"...and then everything goes dark."

Bzzt! Bzzt!
I had just gotten back from my shift at work and am lying in my bed staring at the ceiling. I want to check my phone, but I'm so tired. In fact, I haven't even changed out of my work uniform yet. 
Bzzt! Bzzt!
What could it be? Two notifications in a row?
I decide to roll out of bed and stand in front of my nightstand. I stare at my phone for a little while. The little notification light is blinking a dark blue color. It definitely is a text message. After sighing for a few minutes and staring at my wall, I finally grab my phone and unlock it.

"Hey Iroh, wanna hang out with me and a couple others tonight?"
"We'll be meeting at 10 at the bowling alley down on 57th. Let me know if you'll be there"

It's one of my buddies, Ander. I'll never forget what him or his friends did to me. But, if he's inviting me out of the blue, he may just want to talk. Anywhere is better than being home with that irrational father of mine after all. 

"I'll be there"

I hit send and decide to fall asleep until I get ready to go.

My eyes slowly open to meet the pitch black room I was laying in. My phone notification light blinking is the only thing illuminating a small fraction of the room. I spend most my time in here, so I'm able to feel my way around to the lamp on my nightstand and flick it on. I turn on my phone to see that it is almost 10 already. I'm going to be late. I grab a hoodie on the ground and slip it open as I tiptoe towards the opposite corner of my room.

I inch open the door as quietly as I can and peek out. It seems my parents and sister have gone to bed. All the lights are off and the house is silent as ever. I tiptoe my way to the front door and slip on my shoes when I hear footsteps behind me. My heartbeat starts racing and I can feel it pounding in my head. I'm terrified. They should all be asleep. The footsteps are growing louder, but I notice that they're dragging. My heartbeat slows down a bit as I realize it's someone who had just woken up. The footsteps stop a couple meters behind me. I cock my head around and see my little sister rubbing her eyes. Once she lets her hands down she yawns and gives me a blank, tired stare.

"Brother ... where are you going?" my sister yawns out.
"Just out for a walk. I'll be back soon. Just don't tell father."
"Ok. Be safe."

She's so adorable, even if with a bedhead.

She begins to drag her feet back to the hallway. I see a light flick on and the shadow of a door closing. I let out a final sigh of relief and dart up towards the front door and slowly ease it open being careful not to make any noise. I peek outside to make sure no one's seeing me leave. I pull my hood over my head and close the door carefully. I reach down into the bushes next to our porch and grab the fake rock my spare key is hidden in. I slowly lock the door as a cold breeze blows through me. It felt as though something was slithering on my bare lower legs. Chills were sent up my spine. I toss the key into the pocket of my hoodie and begin to head towards the street. I wonder why they'd ask me to hang out of the blue. It's been almost two months since I had last seen Ander or any of my friends. I work while they're in school and stay home otherwise. My skin has gotten noticeably paler due to this. My hair is untamed and I even have stubble on my chin now. I wonder if they'll recognize me.

"You think you're so cool because you're some national record holder, huh?"
No, I never did. It was an outlet and I just took it more seriously than others.

"Why would you do that to her? You're just a jerk!"
If you believe her over me, that makes sense.

"Hey Iroh, even though you did all that, we can still be friends."
Looks like you at least held your word Ander.

The street lights give a nice yellow tint to the pitch black roads. The gray sidewalks are completely unviolated; not a single person or animal around. This city is so uneventful at night. This city is dead. My expression begins to match the surroundings as I turn onto 57th. I check my phone and the time is 10:04. I hope they didn't go inside without me. 

"IROH!"
A familiar voice yells out my name. I look up and see Julie on her toes waving to me as if she's an excited child trying to grab something off of a high shelf. She always has a big smile on her face and it's infectious. My dead, lost in thought expression turns into a small smirk.
"Hey Julie. Hey Ander. Hey everybody."
One, two ... six, eleven ... twelve including me. Why such a big group?

