When Annika woke up, she found herself floating inside her apartment. Her now abandoned apartment. She walked out of the apartment where she used to live and saw the calendar. Three years have passed and it is now 2024. She then saw a mysterious woman surrounded by the darkness and walked over to her. She introduced herself as Iris.
"What happened to me?" she asked. Iris pondered for a moment before saying, "Well, you have been dead for a long time since you were murdered by your son."
"Oh," she said, the sadness forming on her face. "But don't worry, there is one way for you to reach the afterlife," Iris said to her. "You need to confront the ones who have mistreated you and banish them back to hell."
"But how would I do that?"
She took out some string and two jars with the names of her former husband and son. "Your son was killed when he tried to murder his therapist, yes?" he inquired. Annika was confused, but she nodded anyway.
"Well, all you have to do is tie up your son with the string and say the words, 'I banish thee to this jar!' three times and then use these bottle caps to seal him away so that he can never come out," she explained. "Are you willing to take on this momentous task?"
Annika nodded and Iris smiled. "Good. Now bring me the impure souls of your husband and son and make sure to keep them properly sealed."
Once the woman left, Annika began her quest to find the malevolent spirits of the one who used her to get what he wanted and the one who killed her. As she continued, Annika noticed red eyes peering down on her. She tried to keep walking, but the eyes continued to follow her and the next thing she knew, someone lunged at her.
It was the ghost of her son, Benedikt Dorfmann as he tried to strangle his mother screaming, "I HATE YOU, MOM! I HATE YOU!" Annika knew she had to do something before he ended her afterlife.
Soon, she found something she could use a weapon(the crowbar)and she bashed Benedikt's head with it and soon, he fell unconscious immediately. This gave her enough time to open the jar and say the magic words, "I banish thee. I banish thee. I banish thee." The spirit was then pulled all the way into the jar and Annika sealed the jar really tight. Whew. She thought with a sigh of relief. One down, one left to go.
As she packed up her things, Annika sensed a drop in the temperature. She picked up the pace and looked around to see if there was any sign of Hendrik, her former husband. Then, she saw a tall man with dark brown hair and red eyes. She began to back away, but the man continued to follow her.
Just as Annika was about to run, the man began to run after her. In his pursuit, he yelled, "ANNIKA! WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME! WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME!" Annika refused to look back and just kept running for miles and miles until she found herself backed into a corner.
"You were supposed to love me!" he screamed at her, the anger bubbling in his vocal cords. "Why won't you love me anymore!?" Annika took a deep breath and said in a low voice, "You think I would love you again after what you did to my first love? You took all of that away from me and you should be ashamed of yourself for it."
Hendrik pleaded for forgiveness, but it was too little too late as Annika took out the last jar and said the words, "I banish thee! I banish thee! I BANISH THEE!"
In that moment, Hendrik found himself getting dragged into the bottle and he could not only see all of the horrible things he did, but also the sins his ancestors committed from his great uncle Stefan murdering the girls in his mansion to his great-great grandfather beating up one of the Jews during the Nazi era. He continued to scream until he was forced into the jar and Annika sealed it shut.
Later, as Annika gave the jars back to Iris, she smiled back at the woman who helped her and soon, a bald-headed man in black robes came to take the souls away back to hell before vanishing in the darkness. A flight of stairs then appeared before them and together, Annika took Iris' hand as they ascended to heaven.

Insta bottle warmer*
Has anyone figured this thing out? Is it just me? I can't get it right with the water measurements chart. Its either still cold it scalding hot. I don't use dr. Brown bottles but I figured I would be fine as I had a different dr. Brown warmer 6 year ago and it was fine. For reference I use Philips avent bottles and heat about 6 oz.

For the first time since his incarceration, Bankman-Fried described his daily life in a detailed interview with journalist William D. Cohan of Puck:

On a recent Tuesday, I went to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for an intimate chat with America’s most famous prisoner, Sam Bankman-Fried. During our 75-minute conversation, we discussed everything from Caroline Ellison and the travails of his new life, to his regrets about the demise of FTX and his forthcoming appeal.
I got the distinct impression that Sam still doesn’t believe he committed any crimes, only that he was the one responsible for putting FTX in a position where it was vulnerable to a bank run and the devious actions of its competitors

WILLIAM D. COHAN -- May 9, 2024
On Tuesday afternoon, I found myself in the most unusual circumstances—sitting on a small plastic chair at a cramped table in the Metropolitan Detention Center, the federal prison on 29th Street in Sunset Park, in Deep Brooklyn. Outside, it was a gorgeous day, the sort of picturesque and slightly humid one that inevitably reminds longtime New Yorkers of the weather on the morning of September 11th. Inside the prison’s visiting room, however, there was no natural light, no sunshine, only the Hitchcockian buzz of fluorescent bulbs and three vending machines standing in a corner. Posters on the wall attempted to compensate for the bleak atmosphere by buoyantly welcoming visiting families.
I first met Sam Bankman-Fried in December 2021, during the height of his power and influence, when he was the richest person in the world under 30. My friend Anthony Scaramucci, a.k.a. The Mooch, had connected us. On a cold winter night at the One Hotel, on Sixth Avenue, I interviewed him for a documentary I am part of making about Bitcoin and its developer, Satoshi Nakamato. Sam showed up an hour late, in a black t-shirt and cargo shorts, apparently having just flown in via private jet from the Bahamas. A month later, Sam’s cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, would raise its final $400 million round of financing from a group of highfalutin investors—led by Softbank, Temasek, and Paradigm—at a valuation of $32 billion, making the company one of the most valuable in the sector. At that moment, Sam was said to be worth $26 billion.
This week, we reconnected amid very different circumstances. Sam and I arranged for this visit through his Corrlinks email account, at the suggestion of his mother, Barbara Fried, and the family’s prison advisor. We met on Tuesday around 1 p.m. because that was the only day that visiting hours are permitted at MDC, a hangover from the Covid era. Prisoners can have visitors for one of two sessions, either starting at noon or at five in the afternoon.
We were meeting later than noon because of the staffing shortage at the facility. I was allowed to bring in $1 or $5 bills, up to a total of $30, in case I wanted to buy Sam some water, soda, or snacks from the humming vending machines. I was told to put my $20 bill as well as my wallet and iPhone into a locker. Sam was not permitted to buy anything himself.
Following about an hour of bureaucratic snafus (I went to the wrong building at first, and I wasn’t wearing dark pants—although an exception was made for me) and other forms of prison processing (shoes and belt off, metal detection, sticking my hand in a scanner) I was finally allowed inside the prison, without a phone, a watch, a recording device, or even a pad of paper and a pencil. (I knew this in advance, of course, and set about preserving my recollections of our conversation immediately after leaving the facility.)
After a few minutes of waiting, I looked up to see Sam Bankman-Fried, over in the corner, dressed head to toe in a chocolate-brown prison jumpsuit, along with the still-wild frizzy hair that has been his trademark. These days, Sam looks considerably thinner than the last time we met—it appeared he’d lost 25 pounds, at least. But he looked better and fitter than I thought he would, to be honest—less pudgy, less manic, less fidgety, no bags under his eyes.
He was sustaining himself on rice and beans, he said, because the prison food was unsurprisingly inedible, especially the vegan entrées he was served, which his fellow inmates thought literally smelled like shit. He wasn’t complaining, mind you; he noted that he was just trying to make the best of a bad situation. The rice he buys at the prison commissary has become one of the currencies of the realm inside MDC. We joked briefly about how the arbitrage opportunities in jail were better than anything he experienced trading crypto at Jane Street Capital or buying and selling assets at Alameda. He looked me in the eye pretty much the whole time, something he rarely did with people in the old days.
After we shook hands, he sat down in his own plastic chair as a camera watched us from the ceiling. We were surrounded by a couple of other inmates, dressed similarly, facing their visitors. Sam declined my initial offer to buy him some snacks but ultimately agreed to a $4 bottle of water and a small $2 package of Wheat Thins, which he eagerly consumed.
We talked for the next 75 minutes or so, the first in-person interview he has given to a journalist since he was locked up in the MDC last August and then subsequently convicted of two counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud, and money-laundering at his federal trial in November. In March, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Our chat, under these rather drastic circumstances, was a profoundly jarring and fascinating experience.

Prison Diaries

Sam began by answering my question about his life in prison. According to him, he lives in an area of the jail that was dedicated mostly to incarcerated women, save for the 35 men with whom he shares a dormitory-style existence in a big open room—bunk beds, no privacy, extreme boredom, and four television sets tuned to ESPN, Telemundo, BET, and a news channel. Sam said he could try to persuade his fellow inmates to change up the channel selection, but television bores him, so he has no interest in that challenge. He prefers watching a small selection of movies or playing some inferior video games on a tablet, without an internet connection, that the prison provides him and other inmates.
When I told him he seemed better than I had anticipated, he replied that he’d become good at faking it. So, yes, life inside the MDC is not the Bahamas. But, truly, I had expected to see him coping less well. At the MDC, Sam has mostly been permitted his prescription medications, and the cocktail he’s been allowed has him thinking clearly, he said, and energized for the legal battle he plans to wage soon against the verdict.
In the meantime, he told me, he doesn’t fear for his safety. He can use the bathroom and shower a couple of times a week in peace. He’s always been a light sleeper, and he’s still not sleeping soundly at the MDC, but mostly because people sometimes bug him during the night about those bags of rice, which they intend to use to barter. He has not been touched or abused, and he seemed notably thankful for that.
He acknowledged that he has a unique rap sheet at MDC, and his fellow prisoners indeed recognize him. He estimated that about half of the other 35 men in his unit were murderers who had been turned into cooperating witnesses for the prosecution in exchange for not serving a life sentence. In prison, many inmates consider cooperating witnesses the lowest form of vermin, lower even than child molesters. Sam also told me that some of the other prisoners tried to get close to him, thinking they would benefit financially from the proximity to a former billionaire. He doesn’t play along, he said.
We didn’t talk about his trial strategy or whether he intentionally siphoned off the $8 billion of FTX customer funds into Alameda. Both topics seemed moot at this point. We did discuss his onetime girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, whom he selected to run Alameda after lawyers kept hounding him about the inherent conflicts in him running both FTX and the hedge fund. (He chose to run FTX.) He acknowledged that he had asked a few other people if they would be interested in the role, but they turned him down. Ellison, he said, was a good manager of people and a good administrator but didn’t like making big investments and didn’t like taking risks. (Obviously, this seems like a bizarre aversion for a hedge fund manager, but I didn’t belabor the point.) In any event, Alameda ended up doing both.
He regretted that he had not tried harder to find another executive. He also said he should have ignored the lawyers and just kept running both FTX and Alameda, conflicts be damned, sort of like how Elon Musk oversees his various companies. Wishing he had ignored his lawyers’ advice emerged as a theme of Sam’s during our visit.

Legal Therapy

We did talk a fair amount about his appeal and about how he believed he was set up to be the fall guy—the victim of the old build-’em-up-only-to-tear-’em-down narrative arc. His theory of the case was that by the fall of 2022, it was every man for himself on a boat that looked to be sinking. By early November 2022, FTX was facing a liquidity crunch. Sam first sought a deal with Binance, which quickly fell apart or was never truly real, and was in the process of trying to raise billions in capital when his lawyers advised him to turn the keys of FTX over to John J. Ray III, which he did. Ray quickly filed FTX for bankruptcy and installed Sullivan & Cromwell, the company’s outside counsel, as counsel to the debtor.
Sam became the target of federal prosecutors, he told me, soon after FTX’s outside counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell made a presentation to them, on November 9, 2022, a day or so before the bankruptcy filing, about what they believed Sam may have engineered between FTX and Alameda, which has been described as the theft of $8 billion of customer money. In a sworn declaration about that meeting, S&C attorney Andrew Dietderich said he reported to the D.O.J. only what Ryne Miller, FTX’s U.S. general counsel, told him about a problem of “reconciling digital assets with entitlements” on FTX’s U.S. exchange, and nothing about Sam and his alleged transgressions.
Sam told me that had he not been persuaded by Sullivan & Cromwell and then by his personal attorneys to relinquish his job as C.E.O. to Ray, the company would not have filed for bankruptcy, and it would still be a thriving enterprise, worth $80 billion now. In this alternate reality, he would be worth $40 billion and he certainly wouldn’t be at the MDC. (S&C declined to comment on Sam’s theory of the case. It’s also fair to reiterate here that Sam was sentenced to 25 years in prison after a jury convicted him of the crimes described above.)
I got the distinct impression that Sam still doesn’t believe he committed any crimes, only that he was the one responsible for putting FTX in a position where it was vulnerable to a bank run and the devious actions of its competitors, not unlike how both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers failed in 2008. Why, Sam wondered, was he prosecuted when no one at either Bear or Lehman faced criminal prosecution? During our chat, Sam was contrite and certainly chastened, but not exactly apologetic: He was adamant about his innocence, aside from a few degrees of negligence—punishable, in his view, perhaps by civil consequences, not criminal penalties and a quarter-century sentence.
According to Sam’s theory, he isn’t in prison for commingling assets of FTX and Alameda. Instead, he’s an innocent guy who didn’t get a chance to negotiate a deal with the federal prosecutors, and wonders why he was even prosecuted at all for what he believes was a form of a bank run. Instead, they just presented him with his indictment and told him he could eat it— accept it and plead guilty and then get sentenced, or go to trial and try to fight it. Since there was no plea bargain on the table, he said, he fought the charges at trial, and lost. Unlike his fellow inmates, he told me, Sam speaks to his new attorney nearly every weekday for an hour or so, as the focus of his appeal comes into view. He expects to file it this fall. Yes, he will appeal, but most people think he faces long odds of success.
On the day of my visit, Sullivan & Cromwell, still counsel to the debtor-in-possession in FTX’s bankruptcy case, filed a first draft of a plan of reorganization that appears to give its customers and creditors all of their money back, plus a little more—a return of $15 billion on $12 billion of claims—in large part because of the investments Sam made through Alameda. The plan, which still has a long way to go before being confirmed, also gives Sullivan & Cromwell, along with other FTX advisors, “exculpation” from future lawsuits related to its conduct in the matter. This is not unusual in a plan of reorganization. But Sam has exhaustive thoughts on this subject, which I may explore with him in a follow-up conversation.

