Beautiful agony dailmotion

Actually i have no place to say those words but i have to get them out of me .. Guys you should always do everything with love love everything your work love your caring You should really care about people and show them that you care about them don't let it be a secret And take some one pain or agony seriously everything may lead to a consciousness that you can't deal with anymore.. Im sorry if i ruined anyone day after this massage but i really had to throw this words out of my heart before i go somewhere better than this...
And if anyone had a question depression is the answer.. And no i can't let my people know what situation im in right now cause nothing they will do can fix me.
Goodbye beautiful eyes that seems this massage 🖤

It is a man, old and scraggy. He wears a jacket that lays over the red plaid button shirt and blue jeans. He wears an old baseball cap and a pair of glasses. He yelled something to Dad, holding his hands up like he was pleading, although we couldn’t hear it over the truck engine. They talked, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“Hey, what are they saying”, I asked, while petting Matt’s hair, calming him. The old man then put his hands down and came close to Dad in a cautious way. They seem to start having some kind of conversation.
“I don’t really know, hopefully, something good”, Mom answered. They talked for a little while, with daylight beginning to disappear, giving us a sense of dread, and making me more worried about what weird creature was going to show up. Eventually, the old man turned and pointed toward what I think is the northeast. They then shook hands and walked back to their respective vehicles. “What’s going on”, Mom asked as Dad got into the truck.
“Well, our new friend here invited us to dinner at his farm”, Dad replied.
“Does he have supplies?”
“Well, he says has supplies for us to make the journey.”
“Should we even trust him? We just met h-”
“Relax, he’s just an old man, living alone at his farm, feeding his cows. What could go wrong”, Dad countered. The old man then entered the truck that was running and drove slowly, expecting us to follow him.
“Alrighty then, but we have to be cautious”, Mom said, with her suspicions of the old man. We then followed the old truck along the dark, frozen road. It just feels like something is going to show up along the road, but nothing happened. Matt did eventually stop crying, but he is still upset about the Joe escape thing.
“Where are we going”, Matt lamented, with the prior series of events in mind.
“I guess somebody is offering us dinner”, I answered.
“Why can’t we just go home?”
“It’s only going to be a stop, like a hotel. After that, we go to our new home, I guess”, I said, taking another look at Matt and cradling to comfort him. “It’s going to be okay.” I stared out into the darkness. I looked to the sky from the window and I faintly saw something in the clear, dark sky, lit up by the waning moon. They were brilliant, green auroras that defy the bright moon, dancing across the sky like ribbons in the wind. The truck eventually took a right-hand turn into another road, with us following suit. I can see a bright, orange light emerging from a patch of tree. When we passed by, it seemed it was a house, at a farm, burning in a massive flame.
“I guess those people aren’t so, uh, lucky”, Dad said, taking a quick look at it before looking at the road. Passing by, we went on and continued to follow the old man’s truck. We passed onto another intersection until he turned into a driveway to what I believe to be his farm. Going into the driveway, I can see an old house, along with a dilapidated farm further away, barely visible by the headlights. The old man parked by the house, where there were a few other trucks there. We parked alongside the truck and we got out into the cold, near-silent night.
“Welcome to sanctuary, where all are welcome”, the old man bellowed. This is the first time I’ve heard his voice. Matt was the last to get out of the truck, slowly and clumsily climbing out of the truck.
“What’s your name”, my Mom politely asked the old man.
“Oh, I guess your husband didn’t tell ya. My name is Steven, but you can call me Steve”, the old man said, with some crackling in his voice. “I am very proud to host a dinner for you and your family”, he continued. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Oh, my name is Janice”, Mom replied, quite pleased at his politeness.
“Hello, Janice, and what are their names”, Steven asked, pointing to me and Matt.
“That’s my daughter Kate and my son Matt”, Dad said to Mom.
“Oh, what wonderful names for a couple of beautiful children you have”, Steve grinned. “Come, it is dangerous out here.” We followed him to the house, which looked like it had seen better days. He entered through the double-set door, the first a solid door and a screen door behind. Entering the house, it smelled like what you’d expect, old man. Looking onto the floor is made of glossy wood and walls with cracks, likely caused by the earthquake. It is dark in there, lit by candlelight from many candles, yet it’s fairly warm here. I don’t know why we went into the house, but Dad was right, Steve is just a lonely, old man. Matter of fact, there seems to be nothing wrong here, other than the cracks in the walls. “Sorry, the power went out. Had to resort to the candles. I knew my wife would come in handy”, Steve explained as he took his coat off. “Oh, supper will be ready right away. Had to use the fireplace to cook. Also, can you take your boots off?” We took our boots and set them aside. We went into what seemed to be a living room, with dusty old-style furniture.
“So, where do we sit”, Mom asked.
“Oh, well, follow me”, Steve commanded, leading us to the dining room, with a long, wooden table and six wooden chairs, along with their corresponding old-fashioned plates, glasses and cutlery, lit up in the candlelight. We noticed that everything on the table was covered in a thin veil of dust. “My apologies, the recent shocks dropped a bit of dust on the table”, he explained as he noticed us looking at the plates and moved into another room nearby. “Take your seats if you like.” We all settled onto the chairs, and blew off our plates of the dust settled there.
“When will we eat”, Matt impatiently said.
“Once Steve comes out with the food”, Mom answered. Matt sat there with a tired look on his face. Dad seemed to be in a better mood than before and it looked like he wanted to start a conversation.
“Hey, should we talk about something”, Dad asked. I then see Steve with a bowl and a silver plate.
“Here we go, may not be much, but at least it’ll fulfil the soul”, Steve said, smiling when he served us mashed potatoes and meatloaf. “So, shall we pray?” That came unexpectedly, as we are not too religious, but we were in his house and gave us shelter and food.
“Sure, we can do that”, Mom said and we all bowed our heads and put our hands together. Steve cleared his throat
“Thank you, Lord, for this good food to feed the soul in these hard times. I shall pray, in the name of the Lord and Jesus Christ, that these hard times shall be over, so we can get on with our lives. Amen.” We raised our heads and grabbed whatever food there was onto our plates. “Oh, there’s no gravy, so we have to deal with bare potaters and meatloaf.”
“Oh, not to worry. Thank you for the food”, Dad thanked Steve. We began to eat the food once we got it sorted.
“So, what brings you here”, Steve asked.
“Well, there is an evacuation order in effect for this area, so we had to go to Regina”, Dad explained, with Steve taking in every word. “So, we came from Strasbourg, we tried going south towards Regina, but we hit an obstacle in the way and we had to take another route, leading us here.”
“And we encountered a few odd things along the way”, Mom added.
“Huh, interesting. What do you guys think is going on”, Steve inquired.
“By the things we saw, we have no idea. Dinosaurs, devil dogs, hell pigs, the whole deal. I shouldn’t forget the earthquake. They told us a pipeline leak caused by the earthquake”, Dad clarified to Steve.
“Hmm… is that so”, Steve wondered. “Wonder what I think is happening? The Rapture is happening. Do you know how the Bible tells us of the end times? Good people sent to be with God and his kingdom, the rest here to suffer the Hell unleashed by Satan.” By this point, he was beginning to rant, but we couldn't stop it as we all began to feel tired and powerless. “So, the Devil will send his demons in the form of these illusions so that they can torment the sinners. It is happening, it is-” Steve manically continued as I drew towards blackness and his voice becoming less coherent. My vision is now all black.
I saw those same lights, but more rapidly than before. I then emerged onto the same clear sky, but something felt different. I can smell something in the air. I can smell what seems to be chemicals in the air. Looking down, I was terrified. Dark, grey rock in the shape of ropes and folds, similar to those I saw of lava flows on a volcano in pictures. This went on as far as the eye could see. I can see no tree this time, just the cooled lava everywhere. I then walked, feeling every bump and crag. I thought I walked forever until I heard a rumbling sound and woke up.
I am in total darkness. It is cold and it smells like cow manure. I tried to move my hand, but it seemed to be bonded behind my back by a rope. I tried to move my feet, but they were also bound by rope to the legs I tried to speak, only to realise my mouth was agape by a cloth in my mouth. I heard shuffling nearby but I could not see. It was then shone in light when Steve entered the door, holding a candle, revealing all of us in the same situation. I then can see what we are in. We are in that same wooden dilapidated barn we saw earlier and seems to be more damaged than the house, wood creaking can be heard.
“These sedatives are more effective than I thought. Maybe I should use them more often”, Steve smoothly explained, like he’s some kind of agent and began pacing. “Wonder why you are here? Well, I wondered the same thing to myself, why didn’t God take me to his heaven? When I first heard of the government telling us of those evacuation plans, I thought it was that, a leaking pipe. I began to notice things I couldn’t believe myself, at least at first. Earthquakes, weird creatures showing up, people disappearing, the whole spiel. I connected the dots. The Rapture is happening, for sure, but why me? Why was I the one left here on this Earth”, Steve calmly ranted, pacing around the barn, but it seemed to sound crazier and angrier the more he paced. “I thought I had lost my way. I’ve been unfaithful to God and his son. But, I realised that God always has a plan and he left me on this Earth to serve a purpose. I wondered what my purpose was until I had a moment.” He then stopped in place and calmed down. He turned to look at Mom with accusing yet crazed eyes.
“I’m supposed to keep the sinners here in line, to earn a place in God’s kingdom, or suffer in Hell. I know you are a sweet woman, Janice, but your treachery with Satan is over and I am going to do what’s right.” Mom then looked at all of us, with assuring eyes like that of an innocent yet caring mother we all know knew. I began crying and trying to speak through the cloth, but I was helpless to watch by. “Forgive me, Father, for what I am going to do.” He then pulled a knife from his pocket and plunged it into Mom’s neck with no mercy. I looked away once he did that, trembling, with tears pouring out and my vision glazed and I fell limp. I could see my brother tearing up, but he did not look away. I can hear Dad behind me, with his screams of agony and anger covered by the cloth. It felt like I was in slow motion, taking in every moment.
I then heard the chair, screeching as Steve dragged the chair containing Mom’s lifeless body towards the door, leaving behind a trail of blood. I couldn’t bear to see my mother like this. I shut my eyes very hard and hoped it would go away. The door then shut, leaving us alone with a candle, fearing what would come next. I stared at the candle, seeing it dance in the flames like a woman dancing in the darkness. Is this how it’ll end, I thought. End up dying to this sick man? My Mom was killed in front of me. I sobbed with that thought, then I began to think about the inevitable death of me. I hope there’s something after I die. Maybe I’ll see Mom again.
It was silent for a while, nearly no sound other than our moans. Dad seems to be fidgeting at the back of his chair, rocking it slowly. Looking past him, I shuddered at the glistening pool of blood, where Mom was last alive, could be my fate. I then see Dad release his arms from the back of the chair and remove the cloth from his mouth. He silently stood up and bent down to untie his legs from the chair legs. He then went to me and removed my cloth.
“H-h-how did you do that”, I silently wept, fearing that Steve would show up at the door and kill us all.
“My binding is loose. The old man probably took a liking to me”, Dad whispered. “I should remove your binds.” He untied them, releasing me, doing the same for Matt. “Now, we need to be quiet.” We then walked, quietly, along the painfully creaking wood in the near dark, following the blood trail, glistening in the candlelight. We cringed and dreaded each sound we made and watched the door in case it began to creak open. A few silent steps later, we made it to the door and we slowly opened it so as not to make any noise. What was revealed to us is nothing new, other than the blood trail continuing in the snow directing towards the back of the barn. “Okay, Kate, Matt, you guys run to the truck.”
“What about you”, I sobbed.
“Don’t worry about me”, Dad responded, giving me his keys and forcing them into my hand. “If I’m not back in a few minutes, leave. Don’t look back, take care of your brother, okay? I love you, no matter what happens.” He then kissed me on the head and ran to follow the blood trail. We quickly walked towards the black truck, stranded there for maybe hours. Getting closer, freedom is getting closer. When we got to a fair distance to the truck, I heard footsteps behind me and, the next thing I knew, I was knocked over to the ground into the hard snow on my face. A hand turned me over to give me a glimpse of a crazed Steve, his eyes wilder than before.
“Oh, yes, trying to escape”, he bragged. I looked at him, frozen in fear, like a deer in headlights and he caressed my face with his bloodied blade. “You do have a pretty face, but I’m afraid you are just one of Satan's creations, made to pull me to lust.” He then raised his knife in the air when a familiar side emerged, out of the blue.
Joe came and bit him in the arm that was holding the knife. Steve screamed in agony the moment he realised what happened. He shook Joe off and stood up to stand his ground. I stood up as Joe hissed and walked around the crazed being he wounded, not in fear but in aggressiveness. “Is this one of your pets, demon”, Steve screamed as Joe came in for another attack, but Steve countered that with a slash to the snout. Joe then ran away, whining, into the darkness. This sequence of events gave me the chance to enter the truck on the driver’s side. I had some trouble starting it, besides this is my first time driving a truck.
Steve menacelily walked towards the when Dad came barreling and tackled him to the ground. Dad was on top when he went limp. I finally put the keys in the engine turned it on and backed out, with memory serving me the instructions on such a vehicle. Steve pushed Dad’s body and stood up, but by that time, we left the farm.
“Turn back, we have to get Dad”, Matt cried, but I was very emotional, accepting what happened. I felt that, without my parents, I feel… useless.
“Dad’s dead”, I screamed at Matt and he began gagging uncontrollably in tears. I began to feel sorry for him. “Sorry, I, I don’t know.”
“It’s okay”, Matt sniffled. “I guess Mom and Dad are dead anyways.” It was silence for a few more minutes, tears welling in our eyes.
“Hey, our parents are in a better place”, I said, trying to make the situation positive.
“But we are stuck here, without them? Don’t we deserve to go to a better place?”
“Don’t say that”, I huffed and I paused for a bit. “I know we are in the, uh, right place now. Let me tell you something, once we get to Regina, I will take care of you, no matter what life throws at us.”
“What about Joe”, Matt asked.
“He’ll be fine. He probably found his girlfriend already.”
“Hey, don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“I, uh, I don’t have one. That I know of”, I spoke, bringing me back to Sam, remembering that she’s the only friend that I ever knew, and I left her. Without her, I felt alone, no one would ever relate. I began to tear up. “I don’t have any friends. I am alone,” I sobbed.
“What do you mean? I’m your brother!” I looked at Matt, and smiled, happy that he acknowledged that we were in this together.
“Thank you”, I thanked him. I slowly stopped on the road, just to hug Matt hard, crying my eyes out. We then heard what sounded like an elephant in front of us. We looked up to see a walking snow-covered brown fur wall with four pillar-like legs in front of us. Its curved tusks gleaned in the light and the eyes reflected in the light. The furry trunk waved around like a searching snake from a tree. We both knew what it was.
“Hey, look at that, a woolly mammoth”, Matt said, excitement running through him. At this point, we weren’t surprised.
“Yep, that is a woolly mammoth”, I added. The mammoth turned to us on the road, seemingly confused about where it was. It looked at our truck and seemed to growl, like an elephant. We are starting to realise this thing is becoming aggressive.
“Uh, should we move”, Matt asked. I remembered hearing something about standing your ground in case of an encounter with an elephant. I hoped it would work for a bigger, furrier version of one.
“No, we have to stand our ground.”
“But, it’ll attack u-”
“Trust me!” I then honked my horn and it backed up. It then rushed, then stopped, a mock charge. Eventually, it moved out of the road, disappearing into the darkness. We sighed in relief.
“That was close”, Matt sighed. I then continued to drive in the night, headlights leading the way. The road is bumpy, as noticed by every ditch and peak we hit, but surprisingly, Matt was fast asleep. I began to get comfortable driving and used to the road by that point. It was silent for a while until we hit a smaller intersection. That is when the truck shut down, completely and stopped. I tried the gas many times but with no effect. There is no light, nothing. It is near-darkness here, shone only by the moonlight.
“Shit”, I yelled, desperate to turn the truck on without much success. Matt woke up, confused.
“What happened”, he yawned.
“The truck turned itself off. I can’t get it back on”, I fretted and at that moment, Matt was just as panicked as I am.
“Why?”
“I-I don’t know. One moment, we were driving, another it just-”, I quavered, when I heard something rustle in the distance. We stood still, hoping whatever it was didn’t find us. I looked around, hoping to see something in the moonlight. I then see a long, walking animal. It looked like some sort of alligator at first, except for a dinosaur-like head. Once I strained my eyes to the darkness, my fear levels rose as I could see it walk on its hind limbs, with its forelimbs dangling nearly touching the ground.
It was wandering around on the road when I heard a near-crocodilian growl at Matt’s side of the truck. Another of those creatures appeared, seemingly looking into the window like a hungry bear, giving us a chance to see its scaly head. Its exposed alligator teeth gleaned in the light like knives, but more terrifying was the eye. Its serpentine pupil shone brilliantly in the light like eyes in the dark. It then ducked down, gave a hiss, and moved towards the other one. A few more showed up and formed a group.
“What should we do”, Matt asked. “Should we stay?” I looked around, hoping for another way to escape them without them noticing. I further strained my eyes and mentally mapped out the area. There is a cemetery on my right-hand side, a grain bin storage yard on my left and a series of trailers on the other side of the highway, which is ahead of us, from the storage area. There, I see a series of white, storage buildings, something we can go to and wait it out inside.
“Okay, so slowly open the door”, I instructed Matt. The click of the doors opening cringed us. We looked at the group, but there was no response from them. We then, as slowly as we could, opened the door and stepped out. Still no response. Matt then quietly ran to the other side, towards me. “Okay, we are going into the storage yard and go to the other entrance”, I said, pointing to the other right-hand corner. I wanted to get as far away from these things as possible before making a safe crossing. “Then, we cross the highway on the other side, run into the buildings and stay there for the night. Are you ready?”
“I guess”, he whispered, looking at me in fearful doubt.
“We are going to do this”, I whispered back. We then silently ran over, having to rely on our night-adapted eyes, to the corner, walking past the bins. We made it and nothing behind us so far. “We’re good so far.” We then crossed the road and noticed nothing. We noticed a tanker truck, leaking some sort of fluid across the road. I easily recognized it as fuel, based on its distinctive, sickly smell. I wouldn’t be worried about it if it weren’t for a collapsed light pole that is somehow still flickering with electricity near the area where the fuel would be flowing. We quickly avoided the fluid when I froze to see the group of the walking alligators, running towards us. “Run!” Matt tried to run, but one of those things appeared and clamped its jaws at the back of his neck. He yelped in pain and it took him down to the ground. “Matt”, I yelled, helplessly watching as the creature tore into him.
Matt reached out his arm before the others came to him, then a flash of fire came. At this point, I knew what happened, but I couldn’t even think before it exploded. It blew me towards the building, far away. I was knocked out for a few seconds before I regained consciousness, groaning in pain on the ice. I noticed something especially painful just below my chest. I reached towards the area with my hand. I pressed on it, more painful than ever and raised my hand, only to see blood, brightened by the fire. I realised I was wounded, maybe by shrapnel made by the explosion.
I looked toward where the truck was and all I saw was a blaze. Those things weren’t there, at least. I also noticed something else, too, there’s no Matt. I tried to look around for something, some sort of sign of my brother within the fire, but I saw none. I then wept, realising I had failed. I have failed to keep him safe. I have failed to give him a better life. I failed him as a sister. I could’ve done better. The thoughts poured in as tears glazed my eyes. At that moment, I failed to look around me.
I noticed a dark thing beside the blaze. I thought it was Matt, preparing to greet him back, even though I knew he couldn’t survive the explosion. The image became clearer and clearer as I noticed it was one of the walking crocs that, glazed by the fire, was coming towards me.
“Just kill me”, I screamed, preparing to painfully die to meet my maker. The creature was about to attack me when something large, silent as the wind, came charging and clamped down its massive jaws, filled with conical teeth on the hapless creature and raised it. The crocodile struggled before going limp with a crunch within its strong jaws. The big, dark and scaly monster that it is towered over me and is as long as a bus, possibly longer. Its large legs are a contradiction to its small arms that hide beneath its scarred, bulky body.
It turned to look at me with an oddly bird-like expression, revealing in the firelight numerous scars from battles I could never know and looked at me with its beady bird-like eyes, breathing out wisps from its nostrils like a dragon in the cool air. I recognized it as a creature I know too well, a T. Rex. I breathed heavily and sickly, looking at the thing, nearly expecting me to drop the body and go after me. Instead, it simply walked away, carrying its bloody prize with it, and steadily retreated into the darkness.
I then lay down in agonizing exhaustion on my back, thinking of the next step of action like I'm on a suicide mission I would never come back from. I looked in the direction of the graveyard and had one thought. I guess I am dying. a graveyard will do. I struggled to stand up, noticing my blood-soaked clothes and felt a broken left leg. I grasped my wound, limping step by step and enduring the sharp pain while shaking in the cold. Every step I took, I remembered all the memories, good or bad, that I had with my parents. My brother. My friends. My family. I eventually reached the cemetery and slouched at a tree.
“Guess I’m joining you, guys”, I said, speaking to the snow-covered gravestones, only to hear something. A familiar sound of chirping emerged and, lit by the blaze, it was a sight I can hope for. “Joe, what are you doing here”, I depressingly cheered as Joe went to me and curled up in my lap as if he were a cat. I noticed the new-found scar he had on his little snout, but I paid no mind as I petted him. “I guess you came back. Thank you so much for what you did”, I thanked him, not expecting such a loyal creature would be with me, comforting me, to the end, like what my mother used to do when I was a newborn. I heard another noise, this time a deep rumble.
I thought it was another earthquake coming, but it got louder the closer it got to me, becoming more animalistic only felt small vibrations I barely felt. Joe stayed put, oddly enough, as T. Rex, different from the first one, came. It walked towards us until it stopped short of us. It began to produce a low-pitched, bird-like purring, attracting Joe. I realised something, that this T. Rex is Joe’s parent. He joined the rest like him, whom they showed up and all chirped around.
The grown Rex then brought its snout closer to me, not to kill me, but to look at me. It did not reveal its teeth and was still purring. I put my hand out and its nose came close to it. It rubbed it against my hand and started to pet its cold, scaly skin as it breathed through its nose and put it on my chest. I rested my head on it before it pulled away. It gave out a hiss, but I knew it wasn’t that of a threat, but more of a thank you for bringing its small, sometimes immature, child home.
That gave me relief, as it felt like I at least did something for once. They walked away, along with Joe, towards the darkness amongst the gravestones in the cemetery. I glimpsed one last desperate look at Joe before walking beside his parent. I looked up at the sky and I could see all the stars, twinkling, and the dancing green auroras. I began to feel limp and felt the cold embrace of death coming over me, tears pouring out of my eyes. The sky then grew brighter and brighter, the stars faded into the light and I could see my family welcoming me to a new home. It then slowly went black, darker than a cave.
You would think this is the end of me. It wasn’t, or else I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I eventually woke up in a hospital in Regina. I was told I was rescued by a team that transported me while I was in a coma. The doctors said I was very lucky to be alive, as the shrapnel narrowly avoided my vital organs. After that, I was adopted into a new family, but I was only with them for a couple of years before finding a new job and moving out.
As for Sam, I don’t know what happened to her. I would like to think she is safe, somewhere else. As for my family, I think of them all the time. I was in a depressive period right after that. Eventually, over the years, I accepted that they were gone and went to a better place. For Joe, I would like to think he is all grown up, like his parents, and becoming the king of the jungle. I hope we meet again.
As for the evacuated area, it wasn’t some pipeline rupture that caused an evaluation, but an anomaly, with the exact reason not known. There are excuses for the claims of weird stuff going on in there, from disease to chemicals, to eventually a previously unknown geological event, but I saw through it all.
You may ask how, it's because I've been there. Take it or leave it, this is the story I have. As the decade came by, cover-ups were made to hide it, even walls were put around it. Since the incident, the exclusion zone grew from a mere 80 kilometers in diameter to 460 kilometers in diameter, emptying entire cities of the likes of Regina and Saskatoon. I had to move to North Battleford, by the recommendation from the same government covering it up, making me think that time will tell before the floodgates of truth open.
The anomaly didn’t have a name initially, however, over the years, everyone agreed on one name in particular: The Saskatchewan Anomaly.

