Brett Eland

The storm came out of nowhere, but something about it felt wrong. It bled into the sky, turning it a sickly green-black, swallowing the light with an unnatural hunger. The air grew heavy, pressing down like a weight, and the world itself felt…off. One moment, the sky over Blackwood, Ohio, was clear. The next, a wall of thick, rotting clouds swallowed the sun.

Mark Henshaw had just stepped out of his car when the wind hit. He barely made it inside the gas station before it roared through the lot, bending trees to their limits. His ears popped, and the automatic doors struggled to close against the pressure.

Behind the counter, the clerk, a thin man with patchy hair, looked up from his magazine. “That ain’t right,” he muttered.

Mark turned toward the glass doors. The world outside wasn’t just stormy—it was unraveling, as if reality itself was being rewritten. The gas pumps seemed to stretch and melt, the asphalt rippled like water, and the streetlights flickered, blinking as though gasping for air. The rain didn’t fall. It spiraled, twisting in place, like it wasn’t sure if it belonged in this world.

“Tornado?” Mark asked, but deep down, he knew that wasn’t it.

The clerk was staring past him, eyes wide. Mark followed his gaze—and felt the floor drop out from under him.

A figure stood outside. It was too tall, its outline wavering like heat distortion, flickering between forms, never fully committing to any single shape. The wind didn’t touch it. The rain avoided it. It just stood there, watching, its face smooth and pale, like it had never needed one before.

Mark swallowed hard. “Jesus. What the hell?”

The clerk backed away. “You see him too?”

The lights flickered. The air grew thick, buzzing with a sound just below hearing. The figure took one slow step forward.

And then the power cut out completely.

Darkness swallowed the store. Only the sickly glow of the storm remained, seeping through the glass like mold.

Something tapped on the door.

Mark sucked in a breath. The clerk whimpered.

Tap.

Tap.

It wasn’t knocking. It was testing. Curious. Like a child tapping on an aquarium, wondering what was inside.

“Don’t—” the clerk began, but Mark was already stepping forward. The storm outside twisted and writhed. He thought he saw movement within it—shapes with too many limbs, eyes like empty holes.

Mark placed his palm on the glass.

The figure mirrored him. But its hand—

Its hand was wrong. Too many joints. Fingers too long. Bones shifting beneath the skin like liquid.

Mark yanked his hand back. The figure’s head twitched, interested.

Then, it opened its mouth.

No sound. No words. Just yawning, infinite darkness. A cold, wet stench flooded the store, like rotting seaweed and dead things washed ashore.

And then the world tilted.

Mark stumbled as the floor rippled beneath him. Shelves groaned. The ceiling sagged. The walls pressed inward. The air thickened, pressing against him like deep ocean water. His skull felt too tight, his ears popping—

The figure took another step forward, and the door—

Was gone.

No glass. No exit. Just a seamless wall where it had been.

Mark spun. The clerk was gone. The aisles stretched forever, spiraling into darkness. The gas station had become endless, a maze of shelves leading nowhere. The ceiling was gone, replaced by a swirling, empty void, pressing down like a living thing.

The storm was inside now.

Mark turned, heart hammering. The figure stood in the aisle, watching.

Mark ran. His breath came in short gasps, his feet slipping on the floor that no longer felt solid. Panic clawed at his chest.

The fluorescent lights flickered above him. Shelves twisted as he passed. The walls pulsed like breathing flesh. Shadows didn’t just linger—they moved, slithering over shelves that beat with a pulse of their own.

A voice called his name.

His mother’s voice.

His stomach turned. She had been dead for twelve years.

Still, he turned toward the sound.

The figure was closer. It didn’t run. It didn’t chase. It moved like a film glitch, its limbs jerking forward in stuttering increments, as though reality struggled to keep up with it.

Mark’s chest tightened. He stumbled, fell against a shelf that wasn’t a shelf anymore but something warm, something that clenched beneath his touch, its surface writhing like muscle beneath skin.

And then the world collapsed.

The store, the storm, the sky—all folded inward, drawn into a single, crushing point of darkness. The sound of breaking glass. The snap of bones. A scream.

And then silence.

When Mark opened his eyes, he was lying on wet pavement, his pulse pounding in his skull. His limbs ached. His skin was cold with sweat.

The gas station was gone. No wreckage. No sign it had ever been there. Just empty road stretching into the night.

The storm was gone, too. The world was still. Silent.

Mark pushed himself up on shaking arms.

Something moved in the reflection of a puddle beside him.

Not a ripple. A shape.

An eye. Vast and ancient, opening within the liquid surface.

The water wasn’t water. It was a veil. A thin membrane between worlds that should never touch.

Mark turned.

A figure stood at the edge of the lot, watching.

Tall. Thin. Too pale.

Mark’s breath hitched, his lungs tightening as though the air had thickened, pressing in like invisible hands, squeezing the space around him smaller and smaller.

It smiled—a thin, too-wide stretch of lips, like it had learned the gesture but didn’t understand it.

And then it was gone.

Mark stayed frozen, his breath shallow. The puddle at his feet rippled again. Inside, he didn’t see his reflection.

He saw a vast, swirling darkness—an abyss lined with flickering lights, stretching beyond anything he could comprehend.

The air around him vibrated, an ancient resonance filling his bones, a soundless whisper that spoke of something watching, something waiting. He knew, without knowing how, that the world had changed. The roads stretched too far. The sky hung too low. The stars blinked in unfamiliar patterns.

A whisper drifted through the silence. Not the wind. Not his thoughts.

His mother’s voice. Gentle. Beckoning.

Mark took a step forward—toward the voice, toward the shifting veil of the puddle. His breath came in shallow gasps, his body moving before his mind could object. But the reflection twisted, stretching beyond its limits, pulling at him, as if the puddle had become a black hole, an inescapable doorway. The whisper grew louder. His mother’s voice—but was it really her? Mark hesitated, the weight of the unknown pressing against him, and for the first time, he wasn’t sure if he was walking toward salvation—or straight into the abyss.