Go West, Young Man

I’m not sure how much longer Sam will be at the MDC, and neither is he. He has asked to remain in Brooklyn at least until the fall, when his appellate brief will be filed. But that’s not up to him, of course. If he gets moved, which could come at any moment without warning or explanation, I’m told, it would probably be to California, closer to Palo Alto, where he grew up, the son of two Stanford Law professors. At that point, the question will be whether he gets to spend his incarcerated years in a federal penitentiary, which are mostly nasty places filled with hardened criminals, or in more of a minimum security prison, as Mike Milken once did.
If he does get moved out of Brooklyn, his family and legal team worry, he could spend as long as four months on a bus, handcuffed to the seat, making his way, slowly, across the country. Such prison buses make frequent stops—picking up new prisoners, dropping off others—which explains why they take so long to reach their final destinations. There’s also a remote possibility that he could be placed on one of the many planes operated by the U.S. Marshals Service, a.k.a. “Con Air.” But he’s more likely to get the infamous “diesel therapy,” they fear. Either way, during this hypothetical cross-country journey, Sam would be completely incommunicado with both his family and his lawyers until he reaches his new home in California, deprived of the minimal access to the internet and email he now enjoys in Brooklyn.
Just as we were getting ready to discuss some knotty issues, such as his choices during his trial or the fact that many of the people who once worked for him had turned against him to save themselves, our visiting time was up. It was non-negotiable. We quickly shook hands again. Then Sam went back to his dormitory and I went back outside into a glorious spring afternoon.
Credits/Via: https://puck.news/exclusive-prison-chat-with-sam-bankman-fried/

Hi everyone! I have a four month old baby and I pretty much exclusively breastfeed her. I used to pump more and would give her milk in a bottle and she would take it without any hesitation. I would give her a bottle of formula at night and she would stay asleep longer.
For the last month she refuses a bottle by pushing it out with her tongue or turning her head away. I recently started working from home again. My mom watches her while I work and I feed her during my breaks. Sometimes she’ll grudgingly take the bottle when my mom tries to feed her but it’s very rare.
I really want the option of giving her a bottle when we go out or to have my husband feed her because she falls asleep while drinking milk and that means I’m the one who puts her to sleep all the time. We use doctor browns bottles. I haven’t tried any other ones but I have noticed she gags when I try to put the bottle in her mouth sometimes so I’m wondering if the bottle is the issue… can anyone offer advice?

First post in almost 2 weeks - wife had a baby! Baby and momma are happy and healthy - so am I, but I got a bunch of stuff to move. Wife has a friend over so I have time to “play with my coins”. This is one of my largest posts in a while I think. Grab a drink and scroll through. Let me know if you need more pictures!!
Old items are stuff below the US type at the bottom
Chitty chit chat please
ALSO - MODS WILL NEVER ASK YOU FOR YOUR PASSWORD
PROOF: https://imgur.com/a/Kl9Vjmf
GOLD https://imgur.com/a/J73widt - (2) 2012 1/20oz MS69 Panda - $150 each - 1988 PF69 1/10 AGE - $290 - 1g sunflower argor - $85
SLABBED ASE’S REVERSE PROOF, all are PF/PR69: https://imgur.com/a/ya9Iggz - 2006P RP 20th anniversary- $90 - 2011P RP John Mercanti Signed, 25th anniversary, slight milk/tone - $160 (greysheet 180?) - 2012S RP 75th Anniversary - $65 - 2013 W RP - $65 - 2019 W Enhanced RP /Pride of 2 nations - $95
PROOF OR REGULAR STRIKE: https://imgur.com/a/ikPRfbc - 2002 MS69 - $37 - 2006 W PR69 PROOF, some toning spots - $48 - 2017 MS69 Gold Label - $38 - 2021 T-2 MS70 ANACS American Flag holder - $46
SILVER BAR BOOK https://imgur.com/a/bpnS4QW - 14 1oz silver bars, most run $36+ on the sludge site. Solid condition. Comes in a Whitman Silver Ignot book. Binding is slightly off, but in great working shape. Seen this book sell $100+ on its own - comps are there - 14oz bars and book - $500
PREMIUM .999: https://imgur.com/a/7oSSzjE - 5oz ATB Ozark Riverways Burnished in Capsule - $175 - 2019 kookaburra in capsule - $31 SOLD - 2018 Australian Emu - $34 - 2019 Bhutan Year of Boar - $35 SOLD - 2019 Barbados Lionfish - $34 SOLD - 2002 Perth Year of Horse - $48 - (2) 2016 Maples w/ 4 leaf clover privy, milky - $32 - 1oz Aztec Calendar, light milk - $30 - 1oz Envela Covid Round - $31 - Slum Metals 4.9oz Hand Pour with COA at 28.5/oz - $140 - 1/2oz Hayley Bug Viking Ship - $20 SOLD - (6) 2024 1/2oz Perth Dragons - $24 each 4 LEFT - (2) AZ State 1/2oz Bars - $16 each SOLD - 1/4 oz Aztec Round - $9 SOLD - 6g Canada Bottle Cap - $14
MEXICAN SILVER https://imgur.com/a/w2ojIC7 - (4) 1979 onza scales, BU with some toning - $34 each SOLD - (2) 1948 BU cinco pesos - $29 each SOLD
FOREIGN SILVER https://imgur.com/a/99lQydD - 1860 German - Prussia Thaler - $28 - 1875 1 mark - $8 - 1867 50 centimes - $7 - 1904 New Foundland 50 cents - $14 - Take all above for $48 - ALLL SOLDDDD*
US TYPE BELOW
DIMES
CAPPED DIMES - all low grade other than slab https://imgur.com/a/1qLPxNd - link for slab: https://imgur.com/a/OeOna1n - CAC VF Details 1829 - $105 - 1823 - $60 - 1829 - $22 - 1830 - $22 - 1831 - $22 - 1836 - $22 - 1836 - $22
SEATED DIMES https://imgur.com/a/7a6enxD

• 1857 - $30 (https://imgur.com/a/PtvPwbW)
• 1872 - $11
• 1876 - $11
• 1876 S (?) - $11
• 1886 - $10
• 1887 - $10
• 1887 - $12

QUARTERS
DRAPED https://imgur.com/a/S9GoTgc - 1806 draped quarter - $160
SEATED https://imgur.com/a/wcvAbwO - 1853 w/ Rays - 28 - 1853 O w/ Rays - 36 - 1861 - 18 - 1877 CC - 46
HOLE FILLER BARBERS, all are Cull/AG/G https://imgur.com/a/h8LpGSp

• 1903 O - $9
• (2) 1904 - $8
• (3) 1905 - $9

STANDING LIBERTY https://imgur.com/a/w3ZRS1V - 1920 S - $22 - 1926 S - $12 - 1927 S - $40 - 1929 - $10
HALF DOLLARS
Draped Half https://imgur.com/a/v4vf8jL - 1807 Draped Bust Half, obverse is good, decent relief on the stars, but reverse is much better, impressive detail - $325
Capped Bust Half https://imgur.com/a/nEDzel0 - 1810 - $155 - 1817 - $190 - 1822 - $85 - 1832 LL - $70 - 1835 - $105
Seated Half https://imgur.com/a/4hZLRSu - 1854 O - $40 - 1862 S - $70 - 1863 S - $70 - 1864 S (?) - $70 - 1876 CC - $75 - 1877 - $30
BARBER https://imgur.com/a/xt9dgf1 - 1912 VF IMO (visible liberty) - $85 (VF GS is over 100)
DOLLARS
SEATED DOLLAR https://imgur.com/a/859uMmW - 1842 Seated Dollar, impressive condition and beautiful toning - $700
BETTER DATE MORGAN DOLLAR. All priced AG3-G4 unless noted otherwise https://imgur.com/a/A6k6g44 - 1879 O - $30 - 1882 O (better details) - $32 - 1883 S - $30 - 1892 O - $30 - 1894 O - $38 (worse of the two) - 1894 O - $42 - 1896 O (cull) - $34 - (2) 1896 O (middle 2) - $36 each - 1896 O (F+) - $40 - 1896 S - $35 - 1896 S (darker patina one) - $45 - 1898 S (better) - $30
3 Random pre-21 Morgan’s https://imgur.com/a/dFZoC4x - pictures don’t reflect the pretty toning on these, but they’re decent. Worth more than the ask! - $90 for all SOLD
RANDOM NEAT STUFF https://imgur.com/a/U0KWu0j - 2018 WWI Centennial Silver dollar with OGP and COA - $40 - Pamp “Burton Morris” Lucky 7’s slot machine silver - $80 - 2024 Fiji 1oz the Vault, neat piece in original holder - $60
STAR TREK SILVER https://imgur.com/a/X7DrKwY - both come with original box, unique light up display case and COA - 2015 Capt Picard PR70 SLAB (glue has come off the box wrapper) - $95 - 2015 Spock RAW - $85
PREMIUM SLABBED COLORIZED SILVER https://imgur.com/a/q0ls7Ln - 2014 1/2oz 2014 Gilt Niue Stork Proof PF69 - $65 - 2017 1/2oz Tuvalu Harp Seal PR70 w/ box and COA - $68
Random Premium Silver; https://imgur.com/a/HawKebu - (2) TD Bank enameled Year of Dog w/ box. Light spot on one - $40 - Highland mint 1oz rounds. W/box and COA: - Drew Bledsoe - $40 - Marshall Faulk - $40 - Jeff Bagwell - $40 - Legacies of freedom set - 2oz total - 2002 Brittania and 2003 ASE - $65
Shipping;
$5 for GA
$9 for priority
$15 for MFRB
Responsibility leaves my hand once usps says “accepted”. Can assure proper packing before drop off, out of my hands after that.
Will ship promptly, most of the time it is next business day, but no later than 2 business days from funds received
Payment methods:
Zelle
Venmo
Cash app

