You had a nice sized porch but you never used it. The flaking lead paint covering the ceiling made you too nervous, so you tabled it as a place you could use only after you’d renovated it. You had a lot of those in your house, and being outside, the porch got moved to the back of the list. But because you didn’t want to hang out there, someone else decided to, it was nice after all. The neighborhood cat decided to claim it as her own, sunning on the nice days, and sheltering during the stormy ones. She was a lovely tortoiseshell, and one day when you’d toyed with adopting her, you’d discovered she had just as many names as colors. You’d given her a collar with a note asking if she belonged to anyone, and half a dozen people answered before they ran out of space on the note. 

There were a dozen different neighborhood cats, but she was the most friendly. Many of the others were feral and skittish, and from season to season changed rapidly. The Tortishell though, was a constant. She’d make her rounds through the neighborhood, visiting you perhaps once a week. Sometimes she’d bring other cats to your porch, to fight or play or sun with, but most of those wouldn’t let you pet them, and you only saw them once or twice anyway. One that stood out to you though, was an orange bobtail cat. You thought it was cute that it looked like a little bunny, and it started using your porch every nice day to sun, but rudely wouldn’t let you pet it. Then one day you noticed a tabby and a tuxedo playing and posturing on your porch and saw that they too were bobtails, and you wondered if perhaps it was genetic, that they were the orange cat's babies. But when you go outside to try and pet them, you catch a glimpse of a healing-over scab on the tabby's tail. Your mind goes to dark places, and you wonder if you should do something. But you talk yourself out of it because maybe they’ve all just had run-ins with dogs or coyotes. 

But as the days go on you spy two other bobtails that you’re sure you haven’t seen before, and you feel like you should do something, but what? Post on Facebook or next door that someone is hurting the cats. Try in vain to get your backwoods country police force to do something? And you’re so busy with work and life and you really don’t have time for anything else. But one day The Tortishell comes back, and her fluffy patchwork tail is gone. You go outside to check on her, to make sure she’s okay, but for the first time, she doesn’t come up to you. Instead, she hisses, and runs away, scared of you, scared of people now. You decide then, that you’re going to do something. You don’t know what, but you’ll figure it out. Because if you don’t, then who will? You take to your computer first, opening up Tor, and you think of the searches that you don’t want to type in on Google. Finally, you decide to start with: The Podcast Inside Your House. 

With each wrong turn I took, I found myself wishing more and more that Connor had been more specific in his suicide note. This wrong turn was different than the others though because I’d finally managed to hit a wall. The mine I was in was dug in a grid rather than a tunnel, so any piece of solid rock that went on for more than five feet or so had to be on the edge. I decided to pick what I thought was the right direction and follow it. I’d either end up back where I started, or I’d find whatever was waiting for me on the other side. 

I'd dressed for the cold, and though I knew it had to be warmer in the mine than it had been on the surface, it felt colder. The scent of minerals and old water, and the complete lack of light only compounded the chill. I couldn’t use my flashlight of course, but I’d known from my first visit that if I were to take off my night vision goggles I’d only be swapping one shade of green for one shade of gray. It was a desolate place. 

While I struggled to move quickly but quietly, Connor’s note played on a loop through my head. 

Dear Corey, 

If you’re reading this it means I’m probably dead lol, sorry about that. I’m going to try and get into the mine room. I know it’s stupid, but I’m doing it anyway. Or I guess if you’re reading this now I’ve already done it. Isn’t that weird that I’m writing a letter to future you? One that you’ll only read if there’s no future me? Anyway, I changed my life insurance policy a while back and Lucy’s getting most of it, obviously, but I set aside a little bit for you to move away if you want. And I think you should. Go get a fresh start somewhere. I don’t think you’ll ever be happy if you stay here. And I want you to be happy. I could never figure that out after THE INCIDENT, but I feel like maybe you can. Don’t come looking for me okay? This was my stupid idea and if I’m not getting home in time to stop this email it means that there’s nothing good down there. 

P.S. Will you tell the Minneapolis boys that I’m sorry I couldn’t return their bolt cutters? 

I’d brought my own bolt cutters tonight. In all my years of urban exploration, I’d always stayed away from anything that could be a felony. Bolt cutters, spray paint, and legitimate weapons of any kind. Even Mace could land you charges if the cop was an asshole. The best protection was other people, and that was all I’d ever needed. But tonight I had all of the things I’d always avoided and none of the usual company. 

