《Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland》 Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland Let me get this out of the way right now. This isn¡¯t real, none of this happened. The events talked about here are fictional, fake, untrue. Except for the ones that aren¡¯t. Which may¡­ possibly¡­ be all of them. So yeah, to recap, this isn¡¯t real, except for all of the parts that are. Got it? Because I don¡¯t want to hear about this later. Anyways¡­ Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland, cue The Jurassic Park theme, The Twilight Zone door, The X-File badge, The Lost fade or whatever gets you in the fucking mode for the Strange. (Shit, can I say fuck? Oh well.) If you are squeamish, this isn¡¯t for you. What I¡¯m about to tell you will nudge you from your comfort zone. It will open your eyes to things you¡¯d wished you kept them closed for. Like knowing that your parents fuck, because they do, a lot.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Moving on¡­ What is the Aurora Wasteland? Simple. It¡¯s an area that lives beyond man made borders. A place where the strange and weird thrive. A place made up of places you hoped didn¡¯t exist. Hmm¡­ probably shouldn¡¯t have used the word place there twice, frick you¡¯re a writer man, you¡¯re supposed to be better than this. Whatever... A place made up of people you wouldn¡¯t want to meet. People you wouldn¡¯t want to be, because escaping from the nightmare that is the Aurora Wasteland, well, that¡¯s just not possible. That¡¯s pretty heavy. I like it. Ok, Listen¡­ I¡¯m going to tell you a story. And it¡¯s going to cross media, mostly YouTube, podcasts & my novels. The Novels are where the heart of the story is going to live. But the Strange and the Details live everywhere else. This is all going to take a while (shit, that¡¯s kind of a vague timeline, but oh well), but it¡¯s all going to make sense at the end. I promise. Aspects may not seem related. They may seem like a monster of the week from time to time, but they aren¡¯t, except for the ones that are. So, pay attention. I¡¯m only going to tell you this story once. I don¡¯t want to repeat myself, and I don¡¯t want to hear your bitching later. I should probably point out here that I¡¯m a writer, and my name is Vaughn Ashby. Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland. Missing Hikers Lost in the Rain I¡¯m going to tell you a story It¡¯s going to involve a missing hiker And the lengths people will go to get the people they love back Oh and maybe a hint of time travel Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland Time Travel and missing people are notoriously linked in more than one Aurora Wasteland post, but not all instances are as dramatic as a tricked out Delorean. Some are as simple as a snap of the fingers. Before we get too deep in the temporal weeds, let¡¯s go back to the beginning. Way back to the year 1993, and let¡¯s talk about a man named Danny. (His last name has been redacted as per Aurora Wasteland site rules.) Danny was a hiking enthusiast. He and his friends loved to go hiking, they¡¯d be in the mountains every week, picking a new trail. Exploring mother nature, and sneaking off into the trees with their girlfriends who loved to tag along for the ride. After a few years, those girlfriends turned to wives, but the woodland intimacy continued. One of their favorite places in the world to hike was the Brightness Falls Park. Nestled inside the Canadian side of the rocky mountains, the Brightness Falls park is host to a vast mountain range, beautiful lakes, and breathtaking views. But for Danny and his crew, Brightness was their favorite place because of the wide variety of trail types. Mountains, forests, rivers, and pants-wettingly deep lakes. Everything up until this part of Danny¡¯s life had been normal. Friends, job, wife, love. Everything after was heartbreaking, but we¡¯re getting ahead of ourselves. On July 1, 1996, Canada Day, Danny and his group set out on a hike they¡¯d done many times, Old Fort Point. One of Brightness Falls best hidden trails, it starts you off at the base of Mount Tekarra, and brings you up to an amazing panoramic view of the Brightness Falls town and lake. The hike started off as normal. It¡¯s a steep climb to the peak followed by a gentle decline around the back of the lookout. Overall it¡¯s not a hard hike, but worth it, for all the places you can have some forest fun¡­ the dictionary defines forest fun as rubbing your privates together in the vicinity of trees, not on the tree¡­ don¡¯t be gross¡­ and ouch. They had completed the hike up to the lookout and took in the view of the town. All was good. When they rounded the mountain well, things got strange. Halfway around the decline, it started to rain. The newspaper forecast had called for clear skies all day, and based on Danny¡¯s police testimony, rain was an understatement. They were caught in a downpour of massive drops. They were very seasoned hikers, and had proper equipment, but the rain-drenched them down to the bone. It became hard to see, it became hard to hear, it became hard to do anything but walk. Even then the ground wasn¡¯t able to keep up the rain and washed out paths forced them off the tail. By the time they reached the end of the trial and ran to their cars, they were just happy to be out of the rain. It was then that they noticed someone was missing. Danny¡¯s wife, Emily. Yes, his wife was missing. He wasn¡¯t sure how it happened. How could he lose track of her? To this day he doesn''t know and still blames himself. The group he hiked with were close, they all walked and talked with everyone. Danny just assumed she was with someone else. But she wasn¡¯t, and she was gone. ¡­I know what you¡¯re thinking. Obviously, she was taken by the fabled blue ghost dick monster of Mount Tekarra. But you¡¯d be wrong, Firstly, that¡¯s Whistlers Mountain. Second, ghost dick monsters of any color tend to find homes in ravines, not mountains. Third, they are incredibly bright and vibrant in their dick colors. So even though the rain, their neons ghost cocks would stand out. That¡¯s just basic monster ghost dick monster knowledge, come on man, keep up because shit is going to get weirder and weirder.