Aneurysm sweating
Help please small aneurysm
2024.05.03 19:15 LonelyPersephone Help please small aneurysm
Female, 5’5”, 116 age 53.
Was taken by ambulance Wednesday due to thunderclap headache with severe vomiting, slurred speech and weakness. Pain was nearly unbearable.
I was told after labs and ct scans it was a migraine. No spinal tap was done in the 6 hour wait between first ct w no contrast and second with. Sent home.
Not better. Head still hurting and nothing like any of the various migraines I get. Very sick. Now diarrhea and almost no urine.
What has me concerned besides no urine is that I just got my results in my chart. I understand protocol for aneurysm is over 3mm is surgery but in the meantime I just hope it doesn’t get larger? I showed the following: Small 3 mm medially projecting aneurysm arising from the paraclinoid segment of the right internal carotid artery.
They told me there was NO aneurysm at all. They also didn’t tell me my thyroid has a 2.5cm place on it, my blood wbc is 14.1 and my platelets are 452. MPV 8.8 everything else is normal. I wouldn’t know I need to have my thyroid checked if I hadn’t checked my chart. I understand I am not there for a check up for everything but it could have been mentioned on my discharge papers. Not everyone looks at test results after they leave.
My dr is not in the office today. My head still hurts. Still very nauseous, clammy sweats, off and on palpitations and diarrhea if I drink at all.
Edit to add: I have a history of tia
submitted by LonelyPersephone to AskDocs [link] [comments]
Was taken by ambulance Wednesday due to thunderclap headache with severe vomiting, slurred speech and weakness. Pain was nearly unbearable.
I was told after labs and ct scans it was a migraine. No spinal tap was done in the 6 hour wait between first ct w no contrast and second with. Sent home.
Not better. Head still hurting and nothing like any of the various migraines I get. Very sick. Now diarrhea and almost no urine.
What has me concerned besides no urine is that I just got my results in my chart. I understand protocol for aneurysm is over 3mm is surgery but in the meantime I just hope it doesn’t get larger? I showed the following: Small 3 mm medially projecting aneurysm arising from the paraclinoid segment of the right internal carotid artery.
They told me there was NO aneurysm at all. They also didn’t tell me my thyroid has a 2.5cm place on it, my blood wbc is 14.1 and my platelets are 452. MPV 8.8 everything else is normal. I wouldn’t know I need to have my thyroid checked if I hadn’t checked my chart. I understand I am not there for a check up for everything but it could have been mentioned on my discharge papers. Not everyone looks at test results after they leave.
My dr is not in the office today. My head still hurts. Still very nauseous, clammy sweats, off and on palpitations and diarrhea if I drink at all.
Edit to add: I have a history of tia
2024.04.28 17:12 DramaticWall2219 Just got a referral to rheumatologist and I am doubtful...
Hello everyone,
First time writing at this sub. I will try to keep this brief and please let me know if anything is not allowed here. I am in the midst of being examined for myasthenia gravis. My current diagnoses include h-EDS, IST (& suspected POTS), (suspected) endometriosis, sebo/sebopsoriasis, osteoarthritis, bulging discs, and recurring SIBO. The neuro who suspects myasthenia gravis ran 11 vials worth of blood tests to rule out or in other conditions that may cause muscle weakness. I also had an MRI to rule out MS, stroke, aneurysm, etc. The only things that have returned noteworthy are:
Complement c4: 9 (15-57)
and
ANA: 1:40 Nuclear, Homogenous
I also have had high MPV for years which doctors say is fine and low IgA which doctors also say is fine even though when I get sick, I get really terribly ill for way longer than I should. I've always been a sickly person. The neuro said in any other circumstance the ANA would be irrelevant, but given the low complement he feels it may be significant. Complement c3 was on the very low end of normal as was creatine kinase (31; 29-143).
The tests included those for inflammation, lupus, ra, sjogrens, polymyositis, lyme, and more. All normal.
He has referred me to a rheumatologist to look into this further and I suppose I am very wary of going down this road. I've been referred to them several times in the past and it seems they are quite limited in their scope. While this is the first time anything in my blood work has actually shown autoimmune activity, I am doubtful they will even entertain pursuing my case.
My providers all believe I have autoimmune activity and neuromuscular dysfunction, but would a rheumatologist really be able to do anything if I don't have any antibodies or signs of connective tissue inflammation?
My symptoms include: brain fog, sleepiness, fatigue, poor memory, muscle weakness, ptosis, strange bouts of deep seated muscle pain beneath large muscle groups, various types of headaches and migraines, photosensitivity, dizziness, tinnitus, double vision, eye pain, poor balance, poor temp control/flu like shivers, night sweats. I flare once every 4-6 weeks.
I do not have joint pain, swelling, or redness. I do have rashes which are treated sufficiently by antihistamines. I do experience extreme flushing that comes and goes but has no distinct border or pattern.
I have been on 6 mg low dose naltrexone for over a year and and 600 mg gabapentin for even longer. I sometimes wonder if this is masking other symptoms. I am also keeping an eye on TSH levels as they have and continue to decrease over the years (last test was .8; .45-4.5). No one has tested for thyroid antibodies.
I guess my question is, what can I do to make this appointment productive and fruitful since it does not seem like I am a typical rheum patient? Are there any other tests that are warranted or conditions to be considered? While I wouldn't necessarily consider myself to be in pain day to day, my symptoms are incredibly limiting and I do not have the ability to take care of basic necessities.
submitted by DramaticWall2219 to Autoimmune [link] [comments]
First time writing at this sub. I will try to keep this brief and please let me know if anything is not allowed here. I am in the midst of being examined for myasthenia gravis. My current diagnoses include h-EDS, IST (& suspected POTS), (suspected) endometriosis, sebo/sebopsoriasis, osteoarthritis, bulging discs, and recurring SIBO. The neuro who suspects myasthenia gravis ran 11 vials worth of blood tests to rule out or in other conditions that may cause muscle weakness. I also had an MRI to rule out MS, stroke, aneurysm, etc. The only things that have returned noteworthy are:
Complement c4: 9 (15-57)
and
ANA: 1:40 Nuclear, Homogenous
I also have had high MPV for years which doctors say is fine and low IgA which doctors also say is fine even though when I get sick, I get really terribly ill for way longer than I should. I've always been a sickly person. The neuro said in any other circumstance the ANA would be irrelevant, but given the low complement he feels it may be significant. Complement c3 was on the very low end of normal as was creatine kinase (31; 29-143).
The tests included those for inflammation, lupus, ra, sjogrens, polymyositis, lyme, and more. All normal.
He has referred me to a rheumatologist to look into this further and I suppose I am very wary of going down this road. I've been referred to them several times in the past and it seems they are quite limited in their scope. While this is the first time anything in my blood work has actually shown autoimmune activity, I am doubtful they will even entertain pursuing my case.
My providers all believe I have autoimmune activity and neuromuscular dysfunction, but would a rheumatologist really be able to do anything if I don't have any antibodies or signs of connective tissue inflammation?
My symptoms include: brain fog, sleepiness, fatigue, poor memory, muscle weakness, ptosis, strange bouts of deep seated muscle pain beneath large muscle groups, various types of headaches and migraines, photosensitivity, dizziness, tinnitus, double vision, eye pain, poor balance, poor temp control/flu like shivers, night sweats. I flare once every 4-6 weeks.
I do not have joint pain, swelling, or redness. I do have rashes which are treated sufficiently by antihistamines. I do experience extreme flushing that comes and goes but has no distinct border or pattern.
I have been on 6 mg low dose naltrexone for over a year and and 600 mg gabapentin for even longer. I sometimes wonder if this is masking other symptoms. I am also keeping an eye on TSH levels as they have and continue to decrease over the years (last test was .8; .45-4.5). No one has tested for thyroid antibodies.
I guess my question is, what can I do to make this appointment productive and fruitful since it does not seem like I am a typical rheum patient? Are there any other tests that are warranted or conditions to be considered? While I wouldn't necessarily consider myself to be in pain day to day, my symptoms are incredibly limiting and I do not have the ability to take care of basic necessities.