After what felt like hours of wandering I found the gate again. Like any great discovery, we’d found it on accident the first time we’d been here. Connor had wanted to check it out then, but without bolt cutters it was impossible. 

The gate was the only part of the mine that looked different than the rest. It was a black abyss blocked off by iron bars drilled deep into the limestone. It was held closed by a thick chain, but there were signs as well. There was the classic: TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED, and the slightly more rare but still common 24 HOUR VIDEO SURVEILLANCE both of which only made what was on the other side more mysterious. But the sign that really took the cake, that had driven Connor to find out what was on the other side no matter the cost, was the rare and coveted: DANGER RADIOACTIVE WASTE. 

I stood still long enough that I started shivering again and I knew it was time to make a decision. You can't hover around entrances like that, even if they're hidden deep within the earth, even if you think the video surveillance is a bluff. You assess the situation and decide if it's too sketchy and you're going back. Or you decide you’re going in. 

I snipped the chain, and slipped past the bars. Going back was never an option for me. 

Inside was just more and more darkness, and though the temperatures should have stayed the same, I could have sworn it got colder. The ambient lights from the main mine were gone so I switched on a low-powered red light I’d brought. The night vision goggles couldn’t work in absolute darkness, but I also didn’t want to be too obvious.

I hadn't thought to bring anything to measure the air quality, and so as I descended I pondered Occam’s razor. Here I was, convinced that Connor had wandered into a government black site and been killed. Or that there actually was radioactive waste down here, potent enough to do harm, and at least that would be something strange and new But I hadn’t considered that maybe, in wandering aimlessly through an abandoned mine he’d hit a pocket of bad air, or simply gotten lost. 

I thought briefly about turning back, and as quickly as the thought came I dismissed it. However, Connor had died, I was going to find out. I was going to bring back his body if I could, and if not I was going to meet the same fate as him, whatever that was. 

I’d always felt like our fates were linked together after THE INCIDENT, as people called it. Not in any kind of romantic way, but on some cosmic scale. I wasn’t in love with Connor. Love is what you say about your significant other, your family, and your friends. Love isn’t exclusive, it’s something that those of us who are very fortunate might say several times a day to multiple people. I think obsessed comes closer to how I felt about Connor. That feels like a word that you only use for one person, and that’s what he was, my one person. After my life fell apart, after THE INCIDENT as people called it, I’d had nothing, no one, until he came along. If he had decided to walk into Hell itself, I would have followed him, put him behind me, and gladly led the way. He knew it too. 

That’s why he didn’t tell me when he started making dangerous plans. That’s why all he left me was a note when he decided to walk into Hell alone. 

As I sunk deeper into the earth, another thought that I dismissed the second it came to me was the whisper in the back of my head, that maybe Connor wasn’t dead. But I pushed that aside. I couldn’t let myself spend any time on such a fragile hope. He’d gone somewhere he knew was dangerous, and he’d been gone for a week. I knew what that meant. No, he was dead, and I was simply here to find out how and why, and maybe to bring back his body for Lucy. 

I’d made this trek many times in my mind, just as Connor must have. I didn’t think the walk down to whatever was waiting for me would be so long. It felt like hours of the same green gravel walls, until eventually, I came upon a bend with another sign that read DANGER RADIOACTIVE WASTE. It had the little radioactive symbol under it this time, the circle with three triangles coming out, meant to be a universal sign of warning, of danger in any language. Then next to it, just in case both the words and the symbol weren’t enough, there was a picture of a human skull. 

I’d come prepared for anything on this trip, so I stopped then, but only to pull out a Geiger counter. I turned it on, and waited for it to boot up, but when it did it was silent. That could have meant the sign was a lie, put up simply to deter visitors. But it also could have just meant the shitty Geiger counter I’d bought at a hardware store wasn’t any good. As I passed the sign and turned the bend, it remained silent. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

At the end of the bend were barrels, dozens of them. They were painted bright with that radioactive symbol in black, and they went all the way to the start of another bend. It looked like something out of a video game. I got closer, feeling out what the path would be like between them, all the while the Geiger counter remained silent. 

