you were only ever taught to show your teeth when you smile. it never occurred that you could use them to rip skin. that lesson became your own.

fear replaced your conscience, so you used it as gasoline. you stand in the ashes and the blood. you scream at nothing and everything. the air exiting your lungs is proof that you made it.

but there is no finish line here, no trophy. no god. no paradise. only you and the whites of your eyes. your scabbed legs ache like fire and remind you that you chose to live.

what of the others?

they struggled like you did, but the choice wasn’t theirs. there is no glory in the spaces they left behind. only men find pride in tragedy.

they did not die so you could live. you felt the pain of your own rebirth. you made mortality your bitch.

survivor’s guilt will become survivor’s gangrene. you will wash the blood off, but it will always stain. calloused skin will coat your heart.

whispers around you will claim that it was only luck that saved you. but you know better. lift up your dirtied hands and laugh at how the world shudders.

it is not luck that saved you. it was you.

These images were taken by police chief Jeff Greenhaw. The entity has been called the Falkville Metal Man and was encountered in Falkville, Alabama on October 17th, 1973. Greenhaw received a call from an anonymous woman around 10pm; she reported seeing a UFO fall and crash on the property of a man named Bobby Summerford. Upon leaving to investigate, Greenhaw remembered to grab his Polaroid camera, which is how we have these images. Once he got to the location, everything seemed to be normal. But after a few hundred yards of walking along a trail, he saw this humanoid figure that appeared to be made of metal. Startled by the camera’s flash, the Metal Man charged Greenhaw. He later noted that the entity moved as though it had springs on its feet, unlike anything human. Greenhaw got into his truck and managed to speed away and lose the creature. In the months following the sighting, bad luck befell the police chief: he lost his job, his marriage crumbled, and his house was burned down.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈.