About a minute after the end of the world, Mouse started to fidget. She wondered if the clock was behind. Wolf told the girl to shut her damn mouth. The five sat cross-legged on the floor of a tapestry-draped room, heavy with the odors of marijuana and sweat. Four believers were clad in white, while Wolf, the skinny, thirty-something-year-old-Prophet, was dressed in glimmering silver chainmail. It was December 21st: the clock had just struck midnight. Instead of hellfire and the agonized screams of the unenlightened, the strange group was met with only the sound of the old heater kicking to life.

At 12:04, Bear was the first to move. Wordlessly, the man left the pentacle, took his bag from the couch, and walked out the door. Frog’s neck snapped between his increasingly red-faced leader and the spot where Bear had once sat. Kittie, with her slow-blinking eyes, gazed uncommittedly at the ceiling. Mouse was on the verge of tears, her bottom lip quivering. She sniffled. No one spoke. They heard from outside the newspaper-covered window as Bear’s truck started up and tore down the driveway. The others would never see him again.

At 12:07, Wolf shot up so suddenly that even Kittie jumped. He threw himself against a bookshelf. He clawed at his throat, his face twisting and contorting. Then, he crashed to the floor, convulsing. Mouse shrieked, kneeling before him and trying in vain to grab his arms. Frog stood, but his legs wouldn’t walk. He noticed Kittie wasn’t moving.

“Don’t just stand there!” Mouse begged Frog. “Help me hold him down!”

Frog looked to Kittie for what to do. Her face, sharp and genuinely cat-like with curled sweeps of dark eyeliner, betrayed nothing. Before Wolf, Kittie was Elena, a student at the University. Frog sometimes passed her on campus when he was leaving the lab. Those memories, though only a few months old, felt like they belonged to another lifetime.

“A message,” Wolf spat out between the gibberish. He began to slam his head back against the floor. Hysterical, Mouse tore from the room. She returned with a pillow and shoved it beneath her dear leader’s head. Wolf just rolled over and went right on doing the same thing. Frog felt as if he might throw up. He wished the world had ended like it was supposed to. At least then he wouldn’t have to deal with this.

Outside, the night was clear, and a big silver moon reflected from a blanket of glittering, white snow. In seven or so hours, the sun would rise. The world would wake up. He could still go home, Frog found himself thinking, and make it back to Iowa in time for Christmas Eve. He could see his little sister.

“Don’t be an idiot, Frog,” Kittie hissed. It was 12:10 A.M. “Hold him down so we can hear what God has to say.”

❤ 𝕊𝕪𝓵𝐕ｉᗩ Ŝ𝐭𝒶ＮＤ𝐢ⓝᎶ 𝔞𝓛๏ⓝє ✌

Sylvia standing on the other side of a glassy pond. Mayflies bobbing lazily across the surface. Sylvia’s full name printed neatly and sealed to the table with packing tape. Sylvia’s two braids tied back every day. Sylvia dancing on the patio. Sylvia hiding in the back of my closet. Sylvia in a tie-dyed T-shirt from sleepaway camp. Sylvia on a bicycle. Sylvia in an aquarium. Sylvia on the class field trip to the Bronx Zoo, where we sat by the lion exhibit all day. The gap closing between Sylvia’s two front teeth. Middle school pool parties behind Sylvia’s big, yellow house. Avoiding the weird statue that stared from the corner of her yard. Sylvia throwing a carton of milk at Logan Thomas. Detention with Sylvia. Sylvia promising she wouldn’t tell anyone I cried. That Halloween when we both dressed up as witches, the last one before stuff like that would matter. Sylvia’s new haircut, just above her shoulders. Sylvia’s white sneakered feet beneath the bathroom stall door. Sylvia through the window of a classroom—understanding I’ll always be the moon to her bright Sun. Sylvia’s warm cheek pressed against my stomach. Sylvia’s name like daggers from his lips. Buying makeup finally, like Sylvia always did. Sylvia in my nightmares. Sylvia on the phone. Suddenly noticing how tall I had gotten. A greying friendship bracelet in the back of my desk drawer. Sylvia on Owen Moore’s Instagram story. Sylvia asleep on my twin bed. Sylvia’s black Subaru, in my driveway less and less. Sylvia’s location, frozen at her house. Sylvia’s vacant gaze as I pass her on the street. Wondering if Sylvia ever liked me at all. Sylvia in the dark somewhere alone.

Sylvia’s locker unopened for months now. Sylvia’s prom dress on the returns rack at Goodwill. Sylvia’s face, placid and unaware, staring from the posters all over town. Three policemen greeting Mom at my front door. Having to admit a million times that I hadn’t spoken to Sylvia in a year or so. The silence after Sylvia’s name at graduation. Sylvia’s poor dad, alone in the tavern on a Tuesday night. Sylvia’s Subaru that her little brother won’t take. Sylvia’s birthday: I’ll notice every year. Owen at Sylvia’s vigil. Pictures from our middle school graduation on the local news. Sylvia’s Jansport backpack, found abandoned near I-81. Owen’s screams echoing down the school hallway. Sylvia spreading everywhere and onto everybody. Sylvia on the playground, blood running down her skinny shins. Standing by the bus stop, squinting against the rising sun to see where Sylvia went. Her small body and huge, pink backpack crouched by the side of the road. My eyes adjusting to the brightness, approaching and seeing a squirrel, squished flat on the road. I gag. Sylvia picks a daffodil from a nearby garden and lies it before the squirrel’s body.

Eva Catherine Kuhn is a lifelong writer from Sleepy Hollow, New York. A recent graduate of Chatham University, her work has previously appeared in Dream Boy Book Club, as well as in the Chatham Communiqué and Cherry Bomb Literary Magazine. When she isn’t writing scary stories, Eva works as a freelance stylist and model. She lives with her big, orange cat, Pumpkin, in Pittsburgh.

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