Urartian: Ale (he says) Kurdish: Ale ئەڵێ (he says)
Urartian: Shuri (sword) Kurdish: Shur شوور (sword) Armenian: Sowr
Urartian: Kuri (foot, leg) Kurdish: Qul قول (foot, leg)
Urartian: xur (deep) Kurdish: xuqul/kur خووڕ/قوول/کوور (deep),
Hurrian: agul (carve) Kurdish: 'kol-[în]' کۆڵین : (to digg), kêla: (plow)
Urartian: shini (you, plural) Kurdish: hin هین/هون (you, plural, cf. sh>h a regular sound change in Kurdish)
Urartian: apa (he/she/it) Kurdish: awa, aw/ava, av cf. Kurdish p>w and p>v ئەوە (he/she/it)
Urartian: Sale (kid) Kurdish: Zaro زارۆ (kid) Armenian: jar (he-goat)
Urartian: tali (stick) Kurdish: têla (stick, cf. Kurdish a>ê)
10) Urartian: papi/bab/babani (mountain top) Kurdish: pope پۆپە (head)/ bani بانی (mountain top)
Urartian: qal/kar (kill/slay, subjugate) Kurdish: qir قڕ (kill, slay, cf Kurdish a>i)
Hurrian: shur (war) Kurdish: sher شەڕ (war)
Urartian: bidia (turn) Kurdish: bada-n بادان (turn)
Urartian: da (give) Kurdish: da, دا (give, Iranic and other IE languages have a similar lexeme)
Urartian: xus/hush (throw) Kurdish: xis-[tin]/hawish-[tin] خستن/هاویشتن (throw, cf Kurdish u>i)
Urartian: karbe (rock, stone) Kurdish: karra کەڕا (rock, stone) Armenian: qar (rock, stone)
Urartian: quira (earth, dust) Kurdish: qur, xol قوڕ/خۆڵ (earth, dust)
Hurrian: arte (earth, soil) Kurdish: ard ئەرد/هەرد (earth, soil, cf Kurdish rt > rd)
Urartian: $erab (dry) Kurdish: chora چۆڕا (dry) Armenian: caraw (dry)
20) Urartian: eue (and) Kurdish: u ئوو (and) but see even Iranic ''ut''
Urartian: tur ( to leave) Kurdish: tor-[an], تۆران to leave
Urartian: ul (to go) Kurdish: lu-wan لوان (to go)
Urartian: ulhu (order) Kurdish: ol ئۆل (religion)
Urartian: bura (slave, servant) Kurdish: bora بۆرە (commoner, low-class)
Urartian: xarxar (destroy) Kurdish: xirxal خرخاڵ (destroyed)
Urartian: ale (but) Kurdish: lê لێ (but)
Urartian: duli (grape) Kurdish: trê, tirî ترێ (grape, cf. l>r and u>i) Armenian: toli (grape)
Urartian: kapi (capacity measure) Kurdish: kap/qap کاپ/قاپ (capacity measure)
Urartian: nah (to bring) Kurdish: hên-an/han-în هانین/هێنان (to bring)
30) Urartian: pare (toward) Kurdish: pîr پیر (toward),
Urartian: pile (water canal) Kurdish: pil-û-sk پلووسک (rain canal)
Urartian: tan (lay down) Kurdish: dan-[an] دانان (lay down)
Hurrian: id- (hit, strike) Kurdish: -d- (hit strike); ([lê] d-[an])
Urartian: teq- (to thump, to break) Kurdish: teq-[în] تەقین (to thump, to break)
Urartian: uzgi (power, strength) Kurdish: wuze وزە (power, strength, cf. Kurdish u- > w-)
Urartian: mari (lord, horseman) Kurdish: mir میر (lord, compare also with the Semitic ''Amir'')
Urartian: shu/shia (to go) Kurdish: chu, چوو (to go, cf. also Iranic ''shiyaw'')
Urartian: euri (lord) Kurdish: hêwir هێور (brave)
Urartian: xarari (calm) Kurdish: oqre ئۆقرە (calm), Armenian:
40) Urartian: zar (orchard) Kurdish: zar زار (orchard) Armenian: car (tree)
Urartian: ur (to place down) Kurdish: wer-[in], وەرین (to place down, cf. Kurdish u-> w- )
Urartian: wal, (to win) Kurdish: wêr-an وێران (to dare)
Urartian: zelbi (descendant) Kurdish: zol زۆڵ (bastard)
Urartian: zeld, (to shatter the enemies) Kurdish: zal زاڵ (to shatter the enemies)
Urartian: qarqar (throat) Kurdish: qurg قورگ (throat, compare also with the Irano-Kurdish garû, and Persian galu, there is also another word in Kurdish: qurquroska)
Hurrian: kut/kud (to make fall, to kill) Urartian: qot (piece) Kurdish: kut کوت (piece), kut-a کوتان (to smash), kud (to kill)
Urartian: xubi (valley) Kurdish: qopi قۆپی (valley, vale, plain)
Urartian: xare (to march, to raid) Kurdish: xar غار (to march, to raid)
Hurrian: Hiuri (smoke) Kurdish: Hulm هوڵم (steam)
50) Urartian: $ue (river, lake) Kurdish: chom/gom چۆم/گۆم (rive lake) Armenian: cov (lake)
Hurrian: tiv (word) Urartian: tiw (to speak) Kurdish: diw-an دوان (to speak)
Urartian: abeli/aweli (attach, increase) Kurdish: awale/awela ئاواڵە/ئاوەڵا (open)
Urartian: an, (no) Kurdish: na, نا (no; there is also a similar equivalent in Iranic)
Urartian: ari-beri Kurdish: birin برن (to carry, there is also a similar equivalent in Iranic)
Urartian: ewani/ebani (land) Kurdish: -wan وان (suffix used after place-names)
Urartian: kulune (side) Kurdish: qulin-chk قولینچک/ qurne قوڕنە (side, corner) Armenian: koln
Urartian: man (to stay) Kurdish: man مان (to stay), (resembles even Iranic, cf. New Persian ''mandan'')
Urartian: mana Urartian: me (prohibitive particle) Kurdish: me مە (prohibitive particle)
60) Urartian: pahi (cattle) Hurrian: pedari (cattle) Kassite: badar (bull, cattle) Kurdish: patal پاتاڵ (cattle) Armenian: paxre
Urartian: par, to take off Kurdish: pirr [-dan] پڕ (to take off, cf. Kurdish a>i)
Urartian: kamn (old, earlier) Kurdish: kavn/kawn کەڤن/کەون (old, cf. m>v but also Iranic ''kohan'' which has led to Kurdish ''kon'')
Urartian: pe? (under) Kurdish: pe? پێ (under, foot, cf. even Iranic pey)
Urartian: shid (build) Kurdish: chê-[kirin], چێ (build cf, kurdish d>nil)
Hurrian: awari Kurdish: awari ئەواری (land, country, field, cf. kurdawari, کوردەواری / warê me وارێ مە) (Armenian agarak has been suggested as an Armenian loan from 'awari'. Kurdish has even 'garak' with the same meaning). Urartian: ur (territory)
Urartian: qapqari Kurdish: gamaro (p>w>m cf Kurdish ziman Urartian: sher (hide) Kurdish: sheshar شێر/وەشارتن (hide)
Urartian: quldi (uninhabited) Kurdish: kawil (کاول) (annihilate,destruction)
Urartian: ar- (give) Kurdish: ar- (give, dialectal as in Slêmanî, for example: ''bi-ar-ê'': بیەرێ ''give him'')
70) Urartian: ture (destroy) Kurdish: ture تووڕە (angry)
Urartian: aba (desire) Kurdish: awat ئاوات (desire), aw-in ئەوین (to love)
Urartian: ada (again) Kurdish: idi ئیدی (another, anymore)
Urartian: shal-i (year) Kurdish: sal ساڵ (year, but Iranian ''sard'', New Persian has also ''sal'') Armenian: tari
Urartian: šeh-i/eri/e, living Kurdish: zhiyar ژیار (living)
Urartian: arnu-ia (come to the aid of) Kurdish: hana هانا (come to the aid of, cf Kurdish a- >ha- )
Urartian: lak- (to destroy) Kurdish: Rûx-[an] رووخان (to destroy)
Urartian: 'are (granary) Kurdish: harr هاڕ (granary, cf Kurdish ha-<-a, notice 'zimharr' زمهاڕ, meaning 'winter granary')
Urartian: ieshti (here) Kurdish: hêsthte هێشتە (now)
Urartian: meshe (part, tribute, share) Kurdish: mûche مووچە (part, tribute, share)
80) Urartian: pi$ushe (joy) Kurdish: pishû پشوو (holyday, vacation)
Hurrian: sheshe (six) Kurdish: shesh شەش (six, but it is the same even in Iranic)
Urartian: izidu (admonish, command) Kurdish: ezidi ئێزیدی (name of a native religion in Kurdistan)
urartian: yarani (kind of cultic building, altar) Kurdish: yari یاری (name of a native religion in Kurdistan)
Urartian: aleu (dignity) Kurdish: alewi ئالەوی (name of a native religion in Kurdistan)
Urartian and Hurrian: /-i/, /-iye/ (his, her, its) Kurdish: /-i/, /-y/ ی (his, her, its)
Hurrian: /-v/ (your) Kurdish: /-w/ و (your)
Urartian: ushanu (award, bestow, feel affection for ) Kurdish: wuchan وچان (rest, reprieve)
Urartian: napahia (submission, bondage, domestication) Kurdish: nawi نەوی (low, a low level, position or degree), (p>w)
Urartian: tur (defeat, destroy) Kurdish: dor- دۆڕ (defeat)
90) Urartian: sal-zi (steep, abrupt) Kurdish: sila سڵا (height)
Urartian: sil-e (woman, doughter) Kurdish: selar سەلار (mistress of the house, beautiful woman) (note ''Selardi'', a lunar goddess of Urartu)
Urartian: lutu (woman) Kurdish: lute لووتە (quoquettish woman)
Urartian: uldie (vineyard) Kurdish: lote لۆتە (grapes hanged in order to be sun dried in a vineyard)
Urartian: nikidu (water) Kurdish: niqdo/niqût نقووت/نقدۆ (water infiltration, water dropping, water penetration), (plus some other cognates of the word)
Urartian: kan/kain (in front of) Kurdish: kin کن (in front of, near) (but cf. also Iranic ''kenar'')
Urartian: haš-ia: (be interested in) Kurdish: haz حەز (be interested in, love, like)
Urartian: d-u-: (do, cause to do) Kurdish: da/di: ده/د (do, cause to do, used as a preffix for verbs)
Urartian: shalur (medlar) Kurdish: shalor شەلۆر (nectarine) Armenian: salor (plum) (clearly borrowed via Kurdish)
Urartian: mure (house) Kurdish: mal ماڵ (house)
100) Urartian: urishi (weapon) Kurdish: hereshe هەڕەشە (threat), /(there is also ''huruzhim'': هوروژم attack)
Hurrian: shini (two) Kurdish: shingil شنگڵ (twin, twin fruit)
Urartian: egur-hu (free) Kurdish: xorayi خۆرایی (free)
Urartian: bad-gul (surround) Kurdish: bawe-xulê باوەخولێ (turn around, also a kids game)
Urartian: aish-ti (leap, jump) Kurdish: hej-an هەژان (quake)
Urartian: ibirani (whole, complete, full) Kurdish: pirani پڕانی (majority)
Hurrian: hinzur (apple? pear?) Kurdish: hencor هەنجۆر (unripe melon)
Urartian: kut-u (reach) Kurdish: (geh<*ged) گەهشتن/گەیشتن (reach)
Urartian: ai/ay: (look, take care) Kurdish: aw-ir ئاوڕ (look)
Urartian: di/erasia (fear) Kurdish: tirs ترس (fear, but cf. also Iranic ''tars'')
110) Urartian: Ti/er-usi, measure for liquid Kurdish: Telîs?تەلیس measure of unit
Hurrian: ben Kassite: ban Kurdish: minal مناڵ (child)
Kassite: nadz (shade) Kurdish: nisê نسێ (shade)
Kassite: ulam (son, child) Urartian: alaue (man) Kurdish: law لاو (young boy)
Hurrian: çugi Kassite: tsugi Kurdish: chuk چووک (small)
Hurrian: ewri (dog) Kurdish wer-în وەرین (barking of dog)
Hurrian: shiye (watery) Kurdish: she شە (moisture)
Urartian: zainua (high) Kurdish: zinar زنار (high cliff, high boulder)
Hurrian: shalmi (ashes, to burn) Kurdish zhilemo ژیلەمۆ (burning ashes)
Urartian: amash (burnt) Kurdish mêsh مێش (burnt ashes) (cf. ê 120) Hurrian: puhi (nose) Kurdish: (kepû) کەپۆ (nose)
Urartian: shepuiaru (spoil) Kurdish: sheprêwشپڕێو (disorderly)
Urartian: mesh- (distribute, share) Kurdish: wesh-[an] وەشان (distribute, share)
Urartian: teribi (monument) Kurdish: tirb ترب (monument, grave) (not be confused with Arabic 'turbat': soil)
Hurrian: fur-i (viw) Urartian: wur-i (view) Kurdish: wuria وریا (viewer, careful), awur ئاووڕ (sight), (even the Kurdish verb ''ruwan''-[in] (view) is likely connected to the Urartian ''wur'', rarther than being a metathesis for Iranic ''negar'')
Hurrian: halv- (enclose) Kurdish: hal- هاڵ (enclose)
Urartian: kul-me (wealth, prosperity) Kurdish: kel-k کەڵک (profitable, usefulness)
Hurrian: pâl (false) Kurdish: fêl فێڵ (fraud)
Hurrian: tapsh- (destroy) Kurdish: tawjm تەوژم (pressure), tapi (destroy)
Hurrian: apxe (louse) Kurdish: aspe ئەسپێ (louse)
130) Hurrian: kapp- (fill) Kurdish: kipp کپ (filled)
Hurrian: azhoge (meal) Kurdish: azhge/zig (stomach)
Hurrian: kul- (to speak) Kurdish: qul- قوول (to speak aloud)
Hurrian: timeri (black) Kurdish: tem تەم (darkness)
Urartian: tara-gie (powerful, strong) Kurdish: daraqat دەرەقەت (to be powerful, to be strong)
Urartian: tam-hu (eliminate separate) Kurdish: toq-[andin] Urartian: shi-u (carry away) Kurdish: shi-[andin] (send)
Urartian: anda-ni (right) Kurdish: and ئاند (right)
Urartian: irb-u (take away grab) Kurdish: rev-[andin]/rif-[andin] (take away, grab) (but cf. also Iranian 'robudan', take away, grab)
Urartian: pit- (beat apart, destroy) Kurdish: pis-/pichr- (beat apart, destroy)
140) Urartian: tishni (heart) Kurdish: dine دنە (encourage) (cf. t > d & sh > nil)
Urartian: ti-ni (name) Kurdish: deng دەنگ (voice)
Urartian: bauše (word) Kurdish: wuše وشە (word)
Urartian: durba (revolt, rebel) Kurdish: tola (revenge)
Urartian: hut-ia (to ask) Kurdish: qut-abî (student)
Hurrian: fir (remove, untie) Kurdish: fir, firê (throw)
Hurrian: halme (singing) Kurdish: hore هۆرە (singing)
Hurrian: havur (heaven) Kurdish: hawr (cloud), (note also Indo-Iranic abra)
Urartian: agu (lead away) (of IE origin?) Kurdish: ajo-[tin] ئاژۆتن (lead away, drive)
Hurrian: asti (woman) Kurdish: astê (name of a beloved woman in Kurdish folklore)
150) Hurrian: tav/(-b) (to cast metal) Kurdish: taw (thaw, melt)
Hurrian: ai (if) Kurdish: ai (if)
Hurrian: alilan (lament) Kurdish: lalan (lament)
Hurrian: çabalgi (fault) Kurdish: çapal چەپەڵ (dirty)
Hurrian: xiyari (all) Kurdish: xir (all)
Hurrian: çere (donkey) Kurdish: ker (donkey)
Hurrian: çik- (break) Kurdish: shik- (break)
Hurrian: xîri (hour, time, moment) Kurdish: xêra خێرا (soon, hurry)
Hurrian: xizli (coiled) Kurdish: cexiz جەخز(coiled)
Hurrian: xub- (to break, to destroy) Kurdish: qup- (to break, to destroy)
160) Hurrian: istani (between, among) Kurdish: astang ئاستەنگ (obstacle)
Hurrian: izikun- (to wail) Kurdish: zikan- (to wail)
Hurrian: kakari (sort of ritual bread) Kurdish: kullêre, kellane (sort of ritual bread)
Hurrian: magunni (desire) Kurdish: magirani (desire)
‌Hurrian: shakari or sagari (sprout, bud) Kurdish: chakara چەکەرە (sprout, bud)
Hurrian: arushal (hurry) Kurdish: halasha هەڵەشە (stressful)
Hurrian: heni (now) Kurdish: henu-ke, niha, neha (now)
Hurrian: parili (crime) Kurdish: palamar پەلامار (attack)
Hurrian: adi (thus) Kurdish: dai (thus)
Hurrian: ak-i/u (other) Kurdish: -ka (other)
170) Hurrian: we (thou) Kurdish: ê-we (you)
Hurrian: buru (strong) Kurdish: wure ورە (strength)
Hurrian: çam (rip) Kurdish çam (bend)
Hurrian: zurgi (blood) Kurdish: zûx (blood), (compare, xwênaw=zûxaw)
Hurrian: xahli (cheek) Kurdish: kulm (cheek)
Hurrian: halwu (fence made with stones) Kurdish: hêl هێڵ (fence)
Hurrian: xawirni (lamb) Kurdish kawir کاوڕ (young sheep)
Hurrian: xamaz- (oppress) Kurdish chaws- (oppress)
Hurrian: hendz (constrain) Kurdish: hêndj (constrain)
Hurrian: xerari (sinew) Kurdish: kiroje (sinew)
180) Hurrian: xeshmi (bright) Kurdish: gesh (bright)
Hurrian: kalgi (weak) Kurdish qals/qirj (weak)
Hurrian: nali (deer) Kurdish: nêrî (male adult goat)
Hurrian: nawn- (pasture) Kurdish: naw- (pasture)
Hurrian: ul- (to, eat, to devour) Kurdish: lawar( la-war-) (to devour)
Hurrian: ubi (stupid, insane) Kurdish: hapa (stupid, insane)
Hurrian: ashxu (high) Kurdish: shax (mountain), also 'asê' means: uppward, high.
Hurrian: kaziari (high mountains of the Mesopotamian valley) Kurdish: kazh (high mountain)
Hurrian: kewiranna (the senate, the old men) Kurdish: gewran (the big ones, the adult ones)
Hurrian: kuzh- (to keep, to retain) Kurdish: kush- (to hold in hands, to press in hands), alt: Kurdish qoz- (to catch)
190) Hurrian: nekri ( Hurrian: shalhi (to listen) Kurdish: shil (listen)
Hurrian: siba (dry) Kurdish: zuwa زوا (dry)
Urartian: dibi (building, room) Kurdish: diw دیو (room)
Hurrian: shu (day) Kurdish: shawa-ki (morning, day)
Hurrian: shirat (narrate) Kurdish: shirove (narrate)
Hurrian: tishan (very much) Kurdish: tizha تژە (full)
Urartian: sutug (tear away, unjoin) Kurdish: shetek (knot)
Urartian: gey (anything) Kurdish gi گ (anything)
Hurrian: baz (enter) Kurdish: baz (pass by)
200) Hurrian: xeban-: (to set moving) Kurdish: xebi- خەبتین (to be active)
Hurrian: hamadz-: (to oppress) Kurdish: chaws- (to oppress)
Hurrian: haz- (to hear) Kurdish: bihiz-: (to hear)
Hurrian: xaz (to oil) Kurdish: xiz (oily, slippery)
Hurrian: pas- (to send somebody) Kurdish: pas- (to send, as in 'hal pasardin': 'to send into exile')
‌Hurrian: shagari (ram) Kurdish: shak (young sheep)
Hurrian: pal (know, understand) Kurdish: fêr (learn)
Urartian: -kai (position, in place) Kurdish: -ka (location suffix)
Urartian: muš- (true, fair) Kurdish: mušur موشوور (fairness)
Hurrian: abi (in front of) Kurdish: ba (in front of, near)
210) Hurrian: shimi (sun) Kurdish: shem (sun) (focilized in shemshemekwere, ''blind for the sun'': ''bat''.
Urartian: derzu/derju (order, arrangement) Kurdish: darêj- (order, arrangement)
Urartian: tep- (throw down) Kurdish: tep- (throw down)
Urartian: atqan: (to consecrate) Kurdish: tarxân (to consecrate)
Urartian: shuki (as) Kurdish: waki < hoki Hurrian: hur (drink) Urartian: xurishe (irrigator) Kurdish: qurishke قوریشکە (cup)
Urartian: ulx (flow out) Kurdish: bilqبڵق (b Urartian: alga-ni (mountain) Kurdish: Lêj لێژ (abrupt, steep)
Urartian: auiei (somewher) Kurdish: awê ئەوێ (there)
Urartian: puluse (inscription, stele) Kurdish: psule (voucher, receipt)
220) Urartian: niribe (herd) Kurdish: ran (herd)
Urartian: iese/ieshe? (I, pronoun) Kurdish: ez ئەز (I, resembles also the old Iranian 'azm', but which one is 'az' actually derives of? Armenians claim Armenian 'yes' (I) is derived of Ur. 'iese
Urartian: armuzi (family, clan, generation) Kurdish: hoz هۆز (clan) + rama (seed, from to-rama)
Hurrian: hemz (surround) Kurdish: amêz, hembêz ئامیز (hug)
Urartian: zani (cry out) Kurdish: zhan, jan, ژان (agony)
Hurrian: karshi (lips) Kurdish: kalpa کەڵپە (animal lips)
Hurrian: wirwir (loosen) Kurdish: wilwil ولوڵ (loosen)
Kassite: ash (earth, soil) Hurrian: esh (earth, soil) Kurdish: ax ئاخ (earth, soil)
Urartian: qarmexî (gift, present, sacrifice, celebration) Kurdish: qelin قەلین (gift, dowry)
Urartian: -atuhi (-ness) Kurdish: -ati (-ness)
230) Urartian: aman- (vessel, pot) Kurdish: aman- ئامان (vessel, pot)
God of lightning and storm Hurrian: Teshup Urartian: Tesheba Kassite: Tishpak Kurdish: Tishk تیشک (light, radiance)
Hurrian: shu (hand) Kurdish: shop (hand palm)
Hurrian: chilman- (to break, vanish) Kurdish: chilmis- (fade)
Urartian: shur (wall around a castle, fence, borders of the kingdom) Kurdish: shure (wall around a castle, fence)
Hurrian: xalwu (fence made with stones) Kurdish: xal خەڵ (fence made with stones)
Hurrian: ya/ye (who, which, what) Kurdish: ya/ye (who, which, what)
Hurrian: tun- (to win) Kurdish: tuna توونا (defeated, destroyed)
Hurrian: taridi (pot) Kurdish: tirar (pot)
Hurrian: kol (let off) Kurdish: kol (let off) (as in ''le kol bunewe'')
240) Hurrian:shir (to be suffiecent) Kurdish: têr (to be suffiecent)
Hurrian: ha (take) Kurdish: ha
Hurrian: tijari (spindle) Kurdish: teshi (spindle)
Hurrian: ábri (stock of wood-logs) Kurdish: awirdu (stock of wood-logs), awirig (oven)
Hurrian: baq- (destroy) Kurdish: baq- بەقین (explode)
Hurrian: bashi (mouth)Armenianlake Urmia Kurdish: bêj (to say), (common a>ê)
Hurrian: pashixi (message) Kurdish: pazhux (answer)
Hurrian: tad- (love) Kurdish: dalal (beloved) (common d>l)
Hurrian: tagi (beatiful) Urartian: taugi (clean) Kurdish: daq دەق (cheerful)
Hurrian: hild-/held- (high, raise, elevate) Kurdish: hild-/held- هەڵدان/هڵدان (rasie, elevate)
250) ‌Hurrian: kabli (copper) Kurdish: paqir پاقڕ (copper)
Kassite: kukla (slave) Kurdish: kukla (doll), kukm (homeless)
Hurrian: kumdi (tower) Kurdish: kumadj کۆماج (column)
Hurrian: kubakhi (hood) Kurdish: kumik (hood)
Urartian: korde (uncultivated, desolate) Kurdish: kode (uncultivated, desolate)
Hurrian: kundzi (to kneel) Kurdish: kudik (knee)
Hurrian: Xiríti (trench) Kurdish: Xir (trench)