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. At this point Danny and friends did what you¡¯d expect anyone to do, they went back to try to find her, obviously they didn¡¯t otherwise this whole post wouldn¡¯t exist. After that, they went to the police. They also didn¡¯t find anything, the rain had washed every footprint on the mountain away. With no luck they filed a police report, which led to an investigation, that cleared Danny of any suspicion, and claimed Emily was likely to have wandered into a bear¡¯s cave to take shelter from the rain, a cave that probably had a bear in it. You can fill the rest of the graphic story in with your imagination. But Danny didn¡¯t buy it. He wasn¡¯t ready to let go of her. So he didn¡¯t. Which is when we leave 1996. For years Danny searched every inch of the mountain, searching for Emily but he found nothing. So what, a lost hiker, eaten by a bear, during a rainstorm, that doesn¡¯t sound that strange or weird, gross yes, weird no. Well, hold onto your panties because things are about to get mildly weirder. Which brings us up to 2016, Danny¡¯s story had made its way onto the Aurora Wasteland website, but the post had long been buried under other similar stories. Missing people under strange circumstances is more common than you know. But Danny wasn¡¯t willing to give up, 23 years later technology had improved, and Danny made a video asking for help. He wanted a seasoned team of Aurora Wasteland explorers to help him retrace his steps. Which is where me and my team came into the picture. Danny¡¯s video was forwarded to me one day at work. It was interesting enough, just enough strange with a splash of heartstring tuggage to get me off my ass. My team and I geared up, and met Danny at the base of the hike. He introduced himself and walked us through his story. While we believed him, his passion was undeniable, we didn¡¯t expect to see anything on the hike. Movies have led us to believe that the anniversary ofevents was somehow important, but from our experience, they rarely yield results. Anniversaries are for survivors, not victims. But we liked Danny, we liked his story, and wanted to help. So we hiked. With Danny as our guide we did the Old Fort Point hike. He became emotional a few times, most notably where he last remembered seeing her. We all had special people in our lives that we couldn¡¯t imagine just vanishing one day. Danny¡¯s emotions rubbed off on a few of us. After reaching the overlook, we started down the backside, the part that goes through the forest. That¡¯s when it started to rain. Danny again became emotional. He reminisced how it wasn¡¯t supposed to rain on the day of the hike 23 years ago, much like today. I¡¯m not going to lie, around this point I had flickers of hope on our hike when Danny told us this. If there was ever going to be a resolution it would be now, it had to be right? Rain on the 23 year anniversary, but that was just my imagination and hopes messing with me. I had hoped that we¡¯d run into a woman hiker that had separated from her group. We¡¯d find out she has the same name as the missing hiker from before. Danny and her could have this grand reconnecting. But that didn¡¯t happen. The rain only sprinkled, and lasted no more than a minute. The rest of the hike was done in disappointed silence. A slight disappointment in Danny¡¯s walk. Now that should be the end of the story. We should have left disappointed, with some kind of moral to the story like. You can¡¯t expect what happens in the movies to happen in real life. Because stories and real-life play by different rules. Shit, that sounds a little too close to a moral. Frustrated, we threw our gear in the trunks of our vehicles and climbed in for our long ride home. When someone noticed something. While out on the hike and even now in the car, we had no cell signal. No way for our phone to connect to the network. So what happened to our phones happened to us. All but one of our hiking crew had brought their cell phones with them. Only one jackass, he knows who he is, forgot their phone in the car. And that jackasses phone was exactly one minute behind ours. It took us a few minutes to really figure out what happened. We somehow stepped forward in time by one minute. I know what you¡¯re going to say. Bullshit, time travel isn¡¯t possible, but is it? Humor me for a second, what if we did somehow travel forward in time? What would that mean for the missing hiker? It rained more during the original hike, did that mean anything? What if she somehow ended up further in time? More than a minute. Our paths split with Danny from there. He left with a newfound hope that maybe one day she¡¯ll return to him, and we left with stupid time traveling grins spread across our stupid faces. Voices from the Sand I¡¯m going to tell you a story it¡¯s going to involve a woman trying to outrun a childhood nightmare that has clawed its way into her adult life and parenthood Oh, and maybe a pinch of sand, it really does get everywhere Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland In every aspect of life, Stephanie was a normal girl. At age one, she walked, at age two, she talked, at age six, she went to Disneyland. Every aspect of her life would be classified as 100% normal and uneventful until the age of 8. That is where things become interesting for us and unpleasant for her. Stephanie and the Aurora Wasteland website have a history going back a few years. Initially, in 2018, she posted about an event that happened to herself and her daughter on their first excursion out to the brand new park in their newly developed subdivision. The post simply stated that Stephanie heard voices coming from below the sand while she was at the park with her daughter. Then she asked if other Aurora Wasteland posters or readers had ever encountered anything like this before. A few commenters