When primal terror threatens to shatter the boundary of sanity, the mind of an intellectual automatically erects a fortress built of clinical jargon. Science becomes the vocabulary used to name the fear, lulling oneself into the illusion that every pathology of the mind can be framed, labeled, and dissected on the operating table of perception.
The second night in Arak-Val descended like a shroud of frozen snow.
Mark lay rigid on the pine bed frame on the second floor. Mountain winds slammed repeatedly against the timber walls, issuing a mournful wheeze like the windpipe of a dying man drawing his final breath. The sweet, greasy reek clung fast to every fiber of the blanket, leaving a slick, lingering film on the back of his tongue that refused to be swallowed down.
He pulled his phone from his coat pocket and tapped the record button. The faint blue glow of the display illuminated his hollow cheeks and bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes.
"Psychiatric self-monitoring log—Day Two, 02:15 AM," Mark said. His tone was flat, strained to a unnatural monotone, sounding like a physician reading the clinical chart of a complete stranger. "Male subject, 32 years old. No prior history of psychotic spectrum disorders. Current presentation: insomnia persisting over three consecutive nights, derealization, depersonalization, and focal olfactory hallucinations."
Mark swallowed hard against his dry throat, his gaze locked onto the pitch-black ceiling.
"Etiological assessment: Serious consideration must be given to the hypothesis of Shared Psychotic Disorder—Folie à deux—or more broadly, Mass Hysteria. The geographical isolation of the Arak-Val valley, compounded by the historical trauma of the 1758 siege, has cultivated a shared, aberrant belief system within the local population. The patient's father (Thomas) likely acquired this delusional framework during early childhood, transmitting it to the patient through unconscious behaviors—exemplified by cibophobia and compulsive decontamination rituals."
He paused, his breath coming in shallow rasps in the freezing air.
The medical arguments presented themselves so logically, so seamlessly. By labeling every anomaly surrounding him—from the line "Their meat is far too watery" in the expense ledger to Silas's sudden breakdown and his father's cryptic warnings—as "mass hysteria," Mark had constructed a formidable defense mechanism to shield his reason.
He desperately wanted to believe that everything was merely the byproduct of a mind frayed by the pressures of his Manhattan practice. The rhythm of self-persuasion accelerated, like a drowning man clutching desperately to a buoy fashioned from psychiatric textbooks.
Yet how frail that barrier proved to be when, beneath the floorboards, the slow trickle of fluid through the limestone bedrock continued its steady, nighttime cadence: Drip... drip... drip...
In the biting cold of the room, a childhood memory resurfaced unexpectedly, washing over Mark’s mind like a yellowed, water-damaged film negative.
It was a winter evening when Mark was seven years old, inside their modest apartment in Queens.
Rain beat heavily against the windows. Mark’s mother was busy tidying up in the kitchen while his father, Thomas, sat at the head of the dining table. On Mark’s plate that evening sat a piece of crispy roasted meat.
Clumsily holding his fork, Mark slipped, sending the piece of roasted meat sliding off the plate and onto the floorboards. It rolled through a smudge of dust beneath the table leg. Acting on childhood instinct, Mark made a face and waved his hand, refusing to bend down to pick it up.
Without warning, Thomas bolted upright.
Thomas's face went deathly pale, his facial muscles twitching violently. Before seven-year-old Mark could grasp what was happening, a sharp, stinging slap from his father's broad palm struck his left cheekbone. The force knocked the boy clear off his chair, his head striking the baseboard.
Mark screamed out in pain and terror. But when he looked up through a blur of tears, he witnessed a sight far more terrifying than the blow itself.
Thomas was not angry.
His entire frame was trembling violently. He dropped to his knees on the floor, folding his hands together before his chest like a penitent begging for absolution. Snatching up the soiled piece of roast meat, he frantically shoved it deep into the trash bin, then drew a handkerchief soaked in rubbing alcohol to wildly scrub the faint grease smear left on the hardwood floor.
His mouth babbled in broken, unintelligible fragments: "Mustn't drop it... mustn't touch... that thing is filthy... that thing is blood... you mustn't eat it..."
Two tears tracked down the father's graying cheeks. Mark’s mother rushed out from the kitchen, stopping dead in the doorway. She stared at her husband kneeling and dry-heaving over the trash can, her eyes wide with bewilderment, completely unable to comprehend what was unfolding.
For twenty-five years, Mark had carried the guilt that the slap was his fault—that he had been a bad child, that he had done something gravely wrong.
But tonight, sitting inside Great-Grandfather Kaelen’s cabin, the thirty-two-year-old psychiatrist re-examined that memory through a clinical lens for the very first time. The blow dealt that night was not the violent outburst of an angry father. Tragically, it was the panic response of an individual suffering from intergenerational PTSD and severe obsessive-compulsive dread—a father striking his child out of absolute horror at the mere presence of greasy food.
