We have 50/50 week on week off. Our son is 13.
I took a pretty long (2.5 week) vacation without my son in April, I asked my ex if he would be willing to watch him during my parenting time for a trip like that 6 months in advance. I asked him three months in advance if the specific dates I had would work. At that point I asked for the time off and finalized my plans. It was during this time that I decided to get our son a passport since I was getting mine anyway that he mentioned to me that he would like to go to -international country- to visit his wife’s family and take our son. That was about 8 months ago. I have asked him monthly if he has any plans or updates about that trip as an international trip for a teen is a big deal. Never any solid plans or details of any kind.
Finally at an event last weekend (I have already returned from my trip) I asked, again, if he had any updates on this plan, what are your summer plans with our son etc. It was kind of understood that I would be flexible about this trip for him since he was cool about my trip. His response was “I’m shooting for sometime in August”. No idea for how long or what dates. I told him less than 48 hours later that I have been planning a trip for my son (disneyland) that we already had one week (my parenting time) already planned. In August.
He freaked out and told me that it was right in the middle of the month and it was a good thing he asked three months in advance and now he’s planning a trip without our son, implying that it is my Fault.
Any thoughts on how I should proceed? I would love to be able to accommodate both trips and work together. But without knowing literally any info and being met with that kind of unnecessary response was a bit triggering for me and it makes me nervous to say anything else that could be thrown in my face.

Hey everyone, I'm planning a trip to the Faroe Islands for three days. I'm not looking for destination suggestions, but I'd like to know more about the available helicopter services. I've heard there are public routes costing 645 kr. for tourists. Is it worth it? What types of helicopters operate there? Should I (and can I?) book a window seat? Any advice or tips from your helicopter experiences would be greatly appreciated! Will be happy to see your photos shoot from above!

I cannot believe this is happening. The doctors are 'freaked out' and do not have experience with this type of psychosis / living nightmare...
About 1 year ago my son (14 at the time, now 15) started experiencing mild persecutory hallucinations (thinking people were talking about him or looking at him). He started pushing all of his friends out of his life and losing interest in all of his sports and hobbies. 4 months ago he started hearing voices. These voices quickly materialized as visual hallucinations in the form of animal/human chimera 'entities'. Out of nowhere, my son, who had no history of trauma or a single violent act, was being commanded to plan and execute a mass shooting.
We immediately started psychiatric treatment when he told us about the hallucinations and violent ideation. We had to pull him out of school because he couldn't hear class over the voices. He was diagnosed with 'depressive mood disorder and psychosis' and put on respiridone and hyroxyzine. These drugs did nothing to stop the delusions, but he gained about 20 pounds in one month. The structure of the delusion was becoming more defined. These 'entities' told him he was 'one of the chosen ones' and that his mission and purpose was to kill as many people as possible. What started as 2 'main' characters in his delusion had multiplied into a 'community' of demonic entities that both tormented him and helped him prepare to fulfil his 'destiny'.
Despite the bizarre violent hallucinations, his psychiatrist did not deem him an immediate threat to himself or others. He had no violent or criminal history and was always calm and composed.
Until last weekend.
I was contacted by law enforcement by phone. They informed me that he had sent threatening texts to his friends outlining his 'destiny' that the entities were preparing him for. I had 1 hour to get him to a psychiatric facility or they would come get him.
He is currently at an in-patient facility. Anti-psychotics do not seem to be working. The doctors do not know what to do. Even the very experienced doctors have never dealt with this type of presentation of psychosis. They do not have a clear plan for treatment and no one wants to be responsible for discharging him in case his delusional aspirations are realized. He is currently on 15 mg abilify with lexapro.
Have any of you ever seen or hear of anything like this? It is almost like demonic possession, but he always is very clear, calm, and composed. He is extremely articulate and intelligent, he doesn't present as 'crazy'. Zero history of drug use. No family history of schizophrenia or delusions. No childhood trauma. His upbringing has been 'idyllic', very loving family. No divorce. He is not religious or fanciful. This all came out of nowhere. It is almost like he is stuck in a dream or under a spell.
Words cannot describe how much this person means to me. I have always been so grateful to have such an incredible, kind person as my son. I have no idea when he will be released or if/when he will every get better. I am devastated.
Any meaningful comment, insight or idea would mean the world to me. I feel like Ive read every publication available to the public about adolescent psychosis, but I have no 'real world' information. Any treatment ideas or insight on what might be causing this are very appreciated, even if they seem outlandish. Im open to anything at this point. Thank you so much for reading.

Please bear with me as my fiancé is pregnant with our first child. I’m still learning things and I’m an excited but nervous wreck. Her first trimester has been hell for her. We are getting married at the end of June. I am planning a surprise trip before the baby comes. I want to take her up to Biltmore Estate to see the Chihuly Glass. She saw it in Washington years ago and still talks about how much she loves it. However, Asheville in the summer is HOT and crowded and I don’t want her to be miserable. The time frame I’m looking to take her would fall on the 7 month week. My question is would she be too pregnant to enjoy it? I don’t want her to be miserable. I want her to have a nice weekend away where she can enjoy herself. I’m even trying to plan a surprise maternity shoot at Biltmore. Any advice as well is welcome. I really just wanna do something special for her that she can enjoy. Please help! Thanks in advance!

Hello! I'm twenty two and prefer nonbinary pronouns, thank you! I'm looking for a male on male relationship as it is what I am most comfortable with, so please keep this in mind. I am looking for someone who would be interested in a long term roleplay partner! Meaning that, even if we get bored of a current roleplay, we could start a new roleplay so we both stay interested.
I'm preferably looking for someone who is fairly descriptive! [At least two paragraphs. If possible be willing to show examples of your writing?] I hate script and I love writing long replies as it feels more rewarding & I love to push myself. Also, I love planning out certain ideas and love bouncing ideas back and forth with someone, so please come in with an open mind and be open to plan out some scenarios with me! In addition to this, please write in third person!
I do NOT have a storyline in place, so feel free to suggest something! If you don't have an idea then lets bounce ideas back and forth of what we like and we can come up with one of our own!
Topics of interest I like are fantasy, medieval, magic, drama, with lil bits of fluff sprinkled in.
I do not roleplay fandoms! I prefer originally created content. Taking inspiration is fine by me, but no heavily relying on something!
When it comes to your characters, all I ask is that they are at the very least 18 and have drawn or descriptive face claims please[picrews also work!] Do not use real people. It makes me extremely uncomfortable.
Side note : I'm a night owl and will be most active during the afternoon/later into the night. ;)
Please, be an adult before shooting me a message! It personally makes me more comfortable, as I'd rather not roleplay with a minor.
​
If anything I've said interests you then shoot me a pm! Send me what you wish to be called, your age, preferred pronouns, and something you enjoy about roleplaying! You can call me Sumi! If we seem compatible, I'll send you my discord where we can continue planning and eventually roleplaying. Happy roleplaying to everyone!

Helena - Courtlady of Lannisport

Part 1

Reddit Account: SunstriderAlar
Discord Tag: u/SunstriderAlar
Name and House: Helena
Age: 22
Cultural Group: Westerman
Appearance: Helena is a young woman with soft doe-eyes, and unmistakable curling, golden hair. Raised by smallfolk, and Septa’s she wears her hair up and away from her face to ensure she does not let it get wet while cleaning or in her mouth while singing. She has delicate, porcelain, pale skin and cloudy soft blue eyes. No taller than 5’5” and is most often dressed in conservative simple fashions gathered by herself, or more elegant options gifted to her by a doting patron for formal events. Never shy to present her opinion, Helena has seen the world change, and her place in it numerous times. She is unafraid to do what she must, but knows the role of a woman.
Helena prefers to wear blue and yellow, the colours of Lord Swyft’s old sigil even though she has not lived in Cornfield for many years, and has no personal attachment to the house. Her real love though is unique broaches, and hairpins, different pins reveal different favours or stylings for different lords. She does enjoy crafting dresses as well, when the rare bolt of fabric comes her way she enjoys sewing and tailoring. She is often seen carrying a unique wooden six stringed lyre, or a three stringed lute; the former the cause for her name the Six Eyed Singer. She daps herself with lavender water most mornings, and cleans her teeth with mint, and rose now that she is employed by the Lannisters of Lannisport. Clean teeth are the hallmark of a charming, easy smile to make hearts of men and women alike flutter.
Trait: Elusive Shadow
Skill(s): Espionage, Devious, Schemer, Covert, Rumourmonger
Talent(s): Storyteller, lyre playing, deft fingers
Negative Trait(s): N/A
Starting Title(s): The Six-Eyed Singer, Septa Morgan, Jinny of Aegon’s Rest
Starting Location: Opening event

Part 2: Biography

Swyft Sept (3AC - 15AC)
Helena’s early life began in the Sept of Cornfield where her mother begged the Septa’s to take her. Dutifully, though reluctantly, they agreed, for what else were they to do, and where else was the girl to go. To the Governess of Cornfield, under the sanctity of the confessional, the woman, aching from the pain of birth and shame, confessed that the little girl was the bastard of Lord Swyft. The Governess, doubtful but knowing the man was not without vice, kept the secret to herself and allowed the girl to remain. The woman, who’s name was never revealed even to the Septa's, fled into the night shortly after never to be seen again. Helena was then, as promised, raised by the septas and the Governess of House Swyft. She learns basic literacy from the Seven Pointed Star with the Sisters and numbers from the Governess. Alongside her studies, she was put to work on chores like maid work, baking, cooking, cleaning, and serving Lord Swyft.
In 11AC, a travelling minstrel named The Lying Lyre arrived at Cornfield. A dashing young man with a shock of blonde curls that tumbled down his back like a mullet captivated Helena with his songs of far-off lands and noble families. In particular he sang of the Maiden’s Bay Tourney, the feats of House Targaryen, and after some time the Field of Fire and the failings of House Lannister. House Swyft was wealthy, and the Liar’s talents earned him much and more coin from the silver mines.
Helena of an age where curiosity ruled a child’s mind was enamoured with the man and his songs. She took up practising the lyre with him, and discovered that while no maestro, she had deft fingers and a mind for lyrics. Impressed by her interest and talent, the Liar gifted her a lyre before he left for future profits in far off lands. Some years of practice though, and a natural storyteller and rumourmonger Helena combined tales of the Seven Pointed Star and was invited to sing in the sept and even twice for Lord Swyft.
Six Eyed Singer (15AC - 20AC)
It was not to last though and following the slaughter in the Kingswood, the line of House Swyft was extinguished. Not wanting to test the new residents of Cornfield, the Warriors Sons and Poor Fellows, after all, all men have vice, she left Cornfield, and took to singing on the road. Going under the name Lyrebird, Helena played and sang for her coin and lodgings, a young girl protected only by being seen when she wanted and an elusive shadow when she did not.
Times on the road were not easy and The Lyrebird drew much attention. This necessitated the need for another alter ego and after a year on the road and towns and villages through the West were soon visited by the travelling Septa Morgan. The Septa heard confessions and sins, gave forgiveness and offered small advice to the poor and needy. She spared coins where she could and allowed Helena to remain covert. It did not matter to most that she was no real septa, she wore the robes, knew the words, and offered as a good moral compass to children. For most in the far flung reaches of the West she was enough.
Being raised in the faith though telling a perpetual lie about being a sister of the cloth was a little too much to bear for Helena. After a year with the reputation of Septa Morgan growing through the small folks of small villages, the Septa soon faded away. Instead Jinny of Aegon’s Rest started coming to smaller castles; Turnbury, Redbramble, Parren Hall, Oldstars and the like. She took on odd jobs cleaning, cooking, teaching a daughter to read or a son to do his numbers. She was after all no threat, knew her letters and numbers herself, and was capable of scheming many a septa or fatherly gatesman to let her in.
Jinny of Aegon’s Rest became a traveller through the keeps of the Westerlands. She heard the tales from children and small folk alike. She had never meant to undertake espionage, but her place inside various courts across the land, and her talent for being in the right place at the right time meant she was an unfortunate witness to many a courtly intrigue. As her small gifts earned her again a broad reputation she would be traded between greater lords. Soon she was playing for the elite, and earning the rewards that came with it. Helena of Cornfield once again took a new name, the Six Eyed Singer, which she quickly used to escape her courtly life and take again to the road as a travelling minstrel.
The Strawberry Tourney and Ball (20AC - Current)
The Six Eyed Singer formed a little bard troupe, nothing extravagant, she wasn’t playing for the Lannisters or the Targaryen’s yet, but enough to provide several shows across the Westerlands, Reach, and former Kingdom of the Trident. Her troupe, much like she had been accidentally, was devious, and while she or they sang, pockets were pinched, and many houses were looted. Her troupe when apart played for all the minor and middle nobles of the Trident and of the Reach too now. She and they were as much a part of the debauchery of the West as any of the wealthy merchants. There was no party too scandalous, no whorehouse unsung, no court too far flung for the right price and the West had gold burning through pockets.
The Six Eyed Singer was not the only bard with a troupe though and soon through the Kingdoms after Aegon’s conquest artisans, bards, and mummers alike filled the world with talent. In 20AC the Songbird made its mark, and with a little bit of fun, a lot of resentment for nobility, and an ingrained childlike sense of chaos, the first of the Songbirds’ letters sang. The voice of the little people flooded across the western coast of the Iron Throne. Lord Belaerys’ dragon had eaten several children whilst growing fat and hungry. Lancel Lannister had claimed the maidenhood of his chambermaid, and sired a bastard all at the age of just fifteen. Lord Frey schemed against his overlord for a free and independent Trident once again. Was all of it true? Impossible to say, but there were enough truths to turn heads, and the songs of the Songbird began to cause chaos in the Westerlands most of all. The Six Eyed Singer and her troupe played through it all, they were bards, but the Songbird was the most famous one of all; not their little merry band.
The Six Eyed Singer though continued her good work, and with her reputation came an invite to participate at the Strawberry Tourney and Ball alongside the other bardic troupes of the West and Reach. She was not so famous as to be alone, merely enough to earn an invite, and a paid job. The planning was years long, and with new songs and tunes came new rumours. While the Six-Eyed Singer played songs such as Fleece-eye, Dornish Sour Grapes, and Lion of the West, the Songbird worked their chaos.
A ripple pulsed through the tourney, first a cheater in the joust was revealed, Ser Byron who was disqualified as a result. Then a second cheater, this time in the melee, then a third cheater again in the joust Lord Payne had accepted a bribe from Lord Reyne to fall early. Cheating in the tourney was just the start, cheating in the bedroom of the ball was the main affair. Here the Songbird revealed three affairs; Lords Serret and Lyden were both fathers to children on women , not their wives. While Lady Serret and Lady Ruskin were bedfriends behind their husbands’ backs. There was one final scandal though, which was revealed to all at the tourney. Septon Karron was no true anointed Septon, and worse there was legitimacy to foulness surrounding young boys who served him.
The chaos broke over the tourney and all the artisans in attendance were forced to flee. Yet, all was not lost, for Lord Gerold Lannister of Lannisport had taken his eye to Helena and her playing. He offered her a job, for he wished to be a great sponsor of art in the new Seven Kingdoms. So it was she came to a courtly position, advising the Lord Lannister on matters of fine art, musicians, mummery, and all manner of artisanal dealings.
Timeline
3AC - Helena is born in the Sept of Cornfield, her mother a woman from Silverhill who begs the septa’s to take the girl in. She reveals her identity to the Governess of House Swyft, and claims the child is Lord Swyft’s bastard. She leaves shortly after giving birth and recovering.
4-10AC - She is raised in the cloister with the sisters, her Septa mothers raising her lessons on reading from the Seven Pointed Star, and numbers from the Governess to ensure that she can do basic arithmetic. She takes basic lessons in scullery maid work, baking, and general service work for old Lord Swyft.
11AC - A travelling minstrel, The Lying Lyre, comes through Cornfield to sing songs of the tourney of Maiden’s Bay, House Targaryen, and the Field of Fire. He takes a liking to the young Helena, and gifts her a lyre. He stays in Cornfield for some time, both because it is lucrative and because he enjoys teaching the young girl.
12-14AC - The Lying Lyre departs Cornfield but leaves a talented and hardworking Helena with the sisters once more. She takes to singing sections of the Seven Pointed Star, and even performs for Lord Swyft a few times.
15AC - The House of Swyft dies out and Helena, unaware of her claimed parentage but with a talent for song leaves the cloister and takes to the road, not trusting the new Warriors Sons or Poor Fellows. She uses the name Lyrebird and sings and plays her lyre for coin to survive.
16AC - After a year on the road Helena takes up the name Septa Morgan and takes to hearing confessions of the poor and needy across the Westerlands. Many of them need guidance and wearing her septa robes she is the perfect person to hear them. She is no real Septa but no amount of explaining the technicality of that stops people asking her to forgive them.
17AC - Her reputation as Septa Morgan grows a little too heavy on her shoulders, and Helena takes to wearing more common clothes, moving from keep to keep and working as a barmaid, scullery girl, and baker amongst other professions. She goes by the name Jinny of Aegon’s Rest.
18AC - Chance takes its favour on her, and Helena with her simple lyre is invited to play at a feast in Lannisport. Dressed now as a travelling minstrel she performs for the gathered nobles and earns herself invitations to other keeps. With her generous benefactors she hires a small troupe to perform her songs across the West.
19AC - Travelling the Westerlands, Helena under the moniker The Six Eyed Singer, takes her talents for being present at feasts and gatherings of all sorts.
20AC - Rumour of The Songbird takes hold, and the West is awash in the voice of the little people.
21AC - The Strawberry Tourney and Ball unfolds and Helena’s skills earn her favour with Lord Gerold Lannister.
22AC - Lord Gerold Lannister recognising her many talents picked her up to be one of the primary serving women in his House. His eye for artistic endeavours endeared him to her enough for a comfortable place as a favoured bard, painter, educator, and common court woman.