TL;DR: Touch starved girl wishing for romance, being burned alive and need relief or maybe just borrow someone's ear.
I just need to vent to anyone right now! Like how do you deal with this torture?? I'm trying to date again after my last relationship and years of stringing together relationships, typical serial monogamist. I took a couple years to be purposely single and work on my relationship with myself. I started therapy and seeing a psychiatrist, got my future planned, am well into my transition, and I decided to put myself out there again.
Now, I'm confident in my looks. I'm tall, fit, and (please forgive my vanity) rather freaking adorable. One nights or short-term relationships never interested me before. I always considered myself demisexual, not anymore. However I have this constant burning fire of longing in my chest, it's new and exquisite! The idea of a beautiful woman's weight against me, laying on the couch watching some silly rom-com, or in the kitchen making dinner together. These ideas always excited me before but after fully realizing myself it's an absolute wonderful agony!! I feel like it's tearing me apart.
I find myself constantly fantasizing about intimacy with anyone. Online dating has proved difficult, I set a personal boundary not to date co-workers, and I don't drink so bars seem less than ideal to meet anyone. I don't care if it's one night or a passionate and disasterous fling for a few months, the need to quench the flame in my heart feels all consuming. Random selfish crushes that I know are futile ideas that won't come to fruition. What can a girl do to survive this?
Does anyone have tips? I've thrown myself into my hobbies and picking up overtime to keep my mind busy. Nothing is helping. Hanging out with my friends as often as I can to fulfill my social needs and cuddling with my cat for the warm comfort of another living creature has only magnified the yearing that being touch starved has instilled in me. There isn't many queer spaces in my city and the ones that are here cater mainly to gay men.
I didn't know how badly I missed being with a partner, how much I missed looking into someone's eyes and leaning into their body. Sharing time and getting to know them. It always came so effortlessly before, taken for granted and squandered.
Thanks for listening if you made it this far. I just needed to get this off my chest even if spoken into an uncaring void.
<3

It is a man, old and scraggy. He wears a jacket that lays over the red plaid button shirt and blue jeans. He wears an old baseball cap and a pair of glasses. He yelled something to Dad, holding his hands up like he was pleading, although we couldn’t hear it over the truck engine. They talked, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“Hey, what are they saying”, I asked, while petting Matt’s hair, calming him. The old man then put his hands down and came close to Dad in a cautious way. They seem to start having some kind of conversation.
“I don’t really know, hopefully, something good”, Mom answered. They talked for a little while, with daylight beginning to disappear, giving us a sense of dread, and making me more worried about what weird creature was going to show up. Eventually, the old man turned and pointed toward what I think is the northeast. They then shook hands and walked back to their respective vehicles. “What’s going on”, Mom asked as Dad got into the truck.
“Well, our new friend here invited us to dinner at his farm”, Dad replied.
“Does he have supplies?”
“Well, he says has supplies for us to make the journey.”
“Should we even trust him? We just met h-”
“Relax, he’s just an old man, living alone at his farm, feeding his cows. What could go wrong”, Dad countered. The old man then entered the truck that was running and drove slowly, expecting us to follow him.
“Alrighty then, but we have to be cautious”, Mom said, with her suspicions of the old man. We then followed the old truck along the dark, frozen road. It just feels like something is going to show up along the road, but nothing happened. Matt did eventually stop crying, but he is still upset about the Joe escape thing.
“Where are we going”, Matt lamented, with the prior series of events in mind.
“I guess somebody is offering us dinner”, I answered.
“Why can’t we just go home?”
“It’s only going to be a stop, like a hotel. After that, we go to our new home, I guess”, I said, taking another look at Matt and cradling to comfort him. “It’s going to be okay.” I stared out into the darkness. I looked to the sky from the window and I faintly saw something in the clear, dark sky, lit up by the waning moon. They were brilliant, green auroras that defy the bright moon, dancing across the sky like ribbons in the wind. The truck eventually took a right-hand turn into another road, with us following suit. I can see a bright, orange light emerging from a patch of tree. When we passed by, it seemed it was a house, at a farm, burning in a massive flame.
“I guess those people aren’t so, uh, lucky”, Dad said, taking a quick look at it before looking at the road. Passing by, we went on and continued to follow the old man’s truck. We passed onto another intersection until he turned into a driveway to what I believe to be his farm. Going into the driveway, I can see an old house, along with a dilapidated farm further away, barely visible by the headlights. The old man parked by the house, where there were a few other trucks there. We parked alongside the truck and we got out into the cold, near-silent night.
“Welcome to sanctuary, where all are welcome”, the old man bellowed. This is the first time I’ve heard his voice. Matt was the last to get out of the truck, slowly and clumsily climbing out of the truck.
“What’s your name”, my Mom politely asked the old man.
“Oh, I guess your husband didn’t tell ya. My name is Steven, but you can call me Steve”, the old man said, with some crackling in his voice. “I am very proud to host a dinner for you and your family”, he continued. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Oh, my name is Janice”, Mom replied, quite pleased at his politeness.
“Hello, Janice, and what are their names”, Steven asked, pointing to me and Matt.
“That’s my daughter Kate and my son Matt”, Dad said to Mom.
“Oh, what wonderful names for a couple of beautiful children you have”, Steve grinned. “Come, it is dangerous out here.” We followed him to the house, which looked like it had seen better days. He entered through the double-set door, the first a solid door and a screen door behind. Entering the house, it smelled like what you’d expect, old man. Looking onto the floor is made of glossy wood and walls with cracks, likely caused by the earthquake. It is dark in there, lit by candlelight from many candles, yet it’s fairly warm here. I don’t know why we went into the house, but Dad was right, Steve is just a lonely, old man. Matter of fact, there seems to be nothing wrong here, other than the cracks in the walls. “Sorry, the power went out. Had to resort to the candles. I knew my wife would come in handy”, Steve explained as he took his coat off. “Oh, supper will be ready right away. Had to use the fireplace to cook. Also, can you take your boots off?” We took our boots and set them aside. We went into what seemed to be a living room, with dusty old-style furniture.
“So, where do we sit”, Mom asked.
“Oh, well, follow me”, Steve commanded, leading us to the dining room, with a long, wooden table and six wooden chairs, along with their corresponding old-fashioned plates, glasses and cutlery, lit up in the candlelight. We noticed that everything on the table was covered in a thin veil of dust. “My apologies, the recent shocks dropped a bit of dust on the table”, he explained as he noticed us looking at the plates and moved into another room nearby. “Take your seats if you like.” We all settled onto the chairs, and blew off our plates of the dust settled there.
“When will we eat”, Matt impatiently said.
“Once Steve comes out with the food”, Mom answered. Matt sat there with a tired look on his face. Dad seemed to be in a better mood than before and it looked like he wanted to start a conversation.
“Hey, should we talk about something”, Dad asked. I then see Steve with a bowl and a silver plate.
“Here we go, may not be much, but at least it’ll fulfil the soul”, Steve said, smiling when he served us mashed potatoes and meatloaf. “So, shall we pray?” That came unexpectedly, as we are not too religious, but we were in his house and gave us shelter and food.
“Sure, we can do that”, Mom said and we all bowed our heads and put our hands together. Steve cleared his throat
“Thank you, Lord, for this good food to feed the soul in these hard times. I shall pray, in the name of the Lord and Jesus Christ, that these hard times shall be over, so we can get on with our lives. Amen.” We raised our heads and grabbed whatever food there was onto our plates. “Oh, there’s no gravy, so we have to deal with bare potaters and meatloaf.”
“Oh, not to worry. Thank you for the food”, Dad thanked Steve. We began to eat the food once we got it sorted.
“So, what brings you here”, Steve asked.
“Well, there is an evacuation order in effect for this area, so we had to go to Regina”, Dad explained, with Steve taking in every word. “So, we came from Strasbourg, we tried going south towards Regina, but we hit an obstacle in the way and we had to take another route, leading us here.”
“And we encountered a few odd things along the way”, Mom added.
“Huh, interesting. What do you guys think is going on”, Steve inquired.
“By the things we saw, we have no idea. Dinosaurs, devil dogs, hell pigs, the whole deal. I shouldn’t forget the earthquake. They told us a pipeline leak caused by the earthquake”, Dad clarified to Steve.
“Hmm… is that so”, Steve wondered. “Wonder what I think is happening? The Rapture is happening. Do you know how the Bible tells us of the end times? Good people sent to be with God and his kingdom, the rest here to suffer the Hell unleashed by Satan.” By this point, he was beginning to rant, but we couldn't stop it as we all began to feel tired and powerless. “So, the Devil will send his demons in the form of these illusions so that they can torment the sinners. It is happening, it is-” Steve manically continued as I drew towards blackness and his voice becoming less coherent. My vision is now all black.
I saw those same lights, but more rapidly than before. I then emerged onto the same clear sky, but something felt different. I can smell something in the air. I can smell what seems to be chemicals in the air. Looking down, I was terrified. Dark, grey rock in the shape of ropes and folds, similar to those I saw of lava flows on a volcano in pictures. This went on as far as the eye could see. I can see no tree this time, just the cooled lava everywhere. I then walked, feeling every bump and crag. I thought I walked forever until I heard a rumbling sound and woke up.
I am in total darkness. It is cold and it smells like cow manure. I tried to move my hand, but it seemed to be bonded behind my back by a rope. I tried to move my feet, but they were also bound by rope to the legs I tried to speak, only to realise my mouth was agape by a cloth in my mouth. I heard shuffling nearby but I could not see. It was then shone in light when Steve entered the door, holding a candle, revealing all of us in the same situation. I then can see what we are in. We are in that same wooden dilapidated barn we saw earlier and seems to be more damaged than the house, wood creaking can be heard.
“These sedatives are more effective than I thought. Maybe I should use them more often”, Steve smoothly explained, like he’s some kind of agent and began pacing. “Wonder why you are here? Well, I wondered the same thing to myself, why didn’t God take me to his heaven? When I first heard of the government telling us of those evacuation plans, I thought it was that, a leaking pipe. I began to notice things I couldn’t believe myself, at least at first. Earthquakes, weird creatures showing up, people disappearing, the whole spiel. I connected the dots. The Rapture is happening, for sure, but why me? Why was I the one left here on this Earth”, Steve calmly ranted, pacing around the barn, but it seemed to sound crazier and angrier the more he paced. “I thought I had lost my way. I’ve been unfaithful to God and his son. But, I realised that God always has a plan and he left me on this Earth to serve a purpose. I wondered what my purpose was until I had a moment.” He then stopped in place and calmed down. He turned to look at Mom with accusing yet crazed eyes.
“I’m supposed to keep the sinners here in line, to earn a place in God’s kingdom, or suffer in Hell. I know you are a sweet woman, Janice, but your treachery with Satan is over and I am going to do what’s right.” Mom then looked at all of us, with assuring eyes like that of an innocent yet caring mother we all know knew. I began crying and trying to speak through the cloth, but I was helpless to watch by. “Forgive me, Father, for what I am going to do.” He then pulled a knife from his pocket and plunged it into Mom’s neck with no mercy. I looked away once he did that, trembling, with tears pouring out and my vision glazed and I fell limp. I could see my brother tearing up, but he did not look away. I can hear Dad behind me, with his screams of agony and anger covered by the cloth. It felt like I was in slow motion, taking in every moment.
I then heard the chair, screeching as Steve dragged the chair containing Mom’s lifeless body towards the door, leaving behind a trail of blood. I couldn’t bear to see my mother like this. I shut my eyes very hard and hoped it would go away. The door then shut, leaving us alone with a candle, fearing what would come next. I stared at the candle, seeing it dance in the flames like a woman dancing in the darkness. Is this how it’ll end, I thought. End up dying to this sick man? My Mom was killed in front of me. I sobbed with that thought, then I began to think about the inevitable death of me. I hope there’s something after I die. Maybe I’ll see Mom again.
It was silent for a while, nearly no sound other than our moans. Dad seems to be fidgeting at the back of his chair, rocking it slowly. Looking past him, I shuddered at the glistening pool of blood, where Mom was last alive, could be my fate. I then see Dad release his arms from the back of the chair and remove the cloth from his mouth. He silently stood up and bent down to untie his legs from the chair legs. He then went to me and removed my cloth.
“H-h-how did you do that”, I silently wept, fearing that Steve would show up at the door and kill us all.
“My binding is loose. The old man probably took a liking to me”, Dad whispered. “I should remove your binds.” He untied them, releasing me, doing the same for Matt. “Now, we need to be quiet.” We then walked, quietly, along the painfully creaking wood in the near dark, following the blood trail, glistening in the candlelight. We cringed and dreaded each sound we made and watched the door in case it began to creak open. A few silent steps later, we made it to the door and we slowly opened it so as not to make any noise. What was revealed to us is nothing new, other than the blood trail continuing in the snow directing towards the back of the barn. “Okay, Kate, Matt, you guys run to the truck.”
“What about you”, I sobbed.
“Don’t worry about me”, Dad responded, giving me his keys and forcing them into my hand. “If I’m not back in a few minutes, leave. Don’t look back, take care of your brother, okay? I love you, no matter what happens.” He then kissed me on the head and ran to follow the blood trail. We quickly walked towards the black truck, stranded there for maybe hours. Getting closer, freedom is getting closer. When we got to a fair distance to the truck, I heard footsteps behind me and, the next thing I knew, I was knocked over to the ground into the hard snow on my face. A hand turned me over to give me a glimpse of a crazed Steve, his eyes wilder than before.
“Oh, yes, trying to escape”, he bragged. I looked at him, frozen in fear, like a deer in headlights and he caressed my face with his bloodied blade. “You do have a pretty face, but I’m afraid you are just one of Satan's creations, made to pull me to lust.” He then raised his knife in the air when a familiar side emerged, out of the blue.
Joe came and bit him in the arm that was holding the knife. Steve screamed in agony the moment he realised what happened. He shook Joe off and stood up to stand his ground. I stood up as Joe hissed and walked around the crazed being he wounded, not in fear but in aggressiveness. “Is this one of your pets, demon”, Steve screamed as Joe came in for another attack, but Steve countered that with a slash to the snout. Joe then ran away, whining, into the darkness. This sequence of events gave me the chance to enter the truck on the driver’s side. I had some trouble starting it, besides this is my first time driving a truck.
Steve menacelily walked towards the when Dad came barreling and tackled him to the ground. Dad was on top when he went limp. I finally put the keys in the engine turned it on and backed out, with memory serving me the instructions on such a vehicle. Steve pushed Dad’s body and stood up, but by that time, we left the farm.
“Turn back, we have to get Dad”, Matt cried, but I was very emotional, accepting what happened. I felt that, without my parents, I feel… useless.
“Dad’s dead”, I screamed at Matt and he began gagging uncontrollably in tears. I began to feel sorry for him. “Sorry, I, I don’t know.”
“It’s okay”, Matt sniffled. “I guess Mom and Dad are dead anyways.” It was silence for a few more minutes, tears welling in our eyes.
“Hey, our parents are in a better place”, I said, trying to make the situation positive.
“But we are stuck here, without them? Don’t we deserve to go to a better place?”
“Don’t say that”, I huffed and I paused for a bit. “I know we are in the, uh, right place now. Let me tell you something, once we get to Regina, I will take care of you, no matter what life throws at us.”
“What about Joe”, Matt asked.
“He’ll be fine. He probably found his girlfriend already.”
“Hey, don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“I, uh, I don’t have one. That I know of”, I spoke, bringing me back to Sam, remembering that she’s the only friend that I ever knew, and I left her. Without her, I felt alone, no one would ever relate. I began to tear up. “I don’t have any friends. I am alone,” I sobbed.
“What do you mean? I’m your brother!” I looked at Matt, and smiled, happy that he acknowledged that we were in this together.
“Thank you”, I thanked him. I slowly stopped on the road, just to hug Matt hard, crying my eyes out. We then heard what sounded like an elephant in front of us. We looked up to see a walking snow-covered brown fur wall with four pillar-like legs in front of us. Its curved tusks gleaned in the light and the eyes reflected in the light. The furry trunk waved around like a searching snake from a tree. We both knew what it was.
“Hey, look at that, a woolly mammoth”, Matt said, excitement running through him. At this point, we weren’t surprised.
“Yep, that is a woolly mammoth”, I added. The mammoth turned to us on the road, seemingly confused about where it was. It looked at our truck and seemed to growl, like an elephant. We are starting to realise this thing is becoming aggressive.
“Uh, should we move”, Matt asked. I remembered hearing something about standing your ground in case of an encounter with an elephant. I hoped it would work for a bigger, furrier version of one.
“No, we have to stand our ground.”
“But, it’ll attack u-”
“Trust me!” I then honked my horn and it backed up. It then rushed, then stopped, a mock charge. Eventually, it moved out of the road, disappearing into the darkness. We sighed in relief.
“That was close”, Matt sighed. I then continued to drive in the night, headlights leading the way. The road is bumpy, as noticed by every ditch and peak we hit, but surprisingly, Matt was fast asleep. I began to get comfortable driving and used to the road by that point. It was silent for a while until we hit a smaller intersection. That is when the truck shut down, completely and stopped. I tried the gas many times but with no effect. There is no light, nothing. It is near-darkness here, shone only by the moonlight.
“Shit”, I yelled, desperate to turn the truck on without much success. Matt woke up, confused.
“What happened”, he yawned.
“The truck turned itself off. I can’t get it back on”, I fretted and at that moment, Matt was just as panicked as I am.
“Why?”
“I-I don’t know. One moment, we were driving, another it just-”, I quavered, when I heard something rustle in the distance. We stood still, hoping whatever it was didn’t find us. I looked around, hoping to see something in the moonlight. I then see a long, walking animal. It looked like some sort of alligator at first, except for a dinosaur-like head. Once I strained my eyes to the darkness, my fear levels rose as I could see it walk on its hind limbs, with its forelimbs dangling nearly touching the ground.
It was wandering around on the road when I heard a near-crocodilian growl at Matt’s side of the truck. Another of those creatures appeared, seemingly looking into the window like a hungry bear, giving us a chance to see its scaly head. Its exposed alligator teeth gleaned in the light like knives, but more terrifying was the eye. Its serpentine pupil shone brilliantly in the light like eyes in the dark. It then ducked down, gave a hiss, and moved towards the other one. A few more showed up and formed a group.
“What should we do”, Matt asked. “Should we stay?” I looked around, hoping for another way to escape them without them noticing. I further strained my eyes and mentally mapped out the area. There is a cemetery on my right-hand side, a grain bin storage yard on my left and a series of trailers on the other side of the highway, which is ahead of us, from the storage area. There, I see a series of white, storage buildings, something we can go to and wait it out inside.
“Okay, so slowly open the door”, I instructed Matt. The click of the doors opening cringed us. We looked at the group, but there was no response from them. We then, as slowly as we could, opened the door and stepped out. Still no response. Matt then quietly ran to the other side, towards me. “Okay, we are going into the storage yard and go to the other entrance”, I said, pointing to the other right-hand corner. I wanted to get as far away from these things as possible before making a safe crossing. “Then, we cross the highway on the other side, run into the buildings and stay there for the night. Are you ready?”
“I guess”, he whispered, looking at me in fearful doubt.
“We are going to do this”, I whispered back. We then silently ran over, having to rely on our night-adapted eyes, to the corner, walking past the bins. We made it and nothing behind us so far. “We’re good so far.” We then crossed the road and noticed nothing. We noticed a tanker truck, leaking some sort of fluid across the road. I easily recognized it as fuel, based on its distinctive, sickly smell. I wouldn’t be worried about it if it weren’t for a collapsed light pole that is somehow still flickering with electricity near the area where the fuel would be flowing. We quickly avoided the fluid when I froze to see the group of the walking alligators, running towards us. “Run!” Matt tried to run, but one of those things appeared and clamped its jaws at the back of his neck. He yelped in pain and it took him down to the ground. “Matt”, I yelled, helplessly watching as the creature tore into him.
Matt reached out his arm before the others came to him, then a flash of fire came. At this point, I knew what happened, but I couldn’t even think before it exploded. It blew me towards the building, far away. I was knocked out for a few seconds before I regained consciousness, groaning in pain on the ice. I noticed something especially painful just below my chest. I reached towards the area with my hand. I pressed on it, more painful than ever and raised my hand, only to see blood, brightened by the fire. I realised I was wounded, maybe by shrapnel made by the explosion.
I looked toward where the truck was and all I saw was a blaze. Those things weren’t there, at least. I also noticed something else, too, there’s no Matt. I tried to look around for something, some sort of sign of my brother within the fire, but I saw none. I then wept, realising I had failed. I have failed to keep him safe. I have failed to give him a better life. I failed him as a sister. I could’ve done better. The thoughts poured in as tears glazed my eyes. At that moment, I failed to look around me.
I noticed a dark thing beside the blaze. I thought it was Matt, preparing to greet him back, even though I knew he couldn’t survive the explosion. The image became clearer and clearer as I noticed it was one of the walking crocs that, glazed by the fire, was coming towards me.
“Just kill me”, I screamed, preparing to painfully die to meet my maker. The creature was about to attack me when something large, silent as the wind, came charging and clamped down its massive jaws, filled with conical teeth on the hapless creature and raised it. The crocodile struggled before going limp with a crunch within its strong jaws. The big, dark and scaly monster that it is towered over me and is as long as a bus, possibly longer. Its large legs are a contradiction to its small arms that hide beneath its scarred, bulky body.
It turned to look at me with an oddly bird-like expression, revealing in the firelight numerous scars from battles I could never know and looked at me with its beady bird-like eyes, breathing out wisps from its nostrils like a dragon in the cool air. I recognized it as a creature I know too well, a T. Rex. I breathed heavily and sickly, looking at the thing, nearly expecting me to drop the body and go after me. Instead, it simply walked away, carrying its bloody prize with it, and steadily retreated into the darkness.
I then lay down in agonizing exhaustion on my back, thinking of the next step of action like I'm on a suicide mission I would never come back from. I looked in the direction of the graveyard and had one thought. I guess I am dying. a graveyard will do. I struggled to stand up, noticing my blood-soaked clothes and felt a broken left leg. I grasped my wound, limping step by step and enduring the sharp pain while shaking in the cold. Every step I took, I remembered all the memories, good or bad, that I had with my parents. My brother. My friends. My family. I eventually reached the cemetery and slouched at a tree.
“Guess I’m joining you, guys”, I said, speaking to the snow-covered gravestones, only to hear something. A familiar sound of chirping emerged and, lit by the blaze, it was a sight I can hope for. “Joe, what are you doing here”, I depressingly cheered as Joe went to me and curled up in my lap as if he were a cat. I noticed the new-found scar he had on his little snout, but I paid no mind as I petted him. “I guess you came back. Thank you so much for what you did”, I thanked him, not expecting such a loyal creature would be with me, comforting me, to the end, like what my mother used to do when I was a newborn. I heard another noise, this time a deep rumble.
I thought it was another earthquake coming, but it got louder the closer it got to me, becoming more animalistic only felt small vibrations I barely felt. Joe stayed put, oddly enough, as T. Rex, different from the first one, came. It walked towards us until it stopped short of us. It began to produce a low-pitched, bird-like purring, attracting Joe. I realised something, that this T. Rex is Joe’s parent. He joined the rest like him, whom they showed up and all chirped around.
The grown Rex then brought its snout closer to me, not to kill me, but to look at me. It did not reveal its teeth and was still purring. I put my hand out and its nose came close to it. It rubbed it against my hand and started to pet its cold, scaly skin as it breathed through its nose and put it on my chest. I rested my head on it before it pulled away. It gave out a hiss, but I knew it wasn’t that of a threat, but more of a thank you for bringing its small, sometimes immature, child home.
That gave me relief, as it felt like I at least did something for once. They walked away, along with Joe, towards the darkness amongst the gravestones in the cemetery. I glimpsed one last desperate look at Joe before walking beside his parent. I looked up at the sky and I could see all the stars, twinkling, and the dancing green auroras. I began to feel limp and felt the cold embrace of death coming over me, tears pouring out of my eyes. The sky then grew brighter and brighter, the stars faded into the light and I could see my family welcoming me to a new home. It then slowly went black, darker than a cave.
You would think this is the end of me. It wasn’t, or else I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I eventually woke up in a hospital in Regina. I was told I was rescued by a team that transported me while I was in a coma. The doctors said I was very lucky to be alive, as the shrapnel narrowly avoided my vital organs. After that, I was adopted into a new family, but I was only with them for a couple of years before finding a new job and moving out.
As for Sam, I don’t know what happened to her. I would like to think she is safe, somewhere else. As for my family, I think of them all the time. I was in a depressive period right after that. Eventually, over the years, I accepted that they were gone and went to a better place. For Joe, I would like to think he is all grown up, like his parents, and becoming the king of the jungle. I hope we meet again.
As for the evacuated area, it wasn’t some pipeline rupture that caused an evaluation, but an anomaly, with the exact reason not known. There are excuses for the claims of weird stuff going on in there, from disease to chemicals, to eventually a previously unknown geological event, but I saw through it all.
You may ask how, it's because I've been there. Take it or leave it, this is the story I have. As the decade came by, cover-ups were made to hide it, even walls were put around it. Since the incident, the exclusion zone grew from a mere 80 kilometers in diameter to 460 kilometers in diameter, emptying entire cities of the likes of Regina and Saskatoon. I had to move to North Battleford, by the recommendation from the same government covering it up, making me think that time will tell before the floodgates of truth open.
The anomaly didn’t have a name initially, however, over the years, everyone agreed on one name in particular: The Saskatchewan Anomaly.

