shoddy hotel mirroring it. The others were fast asleep and I decided that I wasn’t all that hungry. Those delicious meals I had once coveted long ago did seem good, but I wasn't craving the nostalgia of days long gone. I had a duty to be there for my family, but in some way I knew I was just following Layla’s lead. I had begun to like her, a little more than just friends. If I even dared call it that, nevertheless I declared to myself that I couldn’t ruin it.

A few more miles down the road, I was clearly awake when we passed the diner once again. It appeared to be the same one, and the hotel across the street was still as ugly and I was sure it was abandoned. In the darkness, the lights of the diner I saw the figures of people, that were obviously not there before, standing in the windows. I brushed it off, I’m tired from the drive and made a bad turn leading me back down the same road. I chugged the rest of my energy drink and cracked the next one without issue. It felt as if my eyes were taped open and I was sure that I didn’t turn when I passed the diner again. The silhouettes of the patrons inside were gone. Well atleast sitting down I thought. Mike was in the front seat with his head bent at an odd angle, but he tried to rest his head on the slack of the seat belt. I shook his leg, hoping he would wake up without stirring Layla or Will from their slumber. He didn’t wake, he had been up all day and I presume the vibrations of the road underneath the car acted as a lullaby.

I kept on going, this time I resolved that if it was again I would slam on the horn, The weirdness sent shivers up my spine. I felt my hands were covered in a cold sweat as I clutched the wheel until my knuckles were white. I don’t know how long it was til I saw it again. The map app on my phone drained the battery and when I reached for the cable to charge the stupid phone, it was the wrong type. I looked up my slump in my effects to retrieve that cord. There was a man on the road. I swerved to avoid him. I landed in the dry ditch on the side of the road, I felt my head slam into the wheel and I felt the blood on my forehead stream its way down to my lips and chin. The sudden stop and the blow to my head made my brain feel like it was rattling in the cage.

“Is everyone alright?” I said as I placed my hand on the wound. It didn’t stop the flow, but it did stop it from getting in my eyes. There wasn’t a response in the car. I finally turned my head to face my passengers. Mike, Layla, and Will were missing. My heart jumped out of my chest.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” I muttered to myself, I pushed the door open as best as I could and squeezed myself through the narrow gap that it allowed. I looked all around, there was no man in the road, All of the windows were intact except for mine. My head was pounding from the concussion and my heart in my chest was overcome with fear and adrenaline.

“What the hell is going on?” I knew I couldn't be dreaming, the pain was all too real. Did I pass out from the pain and they left to get help? I went to the front passenger to get my phone, it had to have something left I thought. The phone was dead beyond dead and the screen wouldn’t light with even a sign of life. My breath got heavier and heavier as the seconds passed. I looked around outside the car, looking for that damn diner that might have been my only hope for help. I tried to relax and I tried to breathe, but I could only take in so much air before I would need to exhale. It wasn’t enough. I got back into the car once more and turned the ignition of my car and it roared to life without fail. The radio that I had only used for its Aux cord capabilities began sputtering static. The station it was on didn’t display. I figured it was broken. I got out of the car and to the trunk of the car to get a jacket from my bag when I heard the radio speak.

“Hskkrrrr Hello?” I heard it spit out. The signal seemed to struggle, but I knew I heard it. I dropped the jacket to the loose gravel and rushed to the open passenger door.

“Hello?” I said curiously, this can’t be real I murmured to myself. A few moments passed with no response, but the static remained consistent, like a thousand screams pressed infinitely together.

“Oh god… I’m losing it.” I said to myself just loud enough that I got a response. The static grew louder and louder.

“HSKKKRRRR You should have stopped, you have to stop.” the radio spoke, too many voices came through the speakers to describe a single one. The static continued, but the voices became clearer with every word.

“This is the only way.”

“What! What is the only way?!” I shouted into the radio.

“There are too many doors in the house of one.”

“You aren’t making any sense! Who is this?” I shouted again, but I think it was only a one way transmission.

“Please come back, my son.” I heard my dad’s voice over the others.

“Dad?” I said, The Synchronization of the voices fell apart and they all repeated one word. Over and over again, I couldn't tell what they were saying until one spoke above the others as if it was yelling ten times louder than the chorus of voices.

“Wake!” The voices spoke from my very core, shouting so loudly as I fell into myself.

I woke in the same cold sweat as I had every night, but I remembered this time, the vision so clear that the horror only set in when the sky was darkened by something immense, swarming in the wake of moonlight. The stars began shining brighter than ever before and the ringing of my tinnitus in my ears became too much for me. I clasped my ears tightly and clamped my eyes shut, but at the moment I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder and a warm spread through my chest. I jolted upright, now fully awake I checked my forehead for the cut and for the blood that was on my clothes. None of it was there. There was no pain and the ringing in my ears subsided to an ignorable whisper. The warmth in my body faded as I peered out through the window to look for the others. Layla, Mike, and Will were walking back to the car with food and drinks in hand from the same place that we stopped at before, down to the very same cars waiting in the drive through; they were laughing at a joke one of them had told, Mike took one look at me and rushed to the door concerned etched on his face.