posted about their own experiences with voices from inanimate items, most from urns, couches, and vibrators. It should be pointed out here that the number one most common household item to talk to you is your vibrator. This goes for both men and women. The more powerful the vibrator, the more likely you are to hear voices. A scientific study was commissioned by the Aurora Wasteland website on the subject in 2010 backs up these finds. It also found that vibrators that pulse as well as buzz are more likely to cause the user to accidentally summon unwanted gods. Anyways, after Stephanie¡¯s initial post, an Aurora Wasteland team reached out to her and conducted an interview with her at her house. She told them that when she took her daughter to the park, after playing in the park for only a few minutes, she started to hear voices. Her daughter, then 8, also heard the voices, but wasn¡¯t clear on what they were saying. She said they just sounded like mumbled noise, like someone yelling underwater. Stephanie, on the other hand, heard the voices very clearly. She said they just kept repeating the same word over and over again, her name. After cleaning out their underpants, the Aurora Wasteland team investigated the park without Stephanie¡¯s help. She was unwilling to return and doubted that she ever would. The team found nothing. They stayed for hours with microphones buried in the sand. But they left with nothing apart from improved sandcastle building skills. The team had hit a wall. They had nothing but Stephanie¡¯s word to move them forward. While reviewing the notes from Stephanie¡¯s interview and preparing a website post, one team member contacted Stephanie about the spelling of her daughter¡¯s name and a clarification of her age. It was then that Stephanie let a vital piece of information slip. She said that Emma, her daughter, is the same age now that Stephanie was when she first heard the voices. Startled by the discovery that Stephanie had heard the voice before the member gently asked Stephanie what about the first time she heard the voices. Gently, please, the team members practically crapped their panties in excitement that the case was going somewhere interesting. Flustered by her slip of the tongue Stephanie claimed she¡¯d misspoke, and ended the conversation prematurely. As you may or may now know, Aurora Wasteland team members don¡¯t let things go easily. They are a highly inquisitive bunch. So despite Stephanie¡¯s attempt at a cover, the team member brought the new information back to her team and the website, where the community set to work looking for when Stephanie maybe have previously heard voices. A 1998 newspaper article from the Barrhead Leader brought Stephanie¡¯s story to light. It claimed that a child went missing at a local park, the only witness to the event was a little girl, who claimed the boy who went missing was pulled into the sand by voices. Police at the time chalked it up to a custody dispute, but the child was never heard from or seen again. Police didn¡¯t put much stock into the claim that the child was pulled into the sand by voices, but they did dig up the entire park looking for him. The witness to the event, the little girl, matched the age and upbringing location as Stephanie. So what? What makes this an Aurora Wasteland case? A woman hears voices and you think she is linked to a missing child from the 90s? That doesn¡¯t scream Aurora Wasteland to me, well hold on to your nips, things are about to get mildly more mysterious.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Stephanie cut off communication for the Aurora Wasteland team at this point, and her post from the site vanished. Though the post was later created from a website backup. The team was at a loss. The newspaper held no information identifying the missing girl from 1998, Stephanie seemed to be the only link to the whole story and even she seemed to no longer want anything to do with it. So the team did what every good Aurora Wasteland team does, they respected Stephanie¡¯s wishes and closed the case. Roll the credits, this story has no ending. Except that it does and they didn¡¯t. The team did respect her wishes and didn¡¯t stalk or harass Stephanie. But they did go on a road trip. The small town of Barrhead is somewhat of a focal point for the strange and weird inside the Aurora Wasteland. Notable Aurora Wasteland places from the town itself are Moe¡¯s trailers, and Thunder Lake. The team was excited having never been there. Their first stop was a local coffee shop to meet a former school teacher. His name has been redacted as per his request. From here on out we will refer to him as Mr P. The team filled Mr. P in on everything that they knew about Stephanie and the missing child from before. Mr P in turn, filled the team in on the events from 1998. He told them the story that was familiar around town, while he had worked at the elementary school where the park was located, the event took place after school hours and everything he knew was second hand. His story matched that of the newspaper article with one notable exception. He noted that Stephanie, more than other kids, seemed to be affected by the events. That she refused to play, not just at the school parks, but all the parks and that the parents had taken her to counseling for it. He recounted that gossip around town was that she was crazy. And that her family would later separate themselves from her because of it. While the team and Mr. P parted ways, the team had a better idea of the events from 1998, but they didn¡¯t have a direction to take their investigation. So they marked it as incomplete and parked it. Time passed by on the case, roughly a year, then as suddenly and out of the blue as Stephanie¡¯s initial post had appeared on the Aurora Wasteland site, the team that had been investigating her case received a panicked phone call from her. While barely able to make out what she was saying, the team member could make out nothing more than, ¡°park...daughter...alone.