The Bellwether Monster
by Ramsés Dávila-Luna at The Writer’s Cavern
Deep in the slopes of Mount Watkins, Silas Weaver, 45, sweated in the summer heat as he set his backpack down at the entrance to Snow Creek Cabin, nestled within Yosemite National Park. The cabin’s red paint job was fading, and the walls looked like they could collapse at any moment. Only the front door and the giant lock tied to it seemed sturdy. The structure stood on small stilts, and you could make out the underside.
Silas the writer was a real weasel-looking prick. His neighborhood friends called him The Sneak because his porky face made others instantly think he was always moving to commit his next vulgarity. Everyone in the neighborhood hid tools, brooms, and anything else someone could pick up and carry away. Once Silas got hold of something he wanted to steal, his small size made him more agile and much harder to catch. He was like a cockroach that could flatten and contort its body through the smallest crevice to succeed in his next escape.
The dice had finally landed on snake eyes. Silas was a brand-spanking-new writer who had just hit it big with a short-story publication called The Real Mofos. The story was an international success, reaching over six hundred million readers in just two weeks. Online traffic crashed his website multiple times, and Silas had to hire a personal computer engineer for routine maintenance as donations flooded his account.
You can’t steal views. Once you earn them, you want more. And more. And more.
The world went mad for the story. Fishermen in Alaska stopped fishing for a week and formed reading groups on the docks to analyze Silas’s prose. A Pentagon official phoned Silas to warn him that if he kept writing like this, he’d need a 24/7 security team to protect the country’s creative national security interests. The Stock Exchange dipped on purpose as an ode to his short story. Publishing companies that had ignored his query letters for the last five years were suddenly paragliding toward his driveway.
On the home front, Silas’ ex-wife reached out after ten years of no contact when she read the piece; she canceled his child support payments and finally admitted to Silas that the baby wasn’t his. His old friend, whom he had stolen money from before, showed up at his door and forgave him; the story’s impact was so powerful that he took the blame for the missing money. The talent on display was too invaluable, and a measly eight thousand dollars between the two friends was just another casual buck to turn the page on the next chapter of their friendship. The world had suddenly forgiven Silas for being the grimiest and most shameless scoundrel for the last twenty years of his life.
One story. One hit. The world's emptiness filled with clicks.
For Silas, the reaction was too much to handle. His social media accounts had gone off the rails with notifications of little heart likes and comments. Years ago, he’d tried his hand at writing, but the world barely noticed. That indifference still stung. He’d never let the wound heal. Maybe out here in the woods, he could finally figure out what he owed to himself and track the debts the world owed him.
On orders from the National Park Service, Silas had to connect to the log cabin Wi-Fi upon arrival and send a routine message by ten every night to confirm he was okay. The park set these measures to ensure guest safety because the isolated site had seen many mysterious incidents and disappearances.
Silas stared at the disconnected phone, its battery almost drained, and sighed heavily as he opened his notes app to find the password for the cabin’s Wi-Fi, named Bellwether. Silas accessed his contacts and sent the park staff chat line a simple message: “Arrived at the cabin.” In response, a park ranger sent him a blue thumbs-up, then a devil horns emoji. Shortly after, the park ranger chat replied in writing with, “Oops on the devil horns. Have fun out there!”
A flurry of notifications popped up on the phone, and Silas quickly disconnected from the Wi-Fi to go off the grid. He put the phone back in his pocket and felt the pain. The likes called out to Silas. As much as he tried to zone out, he yearned to see the attention coming his way.
Lust for likes when they drive by near the greedy.
Twigs and leaves crunched behind him. Silas looked back at the dry trees and dusty trails. A woman in wet, muddy black clothing slowly crept out of the forest and up to the cabin. She held a thick branch as a walking stick and smiled at Silas the whole way until she was close enough to him. This creature looked like a squirrel, with chubby cheeks and oversized buck teeth.
Admiring Silas little feet, the woman said, “My, you look like you’re ready to tap dance with those cute little things?”
