Dark Fantasy · Horror · The Plot Calls Anthology · Oktober 01, 2025

The Plot Calls #42 : "The Plot Called"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

____

“What do you think, Gunn?” Marcus Serling asked. “Did you think I was making it up? I told you, something bigger is going on here. I chase these things for a living. The Sideways is real.”

Detective Gunn crossed his arms. “I know, Marcus. And I get it. But this doesn’t make sense to me. The Sideways? The Bone Lantern? I don’t understand this. And it doesn’t quite explain the plot, you guys.”

Marcus sighed. “I’m sure the thing—the One Beneath—is an entity from, or in, the Sideways. Like I said about my source, they can only tell me so much. But based on the clues and what he could say, I’m sure we’re dealing with something that’s opening portals into our reality—life—whenever someone willing to make a pact calls it.”

“And if it is? What do we do?” Gunn asked. “I can’t shoot at a thing from a parallel dimension. How do I explain that in a report? I can’t just write, ‘Fired two rounds at entity beneath portal that looks like soil, but suspect is metaphysical. Turned sideways. Vanished. Not apprehended.’ There’s a process, procedure, and entire chain of command to my work. Everything I do goes to someone, and they have to answer to someone else for my actions.”

“Sounds exhausting,” Sam said, leaning back in his chair.

“It’s necessary. When the system works, corruption is thwarted. Corruption corrupts, so checks and balances keep the unfit from staging events, causing riots, coups, mass fraud, and things like that. As exhausting as it looks from the outside, imagine a world where I could have a badge and gun and run around freely—without any oversight or anyone to answer to. It’s like an elected official who strategically removes necessary limits to their power because they want the title without actually being of service, as required by the work,” Gunn explained. “It’s chaos. It’s living in a fantasy where authority is measured by who allows it—and, let me tell you, boys—that’s how you get revolutions. People don’t like authority as it is, so layering it with practical bureaucracy is a necessary evil… That said…”

“That said, what?” Sam asked, reflecting on Gunn’s insight. He leaned over his desk, inquisitive.

“Suppose the Plot is called by people, as we’ve deduced. The only real solution is what you guys have already been doing—warning people through entertaining content. Giving them something that, in theory, should make them stop and look in the mirror in some way. What else can possibly be done?” Gunn asked.

Sam made a distinct face—like he was examining something he knew but never thought of consciously. He kicked his feet up and shrugged. “Yeah… changing people… that’s not likely, Detective. I never told you… but… I went idle. I was a Plot Person—full-on Idle Man.”

Gunn shook his head. “Never would have imagined that, Sam. What did you feed the Plot?”

“Nothing. There are things Marcus and I still don’t understand. My degradation into a Plot Person came from sloth. Something in my soul broke when my grandfather died. I just ate chips, watched TV, and sat on my couch. I had my inheritance. The bills were paid… then one day, a tape came… I watched it—it was me dying in the hallway. Then, more tapes came—personally delivered by an Idle Man…”

Gunn gasped.

“I watched and watched, and watched,” Sam continued. “Eventually, I had on black robes and just moved mindlessly. I was hollow. Idle. I remember all of it, but while I was going through it, it was like being drunk in a dream. Then, as a Plot Person, I witnessed myself receiving the tapes of my death from myself. And something kept calling out to me. Something in me was helping me—keeping me from calling the Plot. It was teaching me something I can’t quite explain… I watched myself die, I became hollow, and delivered those visions of my death… and then,” Sam paused. He reached into the laptop bag slung on his chair. “Then… this appeared.”

Sam held up the flashlight. “Porcelain… heavier than you'd expect. There was a note—from my grandparents. Both of them. The moment I touched it… it was like I woke up. Like the Plot’s grip slipped.”

The men were silent. Contemplative.

“Funny thing…” Sam said, tapping the porcelain flashlight. “I always thought this looked like that lantern your grandfather mentioned in his tapes—the Bone Lantern, right? Look at it. This looks like ivory.”

Marcus’ eyes narrowed. “It’s not a coincidence.”

Gunn sighed. “Flashlight aside, boys—that explains why all Sam’s stories have happy endings, unlike the ones I’ve been telling you about, where there’s a death, disappearance, or an Idle Man turning sideways.”

“Yeah—I guess. Who knows,” Sam said. “If I came back from being an Idle Man, maybe a person turning into one is a temporary thing. Maybe there’s one Idle Man for every particular thing that opens the Plot portal.”

Marcus crossed his arms. “I never thought of that…” he said, lost in thought. “Either way, Sam, that light you got was one I lost when I first entered the Room with No Corners. I flung it, and this one cut through the darkness. It’s weird. You became an Idle Man and wandered the Sideways… possibly the Abyss…”

“The Abyss?” Gunn asked, frowning.

Marcus’ expression darkened. “Don’t… chase that yet.”

“What do you mean, ‘yet’?”

Sam cut in. “Trust me, Gunn—you don’t want that door opening.”

Marcus smiled and nodded. He glanced at Sam, then at Detective Gunn.

“And what's your story with this, Marcus? Did you go idle—or Plot Person—or whatever we’re calling those bald, pale things?” Gunn asked.

“No,” Marcus responded. “I saw the—I mean an—Idle Man when I was working for Encrypt Corp. There was a room on the maintenance log. I went to change a light, and it was like a switch in reality flipped. I saw a porcelain hand reaching from the darkness… an Idle Man appeared in the darkness, over the porcelain hand, extending its arms. Then, this light appeared. It’s like the one I used to have that Sam found, but this one—as you can see—is like a heavy-duty version.”

“Interesting. The Plot…” Detective Gunn muttered, trailing off. “All of this can’t be a coincidence. Then… that name, Priscilla Prestige. It’s come up. A lot.”

Marcus rubbed his chin. “Now that you mention it… some of Sam’s anonymous content sources say they heard something about the vessel of Prestige. My sources in the Sideways have told me what they can, but…”

“But… well, how do we stop the Plot? How do we put an end to this?” Gunn asked, interrupting Marcus’ trailing speech.

“We can’t directly stop the One Beneath from being called by humanity’s evil—since that’s a personal thing, and people choose how far they go. But we can identify who this Priscilla Prestige is, and what all those cryptic messages about a vessel might be,” Marcus responded. “If there’s something using a portal and it’s searching for a vessel, then finding any correlations seems crucial, right?”

Detective Gunn nodded. “Sam, thoughts?”

Sam smirked. “Just one,” he said, holding back a laugh. “The Plot Thickens.”