I stood there for a bit, trying to piece together what Connor would have done. Connor had told me his theories about this place of course. He thought the nuclear radiation signs were a cover for some secret base. He’d been spamming me with missing person’s reports from around the area, and news articles of strange sounds coming from above the mine. I had no problem believing people had vanished down here, but I’d told him it was probably just people getting lost, or wandering into C02 pockets. 

I didn’t know exactly what Connor hoped to accomplish by proving he was right, but I understood well the need to find some greater purpose. It had consumed me too since THE INCIDENT. But the greater purpose I’d been looking for was one I would never speak to anyone out loud. 

Anyway, I suppose in this case, in a literal sense at least, Connor had been right. This place was deeper than it seemed. The part of the mine I was in now didn’t match any of the old maps I’d looked at. Either this tunnel had simply been dug to store the waste, or it had been dug to go to something else. 

Looking at the bend, past the barrels, I knew that Connor would not have been satisfied until he saw what was on the other side. I started making my way through the barrels, silent Gieger counter in hand, but as I waited for clicks, I heard something else; voices. 

They were quiet at first, abstract, but as they got closer I made out a man and a woman's voice talking to each other. The tone was causal, a one-sided back and forth of the man explaining something and the woman listening, giving simple acknowledgments. 

“One time it was a black bear, looking for a spot to hibernate and he'd just kept heading down. That was one hell of a day. But yeah usually it's just rocks falling this far down.”

The man's voice had a twinge of southern to it, and he sounded older. The woman's voice was flat, overtly professional but with an unmistakable air of youth. 

“How often does it go off?” She asked. Strangely, her voice reminded me of mine.

“Oh hell, it's every other night we're coming up here. The water sets it off sometimes too. Even when it doesn't go off we'll usually make the rounds still, checking the fence and all.”

“You said sometimes it's people wandering in, how often does that happen?” The woman asked.

“That's maybe once or twice a year. Saves the Snatchers the trouble of finding a few, so hey that all works out for us. If it's kids though we just scare em off.”

As my night vision goggles started growing brighter I turned them down and crouched behind one of the barrels. Their footsteps grew closer and closer and when they rounded the bend I saw they had headlamps on. This left their hands free to carry rifles, which they held at the ready. 

The man continued “You actually just missed that last week. Some thrill seeker was down here filming a YouTube video or a TikTok or something and we got him.”

With that, I felt my heart sink. It would have been very hard to mistake what they were saying, and even if they weren't talking about Connor, these were bad people. With that, I steadied my breathing and started forming a plan.

“Why don’t they just block off the entrance?” the girl asked.

“It’s important to provide an avenue for people to come here themselves if they want. It’s better luck for all of us if some of the sacrifices are willing. What’s that old scripture? ‘If you find yourself in The Tomb it’s because you chose to be there.’ Something like that.”

What the fuck did that mean?

As they stepped closer and closer I wavered between surrendering, trying to hide better, or jumping into action. I looked young enough that maybe they'd just scare me off. But also, now that I knew there was more to this place than it seemed, I wanted answers. 

They stepped past the barrels, the girl on my side, and I waited until she was right next to me. I knew I had to commit if I was going to go for it. I didn't think, I just jumped and swerved her gun into the man next to her, her hands obeying because they hadn't expected someone to jump out of the dark. 

I squeezed her hand around the trigger, and watched bright green blood spray out of her companion's stomach. 

Then, while she was still in shock I yanked the rifle away and pointed it at her. 

I didn't know I had that in me.

“Hands up,” I said. 

She obeyed. 

I disarmed her partner, lifted my goggles, and turned one of the flashlights on her. 

I asked her all the questions I could think of, what this place was, how long she'd been there, but she wouldn't say a word. It was strange to see someone my age so stoic, so set in their purpose. 

It was clear she wasn't going to tell me anything, but seeing her in the light, with the same hair color, same eye color as me, I began to form the start of a plan. 

The man training her was moaning the entire time, and it was awful, but I couldn't bring myself to shoot him again. She didn't know that though. 

“Give me your uniform, or I shoot him in the head.” The only thing stranger than the words coming out of my mouth was how comfortable I felt saying such violent things. As I looked at the girl who looked strangely like me, it made me wonder if I would be capable of doing whatever it was she did, had things gone differently for me.

For the first time, she broke her silence to laugh. “You have no idea what you're getting into.” But she obeyed, stripping down with a military efficiency. 