The lotus leaf is listed as the greatest cleaning agent known to mankind in wikis and was the religious symbol of countless religions. when dirt is wet and becomes sticky mud it dries caked on and stuck and traps or allows for other air or splashes or spills to sort of stick. nanotech is so much smaller its like a big warehouse of crates having dust settle between them and by wiping and buffing and polishing around you remove some of the dirt hopefully most of it and get it underneath it will go right through and under about anything, got a tarpaulin or umm curtains over the window spray the curtains and unseen fine nanotech SHINES the window beautiful perfect coatings. the thin film is like nonstick frypan stuff but not the teflon stuff its safe diamonds arent teflon so the moisture and dirt wont stick as much and easily clean off or sorta slide down? nanotech like INKS and alcohol dyes (food coloring) or other paint pigment powders and !SOME! clearcoat polishes over a certain hardness rating which are safe for homes as under sapphire 9H or 10H it might be some sort of waste product cheap being sold as something like SCOTCH GUARD which may or may not have those long lasting microplastics which could be tiny serrated or jagged. If something is 9H or 10H diamond or sapphire hardness the few enamels or epoxys that bond that strong are small enough and dense that their structure is so tiny it slips through and under inside things and can reinforce them but doesnt damage round cells in organisms. the same way glass cleaner must be diluted and used everywhere as glass is porous and prehistoric volcanic obsidian glass walking spiders can walk up glass with special microhooks in their feet for the holes in glass look a bit like a golf ball dimples everywhere with tiny hole looks like hair lines through it like imagine those office ceiling panels with the holes in white particle board. So glass cleaner cleans out the gunk or else your windows will have a brownness you struggle to clean out of the glass without a deep penetrating cleaning agent that comes out looking a bit like brown river water thats discolored from the porous rocks in the water having umm tiny microorganisms yep rivers of brown. So a tiny drop of glass cleaner or a couple drops in a spray bottle or a bucket of water and maybe some one or two drops hydrophobic glass coating or quickpaint coat and a tiny drop or two or a single spray of PLASTIC AND LEATHER RESTORER
with these drops of stuff in water in a spray bottle or bucket you maybe wanna find something with a high % percentage of surfactants on the back of the detergent/soap bottle to wipe out germs and uhh its the cleaning component in all bubbling detergents the sort of science and cleaning and germ killing powers of it. Some floor cleaners made for timber floors that might be a little streaky and say like a polish or cure or something that maybe gives timber a little bit of a darker look when used regularly and appears subtly more expensive looking like hardwood but isnt carbonizing its a type of cellular structure bonding that reinforces not prehistoric torture the wood into looking blowtorched carbon stuff chemicals its a cleaning product disenfectant that protects and polishes but it needs some sprays of water then a spray or a few drops then buff it in and then dust mop it dry as its got some mild ANTISTATIC which helps lift up dust.. i found one that cleans like magic at my asian supermarkets but im not recommending specific brands over the other its the science of cleaning. then maybe put in a couple drops or up to a teaspoon of 10H hardness and like spray your laundry on the line or your carpet or whatever.. i do everything.. some products not 9H or greater will use some unsafe superglues which ignite cotton fabrics into flames or other things.. now house construction products like liquid nails brown glue for holding timber together might have a clear version called liquid glass that might be for window glazing or whatever i hadnt checked if its safe to use on fabrics and other surfaces the POINT of it is the NAME might say liquid glass but its maybe not silicon dioxide that the florist uses to keep their plants fresh for 2 weeks longer liquid glass as in THAT liquid glass like on your phones nanotech liquid screen protector you apply several coats of one each day then reapply every 8 months the cheap stuff.. some of the auto ones for cars can last 9 or 10 years. i found lots of bargain store looking products of sites like aliexpress or maybe amazon with brands like glassxkare or fantastic XML and adams polishes for tiny vials of 50ml or less of 10H hardness affordable or fantastic XML for like a big 500ML 9H hardness spray bottle that when sprayed into a spray bottle of water and glass cleaner and a drop of hydrophobic coating and plastic and leather restorer and a tiny drop of timber floor polish cleaner that may or may not make it a tiny bit streaky or splotchy the hydrophobic coatings may also be too hydrophobic you can tell if your spray bottle wont suck up water because the water cant enter the tube but if you spray a couple spray bottles of such tiny drops the nozzle will clog and not spray anymore.. nanocoatings can be tricky i dunno what to do. if its scratch protect films make it streaky and require buffing power tools and youre not loud big tools like me maybe aim it at carpets and couches rather than windows and do those without the floor polish. I've found no sort of uhh possible forseeable reasons for any health issues and my stuff looks and FEELS amazingly better, i think bathroom toilets or tiles or shower and tap fixtures or.. walls and floors and furniture and clothes.. i think id only not try spraying my drinking cups and cutlery but i honestly think i might need to drink the stuff its THAT GOOD. my cats LOVE IT! its kinda scary awesome.. i tried brands of plastic and leather restorer and quick paint coat and hydrophobic glass coating from HGKJ black and green labels. I couldnt tell you how safe it is, i just struggled as im a disability pensioner and saw our really old house falling apart and this damn near reversed a few decades off it and brand new snow clothing and jackets and throw rugs i bought felt BETTER THAN NEW i mean ridiculously better than new. ancient poisons used to clean HALF as good and were feared for being too good and too cheap. But diamonds and liquid diamond are naturally occuring hot springs reactions and the reason monkeys stay in there. its literally pretty much good for all life.
(plastic and leather restorer see leather deep conditioner but better and sorta similar to glass cleaner but a sort of UV protect oil and reinforce that adds the rich deep black color back to PU leathers and those vinyl anime girl figures yellowing from the sunlight and UV will becomes their original selves again or old yellowy car headlight covers get fixed up but so do most paints and timbers and other things. but you wanna seal it in with a nano coating when cleaning it out plastic and leather restorer is used in plastic manufacture and when you peel those clear plastic film stickers off shiny new products they help prevent its slow gradual evapouration and why they look so nice and black and arent just to prevent scratches. several days later plastic and leather restorers super shiny rich deep 'wet hair look for your black pleather chair' will seem to have worn off but its UV protect and other things will still be there and some polishes waxes or coatings can help keep it and its colors and UV protect there a bit longer well the look the restorer itself keeps it like how it was quite a while years? till it goes yellowy or faded again.)
So when we look at the water beading on lotus/lily pad leaves and things, ancient people used saps and old polishes and obsidian blades arrowheads since dinosaurs era. which with 200 times sharper than steel knives carbon nanotech its super dangerous deadly and was mostly all used up and we swapped it all out for modern glasses and glazing and safety glass so we dont slice our selves into piles of body parts on invisible pieces. Since the days of ink and whetstone nanotech advanced impossibly high particularly in volcanic hot springs countrys with samurai swords and caligraphy brush ink. Trying to find the scientifically safest and best possible cleaning products super affordably that might be useful for washing clothes, cars, metals plastics and other things.. are strangely not at the home hardware stores.. you see synthetic diamonds been on the gem market for centuries but too expensive to produce till modern different approaches with lasers and different gas precipitation with super high electricity concentrated over weeks or months or special electrolosys solutions will slowly layer and create diamonds but the diamond solution precipitated that grouped to each other or doesnt perfectly slot into the sort of tetris like bonds of the outer layers of the diamond a bit like diamond growth needs spaghetti O's and we're raining alphabet soup at it till with a bout 30% of the letters having a good chance of sticking. every few hours the solution of sublimation precipitate is swapped out creating a couple oven trays of 'liquid diamond solution' 10H hardness brightness and shines up glass with a thin film of diamond giving it moisture modest water resist we can use graphene to increase water resist and 10H+ hardness and apply hydrophobic coatings.. So who makes lots of these liquid finishes and what are they used for? Most are produced by a car race track owner who insists they protect their cars before taking them out onto the track or a speck of dirt or sand might scratch up the paint. But if i wanted to like power pressure washer spray it up onto my roof tiles and thin out some of that lichen and make them more uhh watertight leaks arent a concern but it might prevent a terrible future. anybody know why its not already a thing and there isnt countless guides on the ideal ratios and stuff? i mean its about as expensive as laundry detergent concentrate and used to be in most of those still is in some developed countries.. its what makes american movie sets look so umm bright and shiny and polished and awesome and makes mansions look like mansions or wealthy look and feel and its where LUXURY COMES FROM. is my cheap poor persons attempt at cleaning my own home not good? even if its mildly bad i think i'd use it forever. ESPECIALLY on things like 100% bamboo bed sheets i bought cheap ones from an australian online retailer and a few coatings of sprays and they felt and looked so dang shiny and awesome. Some bottles of the stuff claim 6 drops coats the car but remember many are diluted or not full strength or dont last long as advertised or a big bottle 500ML might be 3months to a year.. rather than tiny medicine bottle 50ml or 30ml sized 3-5 years most i guess, you need to keep applying a coat very often but having it not be streaky or buffing it in is tough so i maybe shaved years off its coating and thinned it out and just apply a bunch of coats as often product claims 9H its only a tiny % the whole spray bottle and needs many many applications to approach that but it is POSSIBLE theoretically. remember all glass cleaner is blue colored so when you dilute it with water you shouldnt have it fully color the water too much or its TOO STRONG. 80s people cleaned 80s glazing which maybe radium or lead tincture as radiation blocking films were often lead or radiation lined literally as a radiation shield was a.. film of radiation so it lasted years and needed double or triple glazing for expensive high rise buildings and cleaning heaps of smoky 80s glass dredged out horror mud floods of brown sludge that got them accused of dirtying things, though 80s squeegee thingys are really bad unless you reverse them and press down on a microfibre cloth with them for good even pressuer and a nice streak free clean using the back black rubber blade part to make a thin line of glass cleaning cloth good contact i previously saw reverse squeegee you mount cleaning cloths into specifically but searching i cant find to buy it when i tested it out at home with a squeegee that doesnt clip in like that. are there special tools you guys use? whats the secret? also the purple ceramic graphene ones seem awesome but maybe arent quite close to 9H either.. the bright shine of 10H or 10H+ on tiles and glass.. when apply hydrophobic it looks like zero application of anything somehow its gone for days. does anyone have a more ideal ratios specific or specific active ingredient amounts by weight or dilute with stuff that isnt water to help it keep its years of coating? does using a power washer make it not last? or last longer? or apply streaky splotchy? if its splotchy would more coats over weeks get it all consistent?
the liquid diamond stuff is in many countrys water or whatever.. but uhh concerns about silicosis maybe arent a thing at all if you cough it feels like its cleaning your lungs not harming them. Silicosis happens when criminal retards enter a sandblasting sealed room containment to steal the literally raw materials from factories or whatever or they use water cutting and sand blasting and CNC machines and sharpening blades constantly without sealed enclosure vacuum air scrubber filters. thats what wrecks those benchtop workers also they maybe mixing or breathing wrong epoxys and resins or dont seal them with the correct sealants and polishes and finishes.

