When you stop and think about it, why is our world so mundane? And no, I’m not talking about wars or other man-made atrocities. I mean the things you see in fiction. Where are the vampires, werewolves, or fairies? We have tales of them told as if they were real. It’s almost like someone hunted them all to extinction… or they all ran away.
Well, at least that’s how it seems for the rest of the world.
North of a river with a name most people can’t even spell sits my quiet town, Ashwood. Around here, things like that are normal. It’s the kind of place where the unknown tries to live a quiet life — until it remembers what it is — and I’m stuck right in the middle of it.
Now you might be wondering why I’m even writing this, Well it wasn’t really my idea. My coworker thinks it will be good for me—especially after… the rough week I had.
He said it’d help me “process things,” which I think is just a nicer way of saying I shouldn’t be trying to see the nine circles of hell in a public bathroom.
The jury’s still out on that.
I don’t even know if I’ll post this. Maybe I’ll throw it on a blog or dump it on some YouTuber’s subreddit for fake internet points.
Who knows.
But I guess I should start with my lovely town—and my first few weeks at my new job.
If you ever find yourself in Ashwood, here’s something to expect: the locals are always staring at you. Some stare a little harder — mostly because they don’t blink much, which I try not to take personally.
But don’t worry, we have more than a mildly unsettling community. We also have the world-famous Willow Hotel — though no one outside Ashwood seems to have heard of it. You can stay the night if you’d like. Just don’t expect good room service.
And every now and then, there’s this smell that drifts through town. Everyone agrees it’s familiar and pleasant — like a good memory you can almost reach. The problem is, no one can actually describe it or say where it’s coming from.
Well, that’s not completely true.
There was this one guy, Mr. Anderson. He Swears it smells like the cookies he bakes from time to time. He even brought a batch down to the store I work at to get my opinion, but unfortunately for him, they smelled completely different.
When I told him the odd smell had more of a metallic edge, he got upset. Even more so when my coworker Daniel chimed in, saying the odd smell had more of an herbal hint to it. Mr. Anderson called us both nose-blind, but handed over the cookies anyway, and stomped out. I left them in the break room.
I only ate one.
Speaking of my place of work — if you head down from the city center and follow the main road past the Willow Hotel, you’ll find a decently sized general store named after the town it sits in: Ashwood General, or AG to the locals.
If it had a slogan, it would be “We Probably Have It.”
On most days, that’s reassuring. On others, you start to wonder why we stock certain things at all.
AG looks normal enough — aisles of food in the dry, frozen, and fresh sections; shelves stacked high with blankets and other household goods; folding tables cluttered with everyday kitchenware; small racks of basic clothes near the back, and a small seating area by the entrance with a coffee machine that works when it feels like it. From the outside, it’s exactly what you’d expect.
Mostly….
Last week, Old Man Bob came to the counter with three fifty-pound bags of fertilizer and a metal pail of mixed farming seeds he’d scooped himself from our fresh seed bar — like it was candy. I scanned the first bag and waited for the register to argue with me. It didn’t. The system recognized it instantly, complete with price and tax. I continued without asking questions. Mostly because that’s part of the job. But also because the register accepted it like it had always been there.
I still haven’t found where those bags were stocked — or where they went after.
The strange thing about AG’s inventory is that no one really stocks it. Things just sort of… show up when they’re needed.
If you do decide to give the store a visit, I might be working, where you’ll usually find me at the counter — the only register we have — right at the front. I spend most of my twelve-hour shifts sitting there. Yeah. Twelve hours. There’s only one other full-time employee, Daniel. The rest are part-timers: drifters staying at the Willow Hotel, recent graduates, dropouts, or anyone looking to make a few quick bucks.
If you’re wondering why full-time is twelve hours, it’s because we’re open 24/7.
When i first started, i asked the owner.
“Why are we open all night?” I said.
“Some things can’t graze in God’s light,” he replied calmly not looking up from counting the till.
“So… vampires?” I said without thinking.
He paused. Then calmly, maybe a little too calm.
“Well. Some are,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t call them that to their face. That’s considered rude. And it’s not just them. Plenty of things can’t handle direct sunlight.”
That was about the point I realized orientation was going to be different here.
And it definitely was. The Boss didn’t teach me anything. And when I did the interview, He asked, “Can you count? Hold a stick? Do at least one squat?” When I said yes, he nodded and told me I was hired.
My onboarding process lasted maybe ten minutes. No background check. No driver’s license. No paperwork. My first shift started immediately after the interview.