2024.04.27 05:27 hipops At a genuine loss, please help
(I originally posted this a few minutes ago on medical_advice; check my post history if you want to read comments; the words are the same)
Hi, first I'm just gonna get some of this out of the way (at the very bottom is a comprehensive list of all symptoms, medications/anything I've taken for it, diets, holistic approaches, family history, and tests/labs I have had done as well as a final sort of conclusion and sidenotes. I will also include the nearest approximation for the dates that I can remember, please bear with me):
Age: 20, Male, 140lbs, White, USA, Nothing Diagnosed, No current meds/doses, drug use is edibles for chronic pain management, non-smoker, started March 2023.
(I have had bloodwork done multiple times, with no significance, though if you think it might be helpful to know something, please ask as I have so much and it would take a while to list it all out)
This is probably going to be a long one, but there is so much that I need to preface this with. Last year, I was 19 years old, healthy, agile, and slightly athletic, but then around March of last year, I began to get hit by upper abdominal discomfort. I saw a gastroenterologist, and was told it was most likely Celiac (from the second that I stepped foot in his office and told him I was in pain), so I did bloodwork which ruled it in, and had then an endoscopy that came back inconclusive and was just told to try a gluten free diet for a few months (and that if it didn't help, then I could go back to a normal diet). Since then, I have been prescribed so many different medications to try and I myself have tried so many OTC and holistic approaches as well. Around July 2023, the pain had gotten so bad that I was basically doing nothing and already stopped working my part-time job because of it.
August 1st, 2023 I went to the ER for the first time, and was just given an IV with some fluids and nausea medication, which did not make any change at all. I also had an ultrasound there that came back entirely fine and in the clear. Since then, the pain has increased tenfold, and is all in my upper abdomen, and it feels like it is directly near where my gallbladder is. They also did an ultrasound, but nothing came from it.
For added context, not a single medication, vitamin, holistic approach, anything that I have ever done or taken has helped the pain except edibles. The edibles don't take away the pain, but they make it easier to tolerate and somewhat ignore, which is more than literally anything.
Since then, I have gone back to college for my sophomore year, and I've literally just been toughing this out while waiting for doctors appointments, all of which led nowhere. I then was scheduled for a HIDA scan in November, which came back with my gallbladder's ejection fracture being around 86%. After drinking an Ensure Plus drink from them during the HIDA scan, I was practically doubled over in pain, even more so than I am currently, and was basically curled up in a ball in my Dad's car. I was told by the doctor that it was one of the best functioning gallbladder's they'd ever seen, and that it was definitely not the issue (though I was hesitant because of doing my own research about biliary hyperkinesia).
I also began speaking to a nutritionist near the beginning of the year, as I was told that it could be something with my diet or such. I'd say that my diet was okay, not great, but I've improved it since then, whilst my symptoms have worsened. She wanted to immediately get me tested for SIBO, which I did and ensured that I followed all prep instructions and test instructions perfectly. It came back negative, which she was surprised at, and then began throwing some things at the wall to see what would stick. I ditched her because she was really dead-set on SIBO
Around the beginning of 2024, I went to see a new gastroenterologist for a second opinion. She believed that I was constipated (which I was), so I was told to take some Miralax and modify my diet to increase my fiber intake, which I did, and have been doing fine since then. For reference as well, my urine is usually a clear yellowish color, which raised no alarms. After fixing the constipation and still being in the extreme pain, she ordered an ultrasound, which I went for in February 2024. It came back showing that I had a 4mm polyp, but it was deemed to be insignificant. She sent me for bloodwork, which came back fine. She wanted to do another endoscopy, in order to entirely rule out Celiac. I had the endoscopy, and it came back negative for Celiac, which was quite a relief and she noted that she did see an increase in acid reflux. After the endoscopy, I had zero pain for the next hour or two, probably because of the anesthesia still in my system.
I have seen her once more since the endoscopy so far, and she seems to be at quite a loss of what it could be. She told me to try holistic doctors, she recommended a consultation with a general surgeon, as well as a cardiologist, as one of my symptoms of having this pain is shortness of breath (which is widely noticeable, as walking more than a few feet leaves me practically panting.
Here I am now today, where I just got out of the ER for the second time after nearly seven hours. I went because the pain got so bad today, and last night, I had cold sweats, felt clammy, had chills. After this, I had realized that I was just pushing the cold sweats aside when I was not inside of my bedroom, and it has actually probably going on for the past few weeks. I currently do not have any clamminess or chills, but would not be surprised if I did when I went to bed tonight. For reference, I keep my room quite cold because it makes me sleep and feel so much better.
The ER then did some bloodwork, as well as took a urine sample. Both of which came back fine, and then I was sent to get an ultrasound there as well. Nothing showed, and I made sure to tell them multiple times before about the 4mm polyp, which was my main and literally only lead on what could be wrong with me, and was told that it was still the same size. The ultrasound tech also told me that a 4mm polyp would likely not cause any pain at all.
After the ultrasound in the ER, they sent me back to give me something in my IV to help with the pain. They gave me 1000mg of some pain medication (I missed the name, though I was told it was basically better Advil). I thought that they had missed something and not even hooked it up correctly, but there was ZERO change in the pain at all, and they then asked me if I wanted to do a CT scan, which I more than happily did. Absolutely nothing. Nothing alarming at all came from it, and from a medical standpoint, that is the absolute ideal outcome. To me, I so badly just want to find out what is wrong with me. I just got home tonight and popped two edibles just to deal the pain, but it's not a long term solution because firstly I don't want it to be, and secondly because I literally can't afford to sustain this for an extended period of time.
It does not matter if I eat or not in the day, as the pain will still be there no matter what, usually with eating making it slightly worsen for the rest of the day. Now that most of the medical stuff is out of the way (except the comprehensive list), I wanted to also slightly rant about how badly it is affecting me academically and socially.
I'm currently in college, as mentioned before, and I try to hang out with my friends as much as I can. I always try my best to be the most positive and upbeat person in the room, but honestly it's so fucking hard for me to stay composed at this point. I feel as if I'm reaching a physical breaking point because of how helpless and useless anything I try and do feels.
I have been so fucked over academically by this; I have already failed one class last semester because I missed so many classes and material that I bombed the final. I am currently re-taking that course, and am trying to do better in it, but it's so hard; I literally need to psych myself to do homework or even just sit in class. I currently am taking 4 courses, (one of which was the re-take) another of which, I am currently failing because I have missed so many classes, had so many flare-ups during exams and normal class time that I feel like my absolute hardest only gets a me a failing grade. My very first semester, I ended up with a pretty good GPA for myself, around 3.5 (but it was my first and probably easiest semester). My second semester, this pain did not affect me as much because it started to really ramp up after finals had already ended, though it was still a battle every day to do something. One of the most gut-wrenching and fucking destroying things to me is that I can't even get any accommodations from the college because I am not diagnosed with anything at all.
As soon as I hear back from my professors, as I missed both of my courses today because I was in the ER, I want to sit down with the two that are in the classes I'm struggling in (they are both writing intensive and math courses, and it takes such a big toll on me). I really want to talk person-to-person with them to just explain my situation and see if they would help me with any accommodations regarding the final exam. If they can't, I'm literally going to fail both of them, and lose thousands of dollars because of it. I've literally started considering putting higher education on hold because of this pain, though I've thought long and hard about it, and I don't think I could genuinely deal with the social consequences of literally being there alone without any of my friends (most of them are graduating quite soon).
The other scariest thing is I'm so fucking scared that I won't be able to work because of this pain; my bank account is currently starved, though my parents do support me an extremely large amount and I could never thank them enough for being my family.
Out of all of this, there was two single days. Two days that I had zero discomfort and zero pain at all, as if somebody just waved a magic wand around. These days were not back-to-back, and there has not been a good day in a long time. The first one was in early September, and the other was in early November. Both of which, I was so up to par that I hiked 8 miles each day; the next day in which, the pain had returned as if it had never left. Thank you for listening and reading if you made it this far, and I already thank you even if you don't leave a comment or have any advice. Thank you.
Here begin the lists...
List of all prescribed medications:
At one point, I was taking nearly all of these, and began to ween myself off of them into lower doses, eventually entirely cutting them out in Late August 2023, as I personally felt that I was overmedicated and it actually made my stomach feel so much worse (which it did).