"Alright. Everyone's here." Ander proudly projects. "Gather around. I'm only going to say this once."
What is this? I thought we were just hanging out. Why the formality?
"And oh, it's nice to see you Iroh. It's been a while."
Yeah, I'm sure it is ... not. I don't know what he's up to but it seems like this isn't going to be a normal night out with friends. I hope this isn't some prank or something on me.
"So, as I told you all, we're going to explore the abandon construction sites to the South of here. Supposedly, there's some spooky ghosts or something there, but I think they're hiding something from us. If we catch whatever's being hidden, we'll make the news. We'll be the talk of the town. We'll be the most popular kids in the school, no, the city."
A chance to be popular again? Is this why he brought me out? Is this his way of apologizing? He didn't tell me this! Well, I didn't look at the last message he sent.

"Uh, Ander, I don't think this is a good idea." 
I turn around and see an unfamiliar face talking. He has curly red hair, glasses, freckles, and everything else that would be defining of a typical nerd.
"There's supposed to be phantoms all over those construction sites. It's probably abandoned because the hunters are taking care of it."

Here's another classic indoctrinated nutcase. I'm sure he's read every textbook on these supposed phantoms. My irrational father is one of these nutcases too. He's a 'phantom hunter', someone who gets paid to hunt phantoms! I've never seen one and no one I know has seen one. He probably gets paid to be an actor and forge evidence of phantoms. 'Invisible creatures most humans can't see that feed off of fear, human souls, human flesh, and/or other phantoms. A threat to the peace of humanity' is what they're defined as. No one takes it seriously anymore, not even the teachers, but we're still forced to learn about them ever since they were acknowledged by every major world government 30 years ago. It's a fear mongering tactic for sure. 

"You hear this everyone? Nick is scared of imaginary creatures." Ander starts as everyone but Nick lets out a light chuckle.
"They're real. The government even says so."
"Oh, and we're going to believe it just because the government says so? It's been 30 years. That president was a wack-job. Nothing will happen. Everyone here is in track and we can run if something happens."
Nick goes silent and looks at angle towards the ground. "Fine."

"Ok, now that that is taken care of, here's how we'll do it. There's four abandoned sites, so will split up in groups of three. If you hear or see anything, run. Take pictures of anything suspicious. I'm sure we'll find something worth telling the police and news about."

I got put with Julie and Reese. I had already mentioned Julie, but she's a long-time friend of mine. She has light brown hair and emerald eyes. Her face glows against the darkness of the night and resonates under the neon city lights. We met in middle school and she's still as short as she was then, but her personality more than makes up for the size difference. Reese, on the other hand, is a tall man standing at least a whole head taller than me. He has fair dark skin and chiseled muscles from head to toe. He's a scary force I don't ever want to mess with.

We head into the construction site behind the highway. To me it looks like a parking garage, but who knows what it was supposed to be. Jutting out of the asphalt lot is this concrete cube with rectangular slits all around. A square with sides of about 3 meters appears to be the front entrance. We walk into the silent concrete cube and all we can hear is our breathing and footsteps. It's pitch black so we get our phones out and turn on the flashlights. This type of atmosphere makes me calm, but it seems both Julie and Reese are on edge. I feel a tug on my left arm and turn to look down and see Julie tugging on me.

"Hey, doesn't this put you on edge?" she asks.
"No, not at all." I say as I glance around looking into the empty gray abyss of the concrete cube. We continue walking in a bit further and notice a light coming from above.
"So, why don't you go to school anymore?" 
I continue walking and look away from her in disappointment and frustration. I can tell she'll tap my shoulder soon, so I respond with "I don't know. I just don't want to."

At this point, we have reached the light source that seems to be in the exact center of the concrete cube. It's just a square hole that leads all the way up to the top of the building. Reese had beaten us there and is looking up it.
"There's nothing here." He says. "We should head back."
I finally reach a pace or two in front of him and am under the light now. I see something dripping above Reese and am curious that he didn't notice. I look straight up and completely froze, dropping my phone at my feet.

