And the porch light—the one he hadn’t fixed, the one with the shattered bulb—flickered on, casting a long, hungry shadow across the yard.

The group member count changed.

The video showed the bunkhouse. His bunkhouse. The camera angle was from the corner, near the old woodstove. The timestamp read: LIVE. He watched himself walk across the frame, a ghost in his own house, scratching his stubble. He didn't remember going to the bunkhouse tonight.

The wall was a cascade of static. Grainy videos of cattle with too many eyes. Photographs of the salt lick in the back forty, but the salt was crystalline and glowing . And the comments. They were in a language that looked like Russian, but when he squinted, it shifted. English. Then something else entirely. "The gate opens when the last fencepost bleeds. Bring a handful of dust from your hometown."