Page 2 of Sick Bargain

No lights turn on and no one stands in the doorway, but it opens and the presence behind me drifts away into the night. The threat at my back vanishes for now, but the one ahead of me is just as dangerous.

Pick your poison, Remi.

I stare through the blackened doorway, trying to make sense of the hallway and the absence of any people. I may not see them, but I know they’re in there—I feel them. Moros has given me a sixth sense, and I trust it. I feel people more than I see them. I sense their energy and their presence, and I know for an absolute fact that at least a few sets of eyes are on me right now.

Chancing a look behind me, the street has turned calm. The persistent stalker at my back is lingering elsewhere, but I know he’s biding his time, waiting until I’m alone and away from Vile House.

Did I lure him here or did he herd me? The second man I sensed… did he lure me?

“Whose life are you exchanging?” a voice asks from inside.

The biggest mistake of my life happened when I was seventeen years old. Bred and brainwashed into a family that worshipped the town’s violent history, I mistakenly gave my loyalty to the beliefs of a cult. Tonight, I’m putting it in the hands of Vile House.

“Mine,” I say, head high despite this becoming the new biggest mistake of my life. “Remiel Sauder.”

No one says anything or invites me inside, but the atmosphere changes, and I know what it means. It means I’m permitted entry to Vile House, and once I step inside, my life will no longer belong to me.

Because Moros has secrets, and Vile House is its best-kept one.

2

DEALS WITH DANGER

REMIEL

Death isn’t scary.To die means to stop existing. The absence of life means the absence of feeling, and to be snuffed out is almost a gift. There’s no suffering in death, no pain and no fear. It’s the complete obliteration of sensation and feeling, a freedom so infinite I often wish for it.

But Moros doesn’t offer death as freely as it offers something worse, and because of this choice, life as I know it will end, and tomorrow, it’ll be a nightmare of my own making. Because I’ve never even tried to get out and make a better decision.

Why didn’t you leave?

Why can’t you leave Moros and start somewhere new?

Get out while you still can!

The town is a black pit. Why do so many stay?

Because our blood is here. We’re weaved into the roots of the trees and fed by the nourishment in the soil. We’re trapped in a town that owns us, but it’s trapped by us just as harshly. Moros offers a circular pattern of life with no true moment of birth and no finite moment of death. It’s existence and nonexistence. It’s a lifestyle few would choose but so many are consumed by. It’s home because we are addicted to it.

Simply put, if you are bred by Moros, you remain in Moros. Not many get out, and if they do, they aren’t fit to survive in the regular world. Our town is a death trap that tourists visit willingly, but for those of us who are born here, our willingness isn’t up for negotiation. We become as contemptible as our home.

As the front door of Vile House closes behind me, my eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness of the entryway. My fear from earlier isn’t gone. It’s just different now. More ominous and less imminent. Still brutal. But living in fear is a distinctive part of who I am, so I’m comfortable enough in it.

“This way,” someone says.

I follow the voice and the footsteps without seeing the person. I’m not ready to see them, anyway. My mind is having too hard of a time meshing every bit of lore and gossip I’ve heard about the Vile Boys with the understanding that I’m about to meet them. Or some of them.

It’s said they’re grotesque and deformed, a product of inbreeding and generations of seclusion. I’ve also heard that they’re general members of the public, but their involvement in Vile House is kept secret. It’s been rumoured that they’re town officials, sons of council members, or friends I’ve known all my life. The only fact I know for sure is that they go through an initiation process annually, and when it’s complete, the town wakes up to a partially cleaned bloodbath. On initiation nights, if you’re caught outside of your home, you’re fair game. And since I’ve never wanted to be fair game, I’ve stayed the hell inside.

I don’t know what I believe and what I don’t, but one thing is certain: I’ve always been afraid of this house.

Its sounds chill me to the bone. The clanking and shrieking are either a figment of my imagination or real and dulled. I don’t know, and I mostly don’t want to. I’m here either way. I don’t need to know what else is real.

As I follow a shadow through the halls, the darkness recedes incrementally. Furniture becomes clear in the living room, doors and hallways are dimly lit as we pass, and the man ahead of me takes form.

He’s dressed in black and has a hood over his head, and since he’s leading me, I can’t make out anything descriptive about him. But that’s the least of my worries. The house itself is… daunting.

Still set up as a sanitorium, there are patient rooms and massive wings for multiple patients. There are doors that probably once led to offices, which have likely turned into bedrooms. The furnishings are as old as this place, and it’s giving off an asylum vibe. I shiver, knowing that in another life, I would have been a patient strapped to one of these tables. If I lived anywhere other than Moros, they’d have had me committed when I was a kid. We all would have been.

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