Day 2,089

It should have been the alley connecting Stirchward Street and Mawsclere Way. It should have the woods on one side and a row of garages on the other. It should have been really narrow but in a comforting naturesque kind of way, where birdsong and the faint sounds of traffic blended together perfectly.

Today it was none of those.

Today it has been found by something new, something parasitic and hungry, with sharp eyes and sharper teeth. Whatever comfort had been there before was now only a thin illusion separating predator from prey, luring them in with familiarity and chasing them down into its gullet without so much as a whisper escaping back out to the streets.

As soon as a person sets both feet past the boundary line they see the alley dissolve away in front of them and they feel its mouth close behind with a faint, wet click. Both forest and garages are now dark grey stones walls that sit beneath a velvet-red sky.

Unnatural shapes soar through the air, long dead things that live on only inside this place and feed on whatever scraps are left behind. Sometimes they don't even wait for both feet to cross the boundary, choosing instead to dart outside the mouth and drag strangers in.

This hasn't all happened yet, but it will and when the authorities come to search for all the missing all they'll find is a simple alley that feels comforting, yet cold. Countless ghosts will wander there, half-digested, half-mad and unable to rest.