"A family is left in mourning as twenty-one-year-old Natalie Rose was found dead over the weekend," the TV blared into the room, "seemingly attacked by some sort of wild animal as she sat in her tent on what was meant to be a relaxing camping trip alone. Natalie's parents have requested privacy at this time, but they appreciate the condolences they have received. In other news-" Roman grabbed the remote from me and shut off the TV.
"Hey, I was watching that!" I said as I flipped him off from across the room. "Bullshit, you're on your phone," he chuckled, fixing his hair up in the mirror. "Okay, well, I was listening. I like to have background noise, dickhead," I replied, watching him in the reflection, his focus clearly not on this important conversation.
"Where are you going all dressed up?" I interrogated him. "Morgan and I are having our engagement party, but we've got to be there early to sort out seating."
"You're having your engagement party and you didn't invite your own brother?" I questioned him, offended at the audacity this man had. "I did invite you, dipshit. You told me you had a date with Katie tonight."
The realisation hit me like a punch to the gut. I'd completely forgotten about my movie date with Katie. With a surge of panic, I leaped from my seat, heart pounding, and scrambled to get dressed. Every second felt like an eternity as I cursed my forgetfulness. Then, I heard Roman's car start outside. Without a second thought, I sprinted out the door and down the driveway. Knocking on his window, I pleaded for a ride.
The soft hum of the road and the whirring of the engine filled the car as we silently moved through the night. Staring out the window at the blur of trees, I thought about how I would apologise to Katie. Roman reached for the radio, and a Trace Adkins song began playing. Seeing this as the perfect time to start a conversation, I spoke up, "So, are Katie and I coming to the wedding?" I asked, grinning. Roman let out a deep sigh as he turned off the music. "If Katie doesn't plan a date night on the same day, then yes," he replied.
Silence filled the car as we drove along the empty road. The vast woods surrounding us created an eerie atmosphere, intensified by the winter darkness cloaking the night sky above. Yet, for Roman and me, who had grown up in this land, these woods evoked nostalgic memories of our childhood adventures. While for others, it might be an unsettling glimpse into the barrier separating civilization from the unknown, for us, it was a comforting window back into our past.
When Roman bought the land we had grown up on after our parents passed, I was probably more excited than I should've been, considering I had just lost my mum and dad in a tragic carbon monoxide leak. But my relief at not having to leave this place was immense.
We eventually reached an area where the city lights were visible in the distance. I noticed Roman yawn as he adjusted his grip on the wheel. "You're gonna have to tell me where to go, I can't remember where Katie lives," he stated as he changed gears and prepared to enter the busy traffic, a stark contrast to the remote rural road we were about to vacate.
“Just take a left up h-" I began, but was interrupted as a white blur ran in front of the car, causing Roman to slam on the brakes and swerve. I grabbed onto the side of the door as we spun out of control, the screeching of the tires filling my ears, jolting me out of the relaxed state I had been in due to the many miles of quiet driving.
We eventually came to a stop, now facing the opposite direction, gazing down the endless stretch of desolate road we had just traversed. Roman calmly checked all his mirrors for whatever he nearly hit but failed to see anything through the dust he had stirred up in the spinout.
“You all good?” he asked, a relieved smile creeping up his face, a deep breath escaping his lungs.
“Yeah, what was that?” I asked as Roman started reversing, then turned the car back towards the busy city street about a kilometre away and began driving. I looked over to him, expecting an answer to my question, but didn't receive one. His brow was furrowed in an uncertain expression, clearly lost in thought, like he was trying to remember if he locked the front door.
“Roman?” I said, causing him to blink a couple of times.
“I don't know what it was," Roman answered, not breaking his intense stare at the asphalt in front of us as we drove along, approaching the main road. “Probably just a sheep, there's a few acres of farmland behind these trees,” he continued.
As we approached the intersection, Roman flicked his left indicator on before turning onto the main road. “Okay, now take the next right,” I said, feeling the weird atmosphere in the vehicle slowly dissipating. After a few more turns, Roman said that he knew the way from here and turned the radio back on, which cut the remaining tension that I could tell we were both feeling.
The chilly winter night was starting to bite at my skin, and I cursed myself for forgetting a jacket in my hurry. I swivelled my head around to see the backseat. “What are you looking for?” Roman asked, finally looking in my direction as he turned the music down slightly.
“Uh, do you have a jacket I can borrow? I didn't realise it was gonna be this cold,” I sheepishly admitted.
“Hold the wheel,” Roman told me as he reached around behind him, shifting around his hiking gear that he hadn't taken out since his camping trip with Morgan last month.
Eventually, he pulled out his gym hoodie and threw it on my lap. “This is all I got,” he grunted as he readjusted himself in his seat and took hold of the steering wheel again. When we pulled into Katie's driveway, I pulled the hoodie over my head and hopped out of the car into the brisk night air, my breath visible in the cold. “I'll pick you up around 11:30.” Roman shouted out the window as I pulled the hoodie the rest of the way down and waved to Roman as he drove away, beeping his horn as he left me in the chilling winter breeze.
I knocked on the door, checking the time to see that it was 7:37, only a few minutes late. As I waited in the dark, a surprisingly chipper Katie opened the door, hugging me and dragging me inside. “You didn't miss much,” she whispered as we stumbled through the house that had all of its lights off. “Why do you smell like your brother?” she asked, shooting me a dirty look before grabbing a handful of the hoodie and sniffing it. All I could do was shrug and grin, “I forgot how cold it gets in the winter time, he let me borrow it.” She rolled her eyes, and we sat down next to a bunch of her friends and her parents, who all whispered their hellos in the soft glow of the TV.
Around 11:18 pm when the movie was long since finished, Katie's parents said goodnight and headed off to bed, and a few of Katie's friends who had been visiting said goodbye and drove home. I got up to get some water from the kitchen, and as I walked back, I stood in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room, which was dark, only lit by the TV. This allowed me to see Katie frozen, staring towards the window, which was out of my direct line of sight.
Confused, I peeked my head out of the doorway and looked toward the window. I froze and dropped my glass; luckily, it landed on the carpet and didn't make much noise, and the tall, pale creature standing an inch from the window didn't notice. The creature was foul, a gaunt, lanky humanoid. Well, at least the head was humanoid; the body and limbs were almost ape-like, with long, disproportionate arms and less exaggerated legs. The creature's whole body was covered in grey skin stretched tightly over its abnormally long bones. It had no hair anywhere. Its mouth was strangely wide, stretching around to where its ears would be if it had them, and its eyes were just sunken, inky black pits in its head. But I could tell it was staring daggers at Katie, who had tears rolling down her face. She slowly turned her head to look at me, shaking and breathing quickly. I had never felt so powerless. I was supposed to protect her, and I would. I would die to protect her, but I had no idea how to shield her from whatever this thing was.
Then I had an idea. I looked to the light switch panel to my left. I knew one of them was the porch light, but there were three others: the living room light, the kitchen light, and the hall light. If I pressed the wrong light, I didn't know what the thing would do, but I had to try. I had to remember which light Katie's dad used to turn the porch light on when he goes out for a smoke.
I reached for the light second from the bottom and flicked the switch. The hall light turned on. Luckily, the hall was on the opposite side of the kitchen from where the living room was, and it was out of view for the creature at the window. But I couldn't mess up again. If the kitchen light turned on, the creature would see me, and if the living room light turned on, it might cause it to attack Katie. I looked back at the creature, which was using one of its hands to scratch the window as it sniffed around. I had to do something.
I reached for the bottom light switch and flicked it; the porch light turned on. The creature spun around to face it and let out a screech that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. I ran to Katie and grabbed her, dragging her off the side of the couch where there was about a metre gap between the armrest of the couch and the wall.
The sound of the window smashing filled the house, and Katie cried into my shoulder. I couldn't see anything; it was pitch darkness besides the slight blue glare from the TV on the wall above us. But I could hear raspy breathing and bones cracking as the thing searched the living room. I heard it sniffing the couch where Katie was sitting, and I heard it make its way closer to the end of the couch, one of its hands pressed on the wall above us. I saw the silhouette of its head begin to peak over the side of the couch, but suddenly the light turned on, and Katie's dad yelled as he saw us from the kitchen while he was holding a shotgun.
The creature ran at him but fell to the ground as a loud shot rang out in the night, leaving only the sound of our combined breathing and Katie's soft sobs. I watched intently as the body lying between Katie's dad and me moved around on the floor, before slamming its hand down, then the other, and pushing itself to its feet.
Katie's dad reloaded his shotgun, but it was too late. The creature grabbed the poor man by his leg and pulled it out from under him, causing him to shoot the ceiling. I grabbed Katie and dragged her upstairs as the creature began tearing into her father. She cried and screamed, begging me to help him, but what could I do? Whatever that thing was, it just took a shotgun blast to the chest and brushed it off.
I locked us in her upstairs bathroom as the creature's loud and hurried footsteps made their way towards us. Katie was crying loudly now, insisting that we were going to die. Honestly, not a super helpful contribution, but I can't blame her.
As the creature began crashing against the door, pieces of wood started to splinter off. I shoved Katie into the tub, and then lay on top of her. Hopefully, my body would be enough to shield her from this thing. Time slowed down as the door exploded inward. I looked at the girl I loved, makeup running down her face, pieces of door in her hair, mouth wide open as she let out the most ear splitting scream. For some reason, I felt no fear. Even as the monster began tearing at my clothes and clawing at my flesh, I felt strangely calm.
Eventually, the creature grabbed me, swinging me around by my hoodie, slamming me into every wall and surface in the room. I fell to the ground as the hoodie ripped off, and the creature just stared at me, then the hoodie in its hand, then back at me. I stared back, utterly confused, as it leaned over and sniffed my entire body from head to toe. It looked as puzzled as I felt for a moment before I heard Roman's car pull up outside.
The creature screeched as it sprinted out the door, slamming into the hallway wall in its haste. "NO!" I shouted, leaving my still-shaking girlfriend in the tub as I chased the monster out of the house. Somehow, I caught up to the creature and grabbed onto it, bringing it to the ground below. The thing managed to get on top of me, biting and clawing at my arms and hands as I shielded my face.
Before I knew it, Roman came out of nowhere, tackling the creature off me, yelling for me to run. The creature, sleek and deadly, wasted no time in retaliating against Roman's attack. With a primal growl, it lunged at him, its claws slicing through the air like daggers.
Roman had a size advantage that I didn't have, and managed to hold his own for a few seconds as he wrestled with the beast. He'd always been as strong as a bull for as long as I can remember, tall with powerful hands and massive arms and shoulders. But I couldn't risk watching my brother, as strong as he may be, get killed by this… whatever it is.
With strength I didn't know I had, I grabbed the back of Roman's expensive shirt and pulled him out of the way of a fatal blow to the head, throwing him towards the car before I lunged at the creature and went feral. I don't know what came over me; I started swinging on the creature as we tumbled around in the muddy grass. Just when I thought I was actually winning, the creature managed to get its legs between us and kicked me off, then swung its clawed hand at my stomach, ripping it right open.
I collapsed to the ground as my body tried to comprehend what had just happened. My eyes narrowed as everything was drowned out. I watched the silent scene play out before me, my heartbeat pounding in my head.
The creature charged at Roman, who leaped to grab his car's back door handle just as the creature snagged his foot. It yanked at his leg, but Roman clung onto his car door tightly. The creature persisted in pulling as Roman struggled to reach for something in his hiking gear stored in the back seat.
With an agonising yell, Roman's leg gave a sickening snap. Despite the pain, he finally retrieved what he was searching for. Releasing the car door, Roman watched as the creature stumbled backward. Seizing the opportunity, he swiftly climbed on top of it, brandishing his trusty hunting knife from his camping trips.
As Roman wrestled with the creature, the air was filled with grunts and snarls. He plunged the hunting knife into the creature's body, eliciting a guttural howl of pain. The creature thrashed wildly, but Roman held on grimly, his determination unwavering.
With each strike, Roman's movements became more frenzied, fueled by adrenaline and the need to protect us. The creature's attempts to retaliate grew weaker as Roman's blows found their mark. With a final decisive thrust, Roman delivered the fatal blow, and the creature slumped to the ground, defeated.
Breathing heavily, Roman collapsed beside the creature, his body trembling with exhaustion and relief. I rushed to his side, concern evident in my voice. "Natalie-" he faintly murmured.
"Who? Who's Natalie?" I asked, my confusion growing.
Suddenly, the creature jolted up, its movements abrupt and startling. Without warning, it lunged at me, seizing me by the throat and hurling me against the car.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the creature sprinting towards me. In that moment, I felt a strange sensation coursing through my body, as if something within me was shifting. I glanced down at my hands and watched in horror as they contorted and turned a sickly shade of grey. Long claws protruded from my fingers, their sharp edges glinting in the dim light.
As my bones cracked and deformed under the strain of this inexplicable transformation, a sudden surge of anger and ferocity overwhelmed my senses. It was as though a primal instinct had taken hold of me, consuming my entire being in its relentless grip. With each passing moment, the world around me faded into darkness until finally, I lost consciousness, my mind consumed by the terrifying reality of what I had become.
I awoke hours later in the back seat of Roman's car. The hum of the road and the whirring of the engine attempted to lull me back to sleep, but I sat up, rubbing my head as the memories flooded back. "What happened?" I asked, my voice hoarse and strained.
Roman responded with silence, a familiar reaction from him, but this time, it sent a shiver down my spine. As I looked at my arms, then my stomach, and felt around my whole body, I realised the wounds and deep gashes caused by the creature were all gone, as if I had never been attacked.
I caught Roman's gaze in the mirror, but he quickly averted his eyes. That's when I noticed Katie in the passenger seat, her tear-stained face betraying her silent anguish. It was clear she wanted to say something, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Roman had warned her against it.
"What do you know about this place?" Roman asked sternly, his voice devoid of emotion.
"We've lived here all our lives, Roman," I replied, confusion evident in my tone. "What do you mean?”
Roman pressed down on the brakes, bringing us to a sudden stop. I noticed a pained expression flit across his face in the mirror, a fleeting moment of vulnerability that he quickly tried to conceal.
"Your leg!" I exclaimed, my voice laced with concern as I recalled the events from earlier.
"It was a dislocated hip. I fixed it," he replied bluntly, his tone revealing little about the ordeal he must have endured.
"This isn't real, Jason. None of this is real. You are not real!" Roman's voice was sharp, refusing to meet my eyes in the reflection.
"Back at Katie's house, I remembered everything the moment I looked into that creature's eyes. I remembered... I remembered Natalie," he said, his words catching in his throat, revealing the first hint of emotion I'd seen from him.
I watched as a tear rolled down Katie's face. I reached to put a hand on her shoulder but stopped myself.
"Roman got me to remember," Katie said, her voice trembling. "I remembered the emergency alert, and when those things broke down our doors. I watched as they dragged my parents out, then my baby brother, then me. I woke up in this fake world, in a family that isn't even mine, dating a boy who turns out to be one of the monsters who brought me here." She spluttered, and I began to cry silently as I realised what she was saying.
Roman eventually started driving again, occasionally getting a call from Morgan, but after the fifth call he threw his phone out the window. We drove until I fell asleep. I don't remember what I dreamed about, but it was peaceful. I think I was in that forest with Roman. We were children again, playing around in the trees, finding cool sticks and exploring the endless expanse of what felt like a fairytale, which I guess it was.
I was awoken by the abrupt sound of Roman's car door slamming. I looked outside and saw that it was daytime again. Trying to figure out where we had stopped, I noticed a giant sign that said “Library.” I hopped out of the car and jogged to catch up to Roman and Katie.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, clearly still being avoided. It was understandable, but it still hurt.
“I need to wake everyone up,” Roman said as we walked in and approached a computer.
I noticed we were getting odd stares from everyone as we walked by, which is when I also noticed that I looked like I had just come out the other side of a paper shredder. My clothes were all torn up with bits missing, apparently not possessing the magic healing ability that I do. The sound of Roman typing snapped me out of my self-conscious thoughts and redirected me to the computer screen.
"I'm going to be a while, guys," Roman said as he began writing out his story. "I need to tell the whole thing from the beginning. Go find a book or something.”
I looked over to Katie, her face void of expression, but a great sadness filled her now dry eyes, having cried all the tears she had. “Why don't you just wake up?” I asked, probably coming across as more insensitive than I intended.
“I've got nothing to go back to. Roman told me what the world is like back there. If my family is here, I have to find them and wake them up first,” she responded, finally meeting my eye.
I wanted to hug her so bad, but I knew she didn't love me anymore. She probably had a real boyfriend in the real world.
Hours went by as Katie and I found a place to sit and wait in silence, watching Roman. He looked funny in the little library chair, hunched over the computer. Such a big guy looked out of place here, his muscular presence overpowering that of the rest of the library's patrons, who were all either very old or very young.
I hate to admit I fell asleep, but I'm just telling the story how it was. I was awoken suddenly by sirens and shouts. “We have got you surrounded, come out with your hands up or we will come in and show you no mercy,” a man's voice yelled from outside through a speaker. I looked over to Roman, who was limping over to us as all the customers flooded out the exits.
“Get up, we need to leave. They've turned the law against us,” Roman ordered. Katie and I listened and followed him.
We made our way upstairs into the empty employee lounge, and Roman opened a window... with his elbow. “They've got every exit covered but this one. We need to jump,” he calmly told us. He stood up in the window frame, kicked off some of the remaining glass with his boots, and jumped to the roof of the single-story building below, wincing in pain as he landed on his bad leg.
That's when six armed officers kicked down the door and opened fire on Katie and me. I moved to block the bullets from hitting Katie, taking several hits to the head and back. I then pushed Katie through the window, and Roman caught her before I jumped out myself and followed.
We ran from rooftop to rooftop until we reached a ladder that led down into an alleyway, where we attempted to catch our breaths. Roman and Katie watched me intently as the bullets lodged in my body began to work their way back out, the wounds closing up after. My skin color shifted a little, and I felt a rattle leave my throat as a cold sweat came over me.
“Hey, control yourself,” Roman told me sternly. I nodded, struggling to remain composed.
“Did you finish the story?” Katie asked Roman.
“Yeah, I kind of had to rush the last part, but I got the message across,” he replied, slumping to the ground behind a dumpster, exhausted.
“What now?” I asked.
Roman looked at me, panting. “I'm gonna help Katie find her family, then I'm going back to Natalie,” he said between heavy breaths.
“What about Morgan?” I questioned, causing him to look down at his feet. “I don't even know her in the real world, and I would never have chosen to be with her. This place… it's like it wrote me a life that was least likely to let me remember who I am. The girl I'm engaged to is the complete opposite of Natalie. I've got a brother who lives with me, my parents are dead. There's literally nothing here to remind me of home, bro,” Roman said, shedding a couple of tears.
We waited in the alley until night, hearing sirens go back and forth every now and then. When Roman said we were in the clear, we made our way back to the car and started driving again. I noticed Roman's eyes fluttering after about an hour, and I told him I'd be happy to drive if he needed to sleep. I could tell that his ego didn't want to admit he was exhausted, and he also still didn't trust me, but he gave in and pulled over, falling asleep in the back seat as I drove off into the night.