¡± Then Stephanie was gone. The team assumed, and would later be proven correct, that while having a friend over, nine year old Emma had been convinced to go to the nearby park without her mother knowing. Only she did find out, and nearly lost her mind with panic. The only thing she thought to do was to contact the Aurora Wasteland team, who contacted the police before setting off to the park themselves. By the time they reached the park Stephanie and her daughter were being attended to by medics. Elated that the team was there, Stephanie told them the same story she told police, she¡¯d been attacked by something in the park again, only this time it grabbed her, and tried to pull her in. Neither her daughter nor her daughter¡¯s friend could back up the events as described by Stephanie. They reported that Stephanie showed up shouting and yelling, she startled the girls, and embarrassed the daughter. But I mean who hasn¡¯t been embarrassed by their parents about not being allowed to play at the park because they hear voices every time they are near one? And that they constantly remind you about some childhood event that was way harder to get over then kids today have to deal with because, as she claimed, ¡° kids are addicted to phones these days, even if, she¡¯s the one who¡¯s always on her phone and has to run to it every time it makes the littlest it sounds¡±...Mom. Anyways, Stephanie and the Aurora Wasteland team agreed to meet again that night at the park. She¡¯d show them what happened, and she¡¯d tell them about the missing boy from 1998. Only the meeting never took place. The team was late because of an unrelated episode of diarrhea, and by the time they got there, Stephanie was no wear to be found. Disappointed, they tried contacting her but had no luck. So they traveled to Stephanie¡¯s house where they found her daughter home alone, and claiming that her Mom was supposed to be at the park meeting them. Panicked, the team again contacted the now massively annoyed local police, who agreed to meet them at the park one last time. Which they did and the team went over the entire story with them, and just before the police were about to arrest the team under suspicious disappearance charges - true story, those were the charges sighted - a phone was found in the sand. A phone that would quickly be determined to be Stephanie¡¯s. To the police''s credit, they took the suggestion of the Aurora Wasteland team and quickly had the park excavated. You see the Aurora Wasteland team believed that something had been chasing after Stephanie, and that that something had attacked her and pulled her down into the sand. As much as the team wanted to be right, they hoped that they were wrong. They didn¡¯t want to find Stephanie¡¯s body at the bottom of the park, buried down below the sand. But they did. And their hearts were broken. Stephanie¡¯s body was found several feet below the surface of the park, her arms and legs held in place by dried up old skeletons. One each holding onto her limbs. Stephanie was dead. And the body of one of those skeletons was later identified as the child that went missing back in 1998. The one Stephanie was playing with. The one, as it was later determined and backed up by Stepanie¡¯s daughter, called out Stephanie¡¯s name as she was taking back in ¡®98, and was the only actual word Stephanie heard from the sand she was afraid of going to. Stephanie was haunted and hunted by the child who she¡¯d failed to get help for. It called her name decades after it¡¯s death. But why? Why Stephanie? The story died here for the Aurora Wasteland team. Though they routinely check in on Stephanie¡¯s daughter, who, to this day, stays away from parks. Sounds in the Maze I''m going to tell you a story It''s going to involve a field full of corn and some gross sounding noise Like serious, you should go see your doctor sounds Oh and maybe a drop of spacial realignment Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland Corn is in damn near anything that has sugar in it. You probably have a fair amount of corn inside of you right now. But not a lot of us spend any amount of time inside of corn. Or rather corn mazes. Corn is a regional crop and can''t be grown everywhere, so it may be more likely that you have a tall grass maze or maybe a wooden board wall maze. Both of these work fine, but corn is the one true way to create a truly awesome and terrifying maze. As was scientifically proven by an Aurora Wasteland study done in the early 2000s. Southern Alberta is flat, and I mean flat like you can see the curve of the earth ahead of you on most roads. There isn''t a lot of tall crops grown there, mostly because of the wind, but also partly because of the limited access to water for crops. It''s not unheard of to see miles on end of empty stretches of land with nothing in them. All of that makes the Milk River corn maze something of a regional anomaly. Just minutes from the Canadian American board the town of Milk River is microscopic, it''s hardly big enough to exist at all. One of the only draws in town is the Corn Maze, or rather it was. But I''m getting ahead of myself. The owner of the milk river Corn maze Patrick, not his real name, bought the maze at auction when the previous owner died of a heart attack while, as town lore goes, partaking in a corn maze orgy one night. Surprisingly corn maze orgy deaths are only ranked 3rd in Corn Maze deaths according to Aurora Wasteland data. Number two is murder driven out of maze frustration, and number one is chewing on gum while in the maze. Anyways, let''s jump ahead to where things get interesting for Patrick. Because they most certainly do get interesting. One night after a long day of normal maze chores, Patrick was awoken in bed at 3 in the morning by a sound he''d never heard before. No, it wasn''t the sound of his wife''s staying he was right. It was a low long and deep bellow, that stretch on for several seconds. The sound never repeated itself that night. Patrick went to bed and just assumed it was some poor animal dying out in the nearby fields. It wasn''t