Okay, I’m gonna level with you. Focusing on current events is just getting a little too fucking heavy. I’m no closer to answers than I was a month ago, none of us can sleep through a full night without waking up shaking and drenched in sweat, and there are some new downright bizarre phenomena cropping up that I just don’t have it in me to allot my energy to at the moment.
So, for today’s installment (and then also for the next one) I’m gonna tell you another good ol’ fun-for-the-whole-family pool story. Yep, you heard that right—welcome to our first bonafide two-parter.
This was quite a while ago. My measure of time is all off by a year now, but I feel fairly confident in chalking it up to post-first pool story, pre-ouija board fiasco—so however long ago that’s been now.
It was a weird, rare night, in that Matt was out. Not an unheard of occurrence, but it’s fairly anomalous, and it certainly puts the rest of us on slightly higher alert.
Obviously, he always tells us to call him at the first sign of some shit going down and to use our best judgment to determine whether it’s serious enough to lock up and head out. Better safe than sorry and all that. The night in question was no exception to the rule.
Overall, though, things were mostly quiet. Alice was in, as was I, as was Wiley. We do a lot of congregating, but we do a lot of work, too, and this night, we were all in our respective areas, doing our respective jobs.
I was in my not-office mending a finicky Shakespeare anthology, Alice was watching the desk while working on cataloging a truckload of new donations, and Wiley was replacing several lightbulbs that had all decided to call it quits after our most recent power outage (this one due to a flash-flood).
It was calm to an almost uncharacteristic degree. There was a relatively steady flow of patrons in and out of the building—I could hear Alice greeting them and wishing them a good evening—but as far as anomalous activity, there was none.
It does happen, on rare occasion, that we make it through a full night without any goings on, but there’s almost always at least the odd disembodied voice or two.
We should’ve known better than to trust a meteor shower.
See, there’s just something about natural anomalies. Not just the ones that knock our power out, either, although those are clearly included. Blizzards, thunderstorms, hail and tornados and earthquakes and all your run-of-the-mill destructive shit, sure. But the things of beauty, too. Rainbows. Eclipses, lunar or solar. And you think full moons hit emergency rooms hard? Try this fucking place.
It was just that a meteor shower wasn’t one we’d dealt with before. Does that mean we shouldn’t have known better? Fuck no. Obviously not. But perhaps our collective greatest fault is that we still have some semblance of hope.
Wiley wanted to look at it from the roof. Kid never fucking wants to do anything, and they were set to climb up and camp out alone. I couldn’t not entertain such an innocent, youthful whim.
Our roof access doesn’t have stairs—just a ladder—so Alice couldn’t accompany us, which I felt shitty about, but she assured me it was perfectly fine with her.
“The world decided I didn’t need functional legs so I could never be peer pressured into leaving the ground,” she quipped. “I’m not into heights. But y’all have fun up there. Somebody needs to be here for the patrons anyway.”
Fair and fair. So Wiley and I gathered up an armful of blankets and one of Matt’s trusty camping lanterns and headed out to scale the building.
Wiley went up ahead of me. That was my first mistake.
Really, they aren’t that much younger than I am. Maybe four or five years, and I’m too close to thirty for comfort now. But there’s something about them, even as far as they’ve come, that makes it impossible for me not to do everything in my power to protect them. I think Matt feels the same way. Maybe most of us do.
Anyway, that’s why I immediately started cursing myself when they reached the top of the ladder, pulled their way up and over the ledge of the roof, and said, “...Whoa.”
My second mistake was not immediately telling them to turn around and start climbing right the fuck back down.
I knew exactly what that tone of voice meant. But something in me just kicked into hyperdrive and I…had to see it. Whatever it was, I had to see it for myself.
“Don’t move,” I said, and then, “What is it?”
But by that point, I was at the top, too. I hoisted myself over the ledge and was met with…
…Water.
It was everywhere. Extending in every direction. There was no edge in sight—not even a horizon line. Just vast, dark water as far as the eye could see.
“Okay. This is not—let’s go.”
“Yeah,” Wiley agreed, a little breathless.
I’m sure you’ll be downright shocked to learn that, when we turned around, the ladder was gone.
The edge of the rooftop was, too.
The thing that surprised me, really, was that it wasn’t as though we were standing on some sort of island. We were somehow in the water all of a sudden, up to our waists, neither of us having taken a single step.
“Fucking…shit. Jesus. Adam?”
“We’re fine,” was my default response, because my anxiety override kicks in like a motherfucker as soon as someone else is more openly afraid than I am. “It’s okay, let’s just—let’s think for a second. Maybe it’s just, like, an illusion or something.”
“Okay,” Wiley said. “Maybe we should…try moving?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we’ll bump the ledge and then we can just feel for the ladder. Good idea.”
Wiley and I shared a look, wordlessly nodding to one another, and stepped forward in unison.
Maybe I misspoke before, when I said we weren’t on a platform. It was just that our platform wasn’t above the water. Now, though, there was nothing.
It felt, almost, like the stomach-turning sensation of missing a step walking up a staircase. The only difference was that there was no moment-too-late connection.
We plummeted.
There wasn’t any difference in temperature beneath the surface, which was, in a way, more disorienting than the water itself. The mental recalibration that typically comes with plunging into a cool lake or, adversely, a heated pool wasn’t allotted an opportunity to take place. It felt, for most intents and purposes, the same as being in the air, just that I couldn’t breathe.
It was heavy, too. The weightlessness water tends to embody was null; I immediately abandoned everything I’d been carrying, clawing my way upward frantically enough that it would’ve been mortifying, I’m sure, had anyone witnessed it.
Wiley resurfaced at the same moment I did—empty handed as well, I noted—coughing a little but not to the extent that I was worried they were choking. “Next idea?” they asked, pushing their wet hair back from their face, dark, damp lashes obscuring their eyes.
“Let’s get back on the…” I started, but trailed off when I raised my head.
A couple hundred yards out from us, there was a ship. It was a dark, hulking thing, with tattered sails and something indistinguishable affixed to the bow, glittering and glinting in the moonlight.
Wiley spun around to face it, drifting back slightly when their gaze landed parallel to mine. “What the fuck is that?” they demanded, legs kicking haphazardly beneath the water to keep them in place.
“Maybe it’s…good,” I said. I knew better than that and I knew Wiley did, too, but I said it anyway. “Maybe someone will help.”
They didn’t even humor me with a response to that bullshit.
Now, at this point in the story, maybe you’re thinking being suddenly surrounded by water and watching as an ominous ship approached us with absolutely nowhere to go and no way to escape doesn’t feel quite enough like imminent condemnation. To which I say to you: not to worry. Because the next realization we came to was that the platform we’d been standing on previously had suddenly ceased to exist.
“Shit,” Wiley said. “Shit, shit, shit. Adam.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s fine. We’re fine. We just—we’re gonna—follow me.”
I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck possessed me to swim toward the Obvious Death Ship. I guess just that there wasn’t anything else save for open water anywhere so it essentially felt like our options were paddle around until we were exhausted and drown or face a quicker, simpler demise.
“You better have a fucking plan, bro,” Wiley intoned from behind me, which I chivalrously pretended not to hear, because I did not, in fact, have a fucking plan.
The closer we drew to the vessel, the more unbelievably monstrous it appeared to become. It loomed above us, casting a shadow over everything in its direct path, and the sinking in my stomach almost convinced me to turn around. Almost.
But then something curled around my ankle. It was slick and strong, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that whatever it was could’ve pulled me under and eaten me alive in a fraction of a second.
Luckily for me, it wasn’t interested. It let go as quickly as it had latched on, almost as though it was simply using me as a handrail to move itself along. Still, though, the knowledge that it was there was all the motivation I needed to push forward ever faster. I didn’t say anything—didn’t want to add more fuel to Wiley’s panicked fire—just picked up my pace and swam up to their side.
“There’s a ladder,” they informed me, raising a hand and pointing toward the back half of the ship.
Indeed, there was a ladder. It was a tattered, worn thing, comprised of old, fraying rope and rotting, untreated wooden boards, but it looked composed enough that I figured we could likely make it up if we were swift.
“Bet,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We went.
Up close, the ladder appeared even shoddier than it had when we’d first seen it. I reached out of the water and wrapped my fingers around the rope at the bottom, giving it a hearty tug. To my slight surprise, it held fast.
“I think we’re good,” I told Wiley. “I’ll go up first and tell you what I see.”
“Be careful,” they said, but didn’t protest, just backed up enough for me to get the leverage I needed to hoist myself onto the bottom board.
I climbed warily, overly conscious of every creak of the wood bowing beneath my weight, every groan of the fibers of rope under my hands, but made it without incident to the top.
Once there, I grabbed onto the ship’s edge, lifting my gaze to take in whatever lie before me.
It was…nothing. I mean, it was a ship, obviously. But there wasn’t anything on board. No apparent crew nor cargo nor even a captain manning the helm. Granted, I couldn’t see perfectly, but the moon shone brightly enough that I was fairly confident in my observation that the deck was devoid of anything but its own shiplap floor.
“Hello?” I called, because I wasn’t about to beckon Wiley up if some fucked shit was going to pop out of nowhere the second we made a sound.
Nothing responded. Nothing moved. The ship rocked gently on the impossible water, as silent and vacant as it had been a moment before.
“Good?” Wiley questioned nervously from below me.
“Yeah,” I told them, easing myself off the ladder and down into the confines of the vessel. “Come on.”
They did so tenuously but still more swiftly than I had, climbing aboard and landing next to me with a dampened thunk.
We allowed ourselves the briefest of moments to catch our breath, silently rejoicing in the small win that was having found solace from the pool itself. Not that we had any idea what to do or where to go from here, but at the very least, we weren’t drowning.
“Okay,” I said, clearing the unease from my throat. “I don’t know what good trying to steer this thing would do us—there’s nothing but water no matter where we go. But maybe there’s something here somewhere that’ll help us figure out how to get back. So I think we just…start looking around?”
Wiley nodded. “Cool. Split halves, front and back?”
Nooo, Adam, don’t split up! Never split up! I know. I can literally hear you screaming it at me. And actually, for once in my life, I considered that something might be a horrible fucking idea before acting on it.
But then I saw something.
As I turned back to respond, Wiley’s eyes shimmered, dancing in the moonlight.
They were silver and mercurial, with no pupils or whites in sight.
Whatever had come back up from underwater, it was not my coworker.
I swallowed, forcing my expression to remain as neutral as I was able and praying whatever was standing in front of me didn’t notice I’d caught on. My entire body was instantaneously covered in chills, in a way that I understood to have the same purpose as a dog’s hackles rising. “Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll take the front.”
I headed in the opposite direction of the thing wearing Wiley’s face (at a pace that I hoped didn’t appear hurried but one that would remove me in a timely manner from the vicinity) and didn’t stop until I’d reached the front of the ship, breathing heavily and attempting to slow my reeling mind.
I didn’t know what to tackle first. I didn’t know where Wiley was, or if they were anywhere—if they were even still alive. I didn’t know what my next move should be. I didn’t know what I was looking for or where I might find it.
It’s rare that I feel utterly hopeless, to the degree that I genuinely contemplate just sitting down and giving up, but in this instance, I thought long and hard about how easy it would be to succumb. I’d let the unthinkable happen. Wiley was gone. No one else had been here with them—there was no one else to blame. Just me. Only me.
…You’ll be glad to know that the self-pity didn’t last long. Embarrassing, honestly.
If I was the only one here, it meant I was the only shot they had at making it out alive. Our version of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ had always been ‘alive until proven dead’ and I wasn’t about to turn my back on the insane streak of luck we’d had up until this point. Not a single one of our lives had been lost, and we’d been in the midst of some absolute shitstorms. There was no reason to believe that right now, tonight, was an outlier. I couldn’t lie down like a sick dog and wonder if Wiley was still out there somewhere, suffering until the bitter, bloody end. I had to find them. By whatever means necessary, as long as it took, I had to find them.
I pushed off the railing before me and spun on my heel, eyes flitting back and forth to assess my options as efficiently as possible, and after a moment, I registered that fitted flush against the large front mast, there was a door.
It was only a sliver, thin and not particularly extraordinary in height, but there was a handle carved roughly into its right side and a set of rust-riddled hinges on its left.
I took about half a second to weigh my options and then reached for it, curling my fingers around the handle and giving it a generous tug.
The hinges, unsurprisingly, complained, but not loudly and not for long. The door gave way with little resistance, and opened up to my worst fucking nightmare.
A set of stairs, descending into blackness.
I mean, I guess if I’m being fair, my first pool encounter had featured a staircase leading to the pool rather than away from it, but I didn’t feel like there could possibly be good news awaiting me below deck of a ship where I’d just encountered a fucking mimic.
Still, though, there was a niggling insistence in my brain (not that kind, come on) that it was my only lead on finding Wiley if they were, in fact, somewhere on board. So I cast one last glance over my shoulder and stepped into the dark, letting the door fall closed behind me.
It smelled different, instantly, from the open air above. Mustier, which was to be expected, but also almost sweet somehow. I tried, unsuccessfully, to shove my true-crime-podcast-addled brain’s helpful reminder that the scent of human death is said to be sweet into a mental lockbox and put my hand to the wall, easing tentatively down to the second step.
The visibility wasn’t just low—it was practically zero. If you’ve ever been on a cave tour and had a guide cut the lights and instruct you to lift your hand to your face to demonstrate the complete absence of light, it was nearly that intense. The placing of both feet on each concurrent stair was an arduous, calculated process, but finally, after approximately one (1) century, I reached flat ground. I still couldn’t see, and there was no definitive way to tell whether I was standing on the floor or just a landing without thoroughly feeling out the space around me, so I reluctantly departed from the wall, scooting my feet in small, tentative motions and keeping both arms partially outstretched before me.
After a (l o n g) moment, I determined that either this was the world’s largest landing or I’d made it all the way down. I had no idea whether I was in a singular, enormous room, or if there were individual cabins, or if I was about to run face-first into the grim fucking reaper.
And then I turned to my left.
There was a light.
It was so, so faint. Flickering. Barely discernible, its warm, gentle glow ever so shyly illuminating the cracks around what appeared to be another closed door.
Being the only visible thing in my line of sight, in any direction, it emitted the aura of both a beacon and an omen.
I headed towards it.
I was about half afraid I was stuck in a horror movie situation where no matter how long I walked it would never grow any closer, but fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case. I actually gained on it more quickly than I felt I should have for the speed I was moving, but I wasn’t going to complain about reaching the end of the nothingness in commendable time.
I ran my fingertips along the edge of the door and, sure enough, there was a carved-in handle, just like the last.
It opened just as effortlessly, and yellow candlelight rolled dimly out to greet me, lapping at my waterlogged clothes.
“Please,” came a quiet, terrified voice from inside the room. “Please don’t. I don’t know what you want, or–or what you are, but please don’t—”
“...Wiley?”
Rather than calming, the voice’s state of alarm rose to a level bordering on full-blown panic as I took a step into the space. “Please,” the voice begged. There wasn’t anyone visible from my current vantage point, but I could hear it clearly enough to feel fairly confident that the person attached to it—the person who either had to be Wiley or yet another duplicate of them—was close. “Why are you doing this?”
This was a cabin, I thought, or perhaps a study of some sort, with a rotting wooden desk and a decaying leather chair both covered in a flurry of loose, browned book pages and a thick layer of dust. There were candles littering several surfaces, placed in what appeared not to be any intentional manner. Directly to my right, there was a shelf; its back faced me and the odd placement led me to imagine that it may have been employed to block the door at some time.
It was also, I would have just about bet, the source of the voice.
I nudged a couple of planks and a broken amber bottle out of the way with the toe of my shoe, rounding the shelf to find a crumpled, bloodied Wiley, restrained to the floor by a thick, coarse rope fixed expertly to a bolted tie and holding their bound hands up to shield their face.
“Jesus fuck,” I said. “What happened to you?”
Slowly, they lifted their head. “...Adam?”
Realization dawned on me, and I felt my stomach sink. “Look at me,” I told them. “Look at my eyes.”
They did, their own bloodshot and watery and inherently human, and I watched their shoulders deflate, the defense and terror draining from their form. “There’s someone…something…down here. Or, I guess it still is, anyway. I don’t know where it went, but I don’t wanna be here when it comes back.”
I nodded. “It look like me?”
Wiley nodded back.
“Yeah, there’s one of you upstairs. Not real sure what we’re supposed to do about them, but one thing at a time. Let’s get you up from there.”
It was a struggle, disentangling Wiley from the heavy, abrasive leads coccooning their body, but we got there eventually, and throughout the entirety of the arduous process they gave me the rundown on how, when we’d parted from the solace of the platform, something had instantaneously latched onto them, dragging them down deeper and deeper until their ears popped and their head felt like it was going to explode. They said they’d been knocked out by the pressure, and that when they’d come to, already tied in place and coughing up lungfuls of water, “I” had been standing over them, wielding a large net hook and no mercy.
“I knew it wasn’t you, obviously,” they said, “but I didn’t know where you actually were or if something had, like. Hijacked your body? I don’t know. Anyway, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We grabbed a couple of candles (the majority had simply been melted into place atop whatever surface they’d adorned, but there was a small collection fitted into slightly-too-small brass holders) and got the fuck out.
Being able to see so little in the space around us was almost more disorienting than the pitch darkness I’d been feeling my way through before. It felt as though we were in a fragile, wavering bubble of reality and nothing existed outside of it.
“Wish I’d been awake coming down here,” Wiley remarked. “Guess I still wouldn’t have seen shit, though.”
“I could…maybe get us back upstairs?” I considered, with little to no confidence. “But I don’t really know what good it would do us. Nowhere to go. Maybe we just…look around down here for a bit? See if we can find anything useful?”
“Yeah, okay,” Wiley assented. “But we’ve gotta be quiet. I don’t want that thing to hear us.”
I certainly couldn’t argue with that.
We wandered hesitantly through the dark, shielding the flames of our candles with cupped palms and praying we wouldn’t misstep. We made it some unsubstantiated quantity of time without incident, but softly, after seconds or minutes or hours, we heard a light rustling from the shadow veiled corridor to our right, and Wiley pulled me into the nearest open room in the opposite direction.
Flattening our backs to the wall, we listened intently as footsteps echoed faintly behind us, cyclically growing closer and then further away again for several moments before disappearing altogether.
I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and uncovered my candle, easing the door of the room to a gentle, silent close. The contents of this one were different from that of the last in that there practically weren’t any. It wasn’t just that it was tidier; there was a chest shoved against the wall nearest us and a leatherbound book of some sort lying in the center of the floor, but otherwise the space was vacant.
Wiley moved first, crouching next to the journal and lifting it from the ground, a cloud of dust rising in the wake of their breath. I knelt down beside them, offering my candlelight so they could discard theirs and open the cover.
Beneath which there was a box.
It was a plain, unadorned wooden rectangle, nestled into the carved-out central pages of the book, and we learned upon extracting it that there was no lock or latch, just a seam indicating the lid’s separation from the body.
I don’t need to spell the whole situation out for you. There was a key in the box. The key opened, you guessed it: the chest. Inside the chest, there were piles of gold and jewels beyond your wildest imagination. We’re rich now. The end.
Nah, JK. But the key in the box did open the chest, in which there was, A) a pair of peeling, pleather driving gloves, and B)...
I felt my heart skip.
A bicycle chain.
I’m not going to get into the nuances of that right now, or maybe ever. But for the purposes of dramatic flair, just know that it was incredibly, pointedly relevant to me, on a level so personal it sucker punched the air straight out of my lungs.
“No,” Wiley said, staggering back a step. “Uh-uh. Nope.”
I put together, then, that the gloves must have been their ticket item. “It’s okay,” I said, on autopilot, because it was not. “There’s something—something’s carved into the bottom of this thing.” Pushing past the reaction every fiber of my being had to the sensation of the frigid metal against my skin, I shoved both the chain and the gloves to the side and could scarcely make out a host of crudely scrawled letters in the wavering light of my half-gone candle.
“What is it?” Wiley asked, making no move to come nearer again.
“Though your…hand…? Heart. Though your heart does pound and knees grow…weak,” I deciphered slowly, “Rid yourself by your… That doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t it be of? It says ‘rid yourself by your fear’ and…something. Drain the…clin… No. Drink. Drain the drink.”
“Rid yourself by your fear and drain the drink,” Wiley repeated analytically. “The hell does that mean? Is this shit telling us to kill ourselves with the—oh. Oh. Fuck.”
I was not following. “...I’m not following,” I said.
“It is.” Wiley returned to my side, squatting down and nudging me out of the way with their shoulder to peer warily into the trunk. “It’s telling us to kill ourselves, but not these selves. We’re supposed to use…those…to kill our fuckin’ doppelgangers, or whatever they are. That’s how we get rid of the water.”
“Oh,” I echoed. “Fuck.”
We marinated for a moment in silence before Wiley sighed, resigned, and lifted the gloves from the chest, closing their eyes and pulling the fabric snugly over their hands. “Let’s get to work.”