Dicyclomine 10mg, 2 capsules every 6hrs as needed (Around May 31 2023 - Late August 2023)
Omeprazole 20mg, once daily (Around May 31 2023 - Mid. July 2023)
Upped to 40mg, once daily (Around Mid. July 2023 - Early August 2023)
Upped to twice daily (Early August 2023 - Late August 2023)
Sucralfate 1gm, before meals (Around Mid. July 2023 - Late August 2023)
Famotidine 40mg, at bed (Around Mid. July 2023 - Late August 2023)
The following are all 20mg, twice daily (afaik). Note that these were not taken concurrently, and only after I had stopped the other. These are prescribed by my second, and current GI doctor.
Pantoprazole (Around February 2024)
Esomeprazole (Around March 2024)
Lansoprazole (Around Late March 2024)
Amitriptyline, 10mg at bed (Around Late March 2024)
List of all OTC medications (I apologize, I do not have dates for these):
Miralax (GI Recommended it)
Pepcid (GI Recommended it)
Phazyme Ultimate Strength
Gas X
Mylanta
Ibuprofen
Alka-Seltzer
List of all diets/food restrictions I've tried/done (None of which made me feel any better):
Gluten Free (Approx. 4 months)
Low Fodmap diet (No approx. date)
No dairy (I rarely even have dairy; the most being on an occasional burger
No processed foods (Still ongoing; I can't even stomach more than a full meal anyways)
No/Lower sugary foods (Still ongoing; same reasoning as the no processed foods)
Low fat diet (Tried for two weeks; is quite difficult living on a college campus)
Short SIBO diet (2 days, Bland chicken breasts with rice) (Made me feel horrible)
List of all tests/labs I have had done:
Multiple different bloodwork labs (Across multiple dates between May 31 2023 and today) (Only ruled in Celiac disease)
Abdominal Ultrasound (1st ER Visit, August 1, 2023) (Insignificant)
Upper Endoscopy (Mid. June 2023) (Insignificant)
HIDA Scan (Early November 2023) (Insignificant, EF: 86%)
Abdominal Ultrasound (Mid February 2024) (4mm polyp detected in gallbladder)
Upper Endoscopy (March 22, 2024) (Entirely ruled out celiac disease)
Abdominal Ultrasound (April 6 2024) (Insignificant)
CT Scan (April 6 2024) (Insignificant)
List of symptoms:
Upper Abdominal Pain 24/7/365 (Since Mid. March 2023) (Worsened around August and has been continually)
The following are a result of the pain:
Extreme shortness of breath
Nausea (I believe it's associated with the pain and is also 24/7/365)
Loss of appetite (Though I have miraculously stayed around the same weight)
Occasional dizziness
Brain fog (I first thought I just had short-term memory issues, but then I saw that this is a common side effect of what I'm currently going through, and it genuinely shows; I quite literally forget what I'm talking to somebody about and then I'm too awkward to ask them to repeat something that they have seen I heard quite clearly and paid attention. I think this is one of the biggest things that is harming me academically.)
The following are more recent developments, and I don't have an exact/precise start date:
Cold sweats, both at night while trying to sleep and while in some non-climate controlled environments
More extreme brain fog
More extreme shortness of breath
Slight dizziness
Higher tempemore easily frustrated
HOLISTIC THINGS IVE TRIED (Probably not all of them, but I don't remember):
Baking Soda + Water
Ginger Water
100% Pure Peppermint Tea
Notable Family/Medical History:
A few years ago, probably around 2018, I went to a pediatric gastroenterologist because I was 16, and was diagnosed with abdominal migraines, given sumatriptan, and put on my merry way. I did not take the sumatriptan frequently, as I think I was doing the nasal spray a little bit off and the taste was horrible. This pain eventually went away, and was definitely not as severe as this.
When I was a baby, I had surgery for pyloric stenosis.
Here's some family history, but forgive me, as I don't know it all:
My mother's side has a horrible history with bad gallbladders and them needing to suffer before it was agreed to be taken out.
My mother's side also has a history of aortic aneurysms.
My father's side has a history of cancer, with my grandfather passing away in 2012 from brain cancer, and then my uncle passed recently from Stage 4 Bile Duct cancer.
My father's side has a history of cardiac issues and such (and my father had open heart surgery nearly a year ago).
Sidenotes:
Upcoming planned visits:
Being consulted by a general surgeon May 20, 2024.
Still looking for a cardiologist
Also looking for holistic doctors now
(Maybe trying chiropractor??? idk)
Literally nobody knows about how much I've been through except my family members. I never let a single ounce of any of this show because I already get sympathy from family members, and I don't know if I can also take it from friends too (though I am extremely thankful for the sympathy from my family)
Another side note is that I also think that I may have used to have hourglass syndrome, as I remember sucking in my stomach for practically all of high school (though I was literally like 130lbs). Since then, I believe that I've stopped doing that, and actively avoid doing it. (I actually learned about this doing some research in Reddit and jumped when I heard about this, but went to sit down and realized that I stopped doing it at some point.)
I also wanted to include that I am not currently sexually active, I'm a non-drinker, non-smoker, and have no allergies and am currently covered under really good insurance from my father.
Conclusion:
If you wish to read my other posts and plethora of comments, they are in my account history, and it might have a few small details I acquitted from here, most of which are related to my "very fun" Celiac journey. They also have my Celiac bloodwork from both times.
I have no mental health or mental illness history, and I currently am not under any extreme stress or anxiety because I handle it extremely well, though I fear that I may be developing health anxiety after the CT scan and ultrasound at the ER came back normal.
I literally thank you so much if you've read this far. Any input or questions are greatly, greatly appreciated, and I hope whoever is doing this is doing good for themselves :) (P.S. Thanks for reading a 3000+ word reddit post that I somehow drafted and wrote in an hour)
Some humor that I have managed to get out of this if anyone cares:
Today's ER visit (all of the staff were extremely wonderful and down to Earth)
At triage, the nurse asked me why I hadn't come sooner if it's been going since March 2023)
My father had to step out when the IV went in for my bloodwork
submitted by hipops to AskDocs [link] [comments]
Hi, first I'm just gonna get some of this out of the way (at the very bottom is a comprehensive list of all symptoms, medications/anything I've taken for it, diets, holistic approaches, family history, and tests/labs I have had done as well as a final sort of conclusion and sidenotes. I will also include the nearest approximation for the dates that I can remember, please bear with me):
Age: 20, Male, 140lbs, White, USA, Nothing Diagnosed, No current meds/doses, drug use is edibles for chronic pain management, non-smoker, started March 2023.
(I have had bloodwork done multiple times, with no significance, though if you think it might be helpful to know something, please ask as I have so much and it would take a while to list it all out)
This is probably going to be a long one, but there is so much that I need to preface this with. Last year, I was 19 years old, healthy, agile, and slightly athletic, but then around March of last year, I began to get hit by upper abdominal discomfort. I saw a gastroenterologist, and was told it was most likely Celiac (from the second that I stepped foot in his office and told him I was in pain), so I did bloodwork which ruled it in, and had then an endoscopy that came back inconclusive and was just told to try a gluten free diet for a few months (and that if it didn't help, then I could go back to a normal diet). Since then, I have been prescribed so many different medications to try and I myself have tried so many OTC and holistic approaches as well. Around July 2023, the pain had gotten so bad that I was basically doing nothing and already stopped working my part-time job because of it.
August 1st, 2023 I went to the ER for the first time, and was just given an IV with some fluids and nausea medication, which did not make any change at all. I also had an ultrasound there that came back entirely fine and in the clear. Since then, the pain has increased tenfold, and is all in my upper abdomen, and it feels like it is directly near where my gallbladder is. They also did an ultrasound, but nothing came from it.
For added context, not a single medication, vitamin, holistic approach, anything that I have ever done or taken has helped the pain except edibles. The edibles don't take away the pain, but they make it easier to tolerate and somewhat ignore, which is more than literally anything.
Since then, I have gone back to college for my sophomore year, and I've literally just been toughing this out while waiting for doctors appointments, all of which led nowhere. I then was scheduled for a HIDA scan in November, which came back with my gallbladder's ejection fracture being around 86%. After drinking an Ensure Plus drink from them during the HIDA scan, I was practically doubled over in pain, even more so than I am currently, and was basically curled up in a ball in my Dad's car. I was told by the doctor that it was one of the best functioning gallbladder's they'd ever seen, and that it was definitely not the issue (though I was hesitant because of doing my own research about biliary hyperkinesia).