in it happened again the next night that Patrick took notice. The sound stuck with him. From what he could tell, it was exactly the same noise from the night before, the same tone and length, and happened at exactly the same time. He wrote everything he had experienced down and fell back to sleep. Though it took some time, he couldn''t shake the feeling of the sound. And after grabbing a quick later night snack, he finally fell back asleep. On the third night, Patrick was ready. He slept in his close and woke up at 2:30 am and waited on their porch with his shoes on. When the sound again filled the night at 3 am, Patrick did his best to determine the direction that the sound was coming from. And to his surprise, it was coming from out in the corn maze. So he did what any totally san person would do, he sprinted out into the corn maze, with nothing more than a flashlight. It should be noted here that Patrick and his wife are avid x-files fans. They''ve watched all the episodes and movies, they even have Mulder and sculpt bobbleheads. So the fact that Patrick ran out into the maze as he did should make you shake your head. After wondering the maze for hours looking for the source of the sound, Patrick returned back to their house without finding anything. Only that isn''t what happened. Upon his return to the house, Patrick''s wife asked why he was back so soon. He told her he''d been out there for hours. But all the clocks in their house begged to differ. Patrick has only been gone for eight minutes. Flustered and at a loss, Patrick did what every x-file fan would do, and he assumed he''d been abducted by aliens. Obviously, he wasn''t, visiting hours for aliens tourists to earth is 9-5 on Monday to Thursday, and Patrick was in the maze on a Friday so wasn''t aliens. Finally, we''re at the point in the story where the Aurora Wasteland team shows up to save the day. Much to the dissatisfaction of Patrick, his wife searched the internet for help. She stumbled across the Aurora Wasteland, and after a quick post about their situation, an Aurora Wasteland team was at their place that night before dinner. At which point, Patrick couldn''t shut up about how great it was to have them there. He filled them in on everything his wife had left out of the post and showed them around the maze. That night the Aurora Wasteland team set up a tent and listening equipment, as well as cameras covering all edges of the corn maze. Nothing would get in and out of the maze without them knowing, also the plan was to capture the sound and hopefully determine what it was. After a few smores and a few more fireside sips of whiskey, the official Aurora Wasteland drink, by the way, the team members heard the sound at exactly 3 am. The sound matched what Patrick had described. And the Aurora Wasteland team was ecstatic. They checked the audio recording, it was crystal clear, and perfectly capture the strange noise. The video, on the other hand, captured nothing. They double-checked the equipment, and it''s recordings. Everything had worked perfectly. But nothing had come in or out of the maze. Whatever had made the sound was still inside the corn maze.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Perplexed, the team posted the sound to the Aurora Wasteland site where is was quickly categorized as being the sound of a blue whale. Yes, the sound coming from inside of the corn maze was that of a blue whale. At this point, the team had chalked this up as a hokes. Patrick had to be fucking with them. Somewhere out in the maze, he had a speaker buried and hidden. It wouldn''t be the first time someone had tried to get some paranormal fam by trying to fuck with an Aurora Wasteland team, and it certainly wouldn''t be the last. So the team started packing up Thor gear when Patrick stopped them. He pleaded with them that he wasn''t faking it. That the sound wasn''t coming from him. Against their better judgment, the team told Patrick they would stay for one more night, and that was it. He had one night only to prove this wasn''t a hoke. The team again prepared their gear for the night. Both audio and video equipment were set up and waiting. At 2:30 am, Patrick met them just outside the corn maze entrance with a pile of ropes. He told them that he was going to be in the maze at 3 am with a rope tied around his waist that led back out of the maze. And he wanted a few of the Aurora Wasteland team members to join him. By 2:45 am and with obvious complete disregard for just how likely it was Patrick was going to murder them in the maze, two Aurora Wasteland team members, along with Patrick, were ripped up and ready to go in. The rest of the team stayed behind to monitor the equipment and to make sure the ropes remained attached at this end. By 2:55 am, the team members were in the maze and waiting for the inevitable whale sound. At 3 am, the sound returned. By 3:08 am, the two Aurora Wasteland team members returned without Patrick. Now I know what your saying. Patrick was obviously faking it, what is the Aurora Wasteland team even still doing there. How is this even an Aurora Wasteland case? Well, Hold on to your sexy whale tails things are about to get noticeably more exciting. The two team members emerged from the cornfield frantic and babbling, and tugging on Patrick''s now obviously disconnected rope. They claimed that Patrick was trapped in the maze. And that they''d found something that wasn''t previously there. A ring of sand had been poured around an area of the maze. It hadn''t shown up until the whale sound, Patrick had just happened to have been on the inside of the circle. And that he seemed to be trapped on the inside, cut off from the two Aurora Wasteland team members who had been with him. despite only being a few feet apart, he was unable to see or hear them. The team members reported that they were unwilling to leave him there, so they spent hours just watching him expose the corn maze from their side of the circle. Until finally, he vanished further into the maze, then they could see and lost