They found Edward Cronin living in a cave, twenty years after he went missing. I remember the news reports—a feral teenager discovered deep in the Appalachian wilderness, raised by a family that had retreated from society generations ago. They didn't mention the bones they found, or the remnants of their meals. My parents decided to foster him. They were idealistic like that. The first time I saw him, he was hunched in our pristine suburban kitchen, staring at the microwave like it might attack. His dark eyes never quite focused on anything, always scanning, always alert. We tried to help him adjust. I taught him to use a fork, to write his name, and to watch TV. He learned quickly, but there was something mechanical about it. Like he was studying us, learning our habits. At night, I'd hear him pacing in his room, muttering in a language I didn't understand. Sometimes, when he looked at me, I felt something stir in my chest. Not quite love. Not quite fear. Then, Bill Henderson's cat went missing. Then Nora Roberts' dog. They found bones in our compost pile. Tiny ones. The town turned against him slowly, then all at once. Torches and pitchforks became security cameras and neighborhood watches. A few days after that, neighborhood kids started disappearing. Just strays at first—the ones who hung out behind the mall, the runaways no one would miss. Then Jennifer Hayes vanished walking home from school. I found his journal hidden under loose floorboards. Pages filled with crude drawings of anatomy, detailed notes about human muscle groups. The last page just said: "Hunger never leaves." They found Jennifer's remains in the woods behind our house. Edward disappeared that night. The police searched for weeks, but the forest swallowed him. Years later, I still wake up to scratching at my window. Not angry scratching—gentle, almost loving. Like someone trying to remember how to knock. I never look outside anymore. But I leave food on the back porch, just in case. Raw meat, mostly. The plate is always clean by morning. I never told anyone about the piece of Jennifer's sweater I found in his desk drawer. Or how sometimes, I miss The Mountain Man… #analoghorror #scarytiktoks #creepystories #creepytok #scp #liminalspaces #conspiracy