The Truth Beneath The Earth

The night Daniel Turner buried his children, the world had felt silent.

The rain had stopped. The wind had died. Even the distant hum of the city beyond the hills had faded into nothing.

He remembered kneeling in the damp soil, his hands caked in mud, his breath coming in shallow gasps. The old oak tree loomed above him, its twisted branches reaching toward the sky like skeletal fingers.

His fingers ached from digging, his nails broken and raw. But he didn’t stop. Not until the hole was deep enough. Not until the weight of what he had done became too much to bear.

And then, with slow, shaking hands, he placed them inside.

Emily’s favorite teddy bear. Jake’s little shoes.

And their small, lifeless bodies.

He had whispered to them as he covered them with soil. Promises. Apologies. Pleas for them to understand.

He had done it to save them.

They weren’t his children anymore.

The things that had looked like Emily and Jake—laughed like them, spoke like them—were not them.

They had been taken.

Replaced.

Daniel had seen the signs.

The way they moved, as if their little bodies were too stiff, too practiced. The way their laughter stretched a little too long, echoing even after their mouths had closed.

The way they would whisper when they thought he wasn’t listening.

The words were never in a language he understood.

And then there were the figures outside.

The first time he had seen them, he had convinced himself it was a trick of the light. Tall, dark shapes lingering near the edge of the trees, standing too still. Watching the house.

But then they got closer.

One night, he found Emily standing at the window, staring out into the yard.

The dark figures stood at the tree line, their bodies twisting unnaturally, like broken marionettes.

"Who are you looking at, baby?" he had asked, voice trembling.

Emily had turned to him slowly, her lips curling into a smile.

"They’re waiting, Daddy."

That was when he knew.

He couldn’t let them take his children.

So he did what he had to do.

Now, standing in the dimly lit hallway, staring at the impossible, Daniel felt his world collapse.

Because Emily and Jake were standing before him.

Their small hands at their sides. Their faces pale and streaked with dirt.

But their eyes—

Oh God, their eyes.

Black. Hollow. Like something had scooped out their souls and left nothing but an endless void.

"You were supposed to keep us safe, Daddy," Emily whispered.

Daniel stumbled backward, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

"This isn’t real," he choked out. "This isn’t real."

But the air around him felt too heavy. The walls seemed to breathe.

The house knew what he had done.

The floorboards creaked as his children stepped closer. Their bare feet made no sound, but the weight of their presence pressed against his chest.

"You thought something took us," Jake said softly.

His voice no longer sounded like a child’s. It was layered—deep, ancient, wrong.

Daniel’s hands clenched into fists.

"You weren’t you anymore," he whispered, shaking. "You changed."

Emily tilted her head, that strange, stretched smile never faltering.

"Did we?"

The words wrapped around his mind like a vice.

"You don’t understand," Daniel muttered, gripping the sides of his head. "I—I saw the shadows. I heard the whispers. I saw the things standing outside the house. They were watching you. You weren’t scared. You knew them."

Jake’s grin widened.

"Of course we knew them," he whispered.

Daniel’s stomach twisted. His vision blurred.

The light above them flickered violently. The walls groaned.

"You got one thing wrong, Daddy," Emily said.

Daniel’s breath hitched.

"You thought something took us."

The laughter started as a soft giggle, bubbling from their small mouths like a distorted melody.

Then, it grew.

It filled the hallway, shaking the air, vibrating through the walls.

Daniel pressed his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Stop," he gasped. "Please."