track of him. The following day was spent trying to figure out what had happened the night before and what they were going to do about it. The idea of going into the maze after Patrick seemed absurd. But they couldn''t leave him there. They needed a way to get into the corn maze with some assurance that they were going to be able to get back out. They also needed a way to get some data about just what was happening on the other side. So they did what any sane Aurora Wasteland team would do. They called in backup. Normally Aurora Wasteland teams don''t work together. There is an often childish in fighting that happens between teams, followed by a standard Aurora Wasteland dick measuring contest about their latest endeavors. But that had to all be put aside today, Patrick was missing, and they needed to save him. The team they''d called in had a specialty in photography, most notable aerial photography from drones, and report RC robot data procurement. That night multiple drones buzzed around the corn maze, filling the normal night air with a sense of anticipation. On the ground, just a few feet short of where the line of sand and appeared, two RC robots waited for 3 am. At 2:58 am, one of the robots crossed over the to what would be considered inside the circle, the other stayed where it was on the outside. At 3 am, the sound returned, as did the line of sand that created a circle inside the corn maze. The communication was lost with the robot inside the circle, and the one on the outside seemed to have massive communication lag. Neither robot provided much useful information until sometime later. The drones in the air, however, provided a different picture. They created images of Patrick inside the cornfield. One of the Aurora Wasteland team members had set one of the drones to captures pictures at 120 fps. Which normally provides slow-motion images. But not today. Today it caught pictures of Patrick buzzing around the maze-like hummingbird. But that wasn''t all they caught. Directly in the middle of the circle, at the heart of the corn maze, was a whale. A blue whale to be precious. After reviewing the footage, the teams again had the drones flying overhead of the corn maze, but, just like Patrick, the whale was no wear to be seen. At this point, the team did the only other thing a responsible Aurora Wasteland team could do, and they called in more backup. This time they called local police and the fire department. Who did not believe the Aurora Wasteland teams at all, and just about had them committed to a local phsicatic hospital. But Patrick''s wife knew one of the firefighters and convinced him to believe them. The firefighters bought them one night. Their plan was to use the fire department''s ladder truck and drop an Aurora Wasteland team member down into the cornfield, then they''d used the ladder truck to pull them out. Only none of that was needed. At 2:59, the most senior Aurora Wasteland team member was dangling from the end of the ladder truck''s ladder right above the corn maze. At 3 am the whale sound again filled the night''s air. At 3:01, as they were about to lower the team member in, Patrick walked out of the corn maze. He immediately apologized to everyone and said it was all a big misunderstanding. The fire department and local law enforcement reluctantly believed him, the Aurora Wasteland team did not. And after everyone else was gone, the original Aurora Wasteland team pushed him for the real story. Before he started his story, Patrick asked them how many days he''d been away. The team informed him that it had only been a few days. Patrick told them that from his perspective, he''d been in the maze for 201 years. Record screech, stop the presses Patrick had to be lying is panties off. But he wasn''t. He told them that there had been nothing else but himself and a newly dead blue whale in the corn maze. And that no matter which path he tried to take out of the maze, he always ended up back at the whale. After a few days, hunger set in, and Patrick tore off a piece of the whale and ate it. After the first year of trying different things to get out, he gave up and did little else than eat and sleep. He said he contemplated killing himself more than once, but didn''t have anything other than pieces of the whale and the corn maze itself, which he said didn''t have any of the corn stocks at the top, and the stocks themselves seemed to have been infected with some tiny bugs, making them in uneatable. After a while, he got the feeling that his entire existence was built to make him eat the stupid whale. So he did. Around year 50, he noticed he wasn''t aging, with no mirrors or any way of seeing himself, he couldn''t be certain. But around year 100, he was pretty certain. Finally, after he ate the very last piece of the whale, he notice someone dangling from a fire truck ladder above the maze, and he simply walked out. Now here he was. The Aurora Wasteland team had him checked out by serval doctors, none of them could find anything unusual about him. And other than never wanting to ever eat seafood again, Patrick was totally fine. Well, other than that at 3 am every night, Patrick''s wife reports that Patrick gets a serious case of night farts that could melt the cornfield. Patrick denies these claims. To this day, he''s still running the corn maze. Flash Frozen Town I¡¯m going to tell you a story It¡¯s going to involve a frozen town And the lengths people will go to get the people they¡¯ve had taken from them Oh and maybe a hint murder and a little ice Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Hidden Subway I¡¯m going to tell you a story It¡¯s going to involve a boy And the ways our memories are preserved to us Oh and maybe a hint of water Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Sometimes Old Ladies See Dead People - Part 1 I¡¯m going to tell you a story It¡¯s going to involve a pile of bodies And the lengths two women will go to overcome their differences Oh and maybe a hint of second sight Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Sometimes