DISCLAIMER: This theory uses text from the leaked 2.3 relics, Firefly's signature light cone, the current Glamoth planar relics, and relevant lines from dialogue in the story. I'll do my best to cite my sources for everything!
Let's get down to business! Who, or what, is Titania exactly?
According to both planar relics, she's the "Empress". That's about the only thing they agree on though, because the sphere describes her as a benevolent ruler who brought civilization to Glamoth's outer colonies, while the rope actually tells us that she's got no power (but I think they mean political power, since it also claims she telepathically commanded the Iron Cavalry and that seems kinda powerful), and that the ruling council created her in response to the Swarm's attack. Here's a longer excerpt from the rope's description:

"In the dreams that these warriors are woven into, the sole meaning of their existence is to guard Titania and her 'empire'. In their short lives, they studied, fought, received the Empress' commands, faced the enemy fearlessly, and died with honor."

It's pretty damning evidence that "empire" is written in quotation marks like this in most of these relics, and I've got theories about what kind of state Glamoth was (cough cough. Interstellar colonizers, cough), but that's another discussion. What matters here is that Titania definitely isn't a real Empress. Maybe she's a puppet ruler, or a symbol but not a person, or even some kind of war tactic AI skynet situation to direct troops, or whatever floats your boat.
I don't think she's Firefly, though. IMO it'd be a little tacky to get another identity reveal after Sam, but I wouldn't be making this post if I didn't have a stronger argument than that. Before 2.2, there were a lot of theories about her identity as Sam, the Stellaron Hunter... specifically theories that wanted to separate that identity from "Firefly", either by claiming Sam might be an AI or a second personality, or by claiming that Firefly is an ordinary girl (or Titania) who found the armor and decided to wear it. Lemme go over my counterarguments for both these points, and then I'll get to my own theory.
After her first "death" to the meme, Black Swan helps us investigate what Firefly was doing in the hotel, and a certain line of dialogue raised many questions. To quote:

Firefly: "Let's get going..."

(Here Black Swan proposes that she's with another person)

Firefly: "Why did you...!? This isn't what we agreed on..."

(Here Black Swan proposes that somebody betrayed her)

Firefly: "Mecha...!? Why..."

(Here Black Swan points out it's weird of her to say 'mecha')
Thing is, Black Swan's memory magic never shows us this second person, so we can only assume she's talking to the armor, right? Except... we've never seen her and Sam in the same place together. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's actually pretty big proof here. When she transforms into Sam, or back out of Firefly, the armor just appears and disappears in a bunch of flames. Of course it's probably that her transforming device is the reason why, but even without it there's a line in Genshin that could explain this too. In one of the Traveler's profile voicelines, Paimon confirms that weapons and personal items simply appearing out of nowhere is a regular thing that happens in-universe, and it's likely HSR uses this same rule. I don't think there's any hard evidence to suggest the armor even exists physically until she uses her transforming device, so we can rule out this mystery person being Sam.
IMO, it was probably more like an upset reaction to somebody else who brought up the 'mecha' thing first. Maybe something like this:

???: "Sorry Firefly, you can't go off-script. You have to activate your mecha."
Firefly: "Mecha...!? Why..."

It could've been Silver Wolf on the phone, or maybe even Elio, but it doesn't really matter.
Another thing I've seen people argue is that her personality when we first meet Firefly in Golden Hour just doesn't match up with Sam. Voicelines from the Stellaron Hunters, dialogue from SW visiting the Express, and one of Blade's story chapters all describe him as the ruthless and cold-blooded muscle of the group, which is very different from the sweetheart tour guide we met. I think people can't understand how these two versions of her coexist, but they're not mutually exclusive at all. What if Sam's efficiency is because she dislikes being a weapon, and wants to get her jobs over with quickly? What if her mission in Penacony is Firefly's first chance to actually explore herself as "Firefly", without her scripts asking her to cause destruction? It's not like she's living a double life, more like she's still in the process of growing into her actual self. Maybe texting us stickers from Blade's phone was a baby step for her to experiment, since TB hadn't met Sam yet and she could be less serious, or maybe her armor's fingers have trouble typing, who even knows?? I think the "inconsistencies" in her behavior can be explained pretty easily once you realize she's still figuring herself out, y'know?
There's also tons of dialogue before and after her reveal that implies she's pretty familiar with combat, too. Her accurate description of Sampo is the obvious one (that man is NOT 5'9 though), but she also mentions that a baseball bat isn't an efficient weapon, and later in the story if you picked the Hanu trial for the auditions thing, she complains about not having her armor, brings up that it'll be hard for her to let go of the bazooka, and compares Hanu's rocket launcher to something called the "Soaring Locust II" (some kind of weapon attachment for her armor maybe?), so it's pretty clear that she's not a stranger to fighting. I don't think she's just some ordinary girl who picked up the mecha.
Finally, there's an inconsistency between her and Sam when talking about dreams. On the balcony, Firefly describes her dream about the scorched earth and the sapling, while Sam outright says he was "born without the ability to 'dream'." Thanks to her upcoming light cone, we've got an answer to this problem:

"Dreams remained too distant for her, as she gazed into the infinite darkness. Even as she sensed her consciousness slipping away, her mind replayed the same lingering memories over and over again..."

I think the simplest solution is that Firefly's 'dream' was a metaphor to explain her wish to the Trailblazer, like a visualization to help her and others understand those feelings. The light cone kinda implies she doesn't dream at all, instead she relives her memories from being in the Glamoth military. The rest of that paragraph goes on to describe a Swarm attack and her fellow Cavalryman dying around her without anybody to honor their sacrifice, which is a memory she'd only have if she fought alongside them.
So dreaming isn't an issue anymore, and her two personalities aren't mutually exclusive, and she wasn't talking to her armor in the hotel. But I hear you, none of that really proves she isn't Titania, right? Because at least the Empress has the same origin as the Iron Cavalry pilots... And that's a good point, but I've got evidence against it too.
According to Firefly's drip marketing, she was "Born as a weapon", and is "afflicted with the agony of Entropy Loss Syndrome due to genetic modification.", both of which line up perfectly with our understanding of the Cavalry pilots so far. One leaked relic says "Identical-looking warriors were birthed from the incubators", the rope says "the ruling council threw down the gauntlet and resolved to alter the essence of humanity", and even Firefly herself says "[Sam] is the cradle of my vitality, and the meaning of my birth." when asked about it in Dreamflux Reef. These statements only make sense if Firefly is one of these lab-grown humans, and literally born to pilot her armor.
If you're still not convinced, that line about Entropy Loss gives us another clue: since it's due to genetic modification, that means her "altered essence" is what causes it, so how exactly is she different from a regular human? Another leaked relic says "The armor deeply synchronized its sensory organs with that of the pilot", which is very weird phrasing until you remember that Welt told us Sam has superhuman perception after we got SW's message. That ability kinda contradicts everything Firefly said about her condition, so what if her genetic modifications are meant for that "synchronization"? Maybe it's supposed to increase combat effectiveness with some kind of symbiotic relationship between her and the armor? It definitely plays into more mecha anime tropes (NGE comes to mind), which she's already got a crazy amount of, and might even explain why she's naked while wearing her armor.
When she calls Sam the "cradle of [her] vitality", she means it's literally the only way she can guarantee her Entropy Loss won't flare up and cause her to dissociate. The armor keeps her grounded and conscious, even though it might be extremely painful to use it, given how Adin Rudd in the English dub almost seems to grunt out his lines, and how her kit and the boss' kit both include HP-draining mechanics. This is also why she appreciates the Dreamscape so much, as she told us in her secret balcony spot that she's able to "listen, and see, and touch, and think, and understand whatever I want with my body", as opposed to doing these things with Sam instead. Her cutscene with Blade suggests that it's not impossible for her to exit the armor, but I'm guessing she can't do this for long stretches of time, or that it comes with a risk of having her Entropy Loss worsen. The "icy medical cabin" she mentioned turned out to be Sam, after all.
This one's a bit more subjective, but I'll die on this hill so I might as well include it as a final argument. I honestly think her narrative themes benefit more if she's a regular Iron Cavalryman than if she's Titania. Her story is about an experimental soldier born to be a weapon, living only to kill bugs by the orders of a fake Empress she swore loyalty to, and never having a chance to experience life as a regular young girl. It's about recovering from war trauma, overcoming a medical condition and physical disability, and finally discovering an identity for herself instead of being defined by her use to other people. I'm so in love with this character concept, and while I plan to bankrupt myself over this girl no matter what direction Hoyo picks, I've got my fingers crossed that I'm right about her because it would be so amazing to see that story come to life about a character who stole my heart like this. ^w^
In conclusion? Firefly ≠ Titania, and I believe it's a more cohesive, impactful, and beautiful story if she's a soldier instead of an Empress.
Thank you for reading!
P.S. I'd love to hear anybody's thoughts in the comments, whether they agree with some of my points, or if they've got arguments of their own! Just remember to be civil, because at the end of the day we're all Firefly enjoyers and everybody's ideas are valid until we get more official information about her! :D

I've had a pretty hard youth all the way to young adult hood, primarily because of my family from both sides as well as my individual challenges in life battling loneliness and being the "odd one out" as I personally feel among others. I do love my family a lot, and they love me as well... but let's just say that my mind is more at ease and feel way more relaxed when I'm not with them, lately especially at home.
I basically had to raise myself up to become an independent adult instead of my parents, which also applies to learning this beautiful religion entirely on my own. I've been learning more and more and try to break this social anxiety I have meeting with other young shias. Basically wanting to become a better Muslim, woman and of course a better human overall in Allah's swt name, as my way of worshipping him and my obedience to him.
There's however a dua (pretty specific but incredibly huge for me) I desperately wanting to get accepted and answered in the near future. It didn't happen now, but I know it's because it was a new chapter in life I wasn't ready for. And I thank Allah swt everyday for that cause I'm now fully aware and motivated that I need to improve myself more in knowledge and experience, in order for the chances to increase so Allah swt sees my intentions and efforts and inshallah grants me what I want. Having patience is what I'm currently learning and accepting right now.
But I'm so scared that this Dua I so much want to become true, for my own good and to finally achieve happiness from it, will somehow not come true. I've heard many stories online and in real life how duas weren't accepted by Allah swt even if they were harmless, realistic to achieve and completely halal. I cry everyday, talking to Allah, begging that I don't want anything in life but to make this Dua come true. Becoming so incredibly vulnerable and desperate, to the point where I just think to myself "Allah swt doesn't burden a soul more than he can take... but i feel like I'm reaching my limit and want something I really wish to have...for once." I know I know... I shouldn't doubt in Allah's mercy and love for me (for all of us Muslims).
But surely... it would be quite brutal to not have my deepest wish and halal desire not to be fulfilled right (?) I'm so lost and I beg and beg Allah swt to grant me this Dua, and to make it happen I'll change my way of life as a Muslim completely. Cause there's absolutely no other wordly wish or desire I have other than this. That's the only exchange for it to happen...
I just hope Allah swt grants me this Dua to into fruitation, that's all I want... I'll have sabr... I won't underestimate Allah swt his Mercy and love for me. I just hope my next years, hell or months, won't be more agony and difficulties like I've been living for more than a decade. I've already been through a lot. I don't want to experience the hardships every single one of my family members (especially the women) as well, always drama, fights and just so much negative energy that it's taking a toll on me, and I don't even involve myself so imagine if I did. I can't imagine to go through such difficulties, that would just not only break my heart or spirit, but also my soul...I just want to be happy and content in my next stage of life.
That's all. I just had to rant a bit and pour out my heart, especially since I'm crying right now as I'm typing this. I've become too desperate at this point as you can tell. But I have nobody I can share this with safely so yeah... :')