“I don’t dance. I’m just here for a couple of nights. Do people live close by? I thought this place was abandoned,” Silas replied.
“Oh, they all dance sooner or later, Silas,” the woman said, running her branch along Silas's inner thigh.
Silas jumped back in disgust. “Whoa! How the heck do you know my name? Are you another stalker? Get away from me!”
“That’s it. That’s what this place wants - that energy. I can see what you want to be. That’s good. Real good.”
The woman smirked, giggling as she walked away, glancing back at Silas every now and then before vanishing into the forest.
Silas walked up the creaking steps and turned the cabin door lock until it finally gave way. The lock felt heavy and ancient in his hands, covered in hand-drawn images of a horned figure. He stepped inside and dropped his bag. The cabin barely fit a bed, a couch, a battered TV, a stove, a faucet, and a shower crammed next to a toilet. It gave off big prison-cell vibes.
Silas flopped onto the couch and rested, taking in the room's quiet and relishing it. To his surprise, his phone buzzed with notifications of incoming emails and likes on his story post. As much as Silas tried to log off the Wi-Fi, the phone kept reconnecting, and even his battery was mysteriously near full.
“Dang, man. I just wanted to get away, just for once,” Silas told himself.
Frustrated, Silas shoved his phone to the bottom of his backpack so he couldn’t even see it. As he did, a can of chili beans on his backpack’s side pocket rolled out and hit the floor with a thud. He grabbed the can, found the opener in the cupboard, and poured the beans into his foldable pan.
As Silas stirred the chili beans in the pan, the heat warmed them, and he heard a faint whisper. He walked to the window and looked outside, making sure no one was there. Inside the cabin, he kept hearing the whisper until he realized it was coming from near the faucet. He turned on the faucet and let the water run to stop it. Yet again, the whispers came in. Putting his ear close to the sinkhole, he could make out the words more clearly.
“There’s a blessing coming into your life! 222! The stars are aligning just for you! If you stumbled across this message, it’s not a coincidence!” the rapid voice whispered out of the sinkhole as Silas jumped back in fright.
Silas turned off the stove and ran outside, looking under the cabin that sat above the level ground. There was nothing there. As he walked back into the cabin, the television mysteriously turned on, and a series of dance videos played nonstop. Influencer models strutted through their cities, striking extravagant poses for the passersby.
“Don’t ever let anyone stop you from going after your dreams. Tune out the haters. The closer you get to your goals, the more vultures appear in your life,” one of the models onscreen said.
Silas yanked the TV plug and grabbed his pan from the stove. He ate the chili beans in a tense silence. The weirdness was too much to process. Exhaustion blurred his reality. He locked the cabin doors and drew the curtains closed. His tired body gave out as Silas collapsed on the bed and drifted into uneasy sleep.
A few hours passed, and Silas woke to the sound of crying outside his window. By then, it was nightfall, and he opened the curtain to see a dorky man on the porch wearing a sign around his neck that read, "Being Real and Vulnerable." The man cried his little heart out in Oscar-worthy fashion; his tears had extra fluff and fakeness.
“You don’t understand how it feels to be rejected, but you've got to keep waking up, hoping the next day is going to be better. Nobody understands my pain, and I wanted to share that with you and the world. Because I know someone out there is listening and totally gets me,” the dorky man cried out.
Silas opened the front door and walked onto the porch, but the man was gone. He yelled into the forest. “I don’t know what kind of sick freaking game this is! But cut it out!” Nothing answered back, but his words rattled from tree to tree. Silas puffed out his chest and flexed like he was in a bodybuilding competition.
“Yeah, you better run! I’m right here, big boy! I’m ready to play! Is this what you want? You want the guns?” Silas stood on the porch, flexing his muscles as he delivered a dramatic soliloquy to the night.
SOLILOQUY
The traveler keeps what his feet seal. None is ever lost when all kneel.
In this forest, I came to steal attention! Honesty is playing for keeps. No sharing. I keep what I sweep.