Old Ladies See Dead People - Part 2 I¡¯m going to continue telling you a story It¡¯s going to involve some vanishing photos And the lengths two women will go to solve a mystery Oh and maybe a hint the dead taunting from the grave Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Sometimes Old Ladies See Dead People - Part 3 I¡¯m going to finish telling you a story It¡¯s going to involve a missing old woman And the fact that sometimes old women see dead people Oh and maybe a hint of the tower of the dead Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. License and Grey Matter Please I¡¯m going to tell you a story It¡¯s going to involve a train that never comes And the difficulties people have to face for being who they are Oh and maybe a hint of human guise Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The Murderers Guide to Lawn Care I''m going to tell you a story It''s going to involve nature defending itself And how communications can be distorted and ill-received Oh and maybe a sexy hot yoga class Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Tethered This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Brightness Falls If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The Axe The go bag was hanging at the top of the vent. Micah grabbed the blue hiking bag and brought it down with him. Again within seconds, he was out of the vent. Bag on his bag and axe in hand. He stepped into his living room and pulled a new phone from his bag. He opened the camera app and took a panorama picture of the room. He looked at the picture, it looked fine. He''d check it out later in detail when he had time. The elevator down the hall binged, Micah could hear the doors slide open and a lot of footsteps come rushing out. He zipped the phone away in his go bag and pulled the bag tight to his back. He gripped The Axe. If it was the police he had to go. Now. ¡°Mr. Micah sir,¡± a meek voice said from the hallway. ¡°Sir?¡± The voice repeated. Micah stepped towards the bedroom but stopped as the voice spoke again. ¡°Sir I believe you are in there. My name is Ulle of the Axe Corporation. We just want to talk. Can we come in?¡± Axe Corporation? Like that research and science thing, he was going to look into later? The one that had the picture of The Axe on its website? What could they want with him? How did they know he would be here? ¡°We are coming in slowly and in armed, please do not kill us,¡± Ulle said as the apartment door opened slowly. Two hands stuck through the door, showing there was nothing in them. Then Ulle stuck his bald head in. ¡°Hello.¡± Micah didn''t reply. He gripped The Axe tight. He should run. Why wasn''t he already out of here? ¡°This is my first time running this thing. I''ve never met an axe carrier before. I''m kind of nervous,¡± Ulle said as he swung the door open. A team of people rushed in behind him. Ulle put a hand up to slow them. All of them were dressed in suits. All black with white shirts, and black ties. A strong, bold, and forgettable look, Micah knew it well. ¡°We are here to take you to our office. We have so much to show you. Please follow me.¡± Ulle motioned to the door. ¡°How did you know I was here?¡± Micah said stepping away from them. ¡°The Axe chopped agent over there, he worked for us. And called when you attacked him.¡±This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Axe chopped? Micah hadn''t had time to examine the bodies. Well, the picture. That was an after getting out of here job. Had he killed the Walrus with The Axe? A few of the men that came in with Ulle opened some body bags and started putting Agent Walrus and Allie into them. ¡°Don''t touch her!¡± Micah yelled at them. The men stared at him and then over to Ulle. ¡°Sir we are just cleaning up after you. They mean no disrespect.¡± ¡°Clean up after me? You think I killed her? She is¡­ was my wife. I love her.¡± ¡°I''m sure you did. But¡­ people change and¡­ well, she is dead now. It''s best you don''t¡­¡± Something happened, Micah¡¯s head hurt. The axe swung in his arm. Damn it his head hurt. What the fuck had just happened¡­ Everyone in the room was dead, except Ulle. Had he jumped again? ¡°Please don''t,¡± Ulle said getting to his knees, he was splattered in other people''s blood. ¡°Please may The Axe have mercy on me. We only want to help. Everyone. Sir, I¡­¡± Micah tripped on a fallen tree, he looked down at it confused. His legs ached, it felt like they hadn''t been used in days. Wind tussled the leaves around him. Micah rolled to his back. Everything was so green looking. Except for the black creature looking down at him. It seemed almost human. Its grey skin pulled right over dense muscle. Silently its jaw dislocated, its mouth expanded, and move down towards him. Micah screamed, only, it wasn''t his voice again. Again it was a woman''s. He didn''t have time to check for breasts. He rolled out from beneath the creature. It stomped, trying to stop him. But he was quick, agile, nothing like his normal body. He jumped to his feet, crouched and watched as the creature, more of a b grade movie monster really, roared in his direction. Where was he? This was different than before. The creature lunged at him. Jaw still extended. Micah stumbled back and slipped. He''d stepped on something, a tomahawk. Without hesitation, he picked it up and tried to swing it like he''d seen in movies. But he was much more awkward. Like the last woman¡¯s body he''d been in, this one felt awkward. He missed his own, he was used to it. The creature casually swatted The Tomahawk away. Micah froze. The beast was huge. It threw him back to the ground, pressing its large foot against his chest. Its toes were as sharp as it claws looked. Micah screamed again as they dug into him. He could feel his shoulder slice open. Warm blood ran over him. Again the creature bent down, jaw dislocated and waiting. He''d come to the unpleasant conclusion that it wanted to eat him. And while this wasn''t his body, being eaten in any context sounded unpleasant. Micah tried to kick