I had her toss the clothes to me, then realized I needed to make sure she couldn't follow me as I went further down. 

I aimed her rifle at her calf and fired. I stuck around only long enough to make sure I'd hit her before I grabbed the clothes and sprinted away. Both of their cries followed me in echoes down the mine.  

When I got far enough away I put on her clothes and smeared the blood that had sprayed on me all over my face. Then I tucked my hair back in a bun, the way she had had it, and took up a light jog down into the bowels of the mine.

It was clear the girl was in training, in the early days too, so I hoped I could pass for her to people who'd only known her a day or two. But as I jogged and plotted, I worried it wasn't enough. I stopped, and grabbed a rock from the ground, and hit myself in the face as many times as I could stand. That would have to do.

I realized just as I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel that I should ditch the other gun and flashlight. As I was hiding them under some gravel I thought for the first time since shooting the guard that I could have escaped if I’d wanted to. I entertained the thought for only a second before I kept jogging towards the light. Going back was NOT an option. 

The next bend in the mine brought me to an open cavern, lit in bright blue LEDs. There were cables running along the ceiling, a series of steel doors along one wall, and on the other wall, a security desk with a man dressed in the same uniform as me. He jumped into action.

“Holy shit, Robin are you okay?” He asked me. 

I had my story all planned.

“Yeah, I'm fine. There was a rock slide, it fucked up my face, and my partner messed up his ankle jumping out of the way. He's alright but I couldn't drag him back all the way here.”

“Damn, Jerry's got a bad knee too, just had surgery on a tendon or something last year.” The man said. He pulled up his radio then, and said, “New girl and Jerry got mixed up in a rock slide. Nothing serious but we need a stretcher sent up the shaft for Jerry, it’s his ankle.” 

“You're having one hell of a first night huh?” He asked.

I laughed, and it was sincere. I couldn't believe my luck. “Yeah, you could say that.” 

“Do you remember how to get to Nurse Fleming's office?” He asked.

“Oh man, I think so, but -” I held my head. “I can think straight.”

“Here I'll walk you there. It took me a whole week to memorize all the passcodes here.” The man held out his arm and I grabbed his elbow, leaning in. It felt like we were about to walk into a ballroom to have a dance. 

He keyed in a code and opened one of the doors and I steeled myself for whatever I might see. I had to act like I’d seen it before. 

The unmistakable scent of gore hit me first. Copper mixed with a bit of rot, and topped off with antiseptic chemical smells. 

We were on a catwalk and when I looked below it I saw the source of the smell. Beneath our feet was a literal river of blood, and it was flowing fast. 

I pretended to be calm, and I found that I wasn’t entirely pretending. What other bad things could happen to me after all? I’d already lost everything that mattered to me three years ago now, coming up on four years since THE INCIDENT. The scent of blood tried to worm its way into my head, to take me back to the day it happened, but I pushed it out. I’d already wasted enough days re-living THE INCIDENT, I didn’t have time for it on what was shaping up to be my last day. 

At the end of the catwalk was another door with another code and the man escorting me said “I’ll let Jerry help you with all the codes once you’re both patched up, don’t worry about it now.”

The next room was surprisingly cozy. It was a small nurse's office with a bed and a computer desk. The woman sitting up, nurse Fleming I assumed, looked out of place in a place like this. She had rosy cheeks and floral scrubs, and smiled warmly when we walked in. 

“Robin?” She asked. “I’m Nurse Fleming. Welcome aboard!” She shook my hand “Have a seat darling.”

I sat, reassured that even with the blood cleaned off my face, I could keep up my ruse. It seemed like hardly anyone had even met the girl I was pretending to be. That comforted me. 

I’ve always been someone who hoped there was order to the universe, some greater plan. And the ease with which I’d slipped into this place, the providence of having someone here who looked so much like me walk right into my lap, well it felt like fate.

It felt like I was supposed to be here. 

As Nurse Fleming patched me up she and the security guard chatted and I learned that his name was Johnathan. The two caught up on weekend plans and Johnathan's upcoming summer vacation. Then he asked about Nurse Flemings's kids as if they worked at a fucking office or something. As if they didn’t do something down here involving a literal river of what I could only assume was human blood. 

