The Deeps - Volume 1, Issue 1

A Cautionary Tale

Luc Diamant

You already know this story. Someone enters a place they shouldn’t have and doesn’t come out. An abandoned house. An old forest. Something’s nest. It doesn’t matter. The story always ends the same way. You know this.

Only this time it’s different. Because this time, it’s you entering the place, the derelict mansion, the dark cavern, the lake late at night. Even though you know the story, you’re barely hesitating before stepping in.

What is it, this place that you’re going to? It doesn’t matter, of course. The outcome is the same. But let’s say it’s a house. It is often a house. Let’s say it’s in the woods. Let’s say you enter it by moonlight while there’s no one home, or at least no one is supposed to be home. The door creaks as you open it, just the way you expect it to. You smell mold and something sharp that you cannot place. This should be your first clue to leave. The moonlight barely reaches inside but you turn on the flashlight on your phone. You’re not like the other people in this story. You’re prepared.

Your phone has no reception. You know this. This is the only reason you still have it: to use it as a flashlight. If it had had reception, we’d have taken it from you by now.

Something big has happened to you recently. A death, a breakup, a move. It all comes down to the same thing: something has ended and an empty space has opened up in your life. Let’s say it was a move. You’re new here. You don’t really know anyone yet. No one really knows you yet, either. This is important to the story. Who will look for you?

You’re going into the house because there’s an answer somewhere in there. Maybe you have to search the house for it, or maybe you know exactly where it is. In any case, the mystery you’re trying to solve has something to do with the Big Thing that has happened to you.

Since your Big Thing was the move, the mystery is probably related to the house itself. In fact, it is probably your house. At least, you think of it as yours. But it is our house, and that is what, deep down, you have started to feel, even if you have not let yourself think it. In your thoughts, you’re probably “investigating.” But the truth is you’re coming to ask whose house this is.

The door slams shut behind you. This is your second clue to leave. We are nothing if not fair.

Every time you’ve heard this story, you’ve told yourself that you were different. That you would take the hint and get out. That nothing could be that important. Even now as you make your way further into the house, you still think that you are not like them. Perhaps it’s because of the phone. Perhaps it’s because you know the story, when all of them did not. Perhaps you are simply convinced, deeply and inexplicably, of your own immortality.

But more than any of these, you think your mystery is more important than any of theirs. This is what truly sets you apart from them in your mind: the inconceivability of this mystery, your mystery, remaining unsolved. And you understand very well that whoever unravels the mystery must live to tell the tale. After all, if they do not, it is not solved at all but simply absorbs the unraveler, turning them into just another question for the next person to puzzle their way through.

What you do not yet understand is that they all thought this too. It is how we catch them. How we catch you. This story, every version of it, has always been about you.

When you pass the mirror, you see a glimpse in it of something that is not you. This is your third and final sign.

And maybe you leave. Maybe you really are different. Maybe you remember the story, decide that you have all the answers you need and simply turn around and walk out the front door. If you do this, you will be safe. You will not see us. Maybe years from now, you will laugh about how you ran through the woods in the middle of the night, afraid of something that surely was not there. For a long time, you will manage not to let the unsolved mystery stop you from leading a safe and happy life.

But one day you will forget that this story is about you, and you will be back. And we are nothing if not patient.