"A family is left in mourning as twenty-one-year-old Natalie Rose was found dead over the weekend," the TV blared into the room, "seemingly attacked by some sort of wild animal as she sat in her tent on what was meant to be a relaxing camping trip alone. Natalie's parents have requested privacy at this time, but they appreciate the condolences they have received. In other news-" Roman grabbed the remote from me and shut off the TV.
"Hey, I was watching that!" I said as I flipped him off from across the room. "Bullshit, you're on your phone," he chuckled, fixing his hair up in the mirror. "Okay, well, I was listening. I like to have background noise, dickhead," I replied, watching him in the reflection, his focus clearly not on this important conversation.
"Where are you going all dressed up?" I interrogated him. "Morgan and I are having our engagement party, but we've got to be there early to sort out seating."
"You're having your engagement party and you didn't invite your own brother?" I questioned him, offended at the audacity this man had. "I did invite you, dipshit. You told me you had a date with Katie tonight."
The realisation hit me like a punch to the gut. I'd completely forgotten about my movie date with Katie. With a surge of panic, I leaped from my seat, heart pounding, and scrambled to get dressed. Every second felt like an eternity as I cursed my forgetfulness. Then, I heard Roman's car start outside. Without a second thought, I sprinted out the door and down the driveway. Knocking on his window, I pleaded for a ride.
The soft hum of the road and the whirring of the engine filled the car as we silently moved through the night. Staring out the window at the blur of trees, I thought about how I would apologise to Katie. Roman reached for the radio, and a Trace Adkins song began playing. Seeing this as the perfect time to start a conversation, I spoke up, "So, are Katie and I coming to the wedding?" I asked, grinning. Roman let out a deep sigh as he turned off the music. "If Katie doesn't plan a date night on the same day, then yes," he replied.
Silence filled the car as we drove along the empty road. The vast woods surrounding us created an eerie atmosphere, intensified by the winter darkness cloaking the night sky above. Yet, for Roman and me, who had grown up in this land, these woods evoked nostalgic memories of our childhood adventures. While for others, it might be an unsettling glimpse into the barrier separating civilization from the unknown, for us, it was a comforting window back into our past.
When Roman bought the land we had grown up on after our parents passed, I was probably more excited than I should've been, considering I had just lost my mum and dad in a tragic carbon monoxide leak. But my relief at not having to leave this place was immense.
We eventually reached an area where the city lights were visible in the distance. I noticed Roman yawn as he adjusted his grip on the wheel. "You're gonna have to tell me where to go, I can't remember where Katie lives," he stated as he changed gears and prepared to enter the busy traffic, a stark contrast to the remote rural road we were about to vacate.
“Just take a left up h-" I began, but was interrupted as a white blur ran in front of the car, causing Roman to slam on the brakes and swerve. I grabbed onto the side of the door as we spun out of control, the screeching of the tires filling my ears, jolting me out of the relaxed state I had been in due to the many miles of quiet driving.
We eventually came to a stop, now facing the opposite direction, gazing down the endless stretch of desolate road we had just traversed. Roman calmly checked all his mirrors for whatever he nearly hit but failed to see anything through the dust he had stirred up in the spinout.
“You all good?” he asked, a relieved smile creeping up his face, a deep breath escaping his lungs.
“Yeah, what was that?” I asked as Roman started reversing, then turned the car back towards the busy city street about a kilometre away and began driving. I looked over to him, expecting an answer to my question, but didn't receive one. His brow was furrowed in an uncertain expression, clearly lost in thought, like he was trying to remember if he locked the front door.
“Roman?” I said, causing him to blink a couple of times.
“I don't know what it was," Roman answered, not breaking his intense stare at the asphalt in front of us as we drove along, approaching the main road. “Probably just a sheep, there's a few acres of farmland behind these trees,” he continued.
As we approached the intersection, Roman flicked his left indicator on before turning onto the main road. “Okay, now take the next right,” I said, feeling the weird atmosphere in the vehicle slowly dissipating. After a few more turns, Roman said that he knew the way from here and turned the radio back on, which cut the remaining tension that I could tell we were both feeling.
The chilly winter night was starting to bite at my skin, and I cursed myself for forgetting a jacket in my hurry. I swivelled my head around to see the backseat. “What are you looking for?” Roman asked, finally looking in my direction as he turned the music down slightly.
“Uh, do you have a jacket I can borrow? I didn't realise it was gonna be this cold,” I sheepishly admitted.
“Hold the wheel,” Roman told me as he reached around behind him, shifting around his hiking gear that he hadn't taken out since his camping trip with Morgan last month.
Eventually, he pulled out his gym hoodie and threw it on my lap. “This is all I got,” he grunted as he readjusted himself in his seat and took hold of the steering wheel again. When we pulled into Katie's driveway, I pulled the hoodie over my head and hopped out of the car into the brisk night air, my breath visible in the cold. “I'll pick you up around 11:30.” Roman shouted out the window as I pulled the hoodie the rest of the way down and waved to Roman as he drove away, beeping his horn as he left me in the chilling winter breeze.
I knocked on the door, checking the time to see that it was 7:37, only a few minutes late. As I waited in the dark, a surprisingly chipper Katie opened the door, hugging me and dragging me inside. “You didn't miss much,” she whispered as we stumbled through the house that had all of its lights off. “Why do you smell like your brother?” she asked, shooting me a dirty look before grabbing a handful of the hoodie and sniffing it. All I could do was shrug and grin, “I forgot how cold it gets in the winter time, he let me borrow it.” She rolled her eyes, and we sat down next to a bunch of her friends and her parents, who all whispered their hellos in the soft glow of the TV.
Around 11:18 pm when the movie was long since finished, Katie's parents said goodnight and headed off to bed, and a few of Katie's friends who had been visiting said goodbye and drove home. I got up to get some water from the kitchen, and as I walked back, I stood in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room, which was dark, only lit by the TV. This allowed me to see Katie frozen, staring towards the window, which was out of my direct line of sight.
Confused, I peeked my head out of the doorway and looked toward the window. I froze and dropped my glass; luckily, it landed on the carpet and didn't make much noise, and the tall, pale creature standing an inch from the window didn't notice. The creature was foul, a gaunt, lanky humanoid. Well, at least the head was humanoid; the body and limbs were almost ape-like, with long, disproportionate arms and less exaggerated legs. The creature's whole body was covered in grey skin stretched tightly over its abnormally long bones. It had no hair anywhere. Its mouth was strangely wide, stretching around to where its ears would be if it had them, and its eyes were just sunken, inky black pits in its head. But I could tell it was staring daggers at Katie, who had tears rolling down her face. She slowly turned her head to look at me, shaking and breathing quickly. I had never felt so powerless. I was supposed to protect her, and I would. I would die to protect her, but I had no idea how to shield her from whatever this thing was.
Then I had an idea. I looked to the light switch panel to my left. I knew one of them was the porch light, but there were three others: the living room light, the kitchen light, and the hall light. If I pressed the wrong light, I didn't know what the thing would do, but I had to try. I had to remember which light Katie's dad used to turn the porch light on when he goes out for a smoke.
I reached for the light second from the bottom and flicked the switch. The hall light turned on. Luckily, the hall was on the opposite side of the kitchen from where the living room was, and it was out of view for the creature at the window. But I couldn't mess up again. If the kitchen light turned on, the creature would see me, and if the living room light turned on, it might cause it to attack Katie. I looked back at the creature, which was using one of its hands to scratch the window as it sniffed around. I had to do something.
I reached for the bottom light switch and flicked it; the porch light turned on. The creature spun around to face it and let out a screech that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. I ran to Katie and grabbed her, dragging her off the side of the couch where there was about a metre gap between the armrest of the couch and the wall.
The sound of the window smashing filled the house, and Katie cried into my shoulder. I couldn't see anything; it was pitch darkness besides the slight blue glare from the TV on the wall above us. But I could hear raspy breathing and bones cracking as the thing searched the living room. I heard it sniffing the couch where Katie was sitting, and I heard it make its way closer to the end of the couch, one of its hands pressed on the wall above us. I saw the silhouette of its head begin to peak over the side of the couch, but suddenly the light turned on, and Katie's dad yelled as he saw us from the kitchen while he was holding a shotgun.
The creature ran at him but fell to the ground as a loud shot rang out in the night, leaving only the sound of our combined breathing and Katie's soft sobs. I watched intently as the body lying between Katie's dad and me moved around on the floor, before slamming its hand down, then the other, and pushing itself to its feet.
Katie's dad reloaded his shotgun, but it was too late. The creature grabbed the poor man by his leg and pulled it out from under him, causing him to shoot the ceiling. I grabbed Katie and dragged her upstairs as the creature began tearing into her father. She cried and screamed, begging me to help him, but what could I do? Whatever that thing was, it just took a shotgun blast to the chest and brushed it off.
I locked us in her upstairs bathroom as the creature's loud and hurried footsteps made their way towards us. Katie was crying loudly now, insisting that we were going to die. Honestly, not a super helpful contribution, but I can't blame her.
As the creature began crashing against the door, pieces of wood started to splinter off. I shoved Katie into the tub, and then lay on top of her. Hopefully, my body would be enough to shield her from this thing. Time slowed down as the door exploded inward. I looked at the girl I loved, makeup running down her face, pieces of door in her hair, mouth wide open as she let out the most ear splitting scream. For some reason, I felt no fear. Even as the monster began tearing at my clothes and clawing at my flesh, I felt strangely calm.
Eventually, the creature grabbed me, swinging me around by my hoodie, slamming me into every wall and surface in the room. I fell to the ground as the hoodie ripped off, and the creature just stared at me, then the hoodie in its hand, then back at me. I stared back, utterly confused, as it leaned over and sniffed my entire body from head to toe. It looked as puzzled as I felt for a moment before I heard Roman's car pull up outside.
The creature screeched as it sprinted out the door, slamming into the hallway wall in its haste. "NO!" I shouted, leaving my still-shaking girlfriend in the tub as I chased the monster out of the house. Somehow, I caught up to the creature and grabbed onto it, bringing it to the ground below. The thing managed to get on top of me, biting and clawing at my arms and hands as I shielded my face.
Before I knew it, Roman came out of nowhere, tackling the creature off me, yelling for me to run. The creature, sleek and deadly, wasted no time in retaliating against Roman's attack. With a primal growl, it lunged at him, its claws slicing through the air like daggers.
Roman had a size advantage that I didn't have, and managed to hold his own for a few seconds as he wrestled with the beast. He'd always been as strong as a bull for as long as I can remember, tall with powerful hands and massive arms and shoulders. But I couldn't risk watching my brother, as strong as he may be, get killed by this… whatever it is.
With strength I didn't know I had, I grabbed the back of Roman's expensive shirt and pulled him out of the way of a fatal blow to the head, throwing him towards the car before I lunged at the creature and went feral. I don't know what came over me; I started swinging on the creature as we tumbled around in the muddy grass. Just when I thought I was actually winning, the creature managed to get its legs between us and kicked me off, then swung its clawed hand at my stomach, ripping it right open.
I collapsed to the ground as my body tried to comprehend what had just happened. My eyes narrowed as everything was drowned out. I watched the silent scene play out before me, my heartbeat pounding in my head.
The creature charged at Roman, who leaped to grab his car's back door handle just as the creature snagged his foot. It yanked at his leg, but Roman clung onto his car door tightly. The creature persisted in pulling as Roman struggled to reach for something in his hiking gear stored in the back seat.
With an agonising yell, Roman's leg gave a sickening snap. Despite the pain, he finally retrieved what he was searching for. Releasing the car door, Roman watched as the creature stumbled backward. Seizing the opportunity, he swiftly climbed on top of it, brandishing his trusty hunting knife from his camping trips.
As Roman wrestled with the creature, the air was filled with grunts and snarls. He plunged the hunting knife into the creature's body, eliciting a guttural howl of pain. The creature thrashed wildly, but Roman held on grimly, his determination unwavering.
With each strike, Roman's movements became more frenzied, fueled by adrenaline and the need to protect us. The creature's attempts to retaliate grew weaker as Roman's blows found their mark. With a final decisive thrust, Roman delivered the fatal blow, and the creature slumped to the ground, defeated.
Breathing heavily, Roman collapsed beside the creature, his body trembling with exhaustion and relief. I rushed to his side, concern evident in my voice. "Natalie-" he faintly murmured.
"Who? Who's Natalie?" I asked, my confusion growing.
Suddenly, the creature jolted up, its movements abrupt and startling. Without warning, it lunged at me, seizing me by the throat and hurling me against the car.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the creature sprinting towards me. In that moment, I felt a strange sensation coursing through my body, as if something within me was shifting. I glanced down at my hands and watched in horror as they contorted and turned a sickly shade of grey. Long claws protruded from my fingers, their sharp edges glinting in the dim light.
As my bones cracked and deformed under the strain of this inexplicable transformation, a sudden surge of anger and ferocity overwhelmed my senses. It was as though a primal instinct had taken hold of me, consuming my entire being in its relentless grip. With each passing moment, the world around me faded into darkness until finally, I lost consciousness, my mind consumed by the terrifying reality of what I had become.
I awoke hours later in the back seat of Roman's car. The hum of the road and the whirring of the engine attempted to lull me back to sleep, but I sat up, rubbing my head as the memories flooded back. "What happened?" I asked, my voice hoarse and strained.
Roman responded with silence, a familiar reaction from him, but this time, it sent a shiver down my spine. As I looked at my arms, then my stomach, and felt around my whole body, I realised the wounds and deep gashes caused by the creature were all gone, as if I had never been attacked.
I caught Roman's gaze in the mirror, but he quickly averted his eyes. That's when I noticed Katie in the passenger seat, her tear-stained face betraying her silent anguish. It was clear she wanted to say something, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Roman had warned her against it.
"What do you know about this place?" Roman asked sternly, his voice devoid of emotion.
"We've lived here all our lives, Roman," I replied, confusion evident in my tone. "What do you mean?”
Roman pressed down on the brakes, bringing us to a sudden stop. I noticed a pained expression flit across his face in the mirror, a fleeting moment of vulnerability that he quickly tried to conceal.
"Your leg!" I exclaimed, my voice laced with concern as I recalled the events from earlier.
"It was a dislocated hip. I fixed it," he replied bluntly, his tone revealing little about the ordeal he must have endured.
"This isn't real, Jason. None of this is real. You are not real!" Roman's voice was sharp, refusing to meet my eyes in the reflection.
"Back at Katie's house, I remembered everything the moment I looked into that creature's eyes. I remembered... I remembered Natalie," he said, his words catching in his throat, revealing the first hint of emotion I'd seen from him.
I watched as a tear rolled down Katie's face. I reached to put a hand on her shoulder but stopped myself.
"Roman got me to remember," Katie said, her voice trembling. "I remembered the emergency alert, and when those things broke down our doors. I watched as they dragged my parents out, then my baby brother, then me. I woke up in this fake world, in a family that isn't even mine, dating a boy who turns out to be one of the monsters who brought me here." She spluttered, and I began to cry silently as I realised what she was saying.
Roman eventually started driving again, occasionally getting a call from Morgan, but after the fifth call he threw his phone out the window. We drove until I fell asleep. I don't remember what I dreamed about, but it was peaceful. I think I was in that forest with Roman. We were children again, playing around in the trees, finding cool sticks and exploring the endless expanse of what felt like a fairytale, which I guess it was.
I was awoken by the abrupt sound of Roman's car door slamming. I looked outside and saw that it was daytime again. Trying to figure out where we had stopped, I noticed a giant sign that said “Library.” I hopped out of the car and jogged to catch up to Roman and Katie.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, clearly still being avoided. It was understandable, but it still hurt.
“I need to wake everyone up,” Roman said as we walked in and approached a computer.
I noticed we were getting odd stares from everyone as we walked by, which is when I also noticed that I looked like I had just come out the other side of a paper shredder. My clothes were all torn up with bits missing, apparently not possessing the magic healing ability that I do. The sound of Roman typing snapped me out of my self-conscious thoughts and redirected me to the computer screen.
"I'm going to be a while, guys," Roman said as he began writing out his story. "I need to tell the whole thing from the beginning. Go find a book or something.”
I looked over to Katie, her face void of expression, but a great sadness filled her now dry eyes, having cried all the tears she had. “Why don't you just wake up?” I asked, probably coming across as more insensitive than I intended.
“I've got nothing to go back to. Roman told me what the world is like back there. If my family is here, I have to find them and wake them up first,” she responded, finally meeting my eye.
I wanted to hug her so bad, but I knew she didn't love me anymore. She probably had a real boyfriend in the real world.
Hours went by as Katie and I found a place to sit and wait in silence, watching Roman. He looked funny in the little library chair, hunched over the computer. Such a big guy looked out of place here, his muscular presence overpowering that of the rest of the library's patrons, who were all either very old or very young.
I hate to admit I fell asleep, but I'm just telling the story how it was. I was awoken suddenly by sirens and shouts. “We have got you surrounded, come out with your hands up or we will come in and show you no mercy,” a man's voice yelled from outside through a speaker. I looked over to Roman, who was limping over to us as all the customers flooded out the exits.
“Get up, we need to leave. They've turned the law against us,” Roman ordered. Katie and I listened and followed him.
We made our way upstairs into the empty employee lounge, and Roman opened a window... with his elbow. “They've got every exit covered but this one. We need to jump,” he calmly told us. He stood up in the window frame, kicked off some of the remaining glass with his boots, and jumped to the roof of the single-story building below, wincing in pain as he landed on his bad leg.
That's when six armed officers kicked down the door and opened fire on Katie and me. I moved to block the bullets from hitting Katie, taking several hits to the head and back. I then pushed Katie through the window, and Roman caught her before I jumped out myself and followed.
We ran from rooftop to rooftop until we reached a ladder that led down into an alleyway, where we attempted to catch our breaths. Roman and Katie watched me intently as the bullets lodged in my body began to work their way back out, the wounds closing up after. My skin color shifted a little, and I felt a rattle leave my throat as a cold sweat came over me.
“Hey, control yourself,” Roman told me sternly. I nodded, struggling to remain composed.
“Did you finish the story?” Katie asked Roman.
“Yeah, I kind of had to rush the last part, but I got the message across,” he replied, slumping to the ground behind a dumpster, exhausted.
“What now?” I asked.
Roman looked at me, panting. “I'm gonna help Katie find her family, then I'm going back to Natalie,” he said between heavy breaths.
“What about Morgan?” I questioned, causing him to look down at his feet. “I don't even know her in the real world, and I would never have chosen to be with her. This place… it's like it wrote me a life that was least likely to let me remember who I am. The girl I'm engaged to is the complete opposite of Natalie. I've got a brother who lives with me, my parents are dead. There's literally nothing here to remind me of home, bro,” Roman said, shedding a couple of tears.
We waited in the alley until night, hearing sirens go back and forth every now and then. When Roman said we were in the clear, we made our way back to the car and started driving again. I noticed Roman's eyes fluttering after about an hour, and I told him I'd be happy to drive if he needed to sleep. I could tell that his ego didn't want to admit he was exhausted, and he also still didn't trust me, but he gave in and pulled over, falling asleep in the back seat as I drove off into the night.