This is not weeping. I wear abandonment like a pin, using it to overreach.
When the eyes on my life track transgressions, every like that comes my way will be my new zeal!
Me! Me! Me!
My writing captures essence, and when they read mine, they’ll be lost in likes in all directions!
END SOLILOQUY
From deep in the forest, slow, deliberate clapping echoed through the trees. Each clap was heavy and theatrical.
“Show yourself! Coward!” Silas yelled out.
A squeaky horn broke the silence. As Silas squinted to make out what was out there, a clown popped out behind a tree and just stared at him.
Silas panicked. His legs scrambled as he bolted back into the cabin. He slammed the door shut and leaped onto the bed. Outside, he heard the clown’s footsteps thumping up the steps and shuffling across the porch.
Honk-honk-honk! Squeak-squeak, honk-honk-honk! SQUEAK! SQUEAK! The clown played the iconic “La Cucaracha” beat on the squeaky horn.
Clowns were his kryptonite. The horror overwhelmed Silas, and he blacked out.
The next morning, Silas reached for his phone and immediately called the park ranger hotline. The ranger hotline had a strange waiting line tune that played the sounds of a bonfire. Wood chips crackled and sizzled. A meditative voice spoke in the background: “You know who you are. Just breathe in and out. Slowly. You’re an icon-.”
“Park service. Yellow!” a ranger picked up on the other line.
“Red? Code red. You guys get reports of strange activity up here at all? I saw like a whole family worth of people up here last night. Did you guys schedule a high school reunion up here?” Silas told the ranger.
“Look, how in the heck are you going to have the guts to hike alone all the way up there, and now you’re bitching and moaning about noises you’re hearing at night? You want us to get you? Just say the word.”
“I’m not a bitch, okay. I reserved this place for some peace and quiet.”
“You signed off on a waiver, Silas. You let us know you were all there. Sounds like you’re not to me.”
“Hey, screw you! I’m a grown man, and I can handle my own!” Silas said, angrily hanging up.
Silas trembled as he held his phone. More notifications shot in. He managed to read a notification message from a user named HotCougarThirsty that read, “Marry me. I am in love with your writing!”
When someone falls in love with your writing, your real personality bites back.
He fixated on the text and imagined all the hearts he could break. The likes could turn into false love. Little red hearts could turn into real heartbreak. A need to write on the page won Silas over. To steal hearts.
Silas pulled his laptop from his backpack and began typing away. Hours passed effortlessly, and the words shot from his spirit as heavy stamps to the weak hearts he wrote for. The sprint distracted him from all the strange happenings. His words were calling cards. Each paragraph hid its own meaning, drawing a distinct weak soul his way. This was a different type of steal, and Silas couldn’t get enough of it.
Satisfaction coursed through Silas as he mapped out the addictive design of his next story. He spotted a baseball bat beneath the bed and glanced toward the door. His latest burst of prose deserved fresh air. He grabbed the bat, stepped outside, and found the coast was clear.
Silas wandered into the woods feeling like a champion. His limbs turned to spaghetti as he broke into a clumsy shuffle dance, incorporating the baseball bat into his choreography. Catching himself, he stopped abruptly and tried to regain his composure.
Bird droppings splattered onto Silas’s shoulder. He gagged at the stench and glanced up to find the older woman from yesterday perched high in the branches above him.
“So, you are a player, just like the rest of them. I saw you tap those little shoes together,” the woman told Silas.
Silas pointed the baseball bat at the woman menacingly. “You’re the one that’s been doing this to me! I came here for quiet time! You stole my peace and quiet. I don’t like it when others steal from me!”
“You came here to find the real you. It hurts, doesn’t it? Your writing is special. You stole my heart at the prologue.”
“This is my final warning! You leave me alone!”
The woman sprang from the branch, morphing into a raven as she swooped away. “Nevermore!” she cawed, vanishing into the trees.
“You’re a bird now? No way! What is this place?” Silas shouted, swinging the baseball bat into the air in disbelief.