It's as if an instinct deep inside my body was telling me not to move a muscle. Above Reese and I was a huge, fat, pale face. Its eyes were blood red and its nose was flaring out as if it was sniffing us. A warm updraft lifted the hairs on my legs, arms, chin, and head allowing me to take in the full picture with a clear mind. As I looked straight at it, it began to smile revealing black and yellow teeth each the size of my head. Its chin had multiple rolls of fat and patches of hair sticking out of it. It seemed as if a pale, fat, poorly maintained giant was leaning off the second floor of this concrete cube staring down right at us. Its mouth began to open, but a tug on my left arm turned my attention away. I look to my left expecting to see Julie, but instead am met with an unfamiliar site. It's a slender pale woman with no clothes and long,curly, black hair. You can distinctly see her ribs and hip bones that extend out abnormally. Her legs are curved like bows inward and you can't make out any knee joints at all. Her face is incredibly elongated vertically and her teeth are rotted out. Her eyes are surrounded in black elongated openings and are yellow-stained just like the teeth of the first head. This is no woman. This is not Julie. The woman-like figure tilts her head as she looks at me and lets out a wheeze. A black scaly tongue flips out of her mouth and continues to roll out. It must've been an endless length as it kept rolling and rolling and rolling. 

I feel a tug on my right arm. My body freezes. It's utterly silent aside from the sound of a wet scaly tongue rolling from the woman-figures mouth and the dripping drool coming from the large face from above. Chills begin to roll throughout my body and my head begins to feel as if its bulging. I force myself to turn to the right to see Julie with an awkward smile on her face. 
"Well, shouldn't we start heading back?" Julie asks calmly as if nothing is out of the ordinary around us.
I feel another tug on my left arm and now it feels as if something is slithering and coiling around my left ankle. It's cold and slimy and sends even more chills throughout my entire body. I begin to sweat profusely and I feel feverish. Am I just seeing and feeling things? Did the darkness and silence make my head go wild?
"Yeah, we should. There's nothing here." Reese states in a commanding voice.
There's nothing here?  What do you mean? There's two freakish things we've never seen before right here. While I want to go, everything is telling me to stop moving. 
"Yes, stop moving. Stop moving!" a shrewd voice from behind me beckons.
I keep my eyes fixated on Julie as she's staring at me. She tilts her head and begins to have a confused look on her face. 
"A-Are you okay ... Iroh? You look kinda sickly." 
CRrrrunnnccchhh

Just then to the left of where I'm looking, in front of where my body's facing, a loud bone splitting crunch rings out and echoes throughout the concrete cube. You can hear the flutter of bird wings outside the building in the distance as if they're frantically escaping danger. My heart begins to pound throughout my entire body while sounds of leather tearing and bugs being squashed sporadically grow in volume. Shortly after my breathing gets heavier, the dripping begins to speed up. I see Julie's head turn towards Reese and her expression completely drops. Her eyebrows begin to shake and her mouth begins to bobble up and down. A tear begins to roll down from her left eye and then she lets out a loud scream as she falls to the floor still holding on to my arm. I want to turn. I want to run! I don't want to know what happened! Her grasp on my hand tightens and my head begins to move involuntarily. I turn towards Reese to see a pair of bloody legs in blood-stained jeans dropping to the gray concrete floor. A pool of red and yellow liquid surrounds the pair of legs. My mouth drops in shock and my eyes begin to swell up with tears. A bunch of loud chuckling from all directions begins to emerge growing louder and louder until my ears begin to ring. Tears begin to roll down my face. Snot begins to drip from my nose. My body begins to shake. I turn back towards Julie and see her lips moving and her eyes crying. I can't make out anything she's saying and my vision blurs from the tears. An almost transparent and yellow puddle begins to grow beneath where she's kneeling down.

I feel tugging on me from all directions and my legs feel numb. I feel something grab the back of my head and begin turning it back towards Reese. Less than an inch away from my face is that same fat face that I initially saw. Its eyes are so much wider apart than mine, but it feels as though my head splits and I look the face eye to eye. In my peripherals I can see dozens of oblong and distorted pale faces with patches of hair. Some appear to be missing eyes or have holes of various sizes all over their skin. Others appear to have melted skin or bones jutting out of their scalp or nose bridge. It was all too much to take in at once. It all seemed unreal. Are these phantoms? Are they actually real? What happened to Reese? I no longer fell the tug on my right arm as my throat goes dry and chest and shoulders grow heavy. My legs go completely numb as I collapse to the ground. Those ugly, red eyes stare at me as things begin to fade to black. I hear a jingle of a bell and some jewelry and then everything goes dark.