I also began speaking to a nutritionist near the beginning of the year, as I was told that it could be something with my diet or such. I'd say that my diet was okay, not great, but I've improved it since then, whilst my symptoms have worsened. She wanted to immediately get me tested for SIBO, which I did and ensured that I followed all prep instructions and test instructions perfectly. It came back negative, which she was surprised at, and then began throwing some things at the wall to see what would stick. I ditched her because she was really dead-set on SIBO
Around the beginning of 2024, I went to see a new gastroenterologist for a second opinion. She believed that I was constipated (which I was), so I was told to take some Miralax and modify my diet to increase my fiber intake, which I did, and have been doing fine since then. For reference as well, my urine is usually a clear yellowish color, which raised no alarms. After fixing the constipation and still being in the extreme pain, she ordered an ultrasound, which I went for in February 2024. It came back showing that I had a 4mm polyp, but it was deemed to be insignificant. She sent me for bloodwork, which came back fine. She wanted to do another endoscopy, in order to entirely rule out Celiac. I had the endoscopy, and it came back negative for Celiac, which was quite a relief and she noted that she did see an increase in acid reflux. After the endoscopy, I had zero pain for the next hour or two, probably because of the anesthesia still in my system.
I have seen her once more since the endoscopy so far, and she seems to be at quite a loss of what it could be. She told me to try holistic doctors, she recommended a consultation with a general surgeon, as well as a cardiologist, as one of my symptoms of having this pain is shortness of breath (which is widely noticeable, as walking more than a few feet leaves me practically panting.
Here I am now today, where I just got out of the ER for the second time after nearly seven hours. I went because the pain got so bad today, and last night, I had cold sweats, felt clammy, had chills. After this, I had realized that I was just pushing the cold sweats aside when I was not inside of my bedroom, and it has actually probably going on for the past few weeks. I currently do not have any clamminess or chills, but would not be surprised if I did when I went to bed tonight. For reference, I keep my room quite cold because it makes me sleep and feel so much better.
The ER then did some bloodwork, as well as took a urine sample. Both of which came back fine, and then I was sent to get an ultrasound there as well. Nothing showed, and I made sure to tell them multiple times before about the 4mm polyp, which was my main and literally only lead on what could be wrong with me, and was told that it was still the same size. The ultrasound tech also told me that a 4mm polyp would likely not cause any pain at all.
After the ultrasound in the ER, they sent me back to give me something in my IV to help with the pain. They gave me 1000mg of some pain medication (I missed the name, though I was told it was basically better Advil). I thought that they had missed something and not even hooked it up correctly, but there was ZERO change in the pain at all, and they then asked me if I wanted to do a CT scan, which I more than happily did. Absolutely nothing. Nothing alarming at all came from it, and from a medical standpoint, that is the absolute ideal outcome. To me, I so badly just want to find out what is wrong with me. I just got home tonight and popped two edibles just to deal the pain, but it's not a long term solution because firstly I don't want it to be, and secondly because I literally can't afford to sustain this for an extended period of time.
It does not matter if I eat or not in the day, as the pain will still be there no matter what, usually with eating making it slightly worsen for the rest of the day. Now that most of the medical stuff is out of the way (except the comprehensive list), I wanted to also slightly rant about how badly it is affecting me academically and socially.
I'm currently in college, as mentioned before, and I try to hang out with my friends as much as I can. I always try my best to be the most positive and upbeat person in the room, but honestly it's so fucking hard for me to stay composed at this point. I feel as if I'm reaching a physical breaking point because of how helpless and useless anything I try and do feels.
I have been so fucked over academically by this; I have already failed one class last semester because I missed so many classes and material that I bombed the final. I am currently re-taking that course, and am trying to do better in it, but it's so hard; I literally need to psych myself to do homework or even just sit in class. I currently am taking 4 courses, (one of which was the re-take) another of which, I am currently failing because I have missed so many classes, had so many flare-ups during exams and normal class time that I feel like my absolute hardest only gets a me a failing grade. My very first semester, I ended up with a pretty good GPA for myself, around 3.5 (but it was my first and probably easiest semester). My second semester, this pain did not affect me as much because it started to really ramp up after finals had already ended, though it was still a battle every day to do something. One of the most gut-wrenching and fucking destroying things to me is that I can't even get any accommodations from the college because I am not diagnosed with anything at all.
As soon as I hear back from my professors, as I missed both of my courses today because I was in the ER, I want to sit down with the two that are in the classes I'm struggling in (they are both writing intensive and math courses, and it takes such a big toll on me). I really want to talk person-to-person with them to just explain my situation and see if they would help me with any accommodations regarding the final exam. If they can't, I'm literally going to fail both of them, and lose thousands of dollars because of it. I've literally started considering putting higher education on hold because of this pain, though I've thought long and hard about it, and I don't think I could genuinely deal with the social consequences of literally being there alone without any of my friends (most of them are graduating quite soon).
The other scariest thing is I'm so fucking scared that I won't be able to work because of this pain; my bank account is currently starved, though my parents do support me an extremely large amount and I could never thank them enough for being my family.
Out of all of this, there was two single days. Two days that I had zero discomfort and zero pain at all, as if somebody just waved a magic wand around. These days were not back-to-back, and there has not been a good day in a long time. The first one was in early September, and the other was in early November. Both of which, I was so up to par that I hiked 8 miles each day; the next day in which, the pain had returned as if it had never left. Thank you for listening and reading if you made it this far, and I already thank you even if you don't leave a comment or have any advice. Thank you.
Here begin the lists...
List of all prescribed medications:
At one point, I was taking nearly all of these, and began to ween myself off of them into lower doses, eventually entirely cutting them out in Late August 2023, as I personally felt that I was overmedicated and it actually made my stomach feel so much worse (which it did).
Dicyclomine 10mg, 2 capsules every 6hrs as needed (Around May 31 2023 - Late August 2023)
Omeprazole 20mg, once daily (Around May 31 2023 - Mid. July 2023)
Upped to 40mg, once daily (Around Mid. July 2023 - Early August 2023)
Upped to twice daily (Early August 2023 - Late August 2023)
Sucralfate 1gm, before meals (Around Mid. July 2023 - Late August 2023)
Famotidine 40mg, at bed (Around Mid. July 2023 - Late August 2023)
The following are all 20mg, twice daily (afaik). Note that these were not taken concurrently, and only after I had stopped the other. These are prescribed by my second, and current GI doctor.
Pantoprazole (Around February 2024)
Esomeprazole (Around March 2024)
Lansoprazole (Around Late March 2024)
Amitriptyline, 10mg at bed (Around Late March 2024)
List of all OTC medications (I apologize, I do not have dates for these):
Miralax (GI Recommended it)
Pepcid (GI Recommended it)
Phazyme Ultimate Strength
Gas X
Mylanta
Ibuprofen
Alka-Seltzer
List of all diets/food restrictions I've tried/done (None of which made me feel any better):
Gluten Free (Approx. 4 months)
Low Fodmap diet (No approx. date)
No dairy (I rarely even have dairy; the most being on an occasional burger
No processed foods (Still ongoing; I can't even stomach more than a full meal anyways)
No/Lower sugary foods (Still ongoing; same reasoning as the no processed foods)
Low fat diet (Tried for two weeks; is quite difficult living on a college campus)
Short SIBO diet (2 days, Bland chicken breasts with rice) (Made me feel horrible)
List of all tests/labs I have had done:
Multiple different bloodwork labs (Across multiple dates between May 31 2023 and today) (Only ruled in Celiac disease)
Abdominal Ultrasound (1st ER Visit, August 1, 2023) (Insignificant)
Upper Endoscopy (Mid. June 2023) (Insignificant)
HIDA Scan (Early November 2023) (Insignificant, EF: 86%)
Abdominal Ultrasound (Mid February 2024) (4mm polyp detected in gallbladder)
Upper Endoscopy (March 22, 2024) (Entirely ruled out celiac disease)
Abdominal Ultrasound (April 6 2024) (Insignificant)
CT Scan (April 6 2024) (Insignificant)
List of symptoms:
Upper Abdominal Pain 24/7/365 (Since Mid. March 2023) (Worsened around August and has been continually)
The following are a result of the pain:
Extreme shortness of breath
Nausea (I believe it's associated with the pain and is also 24/7/365)
Loss of appetite (Though I have miraculously stayed around the same weight)
Occasional dizziness
Brain fog (I first thought I just had short-term memory issues, but then I saw that this is a common side effect of what I'm currently going through, and it genuinely shows; I quite literally forget what I'm talking to somebody about and then I'm too awkward to ask them to repeat something that they have seen I heard quite clearly and paid attention. I think this is one of the biggest things that is harming me academically.)
