I didn't sleep that night.
I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that it had all been some mass hallucination. A fever dream shared by a dying town. Maybe something in the water. Maybe trauma, infecting the air like mold.
But the clapping.
The screaming.
The smile.
I could still feel it—under my skin, behind my teeth. Like something had been sewn into me without my permission.
Every time I blinked, I saw Ryan's puppet dangling in the dark.
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the crowd chanting: "One every decade."
And beneath it all...
The strings whispered.
Not with words.
With pulls.
Tugging at my arms. Tugging at my spine.
Like I wasn't moving by myself anymore.
---
I woke up sometime after 3AM.
At least, I think I did.
I was standing in the living room. Barefoot. Drenched in sweat. The front door wide open.
And in my hand: a needle.
Threaded with red string.
My palms were bleeding.
Like I'd been holding it too tight. Like it had tried to pull itself deeper into me.
There was something written on the wall in crayon.
I don't keep crayons in my house.
> "STRINGS KNOW THE TRUTH."
I didn't scream.
I couldn't.
Something had hold of my throat. Not choking me—just... guiding. Like a parent holding a child's chin too gently to be called abuse.
That's when I realized the whispers weren't just inside my house.
They were everywhere.
---
The next morning, the town was too quiet.
People moved slower. No one made eye contact. Every conversation ended the moment I stepped into earshot.
At the diner, where old men used to argue about baseball and rust, silence ruled.
But I heard them.
Not the people.
The strings.
In the vents. In the floorboards. In the shadows beneath coffee cups.
Whispers like:
> "He is remembering."
> "It's almost time."
> "The voice must be given back."
And then, from nowhere:
> "You are hollow, Jonah. But we can fill you."
I dropped my fork.
It didn't hit the floor.
It hung.
Suspended in midair.
By a thread of red string, tied to the ceiling.
It swayed slowly. Mockingly. Like it was dancing to music only I could hear.
---
I stumbled outside.
Breathed in deep.
But the air didn't help. It felt heavy. Like breathing through puppet cloth.
And across the street, I saw it.
Another puppet.
This one hanging from the traffic light.
Small. Featureless. But it had my jacket carved into its chest.
And when I looked away and looked back—it had moved.
Its arm was raised.
Pointing at me.
No one else reacted.
Not the pedestrians. Not the cars.
Just me.
And the puppet.
And the strings that whispered above the town like invisible rain.
---
I ran to the library.
It was the only place left that didn't hum with hidden music.
Or so I thought.
I dove into the archives. I searched old newspaper clippings, town registries, census data—anything.
And I found something.
Every ten years.
Starting from 1903.
One child.
Gone without explanation.
Sometimes a fire. Sometimes a drowning. Sometimes they just walked out of their homes and never returned.
But every decade, exactly one name disappeared.
And never came back.
Until 1993.
Benny Harper.
That's when the papers stopped covering it. The town erased it from public record. Pretended it didn't happen.
But in the library ledger, someone had scribbled in the margin:
> "He smiled when they took him. That's how they knew he was ready."
And under that:
> "The strings won't stop until the debt is paid."
---
I rushed home.
Tore open every closet.
Dumped out my childhood boxes.
And found it.
An old puppet.
Mine.
From when I was a boy.
I had forgotten about it.
But it hadn't forgotten me.
Same green glass eyes. Same stitched mouth.
And now, as I held it...
Its mouth was slowly, slowly unsewing itself.
And the voice that came out...
> "We gave you a voice to remember. Now give it back, Jonah. Or the strings will choose another."