I’m typing this on my phone because I’m too scared to use my laptop. I threw it into the back of my closet and covered it with clothes to try to dampen the high-pitched ringing sound it keeps emitting, but I can still faintly hear it from where I’m sitting in the living room. I tried shutting it down – it wouldn’t turn off. Doesn’t restart either. I closed the screen but that didn’t do anything. Tried to let the battery die and once it hit 0%, it stayed on as if it were fully charged. This thing can’t be turned off. I’m sure this all sounds silly and nobody is going to believe me, but there is something wrong with my laptop.
The easiest option would be to just get rid of it but I’m tight on cash and my job requires a laptop. I’m a marketing assistant at a small creative agency. It’s not the most glamorous job, I mostly fill out grids and review decks but it took me nearly a year to find this position. It’s completely remote which is a plus, the benefits are decent, and the pay is low but it’s something.
I was hired about a month ago. I hadn’t bought a laptop since 2017 and I wore out my last one so badly it basically refused to hold a charge and had to be plugged in all the time. I thought it made sense to get a new one – a new job, a fresh laptop, the beginning of a new career era. All the new Apple models are insanely overpriced, well above my price range. I could buy a new one in a few months after I save up a bit, but I needed something asap.
I browsed the internet and found a used electronics site. They refurbish phones and laptops and resell them at an affordable price – perfect. I found a 2022 Mac, placed the order, and it was delivered less than a day later. I actually think there were only three hours between purchasing the laptop and it showing up on my doorstep.
Excited to get it set up, I ripped open the box and sitting atop the neatly packaged laptop was a jet black business card with small white lettering in an odd font choice.
HANTER’s REFURBISHMENTS
Thank you for supporting small businesses. Enjoy your product.
609-3006
Ignoring the card, I threw it away and dug into the laptop. Beautifully dark brushed metal, no trace of fingerprints anywhere. It looked almost new save for a couple of scratches on the underside. I plugged it in, turned it on, made a new user profile, and clicked through the setup guide. The setup screen faded away and the preloaded wallpaper appeared. It didn’t really look like the typical Apple wallpapers that we’re all familiar with. Not Big Sur or the Sierra Nevada’s. It was a landscape photo of a farmhouse sitting in a field of tall yellowing grass, a single oak tree bending its awkward limbs over the decaying porch. There was some dark beauty to it. The sunset behind the farmhouse cast bands of golden light on the grass making it appear as if it were shimmering. Maybe it was taken on the East Coast? Some farm in New England? Didn’t really matter to me. I had a new laptop and it was working perfectly. I gave my ancient 2017 one a quick eulogy and tossed it.
– – –
- Good morning! Marie needs the TOOTHPASTE deck to go out by EOD for client review.
-- Morning! Got it, should be ready by afternoon. I’ll upload it to Monday and ping you when it’s up.
- Thanks!! :)
The first time I noticed something was the next day. I was sitting at my desk going over my bosses notes on a deck for some toothpaste commercial when I minimized my Chrome window and saw something I hadn’t noticed before. On the front porch of the farmhouse was a figure sitting in a rocking chair. I brought my face closer to the screen to try to make out any details but the farmhouse was so far in the distance, the scale of the figure was smaller than the cursor. It was so tiny I guess I just hadn’t noticed the day before. It’s not like anyone really stares at their computer wallpaper. The figure had a pale white face and was draped in some sort of black cloak but again it was so tiny I was basically making guesses. I shrugged it off and went back to Outlook to keep working – I had a deadline to meet.
My bedroom darkened as evening fell, the only source of light being the blue glow of my laptop. I uploaded the deck and sent a note back to Marie to let her know I was finished. I’d gotten so caught up in the day that I had forgotten about the figure in the rocking chair. I went back to the wallpaper and studied the landscape again before deciding to just change it to another preloaded one. Something less spooky. I chose a sunrise off a blue coastline.
I love watching Netflix in bed as I fall asleep, so that night I got comfortable and logged in on my laptop to put some Arrested Development on. I must’ve been exhausted because I fell asleep almost immediately. I always just end up sleeping with my laptop either next to me on my comforter or on my nightstand and let the episodes keep going until Netflix realizes I’m no longer watching. I guess that must've happened, but at around 3:00a I bolted awake to a screeching ringing tone coming from my laptop. It was ear piercingly loud, almost at an unbelievable volume for a laptop. Gone was Arrested Development, the laptop screen was static white like an old VHS tv, illuminating my otherwise pitch black bedroom in a cloudy light. I scrambled to turn the volume down, afraid my neighbors would come banging on my front door, but the sound stopped as quickly as it had begun. The screen went dark, the room went dark, the night got quiet.
I sat and stared bewildered in a drowsy daze at my laptop, the quiet hum of cicadas in the night outside, when suddenly it felt as if I were being watched…. I could barely see my own hand in front of me. The night seemed darker than usual…I slowly turned over my shoulder to the open door of my bedroom and in the darkness I could just make out the faint silhouette of a hunched figure standing right outside the doorway. Staring right at me. My blood chilled, I froze. I fumbled for the lamp on my nightstand and turned it on. Warm light extinguished the blackness. Nothing in the doorway…just the long stretch of hallway to the living room. It felt kind of similar to that movie that came out last year, Skinamarink. You sit in the darkness of your bedroom long enough that suddenly you start seeing things in the inky black. I thought it was nothing, but I swear I could make out the faintest trace of a pale white face grinning at me.
The next day I’m back to work as usual, tired from the night before. I clicked out of Chrome to my desktop to open up Adobe when I noticed the farmhouse wallpaper was back… It had changed by itself. It wasn’t exactly the one from yesterday though, no, the figure wasn’t in the rocking chair anymore. Instead, the figure had moved off the porch and was now standing in the field, closer to where the photographer would be. I could really make it out now. A pale white grinning face with distended lips, rotting teeth. That wasn’t the worst part though. Where its eyes should be were instead empty pockets of nothing. Just completely grotesque, definitely not a fucking preloaded wallpaper for a laptop. I changed it back to the beach and dug around in my trash can for the refurbishment card that came with the package. I wasn’t going to wait around to see what happened. Maybe one of the tech guys there was playing a trick and had programmed some jump scares into the computer or something? Maybe that’s something they do. Similar to jailbreaking an iPhone or pretending to control someone's computer remotely. I don’t know.
I found the card and dialed the number. It rang once before a young woman with a pleasant voice picked up.
- “Hi, Hanter’s Refurbishments! How may I help you?”
-- “Um hey I recently ordered a laptop. It came the other day and setup was normal but there’s something going on with the wallpaper. I changed it but then it changed back by itself and the photo –.”
- “One moment let me place you on a brief hold. Thank you!”
I hadn’t even finished speaking when she cut me off and put me on hold. Hold music began playing, some upbeat jingle shrill enough to drive anyone insane. I sat on hold for twenty minutes, then an hour. I ended the call and tried again, went through the same motions with the same woman only to continuously be placed on hold. Maybe they were really backed up with calls and other people experiencing issues with their orders. I called again and instead of the woman answering, an automated voice greeted me and sent me to hold immediately. Fuck it. I decided to wait it out. The fucking jingle was boring a hole into my head – the most annoyingly enthusiastic hold music. I could’ve strangled someone.
Suddenly the music stopped. Finally, someone was becoming available to help me. But instead of the call being redirected to a person, the automated voice returned with a simple
“Goodbye!”
And the call dropped.
I screamed, I literally screamed out of agony, out of pure fucking frustration.
I turned back to my laptop. The wallpaper changed itself again, back to the farmhouse and the pale faced thing. It moved in the field again. It was getting closer. Gaping holes for eyes, distended lips wet with saliva. It looked like it was laughing at my misery.
I left my laptop closed on my desk that night. No Netflix tonight, I needed to sleep and didn’t want the computer near me. I scrolled on TikTok for a bit before I dozed off…
The jingle woke me.
The fucking hold music. I picked up my phone in my fatigue thinking maybe Hanter’s was calling me back. It wasn’t coming from my phone. It was coming from my closed laptop.
I looked to the doorway, thinking the figure from the night before would be back, before getting out of bed and crossing to my laptop to shut it off. I opened the laptop and a wave of nausea crashed over me. The pale faced thing was even closer. The farmhouse was barely visible now, its face nearly filling the entire screen. Still grinning, still laughing. Bits of red stuff wedged in its teeth.
No matter how many times I held the power button, nothing was happening. It wasn’t shutting down, the jingle wasn’t stopping.
I fucking cracked. At that point I didn’t give a fuck if I needed the laptop for work. I picked it up and smashed it on the floor. Threw it again and again till the screen was shattered and keys were flying off. I just needed the jingle to stop and the pale face to be gone. I threw it down one last time with a final blow, satisfied with the damage I’d caused.
I picked the laptop up thinking it would be dead, but the screen was still glowing with light. Through the splintered glass of the screen I could see the farmhouse, the field of yellowing grass, the rocking chair, the oak tree – everything was there except for the pale faced thing. As if my havoc had caused it to flee the wallpaper.
The screen flickered off. The room went black. The cicadas outside filled the silence.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
It felt as if I were being watched.

the first time i saw you, everything went blank. i liked how your eyes were looking to mine; i miss how tall you were, god knows how i loved leaning on your shoulders. every night with you was a spiral into the oblivion. your touch ignited flames of desire, yet your absence left me cold and alone. I became tethered to your presence, unable to escape the gravity of your being.
as time wore on, what once felt like a thrilling adventure with you (i have always imagined walking the streets with you, seeing the city lights and kissing each other) now feels like a relentless descent into chaos. despite my growing sense of unease with you, i found myself unable to walk away. it was as if i were addicted to the highs you provided, clinging to the hope that one day things would right themselves. just like a gambler hooked on the allure of a big win, i continued to bet on us, even as the odds stacked against our favor. deep down, i knew that meeting you was a curse, but i couldnt resist the allure of what could be, even if it meant enduring the agony of what was.
i still remember you until now. 3 years have passed by like grains of sand through an hourglass, yet it feels like just yesterday that we were wrapped in each others arms. i am haunted.
those echoes of our shared laughter, the whispers of our shared dreams, and the silent screams of our broken promises. god i cant stop thinking about you.
do i even regret meeting you? sure, you messed me up, but god you made me feel something.
i visited the streets we once strolled together, tracing the city lights with eyes that once sparkled in your presence. and though our kisses are now but distant memories, i carry them with me like precious treasures, reminders of a love that was both beautiful and flawed.
i remain, a ghost of the love we once knew, haunting the corridors of our memories.
you still hold a piece of me.

He constantly talks about feelings of being in hell and suffering and being attacked by demons in a lot of his songs. We know he was very addicted to opioids which is obviously part of it, but what kind of stuff do you think he was going through on a daily basis that inspired such sad lyrics like
“this reminds me of hell, sometimes I wonder if that’s where god really sent me”, “hands up in the fire”(he’s referring to the feeling of burning in the fire of hell in the song Burn) “I’ve been dead for years”, “tracing my steps trying to figure out where the insanity started” “tryna get set free but these chains on me” and so many more lyrics that describe extreme agony
What mental and/or physical stuff was he going through that caused all this while being a multi millionaire with a beautiful girlfriend? I think he might’ve had some deep-rooted trauma and been through very traumatic life events that none of us are ever gonna know about

1. Epic Fantasy
2. Rilari: Book Four of New Blood
3. New Blood Saga: Book 4
4. W.D. Kilpack III
5. Full Cover
6. Fan's Favorite Cover Contest Winner & Editor's Choice: BooksShelf.com
7. www.Kilpack.net
8. Available in Paperback/eBook/KU/NOOK/Kobo
9. "The future of Mankind relies on the Guardian of Maarihk. Can he and the Knights of Ril resist forces bent on destroying Mankind's last hope? "
10. In the absence of the Guardian of Maarihk, the Usurper’s venom has extended beyond the Gulf of Braag, seeding unrest and hatred for all things. Maarihkish. Natharr and the Knights of Ril must overcome malice and the ramifications of Ellis the Elder’s boundless past that even Sight cannot reveal. The Rilari stand alone in a world in turmoil as they discover the tremendous reach of the Usurper’s vizier. Even the endowments of the Daemons of Order are unable to withstand the ravages of fighting to survive on Rilari loyalties. Meanwhile, Nathan and his summoned companion must rely on the teachings of both Natharr and Quiet One to carve out their place in the Maarihk Empire. Skill with a sword is only the beginning of their treacherous path, as fraught with peril as Darshelle’s as she flees the animus of the ancient wood.
11. • 5/5 Stars — “Rilari thrilled, shocked, and entertained me from the very first page! Utterly brilliant! An incredible story full of action and adventure ... with beloved characters [that] must overcome and fight in a world of turmoil! Rilari is a magnificent story full of many exciting moments. Readers will be kept on edge. They will feel compelled to keep reading. That is the sheer beauty of this novel! W.D. Kilpack III effortlessly took me on a thrilling journey, kept me intrigued as well as entertained. It is the kind of book that is impossible to put down, and when I had to, I longed for it! I wanted to be reunited with the story I had grown to love and the characters I had become invested in. Kilpack has written an unforgettable novel that features heavily on its characters and themes. His characters are superb, and I think every reader will be able to invest in them. They are believable, and their narratives jump right off the page and into the reader’s mind. If you are tired of reading the same old books that are lackluster and forgettable, then take a chance with Rilari. I promise you that you will not be disappointed! Five stars from me!” — RedHeadedBookLover.com • 5/5 Stars — "Embark on a captivating journey with W.D. Kilpack III's Rilari: Book Four of New Blood, a tale that expertly weaves tension, mystery, and awe-inspiring heroism. Kilpack's world-building skillfully combines politics, magic, and ancient lore, creating a rich tapestry for readers to explore. The characters, especially Natharr and the Knights of Ril, are well-developed, and the dynamic between Nathan and his summoned companion adds depth and heart to the story. Kilpack successfully incorporates profound themes of resilience and unity into the gripping plot, leaving readers emotionally connected. Riliari is a triumph, offering an enthralling adventure filled with courage and the enduring spirit of humanity." — BooksShelf.com • 5/5 Stars — “Rilari [is] an emotional odyssey that will leave you breathless. Buckle up for a story that throws you headfirst into the world of the Rilari, where humanity’s fate rests on the shoulders of a courageous, yet relatable, leader – Natharr, Guardian of Maarihk and Knight-Marshal of the Knights of Ril (a.k.a the Rilari). Kilpack masterfully crafts Natharr as a hero brimming with both strength and vulnerability. He’s a leader who inspires with his bravery, lightens the mood with his cheeky side, and grapples with his own emotions, particularly with his relationships. Chapter 13, aptly titled “Well Come,” stands out as a prime example of Kilpack’s exceptional writing. The descriptions of the Knights of Ril facing their adversaries are so vivid, you’ll feel the chill of cold rain, the steel of battle tactics and the agony of loss alongside them. Dive into the New Blood Saga, and I assure you, you won’t be disappointed. I loved the book!” — Jose F. Nodar, author of Books, Pens & Larceny (South Wales, Australia)
12. Warnings: Violence, Sexual Content, Mature Themes; suitable for older teens and adults.
13. Amazon NOOK Kobo

• 476 AD - "Kings Of Nothing"
  
• Aaryan - "Cloudscape"
  
• Aborted - "Vault Of Horrors"
  
• Aborted Bong Rip - "The Lunar Harvest"
  
• ABYSSIUS - "Abyssius"
  
• ACRID DEATH - "Abominable Presence Of Light"
  
• Ancst - "Culture Of Brutality"
  
• Apogean - "Cyberstrictive"
  
• Apparition - "Disgraced Emanations From A Tranquil State"
  
• Atoll - "Inhuman Implants"
  
• Axiomatic Dematerialization - "Absolute Elimination Of Existence"
  
• Benighted - "Ekbom"
  
• Black Pegasus - "Black Grass Smoker"
  
• Bloodcrusher - "Self Titled"
  
• Blood Red Throne - "Nonagon"
  
• Breath Of Sindragosa - "Shadowflame"
  
• Chains Of Agony - "Imperium"
  
• Cincinatti Bowtie - "Chronicles Of The Damned"
  
• Civerouz - "Maze Envy"
  
• Cogitations - "Relinquished"
  
• Cognizance - "Phantazein"
  
• Contaminated - "Celebratory Beheading"
  
• Dååth - "The Decievers"
  
• DeadVectors - "Mauled"
  
• Deicide - "Banished By Sin"
  
• Depths Of Baciu - "Concealed In Shadow"
  
• Disfiguring The Goddess - "Blood Era"
  
• DIVINITIST - "Blood Dripping From The Knife On The Chest Reflect Your Truth"
  
• Drown In Sulphur - "Dark Secrets Of The Soul"
  
• Dwarrowdelf - "The Fallen Leaves"
  
• ENEMY 906 - "Through The Hell"
  
• Engulf - "The Dying Planet Weeps"
  
• Enterprise Earth - "Death: An Anthology"
  
• Eternal Bloom - "Ov, Misery"
  
• Eternal Storm - "A Giant Bound To Fall"
  
• Exocrine - "Legend"
  
• Filth - "Southern Hostility"
  
• Fire Keeper - "Firekeeper"
  
• Fractal Gates - "One With Dawn"
  
• Galactic Devourer - "Nebula Torture Chamber"
  
• Greybush - "A Never Ending Search For Justice"
  
• Griefgod - "Deterioration"
  
• Hideous Divinity - "Unextinct"
  
• Hour Of Penance - "Devotion"
  
• Ingested - "The Tide Of Death And Fractured Dreams"
  
• In Vain - "Solemn"
  
• Job For A Cowboy - "Moon Healer"
  
• Klysma - "Death"
  
• Knocked Loose - "You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To"
  
• Laccolith - "Death Incarnate"
  
• Made In Taiwan - "Sui Genesis"
  
• Memento Mori US - "S/T"
  
• MILLHAVEN - "Dualism"
  
• Necrot - "Lifeless Birth"
  
• Necrowretch - "Swords Of Dajjal"
  
• Nogothula - "Telluric Septis"
  
• Obsidian - "Fathomless"
  
• Oracle Spectre - "Decievers"
  
• Orbital Gate - "Astral Scavenger"
  
• Pestilength - "Solar Clorex"
  
• Petrification - "Sever Sacred Light"
  
• Raised By Owls - "Vol.3: (The Satirical Verses)"
  
• Red Bath - "Endless Drowning Under These Skies"
  
• Revisal - "Curtain Call"
  
• Scarlet Rot - "Scarlet Rot"
  
• See You Next Tuesday - "Relapses"
  
• Skeletal Remains - "Fragments Of The Ageless"
  
• Spectral Voice - "Sparagmos"
  
• Stages Of Decomposition - "Raptures Of Psychopathy"
  
• Steven Hufalar - "Eternal Realm Of Agony"
  
• SUGGESTIONS - "Thorns Of Pagan Embryo"
  
• Terminal Nation - "Echoes Of The Devil's Den"
  
• Terranoven - "Valley Of Pariahs"
  
• Thanatophobia - "Kaleidoscope Of Fears"
  
• The Last Ten Seconds Of Life - "No Name Graves"
  
• The Stygian Complex - "Suffer With Me"
  
• Underneath - "From The Gut Of Gaia"
  
• Unhallowed Deliverance - "Of Spectres And Strife"
  
• Uwu - "Uwu"
  
• Vaticinal Rites - "Cascading Memories Of Immortality"
  
• VICTIMOFDECEPTION - "Mighty Rulers"
  
• Vitriol - "Suffer & Become"
  
• Waste - "In Bloom"
  
• Witch Vomit - "Funeral Sanctum"
  
• Wounds - "Ruin"
  
• ZOMBIESHARK - "Die Laughing."
  
• Not DM or DxC:
  
• Aaru - "SWNPL"
  
• Abysmal Growls Of Despair - "Inearthed"
  
• Acid Ghost - "It's Just Music"
  
• Alkaline Trio - "Blood, Hair, And Eyeballs"
  
• Alpha Wolf - "Half Living Things"
  
• Alluce - "Deathbloom I"
  
• Ammanas - "Somewhere Far Beyond"
  
• Andracca - "To Bare The Weight Of Death"
  
• Antichrist Siege Machine - "Vengeance Of Eternal Fire"
  
• Arrow Minds - "S.A.D."
  
• A Scent Like Wolves - "Distant Dystopia"
  
• Ashley Nieve - "Purple Hyacinth.exe"
  
• Austere - "Beneath The Threshold"
  
• AVRALIZE - "Freaks"
  
• Banshee - "Sirencore"
  
• Before I Turn - "The Devil Exists"
  
• Benjamin Croft - "We Are Here To Help"
  
• Beyond Melancholy - "A Lifelover..."
  
• Black Tusk - "The Way Forward"
  
• Blade And Bath - "Rotten In Loneliness"
  
• Blaze Of Perdition - "Upharsin"
  
• Bongripper - "Empty"
  
• Bottom Surgery - "Please Follow Closely"
  
• Boundaries - "Death Is Little More"
  
• Breath Of Wind - "Journey Through The Galaxy"
  
• Caligula's Horse - "Charcoal Grace"
  
• Casey - "How To Disappear"
  
• Corbian - "Butterfly Effect"
  
• Cottontail - "Murderous Melodies I"
  
• CthulhuSeeker - "Age Of The Synth: Elden Ring (Synthwave Arragement)"
  
• Darkthone - "It Beckons Us All"
  
• Dayseeker - "Replica (Acoustic)"
  
• Dead By April - "The Affliction"
  
• DEAFENING - "Have Courage, My Love"
  
• Defocus - "There Is A Place For Me On Earth"
  
• Desolate Thoughts - "Desolate Thoughts"
  
• Diamond Construct - "Anger Killer Zero"
  
• Dødsrit - "Nocturnal Will"
  
• DONT SMILE AT ME - "Suicide On Top Of The Altar"
  
• Doom Beach & Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop - "Doom Beach / Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop (Split)"
  
• Dream State - "Still Dreaming"
  
• Drifts In Autumn - "Ethers"
  
• Dua Lipa - "Radical Optimism"
  
• Ego Depths - "Prognimous Ekk Solthi"
  
• Eidola - "Eviscerate"
  
• Enki (I.L.Y) - "The Unknown"
  
• Ephilexia - "Car Crash Lullabies"
  
• ERRA - "Cure"
  
• Escaping Aghartha"
  
• Evergloam - "Nocturnal No More"
  
• Extortion - "Threats"
  
• Extra Terra - "Accelerate Or Die"
  
• Farsot - "Life Promised Death"
  
• Fawning - "All Around Me"
  
• Flesh Tape - "Flesh Tape"
  
• Fragments Of Lost Memories - "Yakusoku"
  
• From Another Life - "Daydreaming"
  
• Fugit - "Bury Me Here"
  
• Full Of Hell - "Coagulated Bliss"
  
• Galleons - "Violent Delights"
  
• Genital Shame - "Chronic Illness Wish"
  
• Grayscale Season - "Feel Something New"
  
• Green Day - "Saviours"
  
• handkerchief code - "A Story Untold"
  
• Have a nice life... - "Drowned By Suicidal Thoughts"
  
• Heedless Elegance - "The Dream Within"
  
• Hemlokk - "In The Shade Of Irminsul"
  
• High On Fire - "Cometh The Storm"
  
• If I Were You - "Withe/Without"
  
• Imminence - "The Black"
  
• inertia. - "In Limbo"
  
• Infant Island - "Obsidian Wreath"
  
• Infestus - "Entzweiung"
  
• In Tears - "Pale Under My Crown Of Flowers"
  
• Intig - "Vilsen"
  
• Iron Curtain (1) - "Savage Dawn"
  
• Iron Curtain (2) - "West Coast Lover"
  
• ISTOKTOCRY - "Hesh"
  
• Kali Uchis - "Orquídeas"
  
• Kill Ebola - "Ghost In A Drone"
  
• Knoll - "As Spoken"
  
• Krvna - "The Rhythmus Of Death Eternal"
  
• Kyros - "Mannequin"
  
• Lackmagic - "Naiad Doggerland"
  