The raven circled overhead, and Silas collapsed to the ground, his body twisting and shifting through the forms of the park ranger, the weeping actor, the clown, the raven, and the old woman. One by one, he became everyone he had ever stolen from or scarred. Each transformation tormented him with pain as his original self flickered in and out of shape. When he finally staggered to his feet, his eyes were entirely black.
The dead, camera-ready gaze. A viral close-up.
The new Silas walked back into the cabin and kept hacking away at the rest of his writings. The words never stopped pouring out, like a fountain of life. He was sure that he had homed in on the writing voice and tone of his next masterpiece.
His cell phone slithered into his hands. He liked and commented on all the praise, even shot back sarcastic remarks at the haters. He laughed to himself as he propped his phone up nearby to record a selfie video of himself typing away, captioned: When the words control you, and you can’t stop the fever. The writing was so majestic that the night flooded in like magic.
Beastly forces now governed the writer. When Silas looked back at the on-screen page, he was sickened by the words he had typed. Phrases like “hella cool,” “lol,” “deadass,” and “cap” scattered throughout his otherwise polished, highly educated prose. He slammed the laptop shut in anger, unable to believe he’d written such drivel.
A writer who loved to let go of the intellectual. It hurt less.
The disconnected television turned on, showing videos of a man walking through Central Park in New York and pulling fake fart pranks. The next video showed a married couple faking a domestic abuse incident to one of their close friends.
Outside, a flurry of tiki torch lights turned on. Silas walked outside as countless Skinwalker-like figures danced in unison like a flash mob. At the center, the bird-woman-monster-thingy waited for him.
“Don’t fill their void. Just write to win over more,” the woman told Silas.
START AURA BATTLE
The woman broke into the Abraham Lincoln Memorial pose. Silas meditated with his legs crossed and hit the Gandhi pose. Stone lost to Zen.
Chubby cheeks gathered herself and cat-walked toward Silas. With one deep gaze, she hit him with the Zoolander pose. The crowd erupted in cheers. In a calm rebuttal, Silas slowly transitioned into the Goku Squat and hit level nine thousand.
She motioned for her next pose but tripped and fell. Silas stood over her and hit the Selfie Stick pose, ending the battle with a nuclear blast.
Lathered in glory, Silas held his winning pose as the woman transformed into a full-on witch, who hovered on a broom near him.
END AURA BATTLE
“Accept who you really want to be. Are you going to let the world waste more years of your writing life?” the witch told Silas as she dismounted and knighted him with her broom. “I now crown you an influencer writer!”
The flash mob howled and danced the night away with Silas as they all created new dances together.
The next morning, Silas woke to a knock at his door. A fuzzy feeling lingered that it had all been a bad dream.
On the porch, the park ranger told Silas, “You alright, bud? We didn’t get a text from you last night. I thought I'd come in and check on you since you’re supposed to leave today either way. I’ll take you down with me like royalty in my UTV.”
“I’m ready to go,” Silas replied, clutching his laptop and power cord. His next masterpiece was in the machine, ready to unleash on the world as soon as he got home. This work would hit critical mass and infect Gen Z, Millennials, and Boomers alike. None of them could handle his writing waves, but they would learn to love his work.
Silas left the cabin with the ranger on his buggy. All the way down, he accepted he was a piece of shit sellout, just like he’d always been. His six hundred million views hadn’t come from talent, but from intentionally riling up the weak minds that read his work. For Silas, the stealing of minds had always mattered most.
Before he stepped out of the buggy, the ranger extended his hand to Silas. The ranger’s hand now transformed into a red devil’s claw. Silas shook it without thinking as the ranger told him, “You write for the likes now. Be true to yourself.”
Silas looked back at the ranger, now in full devil form with horns, and said, “I’ve always known I am a monster.”
THE END.
Copyright © 2026 The Writer's Cavern by Ramsés Dávila-Luna at The Writer’s Cavern LLC. All rights reserved.