The end, p.1
The End, page 1
The End
Adam Cosco
Copyright ©2025 by Adam Cosco
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Cover by Don Noble at Rooster Republic Press.
Edited by Daniel Nobles.
Illustrations are A.I. generated.
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
Epilogue
Author Bio
1
A weathered black SUV winds its way up the mountain, the tires hissing on a serpentine ribbon of road carved through snow-heavy pines. The forest seems ancient here. Snow flurries whirl like ash, ephemeral and spectral, vanishing against the cold bite of granite cliffs and the black-green trees.
Eli drives, two hands locked on the wheel, eyes hollow and alert. He is thirty-four but looks older in the gray light, his face pale, the ridges around his eyes deepened from so many sleepless nights. The city has been scraped off him in layers over the last few hours of quiet, the radio silent, Selene silent, the hum of the road the only sound filling the car.
Emerald Bay appears. It isn't what he expected. The name suggests something quaint or picturesque. But what emerges is something older, stranger. A half-frozen lake sprawled between jagged ridgelines, its edges crusted with powdery snow and rimmed in a thin skin of ice. Around it, the town slouches beneath the weight of winter with shabby wood cabins, their paint flaking like old scabs, standing half-buried in drifts. The town looks forgotten by the world.
And yet, Eli feels something tighten in his chest. Not fear exactly, but the shadow of recognition. The sense that they’ve driven not just through distance, but through something else… a portal maybe. This place isn’t just far from Los Angeles; it’s a world away.
Eli glances over at Selene. She’s radiant in the soft light, though her hair is mussed from sleep and her eyes are pinned to the page. She's anchored into the passenger seat, deeply immersed in the final chapter of The Material World by Solomon Holloway. Her brow tightens. She turns the last page and something breaks in her, not loudly, not dramatically, but real.
A tear slips from the corner of her eye. She tries to swipe it away quickly by turning her face toward the window, but not fast enough.
Eli’s voice is soft, barely above the hum of the tires. “Hey… you okay?”
She exhales through her nose, nodding. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You’re crying.”
She smiles, but it’s crooked, embarrassed. “It’s the book.”
He reaches across and gently lifts the paperback from her lap, glancing at the cover. The Material World. Solomon Holloway’s name stares back.
Selene speaks again, quieter now. “You ever read something and it feels like it was written just for you? Like the author somehow… knew you. Saw the things no one else ever noticed. Things you didn’t even have the words for.”
Eli doesn’t answer right away. The notion unsettles him. He thinks of algorithms again. Of virtual reality simulations and how even machines can approximate intimacy.
“That’d probably make me paranoid,” he mutters.
She lets out a quiet laugh. “You know what pronoia is?”
He shakes his head slightly. “Opposite of paranoia?”
“Yeah. Paranoia is ‘the world’s out to get me.’ Pronoia is… what if the world’s actually conspiring to help me?”
She looks out the window. The flurries whirl faster now, caught in gusts. “What if synchronicity means someone’s paying attention, you know?”
Eli studies her face in profile. There’s a vulnerability in the way she says it, not the wide-eyed spirituality of the culty corners of Los Angeles, or something yoga Instructors peddle, but something searching.
They’ve come here for a reset. But relationships aren’t a computer simulation you can just reboot.
The cabin stands like a secret at the edge of the forest. A modest A-frame, half-swallowed by snow, crouching beneath the tall trees. Its roof is slouched under the weight of ice, its windows, fogged and blind, reveal nothing of what lives inside. The clearing around it is quiet. No hum of electricity. Just wind in the trees and the distant, glacial creak of the lake shifting in its frozen bed.
Eli steps out first. His boots sink into the snow with a crunch that sounds too loud. The cold pinches his skin. Selene joins him, silent, her hood drawn up. They move in practiced rhythm as they unload their bags. There is no urgency. No city energy. It’s like the cabin has already begun rewiring their tempo.
Inside the bedroom, she unpacks without ceremony. Folded sweaters. A journal. A scarf with a coffee stain from three years ago. Each item, placed in the dresser as if the cabin were their home now.
Eli stands in the doorway, arms crossed. Watching.
He thinks: She’s calmer here. Lighter. Like the pressure that hung from her shoulders in the apartment had evaporated with the altitude.
He wants to say something. Something reassuring or tender. But words feel like clutter here. So he just watches.
In the living room, Selene is setting up the tripod with the meticulous attention of a surgeon. Her eyes flick between the LCD screen and the window. Outside, the icy lake gleams with a soft blue sheen beyond the frosted glass, like a painting that doesn’t know it’s dead.
She’s adjusting settings now, scrolling through menus, custom intervals, and manual exposure settings. Her fingers move fast, too fast. Eli knows this version of her well, absorbed in the machine.
He watches, then says, “I thought the whole point of this trip was to get away from all this.”
