The Dark Side of New York

It started with the smell.

Not the usual New York mix of exhaust, halal carts, and warm garbage. No, this was deeper. Fainter. Like rotting flowers left too long in a sealed crypt. It wafted up through subway grates in lower Manhattan, clinging to your coat long after you left the platform. Most people ignored it.

But Isaiah Cruz noticed everything. He was the kind of guy who scribbled in notebooks at 3 a.m., who walked home without headphones because he liked to listen to the city breathe. A grad student in Urban Anthropology at NYU, Isaiah had a thesis to finish—and an obsession to chase.

He wasn’t researching architecture or infrastructure. His subject was more elusive:

The people New York forgot.

And he had just found something big.


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The Mile That Disappeared

Late one night, Isaiah stumbled into a buried thread on Reddit. Username “ratking22” had uploaded grainy maps and whispered stories of a place the MTA didn’t list anymore: an abandoned subway line below Canal Street, sealed since the 1970s.

They called it Mole Mile.

Supposedly, the city had shut it down after a tunnel collapse killed dozens. But no death records existed. No public statement. Nothing. Just rumors: that the tunnels were used to "cleanse" the streets. That people who went down there… didn't come back.

Isaiah felt something coil in his chest. He couldn’t say why, but he knew: this was the story.

Three days later, he found the door.


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The Locked Gate

The entrance was hidden behind a utility closet in the Franklin Street station. Rusted. Unmarked. Chained with a padlock that broke with one snap of his bolt cutters.

What lay beyond wasn’t a tunnel. It was a void.

Isaiah stepped into pitch black. Even the rats stayed away. The concrete walls were damp and slick with something cold. Tiles along the floor were cracked, but some had bite marks—not like rats, but bigger. Human-sized.

He walked. One block. Two. Then the beam of his flashlight hit something that made his knees buckle:

A wall covered in missing persons flyers.

Dozens of them. Handwritten. Faded. Torn at the edges. Each one with a name and face no one had seen in decades.

Except one.

His own.


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The Mirror That Lied

Heart pounding, Isaiah turned—only to find he wasn’t alone.

In the shadows stood a tall figure in a tattered trench coat. At first, he thought it was a man.

Then he saw its face—or rather, the lack of one.

Skin stretched smooth like clay. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. Just a blank mask of flesh, glistening under the dim light. It didn’t move. It only pointed.

Isaiah followed the gesture to the opposite wall, now lined with mirrors. Old. Cracked. Warped.

But none of them reflected him.

Instead, each showed a different version—some gaunt, some bleeding, some staring back in terror. One pounded its fists against the glass, as if trapped behind it.

Isaiah stumbled backward and ran.


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The City That Forgot Him

He didn’t stop until he reached his apartment on 10th Street. But the key didn’t fit. His name wasn’t on the buzzer. The landlord said he didn’t live there.

Confused, he called his mom.

"Who is this?" she asked.

He checked his phone. All his contacts were gone. His social media accounts were blank. It was as if he never existed.

In the bathroom, he looked in the mirror. His reflection stared back.

And then… smiled.

He didn’t.


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The Hollow Men

That night, he dreamed of the faceless man again—standing in a chamber beneath the city, surrounded by others like him. They whispered in unison:

"We are what the city forgot. We are what it buried to grow. Remember us… or join us."

He woke drenched in sweat. On the wall, scrawled in black ash, were the words:
"YOU WERE CHOSEN."


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One Week Later

A flyer appeared on a Chinatown lamppost. A missing student.
Isaiah Cruz, age 26.
Last seen entering the Franklin Street station.

No one paid attention. People vanish all the time in New York.

But in the tunnel beneath the city, another flyer is pinned to the wall.
Fresh. Smudged. Still wet.

And just beyond it, in the dark: the faceless man watches.

Waiting for the next one.


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🎙️ Author’s Note:

New York doesn’t just forget people.
It feeds on them.

And if you listen closely in the tunnels at night…
You can hear them whispering your name.