Okay, I’m gonna level with you. Focusing on current events is just getting a little too fucking heavy. I’m no closer to answers than I was a month ago, none of us can sleep through a full night without waking up shaking and drenched in sweat, and there are some new downright bizarre phenomena cropping up that I just don’t have it in me to allot my energy to at the moment.
So, for today’s installment (and then also for the next one) I’m gonna tell you another good ol’ fun-for-the-whole-family pool story. Yep, you heard that right—welcome to our first bonafide two-parter.
This was quite a while ago. My measure of time is all off by a year now, but I feel fairly confident in chalking it up to post-first pool story, pre-ouija board fiasco—so however long ago that’s been now.
It was a weird, rare night, in that Matt was out. Not an unheard of occurrence, but it’s fairly anomalous, and it certainly puts the rest of us on slightly higher alert.
Obviously, he always tells us to call him at the first sign of some shit going down and to use our best judgment to determine whether it’s serious enough to lock up and head out. Better safe than sorry and all that. The night in question was no exception to the rule.
Overall, though, things were mostly quiet. Alice was in, as was I, as was Wiley. We do a lot of congregating, but we do a lot of work, too, and this night, we were all in our respective areas, doing our respective jobs.
I was in my not-office mending a finicky Shakespeare anthology, Alice was watching the desk while working on cataloging a truckload of new donations, and Wiley was replacing several lightbulbs that had all decided to call it quits after our most recent power outage (this one due to a flash-flood).
It was calm to an almost uncharacteristic degree. There was a relatively steady flow of patrons in and out of the building—I could hear Alice greeting them and wishing them a good evening—but as far as anomalous activity, there was none.
It does happen, on rare occasion, that we make it through a full night without any goings on, but there’s almost always at least the odd disembodied voice or two.
We should’ve known better than to trust a meteor shower.
See, there’s just something about natural anomalies. Not just the ones that knock our power out, either, although those are clearly included. Blizzards, thunderstorms, hail and tornados and earthquakes and all your run-of-the-mill destructive shit, sure. But the things of beauty, too. Rainbows. Eclipses, lunar or solar. And you think full moons hit emergency rooms hard? Try this fucking place.
It was just that a meteor shower wasn’t one we’d dealt with before. Does that mean we shouldn’t have known better? Fuck no. Obviously not. But perhaps our collective greatest fault is that we still have some semblance of hope.
Wiley wanted to look at it from the roof. Kid never fucking wants to do anything, and they were set to climb up and camp out alone. I couldn’t not entertain such an innocent, youthful whim.
Our roof access doesn’t have stairs—just a ladder—so Alice couldn’t accompany us, which I felt shitty about, but she assured me it was perfectly fine with her.
“The world decided I didn’t need functional legs so I could never be peer pressured into leaving the ground,” she quipped. “I’m not into heights. But y’all have fun up there. Somebody needs to be here for the patrons anyway.”
Fair and fair. So Wiley and I gathered up an armful of blankets and one of Matt’s trusty camping lanterns and headed out to scale the building.
Wiley went up ahead of me. That was my first mistake.
Really, they aren’t that much younger than I am. Maybe four or five years, and I’m too close to thirty for comfort now. But there’s something about them, even as far as they’ve come, that makes it impossible for me not to do everything in my power to protect them. I think Matt feels the same way. Maybe most of us do.
Anyway, that’s why I immediately started cursing myself when they reached the top of the ladder, pulled their way up and over the ledge of the roof, and said, “...Whoa.”
My second mistake was not immediately telling them to turn around and start climbing right the fuck back down.
I knew exactly what that tone of voice meant. But something in me just kicked into hyperdrive and I…had to see it. Whatever it was, I had to see it for myself.
“Don’t move,” I said, and then, “What is it?”
But by that point, I was at the top, too. I hoisted myself over the ledge and was met with…
…Water.
It was everywhere. Extending in every direction. There was no edge in sight—not even a horizon line. Just vast, dark water as far as the eye could see.
“Okay. This is not—let’s go.”
“Yeah,” Wiley agreed, a little breathless.
I’m sure you’ll be downright shocked to learn that, when we turned around, the ladder was gone.
The edge of the rooftop was, too.
The thing that surprised me, really, was that it wasn’t as though we were standing on some sort of island. We were somehow in the water all of a sudden, up to our waists, neither of us having taken a single step.
“Fucking…shit. Jesus. Adam?”
“We’re fine,” was my default response, because my anxiety override kicks in like a motherfucker as soon as someone else is more openly afraid than I am. “It’s okay, let’s just—let’s think for a second. Maybe it’s just, like, an illusion or something.”
“Okay,” Wiley said. “Maybe we should…try moving?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we’ll bump the ledge and then we can just feel for the ladder. Good idea.”
Wiley and I shared a look, wordlessly nodding to one another, and stepped forward in unison.
Maybe I misspoke before, when I said we weren’t on a platform. It was just that our platform wasn’t above the water. Now, though, there was nothing.
It felt, almost, like the stomach-turning sensation of missing a step walking up a staircase. The only difference was that there was no moment-too-late connection.
We plummeted.
There wasn’t any difference in temperature beneath the surface, which was, in a way, more disorienting than the water itself. The mental recalibration that typically comes with plunging into a cool lake or, adversely, a heated pool wasn’t allotted an opportunity to take place. It felt, for most intents and purposes, the same as being in the air, just that I couldn’t breathe.
It was heavy, too. The weightlessness water tends to embody was null; I immediately abandoned everything I’d been carrying, clawing my way upward frantically enough that it would’ve been mortifying, I’m sure, had anyone witnessed it.
Wiley resurfaced at the same moment I did—empty handed as well, I noted—coughing a little but not to the extent that I was worried they were choking. “Next idea?” they asked, pushing their wet hair back from their face, dark, damp lashes obscuring their eyes.
“Let’s get back on the…” I started, but trailed off when I raised my head.
A couple hundred yards out from us, there was a ship. It was a dark, hulking thing, with tattered sails and something indistinguishable affixed to the bow, glittering and glinting in the moonlight.
Wiley spun around to face it, drifting back slightly when their gaze landed parallel to mine. “What the fuck is that?” they demanded, legs kicking haphazardly beneath the water to keep them in place.
“Maybe it’s…good,” I said. I knew better than that and I knew Wiley did, too, but I said it anyway. “Maybe someone will help.”
They didn’t even humor me with a response to that bullshit.
Now, at this point in the story, maybe you’re thinking being suddenly surrounded by water and watching as an ominous ship approached us with absolutely nowhere to go and no way to escape doesn’t feel quite enough like imminent condemnation. To which I say to you: not to worry. Because the next realization we came to was that the platform we’d been standing on previously had suddenly ceased to exist.
“Shit,” Wiley said. “Shit, shit, shit. Adam.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s fine. We’re fine. We just—we’re gonna—follow me.”
I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck possessed me to swim toward the Obvious Death Ship. I guess just that there wasn’t anything else save for open water anywhere so it essentially felt like our options were paddle around until we were exhausted and drown or face a quicker, simpler demise.
“You better have a fucking plan, bro,” Wiley intoned from behind me, which I chivalrously pretended not to hear, because I did not, in fact, have a fucking plan.
The closer we drew to the vessel, the more unbelievably monstrous it appeared to become. It loomed above us, casting a shadow over everything in its direct path, and the sinking in my stomach almost convinced me to turn around. Almost.
But then something curled around my ankle. It was slick and strong, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that whatever it was could’ve pulled me under and eaten me alive in a fraction of a second.
Luckily for me, it wasn’t interested. It let go as quickly as it had latched on, almost as though it was simply using me as a handrail to move itself along. Still, though, the knowledge that it was there was all the motivation I needed to push forward ever faster. I didn’t say anything—didn’t want to add more fuel to Wiley’s panicked fire—just picked up my pace and swam up to their side.
“There’s a ladder,” they informed me, raising a hand and pointing toward the back half of the ship.
Indeed, there was a ladder. It was a tattered, worn thing, comprised of old, fraying rope and rotting, untreated wooden boards, but it looked composed enough that I figured we could likely make it up if we were swift.
“Bet,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We went.
Up close, the ladder appeared even shoddier than it had when we’d first seen it. I reached out of the water and wrapped my fingers around the rope at the bottom, giving it a hearty tug. To my slight surprise, it held fast.
“I think we’re good,” I told Wiley. “I’ll go up first and tell you what I see.”
“Be careful,” they said, but didn’t protest, just backed up enough for me to get the leverage I needed to hoist myself onto the bottom board.
I climbed warily, overly conscious of every creak of the wood bowing beneath my weight, every groan of the fibers of rope under my hands, but made it without incident to the top.
Once there, I grabbed onto the ship’s edge, lifting my gaze to take in whatever lie before me.
It was…nothing. I mean, it was a ship, obviously. But there wasn’t anything on board. No apparent crew nor cargo nor even a captain manning the helm. Granted, I couldn’t see perfectly, but the moon shone brightly enough that I was fairly confident in my observation that the deck was devoid of anything but its own shiplap floor.
“Hello?” I called, because I wasn’t about to beckon Wiley up if some fucked shit was going to pop out of nowhere the second we made a sound.
Nothing responded. Nothing moved. The ship rocked gently on the impossible water, as silent and vacant as it had been a moment before.
“Good?” Wiley questioned nervously from below me.
“Yeah,” I told them, easing myself off the ladder and down into the confines of the vessel. “Come on.”
They did so tenuously but still more swiftly than I had, climbing aboard and landing next to me with a dampened thunk.
We allowed ourselves the briefest of moments to catch our breath, silently rejoicing in the small win that was having found solace from the pool itself. Not that we had any idea what to do or where to go from here, but at the very least, we weren’t drowning.
“Okay,” I said, clearing the unease from my throat. “I don’t know what good trying to steer this thing would do us—there’s nothing but water no matter where we go. But maybe there’s something here somewhere that’ll help us figure out how to get back. So I think we just…start looking around?”
Wiley nodded. “Cool. Split halves, front and back?”
Nooo, Adam, don’t split up! Never split up! I know. I can literally hear you screaming it at me. And actually, for once in my life, I considered that something might be a horrible fucking idea before acting on it.
But then I saw something.
As I turned back to respond, Wiley’s eyes shimmered, dancing in the moonlight.
They were silver and mercurial, with no pupils or whites in sight.
Whatever had come back up from underwater, it was not my coworker.
I swallowed, forcing my expression to remain as neutral as I was able and praying whatever was standing in front of me didn’t notice I’d caught on. My entire body was instantaneously covered in chills, in a way that I understood to have the same purpose as a dog’s hackles rising. “Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll take the front.”
I headed in the opposite direction of the thing wearing Wiley’s face (at a pace that I hoped didn’t appear hurried but one that would remove me in a timely manner from the vicinity) and didn’t stop until I’d reached the front of the ship, breathing heavily and attempting to slow my reeling mind.
I didn’t know what to tackle first. I didn’t know where Wiley was, or if they were anywhere—if they were even still alive. I didn’t know what my next move should be. I didn’t know what I was looking for or where I might find it.
It’s rare that I feel utterly hopeless, to the degree that I genuinely contemplate just sitting down and giving up, but in this instance, I thought long and hard about how easy it would be to succumb. I’d let the unthinkable happen. Wiley was gone. No one else had been here with them—there was no one else to blame. Just me. Only me.
…You’ll be glad to know that the self-pity didn’t last long. Embarrassing, honestly.
If I was the only one here, it meant I was the only shot they had at making it out alive. Our version of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ had always been ‘alive until proven dead’ and I wasn’t about to turn my back on the insane streak of luck we’d had up until this point. Not a single one of our lives had been lost, and we’d been in the midst of some absolute shitstorms. There was no reason to believe that right now, tonight, was an outlier. I couldn’t lie down like a sick dog and wonder if Wiley was still out there somewhere, suffering until the bitter, bloody end. I had to find them. By whatever means necessary, as long as it took, I had to find them.
I pushed off the railing before me and spun on my heel, eyes flitting back and forth to assess my options as efficiently as possible, and after a moment, I registered that fitted flush against the large front mast, there was a door.
It was only a sliver, thin and not particularly extraordinary in height, but there was a handle carved roughly into its right side and a set of rust-riddled hinges on its left.
I took about half a second to weigh my options and then reached for it, curling my fingers around the handle and giving it a generous tug.
The hinges, unsurprisingly, complained, but not loudly and not for long. The door gave way with little resistance, and opened up to my worst fucking nightmare.
A set of stairs, descending into blackness.
I mean, I guess if I’m being fair, my first pool encounter had featured a staircase leading to the pool rather than away from it, but I didn’t feel like there could possibly be good news awaiting me below deck of a ship where I’d just encountered a fucking mimic.
Still, though, there was a niggling insistence in my brain (not that kind, come on) that it was my only lead on finding Wiley if they were, in fact, somewhere on board. So I cast one last glance over my shoulder and stepped into the dark, letting the door fall closed behind me.
It smelled different, instantly, from the open air above. Mustier, which was to be expected, but also almost sweet somehow. I tried, unsuccessfully, to shove my true-crime-podcast-addled brain’s helpful reminder that the scent of human death is said to be sweet into a mental lockbox and put my hand to the wall, easing tentatively down to the second step.
The visibility wasn’t just low—it was practically zero. If you’ve ever been on a cave tour and had a guide cut the lights and instruct you to lift your hand to your face to demonstrate the complete absence of light, it was nearly that intense. The placing of both feet on each concurrent stair was an arduous, calculated process, but finally, after approximately one (1) century, I reached flat ground. I still couldn’t see, and there was no definitive way to tell whether I was standing on the floor or just a landing without thoroughly feeling out the space around me, so I reluctantly departed from the wall, scooting my feet in small, tentative motions and keeping both arms partially outstretched before me.
After a (l o n g) moment, I determined that either this was the world’s largest landing or I’d made it all the way down. I had no idea whether I was in a singular, enormous room, or if there were individual cabins, or if I was about to run face-first into the grim fucking reaper.
And then I turned to my left.
There was a light.
It was so, so faint. Flickering. Barely discernible, its warm, gentle glow ever so shyly illuminating the cracks around what appeared to be another closed door.
Being the only visible thing in my line of sight, in any direction, it emitted the aura of both a beacon and an omen.
I headed towards it.
I was about half afraid I was stuck in a horror movie situation where no matter how long I walked it would never grow any closer, but fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case. I actually gained on it more quickly than I felt I should have for the speed I was moving, but I wasn’t going to complain about reaching the end of the nothingness in commendable time.
I ran my fingertips along the edge of the door and, sure enough, there was a carved-in handle, just like the last.
It opened just as effortlessly, and yellow candlelight rolled dimly out to greet me, lapping at my waterlogged clothes.
“Please,” came a quiet, terrified voice from inside the room. “Please don’t. I don’t know what you want, or–or what you are, but please don’t—”
“...Wiley?”
Rather than calming, the voice’s state of alarm rose to a level bordering on full-blown panic as I took a step into the space. “Please,” the voice begged. There wasn’t anyone visible from my current vantage point, but I could hear it clearly enough to feel fairly confident that the person attached to it—the person who either had to be Wiley or yet another duplicate of them—was close. “Why are you doing this?”
This was a cabin, I thought, or perhaps a study of some sort, with a rotting wooden desk and a decaying leather chair both covered in a flurry of loose, browned book pages and a thick layer of dust. There were candles littering several surfaces, placed in what appeared not to be any intentional manner. Directly to my right, there was a shelf; its back faced me and the odd placement led me to imagine that it may have been employed to block the door at some time.
It was also, I would have just about bet, the source of the voice.
I nudged a couple of planks and a broken amber bottle out of the way with the toe of my shoe, rounding the shelf to find a crumpled, bloodied Wiley, restrained to the floor by a thick, coarse rope fixed expertly to a bolted tie and holding their bound hands up to shield their face.
“Jesus fuck,” I said. “What happened to you?”
Slowly, they lifted their head. “...Adam?”
Realization dawned on me, and I felt my stomach sink. “Look at me,” I told them. “Look at my eyes.”
They did, their own bloodshot and watery and inherently human, and I watched their shoulders deflate, the defense and terror draining from their form. “There’s someone…something…down here. Or, I guess it still is, anyway. I don’t know where it went, but I don’t wanna be here when it comes back.”
I nodded. “It look like me?”
Wiley nodded back.
“Yeah, there’s one of you upstairs. Not real sure what we’re supposed to do about them, but one thing at a time. Let’s get you up from there.”
It was a struggle, disentangling Wiley from the heavy, abrasive leads coccooning their body, but we got there eventually, and throughout the entirety of the arduous process they gave me the rundown on how, when we’d parted from the solace of the platform, something had instantaneously latched onto them, dragging them down deeper and deeper until their ears popped and their head felt like it was going to explode. They said they’d been knocked out by the pressure, and that when they’d come to, already tied in place and coughing up lungfuls of water, “I” had been standing over them, wielding a large net hook and no mercy.
“I knew it wasn’t you, obviously,” they said, “but I didn’t know where you actually were or if something had, like. Hijacked your body? I don’t know. Anyway, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We grabbed a couple of candles (the majority had simply been melted into place atop whatever surface they’d adorned, but there was a small collection fitted into slightly-too-small brass holders) and got the fuck out.
Being able to see so little in the space around us was almost more disorienting than the pitch darkness I’d been feeling my way through before. It felt as though we were in a fragile, wavering bubble of reality and nothing existed outside of it.
“Wish I’d been awake coming down here,” Wiley remarked. “Guess I still wouldn’t have seen shit, though.”
“I could…maybe get us back upstairs?” I considered, with little to no confidence. “But I don’t really know what good it would do us. Nowhere to go. Maybe we just…look around down here for a bit? See if we can find anything useful?”
“Yeah, okay,” Wiley assented. “But we’ve gotta be quiet. I don’t want that thing to hear us.”
I certainly couldn’t argue with that.
We wandered hesitantly through the dark, shielding the flames of our candles with cupped palms and praying we wouldn’t misstep. We made it some unsubstantiated quantity of time without incident, but softly, after seconds or minutes or hours, we heard a light rustling from the shadow veiled corridor to our right, and Wiley pulled me into the nearest open room in the opposite direction.
Flattening our backs to the wall, we listened intently as footsteps echoed faintly behind us, cyclically growing closer and then further away again for several moments before disappearing altogether.
I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and uncovered my candle, easing the door of the room to a gentle, silent close. The contents of this one were different from that of the last in that there practically weren’t any. It wasn’t just that it was tidier; there was a chest shoved against the wall nearest us and a leatherbound book of some sort lying in the center of the floor, but otherwise the space was vacant.
Wiley moved first, crouching next to the journal and lifting it from the ground, a cloud of dust rising in the wake of their breath. I knelt down beside them, offering my candlelight so they could discard theirs and open the cover.
Beneath which there was a box.
It was a plain, unadorned wooden rectangle, nestled into the carved-out central pages of the book, and we learned upon extracting it that there was no lock or latch, just a seam indicating the lid’s separation from the body.
I don’t need to spell the whole situation out for you. There was a key in the box. The key opened, you guessed it: the chest. Inside the chest, there were piles of gold and jewels beyond your wildest imagination. We’re rich now. The end.
Nah, JK. But the key in the box did open the chest, in which there was, A) a pair of peeling, pleather driving gloves, and B)...
I felt my heart skip.
A bicycle chain.
I’m not going to get into the nuances of that right now, or maybe ever. But for the purposes of dramatic flair, just know that it was incredibly, pointedly relevant to me, on a level so personal it sucker punched the air straight out of my lungs.
“No,” Wiley said, staggering back a step. “Uh-uh. Nope.”
I put together, then, that the gloves must have been their ticket item. “It’s okay,” I said, on autopilot, because it was not. “There’s something—something’s carved into the bottom of this thing.” Pushing past the reaction every fiber of my being had to the sensation of the frigid metal against my skin, I shoved both the chain and the gloves to the side and could scarcely make out a host of crudely scrawled letters in the wavering light of my half-gone candle.
“What is it?” Wiley asked, making no move to come nearer again.
“Though your…hand…? Heart. Though your heart does pound and knees grow…weak,” I deciphered slowly, “Rid yourself by your… That doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t it be of? It says ‘rid yourself by your fear’ and…something. Drain the…clin… No. Drink. Drain the drink.”
“Rid yourself by your fear and drain the drink,” Wiley repeated analytically. “The hell does that mean? Is this shit telling us to kill ourselves with the—oh. Oh. Fuck.”
I was not following. “...I’m not following,” I said.
“It is.” Wiley returned to my side, squatting down and nudging me out of the way with their shoulder to peer warily into the trunk. “It’s telling us to kill ourselves, but not these selves. We’re supposed to use…those…to kill our fuckin’ doppelgangers, or whatever they are. That’s how we get rid of the water.”
“Oh,” I echoed. “Fuck.”
We marinated for a moment in silence before Wiley sighed, resigned, and lifted the gloves from the chest, closing their eyes and pulling the fabric snugly over their hands. “Let’s get to work.”