The following are more recent developments, and I don't have an exact/precise start date:
Cold sweats, both at night while trying to sleep and while in some non-climate controlled environments
More extreme brain fog
More extreme shortness of breath
Slight dizziness
Higher tempemore easily frustrated
HOLISTIC THINGS IVE TRIED (Probably not all of them, but I don't remember):
Baking Soda + Water
Ginger Water
100% Pure Peppermint Tea
Notable Family/Medical History:
A few years ago, probably around 2018, I went to a pediatric gastroenterologist because I was 16, and was diagnosed with abdominal migraines, given sumatriptan, and put on my merry way. I did not take the sumatriptan frequently, as I think I was doing the nasal spray a little bit off and the taste was horrible. This pain eventually went away, and was definitely not as severe as this.
When I was a baby, I had surgery for pyloric stenosis.
Here's some family history, but forgive me, as I don't know it all:
My mother's side has a horrible history with bad gallbladders and them needing to suffer before it was agreed to be taken out.
My mother's side also has a history of aortic aneurysms.
My father's side has a history of cancer, with my grandfather passing away in 2012 from brain cancer, and then my uncle passed recently from Stage 4 Bile Duct cancer.
My father's side has a history of cardiac issues and such (and my father had open heart surgery nearly a year ago).
Sidenotes:
Upcoming planned visits:
Being consulted by a general surgeon May 20, 2024.
Still looking for a cardiologist
Also looking for holistic doctors now
(Maybe trying chiropractor??? idk)
Literally nobody knows about how much I've been through except my family members. I never let a single ounce of any of this show because I already get sympathy from family members, and I don't know if I can also take it from friends too (though I am extremely thankful for the sympathy from my family)
Another side note is that I also think that I may have used to have hourglass syndrome, as I remember sucking in my stomach for practically all of high school (though I was literally like 130lbs). Since then, I believe that I've stopped doing that, and actively avoid doing it. (I actually learned about this doing some research in Reddit and jumped when I heard about this, but went to sit down and realized that I stopped doing it at some point.)
I also wanted to include that I am not currently sexually active, I'm a non-drinker, non-smoker, and have no allergies and am currently covered under really good insurance from my father.
Conclusion:
If you wish to read my other posts and plethora of comments, they are in my account history, and it might have a few small details I acquitted from here, most of which are related to my "very fun" Celiac journey. They also have my Celiac bloodwork from both times.
I have no mental health or mental illness history, and I currently am not under any extreme stress or anxiety because I handle it extremely well, though I fear that I may be developing health anxiety after the CT scan and ultrasound at the ER came back normal.
I literally thank you so much if you've read this far. Any input or questions are greatly, greatly appreciated, and I hope whoever is doing this is doing good for themselves :) (P.S. Thanks for reading a 3000+ word reddit post that I somehow drafted and wrote in an hour)
Some humor that I have managed to get out of this if anyone cares:
Today's ER visit (all of the staff were extremely wonderful and down to Earth)
At triage, the nurse asked me why I hadn't come sooner if it's been going since March 2023)
My father had to step out when the IV went in for my bloodwork
2024.04.16 17:14 CidLouie Just Wondering, Weird Incident at the Gym
Hi. I feel like a hypochondriac but here goes:
Background: I'm 63, f, Hashimotos for 16 years, diagnosed with severe osteoporosis in Jan. 2023. Used to be an endurance runner, until even running jacked up my back. But I've never stopped walking, and now I walk with a weighted backpack and use trekking poles both to help strengthen my back and to up the intensity. In nice weather I ride my bike, too, but at this point it's been six months since I rode. All to say, even though I haven't been training at the same level, my heart has seemed to have maintained a good part of its previous conditioning. I also used to do Orange Theory--covid messed that up--and I am familiar with how I feel when my heart rate gets higher while exercising. I have a very slow heart rate, so it takes some effort to get it up to 70% of my max, in the past has required a sprint on an incline.
I also have raging PVCs. Recently a new doc suggested I wear the 48 hour monitor again, so, I did. Wow, got a 24 page report with this one, pretty interesting. Learned that my PVCs go away entirely at night, that I am starting to have episodes of vt and svt, a few PACs, but mostly, just a lot of PVCS, over 56,000. My worst hour I had 3,360, and I did "feel that", though I was working (as a hairdresser, so not heavy labor,) at the time and couldn't stop to analyse it/see what my heart was doing. All I knew is I felt sooo slow, I could not make myself work faster, and though that alone can cause stress, I couldn't really understand why I'd feel super stressed otherwise. I started sweating and the monitor said my heart rate was around 93 bpm, which--if it's counting the ectopics--isn't THAT high. Like I say, I had no idea at the time that I was having an excessive amount of PVCs but now I'm going to guess that they do account for the symptoms I felt.
That was all about 3 weeks ago.
Oh, doc who ordered the Holter said everything looked great, very benign, which actually surprised me since he'd said HE doesn't start to worry (not a cardiologist,) until they're over 30%; I was at 29%, so I was thinking probably just sheer volume would merit a closer look. And he said sure, "I can refer you," but I felt like he was thinking, "It's all just going to be normal again and you're just looking for attention." Which is the attitude I've gotten from pretty much every doctor I've seen since being diagnosed with osteoporosis, which--ironically, I hear many say their doctors try to scare them, say things like "You'll be in a wheelchair in five years!" but MY doctors are more into, "Geez, it's not like you have cancer!" and "If you had fractures, you wouldn't be able to function," which leads me to think they don't have a clue, but that's neither here nor there. Suffice it to say, I'm over it. I hate going to the doctor (for things like this,) usually wait until I feel like I have no choice...and I'm still getting the "Why are you here?" vibe, not even any sympathy. So...why bother?
Anyway, I have obviously been online, trying to suss out what's normal, and for the most part--not that I was overly anxious, more just curious--I settled back into "This is just my normal."
I did think it might not be a bad idea to reduce the number of PVCs I was having, but so far haven't done the beta blocker that I was prescribed eight years ago when prolonged chest pain took me to the ER. And so far, my efforts have yielded little.
About two weeks ago I decided to go back to the gym. I haven't had am injury in eight months (woo hoo!) and though I've been lifting weights some at home, I'm kind of limited. I also wanted to start getting my heart rate up a little higher than what walking with the pack and poles was doing. (We don't even have hills to speak of.)
My first day back, I tried the bike and the stair climber, decided the stairs were going to be most efficient. Using the monitor on the machine, it seemed I was able to get my heart rate up to 135 fairly quickly, and...I was just fine. Sure it's a new activity and I felt that, but my heart wasn't an issue.
Second day back, I tacked on 5 minutes (for 15 total, starting slow right?) I was glad to be done (I have fatigue issues always,) but nothing drew attention to my heart.
Third day, I decide to go for 20 minutes, and went for the "fat burn" mode as opposed to manual mode (I'd had it set at level 6, of 9, so figured fat burn mode wouldn't be much harder than that, since normally the goal is to keep the hear rate lower.) I set it at level 5, though, just in case.
So it's possible that this machine kind of malfunctioned and just had me working WAY harder than it should have, but even so, it feels like my heart did not manage it as well as it should have.
For the first few minutes I was tired, but knew I'd find my rhythm, and I did. Then, though, as the steps sped up for the minimal hills, I did notice my heart seemed to be pounding the way it does sometimes right before I go to sleep, which I associate with the PVCs, which made me wonder if exercise/getting my heart rate up is not stopping them now (as it did eight years ago when I had a stress test.) Then, it was like, holy crap, I feel like I've never climbed hills or stairs before in my life...good grief, my chest really hurts, I'm breathing like an asthmatic 80 year old...I'm only ten minutes into this workout, am I in that bad a shape?