"A family is left in mourning as twenty-one-year-old Natalie Rose was found dead over the weekend," the TV blared into the room, "seemingly attacked by some sort of wild animal as she sat in her tent on what was meant to be a relaxing camping trip alone. Natalie's parents have requested privacy at this time, but they appreciate the condolences they have received. In other news-" Roman grabbed the remote from me and shut off the TV.
"Hey, I was watching that!" I said as I flipped him off from across the room. "Bullshit, you're on your phone," he chuckled, fixing his hair up in the mirror. "Okay, well, I was listening. I like to have background noise, dickhead," I replied, watching him in the reflection, his focus clearly not on this important conversation.
"Where are you going all dressed up?" I interrogated him. "Morgan and I are having our engagement party, but we've got to be there early to sort out seating."
"You're having your engagement party and you didn't invite your own brother?" I questioned him, offended at the audacity this man had. "I did invite you, dipshit. You told me you had a date with Katie tonight."
The realisation hit me like a punch to the gut. I'd completely forgotten about my movie date with Katie. With a surge of panic, I leaped from my seat, heart pounding, and scrambled to get dressed. Every second felt like an eternity as I cursed my forgetfulness. Then, I heard Roman's car start outside. Without a second thought, I sprinted out the door and down the driveway. Knocking on his window, I pleaded for a ride.
The soft hum of the road and the whirring of the engine filled the car as we silently moved through the night. Staring out the window at the blur of trees, I thought about how I would apologise to Katie. Roman reached for the radio, and a Trace Adkins song began playing. Seeing this as the perfect time to start a conversation, I spoke up, "So, are Katie and I coming to the wedding?" I asked, grinning. Roman let out a deep sigh as he turned off the music. "If Katie doesn't plan a date night on the same day, then yes," he replied.
Silence filled the car as we drove along the empty road. The vast woods surrounding us created an eerie atmosphere, intensified by the winter darkness cloaking the night sky above. Yet, for Roman and me, who had grown up in this land, these woods evoked nostalgic memories of our childhood adventures. While for others, it might be an unsettling glimpse into the barrier separating civilization from the unknown, for us, it was a comforting window back into our past.
When Roman bought the land we had grown up on after our parents passed, I was probably more excited than I should've been, considering I had just lost my mum and dad in a tragic carbon monoxide leak. But my relief at not having to leave this place was immense.
We eventually reached an area where the city lights were visible in the distance. I noticed Roman yawn as he adjusted his grip on the wheel. "You're gonna have to tell me where to go, I can't remember where Katie lives," he stated as he changed gears and prepared to enter the busy traffic, a stark contrast to the remote rural road we were about to vacate.
“Just take a left up h-" I began, but was interrupted as a white blur ran in front of the car, causing Roman to slam on the brakes and swerve. I grabbed onto the side of the door as we spun out of control, the screeching of the tires filling my ears, jolting me out of the relaxed state I had been in due to the many miles of quiet driving.
We eventually came to a stop, now facing the opposite direction, gazing down the endless stretch of desolate road we had just traversed. Roman calmly checked all his mirrors for whatever he nearly hit but failed to see anything through the dust he had stirred up in the spinout.
“You all good?” he asked, a relieved smile creeping up his face, a deep breath escaping his lungs.
“Yeah, what was that?” I asked as Roman started reversing, then turned the car back towards the busy city street about a kilometre away and began driving. I looked over to him, expecting an answer to my question, but didn't receive one. His brow was furrowed in an uncertain expression, clearly lost in thought, like he was trying to remember if he locked the front door.
“Roman?” I said, causing him to blink a couple of times.
“I don't know what it was," Roman answered, not breaking his intense stare at the asphalt in front of us as we drove along, approaching the main road. “Probably just a sheep, there's a few acres of farmland behind these trees,” he continued.
As we approached the intersection, Roman flicked his left indicator on before turning onto the main road. “Okay, now take the next right,” I said, feeling the weird atmosphere in the vehicle slowly dissipating. After a few more turns, Roman said that he knew the way from here and turned the radio back on, which cut the remaining tension that I could tell we were both feeling.
The chilly winter night was starting to bite at my skin, and I cursed myself for forgetting a jacket in my hurry. I swivelled my head around to see the backseat. “What are you looking for?” Roman asked, finally looking in my direction as he turned the music down slightly.
“Uh, do you have a jacket I can borrow? I didn't realise it was gonna be this cold,” I sheepishly admitted.
“Hold the wheel,” Roman told me as he reached around behind him, shifting around his hiking gear that he hadn't taken out since his camping trip with Morgan last month.
Eventually, he pulled out his gym hoodie and threw it on my lap. “This is all I got,” he grunted as he readjusted himself in his seat and took hold of the steering wheel again. When we pulled into Katie's driveway, I pulled the hoodie over my head and hopped out of the car into the brisk night air, my breath visible in the cold. “I'll pick you up around 11:30.” Roman shouted out the window as I pulled the hoodie the rest of the way down and waved to Roman as he drove away, beeping his horn as he left me in the chilling winter breeze.
I knocked on the door, checking the time to see that it was 7:37, only a few minutes late. As I waited in the dark, a surprisingly chipper Katie opened the door, hugging me and dragging me inside. “You didn't miss much,” she whispered as we stumbled through the house that had all of its lights off. “Why do you smell like your brother?” she asked, shooting me a dirty look before grabbing a handful of the hoodie and sniffing it. All I could do was shrug and grin, “I forgot how cold it gets in the winter time, he let me borrow it.” She rolled her eyes, and we sat down next to a bunch of her friends and her parents, who all whispered their hellos in the soft glow of the TV.
Around 11:18 pm when the movie was long since finished, Katie's parents said goodnight and headed off to bed, and a few of Katie's friends who had been visiting said goodbye and drove home. I got up to get some water from the kitchen, and as I walked back, I stood in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room, which was dark, only lit by the TV. This allowed me to see Katie frozen, staring towards the window, which was out of my direct line of sight.
Confused, I peeked my head out of the doorway and looked toward the window. I froze and dropped my glass; luckily, it landed on the carpet and didn't make much noise, and the tall, pale creature standing an inch from the window didn't notice. The creature was foul, a gaunt, lanky humanoid. Well, at least the head was humanoid; the body and limbs were almost ape-like, with long, disproportionate arms and less exaggerated legs. The creature's whole body was covered in grey skin stretched tightly over its abnormally long bones. It had no hair anywhere. Its mouth was strangely wide, stretching around to where its ears would be if it had them, and its eyes were just sunken, inky black pits in its head. But I could tell it was staring daggers at Katie, who had tears rolling down her face. She slowly turned her head to look at me, shaking and breathing quickly. I had never felt so powerless. I was supposed to protect her, and I would. I would die to protect her, but I had no idea how to shield her from whatever this thing was.
Then I had an idea. I looked to the light switch panel to my left. I knew one of them was the porch light, but there were three others: the living room light, the kitchen light, and the hall light. If I pressed the wrong light, I didn't know what the thing would do, but I had to try. I had to remember which light Katie's dad used to turn the porch light on when he goes out for a smoke.
I reached for the light second from the bottom and flicked the switch. The hall light turned on. Luckily, the hall was on the opposite side of the kitchen from where the living room was, and it was out of view for the creature at the window. But I couldn't mess up again. If the kitchen light turned on, the creature would see me, and if the living room light turned on, it might cause it to attack Katie. I looked back at the creature, which was using one of its hands to scratch the window as it sniffed around. I had to do something.
I reached for the bottom light switch and flicked it; the porch light turned on. The creature spun around to face it and let out a screech that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. I ran to Katie and grabbed her, dragging her off the side of the couch where there was about a metre gap between the armrest of the couch and the wall.
The sound of the window smashing filled the house, and Katie cried into my shoulder. I couldn't see anything; it was pitch darkness besides the slight blue glare from the TV on the wall above us. But I could hear raspy breathing and bones cracking as the thing searched the living room. I heard it sniffing the couch where Katie was sitting, and I heard it make its way closer to the end of the couch, one of its hands pressed on the wall above us. I saw the silhouette of its head begin to peak over the side of the couch, but suddenly the light turned on, and Katie's dad yelled as he saw us from the kitchen while he was holding a shotgun.
The creature ran at him but fell to the ground as a loud shot rang out in the night, leaving only the sound of our combined breathing and Katie's soft sobs. I watched intently as the body lying between Katie's dad and me moved around on the floor, before slamming its hand down, then the other, and pushing itself to its feet.
Katie's dad reloaded his shotgun, but it was too late. The creature grabbed the poor man by his leg and pulled it out from under him, causing him to shoot the ceiling. I grabbed Katie and dragged her upstairs as the creature began tearing into her father. She cried and screamed, begging me to help him, but what could I do? Whatever that thing was, it just took a shotgun blast to the chest and brushed it off.
I locked us in her upstairs bathroom as the creature's loud and hurried footsteps made their way towards us. Katie was crying loudly now, insisting that we were going to die. Honestly, not a super helpful contribution, but I can't blame her.
As the creature began crashing against the door, pieces of wood started to splinter off. I shoved Katie into the tub, and then lay on top of her. Hopefully, my body would be enough to shield her from this thing. Time slowed down as the door exploded inward. I looked at the girl I loved, makeup running down her face, pieces of door in her hair, mouth wide open as she let out the most ear splitting scream. For some reason, I felt no fear. Even as the monster began tearing at my clothes and clawing at my flesh, I felt strangely calm.
Eventually, the creature grabbed me, swinging me around by my hoodie, slamming me into every wall and surface in the room. I fell to the ground as the hoodie ripped off, and the creature just stared at me, then the hoodie in its hand, then back at me. I stared back, utterly confused, as it leaned over and sniffed my entire body from head to toe. It looked as puzzled as I felt for a moment before I heard Roman's car pull up outside.
The creature screeched as it sprinted out the door, slamming into the hallway wall in its haste. "NO!" I shouted, leaving my still-shaking girlfriend in the tub as I chased the monster out of the house. Somehow, I caught up to the creature and grabbed onto it, bringing it to the ground below. The thing managed to get on top of me, biting and clawing at my arms and hands as I shielded my face.
Before I knew it, Roman came out of nowhere, tackling the creature off me, yelling for me to run. The creature, sleek and deadly, wasted no time in retaliating against Roman's attack. With a primal growl, it lunged at him, its claws slicing through the air like daggers.
Roman had a size advantage that I didn't have, and managed to hold his own for a few seconds as he wrestled with the beast. He'd always been as strong as a bull for as long as I can remember, tall with powerful hands and massive arms and shoulders. But I couldn't risk watching my brother, as strong as he may be, get killed by this… whatever it is.
With strength I didn't know I had, I grabbed the back of Roman's expensive shirt and pulled him out of the way of a fatal blow to the head, throwing him towards the car before I lunged at the creature and went feral. I don't know what came over me; I started swinging on the creature as we tumbled around in the muddy grass. Just when I thought I was actually winning, the creature managed to get its legs between us and kicked me off, then swung its clawed hand at my stomach, ripping it right open.
I collapsed to the ground as my body tried to comprehend what had just happened. My eyes narrowed as everything was drowned out. I watched the silent scene play out before me, my heartbeat pounding in my head.
The creature charged at Roman, who leaped to grab his car's back door handle just as the creature snagged his foot. It yanked at his leg, but Roman clung onto his car door tightly. The creature persisted in pulling as Roman struggled to reach for something in his hiking gear stored in the back seat.
With an agonising yell, Roman's leg gave a sickening snap. Despite the pain, he finally retrieved what he was searching for. Releasing the car door, Roman watched as the creature stumbled backward. Seizing the opportunity, he swiftly climbed on top of it, brandishing his trusty hunting knife from his camping trips.
As Roman wrestled with the creature, the air was filled with grunts and snarls. He plunged the hunting knife into the creature's body, eliciting a guttural howl of pain. The creature thrashed wildly, but Roman held on grimly, his determination unwavering.
With each strike, Roman's movements became more frenzied, fueled by adrenaline and the need to protect us. The creature's attempts to retaliate grew weaker as Roman's blows found their mark. With a final decisive thrust, Roman delivered the fatal blow, and the creature slumped to the ground, defeated.
Breathing heavily, Roman collapsed beside the creature, his body trembling with exhaustion and relief. I rushed to his side, concern evident in my voice. "Natalie-" he faintly murmured.
"Who? Who's Natalie?" I asked, my confusion growing.
Suddenly, the creature jolted up, its movements abrupt and startling. Without warning, it lunged at me, seizing me by the throat and hurling me against the car.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the creature sprinting towards me. In that moment, I felt a strange sensation coursing through my body, as if something within me was shifting. I glanced down at my hands and watched in horror as they contorted and turned a sickly shade of grey. Long claws protruded from my fingers, their sharp edges glinting in the dim light.
As my bones cracked and deformed under the strain of this inexplicable transformation, a sudden surge of anger and ferocity overwhelmed my senses. It was as though a primal instinct had taken hold of me, consuming my entire being in its relentless grip. With each passing moment, the world around me faded into darkness until finally, I lost consciousness, my mind consumed by the terrifying reality of what I had become.
I awoke hours later in the back seat of Roman's car. The hum of the road and the whirring of the engine attempted to lull me back to sleep, but I sat up, rubbing my head as the memories flooded back. "What happened?" I asked, my voice hoarse and strained.
Roman responded with silence, a familiar reaction from him, but this time, it sent a shiver down my spine. As I looked at my arms, then my stomach, and felt around my whole body, I realised the wounds and deep gashes caused by the creature were all gone, as if I had never been attacked.
I caught Roman's gaze in the mirror, but he quickly averted his eyes. That's when I noticed Katie in the passenger seat, her tear-stained face betraying her silent anguish. It was clear she wanted to say something, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Roman had warned her against it.
"What do you know about this place?" Roman asked sternly, his voice devoid of emotion.
"We've lived here all our lives, Roman," I replied, confusion evident in my tone. "What do you mean?”
Roman pressed down on the brakes, bringing us to a sudden stop. I noticed a pained expression flit across his face in the mirror, a fleeting moment of vulnerability that he quickly tried to conceal.
"Your leg!" I exclaimed, my voice laced with concern as I recalled the events from earlier.
"It was a dislocated hip. I fixed it," he replied bluntly, his tone revealing little about the ordeal he must have endured.
"This isn't real, Jason. None of this is real. You are not real!" Roman's voice was sharp, refusing to meet my eyes in the reflection.
"Back at Katie's house, I remembered everything the moment I looked into that creature's eyes. I remembered... I remembered Natalie," he said, his words catching in his throat, revealing the first hint of emotion I'd seen from him.
I watched as a tear rolled down Katie's face. I reached to put a hand on her shoulder but stopped myself.
"Roman got me to remember," Katie said, her voice trembling. "I remembered the emergency alert, and when those things broke down our doors. I watched as they dragged my parents out, then my baby brother, then me. I woke up in this fake world, in a family that isn't even mine, dating a boy who turns out to be one of the monsters who brought me here." She spluttered, and I began to cry silently as I realised what she was saying.
Roman eventually started driving again, occasionally getting a call from Morgan, but after the fifth call he threw his phone out the window. We drove until I fell asleep. I don't remember what I dreamed about, but it was peaceful. I think I was in that forest with Roman. We were children again, playing around in the trees, finding cool sticks and exploring the endless expanse of what felt like a fairytale, which I guess it was.
I was awoken by the abrupt sound of Roman's car door slamming. I looked outside and saw that it was daytime again. Trying to figure out where we had stopped, I noticed a giant sign that said “Library.” I hopped out of the car and jogged to catch up to Roman and Katie.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, clearly still being avoided. It was understandable, but it still hurt.
“I need to wake everyone up,” Roman said as we walked in and approached a computer.
I noticed we were getting odd stares from everyone as we walked by, which is when I also noticed that I looked like I had just come out the other side of a paper shredder. My clothes were all torn up with bits missing, apparently not possessing the magic healing ability that I do. The sound of Roman typing snapped me out of my self-conscious thoughts and redirected me to the computer screen.
"I'm going to be a while, guys," Roman said as he began writing out his story. "I need to tell the whole thing from the beginning. Go find a book or something.”
I looked over to Katie, her face void of expression, but a great sadness filled her now dry eyes, having cried all the tears she had. “Why don't you just wake up?” I asked, probably coming across as more insensitive than I intended.
“I've got nothing to go back to. Roman told me what the world is like back there. If my family is here, I have to find them and wake them up first,” she responded, finally meeting my eye.
I wanted to hug her so bad, but I knew she didn't love me anymore. She probably had a real boyfriend in the real world.
Hours went by as Katie and I found a place to sit and wait in silence, watching Roman. He looked funny in the little library chair, hunched over the computer. Such a big guy looked out of place here, his muscular presence overpowering that of the rest of the library's patrons, who were all either very old or very young.
I hate to admit I fell asleep, but I'm just telling the story how it was. I was awoken suddenly by sirens and shouts. “We have got you surrounded, come out with your hands up or we will come in and show you no mercy,” a man's voice yelled from outside through a speaker. I looked over to Roman, who was limping over to us as all the customers flooded out the exits.
“Get up, we need to leave. They've turned the law against us,” Roman ordered. Katie and I listened and followed him.
We made our way upstairs into the empty employee lounge, and Roman opened a window... with his elbow. “They've got every exit covered but this one. We need to jump,” he calmly told us. He stood up in the window frame, kicked off some of the remaining glass with his boots, and jumped to the roof of the single-story building below, wincing in pain as he landed on his bad leg.
That's when six armed officers kicked down the door and opened fire on Katie and me. I moved to block the bullets from hitting Katie, taking several hits to the head and back. I then pushed Katie through the window, and Roman caught her before I jumped out myself and followed.
We ran from rooftop to rooftop until we reached a ladder that led down into an alleyway, where we attempted to catch our breaths. Roman and Katie watched me intently as the bullets lodged in my body began to work their way back out, the wounds closing up after. My skin color shifted a little, and I felt a rattle leave my throat as a cold sweat came over me.
“Hey, control yourself,” Roman told me sternly. I nodded, struggling to remain composed.
“Did you finish the story?” Katie asked Roman.
“Yeah, I kind of had to rush the last part, but I got the message across,” he replied, slumping to the ground behind a dumpster, exhausted.
“What now?” I asked.
Roman looked at me, panting. “I'm gonna help Katie find her family, then I'm going back to Natalie,” he said between heavy breaths.
“What about Morgan?” I questioned, causing him to look down at his feet. “I don't even know her in the real world, and I would never have chosen to be with her. This place… it's like it wrote me a life that was least likely to let me remember who I am. The girl I'm engaged to is the complete opposite of Natalie. I've got a brother who lives with me, my parents are dead. There's literally nothing here to remind me of home, bro,” Roman said, shedding a couple of tears.
We waited in the alley until night, hearing sirens go back and forth every now and then. When Roman said we were in the clear, we made our way back to the car and started driving again. I noticed Roman's eyes fluttering after about an hour, and I told him I'd be happy to drive if he needed to sleep. I could tell that his ego didn't want to admit he was exhausted, and he also still didn't trust me, but he gave in and pulled over, falling asleep in the back seat as I drove off into the night.