When the nurse finished bandaging my face she asked Johnathan “How long do you think it’ll be until they get Jerry? I could send her down to Doctor Pommelte, I know he wanted to show her around a bit.” 

“You’ve definitely got a minute, we had to wait for Steve to get off lunch, he wanted to give Jerry shit for needing to be carried out again. Plus he and Alan will get him out of there quicker than any of us. You know how long it would take me to carry a stretcher all the way back here?” He laughed. “Let the muscleheads do it.”

“I’ll call Pommelte then.” She turned to me “I know you’ve been so excited to meet him. You’re having one heck of a first day huh?” 

I laughed again. “You have no idea.”

The guard, Johnathan, walked me through another corridor, and this time it was a river of clear pinkish fluid, with what looked to be lungs and hearts flowing through. I kept a straight face and added to my already deep resolve to take as many of these assholes out with me as I could. 

“You can look for a minute if you want,” Johnathan told me. “It took me a long time to get used to it, hell you’re doing better than I did my whole first month. It helps if you really just de-sensatize yourself you know? Don’t look away, don’t try to pretend it isn’t bad. But get used to it, and think about why we do this.”

“Okay,” I said and I looked down at the gore beneath us. I think THE INCIDENT had desensitized me to gore already, and I found I didn’t mind the sight as much as I should. The clear-ish fluid gave me a better look at the tunnel beneath us and I studied it for a minute. It looked more like a natural cave, the floor smooth, with some small stalagmites. Of course that didn’t completely rule out it being a man-made structure, I’d seen stalagmites in some abandoned buildings, now and then. But it certainly meant this place was old. 

Below the fluid, at the bottom of the tunnels, there was a line of symbols, some kind of language I didn’t recognize. I thought about Connor and wondered if any of the organs flowing past were his.

“Okay.” I said, “I’m good, let's go.” 

Johnathan took my arm and I leaned in, unsteady. 

He paused at the door and said “The Processing Room can be intense. I’m sure they’ve warned you, but just take a deep breath okay?” 

The second he cracked the door deafening screams escaped. He closed it quickly and laughed “Oops, almost forgot.” He dug in his pocket, “ear plugs.” 

I put them in and when he opened the door, the slightly muffled sounds of death and torture escaped. With that, I couldn’t fight it anymore, and my memories brought me back to the day of THE INCIDENT. 

By now I’d mastered the art of autopilot, of doing whatever I needed to do while in my head I was re-living hell on earth. Johnathan walked me to a frail old man and I shook his hand and smiled while in my head I was hearing the sounds of shattered glass, of bending metal, and of human screams, much louder than the ones here. Those screams had been worse than these, because they’d come from people I’d known. 

In my head, I smelled the blood and viscera, just like in the room I was in now but these smells were muted by chemicals. In my head I was trying to save the people I loved, and I was failing, I was marveling at the fact that I was unhurt, while almost everyone around me had been crushed. I was wondering what kind of sick God would spare me from something like that just to make me watch. 

In the present, I was waving goodbye to Johnathan and following the old man up to a machine, and as I looked around the room, slowly the horrors of the present pulled me out of my flashback. In a strange way it was almost a relief to see something that might be more horrifying than THE INCIDENT had been. I felt like I could die at peace now that that wasn’t the worst thing I’d seen. 

Fully back in the present, I listened to the old man talk. “This one is probably the easiest to start with.” The old man, Doctor Pommelte, was saying. “We keep it separated by organ batches, so this is Livers, spleens, and appendixes, for the people who still have theirs anyway.” The machine we were at looked almost like the thing your baggage comes out of at the airport, except the conveyor belt was going inside. There was nothing on this one, but the room was as big as an airplane hangar, and off in the distance, I spotted people tied to other conveyor belts; the source of the screaming. 

“See they used to have to do this all by hand, and there were a lot of days we were behind quota, but these machines make it so much faster, and so much easier too. The burnout rate we had on Dispatchers was through the roof.” 

As he talked I looked around the room. It was massive and looked like a natural cavern, the walls were textured with smooth rock formations and patches of crystal. But the glaring blue lights made it feel artificial. There were a dozen or so of these machines, spaced out all across the building, and at the entrance to each one was a unique symbol. The one we were in front of had a minimalist drawing of a monkey’s face, with the moon above it. The one beyond that had a crocodile's face with what looked like a tie around its neck. Past that was a drawing of the sun, but sporting a face that had eight eyes. 