At 15 minutes I decided I had to stop it, and when I did, my heart did calm down...breathing normalized (I usually barely breathe hard--again I don't do much that's strenuous but about a month ago I was visiting my daughter, hiking in the hills near her house and I managed them fine, heart rate up, but not breathing hard.) I went ahead and finished on manual, level 6, remained okay, then left. And immediately googled "chest pain during exercise" and got mostly "Umm...that's not great."
So, here I am.
I should maybe also note that, PVCs aside, I might be lining myself up for heart issues. Apparently I have hypercalueria (for which I do have a diuretic, which could be messing with electrolyte balance, and I've only had it for a few months--the diuretic, that is.) As of last year (waiting on this year's blood work results,) I have high lipoprotein, not super high, but enough to be in the red; high total cholesterol (nothing too alarming,) high bad cholesterol, and high good cholesterol...all of which may be genetic but I read it's pretty common with Hashimotos, too. Additionally, my very fit brother had a heart attack in his late 40s while on a century bike ride. He also didn't really know what was going on, so didn't go to the ER until he had a second one, not exercising. He'd had no idea he had issues but evidently he had a 95% blockage in one artery, 50% in the other. Again, we were all shocked, and though I sincerely don't believe I have cardiac anxiety, (I've only sought care t my heart once in 16 years,) my brother did give me pause.
My grandma was much older when this happened, but she had a heart attack at age 83 while raking the yard. She also had no underlying conditions that she was aware of, and, she just kept raking, went to the ER after discussing with my mom several hours later where it was confirmed. They told her she had the heart of a 45 year old, whatever that means, and basically just sent her home, whereupon she lived for another 21 years, including 8 years after a dissection of an aneurysm in her ascending aorta which doctors swore would kill her within the week but which obviously did not. So...juxtaposed with my brother who probably wouldn't be alive without intervention, I have my grandma who was very hard to kill, so...hard to know.
I AM the first in my family to have Hashimotos or PVCS, though, so...??
So the question is: am I just that out of shape? Did that machine decide to malfunction, give me a way harder workout than I was ready for? Or, is this something I should have checked out?
To anyone who made it this far, thank you!
submitted by CidLouie to askCardiology [link] [comments]
Background: I'm 63, f, Hashimotos for 16 years, diagnosed with severe osteoporosis in Jan. 2023. Used to be an endurance runner, until even running jacked up my back. But I've never stopped walking, and now I walk with a weighted backpack and use trekking poles both to help strengthen my back and to up the intensity. In nice weather I ride my bike, too, but at this point it's been six months since I rode. All to say, even though I haven't been training at the same level, my heart has seemed to have maintained a good part of its previous conditioning. I also used to do Orange Theory--covid messed that up--and I am familiar with how I feel when my heart rate gets higher while exercising. I have a very slow heart rate, so it takes some effort to get it up to 70% of my max, in the past has required a sprint on an incline.
I also have raging PVCs. Recently a new doc suggested I wear the 48 hour monitor again, so, I did. Wow, got a 24 page report with this one, pretty interesting. Learned that my PVCs go away entirely at night, that I am starting to have episodes of vt and svt, a few PACs, but mostly, just a lot of PVCS, over 56,000. My worst hour I had 3,360, and I did "feel that", though I was working (as a hairdresser, so not heavy labor,) at the time and couldn't stop to analyse it/see what my heart was doing. All I knew is I felt sooo slow, I could not make myself work faster, and though that alone can cause stress, I couldn't really understand why I'd feel super stressed otherwise. I started sweating and the monitor said my heart rate was around 93 bpm, which--if it's counting the ectopics--isn't THAT high. Like I say, I had no idea at the time that I was having an excessive amount of PVCs but now I'm going to guess that they do account for the symptoms I felt.
That was all about 3 weeks ago.
Oh, doc who ordered the Holter said everything looked great, very benign, which actually surprised me since he'd said HE doesn't start to worry (not a cardiologist,) until they're over 30%; I was at 29%, so I was thinking probably just sheer volume would merit a closer look. And he said sure, "I can refer you," but I felt like he was thinking, "It's all just going to be normal again and you're just looking for attention." Which is the attitude I've gotten from pretty much every doctor I've seen since being diagnosed with osteoporosis, which--ironically, I hear many say their doctors try to scare them, say things like "You'll be in a wheelchair in five years!" but MY doctors are more into, "Geez, it's not like you have cancer!" and "If you had fractures, you wouldn't be able to function," which leads me to think they don't have a clue, but that's neither here nor there. Suffice it to say, I'm over it. I hate going to the doctor (for things like this,) usually wait until I feel like I have no choice...and I'm still getting the "Why are you here?" vibe, not even any sympathy. So...why bother?
Anyway, I have obviously been online, trying to suss out what's normal, and for the most part--not that I was overly anxious, more just curious--I settled back into "This is just my normal."
I did think it might not be a bad idea to reduce the number of PVCs I was having, but so far haven't done the beta blocker that I was prescribed eight years ago when prolonged chest pain took me to the ER. And so far, my efforts have yielded little.
About two weeks ago I decided to go back to the gym. I haven't had am injury in eight months (woo hoo!) and though I've been lifting weights some at home, I'm kind of limited. I also wanted to start getting my heart rate up a little higher than what walking with the pack and poles was doing. (We don't even have hills to speak of.)
My first day back, I tried the bike and the stair climber, decided the stairs were going to be most efficient. Using the monitor on the machine, it seemed I was able to get my heart rate up to 135 fairly quickly, and...I was just fine. Sure it's a new activity and I felt that, but my heart wasn't an issue.
Second day back, I tacked on 5 minutes (for 15 total, starting slow right?) I was glad to be done (I have fatigue issues always,) but nothing drew attention to my heart.
Third day, I decide to go for 20 minutes, and went for the "fat burn" mode as opposed to manual mode (I'd had it set at level 6, of 9, so figured fat burn mode wouldn't be much harder than that, since normally the goal is to keep the hear rate lower.) I set it at level 5, though, just in case.
So it's possible that this machine kind of malfunctioned and just had me working WAY harder than it should have, but even so, it feels like my heart did not manage it as well as it should have.
For the first few minutes I was tired, but knew I'd find my rhythm, and I did. Then, though, as the steps sped up for the minimal hills, I did notice my heart seemed to be pounding the way it does sometimes right before I go to sleep, which I associate with the PVCs, which made me wonder if exercise/getting my heart rate up is not stopping them now (as it did eight years ago when I had a stress test.) Then, it was like, holy crap, I feel like I've never climbed hills or stairs before in my life...good grief, my chest really hurts, I'm breathing like an asthmatic 80 year old...I'm only ten minutes into this workout, am I in that bad a shape?
At 15 minutes I decided I had to stop it, and when I did, my heart did calm down...breathing normalized (I usually barely breathe hard--again I don't do much that's strenuous but about a month ago I was visiting my daughter, hiking in the hills near her house and I managed them fine, heart rate up, but not breathing hard.) I went ahead and finished on manual, level 6, remained okay, then left. And immediately googled "chest pain during exercise" and got mostly "Umm...that's not great."
So, here I am.
I should maybe also note that, PVCs aside, I might be lining myself up for heart issues. Apparently I have hypercalueria (for which I do have a diuretic, which could be messing with electrolyte balance, and I've only had it for a few months--the diuretic, that is.) As of last year (waiting on this year's blood work results,) I have high lipoprotein, not super high, but enough to be in the red; high total cholesterol (nothing too alarming,) high bad cholesterol, and high good cholesterol...all of which may be genetic but I read it's pretty common with Hashimotos, too. Additionally, my very fit brother had a heart attack in his late 40s while on a century bike ride. He also didn't really know what was going on, so didn't go to the ER until he had a second one, not exercising. He'd had no idea he had issues but evidently he had a 95% blockage in one artery, 50% in the other. Again, we were all shocked, and though I sincerely don't believe I have cardiac anxiety, (I've only sought care t my heart once in 16 years,) my brother did give me pause.