"A family is left in mourning as twenty-one-year-old Natalie Rose was found dead over the weekend," the TV blared into the room, "seemingly attacked by some sort of wild animal as she sat in her tent on what was meant to be a relaxing camping trip alone. Natalie's parents have requested privacy at this time, but they appreciate the condolences they have received. In other news-" Roman grabbed the remote from me and shut off the TV.
"Hey, I was watching that!" I said as I flipped him off from across the room. "Bullshit, you're on your phone," he chuckled, fixing his hair up in the mirror. "Okay, well, I was listening. I like to have background noise, dickhead," I replied, watching him in the reflection, his focus clearly not on this important conversation.
"Where are you going all dressed up?" I interrogated him. "Morgan and I are having our engagement party, but we've got to be there early to sort out seating."
"You're having your engagement party and you didn't invite your own brother?" I questioned him, offended at the audacity this man had. "I did invite you, dipshit. You told me you had a date with Katie tonight."
The realisation hit me like a punch to the gut. I'd completely forgotten about my movie date with Katie. With a surge of panic, I leaped from my seat, heart pounding, and scrambled to get dressed. Every second felt like an eternity as I cursed my forgetfulness. Then, I heard Roman's car start outside. Without a second thought, I sprinted out the door and down the driveway. Knocking on his window, I pleaded for a ride.
The soft hum of the road and the whirring of the engine filled the car as we silently moved through the night. Staring out the window at the blur of trees, I thought about how I would apologise to Katie. Roman reached for the radio, and a Trace Adkins song began playing. Seeing this as the perfect time to start a conversation, I spoke up, "So, are Katie and I coming to the wedding?" I asked, grinning. Roman let out a deep sigh as he turned off the music. "If Katie doesn't plan a date night on the same day, then yes," he replied.
Silence filled the car as we drove along the empty road. The vast woods surrounding us created an eerie atmosphere, intensified by the winter darkness cloaking the night sky above. Yet, for Roman and me, who had grown up in this land, these woods evoked nostalgic memories of our childhood adventures. While for others, it might be an unsettling glimpse into the barrier separating civilization from the unknown, for us, it was a comforting window back into our past.
When Roman bought the land we had grown up on after our parents passed, I was probably more excited than I should've been, considering I had just lost my mum and dad in a tragic carbon monoxide leak. But my relief at not having to leave this place was immense.
We eventually reached an area where the city lights were visible in the distance. I noticed Roman yawn as he adjusted his grip on the wheel. "You're gonna have to tell me where to go, I can't remember where Katie lives," he stated as he changed gears and prepared to enter the busy traffic, a stark contrast to the remote rural road we were about to vacate.
“Just take a left up h-" I began, but was interrupted as a white blur ran in front of the car, causing Roman to slam on the brakes and swerve. I grabbed onto the side of the door as we spun out of control, the screeching of the tires filling my ears, jolting me out of the relaxed state I had been in due to the many miles of quiet driving.
We eventually came to a stop, now facing the opposite direction, gazing down the endless stretch of desolate road we had just traversed. Roman calmly checked all his mirrors for whatever he nearly hit but failed to see anything through the dust he had stirred up in the spinout.
“You all good?” he asked, a relieved smile creeping up his face, a deep breath escaping his lungs.
“Yeah, what was that?” I asked as Roman started reversing, then turned the car back towards the busy city street about a kilometre away and began driving. I looked over to him, expecting an answer to my question, but didn't receive one. His brow was furrowed in an uncertain expression, clearly lost in thought, like he was trying to remember if he locked the front door.
“Roman?” I said, causing him to blink a couple of times.
“I don't know what it was," Roman answered, not breaking his intense stare at the asphalt in front of us as we drove along, approaching the main road. “Probably just a sheep, there's a few acres of farmland behind these trees,” he continued.
As we approached the intersection, Roman flicked his left indicator on before turning onto the main road. “Okay, now take the next right,” I said, feeling the weird atmosphere in the vehicle slowly dissipating. After a few more turns, Roman said that he knew the way from here and turned the radio back on, which cut the remaining tension that I could tell we were both feeling.
The chilly winter night was starting to bite at my skin, and I cursed myself for forgetting a jacket in my hurry. I swivelled my head around to see the backseat. “What are you looking for?” Roman asked, finally looking in my direction as he turned the music down slightly.
“Uh, do you have a jacket I can borrow? I didn't realise it was gonna be this cold,” I sheepishly admitted.
“Hold the wheel,” Roman told me as he reached around behind him, shifting around his hiking gear that he hadn't taken out since his camping trip with Morgan last month.
Eventually, he pulled out his gym hoodie and threw it on my lap. “This is all I got,” he grunted as he readjusted himself in his seat and took hold of the steering wheel again. When we pulled into Katie's driveway, I pulled the hoodie over my head and hopped out of the car into the brisk night air, my breath visible in the cold. “I'll pick you up around 11:30.” Roman shouted out the window as I pulled the hoodie the rest of the way down and waved to Roman as he drove away, beeping his horn as he left me in the chilling winter breeze.
I knocked on the door, checking the time to see that it was 7:37, only a few minutes late. As I waited in the dark, a surprisingly chipper Katie opened the door, hugging me and dragging me inside. “You didn't miss much,” she whispered as we stumbled through the house that had all of its lights off. “Why do you smell like your brother?” she asked, shooting me a dirty look before grabbing a handful of the hoodie and sniffing it. All I could do was shrug and grin, “I forgot how cold it gets in the winter time, he let me borrow it.” She rolled her eyes, and we sat down next to a bunch of her friends and her parents, who all whispered their hellos in the soft glow of the TV.
Around 11:18 pm when the movie was long since finished, Katie's parents said goodnight and headed off to bed, and a few of Katie's friends who had been visiting said goodbye and drove home. I got up to get some water from the kitchen, and as I walked back, I stood in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room, which was dark, only lit by the TV. This allowed me to see Katie frozen, staring towards the window, which was out of my direct line of sight.
Confused, I peeked my head out of the doorway and looked toward the window. I froze and dropped my glass; luckily, it landed on the carpet and didn't make much noise, and the tall, pale creature standing an inch from the window didn't notice. The creature was foul, a gaunt, lanky humanoid. Well, at least the head was humanoid; the body and limbs were almost ape-like, with long, disproportionate arms and less exaggerated legs. The creature's whole body was covered in grey skin stretched tightly over its abnormally long bones. It had no hair anywhere. Its mouth was strangely wide, stretching around to where its ears would be if it had them, and its eyes were just sunken, inky black pits in its head. But I could tell it was staring daggers at Katie, who had tears rolling down her face. She slowly turned her head to look at me, shaking and breathing quickly. I had never felt so powerless. I was supposed to protect her, and I would. I would die to protect her, but I had no idea how to shield her from whatever this thing was.
Then I had an idea. I looked to the light switch panel to my left. I knew one of them was the porch light, but there were three others: the living room light, the kitchen light, and the hall light. If I pressed the wrong light, I didn't know what the thing would do, but I had to try. I had to remember which light Katie's dad used to turn the porch light on when he goes out for a smoke.
I reached for the light second from the bottom and flicked the switch. The hall light turned on. Luckily, the hall was on the opposite side of the kitchen from where the living room was, and it was out of view for the creature at the window. But I couldn't mess up again. If the kitchen light turned on, the creature would see me, and if the living room light turned on, it might cause it to attack Katie. I looked back at the creature, which was using one of its hands to scratch the window as it sniffed around. I had to do something.
I reached for the bottom light switch and flicked it; the porch light turned on. The creature spun around to face it and let out a screech that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. I ran to Katie and grabbed her, dragging her off the side of the couch where there was about a metre gap between the armrest of the couch and the wall.
The sound of the window smashing filled the house, and Katie cried into my shoulder. I couldn't see anything; it was pitch darkness besides the slight blue glare from the TV on the wall above us. But I could hear raspy breathing and bones cracking as the thing searched the living room. I heard it sniffing the couch where Katie was sitting, and I heard it make its way closer to the end of the couch, one of its hands pressed on the wall above us. I saw the silhouette of its head begin to peak over the side of the couch, but suddenly the light turned on, and Katie's dad yelled as he saw us from the kitchen while he was holding a shotgun.
The creature ran at him but fell to the ground as a loud shot rang out in the night, leaving only the sound of our combined breathing and Katie's soft sobs. I watched intently as the body lying between Katie's dad and me moved around on the floor, before slamming its hand down, then the other, and pushing itself to its feet.
Katie's dad reloaded his shotgun, but it was too late. The creature grabbed the poor man by his leg and pulled it out from under him, causing him to shoot the ceiling. I grabbed Katie and dragged her upstairs as the creature began tearing into her father. She cried and screamed, begging me to help him, but what could I do? Whatever that thing was, it just took a shotgun blast to the chest and brushed it off.
I locked us in her upstairs bathroom as the creature's loud and hurried footsteps made their way towards us. Katie was crying loudly now, insisting that we were going to die. Honestly, not a super helpful contribution, but I can't blame her.
As the creature began crashing against the door, pieces of wood started to splinter off. I shoved Katie into the tub, and then lay on top of her. Hopefully, my body would be enough to shield her from this thing. Time slowed down as the door exploded inward. I looked at the girl I loved, makeup running down her face, pieces of door in her hair, mouth wide open as she let out the most ear splitting scream. For some reason, I felt no fear. Even as the monster began tearing at my clothes and clawing at my flesh, I felt strangely calm.
Eventually, the creature grabbed me, swinging me around by my hoodie, slamming me into every wall and surface in the room. I fell to the ground as the hoodie ripped off, and the creature just stared at me, then the hoodie in its hand, then back at me. I stared back, utterly confused, as it leaned over and sniffed my entire body from head to toe. It looked as puzzled as I felt for a moment before I heard Roman's car pull up outside.
The creature screeched as it sprinted out the door, slamming into the hallway wall in its haste. "NO!" I shouted, leaving my still-shaking girlfriend in the tub as I chased the monster out of the house. Somehow, I caught up to the creature and grabbed onto it, bringing it to the ground below. The thing managed to get on top of me, biting and clawing at my arms and hands as I shielded my face.
Before I knew it, Roman came out of nowhere, tackling the creature off me, yelling for me to run. The creature, sleek and deadly, wasted no time in retaliating against Roman's attack. With a primal growl, it lunged at him, its claws slicing through the air like daggers.
Roman had a size advantage that I didn't have, and managed to hold his own for a few seconds as he wrestled with the beast. He'd always been as strong as a bull for as long as I can remember, tall with powerful hands and massive arms and shoulders. But I couldn't risk watching my brother, as strong as he may be, get killed by this… whatever it is.
With strength I didn't know I had, I grabbed the back of Roman's expensive shirt and pulled him out of the way of a fatal blow to the head, throwing him towards the car before I lunged at the creature and went feral. I don't know what came over me; I started swinging on the creature as we tumbled around in the muddy grass. Just when I thought I was actually winning, the creature managed to get its legs between us and kicked me off, then swung its clawed hand at my stomach, ripping it right open.
I collapsed to the ground as my body tried to comprehend what had just happened. My eyes narrowed as everything was drowned out. I watched the silent scene play out before me, my heartbeat pounding in my head.
The creature charged at Roman, who leaped to grab his car's back door handle just as the creature snagged his foot. It yanked at his leg, but Roman clung onto his car door tightly. The creature persisted in pulling as Roman struggled to reach for something in his hiking gear stored in the back seat.
With an agonising yell, Roman's leg gave a sickening snap. Despite the pain, he finally retrieved what he was searching for. Releasing the car door, Roman watched as the creature stumbled backward. Seizing the opportunity, he swiftly climbed on top of it, brandishing his trusty hunting knife from his camping trips.
As Roman wrestled with the creature, the air was filled with grunts and snarls. He plunged the hunting knife into the creature's body, eliciting a guttural howl of pain. The creature thrashed wildly, but Roman held on grimly, his determination unwavering.
With each strike, Roman's movements became more frenzied, fueled by adrenaline and the need to protect us. The creature's attempts to retaliate grew weaker as Roman's blows found their mark. With a final decisive thrust, Roman delivered the fatal blow, and the creature slumped to the ground, defeated.
Breathing heavily, Roman collapsed beside the creature, his body trembling with exhaustion and relief. I rushed to his side, concern evident in my voice. "Natalie-" he faintly murmured.
"Who? Who's Natalie?" I asked, my confusion growing.
Suddenly, the creature jolted up, its movements abrupt and startling. Without warning, it lunged at me, seizing me by the throat and hurling me against the car.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the creature sprinting towards me. In that moment, I felt a strange sensation coursing through my body, as if something within me was shifting. I glanced down at my hands and watched in horror as they contorted and turned a sickly shade of grey. Long claws protruded from my fingers, their sharp edges glinting in the dim light.
As my bones cracked and deformed under the strain of this inexplicable transformation, a sudden surge of anger and ferocity overwhelmed my senses. It was as though a primal instinct had taken hold of me, consuming my entire being in its relentless grip. With each passing moment, the world around me faded into darkness until finally, I lost consciousness, my mind consumed by the terrifying reality of what I had become.
I awoke hours later in the back seat of Roman's car. The hum of the road and the whirring of the engine attempted to lull me back to sleep, but I sat up, rubbing my head as the memories flooded back. "What happened?" I asked, my voice hoarse and strained.
Roman responded with silence, a familiar reaction from him, but this time, it sent a shiver down my spine. As I looked at my arms, then my stomach, and felt around my whole body, I realised the wounds and deep gashes caused by the creature were all gone, as if I had never been attacked.
I caught Roman's gaze in the mirror, but he quickly averted his eyes. That's when I noticed Katie in the passenger seat, her tear-stained face betraying her silent anguish. It was clear she wanted to say something, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Roman had warned her against it.
"What do you know about this place?" Roman asked sternly, his voice devoid of emotion.
"We've lived here all our lives, Roman," I replied, confusion evident in my tone. "What do you mean?”
Roman pressed down on the brakes, bringing us to a sudden stop. I noticed a pained expression flit across his face in the mirror, a fleeting moment of vulnerability that he quickly tried to conceal.
"Your leg!" I exclaimed, my voice laced with concern as I recalled the events from earlier.
"It was a dislocated hip. I fixed it," he replied bluntly, his tone revealing little about the ordeal he must have endured.
"This isn't real, Jason. None of this is real. You are not real!" Roman's voice was sharp, refusing to meet my eyes in the reflection.
"Back at Katie's house, I remembered everything the moment I looked into that creature's eyes. I remembered... I remembered Natalie," he said, his words catching in his throat, revealing the first hint of emotion I'd seen from him.
I watched as a tear rolled down Katie's face. I reached to put a hand on her shoulder but stopped myself.
"Roman got me to remember," Katie said, her voice trembling. "I remembered the emergency alert, and when those things broke down our doors. I watched as they dragged my parents out, then my baby brother, then me. I woke up in this fake world, in a family that isn't even mine, dating a boy who turns out to be one of the monsters who brought me here." She spluttered, and I began to cry silently as I realised what she was saying.
Roman eventually started driving again, occasionally getting a call from Morgan, but after the fifth call he threw his phone out the window. We drove until I fell asleep. I don't remember what I dreamed about, but it was peaceful. I think I was in that forest with Roman. We were children again, playing around in the trees, finding cool sticks and exploring the endless expanse of what felt like a fairytale, which I guess it was.
I was awoken by the abrupt sound of Roman's car door slamming. I looked outside and saw that it was daytime again. Trying to figure out where we had stopped, I noticed a giant sign that said “Library.” I hopped out of the car and jogged to catch up to Roman and Katie.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, clearly still being avoided. It was understandable, but it still hurt.
“I need to wake everyone up,” Roman said as we walked in and approached a computer.
I noticed we were getting odd stares from everyone as we walked by, which is when I also noticed that I looked like I had just come out the other side of a paper shredder. My clothes were all torn up with bits missing, apparently not possessing the magic healing ability that I do. The sound of Roman typing snapped me out of my self-conscious thoughts and redirected me to the computer screen.
"I'm going to be a while, guys," Roman said as he began writing out his story. "I need to tell the whole thing from the beginning. Go find a book or something.”
I looked over to Katie, her face void of expression, but a great sadness filled her now dry eyes, having cried all the tears she had. “Why don't you just wake up?” I asked, probably coming across as more insensitive than I intended.
“I've got nothing to go back to. Roman told me what the world is like back there. If my family is here, I have to find them and wake them up first,” she responded, finally meeting my eye.
I wanted to hug her so bad, but I knew she didn't love me anymore. She probably had a real boyfriend in the real world.
Hours went by as Katie and I found a place to sit and wait in silence, watching Roman. He looked funny in the little library chair, hunched over the computer. Such a big guy looked out of place here, his muscular presence overpowering that of the rest of the library's patrons, who were all either very old or very young.
I hate to admit I fell asleep, but I'm just telling the story how it was. I was awoken suddenly by sirens and shouts. “We have got you surrounded, come out with your hands up or we will come in and show you no mercy,” a man's voice yelled from outside through a speaker. I looked over to Roman, who was limping over to us as all the customers flooded out the exits.
“Get up, we need to leave. They've turned the law against us,” Roman ordered. Katie and I listened and followed him.
We made our way upstairs into the empty employee lounge, and Roman opened a window... with his elbow. “They've got every exit covered but this one. We need to jump,” he calmly told us. He stood up in the window frame, kicked off some of the remaining glass with his boots, and jumped to the roof of the single-story building below, wincing in pain as he landed on his bad leg.
That's when six armed officers kicked down the door and opened fire on Katie and me. I moved to block the bullets from hitting Katie, taking several hits to the head and back. I then pushed Katie through the window, and Roman caught her before I jumped out myself and followed.
We ran from rooftop to rooftop until we reached a ladder that led down into an alleyway, where we attempted to catch our breaths. Roman and Katie watched me intently as the bullets lodged in my body began to work their way back out, the wounds closing up after. My skin color shifted a little, and I felt a rattle leave my throat as a cold sweat came over me.
“Hey, control yourself,” Roman told me sternly. I nodded, struggling to remain composed.
“Did you finish the story?” Katie asked Roman.
“Yeah, I kind of had to rush the last part, but I got the message across,” he replied, slumping to the ground behind a dumpster, exhausted.
“What now?” I asked.
Roman looked at me, panting. “I'm gonna help Katie find her family, then I'm going back to Natalie,” he said between heavy breaths.
“What about Morgan?” I questioned, causing him to look down at his feet. “I don't even know her in the real world, and I would never have chosen to be with her. This place… it's like it wrote me a life that was least likely to let me remember who I am. The girl I'm engaged to is the complete opposite of Natalie. I've got a brother who lives with me, my parents are dead. There's literally nothing here to remind me of home, bro,” Roman said, shedding a couple of tears.
We waited in the alley until night, hearing sirens go back and forth every now and then. When Roman said we were in the clear, we made our way back to the car and started driving again. I noticed Roman's eyes fluttering after about an hour, and I told him I'd be happy to drive if he needed to sleep. I could tell that his ego didn't want to admit he was exhausted, and he also still didn't trust me, but he gave in and pulled over, falling asleep in the back seat as I drove off into the night.