Now, my boss is both the manager and the owner. I don’t even know his real name. He told me to call him “Boss,” and his name tag literally says The Boss. He’s tall, looks like he’s in his forties, and he’s always wearing a light blue button-up with sweat stains and gray work pants. Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen him wear anything else.
My first shift started off normal enough. I rang up a few customers, stocked shelves, got familiar with the layout. But about five hours in, I found my first real oddity.
Along the right wall of the store are all the freezers. That wasn’t the strange part.
The strange part was what was inside one of them.
At the very end, past the frozen dinners and Freezer burnt ice cream, were bags of blood. Not packets — full IV bags. Each one labeled with a cultivated date, a name, and a blood type. On the back was detailed information: white blood cell count, cholesterol, blood sugar levels in milligrams per deciliter, whether the donor smoked or drank, and if they were on any medication.
One detail listed their birthday. As if that mattered for blood.
But what really caught my eye was the line labeled Species.
Some were normal enough — canine, feline, avian, and Homosapien
Others weren’t.
Hemophage.
Lycanthrope.
Wendiginae Homomanducas.
I’ll admit Ashwood has its share of strange diets. Blood drinkers aren’t exactly uncommon around here.
Still, I didn’t expect to find medical-grade IV bags sitting next to frozen pizzas.
Before my mind could spiral , my coworker walked in and interrupted my thoughts.
“Yo you the new guy”, as he pointed at me with a slanted grin.
His name was Daniel.
He was taller than me, though not as tall as the Boss. Short blonde hair that curled at the ends. Always wearing a hoodie every day, no matter the temperature. And there was one thing about him you couldn’t ignore.
He smelled strongly of weed.
If my interview had consisted of more than three questions, I might’ve wondered how he still worked here smelling like that every day. But considering the hiring standards, it felt on-brand.
Ignoring the contact high I was probably getting, he seemed laid-back. For obvious reasons.
When I asked about the blood bags, he smirked.
“That’s for the folks with a thirst normal drinks won’t quench.” He said with a fake country accent, as if mocking The Boss.
“People drink this?” I stared at him for a moment. “Often enough that we stock it?”
“Yep,” he shrugged . “Not my thing. Too much of a copper taste. Oh — and I’m sure the Boss didn’t mention this, but don’t eat anything from the unmarked meat freezer.”
He pointed behind me at a large white chest freezer I hadn’t noticed before.
“That stuff’s gross,” he added.
Then he asked me to ring him up for an energy drink.
The rest of my first day was uneventful. But I did make a new friend.
Two weeks in, I had more questions than answers working here—most of which I’m not sure I’ll ever get. Every time I ask Daniel, he just shrugs saying, “Things tend to stick around if you focus on them.”
The boss told me to act more like Daniel.
“You see, Ryan, Daniel doesn’t question things. He’s been here since high school, and I have a feeling he’s gonna stay. If you want to last longer than most, stop asking those damn questions. It’s not good for your mental health.”
Then he walked back to his office, leaving me wondering what he meant by “last longer than most.”
But he’s right. Curiosity killed the cat—and this town has more problems than just this store. I just needed to get used to seeing them right in front of me. Right as I finished that thought someone from behind me started talking
“You just gonna let him talk to you like that?”
That was Giovanni, our newest part-timer. He started a week after me. Short, kinda big—not muscular, just fat. Greasy black hair slicked back like one of those greasers from the 60s. And he always smelled like cigarettes.
I didn’t like talking to him, but I still answered. “What should I have done? Fought him?”
Giovanni frowned. “You know what I meant. He just shut you down and you’re fine with it?”
I shrugged. “Kinda how things work around here.”
“That’s insane,” he said. “You’re just gonna let him brush off all the weird shit happening like it’s nothing?”
“Well, it’s nor—”
Giovanni cut in with little patience. “This entire town is full of weird shit,”. “I know you and Daniel grew up here, but still—how do you not freak out?”
“I never—”
“Like that hotel I’m staying at,” he continued, talking over me. “It has way more floors than it should. Not one or two—over a hundred. The elevator goes to the 105th floor.”
That got my attention so I let him continue.
“From the outside, it looks like it should only have six, And yeah, I checked. Took five minutes to get to the top. I even marked a few floors to make sure it wasn’t looping or something. It’s gotta be some kind of spatial anomaly. Or a portal. Or—”
He kept going, listing off theories.
