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🗿Blank_Spots 09/20/09 (Sun) 22:03:32 #12734582

My brother used to be a fisherman.

Six in the morning he'd shift out of bed, drift into the kitchen, sift through breakfast without a so much as a single clink of a utensil, and once I'd wake up the house would be empty. He'd drive to the lake a few minutes off the town outskirts and, once he was content, he'd drive home. Same hours, same timing. Always caught, always released. Always kept to the vicinity of town — the small-scale lifestyle. Liked it best that way, he told me.

I never worried about him. He was a strong guy, and even if hick flair radiated off of him with enough force to set a Geiger counter ringing, he was smart. He could find his way through a forest and trace his steps with the precision to repeat the same path a day later. Knew better than to go out fishing when it was night — it's when the weird things start to swim — but even the few times he did he'd turn back safe and sound.

It was why he was the only person people trusted with finding me when I went missing.

Here is what I remember of it myself: At four in the morning I left bed, unable to sleep, and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I left a set of plates and utensils on the table, pulled my brother's fishing gear from the closet, and, without a single clink, stumbled out of the house. From what I hear, several people saw me treading the path my brother normally drove along to the lake.

I'd never gone that way before. All I was thinking of was the dull, warm wind and a pinching pain at the roof of my mouth. No one intervened. They all thought I was heading to see my brother.

I blacked out.

Here is what other people have told me:

At six in the morning my brother found blood in the kitchen. It trailed straight through the woods and stopped three feet from the lake edge. Footprints halted too. He knocked from door to door, asking anyone if they'd seen me, and soon after cop cars pulled in around our house. They told him to stay put, that they could handle a search and rescue operation, but, while they scoured the lake, he went off on his own. My neighbors wished him luck.

At nine in the morning he came back, my neighbors asking if he found any signs of me. My brother stepped past them and locked the front door shut. Every blind was dragged down, every curtain closed. The people who saw him go in said he had a thousand-yard stare. He didn't come out for hours.

At six in the afternoon, just as storm weather rolled into the region, my brother unlocked the front door. He told my neighbors he was going fishing. He carried a loaded shotgun with him to the car.

No one intervened. All the police noted was that his car was parked by the lake.

Some time early in the next day, a mile from town, surrounded by nothing but tree after tree after tree, I woke up. There was a hole in the roof of my mouth. My brother's shotgun, blood-smeared and unloaded, laying in my hands. Lake water soaked my clothes.

I couldn't remember what happened that night. I couldn't remember where my brother went. I couldn't remember why half of him was dripping on the dirt next to me.

The paramedics who found me said there was a fishhook in my mouth.

- - -

I left town for good. I settled into a urban apartment, one in a city where the streetlights never fail to shield you from the shadows, where I've stayed ever since. But that night clings to me. Whether it's the numbness I feel, or the blank spots I recall, what happened out there has left a permanent scar on me. Having to hear people go through similar experiences to mine — some having even less resolution than mine — makes it worse.

This is why I joined Parawatch. I want to document all of the unnatural events myself and others have experienced, to inform people on what lurks just out of our sight, to help anyone who has the misfortune to encounter it. I want to bring people the resolution they need.

For those of you who are passing by, I hope you take the time to read what we've compiled, to better avoid the circumstances people like myself have fallen victim to. And for those of you who are in it for the long haul, welcome to the Watch.

We aren't in this darkness alone.