"A family is left in mourning as twenty-one-year-old Natalie Rose was found dead over the weekend," the TV blared into the room, "seemingly attacked by some sort of wild animal as she sat in her tent on what was meant to be a relaxing camping trip alone. Natalie's parents have requested privacy at this time, but they appreciate the condolences they have received. In other news-" Roman grabbed the remote from me and shut off the TV.
"Hey, I was watching that!" I said as I flipped him off from across the room. "Bullshit, you're on your phone," he chuckled, fixing his hair up in the mirror. "Okay, well, I was listening. I like to have background noise, dickhead," I replied, watching him in the reflection, his focus clearly not on this important conversation.
"Where are you going all dressed up?" I interrogated him. "Morgan and I are having our engagement party, but we've got to be there early to sort out seating."
"You're having your engagement party and you didn't invite your own brother?" I questioned him, offended at the audacity this man had. "I did invite you, dipshit. You told me you had a date with Katie tonight."
The realisation hit me like a punch to the gut. I'd completely forgotten about my movie date with Katie. With a surge of panic, I leaped from my seat, heart pounding, and scrambled to get dressed. Every second felt like an eternity as I cursed my forgetfulness. Then, I heard Roman's car start outside. Without a second thought, I sprinted out the door and down the driveway. Knocking on his window, I pleaded for a ride.
The soft hum of the road and the whirring of the engine filled the car as we silently moved through the night. Staring out the window at the blur of trees, I thought about how I would apologise to Katie. Roman reached for the radio, and a Trace Adkins song began playing. Seeing this as the perfect time to start a conversation, I spoke up, "So, are Katie and I coming to the wedding?" I asked, grinning. Roman let out a deep sigh as he turned off the music. "If Katie doesn't plan a date night on the same day, then yes," he replied.
Silence filled the car as we drove along the empty road. The vast woods surrounding us created an eerie atmosphere, intensified by the winter darkness cloaking the night sky above. Yet, for Roman and me, who had grown up in this land, these woods evoked nostalgic memories of our childhood adventures. While for others, it might be an unsettling glimpse into the barrier separating civilization from the unknown, for us, it was a comforting window back into our past.
When Roman bought the land we had grown up on after our parents passed, I was probably more excited than I should've been, considering I had just lost my mum and dad in a tragic carbon monoxide leak. But my relief at not having to leave this place was immense.
We eventually reached an area where the city lights were visible in the distance. I noticed Roman yawn as he adjusted his grip on the wheel. "You're gonna have to tell me where to go, I can't remember where Katie lives," he stated as he changed gears and prepared to enter the busy traffic, a stark contrast to the remote rural road we were about to vacate.
“Just take a left up h-" I began, but was interrupted as a white blur ran in front of the car, causing Roman to slam on the brakes and swerve. I grabbed onto the side of the door as we spun out of control, the screeching of the tires filling my ears, jolting me out of the relaxed state I had been in due to the many miles of quiet driving.
We eventually came to a stop, now facing the opposite direction, gazing down the endless stretch of desolate road we had just traversed. Roman calmly checked all his mirrors for whatever he nearly hit but failed to see anything through the dust he had stirred up in the spinout.
“You all good?” he asked, a relieved smile creeping up his face, a deep breath escaping his lungs.
“Yeah, what was that?” I asked as Roman started reversing, then turned the car back towards the busy city street about a kilometre away and began driving. I looked over to him, expecting an answer to my question, but didn't receive one. His brow was furrowed in an uncertain expression, clearly lost in thought, like he was trying to remember if he locked the front door.
“Roman?” I said, causing him to blink a couple of times.
“I don't know what it was," Roman answered, not breaking his intense stare at the asphalt in front of us as we drove along, approaching the main road. “Probably just a sheep, there's a few acres of farmland behind these trees,” he continued.
As we approached the intersection, Roman flicked his left indicator on before turning onto the main road. “Okay, now take the next right,” I said, feeling the weird atmosphere in the vehicle slowly dissipating. After a few more turns, Roman said that he knew the way from here and turned the radio back on, which cut the remaining tension that I could tell we were both feeling.
The chilly winter night was starting to bite at my skin, and I cursed myself for forgetting a jacket in my hurry. I swivelled my head around to see the backseat. “What are you looking for?” Roman asked, finally looking in my direction as he turned the music down slightly.
“Uh, do you have a jacket I can borrow? I didn't realise it was gonna be this cold,” I sheepishly admitted.
“Hold the wheel,” Roman told me as he reached around behind him, shifting around his hiking gear that he hadn't taken out since his camping trip with Morgan last month.
Eventually, he pulled out his gym hoodie and threw it on my lap. “This is all I got,” he grunted as he readjusted himself in his seat and took hold of the steering wheel again. When we pulled into Katie's driveway, I pulled the hoodie over my head and hopped out of the car into the brisk night air, my breath visible in the cold. “I'll pick you up around 11:30.” Roman shouted out the window as I pulled the hoodie the rest of the way down and waved to Roman as he drove away, beeping his horn as he left me in the chilling winter breeze.
I knocked on the door, checking the time to see that it was 7:37, only a few minutes late. As I waited in the dark, a surprisingly chipper Katie opened the door, hugging me and dragging me inside. “You didn't miss much,” she whispered as we stumbled through the house that had all of its lights off. “Why do you smell like your brother?” she asked, shooting me a dirty look before grabbing a handful of the hoodie and sniffing it. All I could do was shrug and grin, “I forgot how cold it gets in the winter time, he let me borrow it.” She rolled her eyes, and we sat down next to a bunch of her friends and her parents, who all whispered their hellos in the soft glow of the TV.
Around 11:18 pm when the movie was long since finished, Katie's parents said goodnight and headed off to bed, and a few of Katie's friends who had been visiting said goodbye and drove home. I got up to get some water from the kitchen, and as I walked back, I stood in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room, which was dark, only lit by the TV. This allowed me to see Katie frozen, staring towards the window, which was out of my direct line of sight.
Confused, I peeked my head out of the doorway and looked toward the window. I froze and dropped my glass; luckily, it landed on the carpet and didn't make much noise, and the tall, pale creature standing an inch from the window didn't notice. The creature was foul, a gaunt, lanky humanoid. Well, at least the head was humanoid; the body and limbs were almost ape-like, with long, disproportionate arms and less exaggerated legs. The creature's whole body was covered in grey skin stretched tightly over its abnormally long bones. It had no hair anywhere. Its mouth was strangely wide, stretching around to where its ears would be if it had them, and its eyes were just sunken, inky black pits in its head. But I could tell it was staring daggers at Katie, who had tears rolling down her face. She slowly turned her head to look at me, shaking and breathing quickly. I had never felt so powerless. I was supposed to protect her, and I would. I would die to protect her, but I had no idea how to shield her from whatever this thing was.
Then I had an idea. I looked to the light switch panel to my left. I knew one of them was the porch light, but there were three others: the living room light, the kitchen light, and the hall light. If I pressed the wrong light, I didn't know what the thing would do, but I had to try. I had to remember which light Katie's dad used to turn the porch light on when he goes out for a smoke.
I reached for the light second from the bottom and flicked the switch. The hall light turned on. Luckily, the hall was on the opposite side of the kitchen from where the living room was, and it was out of view for the creature at the window. But I couldn't mess up again. If the kitchen light turned on, the creature would see me, and if the living room light turned on, it might cause it to attack Katie. I looked back at the creature, which was using one of its hands to scratch the window as it sniffed around. I had to do something.
I reached for the bottom light switch and flicked it; the porch light turned on. The creature spun around to face it and let out a screech that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. I ran to Katie and grabbed her, dragging her off the side of the couch where there was about a metre gap between the armrest of the couch and the wall.
The sound of the window smashing filled the house, and Katie cried into my shoulder. I couldn't see anything; it was pitch darkness besides the slight blue glare from the TV on the wall above us. But I could hear raspy breathing and bones cracking as the thing searched the living room. I heard it sniffing the couch where Katie was sitting, and I heard it make its way closer to the end of the couch, one of its hands pressed on the wall above us. I saw the silhouette of its head begin to peak over the side of the couch, but suddenly the light turned on, and Katie's dad yelled as he saw us from the kitchen while he was holding a shotgun.
The creature ran at him but fell to the ground as a loud shot rang out in the night, leaving only the sound of our combined breathing and Katie's soft sobs. I watched intently as the body lying between Katie's dad and me moved around on the floor, before slamming its hand down, then the other, and pushing itself to its feet.
Katie's dad reloaded his shotgun, but it was too late. The creature grabbed the poor man by his leg and pulled it out from under him, causing him to shoot the ceiling. I grabbed Katie and dragged her upstairs as the creature began tearing into her father. She cried and screamed, begging me to help him, but what could I do? Whatever that thing was, it just took a shotgun blast to the chest and brushed it off.
I locked us in her upstairs bathroom as the creature's loud and hurried footsteps made their way towards us. Katie was crying loudly now, insisting that we were going to die. Honestly, not a super helpful contribution, but I can't blame her.
As the creature began crashing against the door, pieces of wood started to splinter off. I shoved Katie into the tub, and then lay on top of her. Hopefully, my body would be enough to shield her from this thing. Time slowed down as the door exploded inward. I looked at the girl I loved, makeup running down her face, pieces of door in her hair, mouth wide open as she let out the most ear splitting scream. For some reason, I felt no fear. Even as the monster began tearing at my clothes and clawing at my flesh, I felt strangely calm.
Eventually, the creature grabbed me, swinging me around by my hoodie, slamming me into every wall and surface in the room. I fell to the ground as the hoodie ripped off, and the creature just stared at me, then the hoodie in its hand, then back at me. I stared back, utterly confused, as it leaned over and sniffed my entire body from head to toe. It looked as puzzled as I felt for a moment before I heard Roman's car pull up outside.
The creature screeched as it sprinted out the door, slamming into the hallway wall in its haste. "NO!" I shouted, leaving my still-shaking girlfriend in the tub as I chased the monster out of the house. Somehow, I caught up to the creature and grabbed onto it, bringing it to the ground below. The thing managed to get on top of me, biting and clawing at my arms and hands as I shielded my face.
Before I knew it, Roman came out of nowhere, tackling the creature off me, yelling for me to run. The creature, sleek and deadly, wasted no time in retaliating against Roman's attack. With a primal growl, it lunged at him, its claws slicing through the air like daggers.
Roman had a size advantage that I didn't have, and managed to hold his own for a few seconds as he wrestled with the beast. He'd always been as strong as a bull for as long as I can remember, tall with powerful hands and massive arms and shoulders. But I couldn't risk watching my brother, as strong as he may be, get killed by this… whatever it is.
With strength I didn't know I had, I grabbed the back of Roman's expensive shirt and pulled him out of the way of a fatal blow to the head, throwing him towards the car before I lunged at the creature and went feral. I don't know what came over me; I started swinging on the creature as we tumbled around in the muddy grass. Just when I thought I was actually winning, the creature managed to get its legs between us and kicked me off, then swung its clawed hand at my stomach, ripping it right open.
I collapsed to the ground as my body tried to comprehend what had just happened. My eyes narrowed as everything was drowned out. I watched the silent scene play out before me, my heartbeat pounding in my head.
The creature charged at Roman, who leaped to grab his car's back door handle just as the creature snagged his foot. It yanked at his leg, but Roman clung onto his car door tightly. The creature persisted in pulling as Roman struggled to reach for something in his hiking gear stored in the back seat.
With an agonising yell, Roman's leg gave a sickening snap. Despite the pain, he finally retrieved what he was searching for. Releasing the car door, Roman watched as the creature stumbled backward. Seizing the opportunity, he swiftly climbed on top of it, brandishing his trusty hunting knife from his camping trips.
As Roman wrestled with the creature, the air was filled with grunts and snarls. He plunged the hunting knife into the creature's body, eliciting a guttural howl of pain. The creature thrashed wildly, but Roman held on grimly, his determination unwavering.
With each strike, Roman's movements became more frenzied, fueled by adrenaline and the need to protect us. The creature's attempts to retaliate grew weaker as Roman's blows found their mark. With a final decisive thrust, Roman delivered the fatal blow, and the creature slumped to the ground, defeated.
Breathing heavily, Roman collapsed beside the creature, his body trembling with exhaustion and relief. I rushed to his side, concern evident in my voice. "Natalie-" he faintly murmured.
"Who? Who's Natalie?" I asked, my confusion growing.
Suddenly, the creature jolted up, its movements abrupt and startling. Without warning, it lunged at me, seizing me by the throat and hurling me against the car.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the creature sprinting towards me. In that moment, I felt a strange sensation coursing through my body, as if something within me was shifting. I glanced down at my hands and watched in horror as they contorted and turned a sickly shade of grey. Long claws protruded from my fingers, their sharp edges glinting in the dim light.
As my bones cracked and deformed under the strain of this inexplicable transformation, a sudden surge of anger and ferocity overwhelmed my senses. It was as though a primal instinct had taken hold of me, consuming my entire being in its relentless grip. With each passing moment, the world around me faded into darkness until finally, I lost consciousness, my mind consumed by the terrifying reality of what I had become.
I awoke hours later in the back seat of Roman's car. The hum of the road and the whirring of the engine attempted to lull me back to sleep, but I sat up, rubbing my head as the memories flooded back. "What happened?" I asked, my voice hoarse and strained.
Roman responded with silence, a familiar reaction from him, but this time, it sent a shiver down my spine. As I looked at my arms, then my stomach, and felt around my whole body, I realised the wounds and deep gashes caused by the creature were all gone, as if I had never been attacked.
I caught Roman's gaze in the mirror, but he quickly averted his eyes. That's when I noticed Katie in the passenger seat, her tear-stained face betraying her silent anguish. It was clear she wanted to say something, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Roman had warned her against it.
"What do you know about this place?" Roman asked sternly, his voice devoid of emotion.
"We've lived here all our lives, Roman," I replied, confusion evident in my tone. "What do you mean?”
Roman pressed down on the brakes, bringing us to a sudden stop. I noticed a pained expression flit across his face in the mirror, a fleeting moment of vulnerability that he quickly tried to conceal.
"Your leg!" I exclaimed, my voice laced with concern as I recalled the events from earlier.
"It was a dislocated hip. I fixed it," he replied bluntly, his tone revealing little about the ordeal he must have endured.
"This isn't real, Jason. None of this is real. You are not real!" Roman's voice was sharp, refusing to meet my eyes in the reflection.
"Back at Katie's house, I remembered everything the moment I looked into that creature's eyes. I remembered... I remembered Natalie," he said, his words catching in his throat, revealing the first hint of emotion I'd seen from him.
I watched as a tear rolled down Katie's face. I reached to put a hand on her shoulder but stopped myself.
"Roman got me to remember," Katie said, her voice trembling. "I remembered the emergency alert, and when those things broke down our doors. I watched as they dragged my parents out, then my baby brother, then me. I woke up in this fake world, in a family that isn't even mine, dating a boy who turns out to be one of the monsters who brought me here." She spluttered, and I began to cry silently as I realised what she was saying.
Roman eventually started driving again, occasionally getting a call from Morgan, but after the fifth call he threw his phone out the window. We drove until I fell asleep. I don't remember what I dreamed about, but it was peaceful. I think I was in that forest with Roman. We were children again, playing around in the trees, finding cool sticks and exploring the endless expanse of what felt like a fairytale, which I guess it was.
I was awoken by the abrupt sound of Roman's car door slamming. I looked outside and saw that it was daytime again. Trying to figure out where we had stopped, I noticed a giant sign that said “Library.” I hopped out of the car and jogged to catch up to Roman and Katie.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, clearly still being avoided. It was understandable, but it still hurt.
“I need to wake everyone up,” Roman said as we walked in and approached a computer.
I noticed we were getting odd stares from everyone as we walked by, which is when I also noticed that I looked like I had just come out the other side of a paper shredder. My clothes were all torn up with bits missing, apparently not possessing the magic healing ability that I do. The sound of Roman typing snapped me out of my self-conscious thoughts and redirected me to the computer screen.
"I'm going to be a while, guys," Roman said as he began writing out his story. "I need to tell the whole thing from the beginning. Go find a book or something.”
I looked over to Katie, her face void of expression, but a great sadness filled her now dry eyes, having cried all the tears she had. “Why don't you just wake up?” I asked, probably coming across as more insensitive than I intended.
“I've got nothing to go back to. Roman told me what the world is like back there. If my family is here, I have to find them and wake them up first,” she responded, finally meeting my eye.
I wanted to hug her so bad, but I knew she didn't love me anymore. She probably had a real boyfriend in the real world.
Hours went by as Katie and I found a place to sit and wait in silence, watching Roman. He looked funny in the little library chair, hunched over the computer. Such a big guy looked out of place here, his muscular presence overpowering that of the rest of the library's patrons, who were all either very old or very young.
I hate to admit I fell asleep, but I'm just telling the story how it was. I was awoken suddenly by sirens and shouts. “We have got you surrounded, come out with your hands up or we will come in and show you no mercy,” a man's voice yelled from outside through a speaker. I looked over to Roman, who was limping over to us as all the customers flooded out the exits.
“Get up, we need to leave. They've turned the law against us,” Roman ordered. Katie and I listened and followed him.
We made our way upstairs into the empty employee lounge, and Roman opened a window... with his elbow. “They've got every exit covered but this one. We need to jump,” he calmly told us. He stood up in the window frame, kicked off some of the remaining glass with his boots, and jumped to the roof of the single-story building below, wincing in pain as he landed on his bad leg.
That's when six armed officers kicked down the door and opened fire on Katie and me. I moved to block the bullets from hitting Katie, taking several hits to the head and back. I then pushed Katie through the window, and Roman caught her before I jumped out myself and followed.
We ran from rooftop to rooftop until we reached a ladder that led down into an alleyway, where we attempted to catch our breaths. Roman and Katie watched me intently as the bullets lodged in my body began to work their way back out, the wounds closing up after. My skin color shifted a little, and I felt a rattle leave my throat as a cold sweat came over me.
“Hey, control yourself,” Roman told me sternly. I nodded, struggling to remain composed.
“Did you finish the story?” Katie asked Roman.
“Yeah, I kind of had to rush the last part, but I got the message across,” he replied, slumping to the ground behind a dumpster, exhausted.
“What now?” I asked.
Roman looked at me, panting. “I'm gonna help Katie find her family, then I'm going back to Natalie,” he said between heavy breaths.
“What about Morgan?” I questioned, causing him to look down at his feet. “I don't even know her in the real world, and I would never have chosen to be with her. This place… it's like it wrote me a life that was least likely to let me remember who I am. The girl I'm engaged to is the complete opposite of Natalie. I've got a brother who lives with me, my parents are dead. There's literally nothing here to remind me of home, bro,” Roman said, shedding a couple of tears.
We waited in the alley until night, hearing sirens go back and forth every now and then. When Roman said we were in the clear, we made our way back to the car and started driving again. I noticed Roman's eyes fluttering after about an hour, and I told him I'd be happy to drive if he needed to sleep. I could tell that his ego didn't want to admit he was exhausted, and he also still didn't trust me, but he gave in and pulled over, falling asleep in the back seat as I drove off into the night.