“Hey, what happened? You are super pale.” He said after handing me the medium fries from his bag and a small paper cup. “I hope you aren’t getting car sick.” Will chimed in.

“Atlas we are still ahead of schedule, if you want to stop for an hour or so, we can.” Layla gave an optimistic view and her tone was even easier to read. Her voice said concern, but her eyes spoke dread.

“No, I think I need to be in the front. I’m fine for now.” I said as I nursed the plan in my head that would take us down another road than before. I was disoriented, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it seemed a little too real.

“Sure, I’ll drive and these two can sit in the back.” Layla replied, as tipped her head towards the brotherly duo.

“No, I’m getting a little cooped up. I’ll drive Layla.” I said as I snatched the keys that were hanging from Layla’s pocket. We filed into the car one by one as I started the engine. I didn’t hesitate for a moment as I put the car into gear and sped off down the road, and soon they were asleep from the greasy food and sugar saturated drink. I took the turn down a foreign road, but the app told me it would take us to where we needed to go, give or take a few minutes. It was the dead of night when I saw the diner again. My frustration overpowered my fear as I pulled off the road into the dirt lot. This road wasn’t supposed to pass the diner, at least according to the maps. I turned off the car and left the keys in the ignition, but I locked the door behind me. They didn’t stir as I shut the door as quietly as I could. I made my way into the aged diner’s interior. I took a seat furthest away from the door and picked up the menu. The waitress came by to get my order for coffee and steak. I wasn’t hungry, but the entree did come with a sharper knife than the ones sitting there folded in a fabric napkin.

There were only two other patrons in there with me, besides the waitress there was a large man with a double chin and egg yolk dried to the corners of his mouth and elderly woman slumped over in the corner mirroring my seat, she was obviously asleep. The waitress came over with the coffee and a few rolls for the steak, which was running behind. I sat for a few minutes by myself, sipping the scorching coffee and picking the bits of the used coffee grounds from my teeth. There wasn’t anything special about this place. I knew I had dreamt it, the dread of returning to the place I had ran away to only to have it take potshots at my worthless childhood. My steak arrived, steaming and burnt edges of fat. I felt my stomach rumble and decided to eat. Those snacks in the car were not cutting it and I really needed a meal. I took a few bites of the well done meat; it was chewy, but surprisingly it wasn’t half bad. I reached the center of the slab when I spotted something underneath the cut of meat. The texture was different from the plate and I dug it out with my fork. A wet note, it was written on a thick cardstock so the writing wasn’t quite faded yet. I unfolded it with the tip of my knife and a single prong of my fork. The writing was skewed and the ink had begun to wash away in the moisture released by the steak.

He has found the door of many and you will be his key.

The tether of 9 seek the one over all

You can’t run from the sun or the dark of the night

Flee as you may, you are never out of sight

I read the note, and my hands trembled at the cryptic tone of this message. I looked up and the patrons were gone, and the waitress stood over me looming quietly blocking me from coming out of the booth seat.

“Can I get the bill? I need to leave.” I said as I tucked the note up my sleeve. She made no effort to show that she had acknowledged me. Her eyelids drooped with the heavy bags underneath and the skin on her face was slacked. I tried to get up and she raised an arm to shove me back down to the cracked vinyl seat. I saw her eyes roll into the back of her head, showing the whites of her eyes and the red veins hiding beneath the eyelids. I took the knife from my plate and plunged it into her neck. I expected blood to come squirting from the open wound, but instead I was met with a thick blackish ooze. She reached up and plucked the knife that still hung from her jugular, her body fell to the floor. I watched as she collapsed to the floor, my terror and guilt nailed me in place, but another figure appeared from behind her. It was overwhelming, I remember this one.

“You ever give that charm to your mom, boy?” The all too familiar stranger said. I saw the camo of his pants as I slowly gazed up from the body of the waitress to the chest of the figure. I finally met his eyes. Although I remembered the face quite intensely of the man, the eyes were wrong. Very wrong. My eyes widened in fear, I pushed my back up against the window of the diner. The eyes were black, too dark for the fluorescent lights of the diner that not even a glint of light was reflected. Looking into the induced nausea of peering over a cliff where the bottom was impossible to see. Endless. I was paralyzed, trembling with a cold chill worse than a winter breeze. He reached towards me with one hand followed by his body as if he was lunging at me. “One day you would have understood, but today is just the beginning. Give into eternity and we will write the stories to change the destiny of all to come.” He pierced my eye with the tip of his thumb. I felt the pain and the blood run down my face only to drench my shirt, but I couldn’t stop him. My vision dissolved into darkness; the pain receded, but so did the world around me.