Chapter 366

The village of Solace wasn't much to look at. A scattering of houses, small and worn, surrounded by towering pines that seemed to hunch over the homes, closing in from every direction. It was as far from civilization as you could get, tucked away in a forgotten corner of Alaska.

No one came by unless they had no choice, and those who lived there didn't leave. Even now, with the sun barely breaking through the gray sky, it looked like a place no one could escape from.

Samuel had lived there all his life, just like everyone else. He worked at the only gas station, kept his head down, and watched the world move by without much of an interest. The people in Solace weren't unfriendly; they just didn't know how to talk to anyone who wasn't born there.

It had always been like that, a kind of isolation people either grew to love or suffered through until they couldn't take it anymore. But Samuel had no plans of leaving.

Then one winter afternoon, a strange noise cut through the quiet. It was the sound of a bee.

Samuel was sitting on the porch of the gas station, watching the thick snow fall in layers, when he first heard it. Just a low buzzing, almost imperceptible. At first, he thought nothing of it. A bee in the dead of winter was impossible, but maybe it was a wasp or something else. But it didn't stop. It grew louder, and before long, the sound wasn't coming from a single direction. It was all around him.

He stood up and looked around. The snow was falling, swirling in odd patterns. There was no wind, but it still seemed to shift unnaturally. He stepped off the porch and started walking down the road. The buzzing grew louder, more persistent. Something in the back of his mind told him to turn back. But he couldn't.

That's when he saw it.

A small, black shape hovering a few inches above the ground. At first, Samuel thought it was a trick of his eyes. Maybe the cold had made him see things, maybe the isolation was starting to eat away at his brain. But no. The thing was real. A bee. But it wasn't just any bee.

It had legs. Human legs.

They were long, gangly, and twisted, like something that shouldn't exist. They bent in ways they weren't supposed to, and they jerked beneath the bee's tiny body. It stood still for a moment, its wings buzzing violently in the cold air, as if unsure whether it should fly or crawl. Then, without warning, it darted forward, its legs dragging it across the snow.

Samuel froze.

For a moment, the world seemed to stop. The buzzing filled his head, louder now, shaking his very thoughts. He didn't move, couldn't move. His eyes were glued to the creature, but the longer he stared, the harder it was to keep focus.

The buzzing seemed to fill the space around him, wrapping around his skull, pressing against his eardrums. He staggered backward, but when he turned to run, he found himself still rooted to the spot.

The bee stopped, its tiny legs clicking against the frozen earth. Then, as if deciding something, it darted to the left and disappeared behind a nearby house.

Samuel didn't think. He only followed.

His footsteps were muffled by the thick layer of snow, and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he walked. His breath came out in sharp gasps, each one colder than the last. He wasn't sure what was pushing him forward.

Maybe it was curiosity, maybe fear. But there was something about that bee, something that felt wrong in a way he couldn't explain.

He reached the back of the house. The buzzing stopped.

He looked around, but there was no sign of the creature. No bee, no legs, no nothing. It was just the usual snow, the usual cold. He was about to turn back when he heard the buzzing again, this time much closer.

It was coming from inside the house.

Samuel's stomach dropped. He walked around to the front, but the door was locked. He banged on it, shouting to anyone who might be inside, but there was no answer. He was about to leave when the door creaked open. Slowly, as though something behind it were pushing it open with care, just enough for Samuel to slip through.

He stepped inside.

The house smelled of something old, something rotten. It was the kind of smell you couldn't ignore, like decay creeping into the corners of your mind. The walls were bare, save for a few cracked photos of families he didn't recognize. There was no furniture. It was empty.

But the buzzing was still there.

He followed it down a narrow hallway, the sound growing louder with each step. At the end of the hall, there was a door. It wasn't locked. Samuel opened it.

What he saw inside wasn't a room. It was... something else.

The walls of the room were warped, distorted like they had been bent out of shape by some unseen force. The air was thick, but not in the way it should be in a small, closed room. The buzzing was deafening now, reverberating off the walls like a thousand insects were caught in a cage. The ceiling stretched far too high, far beyond any normal house, and the floor beneath his feet seemed to shift with every step.

In the center of the room, the bee sat. It wasn't flying anymore. It was perched on a twisted, blackened chair that looked as though it had been ripped from another reality.

Its legs—those long, spindly things—moved in jerky, unnatural movements. They scraped against the floor as if searching for something, clawing at the very fabric of the room. The bee's wings flapped violently, sending waves of distorted air crashing against Samuel's skin.

And then, the room shifted.

The walls closed in. The floor cracked open beneath him, and he fell through. He screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the growing buzzing.

And then, just as quickly as it had started, everything stopped.

Samuel found himself lying on cold ground. He opened his eyes, but nothing looked right. The world around him was twisted, everything out of place, like he was in a bad dream.

The sky was dark, but the stars moved, shifting like they weren't supposed to be there. The snow was black now, covering the ground in a layer of ashes.

And in the distance, he could see it. The bee.

Its legs had grown longer. More twisted. It dragged its body forward, crawling toward him with a terrifying speed.

He tried to move, tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't obey him. He couldn't escape. He couldn't move.

The bee was getting closer.

It stood before him, its many legs now coiling around its body. Its wings beat against the air in an erratic rhythm, and the buzzing tore through his mind. His vision blurred, and he could hear nothing but that endless sound.

The world around him was collapsing. The ground split open, the sky shattered. Everything that had ever been real was twisting, warping, turning into something else. Something unnatural.

Samuel screamed again, but there was no sound.

The bee lunged at him, and in that moment, Samuel felt his body dissolve. His limbs fell apart, his flesh splitting into pieces, consumed by the buzzing, consumed by the dark air.

Everything that had once been him, everything that had made him human, was shredded apart.

And the last thing he heard was the buzz of a thousand wings.