I zoned out, thinking about everything weird I’d seen the past few weeks. Somehow, I doubted Giovanni was going to be the one to figure it out.
“—Are you even fucking listening?”
“Barely,” I said. “You lost me after aliens.”
“This is your problem, Ryan. You don’t seem to care about anything.”
“Oh, like how you don’t do your job?” I said. “You gonna finish putting away the frozen food, or should me or Daniel do it again?”
He stepped closer. “Maybe you two should. I’m not touching the rest of that weird-ass meat. I don’t even know where it goes.”
“If it’s wrapped in butcher paper, it goes in the white chest,” I said. “I’m sure Daniel told you that.”
Giovanni balled his fist and stepped even closer, close enough that I could smell stale cigarettes on his jacket.
He lowered his voice sarcastically “Why don’t you remind me, then.”
Things were about to get worse, but Daniel stepped between us before I could kick Giovanni’s short ass.
He left the store flipping me the bird. The tattoos across his knuckles read FUCK U. I laughed. They looked awful—crooked, uneven. Pretty sure he did them himself.
Daniel did a surprisingly good job de-escalating things. He even offered me a hit off his weed pen while taking one himself.
“It’ll calm you down,” he said. “Make the problems disappear.”
I declined.
After calming down, I went back to putting away the frozen food. When I got to the unmarked meat, I paused, staring at the odd cuts.
Some of them looked a little too… complete. Too… familiar. Not like anything you’d normally get from a cow—more like it still had joints. I decided, for my own sanity, not to think too hard about it.
Maybe full-on cow legs are the next upcoming delicacy.
About an hour after Giovanni left, the store phone rang loudly It made me jerk up so fast I hit my head off the shelf that I was stalking.The phone never rang at this hour.Unfortunately, I was the one who picked it up.
“AshWood General, this is Ryan speaking, how can—”
“Fucking bitch ass loser.”
The voice sounded like someone trying to disguise themselves by pinching their nose closed but somehow making it worse.
“…What? Who is this?”
“Someone who’s gonna kick your ass,” they said, still committed to whatever that voice was supposed to do. I’ll be honest—I’m not the smartest person alive, but I do recognize patterns.
“Giovanni, what do you want? Some people actually work.”
There was a pause.
“…What—how’d you—” He dropped the voice. “Fuck you.”
I laughed a bit too hard. “Dude, if you’re trying to hide your voice, maybe check what you sound like first.”
“I wasn’t that obvious—you recognized my phone number, didn’t you, you creep?”
“Yeah, sure, dude. It’s not like you sounded the same but with a head cold.”
“You know what, fuck you, Ryan, you beta cuck.”
To save me—and whoever is reading this some time, I’ll sum up the rest of this lovely phone call.
Giovanni called wanting to finish what we started. Apparently, he wasn’t too pleased with how things ended an hour beforehand. Our debut match was supposedly going to happen at the park.
I’m not proud of this, but I will admit he almost got me. He kept throwing out curse words and a few slurs, and I did, in fact, get pulled into a full-on screaming match over the phone.
I managed to attract Daniel’s attention. He came over, put a hand on my shoulder, and said, “It isn’t worth it,” before pressing the lever ending call button himself. He stopped me from going after Giovanni and said he’d be answering the phone from now on.
Safe to say, it was a good idea.
After calming down for the second time, the next few hours were quiet. Only a few customers came in, and there were two more calls from Giovanni. The last one of his was different—he said he was going home and, surprisingly, apologized, saying he overreacted.
The next time I saw him, he hugged me, said we were like brothers and shouldn’t be fighting.
But We still kept butting heads.
Around 30 minutes after Giovanni called and apologized, we had a blackout, cutting all power around town—which is a recurring thing. Every few days, Ashwood gets a citywide blackout. All power, signal, and any connection to the outside world gets cut off. One thing you can count on is that they’re consistently inconsistent. They don’t follow a pattern. They just… happen.
And of course, it happens on my shift.
At first, me and Daniel were stunned, but we both lived in this town—we were used to it. Still, it caught us off guard.
Daniel broke the silence first.
“Damn, it was about time it happened. It’s almost been a whole week since the last one.”
“Well, great. Now I can’t listen to music,” I said, leaning back against the wall. “What do we do now? Go home?”
Daniel paused for a second, then said, “Oh yeah, Go lock the doors. I’ll make sure the backup freezer generator gets turned on.”
I got up to lock the door. Looking out into the parking lot, i had a slight view of the main road. I saw a couple cars passing by.