My grandma was much older when this happened, but she had a heart attack at age 83 while raking the yard. She also had no underlying conditions that she was aware of, and, she just kept raking, went to the ER after discussing with my mom several hours later where it was confirmed. They told her she had the heart of a 45 year old, whatever that means, and basically just sent her home, whereupon she lived for another 21 years, including 8 years after a dissection of an aneurysm in her ascending aorta which doctors swore would kill her within the week but which obviously did not. So...juxtaposed with my brother who probably wouldn't be alive without intervention, I have my grandma who was very hard to kill, so...hard to know.
I AM the first in my family to have Hashimotos or PVCS, though, so...??
So the question is: am I just that out of shape? Did that machine decide to malfunction, give me a way harder workout than I was ready for? Or, is this something I should have checked out?
To anyone who made it this far, thank you!
2024.04.15 00:27 Jojo8706 Hernia or Heart Trouble
Hi everyone! Im a 36 year old female and for the past couple months I've struggled with multiple issues including pain under ribs, dry cough, horrible reflux that medicine doesn't help, sharp pricks of pain in my chest, pain in between my shoulder blades that radiates down both arms an sometimes will also get it in my groin/tailbone and it spreads down both legs(sometimes its triggered after eating and other times it just comes on out of nowhere), strong pulse in abdomen especially after eating or while laying down, head throbbing/whooshing in ears, sweating which will happen at random or sometimes after eating along with dry mouth, elevated blood pressure(highest systolic has been 148 and diastolic 108) and sugar spikes if I eat Carbs or Sugar at all) I've been eating healthy for over a month now which consists of lean meat, vegetables, fruit, gluten/dairy free products an only have the occassional piece of chocolate or half a bagel with meals. I'm not overweight, I am 145 pounds. I cut out all fast food, no alcohol or soda and don't smoke. I went to the ER Friday because pain was so bad an had a CBC, CMP, and CA19 done(Mother died from Pancreatic Cancer) and Xray plus Ultrasound last month which all came back normal except for 3 small nodules on my Thyroid that are to small to biopsy an one of my levels was slightly elevated but wasn't concerning enough to be seen. Other then my Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Menopause, early stage Breast Cancer and a Brain Aneurysm I've never had any major trouble. I'm just one big mess that doctors can't seem to pinpoint anything. I feel part of it is stress and I go to therapy multiple times a week and take medicine but despite everything I've tried I'm still getting these painful and unpleasant symptoms so I worry also that something serious is being missed. One doctor thought it was trapped gas and the other suspected food sensitivities. Im not on alot of medicine except for Protonix, Baby Aspirin, and Xanax. Over the Counter I have tried Miralax, Gas X, and Pepcid. My primary doctor refuses to do anymore for me so I'm awaiting a CT Scan of my chest and Scope with Gastroenterologist and have an appointment to get on daily anxiety medicine since what I have now isnt helping much. I know this sounds like one crazy shitshow but I just dont understand how I can be in so much pain and there not be any answers or a solution. I was fine a few weeks ago and just haven't been improving at all
submitted by Jojo8706 to AskDocs [link] [comments]
2024.04.11 17:25 MarcOxenstierna Runaway
It was that time again, sometime around midnight, I think.
The outside is silent, save for the sound of a passing train in the distance, it’s whistle sounding like a lonesome cry in the dark.
I live alone now, in a house far too large for myself (and my cat) on an acre and a half of forest in suburban Connecticut.
The other residents of the neighbourhood are also on similarly sized parcels of land. It makes for just enough distance away from each other so I don’t have to hear or see them, and more importantly; interact with them.
I like my quiet.
I like my solitude.
I wasn’t always such an introvert.
I sat there in my bed, startled awake by some nameless horror conjured by my mind that I couldn’t immediately recall, the sweat from my brow mixing with something else on my face… tears? They were stinging my eyes before running down my face. ‘Damn it’ I thought to myself.
I must have dreamt about him again, glancing over at his side of the bed as I absentmindedly reached for the prescription bottles of Klonopin & Seroquel on my nightstand. Those, as well as weekly visits to my psychiatrist; were part of this thing called ‘grief therapy’.
I’m not sure it’s actually helping though.
His side of the bed was empty. Why wouldn’t it be? He had been dead and gone over a year now. I hadn’t washed his pillowcases since the incident. I didn’t want to lose his scent from them. Usually that was a small comfort for me, however; I believe that to be why the memories of him were exponentially more vivid and painful tonight.
At times; more often than not I swear I can feel him, his presence near me, seeming to ebb and flow during the day. Every so often, I swear I catch glimpses of him in my periphery; only to vanish as soon as try to take a good look.
Seeing him in various places around the home should have been comforting. I mean, I think it was- but it was more unnerving than anything to me now. The sightings brought me unease to say the least.
All at once, I felt the need to get out of there; out of that house.
I made a decision.
I cleaned myself up quickly, dressing in my favourite Iron Heart jeans, a green Momotaro t-shirt and boots. Hastily, I threw t-shirt, flannel, some toiletries, my meds and a clean pair of undies and socks into a backpack and headed out the door.
As I was about to shut the front door behind me, I heard a little meow. Sasha- our...my tortoiseshell cat we had adopted from the Humane Society was looking at me quizzically. Sighing, I went back inside, put down my backpack and began to get her travel kit and carrier ready- I could actually use her company tonight.
I headed north on I-95 towards Maine. I really didn’t have a clue as to where I was going, but the drive and the sound of Sasha’s purr-snores underscoring Chris Rea’s “Looking For Summer” put my mind at ease.
Until I the memories began replaying themselves in the back of my mind,
The fights, the yelling, my tears, his unfaithfulness, MY unfaithfulness… where did the good memories go?
My stomach growled as though it were empty, which- it might be; I don’t recall if I ate at all this evening. I know I fed Sasha. She was awake now, regarding me with her “What’s up, papa” look on her face. It growled again with surprising intensity- I needed to find a place to stop, have a rest and perhaps a bite to eat.
Come to think of it, I had no idea where I was- my iPhone was getting no service- even on its LTE network, and the onboard GPS was...frozen?
The road was approaching a bend. When did I exit the highway? Slowing down, I saw an imposing structure slowly become visible- in the midst of trees and fog, it reminded me of the huge seemingly haunted manors one would see in horror films- but this building was beautifully maintained and nicely lit- even at this hour.
In bold, timeless lettering the building introduced itself: Whispering Willows Inn.
After parking- and taking a moment to take a deep breath; I grabbed my backpack, lured Sasha into her carrier with some treats and with both in tow, made my way to the entrance. I recall wondering whether this place would have an issue with pets; when the huge oak doors opened and a man… or, teenager stepped outside to smile warmly at me.
It was hard to guess at his age, he seemed neither young nor old.
“Good evening...er, morning” I said to him attempting a smile.
He said nothing in response- but nodded and smiled back- it wasn’t one of those false, polite smiles though, this smile was warm and reached his eyes- instantly putting me at ease.
I made my way through the deceptively large lobby, stepping on lightly coloured hardwood floors to the reception desk taking note of the Hotel’s decor: was it Art Deco? Belle Époque? Or perhaps something else entirely....Björn would have known.
He knew so much.
‘Back in 8 minutes’, read the hastily scrawled sign at the reception desk- its haphazard appearance at odds with the immaculate appearance of the rest of the lobby. After waiting about 10 minutes, I pushed the button to try and speak to someone. Surprisingly, Sasha was still snoozing; I could hear her snoozing away.
The sound of a staticky kind of crackle from a speaker startled me.
“Umm..hello?” I ventured tentatively.
“Good evening, sir.” came a woman’s voice from the speaker- an accent I couldn’t quite place.
“I think...I mean, I’d like a room for the night please. I may extend my stay in the morning for a day or two more; I don’t know yet. Oh, also, I have my cat with me- she’s really well trained and won’t be a bother...” I found myself rambling at that point, flustered and unsure as to why.
“Very good, Mr. Oxenstierna.” the speaker woman said. “We have you in Room 222 on the second floor. Sasha is more than welcome here. Please don’t hesitate to contact the concierge should you need anything, and enjoy your stay with us.”
The late hour and lack of food was getting to me. I didn’t notice the voice pronounced my Swedish surname flawlessly.
“Wait- did I tell you my name? Or my cat’s? Don’t you need my ID and a credit card or something?” I asked- somewhat confused. I don’t recall giving any info at all and how did the speaker lady know about Sasha? And why was I so rattled?