Hello Reddit.
So, I have been using Black Magic Pocket 6k Cinema Camera for a long time, but, it decided to give up on me last week. I have been offered to shoot my planned short film with an A7SIII for free, an offer I need to take for various reasons.
I have been shooting Sony in the past, mostly A6300 and A7SII, and I think I shot mostly in S-LOG2.
However, what picture profile would you use to get the most Cinematic feeling when color grading afterwards? Is S-LOG still the way to go or should I go with something else? It is outside on Venice Beach in cloudy weather, so that will be the setting.
Thank you.

Hey all!
This past week I started playing and was following Melfi's guide. At some point it got super confusing as to why I couldn't find heroes like Alchemist or Black Mage, since such a heavy % gold boost and the description "You should quit this game if you don't plan to put him in your lineup" put such a spotlight on them.
So after some searching I found out they, along with a bunch of other heroes, got retired a while ago. To me that seemed like a complete slap to the face, especially when you consider that older players got to keep the heroes. I'd even say it's straight up immoral to keep a hero like alchemist from newer players while keeping it for older players, since there's such an emphasis on gold and newer players may be tempted into buying gold with real life money because of it.
Since I do love the gameplay but absolutely hated the way the devs thew such disdvantages at me (which stung extra hard after buying the ad removal bundle) I did some Sherlock Holmes'ing and found a loophole to get the older heroes!
Beware though... Upside: You get all the old good stuff. Downside: You have to start over.
Step 1: Unlink both Facebook and Google Play (not sure about iOS) from your account. Uninstall the app.
Step 2: Remove the Wild Castle game from your Facebook account. Click your profile picture in the top right of Facebook. Select Settings & privacy, then click Settings. Click Apps and Websites in the left side menu. Go to the app or game you want to remove, then next to the name of the app or game, click Remove.
Step 3: The wildcastle.io website still runs on the game version with all the older heroes. Spend an evening or so leveling up your account there and getting all the heroes available. I finished up unlocking them all around wave 85-90, getting the 100 challenge Yeti. Beware!! Don't click any unnecessary menu buttons or leaderboard buttons, since it may freeze the website and reset your progress. Also!! Keep this final game state opened in your browser until finishing all the steps so you have a backup point if your phone acts up.
Step 4: Once you unlocked all the Heroes, link your Facebook account to the new account.
Step 5: Reinstall Wild Castle on your phone. If it opens your old account through Google Play (or iOS?) unlink it again and reinstall until you get a fresh account.
Step 6: Once you get a fresh level 1 account. Link your Facebook account and it should pull up the data from your browser game. I pressed the Save Game button in the settings on my phone after just to make sure (and I was paranoid I'd lose the progress).
Step 7: Optional. You can double check if it worked by closing your browser version now and reopening it. In my case it said I have to update to the newer version just like before when I had my original account. I assume this verifies my account is up to date on the patching now, but don't take my word for that blindly.
Small caveat. I now can't link my Google Play to my account because it will shoot me back to a fresh account as soon as I do. When I click link Facebook it takes me back to the new account though. Since I'd like my Google Play to be connected too I shot the devs a support message, also asking if it's possible to restore the 'ad removal' purchase. Not expecting anything to come from that, but I'll update the post if I get more information.
Maybe as a final message to the developers. It truly truly truly felt like a slap in the face when I realized all these good heroes loads of people have were unavailable to me. If they were event heroes, sure I'd understand, but you basically took a ton of content out of the game and did nothing to compensate (as far as I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong). Please just unretire the heroes so people don't have to jump through these kind of crazy loopholes to properly play the game.
Hope whoever was looking for the same answers got some good information out of this. Either way, have a good one!