Okay, I’m gonna level with you. Focusing on current events is just getting a little too fucking heavy. I’m no closer to answers than I was a month ago, none of us can sleep through a full night without waking up shaking and drenched in sweat, and there are some new downright bizarre phenomena cropping up that I just don’t have it in me to allot my energy to at the moment.
So, for today’s installment (and then also for the next one) I’m gonna tell you another good ol’ fun-for-the-whole-family pool story. Yep, you heard that right—welcome to our first bonafide two-parter.
This was quite a while ago. My measure of time is all off by a year now, but I feel fairly confident in chalking it up to post-first pool story, pre-ouija board fiasco—so however long ago that’s been now.
It was a weird, rare night, in that Matt was out. Not an unheard of occurrence, but it’s fairly anomalous, and it certainly puts the rest of us on slightly higher alert.
Obviously, he always tells us to call him at the first sign of some shit going down and to use our best judgment to determine whether it’s serious enough to lock up and head out. Better safe than sorry and all that. The night in question was no exception to the rule.
Overall, though, things were mostly quiet. Alice was in, as was I, as was Wiley. We do a lot of congregating, but we do a lot of work, too, and this night, we were all in our respective areas, doing our respective jobs.
I was in my not-office mending a finicky Shakespeare anthology, Alice was watching the desk while working on cataloging a truckload of new donations, and Wiley was replacing several lightbulbs that had all decided to call it quits after our most recent power outage (this one due to a flash-flood).
It was calm to an almost uncharacteristic degree. There was a relatively steady flow of patrons in and out of the building—I could hear Alice greeting them and wishing them a good evening—but as far as anomalous activity, there was none.
It does happen, on rare occasion, that we make it through a full night without any goings on, but there’s almost always at least the odd disembodied voice or two.
We should’ve known better than to trust a meteor shower.
See, there’s just something about natural anomalies. Not just the ones that knock our power out, either, although those are clearly included. Blizzards, thunderstorms, hail and tornados and earthquakes and all your run-of-the-mill destructive shit, sure. But the things of beauty, too. Rainbows. Eclipses, lunar or solar. And you think full moons hit emergency rooms hard? Try this fucking place.
It was just that a meteor shower wasn’t one we’d dealt with before. Does that mean we shouldn’t have known better? Fuck no. Obviously not. But perhaps our collective greatest fault is that we still have some semblance of hope.
Wiley wanted to look at it from the roof. Kid never fucking wants to do anything, and they were set to climb up and camp out alone. I couldn’t not entertain such an innocent, youthful whim.
Our roof access doesn’t have stairs—just a ladder—so Alice couldn’t accompany us, which I felt shitty about, but she assured me it was perfectly fine with her.
“The world decided I didn’t need functional legs so I could never be peer pressured into leaving the ground,” she quipped. “I’m not into heights. But y’all have fun up there. Somebody needs to be here for the patrons anyway.”
Fair and fair. So Wiley and I gathered up an armful of blankets and one of Matt’s trusty camping lanterns and headed out to scale the building.
Wiley went up ahead of me. That was my first mistake.
Really, they aren’t that much younger than I am. Maybe four or five years, and I’m too close to thirty for comfort now. But there’s something about them, even as far as they’ve come, that makes it impossible for me not to do everything in my power to protect them. I think Matt feels the same way. Maybe most of us do.
Anyway, that’s why I immediately started cursing myself when they reached the top of the ladder, pulled their way up and over the ledge of the roof, and said, “...Whoa.”
My second mistake was not immediately telling them to turn around and start climbing right the fuck back down.
I knew exactly what that tone of voice meant. But something in me just kicked into hyperdrive and I…had to see it. Whatever it was, I had to see it for myself.
“Don’t move,” I said, and then, “What is it?”
But by that point, I was at the top, too. I hoisted myself over the ledge and was met with…
…Water.
It was everywhere. Extending in every direction. There was no edge in sight—not even a horizon line. Just vast, dark water as far as the eye could see.
“Okay. This is not—let’s go.”
“Yeah,” Wiley agreed, a little breathless.
I’m sure you’ll be downright shocked to learn that, when we turned around, the ladder was gone.
The edge of the rooftop was, too.
The thing that surprised me, really, was that it wasn’t as though we were standing on some sort of island. We were somehow in the water all of a sudden, up to our waists, neither of us having taken a single step.
“Fucking…shit. Jesus. Adam?”
“We’re fine,” was my default response, because my anxiety override kicks in like a motherfucker as soon as someone else is more openly afraid than I am. “It’s okay, let’s just—let’s think for a second. Maybe it’s just, like, an illusion or something.”
“Okay,” Wiley said. “Maybe we should…try moving?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we’ll bump the ledge and then we can just feel for the ladder. Good idea.”
Wiley and I shared a look, wordlessly nodding to one another, and stepped forward in unison.
Maybe I misspoke before, when I said we weren’t on a platform. It was just that our platform wasn’t above the water. Now, though, there was nothing.
It felt, almost, like the stomach-turning sensation of missing a step walking up a staircase. The only difference was that there was no moment-too-late connection.
We plummeted.
There wasn’t any difference in temperature beneath the surface, which was, in a way, more disorienting than the water itself. The mental recalibration that typically comes with plunging into a cool lake or, adversely, a heated pool wasn’t allotted an opportunity to take place. It felt, for most intents and purposes, the same as being in the air, just that I couldn’t breathe.
It was heavy, too. The weightlessness water tends to embody was null; I immediately abandoned everything I’d been carrying, clawing my way upward frantically enough that it would’ve been mortifying, I’m sure, had anyone witnessed it.
Wiley resurfaced at the same moment I did—empty handed as well, I noted—coughing a little but not to the extent that I was worried they were choking. “Next idea?” they asked, pushing their wet hair back from their face, dark, damp lashes obscuring their eyes.
“Let’s get back on the…” I started, but trailed off when I raised my head.
A couple hundred yards out from us, there was a ship. It was a dark, hulking thing, with tattered sails and something indistinguishable affixed to the bow, glittering and glinting in the moonlight.
Wiley spun around to face it, drifting back slightly when their gaze landed parallel to mine. “What the fuck is that?” they demanded, legs kicking haphazardly beneath the water to keep them in place.
“Maybe it’s…good,” I said. I knew better than that and I knew Wiley did, too, but I said it anyway. “Maybe someone will help.”
They didn’t even humor me with a response to that bullshit.
Now, at this point in the story, maybe you’re thinking being suddenly surrounded by water and watching as an ominous ship approached us with absolutely nowhere to go and no way to escape doesn’t feel quite enough like imminent condemnation. To which I say to you: not to worry. Because the next realization we came to was that the platform we’d been standing on previously had suddenly ceased to exist.
“Shit,” Wiley said. “Shit, shit, shit. Adam.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s fine. We’re fine. We just—we’re gonna—follow me.”
I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck possessed me to swim toward the Obvious Death Ship. I guess just that there wasn’t anything else save for open water anywhere so it essentially felt like our options were paddle around until we were exhausted and drown or face a quicker, simpler demise.
“You better have a fucking plan, bro,” Wiley intoned from behind me, which I chivalrously pretended not to hear, because I did not, in fact, have a fucking plan.
The closer we drew to the vessel, the more unbelievably monstrous it appeared to become. It loomed above us, casting a shadow over everything in its direct path, and the sinking in my stomach almost convinced me to turn around. Almost.
But then something curled around my ankle. It was slick and strong, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that whatever it was could’ve pulled me under and eaten me alive in a fraction of a second.
Luckily for me, it wasn’t interested. It let go as quickly as it had latched on, almost as though it was simply using me as a handrail to move itself along. Still, though, the knowledge that it was there was all the motivation I needed to push forward ever faster. I didn’t say anything—didn’t want to add more fuel to Wiley’s panicked fire—just picked up my pace and swam up to their side.
“There’s a ladder,” they informed me, raising a hand and pointing toward the back half of the ship.
Indeed, there was a ladder. It was a tattered, worn thing, comprised of old, fraying rope and rotting, untreated wooden boards, but it looked composed enough that I figured we could likely make it up if we were swift.
“Bet,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We went.
Up close, the ladder appeared even shoddier than it had when we’d first seen it. I reached out of the water and wrapped my fingers around the rope at the bottom, giving it a hearty tug. To my slight surprise, it held fast.
“I think we’re good,” I told Wiley. “I’ll go up first and tell you what I see.”
“Be careful,” they said, but didn’t protest, just backed up enough for me to get the leverage I needed to hoist myself onto the bottom board.
I climbed warily, overly conscious of every creak of the wood bowing beneath my weight, every groan of the fibers of rope under my hands, but made it without incident to the top.
Once there, I grabbed onto the ship’s edge, lifting my gaze to take in whatever lie before me.
It was…nothing. I mean, it was a ship, obviously. But there wasn’t anything on board. No apparent crew nor cargo nor even a captain manning the helm. Granted, I couldn’t see perfectly, but the moon shone brightly enough that I was fairly confident in my observation that the deck was devoid of anything but its own shiplap floor.
“Hello?” I called, because I wasn’t about to beckon Wiley up if some fucked shit was going to pop out of nowhere the second we made a sound.
Nothing responded. Nothing moved. The ship rocked gently on the impossible water, as silent and vacant as it had been a moment before.
“Good?” Wiley questioned nervously from below me.
“Yeah,” I told them, easing myself off the ladder and down into the confines of the vessel. “Come on.”
They did so tenuously but still more swiftly than I had, climbing aboard and landing next to me with a dampened thunk.
We allowed ourselves the briefest of moments to catch our breath, silently rejoicing in the small win that was having found solace from the pool itself. Not that we had any idea what to do or where to go from here, but at the very least, we weren’t drowning.
“Okay,” I said, clearing the unease from my throat. “I don’t know what good trying to steer this thing would do us—there’s nothing but water no matter where we go. But maybe there’s something here somewhere that’ll help us figure out how to get back. So I think we just…start looking around?”
Wiley nodded. “Cool. Split halves, front and back?”
Nooo, Adam, don’t split up! Never split up! I know. I can literally hear you screaming it at me. And actually, for once in my life, I considered that something might be a horrible fucking idea before acting on it.
But then I saw something.
As I turned back to respond, Wiley’s eyes shimmered, dancing in the moonlight.
They were silver and mercurial, with no pupils or whites in sight.
Whatever had come back up from underwater, it was not my coworker.
I swallowed, forcing my expression to remain as neutral as I was able and praying whatever was standing in front of me didn’t notice I’d caught on. My entire body was instantaneously covered in chills, in a way that I understood to have the same purpose as a dog’s hackles rising. “Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll take the front.”
I headed in the opposite direction of the thing wearing Wiley’s face (at a pace that I hoped didn’t appear hurried but one that would remove me in a timely manner from the vicinity) and didn’t stop until I’d reached the front of the ship, breathing heavily and attempting to slow my reeling mind.
I didn’t know what to tackle first. I didn’t know where Wiley was, or if they were anywhere—if they were even still alive. I didn’t know what my next move should be. I didn’t know what I was looking for or where I might find it.
It’s rare that I feel utterly hopeless, to the degree that I genuinely contemplate just sitting down and giving up, but in this instance, I thought long and hard about how easy it would be to succumb. I’d let the unthinkable happen. Wiley was gone. No one else had been here with them—there was no one else to blame. Just me. Only me.
…You’ll be glad to know that the self-pity didn’t last long. Embarrassing, honestly.
If I was the only one here, it meant I was the only shot they had at making it out alive. Our version of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ had always been ‘alive until proven dead’ and I wasn’t about to turn my back on the insane streak of luck we’d had up until this point. Not a single one of our lives had been lost, and we’d been in the midst of some absolute shitstorms. There was no reason to believe that right now, tonight, was an outlier. I couldn’t lie down like a sick dog and wonder if Wiley was still out there somewhere, suffering until the bitter, bloody end. I had to find them. By whatever means necessary, as long as it took, I had to find them.
I pushed off the railing before me and spun on my heel, eyes flitting back and forth to assess my options as efficiently as possible, and after a moment, I registered that fitted flush against the large front mast, there was a door.
It was only a sliver, thin and not particularly extraordinary in height, but there was a handle carved roughly into its right side and a set of rust-riddled hinges on its left.
I took about half a second to weigh my options and then reached for it, curling my fingers around the handle and giving it a generous tug.
The hinges, unsurprisingly, complained, but not loudly and not for long. The door gave way with little resistance, and opened up to my worst fucking nightmare.
A set of stairs, descending into blackness.
I mean, I guess if I’m being fair, my first pool encounter had featured a staircase leading to the pool rather than away from it, but I didn’t feel like there could possibly be good news awaiting me below deck of a ship where I’d just encountered a fucking mimic.
Still, though, there was a niggling insistence in my brain (not that kind, come on) that it was my only lead on finding Wiley if they were, in fact, somewhere on board. So I cast one last glance over my shoulder and stepped into the dark, letting the door fall closed behind me.
It smelled different, instantly, from the open air above. Mustier, which was to be expected, but also almost sweet somehow. I tried, unsuccessfully, to shove my true-crime-podcast-addled brain’s helpful reminder that the scent of human death is said to be sweet into a mental lockbox and put my hand to the wall, easing tentatively down to the second step.
The visibility wasn’t just low—it was practically zero. If you’ve ever been on a cave tour and had a guide cut the lights and instruct you to lift your hand to your face to demonstrate the complete absence of light, it was nearly that intense. The placing of both feet on each concurrent stair was an arduous, calculated process, but finally, after approximately one (1) century, I reached flat ground. I still couldn’t see, and there was no definitive way to tell whether I was standing on the floor or just a landing without thoroughly feeling out the space around me, so I reluctantly departed from the wall, scooting my feet in small, tentative motions and keeping both arms partially outstretched before me.
After a (l o n g) moment, I determined that either this was the world’s largest landing or I’d made it all the way down. I had no idea whether I was in a singular, enormous room, or if there were individual cabins, or if I was about to run face-first into the grim fucking reaper.
And then I turned to my left.
There was a light.
It was so, so faint. Flickering. Barely discernible, its warm, gentle glow ever so shyly illuminating the cracks around what appeared to be another closed door.
Being the only visible thing in my line of sight, in any direction, it emitted the aura of both a beacon and an omen.
I headed towards it.
I was about half afraid I was stuck in a horror movie situation where no matter how long I walked it would never grow any closer, but fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case. I actually gained on it more quickly than I felt I should have for the speed I was moving, but I wasn’t going to complain about reaching the end of the nothingness in commendable time.
I ran my fingertips along the edge of the door and, sure enough, there was a carved-in handle, just like the last.
It opened just as effortlessly, and yellow candlelight rolled dimly out to greet me, lapping at my waterlogged clothes.
“Please,” came a quiet, terrified voice from inside the room. “Please don’t. I don’t know what you want, or–or what you are, but please don’t—”
“...Wiley?”
Rather than calming, the voice’s state of alarm rose to a level bordering on full-blown panic as I took a step into the space. “Please,” the voice begged. There wasn’t anyone visible from my current vantage point, but I could hear it clearly enough to feel fairly confident that the person attached to it—the person who either had to be Wiley or yet another duplicate of them—was close. “Why are you doing this?”
This was a cabin, I thought, or perhaps a study of some sort, with a rotting wooden desk and a decaying leather chair both covered in a flurry of loose, browned book pages and a thick layer of dust. There were candles littering several surfaces, placed in what appeared not to be any intentional manner. Directly to my right, there was a shelf; its back faced me and the odd placement led me to imagine that it may have been employed to block the door at some time.
It was also, I would have just about bet, the source of the voice.
I nudged a couple of planks and a broken amber bottle out of the way with the toe of my shoe, rounding the shelf to find a crumpled, bloodied Wiley, restrained to the floor by a thick, coarse rope fixed expertly to a bolted tie and holding their bound hands up to shield their face.
“Jesus fuck,” I said. “What happened to you?”
Slowly, they lifted their head. “...Adam?”
Realization dawned on me, and I felt my stomach sink. “Look at me,” I told them. “Look at my eyes.”
They did, their own bloodshot and watery and inherently human, and I watched their shoulders deflate, the defense and terror draining from their form. “There’s someone…something…down here. Or, I guess it still is, anyway. I don’t know where it went, but I don’t wanna be here when it comes back.”
I nodded. “It look like me?”
Wiley nodded back.
“Yeah, there’s one of you upstairs. Not real sure what we’re supposed to do about them, but one thing at a time. Let’s get you up from there.”
It was a struggle, disentangling Wiley from the heavy, abrasive leads coccooning their body, but we got there eventually, and throughout the entirety of the arduous process they gave me the rundown on how, when we’d parted from the solace of the platform, something had instantaneously latched onto them, dragging them down deeper and deeper until their ears popped and their head felt like it was going to explode. They said they’d been knocked out by the pressure, and that when they’d come to, already tied in place and coughing up lungfuls of water, “I” had been standing over them, wielding a large net hook and no mercy.
“I knew it wasn’t you, obviously,” they said, “but I didn’t know where you actually were or if something had, like. Hijacked your body? I don’t know. Anyway, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We grabbed a couple of candles (the majority had simply been melted into place atop whatever surface they’d adorned, but there was a small collection fitted into slightly-too-small brass holders) and got the fuck out.
Being able to see so little in the space around us was almost more disorienting than the pitch darkness I’d been feeling my way through before. It felt as though we were in a fragile, wavering bubble of reality and nothing existed outside of it.
“Wish I’d been awake coming down here,” Wiley remarked. “Guess I still wouldn’t have seen shit, though.”
“I could…maybe get us back upstairs?” I considered, with little to no confidence. “But I don’t really know what good it would do us. Nowhere to go. Maybe we just…look around down here for a bit? See if we can find anything useful?”
“Yeah, okay,” Wiley assented. “But we’ve gotta be quiet. I don’t want that thing to hear us.”
I certainly couldn’t argue with that.
We wandered hesitantly through the dark, shielding the flames of our candles with cupped palms and praying we wouldn’t misstep. We made it some unsubstantiated quantity of time without incident, but softly, after seconds or minutes or hours, we heard a light rustling from the shadow veiled corridor to our right, and Wiley pulled me into the nearest open room in the opposite direction.
Flattening our backs to the wall, we listened intently as footsteps echoed faintly behind us, cyclically growing closer and then further away again for several moments before disappearing altogether.
I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and uncovered my candle, easing the door of the room to a gentle, silent close. The contents of this one were different from that of the last in that there practically weren’t any. It wasn’t just that it was tidier; there was a chest shoved against the wall nearest us and a leatherbound book of some sort lying in the center of the floor, but otherwise the space was vacant.
Wiley moved first, crouching next to the journal and lifting it from the ground, a cloud of dust rising in the wake of their breath. I knelt down beside them, offering my candlelight so they could discard theirs and open the cover.
Beneath which there was a box.
It was a plain, unadorned wooden rectangle, nestled into the carved-out central pages of the book, and we learned upon extracting it that there was no lock or latch, just a seam indicating the lid’s separation from the body.
I don’t need to spell the whole situation out for you. There was a key in the box. The key opened, you guessed it: the chest. Inside the chest, there were piles of gold and jewels beyond your wildest imagination. We’re rich now. The end.
Nah, JK. But the key in the box did open the chest, in which there was, A) a pair of peeling, pleather driving gloves, and B)...
I felt my heart skip.
A bicycle chain.
I’m not going to get into the nuances of that right now, or maybe ever. But for the purposes of dramatic flair, just know that it was incredibly, pointedly relevant to me, on a level so personal it sucker punched the air straight out of my lungs.
“No,” Wiley said, staggering back a step. “Uh-uh. Nope.”
I put together, then, that the gloves must have been their ticket item. “It’s okay,” I said, on autopilot, because it was not. “There’s something—something’s carved into the bottom of this thing.” Pushing past the reaction every fiber of my being had to the sensation of the frigid metal against my skin, I shoved both the chain and the gloves to the side and could scarcely make out a host of crudely scrawled letters in the wavering light of my half-gone candle.
“What is it?” Wiley asked, making no move to come nearer again.
“Though your…hand…? Heart. Though your heart does pound and knees grow…weak,” I deciphered slowly, “Rid yourself by your… That doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t it be of? It says ‘rid yourself by *your fear’ and…*something. Drain the…clin… No. Drink. Drain the drink.”
“Rid yourself by your fear and drain the drink,” Wiley repeated analytically. “The hell does that mean? Is this shit telling us to kill ourselves with the—oh. Oh. Fuck.”
I was not following. “...I’m not following,” I said.
“It is.” Wiley returned to my side, squatting down and nudging me out of the way with their shoulder to peer warily into the trunk. “It’s telling us to kill ourselves, but not these selves. We’re supposed to use…*those…*to kill our fuckin’ doppelgangers, or whatever they are. That’s how we get rid of the water.”
“Oh,” I echoed. “Fuck.”
We marinated for a moment in silence before Wiley sighed, resigned, and lifted the gloves from the chest, closing their eyes and pulling the fabric snugly over their hands. “Let’s get to work.”