• Lair - "The Hidden Shiv"
  
• Lamantra - "Be Happy, Life Is Beautiful"
  
• LEACH - "New Model Of Disbelief"
  
• Lightseeds - "Mirage"
  
• Like Moths To Flames - "The Cycles Of Trying To Cope"
  
• lil t4t - "Heaven707"
  
• Local Natives - "But I'll Wait For You"
  
• Lord Dying - "Clandestine Transcence"
  
• Loss Of Hope - "One Step Closer To Lifelessness"
  
• Lost In Seperation - "Sabertooth"
  
• Made Of Pain - "Untitled"
  
• Maggie Lindemann - "Headsplit"
  
• Makari - "Wave Machine"
  
• Malist - "Of Schorched Earth"
  
• Massa Nera & Quiet Fear - "Quatro Vientos Cinco Soles"
  
• May Leitz - "Season Of Slumber"
  
• Merrimack - "Of Grace And Gravity"
  
• Morphine - "Dysphoria II"
  
• my head is empty - "Nothing Is Real, Part XX"
  
• Nailah Hunter - "Lovegaze"
  
• Nänmëë & Departing - "Memory Association"
  
• Newmoon - "Temporary Light"
  
• NOAHFINNCE - "Growing Up On The Internet"
  
• Peter Ries - "Stratus"
  
• Pulchritude - "Impending Beauty"
  
• Ray Noir - "Scorpio"
  
• Red Keep - "Ruminate"
  
• Renesans - "Born From The End"
  
• Rise Of Asura - "Dysphoria"
  
• Rough Justice - "Faith In Vain"
  
• Rupture Of The Gastrointestinal Tract - "Rupture Of The Gastrointestinal Tract"
  
• SAFEHXEN - "Lighthouse"
  
• Sår - "Burning Bridges"
  
• Sea Of Consciousness - "Sea Of Consciousness"
  
• SeeYouSpaceCowboy... - "Coup De Grâce"
  
• Selbst - "Despondency Chord Progressions"
  
• SETYØURSAILS - "Bad Blood"
  
• Shallow Existence - "Killing Myself On Valentines Day"
  
• Shamael - "Il Suono Di Mille Orchestre (Part 2)"
  
• Shrimp Money - "Coffinated"
  
• Shroud Of Blight - "Years Of Failure"
  
• SISSY XO - "Public Humiliation"
  
• Skuggor - "Whispers Of Ancient Spells"
  
• Sorcerer - "Devotion"
  
• Soulmass - "Principality Of Mechanical Violence"
  
• Soulvapor - "Inner Soul"
  
• SPACED - "This Is All We Ever Get"
  
• Status Expunged - "Sorry I'm Not From Winnipeg"
  
• Stygian Crown - "Funeral For A King"
  
• Sunspear - "Sunspear"
  
• Sympathy Pain - "Swan Dive"
  
• The Dog - "Somewhere, Anywhere"
  
• The Ghost Inside - "Searching For Solace"
  
• The Wise Man's Fear - "What Slept Beneath Tarvos"
  
• Thistle Sifter - "Circles"
  
• Too Close To Touch - "For Keeps"
  
• undercurrent - "Blue"
  
• Valadier - "Carmina Belli Apocalypsis"
  
• Various Artists - "Echoes Of Memories"
  
• Velvet - "Romance"
  
• VENUES - "Transcience"
  
• Violin Sky - "Silent Echoes"
  
• Vrøde - "Ostracised"
  
• Wandering Oak - "Resilience"
  
• Waveshaper - "A Void Hope"
  
• Weeping Moon - "Beneath The Weeping Moon"
  
• While She Sleeps - "Self Hell"
  
• Whitelands - "Night-Bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day"
  
• Whiteweek - "When Everything Breaks"
  
• Wristmeetrazor - "Degeneration"
  
• Xansei - "Xami"
  
• YEAHRS - "Spiritual Sickness"
  
• ZOZ - "Whendolia"
  
• Deathcore EP's:
  
• And Hell Followed With - "Untoward Perpuity"
  
• Arbitrator US - "Nephilim"
  
• Chaldea - "The Edge Of Perdition"
  
• Curse The Idols - "Gemory"
  
• Despite Exile - "Fading Trace"
  
• Divine Destruction - "Products Of Abomination"
  
• Girl Of Glass - "Girl Of Glass"
  
• Godhand - "Tachykinin"
  
• Lilith's Demise - "Lilth In Aries"
  
• Mana Tomb - "Damage Over Time"
  
• Mark Of The Altar - "A Dramatic Display"
  
• Nyctophile - "A Progression In Regression"
  
• Slamwich - "Bloodthirst Commands This Hellscape"
  
• Synestia & Disembodied Tyrant - "The Poetic Edda"
  
• Vile Revelation - "Cast From Eden"
  

Pen to paper - A million words make up the English dictionary, the words are far and few, raw but true, that offer solace for imagining a life here without you. How does a writer write a poem, when the words for his pain have been stolen? A cry from atop a hill, breathless without a will, Pen to paper, once again, ravenous agony his only friend. Overwhelmed by the sky above, unknown is the touch of his one true love. Empty space, this comforting embrace, muddled with feelings gone to waste. A word comes to mind, a word said to heal, that word is time. He’s waited for oh so long, but the depths of his love is oh so strong. A cry from atop a hill, he lies wasted without a will. A shot of Vodka then of Gin, he attempts to drown it out again. Overwhelmed by the sky, he writes of his love being oh so high, how can a poet write when his inkwell has run dry?
Pen to paper - A million and one, are the words that share their taste with rum, a cry from atop a hill, for his pain there is a million and there is none. Overwhelmed by the sky, sits a poet prepared to die. A shot of Vodka then of gin, his life feels empty without him. For a love that’s meant to last, there’s a poet that has written his last. A cry from atop a hill debates a poets final will, the beauty in just a pill, or the sound of a gun just for thrill. A million and one, are the words that share their taste with rum, for his pain there is a million and there is none. Overwhelmed by the sky above, how can a poet write when his inkwell has run dry, a cry from a top a hill, then a blast, he found the words to write his own poem last.
Pen to paper - A million thoughts cease to race, this poet will shortly go to waste. The depths of love have tested his faith. Underwhelmed, is the sky above, recites a poem in from his hand, a million words come to mind, overwhelmed by the passage of time, like a writer and his pen, without your love, I can’t live again. So I’ll cry atop this hill, the words of my final will. A million and one are the words that explain my love, but for my pain, there are a million and there are none, with my dying breath, I’ll write of your eyes and how they electrify my chest, the little shocks of your fingers caress, imaginary in my mind, is this love that has left me blind. I cry a top this hill, ravenous agony my only friend, I’ll pull the trigger, and the pain of my poem will forever end.

Its Mother’s Day in The States today and it is my first one as a mom, and boy am I struggling. I started flaring halfway through my second trimester and I’ve not been able to get in remission since. I know we just need to switch my medication out from Entyvio because I’m no longer responding to it, but my GI wants to run tests before we do that which eats up weeks of time. Already did all the blood and stools tests, MRI, and a colonoscopy is scheduled for next week. I’m trying to be patient and positive but I can’t help but be heartbroken over all these beautiful fists I’ve spent in compete agony. I new that a flare during or after my pregnancy was a possibility and I still feel it had been worth it to welcome my beautiful little girl into the world, but I hate that I have to go through it. I’m so tired of the fight. I just want to enjoy life with my little family.

I know most people will choose to write this series off because it is a censored BL. And others, including myself, were not so quite willing to give it a chance because of the questionable subtitles or number and length of episodes upon its' initial release.
However, once it appeared on Viki, it seemed like it was on a mission to pop up as much as possible in my recommendations, random YouTube videos, and my own thoughts, to the point where I just couldn't ignore it any longer.
And good lord am I glad that I gave in!
When I say this series is everything that I could have asked for and more, it is no understatement. I love horror. I love lush, interesting cinematography, brimming over with Asian culture and folklore. And as far as how censored the actual BL was, let's just say that some of the scenes of this so called 'bromance' would put actual BLs to shame.
The looks, the care, the tenderness which they treated each other with was just heart-rending. Lines such as, 'I just wanted you to survive', 'Please don't die for me' and 'I will protect you for as long as my lifetime.' Added to that the most soulful, longing eyes of Ruan and I swear, even I was getting jealous of Jiushi at some parts.
To have someone care and trust and protect you that deeply...my emotions were just in a constant state of warm fizzies and happiness only to then puddle up in emotional agony.
What really stands out to me, is how much I am leaning more and more towards these censored BL/Bromance type series lately. Killer and Healer, Under the Skin, and now this. I've sort of found myself shying away from more in your face, erotic series to this kind of show. And don't get me wrong, these is absolutely nothing wrong with the hotter, heavier stuff. I quite enjoyed Just Friends when it first aired. And yet, I don't constantly find myself coming back to that show and wanting to rewatch certain episodes or scenes over and over again.
With Spirealm, there were SO many times where I would rewind a particular scene or rewatch an episode, just so I could see these two again.
This series was quiet, tender, frightening, heartbreaking, breathtaking, beautiful and I would heartily recommend that everyone watch it!

It was exactly two weeks ago when my slight concerns evolved into genuine fear. I remember restlessly lying in bed, whimpering and crying, contemplating whom to blame for my senseless suffering. Despite the fact that it was my fourth consecutive night spent completely awake, I refused to fall asleep. Despite the fact that my body was literally breaking apart, I refused to fall asleep. Despite my itching eyes, despite my pulsing headache, despite my burning muscles, I refused to fall asleep.
The world seemed so incredibly cruel. I begged and pleaded, but nobody answered my calls. I felt like one of those spoiled kids in the supermarket, rolling around on the dirty floor. Only for me, there was no exhausted mother who would sooner or later cave in. My mother was destiny or God or whoever else chose to ignore my prayers.
I crashed back into my mattress, slowly descending into this trancelike state of consciousness, not quite awake but light-years away from actually drifting off. Until the sun let out its heinous laugh and reminded me that there was more pain to bear.
The next day was even worse. My vision was hazy. Points of light constantly lit up and disappeared again. The continuous sound of rustling leaves accompanied the noise of blabbering coworkers and concerned friends. Time flew by but remained still. Memories escaped my grasp like salmon in a roaming river. I was starving, dying, unable to reach for the food that sat right in front of my gaping maw.
Just let me sleep.
Day turned into night. And just like before, my soul refused to rest. I was at my wit's end. I felt death looming in the shadows and would have given everything to make the world come to an infinite halt. In a last desperate attempt, I decided to take drastic measures. If my body was unwilling to listen to me, I would force it to.
I took about eighty milligrams of doxepin and passed out shortly after.
The first things I noticed upon waking up were a raging headache and the cold air brushing against my skin. Still feeling drowsy and disoriented, I aimlessly walked through the unknown street I somehow woke up on. The millions of unanswered questions in my head slowly freed me from the pill's remaining chains. I distinctly remembered falling asleep on my couch. Yet, I ended up stumbling around a part of town that was more than ten miles away from my apartment.
During these moments of pure shame and confusion, the picturesque scenery in front of my eyes felt like utter hell. The fact that I apparently had no control over my body's actions struck me to my core. In a time where I believed to have peacefully slumbered off, I instead chose... chose to... chose to do... what exactly?
While waiting for the subway, a thought, as sharp as the blade of a guillotine, hovered over my head.
I could have killed someone today. I wouldn't even know.
When I came back, the sight that revealed itself upon opening the door seemed to confirm all of my darkest premonitions. Multiple vases and bowls lay shattered on the ground. My shelves and drawers were left opened and unorganized, cutlery and plates carelessly thrown onto the floor. Nothing stood where it once was placed. It looked like a tornado stormed through my home while I was gone. But a tiny part of me, carefully hidden away from logic and rationality, knew the real cause of the havoc.
It was me. I did that.
I frantically paced around my apartment, frightened of phenomena I couldn't comprehend. And again, this tiny but persistent whisper sounded:
I could have killed someone today. I wouldn't even know.
The second time I knocked myself out, I only really did it to soothe my paranoia-infested mind. I needed safety and control. I needed to know the extent of my damage. I needed to understand the being that mysteriously managed to hide from my memories.
I set up various video recordings and took my pills. In my last waking moments, I remember the sweat dripping down my hands and this deep sense of unease creeping up my spine. It was already too late.
As the view of my dirty gray carpet greeted me in the morning, a huge wave of relief washed over me. It was as if the sun learned to shine again, instantly covering my past incident in a different light. I didn't hurt people. I didn't kill people. I simply walked out of the house and somehow forgot about it.
I took a deep breath, believing at least one of my worries to have disappeared. When a stinging pain in my knuckles fired through my body and decimated my newfound hope. I let out a small wince of pain. Still feeling the high of my easement, I at first just stared at my bruised-up fingers as if they were mere hallucinations. Rows of sausages, maybe. Sausages, covered in blood.
This has to be a dream.
It was only after five or so motionless seconds had passed that the horror dared to truly sneak up on me. The weight of my realization hit me like a sledgehammer. I rushed towards my phone, my shaking fingers desperately searching for the recorded video, unable to look away from the mess that unfolded in front of me.
The recording started as soon as the tablets rolled down my throat. A worrisome expression remained on my face as I lay on the couch and drifted into sleep. Soon after that, a satisfied snore escaped my speakers. My initial angst transformed into a feeling of slight discomfort while I watched my own peaceful slumber. Almost bored, I half-heartedly followed the next uneventful twenty minutes.
Then, everything started changing all at once. Suddenly, the man... no, the thing in the video shot to its feet, stretching and wandering across the room. Trying to adjust to a life of thirty-three vertebrae and four extremities, the muscles in its suit of meat seemed tense and stuck in place. As it turned my home upside down, every single grunt, shake, and blink appeared unnatural and tiresome. Its gait eerily similar to a marionette's. My clone rummaged through the cupboard without any sort of fluency. If it moved, it moved rapidly. And if it didn't, it stopped for long periods of time, completely frozen and paralyzed. Its arms, tight like the branches of a tree, smashed up my fine china. A horrifying scream that sounded like a mix between the buzzing of bees and the bang of a nuclear explosion filled the narrow halls of my home.
"It looks like a spider trapped in a human body," I thought.
I was scared. Maybe more so than I ever had been before.
At 2:30 am, the individual that was supposedly me decided to slowly stride towards the door. To the quiet observer, it would appear as if I was trying to find my way across an active minefield. I chose to lift my legs high up into the air and put the entirety of my weight on my descending foot, flailing my arms around to keep my balance. The simple act of walking required meticulous concentration. Multiple times I fell flat on my face while attempting to take a step forward. It would have almost been funny if it weren't so tragically horrifying.
After a concerning amount of time, the humanoid printer on my screen reached its destination. When its hands grasped the key rack, it appeared unable to find what it was looking for.
Thank God, I remembered to hide my valuables.
The entity appeared confused, violently shaking the handle and pressing its body against the wooden barrier that separated it from the rest of the world. It needed to get out. No matter the cost. After thirty minutes of unsuccessful grunting and pushing, it decided to ball its hands up into fists and continuously punched at the door. There was no grace or technique in its strikes. Only raw unfiltered anger.
Fear turned into panic, while I quickly skipped through the rest of the video. It was just hour-long footage of myself banging at the gate. Never stopping. No matter the cost. At around 4 am, blood started splattering onto the walls. But I didn't stop. At around 6 am, splinters stuck to my fingers like porcupine quills, every strike further sinking them into my flesh. But I didn't stop. The constant rhythmic thump of my fists became an inevitable part of my life. But I didn't stop.
I could have killed someone. I wouldn't even know.
I couldn't bear to watch anymore. My hands still shaking, I closed the recording and looked up at the ceiling. The sound of joints crashing into timber echoed through my mind like vicious thunderbolts.
I don't know how long I remained in this trance, staring blankly into the air while anxiously trying to find fragments of the night inside my memories, when I finally stood up and went to the bathroom.
I have to see my face.
Upon inspecting my reflection, I felt the unexplainable need to vomit. The man in the mirror looked... strange, uncanny, almost AI-generated. I felt repulsed and sick. But what exactly was the problem? What about my eyes, nose, or ears was hideous enough to cause my legs to give out? I couldn't put it into words. Everything about me was wrong, and yet nothing was.
I immediately threw any and all of my pills away and vowed to never touch them again. I tried to distract myself from the inevitable fact that a deep and raw kind of terror persistently lingered in the air. Instead of facing the monster housed deep inside my pupils, I chose to bear the familiar agony of sleeplessness.
I thought that I could handle it. I thought the pains of insomnia would disappear over time. But they never truly did. These scattered days of slumber were enough to make me forget the horrors of fatigue. The raw reality of its effects hit me like a wrecking ball. I realized how puny pain becomes in mere memory and how humongous it appears when towering over you.
After three or four days, I thought I was gradually withering away. I longed for nothing more than the momentary liberation of sleep. Parts of my feeble soul constantly screamed and hammered at the walls of my abdomen.
All of this pain. All of this suffering. It could end. You just need to take your pills.
You just need to take your pills.
Every continuous day without rest made my problems appear smaller and smaller. Last night, while unbelievably sleep-deprived, they shrunk to the size of brittle snowflakes.
It was nothing but a bruised hand after all.
The third time felt decidedly different. I was slipping through different levels of consciousness, small shards and sequences of my dream appearing in front of my eyes like an infinite slideshow. In one of them, I was a vase, falling from the surface of the moon, gradually accelerating until becoming a glowing meteor of light. Inches before crashing into the surface, I was suddenly pulled back into reality.
Just for a second, the world seemed so painfully close to me. I sensed the blood dripping down my arm, the police sirens blaring in the distance, the sharp sting of urine shooting into my nostrils. And then there was this incoherent blend of colors around me. That's when I realized that I woke up while my head was in the middle of crashing towards the glass window, unable to stop the already created momentum. I would only be alert for the duration of a heartbeat, before my mind had to turn blank again. Knowing that the being inside of me would soon regain control, I tried to absorb everything in my immediate vicinity. The sign of the shop, only a blur in the corner of my eyes, forever burned itself into my memories.
"Ela's bakery."
The next time I regained authority over my body, just for the briefest of seconds, I thought I had landed in heaven. The street was bathed in a beautiful orange hue. The trees surrounding me shook their shiny green leaves around, and the subtle sound of chirping songbirds could be heard in the distance.
Then I dared to look up, and my blissful peace transformed into the soul-shattering realization that death was near. A boulder, about the size of a basketball, was inches away from crashing into my skull. My body moved on its own, leaping to the side and landing on the grassy field next to me. Moments after I jumped, the sharp hissing sound of the wind grazed my ears as the enormous rock crashed onto the ground. Unable to move, a scream escaped the deepest parts of my soul. I had enough. I couldn't continue any longer. Tears of frustration and relief simultaneously streamed down my face. After some time, they fused with the raw sensation of anger.
This thing tried to kill me.
When my eyes felt too tired to cry any longer and my vocal cords were hot and rigid, I stood up and examined my environment. My mind had only a few moments to adjust to the overwhelming nature of reality. As if the world had been anxiously waiting for my return, the waves of stimuli around me were immediately fighting for my attention.
I am outside again. I am alone. I almost died. My head feels like someone stuck a stake through it. There is an unbearable sour smell in the air. I almost died. My hands are streaked in dried-up blood. I almost died. My clothes are covered in dirt and grime. There is a corpse next to me.
There is a corpse next to me.
Anxiously trying to get my breath under control, I inspected the one thing my mind could focus on.
John Smith
01.01.1920 - 01.01.2020
I woke up in a local cemetery. Piles of dirt gathered besides an inconspicuous headstone. A casket, probably never thought to be opened again, lay before me like one half of a cracked eggshell. It presumably belonged to John Smith.
Even for a dead man, he looked incredibly thin and sick. A stature so small that he almost appeared childlike. Arms crossed. Face stuck in a constant frown. Hair and nails unnaturally long and discolored.
Inspecting his wrinkled face sent shivers down my spine. It felt like I was looking at something that merely pretended to be human.
I knew that this was my wrongdoing. This wasn't the anxiety speaking out of me anymore. It was obvious that whatever controlled my body chose to come here and used his bare hands to find this man. And before I could take over the reins, it heaved a boulder above its head and let go.
Not daring to stay there for even a single additional second, I dashed out of the cemetery and rushed back home. I had to find it, my one moment of clarity.
"Ela's bakery."
Faces, colors, worlds were passing by me like shadowy figures and shapes. The masses of people around me probably thought I was insane. Dirty and confused, the kind of man I would have scoffed at not too long ago.
When I recognized the shop's pink doors and gleaming welcome sign, I almost crashed into the teenage cashier standing in front of the fractured window.
"Hey," I shouted. "Please let me look at your security footage." I pointed at the tiny camera watching over the shop's entrance.
Not saying a word, he nervously looked me up and down.
"Uhh...are you...okay? You don't look too well." He answered with a touch of genuine concern.
My attention shifted towards the dark reflection on the window. Yes, I truly didn't look too well. A huge purple bruise stuck out of my forehead. My skin was covered in a million tiny cuts and scrapes. The delicate lines running like spiderwebs across the glass surface fractured my face into a million tiny pieces. The word "damage" was practically written all over me. The marker was permanent.
"Please... I'm begging you. I need to see this video."
As he led me to the computer, I once again waited for the world to show me sides of myself that never reached my consciousness. I couldn't sit still, my heart's thumping too fast for me to count. As my body finally appeared on the grainy footage, I was suddenly reminded of a thought that once sprung into my head when my mother died.
Everything changed, and life will never feel the same again.
The man in the recording had the same robotic walk and way of moving around. His long strides carried him in front of the bakery, where he waved his head in contemplation before violently smashing his face against the glass. A high-pitched explosion reverbated through the night. The faint sound of drunken screams soon followed.
I paused the video and rewound, frantically looking for the one frame that truly mattered.
Gotcha.
Just before a million transparent shards flew by my face, I saw the light fleeing back into my eyes. I recognized my panicked self for the fraction of a second until the explosive sound of the shattering window pulled me back into the ether. For a moment, it was me in that video. For a moment, the monster had to give up its power.
As if reminded of my pain, the wound on my forehead started throbbing again. It became impossible to think. I watched in horror as the man in the footage immediately got up to his feet and left the sight of the camera. The being returned to its old ways, slithering along the pavement, unfazed by the humongous swelling on its scalp.
The endless number of puzzle pieces in my head gradually assembled into a coherent image. I had found my truth.Whenever I passed out, this presence inside of me took over my body. But sooner or later, I would wake up. I would disrupt whatever it wanted to do in that grave. So hoping to remain in control forever, it tried to knock me out as soon as I awakened. It succeeded the first time. But the second time it sensed my return, it was too late, perhaps too preoccupied or simply too slow.
The desk in front of me was covered in a deep and oppressive fog. Nothing felt real because nothing was real. I was a humongous storm of questions, forced to accept the supernatural in its purest form.
"So that was you, huh?" a voice near my ear sounded.
I instantly bolted to my feet. The cashier looked at my trembling body and took a few steps back.
"Hey bro, I get it. Fuck the world. I'm not going to snitch, don't worry."
Knowing my airways have long abandoned me, I didn't say a word. I rushed out of the door and ran back home. His words spun around my head like a swarm of fireflies.
Fuck the world.
Upon reviewing the video on my phone, it confirmed what I basically already knew. As soon as I dozed off, something else awoke.When it failed to open the door, it instead decided to smash the window in my kitchen into pieces and crawled out.
I feel like all hope is lost. It is my fifth consecutive day spent awake. But sooner or later, I will be unable to resist the sweet lullabies of slumber. And what then? What will happen the next time I pass out? Will it try to make me stay unconscious forever? Will I ever wake up when I inevitably fall asleep again?