By the morning of the third day, the blizzard had cleared entirely.
Mark stepped outside with the intention of gathering further behavioral evidence to fortify his diagnosis of "mass hysteria." He took a walk along the narrow paths of Arak-Val village.
The villagers continued to shun him. As Mark passed by, wooden doors were shut tight. Indigenous music ceased, and faces peered furtively through the gaps in window shutters.
However, when Mark returned to the cabin at noon, he froze before the porch.
Arranged neatly on the icy ground in front of the doorstep were several items: a plate of dry cornmeal cakes, a bundle of oak firewood bound tightly with hemp rope, and a bottle of herbal-infused corn liquor.
They were laid out like sacred offerings presented to a local deity... or a feared ruler.
And right beside those offerings, the line of bare feet prints had reappeared.
This time, the tracks stretched from the wooden step all the way to the base of an old pine tree at the edge of the ridge. Standing beside the trunk was a young girl, about seven years old. She wore a worn hide coat, her dark hair matted, clutching a crudely carved wooden doll tightly in her arms.
Mark stopped, crouching down to lower his height, trying to project the warm, gentle smile of a child psychologist: "Hello there. What's your name?"
The child did not answer. Her dark, hollow eyes locked onto Mark with an uncanny, unnatural maturity. The moment Mark took a single step forward, the girl squeezed the wooden doll to her chest, retreated swiftly into the thick mist clinging to the mountainside, and vanished without a sound.
It was Wren—Silas’s mute niece.
Back inside, Mark pulled out his phone and dialed his father for the second time.
The line rang three times. This time, the call connected.
There was no greeting on the other end, only the brief, heavy, strained sound of Thomas’s breathing.
Mark softened his tone, employing therapeutic techniques meant for trauma patients: "Dad... I know you're listening. I'm at Great-Grandfather Kaelen's cabin. I found the 1758 expense ledger. I know you went through horrific things when you were young..."
The breathing on the other end hitched abruptly.
"You don't have to run anymore," Mark continued, his voice wavering slightly. "Tell me the truth. We can face this together..."
Beep... Beep... Beep...
The line went dead. Thomas had hung up without uttering a single word.
Mark let his arm fall, leaning back into the worn leather armchair in the living room. He looked down at his finger—where the heirloom silver ring, engraved with the mountain peak and three drops of water, caught the dim light from the hearth.
He tried to recall the image of Great-Grandfather Kaelen. The memory of his great-grandfather, who had passed away ten years ago, was as blurred in Mark's mind as a water-stained photograph.
He held only a vague impression of a gaunt old man, tall and thin as a dried tree, who perpetually exhaled a heavy scent of beeswax. Kaelen’s hand, whenever it clasped Mark’s, was always ice-cold. He had given Mark this ring when he turned twelve, accompanied by a silence that felt chillingly serene.
Exhausted from three consecutive nights without sleep, Mark’s head slumped against the back of the armchair, and he drifted off before he realized it.
And then, the first nightmare struck.
In the dream, Mark was no longer thirty-two years old. He saw himself shrunk down, an infant or a two-year-old wrapped in a heap of animal furs.
The surrounding space was a timber room flooded with sickly yellow oil lamp light. The air was oppressive, thick, and heavy with the overpowering stench of rendered fat.
Standing before him was a tall man.
The figure had no face. Where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been, there was only a smooth, pitch-black void, as though someone had used a blade to slice away every feature.
The faceless man bent over Mark. His large, ice-cold hand held a polished silver spoon. The spoon scooped a thick, pale-yellow, greasy liquid from an ancient ceramic jar.
He brought the spoon toward Mark's face.
In the dream, Mark felt no fear. The infant that was him obediently parted his small lips, receiving the thick, yellow liquid.
A sweet, greasy, and warm flavor burst across his tongue.
Behind the faceless man, a low, rasping voice whispered in an archaic Arak-Na dialect Mark had never been taught:
“K’ah-na... v’raal... m’khat...”
Gasp!
Mark snapped his eyes open, sitting bolt upright in the armchair. Cold sweat soaked his shirt through.
His heart hammered violently in his chest, his throat bone-dry. And there on the roof of his mouth... lingered a faint, greasy, sweet aftertaste—a lingering sensation so terrifyingly real it felt physical.
Mark clapped a hand over his mouth, his breathing ragged.
And then, a corroding realization struck straight through his mind: the silver spoon the faceless man held in the dream...
Its handle was engraved with the emblem of a mountain peak above three drops of water.
It was the exact same silver spoon Thomas used to sanitize three times with rubbing alcohol before every meal in New York.