She glances over her shoulder, her smile faint but warm. “I’m doing a time-lapse.”
“Of what?”
“The sunrise. The sunset. Through this window.” She turns back to the viewfinder. “It might look beautiful.”
There’s something in her tone. Soft.
“I thought maybe it’d be nice to remember this place. This moment.”
Eli nods. The truth is, he’s moved by it. Not the camera. But her need to capture something. As if this weekend could be proof they were once in love again. That they remembered how. He feels calm. Yes, this was the right choice, he thinks.
He looks outside, where the sky had already started to turn.
“Wanna go see some actual nature before we lose the light?”
Selene doesn’t look up. Her thumb scrolls deeper into the settings menu, her expression focused, distant. Obsessed, almost. She’s somewhere else. Not gone. Just… transported.
“Yeah. Just… give me one more sec. I wanna make sure I get this part right.”
He stands there a beat longer, letting the moment imprint itself. The pale blue glow of the window. The stillness in her shoulders. The way she disappears into a task, whole and wordless.
He feels her slipping away.
And he wants to remember.
The lake is silent and endless, a white plane locked beneath ice and time. Snow falls slowly, lazily, as if unsure whether to land. A wooden bench, old and silvered by years of storms and sun, sits at the edge of the shore.
Eli sits beside Selene, their coats bundled tight around them, their bodies close but not touching. He watches the horizon, where ice meets sky, and feels a strange stillness inside of him.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says, his voice low, almost absorbed by the wind.
Selene doesn’t turn to him, but she answers. “It’s okay.”
“No, really,” he says. “I pictured you walking away in my head, and it just... hit me.”
He watches the way the wind teases the ends of her hair. How she doesn’t look at him. He continues anyway.
“I wouldn’t trade this. Any of it. I’d fall apart without you.”
He means it. More than he can say. Not just because she grounds him, but because without her, the world seems indecipherable. He hadn’t realized how much of his map she had become.
“I never meant to make it seem like work came first,” he adds, quieter now.
Selene gives a small smile. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Don’t shit where you eat. Isn’t that what they say?”
Eli chuckles under his breath. The laugh feels brittle in the cold. But something about her tone, the dry humor, the detachment, worries him. As if she’s already a little farther away than he can reach.
“I mean it,” he says, his voice softening. “I’ll do anything for you. You’re…”
He trails off. Because the truth feels too large to put into words. Because he’s scared saying it might make it real.
Then Selene shifts. Her at tention sharpens. She leans forward slightly.
“Shh. Look.”
Eli follows her gaze toward the tree line. A red fox steps out from the woods, its coat dusted with frost, its breath curling in the air like smoke. It walks with silent confidence across the snow, each paw fall delicate, deliberate.
Eli holds his breath. Selene slowly lowers herself, her movements calm, unthreatening.
“Hey… it’s okay,” she murmurs. “Don’t be scared.”
Eli watches, wide-eyed. “Hey, buddy. Why aren’t you afraid of us?”
“He’s probably never seen people,” Selene says. “Doesn’t know we’re something to fear.”
The fox pauses just feet from them. Then, without flinching, it steps close enough that Selene can gently run her hand along its back. Her touch is featherlight, reverent.
“Wish we were like you,” she whispers. “Nothing to fear. That’s right. Nothing to be afraid of.”
The fox tilts its head. Then, as silently as it came, it turns and slips back into the trees. Gone.
A deep stillness settles over the bench, over the lake, over them. Eli looks at Selene, at the faint glow in her eyes, and wishes he could hold this moment in amber. He thinks it might be the happiest he’s ever felt. Not the kind of happiness that’s loud or full of movement, but the kind that just is. Uncomplicated. Complete. A fleeting clarity of purpose and presence.
But even now, even here, a small shadow stirs in him. The fear that beautiful moments exist only to be remembered.
“You see that place on the way up?” he asks. “The one with the handmade signs?”
Selene glances at him, her mouth curving slightly. “What about it?”
“I swear I saw chocolate mousse cake in the window.”
She arches a brow. “Don’t drive out there. What if it gets dark?”
“Yeah… but cake, though.”
She laughs, genuine this time, a soft burst of warmth in the cold.
“Just be careful. Please.”
He nods. She stays seated on the bench as he walks back toward the SUV. He doesn’t look back, not yet. But part of him wants to. As if he knows, somehow, this moment should be savored.
The forest road is narrower in the dimming light. Trees lean in from both sides like sentinels growing more suspicious by the mile. Snow begins to fall thicker now, the kind that swirls in confused loops before hitting the windshield and melting on contact. Shadows stretch longer across the icy ground and visibility drops.
The road winds, a snake of white through the tightening dark. The GPS has lost signal. Eli drives by memory and instinct.