“Hope nothing happens this time,” i muttered to myself.
But I shouldn’t be worried. This happens all the time—to the point we sell emergency blackout kits, hand cranks, and even small generators.
But recently, accidents kept happening every blackout. Almost like bad luck started leaking out and really got going when the power cut. It started a few months back—one tragedy after another.
It’s still a mystery how that gas station blew up.
“Yo, Ryan, help me with this door—I feel like Helen Keller back here!” Daniel yelled from the back, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I quickly locked the door and stumbled my way back using my phone flashlight. After almost tripping a few times, I found him struggling with the storeroom door.
“I think the lock is jammed. It won’t open.”
“Yeah you’re Helen Keller for sure, It’s still locked.” I pointed at the key in the door, still not turned.
He slapped his hand against his head and quickly unlocked it.
The back room is where we store extra products and other supplies. There were also some old mannequins still dressed in vintage clothes from the ’70s.
Daniel walked right past them, went to the back corner, set one foot on the generator, and pulled the starter strap. Then again. And again.
“I think it’s empty.”
I crouched down and checked the gas gauge. He was right.
I let out a long sigh. I was about to go tell the boss, but when I turned around, I jumped—almost shit myself.
The mannequins were staring right at us with their cold, dead, unblinking eyes.
I got lost staring at the one in front of me, taking in its pale skin. It was looking right back at me—too still, too perfect. It looked so real I felt like I could count every pore on its skin, every single eyelash, every freckle scattered across its cheeks.
And then its eyes—
They dilated. Rapidly.
I couldn’t look away.
Then it blinked.
I let out a breath, and just like that, it was back to being a normal mannequin.
I still don’t know what happened. But I didn’t feel scared. Not exactly.
It felt more like… they were trying to say something.
But then I noticed one of them had its arm slightly raised—pointing toward a gas can sitting on the opposite side of the generator.
I smirked. “Thanks for the tip.”
After i left the noisy back room, I expected to hear the hum of the freezers.
Instead, there was a knocking sound—slow and off-beat.
It was coming from the unmarked meat freezer. But the knocking wasn’t random.
It repeated.
Tap. Tap.
Pause
A heavier knock. Then a lighter one. Then another heavy. Then light again.
Pause
Tap. Tap.
Then heavier knock.
…then it started over.
I stood there longer than I should’ve, just listening to the loop. I almost recognized it.
Before I could say anything, Daniel came out of the backroom and sighed, walked over casually, and kicked the chest.
Surprisingly, the entire freezer section hummed back to life.
I was about to ask what that was, but I remembered what the boss said.
So I just went with Daniel’s flow.
I’m gonna start doing that now. Plus it was probably some electrical problem.
Back at the front of the store, the boss was sitting on the register counter with some lanterns in his hand.
“Have these so you don’t run your phones dead. You never know when you’ll need them.”
He handed both of us an LED lantern, told us to watch the front while the power was out, then walked right back into his office.
I don’t know what he expects to happen, but if I’m getting paid to sit around and “watch the store,” I’m not complaining.
I spent the rest of my shift talking to Daniel, trying to figure out what kind of person my coworker is. That turned into us talking for the rest of the blackout.
The power came back on around 30 minutes before our shift ended, so we quickly cleaned up and let the part-timers take over before heading out.
Turns out me and Daniel live pretty close—only two blocks apart.
On the way home, we saw a car crash. First responders were already on the scene. A truck had T-boned an SUV, leaving it half crushed. The pickup wasn’t spared either—it looked like it rolled about 50 feet before finally stopping. The entire front end was pushed in.
Daniel spoke first. “Damn. That doesn’t look good, Why does shit like this always happens during a blackout”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t take electricity to follow the speed limit,” I added.
Daniel Took a deep breath in before saying. “Yeah.”
We both went home after that.
I walked through the front door to see my roommate watching the news—about the same crash.
Three confirmed dead. One in critical condition. Both people in the truck survived with a few broken bones.
I went to bed with death on my mind.
And a grim feeling the blackout didn’t cause that car crash.
authors note
Hello this is my first time writing something like this, so any feedback is appreciated. If people enjoy it, I’ll work on a part two. I’d also love to know whether this section felt too long or too short I wanted to add more but I don’t want to info dump on my first post so many of my ideas were left out for now. If you have suggestions for where else I could post this to get more feedback I would appreciate that. I’m open to ideas so I’ll also be responding to comments and questions.