I had been hiking down the Appalachian Trail for over two weeks without issue on the day when the nightmare began. My friend, X, was by my side the entire time. It was, quite honestly, comforting to have someone who stood nearly six-and-a-half feet tall with me, especially during the long, dark nights when the howling of coyotes drew near. Black bears, too, were a constant presence in these dark mountains. As we got farther from towns and civilization, more ancient predators than human beings took over the land, stalking the night like creeping shadows.
For this trip, we both had bought as few supplies as possible. Included in our packs were MREs, two sleeping bags, some tarps and hammocks, some light clothing, and two pistols with a few boxes of ammo. We didn’t want to be too weighed down that we wouldn’t be able to move fast, after all. We would source water from the streams, waterfalls and lakes along the way and filter it using Lifestraws.
As the spring breeze blew past us, cooling the sweat on my face, I noticed the trail ahead of us weaving its way through thick swampland. The buzzing of flies and mosquitoes increased with every step. The green, fetid waters of the swamp bubbled constantly, as if it were whispering secrets to us.
“Ah, shit,” X said, glancing down the hill with his dark, serious eyes. His tanned skin was covered in a thin sheen of sweat as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Another swamp. I hate swamps. You know there’s going to be a million mosquitoes and flies down there.” I pulled out the map, squinting down at it. I ran my finger down the trail, seeing the mountains and valleys we had already passed.
“The trail shouldn’t be going through any swamps,” I said. “They’re supposed to be marked. There’s no ponds or anything around here.” And yet there very clearly was. Either we were in a different spot than I thought we were, or the map was outdated. The trail also grew thinner as we descended. The sharp branches of the bushes stuck out like greedy hands, grabbing at our backpacks and clothes as we pressed forward.
“Well, whatever,” X said gruffly, plowing ahead. Twigs cracked under his massive bulk. The thin branches hanging across the path snapped as he plowed forward. I let him go first, since he was significantly bigger than myself. It was like following in the path of a bull.
“The faster we move, the faster we’ll be through it. We don’t want to camp anywhere around here when it gets dark,” X continued, looking grim. “We’ll be eaten alive by bugs by sunrise. We need to make it to the other side of these boglands before we can stop for the night.”
“Yeah, and I could use some more water,” I said, shaking my mostly empty canteen. “I wouldn’t drink this shit no matter what we did to it. It probably has brain-eating parasites crawling in it.” I checked my watch, realizing that dusk was only a half hour away. We would have to move fast indeed, especially as we didn’t know the size of the swamp. I was not enthusiastic about hiking in the dark with the many steep trails and sharp rocks that covered the surrounding land. A single misstep could lead to a very long, bone-shattering fall.
To my increasing dismay, I realized that the trail we were on no longer had the characteristic white markings of the Appalachian Trail. I kept checking the trees for the past fifteen minutes, and I definitely hadn’t seen a single one. I couldn’t remember the last time we had passed one, but I had a creeping suspicion it had been at least a couple hours ago.
“I think we have a problem, man,” I whispered. “I don’t know how it possibly could have happened, but I think we’re on the wrong trail.”
“There’s not supposed to be any other trails around here,” X argued. “Check the map.”
“Then where’s the white blazes? There’s not supposed to be any boglands around here, either, yet we’re walking through the middle of one,” I said. He shook his head.
“Listen, Ben, there’s not going to be markers on the entire Appalachian Trail,” he said. “Just trust me. We’re on the right path. Sometimes forests change. Swamps take over spots where forests used to lay. Hell, the Sahara Desert has been expanding for thousands of years, just eating the forests and plains all around it. There used to be lions and savannah in Morocco, and now it’s all dead and dry.”
I felt doubtful, but I continued forwards, following closely behind X. Neither one of us had ever done the full Appalachian Trail, after all. I hoped he was right. I was not enthusiastic about backtracking two or three hours if he wasn’t.
I thought back closely on our travels during the last few hours, wondering where we could have gone wrong. The trail had been rather overgrown and rocky on the peak of the last mountain. There had been a beautiful view spanning hundreds of miles, looking far off into state forests and winding roads. I remembered seeing the white marker near the top, but after we had started descending, it disappeared. That must have been where we went wrong, if we did, indeed, go off-course. But I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t tell X about my suspicions.
We finished descending a steep, rocky trail into a valley where the boglands really started. The trees ended in a massive semi-circle around the open swamp. Thick peat covered the entire surface of it like rotted, grayish-brown skin. I saw water snakes quietly disappearing into the stagnant water, leaving behind slowly expanding ripples.
“This is pretty cool,” I said, stopping for a moment at the bottom of the trail to admire the boglands. Our trail continued directly through the center of it, no more than a raised patch of black earth surrounded by green swampy water. I could hear the many insects chirping and flying before we even took a step forward. Though the spring air felt warm and I was covered in sweat, I still reached into my bag, taking out a windbreaker that would cover up my arms and neck to help with the bugs. X did the same.
“Let’s move fast,” he said, giving me a knowing look. He was a much faster hiker than myself. He seemed like a machine sometimes, tireless and single-minded. I had seen him hike over twenty miles in a single day without looking too bent out of shape. I gave him a faint half-smile, picking up my pace.
“You know what they used to say about the boglands?” I asked X. He shook his head.
“I don’t read books,” he said. “If I have time to sit down and read, then it means I have time to go out and do something actually fun. But I’m sure you know all about it.” I gave a short bark of laughter at his off-handed insult. It sounded far too loud echoing back to us through the creepy swamp. The last rays of sunlight were disappearing behind the mountains now. Soon, we would be plunged into darkness.
“Well, in ancient times, people thought the boglands a place where the walls of reality were thin, where the gods would come through. They used to bring their victims out to swamps during rituals, then they would slice their throats or strangle them and dump their bodies into the bogs as an offering to the gods. They also said that strange, shape-shifting creatures would appear, sometimes to deceive travelers, other times to help them,” I said. “But as for human sacrifices, the bogs preserve bodies like nothing else, except maybe tar pits. Archaeologists keep finding victims with slashed throats or shattered skulls buried underneath the peat.”
X was silent for a long moment as we continued walking along the raised patch of earth that formed the trail. We got farther and farther from the forests, until the swamp seemed like a fetid ocean, spanning out to the horizon in every direction.
“Do you think they used to do that kind of stuff around here?” X asked.
“Used to?” I exclaimed, laughing. “I’m sure some psychopaths still do. This is a good place to dump a body, after all. Who the hell wants to trek through the muck and the snakes and mosquitoes out here looking for corpses?”
“The FBI and the cops will do it,” he said, “if they think there’s something to find.” I was about to respond when an ear-splitting shriek echoed out all around us. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from at first. X’s tan skin seemed to go pale as he spun, glancing in every direction.
“What the fuck is that?!” he screamed over the deafening wailing. I didn’t believe in cryptids, but my anxious mind immediately offered up an image of a banshee, a woman with chalk-white skin and black eyes whose shrieking jaw unhinged like a snake’s.
“I’m turning around!” I yelled, pointing back for emphasis. “Dude, fuck this! We need to get out of this swamp!” But X was no longer listening. He was looking past me, his mouth open and his eyes wild. He started backpedaling and nearly fell into the swamp. Windmilling his arms crazily, he turned and sprinted away without a word.
I was afraid to look back. The screaming was getting louder by the second, shaking the air all around me in deafening, crashing waves of sound. I felt like my head would explode if it got any worse. Instinctively, I took off after X, but I glanced back for a single moment before I did. Something loomed there from a nightmare, standing as tall as the trees. It moved through the swamp like a snake, its body slithering through the stagnant green waters towards us. When it met my eyes, the screaming stopped. The abrupt silence seemed deafening. I could hear the fervent pounding of my heart in my ears.
The creature’s skin looked honeycombed and rough, almost like a wasp’s nest. The thousands of tiny holes covering its body constantly opened and closed like hungry mouths. Its arms were long tentacles ending in sharp points of bone in the shape of scythes. The tentacles undulated like serpents. Its legs, too, were no more than four tentacles that alternatively slithered and stepped forward.
Its flesh was the color of peat, a sickly grayish-brown, and the smell that emanated from it was rancid and stagnant, the essence of all boglands and swamps. I nearly gagged as I ran. The putrefying stench seemed to follow me like a shadow.
Ahead of me, X was fumbling in his backpack as he ran, trying to grab his pistol. I knew he had a Glock 21 in that bag, and I had my Sig Sauer in mine. I cursed myself for not keeping it holstered on my body, but I had never had to use it before and hadn’t seriously thought I would need it for this trip. He glanced back at me, his eyes widening in horror.
“It’s right behind you!” he yelled. “Get down!” He dropped his backpack, revealing the sleek, black pistol clenched tightly in his hand. I barely had time to comprehend his words when an immense pressure and numbness radiated through my back. My head snapped backwards as a meaty thud resonated all around me. I went flying forward, feeling as if I had been struck by a car. As I flew through the air, the pain in my back exploded in burning pulses. I felt the deep slice open up from the sharp blade of bone that had slashed me like a knife. I felt trickles of blood pour from the open wound, making my stained shirt cling to my body.
I landed hard on the raised black earth of the trail, a bone-jarring impact that knocked the air out of me. At that same moment, X opened fire, pressing the trigger over and over, emptying the magazine as fast as he could. Something splashed over me, going in my eyes and mouth and nose. I crawled forward, moaning, my head spinning. I wiped my forehead, seeing spatters of green blood squirming with dark, maggot-like creatures covering my arms and face. It clung to my fingers, thick and rancid. I felt stinging sensations as the tiny worms bit me over and over. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine from the gunshots.
X was running towards me now. I continued to crawl towards him, shell-shocked and whimpering, trying to wipe the eldritch blood off my skin. With a muscular arm, he reached down and pulled me up.
“Where’d it go?” I mumbled, stumbling forward on unsteady feet. X put an arm around my shoulders and helped support me.
“It slunk back into the swamp,” he said. “Jesus, you’re bleeding really bad, buddy. We’re going to need to take care of that as soon as we get away from this hellhole.” I felt the deep slices from the creature’s blade-like hands across my back. The fabric of my shirt clung tightly to the skin as fresh blood soaked it.
“This isn’t the trail, X,” I gasped. “We went the wrong way. We need to go back.” He nodded grimly.
“We’re heading back right now. I know it’s the wrong trail now, it definitely is, but it’s dark. The trails back up the mountains are steep and dangerous, and we’ve already been hiking all day. How much longer can we really go?” he asked. In reality, I had a feeling X could go for quite a bit longer. I was the weak link in the chain, and we both knew it.
X took out a small, LED flashlight from his backpack, shining it ahead of us on the dark path. Across the center of the black earth, there was an obstruction, something that hadn’t been there when we passed this way originally.
“Shit! Is that a person?” X said, slowing down. He focused the light on it. As my eyes adjusted, I gave a gasp of horror as I saw a rough sacrificial table looming there, waiting with a ready victim.
Laying on the bare wooden planks in the center of the trail was an elderly man wearing the garb of a hunter. He was gagged, a bloody rag shoved deep into his mouth. I felt a sense of revulsion and terror as I realized his hands and feet were nailed to the planks, as if he were being crucified laying down. His eyes rolled wildly, white and insane, like a horse with a broken leg. When he saw us approaching, he tried to say something through the gag, pulling hard against the nails that bit so viciously into his flesh. Fresh rivers of blood spurted from his wounds.
I had my pistol in my hands. X had taken a fresh magazine out by now, throwing the empty one back in his backpack. Trembling, he went first, his shaking hand moving the flashlight around wildly. Its bright rays bounced off the dead, half-rotted trees that grew out of the boglands, the clouds of mosquitoes and moths that circled us constantly.
“Oh my God... he's like the victim of a serial killer or something,” he whispered, running a trembling hand over his face. “It looks like someone has set that poor guy up to have his heart cut out, like some sort of Aztec ritual.” He glanced worriedly over at me. We had both stopped cold in our tracks, looking around for any sign of danger, but we only saw the old man writhing on his rough table of torture.
“We have to keep going forward,” I whispered. “That thing is behind us. I don’t think it’s dead. I’m not sure it can even die.”
“But what’s ahead of us?” he asked grimly. “That’s the real question, isn’t it?” Far off down the trail, I saw small pinpoints of flickering light. They drew closer. We raised our pistols, waiting for the new arrivals to show themselves.
Dozens of people dressed in black, silky robes holding lamps slowly ambled their way towards us. They had their heads bowed, like monks on a holy pilgrimage. They drew close to the sacrifice. The one in the lead held a long, curving dagger whose blade looked like it was made of some kind of red volcanic rock. Its strange silver handle glittered in his pale, thin hand. At the end, I saw it was sculpted into the shape of a human heart.
“Stop right there!” X screamed, stepping forward. “Don’t come any closer! We are armed, I’m warning you.” The people in the black robes didn’t appear to hear or care in the slightest. They continued slowly following their leader with the strange dagger, almost floating forward in a nonchalant manner. Their leader began chanting in some strange, ancient language. It reminded me of Tibetan or Sanskrit in a way, like the chanting of some Vajrayana monk high up in the Himalayas. But it had a sinister, hissing quality to the words. Something ancient and powerful resonated in every syllable.
I raised the pistol, firing blankly into the dark, cloudless sky above. The smell of gunsmoke and fetid rot hung thick in the air. The leader of the group looked at me with his large, glassy eyes. His face looked sunken and pale, almost like a starving child. He had shaved all of the hair on his head, even his eyebrows. His lips were extremely thin and bloodless in his chalk-white face.
For a long moment, we stood staring at each other, my pistol aimed at his chest. X also had his pistol raised, aimed at one of those standing behind him. But the robed man didn’t speak. He gave me a faint grin.
“Let the old man go,” I commanded, my voice sounding hoarse and weak. The swamp quickly swallowed up my words, until only the buzzing of mosquitoes remained.
“I am sorry, my son, but I cannot do that,” the leader said in a voice as cold as endless space. “If we do not feed Mowdoroth, it will never sleep. The swamps will continue to expand, eating more and more of the surrounding forests and towns, and Mowdoroth, driven insane by hunger, will take far more victims in the process.
“This job has been passed down to us from generation to generation, from big hand to small, for over four centuries. Only twice has Mowdoroth not been fed on the New Moon, and each time, entire settlements full of people were wiped off the face of the Earth as if they had never existed. On one, they just had time to carve the word ‘CROATAN’ before they were taken.
“Mowdoroth looks for the place where the nightmares grow. It breaks open the chest and finds the place where the silent screams start, deep down at the base of the heart. All of the nightmares are planted there, like tiny seeds scattered during childhood. Those that fell on good soil in that abyss produced a great crop, yielding a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold. If you do not allow us to complete our holy mission, then you do it: cut open the man's chest and remove his beating heart. As it beats, squeeze it as hard as you can, and let all the blood drain onto the top of your head. Hold the heart above your head and close your eyes until the god appears and takes it.” The cult leader finished, looking at us with sparkling eyes, as if he had said something profound.
“This shit is just insane drivel,” X whispered in a voice as low as possible. “I say we open fire and save the old man now. Fuck these cultists.” I nodded grimly in agreement.
“You need to all turn around and leave immediately,” X yelled, stepping forward. “I will give you three seconds to turn around and get the hell out of my sight. Three…” At first, the cultists stood as still as statues, simply staring. Finally, the leader sighed and turned away. He shook his head, reminding me of a disappointed parent.
“I tried to warn you,” he said in his thin, quavering voice. “The time has come to give the offering. You must cut out this man’s heart and raise it to Mowdoroth, so he can get the seeds of nightmares freshly sown. The choice is yours now, as you have demanded this power with violence. You can leave this man here to be eaten by Mowdoroth, or free him and, in exchange, guarantee the deaths of hundreds of other people.”
With those last words, the black-robed figures continued down the curve of the trail. Within seconds, they had disappeared behind dead, half-rotted trees that still dotted the edges of the boglands. X and I ran forward toward the struggling old man. X reached into his pocket and pulled out a folding knife. He cut off the old man’s gag, pulling the spit-soaked chunk of filthy cloth out of his mouth. The old man spat and licked his dry lips.
“Get me out of here, please,” he whispered, his eyes rolling wildly. “Those cult members are all batshit insane. And there’s something not right in these swamps. I caught glimpses of something while I was waiting. There’s something in the water…”
“What’s your name, bud?” X said calmingly, looking at the old man’s hands and feet to try to decide how to best get the nails out without causing more damage.
“Winchester,” he said in a coarse voice. It sounded like he hadn’t had a drink of water in days. While X looked at his hands with the LED flashlight, I reached into my pack for the small canteen of filtered water I still had. I started pouring it into Winchester’s mouth. He gulped greedily, his throat working hard to drink down the rest of it.
“I got it!” X said, taking a flat stone he had found on the ground. “I’m going to try to pound these nails out from the bottom.”
“Oh, please, no,” Winchester said, his wrinkled face turning pale. X shook his head.
“We need to get you out of here,” he said. “It’s going to hurt, bud. But we don’t have any tools here. The nails are large, almost like railroad spikes, and once we get the top part, the bottom should slide out easily since it’s a lot narrower.” As he grabbed the rock to begin his work, a bone-chilling wailing started up again from the swamps. It was the scream of Mowdoroth, that abomination with the skin of a wasp’s nest.
“Cover us!” X yelled panickedly as he continued his grisly work. Winchester screamed in pain when X first struck the nail on his right hand. It shot up a fraction of an inch, fresh blood pooling all around it and dripping through the bare planks.
I turned, but the banshee wail seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The swamp bubbled faster and faster all around us, as if thousands of corpses were coming back to life. I heard Winchester scream again, then the dull thud of another nail hitting the earth.
A face peeked out of the swamp, only twenty feet away. Its eyes were green, the color of a putrefying wound. Its lipless mouth opened wide, showing a spongy black mass of skin with concentric circles of tiny, razor-sharp teeth. It reminded me of the mouth of a lamprey.
I opened fire, shooting wildly at the face, aiming at the body hidden under the dark surface of the swamp. Luminescent drops of green blood exploded from a bullet hole in its upper right shoulder, floating across the surface of the water like radioactive waste.
Its screaming cut off instantly. All I could hear was the pounding of the rock behind me and Winchester’s pained, horrified pleas for mercy.
“Please, you’re hurting me!” he pleaded.
“Shut the fuck up, Winchester!” I whispered. “It’s here with us now.” With considerable effort, he did, only moaning and violently jerking his head now as the waves of pain ripped through him.
“I got it!” X said suddenly. A feeling of elation filled my heart.
“Let’s go then!” I yelled, turning to help the old man up. I heard something massive rise up behind us. It mixed with the sound of dripping water and babbling waves that arose from the disturbance.
Winchester was weak, stumbling up to his feet and nearly falling over immediately. Staggering, he took off down the trail with no shoes, but he immediately gave a curse of pain and tripped. X and I started running, and at that moment, I realized the flaw in our plan. We wouldn’t be able to get Winchester out of the swamp without carrying him, due to the extensive injuries to his feet. And I knew we didn’t have time.
Mowdoroth’s body stood as tall as the trees as it looked down at the three of us with its strange, infected eyes. Its tentacles undulated faster and faster, seeming to whip around its body until they flew out towards us.
“Run!” I screamed. X and I sprinted behind a cluster of dead trees hugging the path. The blade-like hand of Mowdoroth chopped them in a half, raining wood splinters down on our heads.
Winchester continued trying to crawl forward. Mowdoroth slithered behind him. Winchester looked up as a tentacle started coming down in his direction. He gave a short, panicked scream as the blade smashed through his back legs, chopping both of them off at the knees. The ground shook with the force of it. The stumps began spurting seemingly endless amounts of blood. Winchester pleaded and made incomprehensible gurgling sounds as he bled out. Mowdoroth ended Winchester’s cries when it wrapped its tentacle around Winchester’s torso. It slithered up into Winchester’s open mouth.
X and I shot as fast as we could while running forward in the dark, trying to hold a flashlight and a pistol. Most of my shots missed Mowdoroth, but with a sense of satisfaction and pride, I saw a few burst through its enormous body. Streams of radioactive green blood ran down its torso now. As its serpentine legs pumped furiously, it gained speed, coming behind us like a runaway train. I could feel the ground shaking with every thud of its tentacled feet.
A few hundred feet ahead of us, I caught a glimpse of the cultists. They were hurrying away from the area, not running but moving much faster than they had come in. Nearly out of breath already and exhausted from hiking all day, I pointed forward.
“Look!” I screamed. X saw them, his eyes widening. We sprinted in a blind panic, as fast as we could towards the stragglers in the black robes. Without warning, X raised his pistol and fired, aiming at the nearest of them.
The figure in the back of the pack fell forward without making a sound. He continued trying to crawl forward weakly for a few moments before he lost energy and lay still, no more than a bleeding black hump on the dark earth.
X gave a sudden cry of pain next to me as a tentacle came down like a guillotine blade. I heard it whip through the air with a high-pitched whine. A single breath later, I watched in horror as it sliced off his right arm. X looked down at the spurting stump for a long moment, his tanned face turning as pale as bones. He stumbled forward, then, with a hoarse cry, he fell.
Following X’s lead, I raised my gun and started shooting the cultists. They sprinted away in a random panic as bodies fell ahead of us. I jumped over the black lumps on the ground, hearing Mowdoroth shake the world as it gave chase. A long, snake-like tentacle reached down, picking up X’s spurting body and raising it towards Mowdoroth’s leech-like mouth. The massive abomination slowed, picking up the bodies of the dead cultists and crushing them. I heard the bones shatter as the wet gore exploded around Mowdoroth’s many sharp teeth.
I saw the woods again, living trees just a few hundred feet away. The trail of black earth ended abruptly, leading out of the boglands. Cultists sprinted blindly through the forest in every direction, scattering like cockroaches. I had nearly reached the border of the forest when I heard something whizzing past my head. I ducked, but the blur of a grayish tentacle coming down sent a jolt of fear like electricity sizzling through my body.
A moment later, a cold agony covered my left hand. In shock, I looked down, realizing that the blade-like appendage of Mowdoroth had neatly amputated all four of my fingers. If I hadn’t ducked, it would’ve probably gotten my head instead.
Stumbling and screaming, my mind in a blind panic, I staggered through the intersection of the boglands and the forest, falling forward. I knew I was dead. I closed my eyes, waiting. Yet nothing happened.
When I looked back, I saw something strange. Mowdoroth had stopped at the end of the boglands. It tried to push its body forward towards me, but it couldn’t enter the forest. It was as if an invisible barrier stood there.
I lay there for a long time. After a while, I heard Mowdoroth slink back into the fetid waters of the boglands. And then I was alone.
***
I wrapped my hand in bandages as much as I could, trying to stem the bleeding. I felt weak and sick from blood loss, so I lay there until the sun came up. The next day, I was able to slowly make my way out of the forest and back towards the nearest town.
Now I hear stories of people mysteriously going missing in the area. An entire family in a nearby farmhouse only a couple dozen miles away disappeared in the middle of the night without a trace, leaving only smeared trails of blood leading into the forest. No one saw anything, but these six victims were only the first in a long line of strange deaths. Oddly enough, all of the victims lived next to swamps.
And I have the feeling that I was the one responsible.