“Now, the biggest turnover we have is with Snatchers. I know Jerry told me that’s a field you’re interested in moving into. Once you’ve got enough experience kid, there are always openings.”

Pommelte looked behind us, further down the belt. “Ah, here we go.” Coming down the conveyor belt, was a man. He was on top of a metal slab attached to the belt, with hands and feet bound, and duct tape around his mouth. The doctor pressed a red button and the man came to a stop in front of us. 

“I wish we could fully sedate them, but we’ve tried every which way, and it just doesn’t take right if they’re asleep.” 

My mind was racing. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something. 

“We pioneered the Peaceful Passage Act right in this location, did you know that?” The Doctor pulled out a syringe from a nearby table, and the man on the belt yelled louder, as much as he could through the tape. “I feel it always helps new recruits to see this part because we know what we have to do, but we’re not cruel about it.” 

He injected him, and the man relaxed. “It’s a full 15 percent of our budget for all this morphine,  but you have to modernize traditions after a certain point, we’re not animals after all.” 

Doctor Pommelte held up a scalpel next. “We’ve still got to do the runes by hand though.” With that, he started carving a small crescent moon on the man’s torso. 

I decided then that I’d seen enough. It might not have been the best time to act, maybe there was even a world where I took the doctor hostage and got out of there alive. But I didn’t want that. 

I wanted blood. 

I hit the doctor over the head with the butt of my rifle, just enough to shock him, and he fell instantly. Then I unbuckled the man’s restraints and helped him flop off of the conveyor belt. 

Alarms started blaring, either because security cameras had seen what I was doing or because they’d found the guards I’d shot. I knew I had to act fast. 

I picked up the dazed old doctor with a strength I didn’t know I possessed and strapped him in where the man had been. Then I pushed the red button, and the conveyor belt started up once again. It was slow, but we were close to the entrance. 

I checked my rounds, four left, and held my rifle at the ready. 

Across the room, there were a few other doctors or scientists at the other conveyor belts who were watching me now, but a wave of the gun kept them all locked in place. 

I turned my gun on the room’s entrance and waited. After a minute, just as the doctor was starting to be sucked into the machine, the door opened. 

The guard who’d showed me around, Jonathan, came in ready to shoot, but I got him first. One round gone. Then the two he was with held their guns aloft, pointed at the ceiling, like they were going to negotiate. But when one flinched, trying to catch me off guard, I shot them both. 

One round left. 

I could use it on myself, save myself from the machine, but when I looked at the man beside me, the man I’d rescued from the belt, I decided to rescue him all the way. I shot him just as more guards were coming in, and the doctor began screaming in the machine. 

As they hauled me away, the screams soothed my soul. I thought of Connor once again, of the first time I’d met him. 

I’d met him at the third hearing on THE INCIDENT and I knew who he was. They’d made his family, his wife and daughter, the faces in the media of THE INCIDENT because they were photogenic and sweet. My family and the other 43 casualties had gotten a mention too, but they didn’t tug at the public's heartstrings the way that Connor’s little girl had. I didn’t begrudge him the publicity, it meant he saw their faces everywhere. 

I took some solace in knowing that maybe he was with them now. And as the guards dragged me further into the processing room, I wondered if maybe I’d see my family as well soon.

I thought back to the first conversation me and Connor had that day. Just outside the courtroom, we’d talked in loud voices, not caring who heard us. We talked about how no one was going to get in trouble, no one was going to be held accountable for THE INCIDENT. Practically yelling we’d said that someone needed to pay for what had happened. That the people who’d been so careless, so cavalier with human life should get a taste of their own medicine.

As a team of guards strapped me onto a conveyor belt, I felt the most at peace I’d ever felt since THE INCIDENT. It wasn’t the exact revenge I’d wanted, it wasn’t the people I’d googled only in public cafes, and it wasn’t how I envisioned things going down as I practiced at the shooting range, thinking dark thoughts. But I’d managed to carve out a satisfying enough pound of flesh. As I looked up at the symbol on the machine, a human skull surrounded by three sharp teeth, I felt ready for whatever awaited me on the other side. 

Until Next Time: Remember to be open next time you feel like the universe is giving you a sign, especially if that sign has a big skull on it, it could be something important.