and punch his way free. Nothing worked. The monster was too big. It reached down with its clawed hand and grabbed Micah¡¯s face. Long black hair inter-tangled with the claws. Was that Micah¡¯s? Then there was pain. It lifted him from the ground, face first. The claw dug in deep. It was hard to think. The pain was overwhelming. It was¡­ Micah was across the room, Ulle was dead. The axe head embedded in his skull, the handle in Micah¡¯s hand. ¡°Fuck me,¡± Micah said as he tried not to puke. Entanglement The alarm pulsed as Noah fumbled his way back through the cubicles to Van, who was still sitting at David¡¯s computer. Noah tossed her the USB stick. She caught it and in one smooth motion, plugged it into the computer, on the first try. ¡°That was awesome, I love you,¡± Noah said as he rushed past her to look out the window. Van smacked his ass as he ran by, ¡°thanks, I never get USBs right on the first try, at least wherever we¡¯re from I do. What¡¯s with the alarm, by the way?¡± The cheep blinds in the window crinkled as Noah peered through them. ¡°I think you¡¯re right. This place is being hacked. Someone took what they wanted and left.¡± ¡°This place has shitty security,¡± Van said as she pulled up the database as she copied it. ¡°My grandma could hack this place, and she can¡¯t change the input on her tv.¡± ¡°Hey neither can I.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re the CTO?¡± Van laughed. Noah let go of the blinds and briefly covered his ears as he rushed back over to the computer and Van. Something about the alarm just made him want to do everything quicker. He paused just before he was about to touch Van¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Your hair?¡± ¡°What about it?¡± Van said, trying to look at it. ¡°What color was it? Red?¡± ¡°Yes why? This isn¡¯t the time to fuck with me,¡± she spun around to look at him. ¡°Fuck me! Your face.¡± ¡°What about it?¡± ¡°You have a beard.¡± ¡°And your hair is blond. How¡¯s that possible? I just saw you. Your hair was red.¡± ¡°You definitely didn¡¯t have a beard.¡± Noah ran his fingers through his long thick beard. He¡¯d never had it this long before. Van stood up and kissed him. He loved the feeling of his whiskers on her face. ¡°Our appearance must change to match what we¡¯re supposed to look like here.¡± ¡°But it doesn¡¯t happen right away. There is a little delay.¡±Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The building¡¯s lights started to flash red. ¡°Is the copy done?¡± Noah asked through her kisses. ¡°I don¡¯t like leaving your lips,¡± she said as she turned to check the computer. The USB copy was finished. She pulled the stick out without safely ejecting it and tucked it between her breasts. ¡°That¡¯s not going to keep anyone from trying to get it,¡± Noah laughed. A group of ten people rushed past them, not batting an eye at either Van or Noah. They all had terrified looks on their faces. Practically running, the group made their way to the building¡¯s entrance, burst through the doors, and dropped to their knees outside the front door. Their hands above their heads. Seconds later, a fleet of police cruisers of all shapes and sizes flooded the front parking lot. Others practically flew around to the back. Noah grabbed the phone, and it¡¯s charger, the phone was up to 37%. Then grabbed Van¡¯s hand and led her from the cubicle. Van looked around as he led her out and back towards the stairs. It all looked so familiar to her. She¡¯d worked there for years. Now in a snap, it was all gone. This wasn¡¯t her office. She wasn¡¯t the old her. It felt oddly liberating like she was finally who she was supposed to be. ¡°I have to tell you something,¡± Van yelled over the music and the alarm, which the latter seemed to be louder, then it had been back at David¡¯s desk. They paused at the top of the stairs. Noah turned to her and kissed her again. She¡¯d never get enough of those. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± he asked, holding her hand tight. ¡°We¡¯re kind of in a situation here, can it wait?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, maybe, probably, but¡­¡± Noah kissed her again, ¡°it¡¯s ok, just say it.¡± ¡°I think I may have gone through the door frame before I met you, fell actually. I was outside near the construction site, and¡­what if I¡¯m not your Vanessa?¡± Noah looked at her. He hadn¡¯t considered what would happen if one of them stepped through the door without the other. Maybe it didn¡¯t work unless they both stepped through together? Maybe it did? Maybe it wasn¡¯t limited to the two of them? Either way¡­ ¡°it doesn¡¯t matter, you are my Vanessa, and I love you¡­¡± Van kissed him before he could finish. His finger ran through her blond hair, she could feel his beard on her face, and to both of them, it didn¡¯t matter. They were each other¡¯s connection. Everything else was background fuzz, static to their music. The song ended again, through the pause of the music they could hear voices outside. The two of them ran down the stairs hand in hand, as the music restarted. Upstairs an explosion could be heard, then footsteps. Loud footsteps. ¡°We need to go,¡± Van yelled half out of breath. ¡°We¡¯re not going to be able to explain why we are here, and they aren¡¯t going to let us keep the copy of the database and the door.¡± ¡°Door frame, and you¡¯re right, they aren¡¯t going to let us keep playing the music either,¡± Noah said as they both looked down at the phone. As they entered the parking garage a strange sound echoed across it. Near the garage door, sparks filled the darkness. ¡°They are cutting into the parking garage door. We aren¡¯t going to be able to drive out of here.¡± ¡°So, what then?¡± Van asked, already knowing the answer. They both turned to look at the door frame. She grabbed Noah¡¯s key card and scanned it. The storage fence gate opened. Noah leaned over and kissed Van. ¡°I love you.¡± ¡°I know,¡± Van laughed, as she wrapped a pinky around Noah¡¯s pinky. Together, they stepped through the door frame, and the world around them changed.