I swayed slightly on the spot. The kitchen I was standing in was small and a bit cramped. The plastic folding table in the middle of the room was strewn with red plastic drink cups. The off-white counters spanning around the edge of the kitchen were scattered with glass bottles of alcohol. The stifling air smelled strongly of vodka and sweat. I laughed halfheartedly at a joke told to me by a short curly haired guy I didn’t recognize. I glanced around the room trying to find a place to sit, I felt dizzy and hot. Many people were lined against the counters, some slumped on the brown tile floor clearly out of it. I spotted an open spot of tile in between two brown plastic trash cans. I lay down on my spot of floor. The tile was cold and felt soothing on my skin. I curled up like a cat on the ground to avoid being stepped on. I don’t like this, I thought to myself. Why do I keep doing this to myself? I knew the answer of course. I like the eventual bliss that comes with copious amounts of alcohol. The bliss that drives away all emotion and thought.

I’m currently combo feeding due to supply and latch issues (s/p tongue tie revision). We’ve tried to find bottles that mimic breastfeeding like Philips AVENT Natural (too slow - baby would instantly fall asleep despite increasing nipple size), Evenflo (baby hated it probably because he has a small mouth), and Lansinoh (even the slowest flow is too fast for him because he gulps and occasionally chokes on the breast milk flowing through).
We gave Dr. Brown’s narrow another go and he did much better - no leakage from his mouth and did not take long to finish his feed. We also just ordered the wide neck since the lactation consultant made it seem like wide was the better option to mimic the breast, but I’ve read a narrow neck is better at mimicking breastfeeding. We just tried Dr. Brown’s wide neck and he tolerated it very well, so just wondering what’s better with combo feeding?
Thanks in advance!

I’m currently combo feeding due to supply and latch issues (s/p tongue tie revision). We’ve tried to find bottles that mimic breastfeeding like Philips AVENT Natural (too slow - baby would instantly fall asleep despite increasing nipple size), Evenflo (baby hated it probably because he has a small mouth), and Lansinoh (even the slowest flow is too fast for him because he gulps and occasionally chokes on the breast milk flowing through).
We gave Dr. Brown’s narrow another go and he did much better - no leakage from his mouth and did not take long to finish his feed. We also just ordered the wide neck since the lactation consultant made it seem like wide was the better option to mimic the breast, but I’ve read a narrow neck is better at mimicking breastfeeding. We just tried Dr. Brown’s wide neck and he tolerated it very well, so just wondering what’s better with combo feeding?
Thanks in advance!