I am 36 years old. I don't have any friends. I haven't been in a relationship in two years. I don't make as much money as I would like. I am have a really slow recovery from a tonsillectomy and I am just having a hard time getting myself motivated to do anything.
I had one pretty good friend, an ex, and we went on a platonic trip together in March. I had a really good time and generally enjoyed myself. Got to see Chichen Itza and get some fun in at the cenotes and beach. Since then we haven't hung out though. In her texts she said the guy she has been seeing is moving out of town in a few months so she is spending time with him. She has dated him off and on for 20+ years and this has never been an issue before so I do feel like some of this is also just fatigue of hanging out with me. We didn't get in any fights on the trip but it did show we have much different priorities/personalities. She brought her dogs, they go everywhere with her, and one is incontinent so it was dictating quite a bit of our schedule but I am pretty used to this so I felt like I handled it fairly well. I also do think some of this is her boyfriend not wanting us to hangout, which is understandable. I just said No worries and we haven't talked since. She didn't message me on my birthday, but I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't remember. We have been hanging out regularly for 2-3 years so it is a bit of a hit, but it was something that felt ultimately was going to happen so I am not mad, just a little sad. I haven't hung out with anyone other than my dad since the middle of March though.
Just hurts to not have anyone to hangout with at all. I have talked to two coworkers and one of them has bailed on me multiple times and the other just said he was too busy to make any plans in the first place. I have done meetups in the past but I always just feel so awkward not knowing anyone and I am awful at initiating contact with anyone, guys or girls. I also just don't really have that many interests, even though I tend to enjoy most things I do. I own a dirt bike but haven't gotten out to use it because it is really hard to load by myself and I am just not that confident with it. And if I am doing anything alone without somebody else keeping me accountable I tend to just blow it off. I have also tried Bumble BFF but honestly was so turned off by it. I kept on getting hit on, creepy af, and it just feels awkward.
I feel like I am bad at making friends because I am not very personable and also tend to overshare and say stupid things just because I haven't talked to anyone in so long it is just kind of like a dam bursts.
I would like to get back into judo or jujitsu, but with college and my mortgage I am barely squeaking by financially, and 200+ a month is a little too much for me. I even canceled my cable plan to save some money for bills despite loving basketball. I also don't really have enough energy for active hobbies due to my tonsillectomy right now.
I work full time and am taking college classes at the same time. I was never the best student, but I have finished 9 computer science courses and a statistics class over the last 2.5 years. I have 5 classes left for my bachelors and am on course to graduate Spring 2025. Straight A's and one B+ so far so I have been really happy with my grades, but the industry has completely fallen apart over the last year or two and I am worried that after investing all this time and money into going back to college I might not be able to get a job. The best student I know wasn't able to land a single internship this summer and that really shocked me. He is an amazing programmer, better than anyone I know.
Because I have a mortgage on a little duplex I cannot really afford to do an internship to try and help my job prospects, I am going to really have to rely on doing well in the interviews. I am also planning on trying to take advantage of the career fairs and other on-campus opportunities next fall but that is so not my comfort zone that I don't want to set my expectations really.
With how busy I am it has also been a great excuse for myself to not pursue more social outlets and the only thing I do for dating is online apps and while I can get the occasional date I don't think I have ever actually had a real connection through it. I am just bad at connecting with people on a personal level, be it friends or dates. I have been on so many first dates it is kind of depressing. The town I live in isn't small, like 150k, but I feel like I am running low on options after years of failures.
I had been suffering from chronic tonsillitis over the last year. I had 5 bouts in total, three of which were back to back episodes from January to March this year. I got a tonsillectomy on April 20 and am still having problems swallowing food. I am basically still on a puree diet.
Getting the tonsillectomy was a real eye opener for me because with my ex not being a contact anymore I didn't have anyone to rely on so I had to have my father fly out and spend a week with me. I didn't have any friends to rely on and it really just kind of hit me how depressing my life is. All of my old high school friends, who I don't keep up with, have families.
The one thing I had going for me is that I had a decent physique. Due to a lack of a social life I was pretty good at going to the gym and lifting regularly. I was 6'1 and 180-185 pounds, nothing impressive but I was happy with myself. I am down to 160 pounds now since my tonsillectomy though and I am just extremely low energy all the time. My summer class started today and I am having a lot of issues just focusing after an 8-hour work day, even though I only work remotely on a computer.
During COVID I really made leaps and bounds to improve myself. I quit cigarettes after 15 years, I started going back to class. Got my own place and gained 40 pounds (in a good way) but after losing half of that weight and generally being miserable from my tonsillectomy it is just so hard to motivate myself to even go to the gym anymore and for 3 years I never had a problem getting off my butt to go to the gym, even if it was just for a mediocre lifting session.
I used to love playing video games and watching tv shows/movies but now I just find myself mindlessly watching youtube or reading and don't even have the attention span or interest in booting up a video game anymore or trying to find a show or movie to watch.
I always wanted a family, but I have never really had a successful relationship in my life and now since my tonsillectomy I have become a lot less sexually motivated than before. I don't even have the urge to masturbate anymore, and sex was never a strong point of mine in the first place, leading me to believe it will be even worse moving forward. I also just have never connected with somebody on like a really deep level and feel like years of failures/insecurity just kind of burden me a this point. And I am getting to the age now where I feel like I am almost beyond the point where this is still possible. It is weird telling somebody I am 36 and my longest relationship was only 4 months long.
I feel like I am on the right track on paper with only one year left until I graduate and I kind of really want to move even though I love where I live just so I can get a fresh start, but at the same time I am terrified I will graduate and just be in the same situation I am currently in. I also could never afford to buy another place without a better salary. The only reason I was able to afford what I currently have is because I bought during the 2020 market and got a 2.34% APR. But even with that my mortgage is close to 40% of my take home right now and I have one of the cheapest places in town.
I don't really have anyone to vent to or destress to so I just wanted to post something from a throwaway account. My dad has been texting me daily because I think he realizes how unhappy I am and I really appreciate that.
I have been wanting to go see some Nuggets games at the bar, but I still cannot drink alcohol until I am eating food again so I have just been following highlights on youtube. I also have never been a fan of hanging out at bars. I enjoy shooting pool but I am not good at social settings like that.
I will leave it at this for now. A very long, poorly formatted ramble. But I have seen much worse. Thanks.

[M4F/A] Long-Term Literate Vampire: The Masquerade Roleplay / Potential Shadowrun & Cyberpunk Fantasy RP Original Characters 18+ (No Minors)
Greetings, friends! I am Outcast but I also go by Necromes just don't call me late for the graveyard party, huh? Okay I'm sorry.
Anywho, a little tiny bit about me is I am currently 21(M) but turn 22 on the 24th of this month. I have over ten years of writing experience that I am still at times trying to perfect or even change up for every roleplay to find one that suits me. I can write from advanced lit to novella easily. I don't do one liners and I will not roleplay with minors of any age; only 18+. Smut is off the table, I only do romance and slow burn romance at that. I am not here for your visceral satisfaction.
I am here today to offer up a Vampire: The Masquerade TTRPG play-by-post/text-based roleplay within the universe. Now, I must admit that I was a bit hesitant to write this post because I have a few ocs but non of them are properly finished by sheets. The good thing is I'm one of those roleplayers who like to gush over and discuss plots and roleplay a lot before even starting because the care of ocs and plot is just as important to me.
I have been on and off on the VtM fandom since 2019, a friend of mine introduced me to it and I've been hooked to it from a distance for years and after some personal stuff happened I've decided to delve into it solo and its been fun, doing my own thing but doing it solo means I'm alone in it pretty much. I want to have some fun and use them. Let's do that.
We can do quite a lot, a few of my ocs have a specific vibe to them and a setting that I'd prefer to talk about later on since I cannot choose what kinds of plots I want premeditated. I'm honestly in the process of being stuck on adding to my OC lists and want to make more for almost every clan so having somebodu to help create new OCs with is perfectly valid.
I will list a few ocs.

• Samuel Wyrick-Giovanni ; Polish Giovanni capo based in New Orleans.
• Arnie Volkov ; Russian Malkavian who is an extreme conman.
• Drake Mannon ; Highly functioning sociopathic Tremere who was a former cultist. (My personal favorite, but he seems dry to me so I'd like to try him out.)
• Elijah Ardelean ; Ravnos, L.A Anarch who is the Anarch's thieving spy. A pretty boy. Also a cat dad.

I also have a few ocs that are kept as backburners and maybe a few other ocs ideas I intend on making and, hey, who knows maybe these interactions can give me new ideas.
I would prefer to use Drake as he is my newest and most hyperfixated on. I wrote him into a box where he doesn't seem to have much personality when it comes to interactions because I haven't used him yet and he was written for a server that largely has no plot so he has no predetermined goals as of yet and I would like to utilize him and test him out.

Note: I am looking for a long-term relaxed and chill roleplay experience. I have immense ADHD and Autism and get burnt out very quickly and I'd rather take my time to create the best RP response I can muster up than be forced or egged on post after post with no energy. As long as you are okay with varying response window times and are okay with the quality in the end and also have time to chill and talk about OCs on the offtime or on the side then that is perfect.

(Smaller note, a side note if you will; I have recently been trying to get into Shadowrun and have been itching for a Shadowrun/Fantasy Sci-Fi Cyberpunk RP so if you want to undermine this for that go right ahead because I'm addicted to both rn. [I'm still a rookie.])

• If you're down with Shadowrun/Cyberpunk Fantasy, I've got an orc male, young rookie on a rep and revenge kick. Had two cybernetic arms and carries dual pistols, is kind of a hardheaded weapons expert who comes from a family of mercenaries. Specialist in certain things just not professionalism, etiquette, or business finesse and can be considered the brute. Hes a good guy, a lot of personal baggage and personal rage issues but isn't a psycho case nor a squeaky clean rookie.

If you're down for all of that (sorry for my lack of actual planning.), then shoot me a DM telling me what you think and maybe some of your own ocs pitched because I love hearing about VtM ocs.

Before requesting to try Jornay PM I tried to do a lot of research. Within this community I saw several people posting that they would share their journey for people trying to do the same research I was trying to do, but didn't see any that actually kept up with it.
I would like to do this & I think I can actually keep up on it because I'm heavily into researching things, so much so that I transitioned my career into a research role. I love learning, finding resolutions & sharing what I learn. If I can help others in the process, I'm even more into it.
We all know that medication effects different people in different ways. This will be an account of my experience. I plan to update this for at least 6 months & then I may return at a year if I'm up to it/remember.
Background: I have combined type ADHD, inattentive primary. I have also had delayed sleep phase syndrome for as long as I can remember, definitely longer than I have been diagnosed & before I knew what DSPS was.
With my DSPS I could be exhausted all day, with an extreme low mid-day, but my energy would shoot up at sundown no matter what. It is very difficult for me to wake up. I hate mornings. I tried all the things: No light, red light, white noise, brown noise, nature sounds, mindfulness, no electronics, reading before bed, hot Epsom salt baths, melatonin, Rx sleeping pills, etc. Nothing worked. Lay down at 9-11 pm, no sleep til 1-3 am.
I was on Adderall. I tried XR at first. Although it helped my ADHD symptoms, it exacerbated my sleep issues. I switched to IR thinking it may help. It did not. I lowered my dose thinking less effective treatment may be worth being able to sleep. It did nothing. I have spent a year & a half falling asleep from 4-7 am & having to start work at 8 am.
My hope is that Jornay PM will effectively address my ADHD symptoms as well as help me with my sleep disorder. I was started at the equivalent dose to the dose I was taking of Adderall: 20 mg Adderall; 40 mg Jornay PM. Even though my Adderall was too low my PCP didn't want to increase on the new Rx until we knew how it would effect me.
I have spent 1 week on 40 mg Jornay PM. It has had no effect on my symptoms. Today my PCP increased my dose to 80 mg. I will update.
Ps. The coupon on the Jornay PM website works as long as you choose a pharmacy that accepts it. I use Rite-Aid. The first dispense is free, $25 after with my insurance coverage. $75 without insurance coverage. Otherwise it is like $400-something.

I started playing a little over a year ago now and have gotten to a rating on lichess of about 1500 on rapid. I mainly progressed with puzzles, watching streamers and learning by osmosis lol, I went through a gothamchess beginners bootcamp course, reading logical chess: move by move, and just playing a bunch. But once I got to 1500 I have become very confused on how to continue. I want to start studying more seriously, but I have no clue how and I feel overwhelmed in some sense.
I have a bunch of books, as gifts from family and just finding them in pdf form online. In my beginning phase after shooting up in skill after the gothamchess course, I bought another one (Middlegames masterclass). I tried analyzing my games which made me feel even more confused on where to start because I've realized I have a bunch of giant pitfalls in my chess. I noticed I dont really have a plan or a sense of direction and I just kind of play, I have bad board vision, bad at more positional understanding, and so much more. I dont even know if any of this is true, because I barely know how to analyze!
The worse part is I havent really done any of these. I have so much stuff I dont know where to start. I think I started one page of like a book called 45 positional techniques but then I stopped because I dont even really know how to read these books effectively. I started that course but didnt get past the first lesson, because it is so long and I dont even know if it is helpful. And I stopped analyzing my games after just one time because it took so long (2 hours!!) and I dont even know if it would be helpful because I dont know if I am analyzing it correctly!
Maybe like a structured study/play plan for each 'session' of chess would help? Idrk. Please help lol Im losing my mind.

Using a throwaway account since this is a pretty vulnerable post.
I'm a female in my early 20s, and I'm about to graduate from college with an English degree (double concentration in literature and creative writing). My tentative plan is to become a Professor of English Literature since I've always been an avid reader and writer. I'm incredibly passionate about learning and media literacy, and there's few things I love more than discussing art and helping others develop a deeper appreciation for it (and vice versa -- I'm always eager to gain a new perspective on something). I have no teaching experience (yet), but I feel like I have a lot of potential in this field.
Here's the thing, though: I struggle with intense feelings of social anxiety and shame. I have very little work experience due to feeling incompetent outside of my wheelhouse in English. Because I'm so anxious in social situations, I struggle to be present and often say/do things that come across as "ditzy" or awkward. I'm very afraid of how I'm being perceived, so I internally freak out -- I'm stuck inside my head instead of being present with those around me (other students, professors, coworkers, acquaintances, basically anyone who isn't in my close circle of friends and family). I feel like I have a reputation of being elusive, isolated, and/or sketchy because I tend to keep to myself and people pick up on my nervous energy (hence the "sketchy" vibes). I have internalized these feelings of incompetency and awkwardness and, as a result, my self-esteem is very low. I have been labeled as socially inept and unintelligent, and I often worry that these things are true. These feelings are made worse by my tendency to compare myself to others. While I know comparison is a losing game, I can't help but observe the accomplishments and talents of others and see the deficit of those things in myself... I recognize that this is an unhealthy mindset and am working hard to change that. I'm often my own worst enemy, so I'm trying to practice self-compassion in order to grow and become a more authentic, uninhibited version of myself. I know that, in order to achieve my goals (e.g., become a better writer, improve social skills, become a professor one day), I need to cultivate more confidence and self-trust. I've carried these feelings of shame for a long time, so it's going to take awhile to deconstruct them, but I'm trying to trust the process and believe in a brighter future.
Also, some context that may or may not be important: I'm in therapy and it's been a great resource. My therapist and I think that I could be on the autism spectrum as well. I'm not currently diagnosed so I hesitate to mention it, but I feel like it explains a lot of my discomfort socializing, the intense "special interest" in my field of study, and my heightened sensitivity (emotional and physical sensitivity -- I get overstimulated easily).
Here are some general questions I have for y'all, but feel free to share whatever insight you feel is appropriate:
What advice do you have for someone struggling with intense shame and social anxiety? How do you detach from other people's perception of you? How do you build genuine, lasting self-esteem?
Also, if there are any professors and/or writers here, what advice do you have for a fledgling undergrad?!

Hey, I plan on getting into photography but don’t know what kind of camera to buy. Id like to get a camera strictly for photography, I’m not too interested in shooting videos with it. I know cameras can be expensive but anything within a price range of 500-1000 usd that focuses on picture quality would be great. Thank you

I have a music video coming up and i'm planning the shotlist out, but my ideas consist of day/sunset shots and night shots.
Its a rap/hiphop music video, with two people, one raps the first verse and the other the second verse. Each person will have 2 shots one at night and one during sunset time.
I love the shot ideas and each shot makes sense for the look, but i will be editing the footage cutting from night to day since there will only be 2 shoot locations for each person.
Is it weird to mix the time of day in a music video (especially when the shots will be cutting back and fourth from each other?)
Do you know of any examples when its been done and works?
Should i just not give a F*** and send it?

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