Chapter 570

Aisha, age 59, sat on her porch, the Kyrgyzstan sun warming her weathered face as if promising protection, but Bishkek's sun couldn't protect her now. Not here. She'd come too far. America felt like another planet, this little town of Butklaka like another dimension. A dimension filled with dread, crawling along every darkened edge.

Her bones told her something wasn't quite right with Butklaka. Something more than just small-town quiet. The sun always felt too low, the air too still. The people smiled too wide, a disturbing veneer over something unknown.

"You new in town?" a man asked, stopping at the end of her small yard.

Aisha peered at him. Average height, average build, a face lost in a sea of faces. But his grin… it didn't reach his eyes. They remained dark pools, mirroring the endless night Aisha had begun to dread.

"Just arrived," Aisha said, her accent barely betraying her home. Years in Bishkek had taught her the language well.

"Welcome to Butklaka! I'm George. Hope you enjoy our little corner of the world." George tipped his hat, the smile holding steady. "Don't worry too much about the dark."

Aisha frowned. "The dark?"

George just laughed, a dry sound that skittered along her spine. "Just joking. Old town legend. Every town has one." And with that, he continued on his way, leaving Aisha alone with her growing unease.

That night, she understood George's joke wasn't a joke at all.

The shadows in Butklaka behaved oddly. They weren't just the absence of light. They writhed, they elongated, they watched. Aisha saw one pool out from under a bush one night. It pulled, extended towards a dog that wandered onto the sidewalk, engulfing it.

The dog gave one choked cry, and the next second it and the writhing gloom were gone. Just gone. No trace. No sound. As if they'd both never existed.

That night was the first time she felt truly afraid. She saw others vanish, too, always near the twisted shadows, yet people didn't seem to notice, they walked into it like hypnotized. One boy just a few feet ahead on the path, gone without a sound, a small, subtle ripple.

Even when it was people Aisha only saw from a distance, like the man who always got the morning newspaper; now it's someone else buying it.

At first, she thought it might be like she'd thought with the dog - that maybe they'd run off and never come back.

Then, at the grocery store one morning, she heard one neighbor tell another that man and the boy were on vacation, and she suddenly didn't believe any of it. And that's how it got worse, too, the replacing: she noticed more of the people didn't disappear, but simply... changed. Small things at first.

The postman, he started delivering mail to the people on the wrong streets, people who didn't need that mail. Her neighbor, who used to be a stay-at-home dad, began wearing business suits to do yard work.

And their eyes were wrong. All wrong. She would know their faces, but now their gazes didn't show the souls she once recognized. Blank. Empty. False. Like polished stones instead of living beings.

Then, she met Sarah.

Aisha had found a small tea shop. A quiet, tucked-away space offering a tiny piece of solace, somewhere people were less happy, less willing to make conversation. But, after seeing Sarah's face when she turned the corner, her unease washed away with relief.

Sarah worked at the tea shop. Aisha recognized a fellow expatriate, another Central-Asian just as isolated and distant, the very same haunted and pained features Aisha had had these last few weeks. Aisha tried not to seem too excited to talk.

"Lovely place," she offered in her very clear English as Sarah began to fill her cup, "How long have you been here?"

"Since I was brought here from Kazakhstan" Sarah said without so much as an expression on her face.

"Brought here? And how long would you say you've been brought?"

"About 3 to 4 calendar months," She answered in the same empty way

This caught Aisha off guard. A woman her age wouldn't use these flat sorts of responses, even speaking English, the response didn't land natural or feel authentic. It seemed as though this was being recorded directly by somebody she'd spoken with. Almost.

"How about you? Is this the first time you've been around here?"

The responses caught Aisha off guard as she began to ask a slew of questions. Sarah's replies seemed copied or almost recited and almost directly correlated to the information that Aisha offered. She also saw something in Sarah's features during some questions, some light flutters in her features she hadn't seen, perhaps not completely hollow, at least.

A signal maybe. Aisha felt confused by everything, and ultimately more lost than anything. Still, the feeling she could trust someone overcame her and she asked that if things go amiss, she wanted to leave this small town, and wanted Sarah to leave too.

And she asked if there was any particular item in their house she was most dear to, that might have her find where she was.

But that night, when Aisha saw the shadow snake its way across her living room floor, its touch cold on her skin as she moved in slow fright away from it, Aisha had been given an ultimate challenge: How could she leave if she no longer knew who herself was anymore?

She remembered, almost more distinctly than anything in her life, she woke up and found that a small wooden doll was in her grasp. A childhood toy made out of tree bark. Nothing of hers at all, the image looked nothing like her childhood toy looked.

In addition, the shape of the doll, while of high crafting and craftsmanship, was of a little girl who wore similar clothes to what Aisha was. All it would take would be to grab someone else, and give it to that person so she could leave her there? How?

She was trapped within somebody else's body for only the doll was her own and everyone she'd looked at had blank features. Everything would change like some awful reflection on it, but what could she say? "Please help me leave" wasn't the best start for that.

Everything just feels awfully awfully false, as if they have memorized these parts about what made Aisha her with not much authenticity in its contents. Then Aisha thought "what kind of toy had it given Sarah, anyway?"

Desperate, Aisha did the one thing she swore she wouldn't: she spoke. She found George on his usual morning walk, the one where he gave his wide, wrong smiles. She'd never been sure where this all rested so Aisha asked:

"George," she started, making sure that what little words would show in her true state, "Where are they keeping them? You know something!"

George's face didn't shift from it's smile, yet her mind felt a twisting pull she'd only associated with those shadows that had swept, but that seemed different as it was as though this person was taking on their true shapes - tall, spindly bodies moving like stick, and a pair of cruel glowing lenses like lights within it's skull.

George did nothing as it grabbed the arms out towards Aisha's face as if it wanted her. All the people standing, who were all looking her way, the smiles stuck in their faces; what sort of hellishness existed here for everything so small, so slow! Then one voice popped from one the figures as the face it stole went undone in the head. It was Sarah! But she sounded less like herself

"Looking for a way out Aisha?" It spoke,"I was just trying to follow what my heart yearned for. Did you really have to persist into these situations so badly!"

That was Sarah - she couldn't hold what had came of the words because nothing like that would exist from there with its face pulling.

Then, within what little words Aisha could breathe out and her voice was strained when the shadows held tightly onto them that only barely let out the true self in their hearts. What truly remained to tell those that there was ever someone there now.

"Give. Them. Back!" Aisha pulled.

And it laughed

"I don't have a damn idea who are anymore since you didn't even give me enough information!" it looked "How foolish for even thinking someone can have redemption here or that you were my friend," it said almost dejected.

In that single strike of realization, that moment's value with the person had felt that for once was genuine and wasn't some trap had died along with those faces she'd knew.

Even Sarah did this and was against everything as her, now what place does that lay to her with everything there in? The crushing in every bones and it spoke once again more for taunts than ever since and what's it all matter by then

"Maybe they are more of use to the towns," as Aisha was forced to join whatever horrible cycle those residents knew. They held onto their secrets.

The fake version of herself and even someone whom it gave one genuine heart felt to did so, who knew what world this lay onto and will show. As Aisha screamed the very scream those monsters had all screamed:

"I just wanted to LEAVE this PLACE!"

Butklaka watched. The shadows curled and pulsed in time with Aisha's scream. Another body had been added into the folds and more faces that had not once truly seen their fate had beared onto her until not her nor anyone can scream the differences between those.

And so, Butklaka had watched and soon after would just dismiss as Aisha walked and went somewhere they can make great change as it made it's own change into the newest.