He doesn’t know why, but something begins to gnaw at him. A subtle, irrational panic. Not urgent yet. But present. Growing.
By the time he returns, the forest is black.
The headlights cut through the darkness like blades, slicing across the A-frame cabin that now feels alien. No lights on. No glow in the windows. No movement.
His stomach tightens.
He parks.
The air is deathly still. Snowflakes cling to his lashes as he makes his way to the door. The cabin feels like a room that’s been abandoned just moments before he arrived.
He pushes open the door. Inside, it’s dark. And cold. And quiet in a way that feels wrong.
“Selene?” he calls.
Nothing.
He steps farther in. Something about the silence makes him instinctively lower his voice, as if trying not to disturb something already listening.
He checks the kitchen. A single glass is in the sink.
The bathroom. Empty.
Bedroom. Empty.
His pulse beats faster.
He pulls out his phone, dials Selene. Listens.
Voicemail.
Calls again. Same thing.
He stands still for a moment, then moves to the fireplace and dials again, this time to someone else. His voice is tight now, trying to stay calm.
“Hi, yeah, I’m at a rental cabin in Emerald Lake. I was with my girlfriend. I stepped out for just a minute, and when I got back… she was gone.”
He listens.
“Yes, I’ve called her. No answer.”
Another pause.
“She wouldn’t just go out for a walk. Not out here. This isn’t like her.”
His throat dries. He suddenly feels completely awake.
“Okay. So what do I do?”
The phone call ends. The room seems darker than before.
He throws on his coat.
He doesn’t realize it yet, but he is no longer in the same world as before.
He steps into the night.
The snow falls harder now.
The beam of his flashlight slices through the dark, pale and narrow, swallowed at the edges by black pine and deepening snow. Eli moves through the forest with clumsy urgency, his boots crunching against the hard crust of ice beneath each step. The cold is biting now, not just in the air but in his throat as well, all of the way down deep into his joints. His breath fogs around his face like smoke from a dying fire.
Somewhere behind the trees, he hears the faint hush of skis gliding over packed snow. Lights bounce in the dark, headlamps. A family emerges into view: two parents and a teenager, gliding along the cross-country trail like ghosts.
He stumbles toward them, nearly slipping, his phone already up, the screen lit with Selene’s photo.
“Hey, sorry,” he says, panting. “Have you seen this girl? She was wearing a white coat.”
The father leans closer, glances at the image. His expression softens with practiced pity. “Sorry. Haven’t seen anyone.”
They disappear into the trees, gliding effortlessly away while Eli stands alone, listening to the sound of their skis fade into the dark.
Back at the cabin, the heat hasn’t kicked in. Eli storms inside, face red, fingers stiff, his phone already pressed to his ear.
“Hi… yeah, I called earlier. About my girlfriend.”
He paces the small space, every corner of the cabin feeling too tight, too quiet.
“She’s still not back. No, she didn’t just turn up.”
He moves past the window, not even seeing the view. His reflection stares back at him, haggard.
“Yes. I’d like to file a missing persons report.”
There’s a pause. His jaw clenches.
“No, I’m not waiting any longer. This isn’t one of those things.”
He presses his fingers to his forehead, trying to keep his voice steady. “Then put me through to someone who can help. Please.”
A soft mechanical click echoes behind him.
He stops.
Turns.
The time-lapse camera. Still mounted by the window, its little red light blinking, tireless, unblinking. It hums faintly, dutifully capturing moments no one is watching.
Eli walks to it slowly. His breath catches. He hits stop. Then rewind. Frame by frame, he begins to scroll back through time.
Snow.
Trees.
The frozen lake.
Empty window.
More snow.
A shifting reflection. Then—
One frame.
He freezes.
Selene.
Naked.
Her body is pale and luminous in the fading dusk. No coat, no shoes. Her hair sticks to the sides of her face like seaweed, damp and still. She moves toward the lake. Her arms slack at her sides. Not walking with intention. Just… drifting.
The next frame… she’s gone.
Eli’s hands shake. The phone slips from his grasp and hits the hardwood floor with a sharp, indifferent crack.
He crashes out of the cabin like it's on fire. The cold rips at him as he sprints through the snow. The wind is rising now, snow flying like ashes, erasing his footprints as he runs.
The frozen lake opens before him, pale and vast. The wind howls across it, low and mournful. He stumbles onto the ice, slipping once, then catching himself.
There. A glint. Something faint, small, embedded just beneath the ice.
He drops to his knees, scraping at it with numb fingers. It takes effort just to get his gloves off. He digs and digs until finally he pries it free.
Her phone.
His throat tightens.
He lifts his head and sees it.
A hole in the ice.
Jagged at the edges. Just wide enough for a person to fall through.
He approaches, every step calculated, careful. He crouches by the edge, the cold radiating from the opening like breath from a deep wound.
