I laid down on the couch and started watching a black-and-white movie from the fifties called The Night of the Hunter. I’d chosen that movie not only because I knew it was a great film, but also because I’d actually fallen asleep watching it once before.
* * *
—
I was nine years old. My parents were hosting their monthly film-noir evening with their closest friends, Bill and Madeline Connors—Annie and Emily’s parents. As always, after they’d put me to bed, they made popcorn and the four of them settled in to watch their movie.
I’ve always loved movies, and whenever my parents had these film nights, I’d sneak out of my bedroom and hide upstairs behind the banister. I was able to see the television clearly from up there, but because of the angle, my parents couldn’t see me. As long as I stayed quiet, I was able to watch whatever they were watching.
The previous month they’d chosen something about a guy looking for murderous androids （a film I’d learn years later was Blade Runner）， and before that it had been something about a boat and a sea creature that I couldn’t clearly recall.
But I remember exactly what it was about The Night of the Hunter that had made it impossible for me to turn away. It was the fact that the man in the movie—the preacher character played by Robert Mitchum—had two words written across his knuckles: “love” and “hate.”
“Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand?” he’d said, just before he went on to mime an intense struggle between love and hate using only his hands, his fingers intertwined as if he were battling for the souls of all mankind.
The scene was mesmerizing.
The Night of the Hunter felt different from the other black-and-white movies I’d seen—more real somehow. More grown-up. There was something about the way The Night of the Hunter made me feel—as if there was something going on beneath the surface of that film, something deeply authentic and moving. It was the same way I would come to feel about Rabbits, later.
My parents found me asleep in the hallway sometime after The Night of the Hunter had ended and carried me to bed. They never mentioned anything about my cinematic transgressions, and I continued to spy on their movies from behind that banister for as long as we lived in that house.
But this time, as I was nodding off, I realized something.
I jumped up from the couch, opened my computer, and loaded a clip from The Night of the Hunter on YouTube. I pressed play.
The scene with Robert Mitchum unfolded just as I remembered, with the two hands, love and hate battling for supremacy, but something was wrong. In the version I remembered, “love” had been written across the knuckles on Mitchum’s right hand and “hate” across his left. In the version I was looking at now, the words were reversed.
I performed a search and took a look at a dozen or so images. They were all the same. “Hate” on the right, “love” on the left.
I felt a wave of panic wash over me, and the world went black.
* * *
—
I was jarred violently awake by a beeping and blaring Klaxon followed by an announcement.
It was a test of the Washington Emergency Alert System.
I jumped up and switched off the television. The room was suddenly dark and completely silent. The only light came from the clock on the DVR: 4:44 a.m.
NOTES ON THE GAME:
MISSIVE BY HAZEL
（AUTHENTICATED BY BLOCKCHAIN）
Find the game. Play the game.
Once you discover the entry point phrase, “The Door Is Open,” it’s time to follow the clues and find your path.
Once The Door Is Open, the game begins to focus on those players who are making progress. The game will guide them.
As the clues get deeper and more complex, the players begin to fall away. Eventually, if you make it far enough, you will be one of the few remaining who know something is different. You will be one of the few who understand. You will be one of the few who may have touched another world.
—HAZEL 8
27
THE CHILDREN OF THE GRAY GOD
I must have fallen back asleep, because when I woke up to the sound of somebody buzzing my apartment, it was after noon.
I stumbled into the living room and hit the button that would let whoever it was into the building. I didn’t have the energy to ask. If it was Swan and her twins, so be it. I unlocked my door and started the process of making coffee.
As I was pressing the lever down on my electric kettle, Chloe rushed into my apartment and shoved open my living room curtains.
“What’s with the darkness, K?”