The Invitation
After receiving a cryptic invitation, a man is inducted into a shadowy organization that monitors the unexplainable—and discovers his future has already been written.
It came in the mail with no return address. Heavy paper, sealed with black wax.
Inside: a single sentence handwritten in red ink—“You’ve been seen. Midnight. Pier 9.”
I thought it was a prank. I’d posted on a few forums recently—nothing serious, just asking questions about old banking families, missing historians, that kind of thing. But something about the letter felt… official.
I went. Curiosity is stronger than fear.
Pier 9 was empty. Fog rolled in thick off the water. At midnight, I heard footsteps. A tall man in a long coat emerged from the mist and handed me a blindfold.
He said nothing.
We drove for what felt like hours. When the blindfold came off, I was inside an old hall. Dark wood panels. Gilded frames. A circle of people in suits and robes stood facing me. No faces visible.
A woman’s voice spoke from the darkness: “Knowledge has a price. Truth has consequences. Do you still want it?”
I nodded. They gave me a name, an address, and a task: "Watch. Record. Report."
I followed the man they assigned. He lived a normal life. But at 3:06 a.m. every Thursday, he walked to a park, dug a small hole under the third bench, and buried something. Always wrapped in cloth.
I watched for weeks. The drop never changed. The objects were always different—sometimes old coins, sometimes burned pages, sometimes bones.
One night, I dug it up myself.
Inside: a cassette recorder. I played it back. It was me. Talking. Describing a future I didn’t know yet. And at the end, my voice said: “You’ll tell them everything. Just like they planned.”
When I looked up, the man was watching me from the trees. He didn’t look surprised.
Just disappointed.
Inside: a single sentence handwritten in red ink—“You’ve been seen. Midnight. Pier 9.”
I thought it was a prank. I’d posted on a few forums recently—nothing serious, just asking questions about old banking families, missing historians, that kind of thing. But something about the letter felt… official.
I went. Curiosity is stronger than fear.
Pier 9 was empty. Fog rolled in thick off the water. At midnight, I heard footsteps. A tall man in a long coat emerged from the mist and handed me a blindfold.
He said nothing.
We drove for what felt like hours. When the blindfold came off, I was inside an old hall. Dark wood panels. Gilded frames. A circle of people in suits and robes stood facing me. No faces visible.
A woman’s voice spoke from the darkness: “Knowledge has a price. Truth has consequences. Do you still want it?”
I nodded. They gave me a name, an address, and a task: "Watch. Record. Report."
I followed the man they assigned. He lived a normal life. But at 3:06 a.m. every Thursday, he walked to a park, dug a small hole under the third bench, and buried something. Always wrapped in cloth.
I watched for weeks. The drop never changed. The objects were always different—sometimes old coins, sometimes burned pages, sometimes bones.
One night, I dug it up myself.
Inside: a cassette recorder. I played it back. It was me. Talking. Describing a future I didn’t know yet. And at the end, my voice said: “You’ll tell them everything. Just like they planned.”
When I looked up, the man was watching me from the trees. He didn’t look surprised.
Just disappointed.
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