There's something up here with me.
Since I returned to the world of the living, I've been doing my best to become an active member of society again and to try and earn my ticket to heaven in the meantime.
Even though I can't afford this luxury right now, I always donate a portion of my salary to charity, do volunteer work on weekends, and help out at a community kitchen on Thursdays after work.
All of this is to avoid going back there.
But I don't know how well this can work, nor do I know if by gaining this new life, I also received a new chance.
There's something I haven't told you.
If none of this makes sense to you, it´s good to take a look at my first post.
If you missed the last update, I recommend reading it before continuing.
The truth is that my torment hasn't completely stopped. Since I returned from the dead, my nights are filled with agony and terror.
The nightmares are terrible, but when I wake up shrouded in the darkness of my room, I can sometimes discern things in the shadows.
Arachnid-like forms with dozens of eyes and mouths that sing profanities.
Throughout the day, I can still see them, in the corner of my eye almost like a permanent silhouette, a reminder that they're watching me, just waiting for my last breath to take me back via the VIP express lane.
I think Samael didn't like being deceived one bit.
Now, however, it's not the time to recount my escape. There are still many dangers I've yet to warn you about.
And if after your death you find yourselves wandering through the infernal circles, surely at some point you'll come across the Silver City.
The last vestige of community in hell.
Gehenna is like a living structure, a fabric composed of buildings, streets, and alleys that stretches vertically through the 9 circles that compose the abyss.
When I died, I arose just like many others in Lust, the third circle of Hell, contrary to what Alighieri claimed.
The real order of the circles would be: Limbo, Greed, Lust, Wrath, Gluttony, Heresy, Violence, Treachery, and finally, Pride.
The goal of the Collectors was set like a jewel in the center of Limbo.
It's funny, in Dante's work, the city is portrayed as a paradise away from heaven for those with good hearts who never accepted Jesus into their lives. Their only punishment would be to never glimpse the face of God.
Damn, I wish it were like that.
I woke up with the mettalic taste of blood still on my mouth.
A gentle voice was saying something, but with my ears ringing, I couldn't make out anything. I could tell there was something in front of me, the smell was good, my stomach reminded me I was yet to eat anything.
Without much choice, I accepted the charity and ate. The taste was surprisingly good, if I were to describe it, it's something close to pork.
I spent some time just eating and recovering. I was also given a canteen of warm water; it tasted weird, but It was not like I was gonna complain.
As my senses returned, I could understand what the young man in front of me was saying.
I still remember his face, without any bruises,shallow beard and a glimmer of hope that didn't match that place at all.
"Feeling better now ?"
" I guess.. where are we now, Is that thing still here ? "
I tried sitting but a sharp pain on my chest stopped me from moving.
"Hey take it easy now. You're so skinny you look like a twig. When was the last time you ate?"
"About 10 seconds ago "
He smiled a bit.
"Well at least now you´re good enough to enjoy the ride"
With that, I felt prompted to look around, and finally noticed that we were on the back of a strange pickup truck.
Not only that, some sort of locomotive seemed to form around us. In total, there were four vehicles.
Our pickup stood at the center, with metal plaques around its frame and sharp grates on the ends confining us.
On our left, an old mustang suffered to keep itself close traveling on such uneven terrain.
On our right I could see Mice on top of an old motocicle gigling to himself, I silently wished he crashed.
Leading the group ahead, I could see the rear of a black van, and finally, following behind, I saw what appeared to be a Honda with smashed windows and covered in dents.
"Where are they taking us?"
"I have no idea, but anything must be better than these fucking fields."
Recalling Mice's delusions, I wasn't so sure about that.
"Who are you? Are you with them too?"
"I think we're in the same boat, buddy."
"The last guy who called me 'buddy' tied me up and dragged me into the clutches of a monster."
"I don't like them one bit, but from what I saw when we arrived, he was trying to protect you."
"So you really are one of them!"
"I already said we're in the same shit-hole. I got caught by the masked one while trying to hunt dinner." he said, pointing out the window towards the driver of the pickup, a tall, muscular man wearing a strange wooden mask.
"Sorry, the past few days have been so... God If you only knew what I've been through."
The young man chuckled sincerely. "Friend, I'm sure whatever you've been through, I've lived it dozens of times already. The name's John, nice to meet you."
"Well, John, you can call me Nate. I would shake your hand, but..." I nudged towards the wires on my hands. "
"Could be worse" He gestured towards his feet.
They where chopped off.
"Holy shit! I´m sorry John, these guys are insane!"
"Don´t be, They will be back once I die, but I have a feeling they will not let that happen so soon."
We could already see the spire slowly coming into view on the horizon.
"You sound used to all of this."
"Don't tell me, you're new?"
" I...still can´t believe this is all real"
"You better come to terms with it fast; this place doesn't take pity on the weak."
We didn't feel like chatting after that.
I wanted to ask about what I was given to eat, but something told me I would be better off not knowing. We traveled far towards the Spire, Gehenna slowly embracing us again with its dark skies.
From up close, I was able to see an opening in the base of the Spire.
The twisted terrain of the fields gave way to broken roads and dusted buildings, screams of despair found their way back to my ears as we passed near the tar pits.
Haunted by memories of my arrival, I couldn't help but search for the beasts that mauled me in the confusing streets of the city. I don't know if it was because of the sound of the engines or the size of our group, but I didn't see them among the wreckage and alleyways.
As we approached the Spire, a strange icy breeze embraced us. The shock was so intense that I lost my breath, trembling as I noticed a thin layer of ice forming rapidly on the pickup truck.
"Try to control your breathing, it'll pass soon."
"What is this now?"
"Specters."
As we finally reached the center of Lust, I realized we were not alone.
The base of the Spire held an immense arched opening, from which a dark interior was barely visible. Above the entrance, crucified on the wall, I saw a man; the slight movement of his head and his blue eyes made my stomach churn.
The culprits for the sudden cold gathered below the man in desperation. There were dozens of them, humanoid beings emitting a faint glow and seeming to levitate; their cries echoed through the city, spreading along with their icy presence.
The man only watched them, one by one, but said nothing.
He seemed to be judging them.
The engines shut off, and one by one the collectors descended from the vehicles.
Mice was the first to approach; the specters recoiled from him like cockroaches fleeing from light.
He then looked the man in the eyes, bowed, and said:
"Oh Aeacus! King of Aegina, my heart is not pure for rest, my eyes are blind to injustice, and my fists only weigh for my desires. From dust I came and to dust I return, my soul judged to forever burn, so I beg you to open the doors to my torment."
The Man's eyes locked onto Mice for a moment, then his lips whispered something in an elaborate tongue, and the darkness of the entrance turned into a scarlet mass.
I didn't knew about the kings back then. Aeacus is the easiest to convince; he oversees the higher circles. They say if you're under Minos's gaze, however, I hope you enjoy the lower circles because he's unlikely to grant you passage. And if you're a special kind of unlucky, I suggest you don't even try to approach Rhadamantus unless you want a one-way ticket to Pride.
The collectors then pulled us out of the cars, displaying us like trophies in an organized line. I had to support John on my shoulders; otherwise, they would have made him crawl the rest of the way.
From the other cars, a few more people emerged, other unfortunate souls with the same destination as mine. I saw a beautiful woman with short red hair and brown eyes; she was injured with several cuts on her back. The collector taking her out of the van seemed pleased; I tried not to dwell on it too much. She stared at me intensely, looking scared.
A man had to be forcibly removed from the Honda by two collectors. He was big and strong, dark-skinned with furious eyes, long braids cascading from his head to the middle of his back, a terrible scar showing on his left arm.
To this day, I have no idea how they managed to capture that bastard; later, he would tell me that they didn't got him until after he'd taken down some of them.
Finally, an old man with a band over his eyes was pushed into line; he looked so worn down that I thought I would see him turning to dust at any moment.
Mice then made his way to the entrance and was swallowed by the mass.
The collectors forced us to enter, one by one I saw everyone being pushed into the unknown, looking around I tried to think of something, some escape route.
"Don't do anything stupid," John whispered in my ear. "It won't work."
I thought about throwing him at them and running for my life. I didn't know him, didn't know a damn thing about him except his name. A glance at the collectors' weapons made me change my mind; I wouldn't get far even if I did find an opening.
Finally, my turn came. With the weight of John still on my shoulders, I walked to the entrance with my heart pounding in fear.
The mass that filled it seemed to react to me, stretching to cover my body, the scarlet glow blinding me as the collectors urged me to hurry.
I reached out my hand and felt a slight resistance, almost like touching cold gelatin. I felt it pulling me, and before my head was completely swallowed, I held my breath.
My body was warm; it was like being bathed in soup, every exposed inch of my skin burning, but the agony was only beginning.
I felt that strange mass invading me, entering through my nose, ears, eyes.
It hurt.
I tried to scream but my lungs were filled with the alien substance that forced its way through my organs; I felt like I was about to lose consciousness.
A shockwave ran through my body; I felt as if I was being torn into a thousand pieces and reformed, my consciousness used as a child's toy.
And then I was spat out.
I barfed on the gray grass that solemnly clung to me; John lay beside me, eyes rolled back, red fluid still trickling from his mouth.
I didn't have time to worry about him.
Before me, proudly stood what can only be described as a monument of sin.
Far from the light of hope it once was, now taken and calloused, abused and defiled by the filthy ideals of the damned scum.
Its golden streets don't shine.
Its security only harbors hate.
Its cracked walls don't protect, they only confine.
Even though I didn't knew much about hell, didn't knew its history or care about its purpose, I could see in that moment that I was looking at the greatest disrespect to the sacred that could exist.
An empire built with blood and erected by desire.
The Silver City opened its gates to me.
With the intention of never letting me go again.
The other collectors arrived, and one by one we were introduced to the next 40 years of our lives.
The memories of this city are painful. I tried to ditch this shit given the purpose of it all, but a drag is necessary if I'm really going to recall the decades I spent under that tyrant's rule.
Passing through the rusty gates, the lower city is the first thing you see. Jack leaves this region of the Silver City for his merchants to sell their findings in the lower circles, where everywhere you look, prostitutes and slaves accompany the more fortunate. Jack's personal guard takes advantage of his authority to get everything they want without spending a penny, of course.
Linked to the lower city by a rudimentary elevator, the Pleasure Zone casts its glow over those below, a neighborhood where the best drinks, drugs, and alterations can easily be found. Hunters and collectors usually walk around there, spending their earnings to calm their vices and complaining about their King's insane demands.
But by far, the most striking sight is a castle covered in soot, built at the highest level of the city, where only Jack's personal circle can tread without being summoned.
That's exactly where we were being taken.
John was still unconscious, being carried by our captors.
As we walked under the guns, naked and defenseless, the malicious glares of the vendors assessed us as new merchandise.
My feet ached, full of blisters; I couldn't feel my hands anymore. Looking at a toothless man being pulled by a chain around his neck, I wondered if that would be my fate.
Desperation was beginning to consume me.
We ascended to the Pleasure Zone by elevator, the same one powered by the brute force of several slaves harnessed to the wall, their hands raw from continuous and repetitive effort.
The hallucinogenic fumes from the laboratories filled the street of the neighborhood. I felt my heart race, my skin tingle, and a sweet smell invading my mind. The woman accompanying us seemed to recognize the substance as she lunged towards the source of the vapors. Mice kicked her in the stomach, making her kneel, grabbed her by the hair, and laughed.
"You fucking addict! You've used this shit before, haven't you? Look at the way you're trembling, hahaha! If they don't send you to the brothel, I might have an idea of what to do with you!"
She didn't seem to understand, or care, drooling from her mouth and experiencing small spasms as the drug filled her lungs.
Wish I could say I avoided it, but this shit is strong; within a few minutes, I was almost as high as when the Succubus attacked.
We then walked through the alleyways towards a staircase carved in marble; a sinner was overdosing against the steps.
Mice shot him in the head and threw him aside.
One moment he was alive, and the next, the remnants of his brain adorned the ground.
I gasped for air, my vision darkening; I meant nothing to them, they could dispose of me whenever they wanted.
I felt like I was going to die. I felt like I was going back to the tar pits, seeing myself suffering and being devoured for ages, running only to be captured, no rest, no warning.
What kind of being would create such a rotten place? Why did he have the right to read my soul and throw me towards this flaming lake? It's not fair, it's sick.
As I climbed the stairs, stepping on the remnants of the sinner's mind, I wondered if God was watching me at that moment.
Maybe he was having fun.
The biblical hell holds a king.
It shelters demons and powerful beings born from darkness itself.
And as you already know, beings made by the Creator's own hand.
It wouldn't be at that moment that I would meet Samael, but alongside the self-proclaimed human King, I met his right-hand beast.
When the doors of the castle opened, I fell to my knees on the ground.
An angelic figure, with the aura of pure evil.
A feminine body, dressed in white adorned with jade, three pairs of long and golden wings kept her hovering a few meters above the ground.
On her face, a twisted helmet, with an eternal black flame at its peak, portraying what was, what is, and what will come.
The base of her helmet completely covers her eyes, squeezing them with such force that blood constantly drips to the ground. Her face constantly changes—a slender young woman, a frightened child, an irritated elder, a black goat, a hungry tarantula, an unnamed beast, an indescribable void.
In her hands, a chain hangs a clock, which constantly moves, which moves constantly. It tries to guess the hour, the hour that only He knows, constantly wrong, corrects itself, recoils, recalculates, wrong, corrects itself, recoils, recalculates, wrong.
Such a beautiful creature, fell alongside the morning star, with a third of the stars, to forever hate us, to extinguish everything and everyone.
Who was I compared to such perfection?
Who was I compared to such obscenity?
I felt broken.
I felt complete.
Terrified.
Emancipated.
A thousand mouths sang in a thousand languages in my mind, all equally correct, all equally wrong.
The duality that leads to madness.
In my heart, he introduced himself, Astaroth, the Grand Duke of Hell.
With a flick of his hand, he disappeared, but I still felt him watching us, assessing us.
Seated on a broken throne, there was the face of control.
Almost as tall and robust as my captured companion, a short, defined beard adorned a ruthless face marked by battles.
Gray hair and a leather cloak, a silver medallion around his neck, and a shining red ring on his left hand, eating grapes like a Greek emperor.
Jack graced us with his presence.
Mice once again took the initiative.
"My lord, we have found fresh meat of the highest quality to expand your empire, mostly young and strong, and the old one is wise and knows the ancient rituals."
Jack looked at us as if we were worms, evaluating us like a spoiled child receiving gifts at Christmas.
"You bring me trash and expect gratitude. If this is what you consider good quality, perhaps it's time to revoke your position."
Jack's ring began to glow, and I felt Astaroth's strong presence growing. Mice quickly knelt and spoke again.
"My king! One of them appears to be marked." Mice then looked at me with a malicious smile, sending a shiver down my spine.
Jack observed me, the disdain in his eyes palpable.
He seemed to notice something at that moment, scratched his beard, and smiled.
"Mice! I can always count on you to keep me entertained. Take him to the pit, send the others to the dungeon. There may be something useful in this batch after all.
Before I could protest, I was struck on the head with the butt of a gun, and I lost consciousness.
Sorry, I need a moment. Just remembering the terrible nights I spent in that place makes me feel sick.
Man, I hope smoking doesn't count as too big of a sin.
When I woke up, I was chained to a wooden pillar by the neck, with several other sinners chained around me.
The place was poorly lit, and I could smell feces and urine. They didn't even release us to go to the bathroom.
In front of me, Jack stood with two guards.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. I'm sorry to disturb your rest, but I have some questions, and if you cooperate, you may find yourself involved in something much bigger and more important than your miserable afterlife."
"Screw you! I've seen the things your people do, you're all crazy. I don't want anything to do with you!"
Jack's ring began to glow, and Astaroth's silhouette became visible even in the deep darkness.
"For your own good, I hope you learn to have good manners. Now tell me, where is he?"
"What?"
The ring glowed, and Astaroth entered my mind.
The concept of emptiness is terrifying.
Non-existence is dreadful.
Emptiness occupied existence before everything existed; in the beginning, there was nothing, and then there was God.
My consciousness faded away, I felt the void corrupting my flesh prison; it's not a lack of senses, it's Nothing.
Sounds didn't vanish; they turned into nothingness. Along with sensations, memories, my existence.
I was completely devoured. I wanted to scream, but there was no voice, no will.
I wanted to exist, but there was never an "I."
I vanished completely, and then I was catapulted back into existence, where I could feel everything.
The infinite, it destroys.
Through Astaroth's eyes, I saw, I understood, not even in a thousand and one lives could I touch one percent of the truth.
My brain burned, flooded with everything that was, everything that would come. I cried, I screamed, agony drove me to madness; time made no sense anymore.
And then everything stopped. In despair, I screamed, I cried like a child. Jack embraced me with the tenderness of a mother as I collapsed into his chest. He gently stroked my head while speaking softly.
"Poor thing, so much suffering, so much lamentation. Pain is a choice, and I don't want it for you. I love you; I love all my possessions from the bottom of my heart. I only want what's best for you, but for that, I need your help. I want your pain to stop, help me make it stop! You just need to tell me, Where. is. he?"
I didn't want to return to nothingness; I didn't want to suffer with knowledge. Desperately, I lied; I said I knew where whoever he was looking for was, I would show him, he just had to let me go.
Jack acquired a sad expression, gently lifted my face, and said.
"Oh, child, why do you lie to me?"
With the scarlet glow of the ring, once again, I ceased to exist, catapulted between two extremes, blood streaming from my ears, I laughed, cried, begged.
All to make it stop, for him to remove that being from the room, I just wanted peace.
I felt my cells giving up, exploding and restructuring; memories were erased and returned, lived a thousand times per second.
My wife, my daughter, the drugs, the betrayal, the accident, the body, the hospital, the fall.
Once again, everything stopped.
I spat blood on Jack's cloak, who asked me again.
"Where is he, come on, damn it, just tell me! He marked you, he touched you, come on, where the hell is Samael, tell me and I'll leave you alone!"
I pleaded, I tried to tell him that I didn't know who he was talking about, I promised obedience, my life, anything for mercy.
Once again, he sent me to the void. For countless nights, the cycle repeated itself, I have no idea how long I was tortured in that place.
Eventually, Jack began to use me in other ways.
My days were divided between slave labor in the lower city and nights of torment in Jack's palace.
At the time, I didn't understand how he couldn't see that he was wrong; clearly, there was nothing special about me, I couldn't lead him to Samael, I was just a damned soul who could barely endure the first days in the abyss.
I just hadn't realized that Jack already had the certainty that I was different. After all, how could I be a nobody if Astaroth couldn't extract the "truth" from me, and they had to resort to torture?
Hope vanished from my chest; I didn't know if I would ever escape from there, if I would see John again before my soul was corrupted by the Grand Duke.
The years dragged on, and Jack's fury only grew.
Fortunately for me, in my fourth year in the Silver City, I gained a new cellmate, the old man who had been brought in the same group as me.
Little did I know that he would be my first clue to the way out of there.
I'm tired of remembering those horrible years, so I think I will stop here for today.
Clinging to hope in hell is as useless as using petrol to put out a fire; you'll only end up dying either way. But in the realm of insanity, it might not be all that crazy to think there might be a way out of the suffering.