Page 142 of Confessions of the Dead

Analysis Note: Sordello produced a cell phone. She must have snuck it in with the gun. She loaded up a video and held it against the glass. I don’t know how she obtained a copy of the footage, but the memory of what happened was still fresh in my mind.

Sordello:

She vanished. First her vitals ceased recording, then visibly, she disappeared. She began to fade in and out over the course of five minutes or so, then disappeared altogether.

Analysis Note: I had overheard several people debating this in the hallway before Maro came to us. They felt she “fell out of phase with our visible spectrum.” That was how they described it. I don’t know any other way to describe it. It began with a slight haze in the air around her in the minutes before she disappeared entirely, and I could see that same haze around Maro. Sordello noticed it, too, because her speech sped up. The man working on the lock also picked up his pace.

Sordello:

She’s dead. You’re dead. All of you are dead. You’re in hell, Deputy. More accurately, we believe you are in purgatory and have been for a very long time. The town you know as Hollows Bend doesn’t exist in the same reality as the rest of the world. You, and all the other residents, have been dying over and over again. Some horrific repeating cycle.

Maro:

That’s not possible. I’ve lived in the Bend for as long as I remember. Most of us have. None of this can be true.

Sordello:

I’ve got satellite images from as recent as three days ago—there was nothing here. We think something tore a hole. Allowed your world to slip into ours. We don’t know what. You’re trapped here, being punished for the sins you committed in life.

Maro:

No. That can’t be …

Sordello:

Look at your hands. Do you see it?

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