Hello all I’m wondering as I don’t have a lot of new moms to poll locally- does anyone else hear clicking constantly when your baby feeds either on the bottle or at the breast?
Additional context: We have a 13 week old and have had a lot of reflux and gas as well as issues pooping - takes half the day to do the deed. I’ve been breastfeeding and bottle breastfeeding (for her to prepare for me to go back to work next month). We have a lip tie /tongue tie situation and our pediatrician deeemed it mild but we have a lot of clicking and she seems to be doing a lot of work to eat and we would like to avoid a cut as they don’t always stick.
Additionally, I wanted to ask what bottles have worked for those who have this issue and don’t seek to cut? We’re going to have to bottle feed most of the time for the day soon and we’ve tried dr. Browns, lansinoh, advent and nanobebe and are using lansinoh the most but there’s still a lot of clicking.
Any and all advice welcome with kindness!!

I (52F) went to A&E back in late February because I waws having trouble drawing a full breath. Thinking I was going to be Rx'd some inhalers and perhaps referred to the respirology (I've been having problems for years but have never formally been diagnosed with asthma), you can imagine my shock when I was advised that I was being admitted because they were unhappy with some cardiac blood work results (they're working through those as I type).
Anyway, I'm on a waiting list to be seen by the Respiratory service (appointment is in mid July) but I've been given access to the radiology report(s) from all of the film they took on the day of my visit to A&E (X ray/CT scan etc).

A HOSPITAL NEAR YOU Patient Name: SomeWomanFromCanada MIS Number: 8186935918824 Hospital Number: 295375063 10118287 22/02/2024 CT Angiogram pulmonary Clinical Question:SOB intermittent worse this today, raised d-dimer and troponin?PE Findings: No previous imaging available for comparison. Adequate opacification of the pulmonary artery trunk (350HU). No pulmonary embolism from the pulmonary artery trunk to the subsegmental levels. There is reflux of contrast into the hepatic veins, no other radiological evidence of right heart strain. There is patchy atelectasis and parenchymal infiltrate in both lower lobes. There are small granulomas noted in the right upper, lower lobe and the left upper lobe and scattered tiny sub 2mm nodules in the right middle and lower lobes. No pleural effusion or focal consolidation. No endobronchial lesions. No thoracic lymphadenopathy. Unremarkable appearance of the imaged upper abdominal viscera. No destructive osseous lesions. Conclusion: No pulmonary embolism. Non specific patchy atelectasis and parencymal infiltrate as desribed. Dr Cassian Andor Consultant Radiologist GMC 2266977 This report is generated for the referring clinician. Should patients have queries regarding the report, these should be discussed with the referring clinical team. Reported by: Dr Orson KRENNICK

Can anyone please tell me what to make of this report?
I''m most interested in the references to _patchy atelectasis_ and _parencymal infiltrate_
From my limited medical knowledge, there's something going on in my lungs but it's not cancerous or anything icky like that nor is it cardiac in nature or a blood clot.
FWIW, I am prone to getting bronchitis every time I get a head cold (regardless of how mild the cold is); in the winter, cold air triggers repeated episodes of bronchitis (when I lived in Canada, I carried a bottle of Buckleys Mixture and an oral syringe in my purse all winter every winter because it was the only thing that would come close to helping the cough).
I've also recently been prescribed a 'blue' salbutamol (rescue) inhaler and a Clenil Modulite 100mcg (beclamethasone) 'brown' (reliever) inhaler by my GP (while I wait for my appointment with the respiratory service) ... I've felt better since I've started using them (I had a lung function test this morning and haven't had the Clenil Modulite since Monday night and am feeling a little congested in my chest.
Anyway, I am new to all of this and I thank you all for a) reading this far and b) offering your collective wisdom as I try to figure out WTF is going on.

A little plot convinient coincidence never hurt anyone.
First
You know the drill: credit to SpacePaladin15 for the universe.
Thank you JulianSkies for proofreading.
Memory Transcription Subject: Gillab, Gojid Citizen, Husband and Father
Date [Standardized Human Time]: March 27, 2142
It was early in the morning, birds were chirping, and the air was still chilled from the night. It was a comfortable morning, especially considering what had happened yesterday. I could still feel the leftovers of a hangover in the back of my head, but it was more than manageable for me. A small headache like that wouldn’t stop me from visiting the memorial.
I still had a ways to walk before I got there, but I didn’t mind. It just let me take in the beauty of the new New York City that had been built. Even if I wasn’t a Human, I felt a sense of pride at the sight of the glistening towers and the clean streets. Despite only playing a minor role in the clean-up and reconstruction, it was certainly enough for me to feel that I had contributed enough to take pride in it.
I still cannot believe I ever even thought of hating Humans, the fact that I did still disgust me to this day. I wasn’t alone in that mindset either, billions of former soldiers, exterminators, or Human-phobes had woken up to the reality, with tens of thousands of them moving to Earth and trying to repay the Humans what they had taken. Many of them still struggled with coming to terms with their past.
It was because of them that I could become a husband to the most beautiful Gojid in the universe and father to the most rambunctious one. Without their help on the Cradle, I would have died long ago and never have been able to even see the love of my life. They inspired me to become more than just a father and husband, I was going to become just like them.
In my free time, I often worked for charities, volunteered for clean-ups, and tried my hand as a substitute teacher. Even if I wasn’t the best at it, I still enjoyed doing them. It let me feel like I was making a difference in the world, continuing the legacy that the Humans had set up. I would save as many people as I could, just like the person who saved me.
I had lost track of Billy ever since the Cradle, and the one time I had heard about him was from Naeriu telling me how Billy ended up surviving in a cabin in Alaska. It wasn’t like I didn’t try to find him, but it was a big universe, and finding one soldier seemingly determined not to be found made it frustratingly difficult.
After six years of on-and-off searching, I had finally given up on him. I had searched for his name several times on every memorial I could find, desperately hoping to find some sort of closure on his life, but in the end I was left clueless as to the fate of the man who did so much for me.
I sighed the thoughts out of my head, not wanting to have such a negative mindset when I was trying to visit some friends.
I passed under the familiar arch, taking a deep breath of the salty air as I did. After the bombs fell, the crater left behind quickly flooded with ocean water. The near-perfect bowl had become a new habitat for all manner of sea life, a symbol of how even the worst tragedy could be overcome. Surrounding the crater was a ring of stone walls, divided into sections corresponding to when and where a soldier was killed or went missing.
I navigated the massive monument with familiarity, having visited it many times before. I’ve always preferred to visit the day after the holiday, it was always almost empty as people had their fill the day before. Every year or so someone would have a similar idea to me, but it never drew from the experience.
And speaking of, a single man was standing in the exact spot I preferred to stand in. In one of his hands was a bag with the top of a bottle poking out and his other was clenched into a tight fist, his eyes were clenched tightly, his face was strained in pain and profound sadness. You didn’t need to be a detective to know that this man was hurting, whether for lost brethren in arms, lost biological brethren, or simply overwhelming sadness from the loss of life, this man was hurting.
I considered leaving the disheveled man to his devices, but some deep part of my mind told me to talk to him. He didn’t turn to face me as I got closer, he didn’t even open his eyes. It was as if nothing outside of his mind was real to him and it could all be ignored.
“Excuse me? Sir? Are you visiting someone you know?”
He still ignored me, but he loosened the death grip he had on his fist.
“It’s fine if you don’t tell me, but I find that it helps to talk about your feelings with someone else. Even if that someone else is an alien.”
Slowly the man opened his eyes and sluggishly turned to face me. Still, he refused to speak.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to speak, I can stay quiet. But if you won’t stop me, I’d like to speak at you. You don’t have to respond, sometimes it’s better to just listen anyway.”
To my surprise, the man actually spoke. His voice was rough and sad, matching the image in front of me. “Why are you here?”
I smiled and turned to face the wall of names. “I’m visiting some old friends, people who saved my life.”
I pointed a claw at the names. “Owen Oak and James Kle are the ones that I know here, but I know more at other points along the wall. Who did you know?”
The man was silent for a moment. “The same people.”
“Really? How did you know them?”
“I was a soldier. I worked with them.”
I started to nod when a thought flashed through my mind. If he knew the soldiers who worked with Billy, maybe he knew Billy himself. It didn’t seem like a stretch in my eyes, they were all part of the same squad after all.
So, despite having given up on actively searching for Billy, I decided to ask the question. “If you don’t mind me asking, do you maybe know a soldier named Billy Marsh?”
“That’s me.”
I blinked. “W-what?”
“I’m Billy Marsh.”
I stepped back and looked the man up and down. As I did, he finally looked me in the eyes. Once I saw his eyes, the color and shape, I knew with all my heart that this man was Billy Marsh. Even with the scraggly hair, patchy beard, dirty clothes, and brown-bagged drink in hand, there was no mistaking the eyes of the man who saved my life.
“Holy shit… It really is you.”
Billy took a deep drink of his liquor, barely flinching from what I could now see was Venlilian alcohol. He must have been drinking it frequently to be so used to the burning, and judging from his appearance that was no stretch.
“Yeah, it’s me. Billy Marsh, Human trash and parasite to the world.”
My mind tumbled at the words, causing me to stutter and hold out a claw in surprise. “N-now wait a second. You are anything but Human trash or a parasite. You’re a hero Billy, I know for a fact. You saved my life!”
“I’m no hero. I’ve killed so many others. It would have been better off if I never joined the military, maybe more lives could have been saved. Maybe Owen’s life could have been saved.”
He took another gulp of his drink as I spoke. “Now hold on, you saved plenty of-”
Alcohol spilled onto his shirt as he yelled. “I didn’t save anyone! Someone else could have saved so many more lives than I could! At the end of it all, when all was said and done, I was an idealistic fool and a failure and a horrible person. I’ve ended up killing more people than I’ve saved, and I’ve ruined so many lives.”
I took a stand. “Now that’s blatantly not true. Who’s telling you this? Billy, you are one of the kindest, most caring people I have ever met.”
“Was. I was one of the kindest and most caring. And you want to know why? It was because I hadn’t been woken up to just how terrible the universe really was. I mean, what could one young, dumb soldier do in the grand scheme, right? If I really wanted to help, I should have become a doctor or a fucking politician, right? But I chose to be a soldier, a useless fucking pawn that wasn’t even good at its job.”
He took another drink as I stood stunned at who Billy had become. I never could have expected the valiant, patient, caring soldier to become so volatile and angry. I had to help him. I don’t care if I have to miss a few classes, I’m rescuing this man from himself.
“Billy, can I visit sometime soon?”
He spilled a little alcohol as he pulled the bottle away quickly. “Fuck no. I don’t need to ruin your life too. Stay the hell away from me, I’m like a fucking bomb. You are just going to get hurt, it’s a miracle you didn’t the first time.”
“Well if you’re a bomb, then I’m going to disarm you. I don’t know how long you have been like this, but I’m going to heal you.”
He pointed a finger at my chest. “Then I’m just going to fight back. I’m not letting you anywhere near me.”
I pointed right back. “You don’t get to make that decision. It’s my life, and I am choosing to help you.”
“You are going to regret it. I say that with one hundred percent absolute certainty.”
“We won't know until we try.”
Billy took a step back, placed a hand on his head and growled. “You know what? Fine. Try your luck. It’s your life, right? But when you see just how helpless you are to help me, don’t expect to get your wasted time back. I don’t know what you think you can do, but give it a try! It’s still early in the morning, so why don’t we head on back to my place so you can work whatever magic you think you have.”
Billy didn’t wait for a response and stormed off to the exit without another word. I watched him for a long moment before sighing deeply. I don’t know the exact details of what happened to him, but with what Naeriu told me and the names on the memorial I could piece together some vague details. It sounded like Billy had gone through hell, and now he thinks he deserves it.
I clenched my claw in determination before jogging to catch up to Billy. I had some calls to make on the way over to his house knowing just how much work I was going to have to do to help the man who saved me.

I was passing through Trafalgar Square after lunch with a work colleague and as it was super sunny I decided to sit down on those long concrete benches around the fountain for a few mins before heading home.
I sat the very end of the bench, about 5 spaces away from a middle aged Eastern European woman and her friend or older daughter. The older woman just stared at me as I approached the bench so I smiled. As I sat down, she pulled her handbag into her lap and then just kept looking over to stare at me to watch my every move which felt pretty uncomfortable as I didn’t know what to do.
I was right near the bin where people were dashing their half closed bottles, so I scooted over an inch to get out of the spray zone and this lady immediately clutched her handbag, marched off and stood by the fountain yelling at her friend to come with her.
Part of me wanted to say something along the lines of “I’m not going to steal a middle aged woman’s handbag” to get her eyes to go back into her head but I just presumed they wouldn’t understand and it would probably give her a cardiac arrest the way she was staring at me.
For context, I am an Asian man and although it shouldn’t matter what you wear I’m the type of hipster dude to roll around in Birkenstock sandals and had a giant yellow selfridge shopping bag with me and my smart looking office bacpack. Like, come on. Did she expect this brown person to grab her handbag and attempt to slowly run through Trafalgar Square with my sandals audibly slapping the floor while my work laptop laden backpack repeatedly smacks me in the back of my head and my giant bright yellow selfridges bag flails about in the wind like a tracking beacon?
Anyways, I wanted to see if anyone had any advice on what to say to people in situations like this. I’m hoping if they’re embarrassed they’ll be a bit reluctant to act like this in the future.
Edit: yes, I do appreciate that some people might react to anyone like this but for some additional context white Brits were sat right next to her on her other side and she was more alarmed by the brown Brit who sat as physically far as away as he could from her.

I have neem and 70% alc in a bottle. how much should i dilute.
i found little spiderwebs, not like white but when I put my flashlight on it i could see. I saw a little small brown long bug walking on a leaf. i saw a bunch of little pill shaped bugs, they didnt completely look like mealies since they arent all white but they are like a SUPER light brown. what should i dooo i paid so much and its my dream plant. also how do i even prevent these pests?? i havent gotten any new plants in a while and this is my second plant getting pests

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• Alien Disintegrator Automatic Receiver
• Alien Disintegrator High Powered Receiver
• Alien Disintegrator Poison Receiver (x3)
• Alien Head Lamp (x2)
• Alien Target Practice Poster (x2)
• Alien Tube
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• Human Tube 1 (x2)
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• Honeycomb Paper Green Mothman
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• Mirror Ball - Blue
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• Mirror Ball - Pink
• Suitcase - Black
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