“It’s quite alright Mr. Oxenstierna. It’s late. Please come down to the lobby later on this morning and we can tend to business then.” crackle
“Um...ok.”
That was odd I thought to myself. The gentleman who greeted me when I arrived had approached and escorted me to the elevator. When it arrived, he handed me what I presumed was my room key- heavy, old-fashioned and made of iron, the number “222” etched elegantly at its base.
Room 222 was surprisingly perfect- not too big or small, dark, hardwood floors, a nicely sized Persian rug a double bed and a dressing table. “Ok, Sashers- let’s get you situated.” I said to my cat. As I busied myself getting her travel litterbox and food/water dishes ready, she happily left her carrier and made herself comfortable at the foot of the bed. While sitting at the edge of the bed and kicking off my boots, a voice right next to my ear snarled; “What the Hell are you doing here?”
I literally almost fell off the bed. Also- it wasn’t just a voice. His voice. “Fuck- I’m losing it,” I thought to myself. Reaching for my backpack I fished out my meds.
2 bottles.
In one bottle was an anti-psychotic medication (Seroquel) prescribed to me by my Ivy League trained shrink as part of my ‘Grief Management’; in the other one was Klonopin for my anxiety. Both were part of ‘The Programme’. He said it would help with my ‘issues’, my grief and anger at the world- at happy couples (fuck those guys) that passed me on the way to and from my job, at everybody and their perfect, happy fucking lives with each other.
One 100mg tablet of the Seroquel was supposed to be more than enough help me sleep. The Klonopin was to help with my angeanxiety during the day. It wasn’t really supposed to be used in conjunction with the Seroquel before bed, but fuck it. Again- the 100mg of Seroquel should have been enough to knock me out cold.
Except this time it wasn’t.
“Are you really doing this?” his voice again- right in front of me.
“Fuck you,” I said swallowing both pills down dry. And then some more.
I seemed to only get me even more agitated with my Dr.’s prescribed dosage; and after the first night I began to gradually increase it by one, then two, pills. I really wanted to numb myself, numb my mind so I could rest.
Soon, even that wasn’t enough to help me calm down enough to sleep. I started adding the Klonopin that I was able to obtain from some offshore online “pharmacy” without telling my doctor. I knew he would only insist I stop, and blending the two actually helped me find some sleep here and there.
My stomach felt like it was doing back flips as I swallowed down the last few pills in those bottles. Instead of feeling numb and sleepy like I usually did; I began to feel disoriented and a little bit dizzy. I tried to fight back the nausea rapidly progressing in my stomach, also seeming to have lost control of my motor functions. I may have thrown up, I don’t remember. The next thing I could recall was that I was face-down on my hotel room floor, Sasha circling me, voicing her concern. I felt like were so many things going on with me right then. I felt as if I were being pulled underwater; above the water being consciousness. I may have shit myself. I felt like I was walking a tightrope- staying alive on one side- succumbing to the Klonopin/Seroquel induced ‘sleep’ on the other.It was taking everything I had to keep balanced, while it was becoming so tempting to just give in and let go. I was just so, so tired.
Something in my gut told me if I were to succumb to the ‘sleep’ I was being pulled into, I wouldn’t wake again. Not this time. I was beyond exhausted. Every inch of my body, mind and spirit felt numb and became chilled as I decided to stop fighting and let myself drift away into a dreamy, swirling darkness.
There were no sounds. There was no light. There was nothing.
“Am I dead?” I thought. “Is this what purgatory was like?” My body felt suspended in that place the living should not visit. The only things that seemed to permeate above all else was the cold and the silence. That bitter kind of cold that cuts deep into your bones, and settles right into the marrow.
All I could feel was that cold.
And in that silence, I heard him again.
“Why are you even here?” he asked, his voice becoming angrier.
“I’m imagining this, you’re not real,” I said out loud, although more to myself than in response to his voice.
“You always ran away.” he said. God- his voice...it’s like he was right there in the room.
“I...I couldn’t be around you, after the cheating. You… you didn’t even bother trying to hide it.” I replied, finding the strength to stand.
“You ran away.” he repeated. “I needed you, and you ran away.”
I don’t know of it was the meds, lack of food, sheer exhaustion or a combination of all three, but I could see him starting to coalesce into view.
“What the...” I stammered, getting off the bed and slowly backing away from the apparition.
“You ran away”... he was solidifying, appearing as I remembered him: tall, blond, handsome.
“No...” I whispered, continuing to back away as my husband- my DECEASED husband continued to advance towards me. “That’s not... that isn’t...” I buried my hands in my face as he reached for me-
“Even now, you’re running away”, he said enveloping me in his strong arms that I knew so well.
As he held me, that cold dissipated, replaced by a feeling of warmth and...something I hadn’t felt in a long time: I felt ‘loved’.
After a little while of just being held my mind was at peace, devoid of the fear, anger and anxiety I had been feeling for over a year- even before he died. It was a welcome respite from all than and the unrelenting grief that seemed to adhere to me every waking moment since Björn was taken from me.
They called it an ‘aneurysm’. I called it the universe deciding to be a cunt that day. I couldn’t take it, seeing him in the hospital like that. To me he was so big and strong, my rock; my foothold in life.
He was right.
I ran.
At that moment (or through many moments) I was adrift in a pure vast nothingness. It was so cold. It was warm. To me it felt as though it stretched on endlessly. I wasn’t able to form coherent thoughts in this state. I felt like I didn’t exist but was somehow still there, still aware.
In the periphery of my hearing it came, so quietly:
“Wake up.”
Startled, I could feel my senses beginning to regain their function.
Again, louder:
“Wake up.”
Feeling strength and coherence return to me, I realised It was his voice. The room was definitely colder. It was mid-August and i was shivering.
“Wake up!”
I opened my eyes. Groggy, semi-functional and fully aware. My head was throbbing.I sat up cross legged on floor. My God it was cold. Despite the chill, sweat darkened my shirt and made it stick to my body.
I could see my breath like smoke in front of me. And standing over me- him. My Björn, smiling at me, his image dissipating as my cat came trotting over, while voicing her concern- looking me up and down before she decided to make my lap a bed and looked up at me.
Do any of you own a cat? If you do, then you know what I mean when I say she was looking at me with a mixture of worry, relief and comfort on her fuzzy visage.
While picking Sasha up and putting her on the bed, I caught myself smiling. Stripping off my sweat soaked shirt, I burrowed deep into the blankets.
I’d take a shower later.
I could still feel his embrace- warm, safe and comforting. And I could feel forgiveness.
I wasn’t afraid, and I wasn’t going to run anymore.
submitted by MarcOxenstierna to scarystories [link] [comments]
The outside is silent, save for the sound of a passing train in the distance, it’s whistle sounding like a lonesome cry in the dark.
I live alone now, in a house far too large for myself (and my cat) on an acre and a half of forest in suburban Connecticut.
The other residents of the neighbourhood are also on similarly sized parcels of land. It makes for just enough distance away from each other so I don’t have to hear or see them, and more importantly; interact with them.
I like my quiet.
I like my solitude.
I wasn’t always such an introvert.
I sat there in my bed, startled awake by some nameless horror conjured by my mind that I couldn’t immediately recall, the sweat from my brow mixing with something else on my face… tears? They were stinging my eyes before running down my face. ‘Damn it’ I thought to myself.
I must have dreamt about him again, glancing over at his side of the bed as I absentmindedly reached for the prescription bottles of Klonopin & Seroquel on my nightstand. Those, as well as weekly visits to my psychiatrist; were part of this thing called ‘grief therapy’.
I’m not sure it’s actually helping though.
His side of the bed was empty. Why wouldn’t it be? He had been dead and gone over a year now. I hadn’t washed his pillowcases since the incident. I didn’t want to lose his scent from them. Usually that was a small comfort for me, however; I believe that to be why the memories of him were exponentially more vivid and painful tonight.
At times; more often than not I swear I can feel him, his presence near me, seeming to ebb and flow during the day. Every so often, I swear I catch glimpses of him in my periphery; only to vanish as soon as try to take a good look.
Seeing him in various places around the home should have been comforting. I mean, I think it was- but it was more unnerving than anything to me now. The sightings brought me unease to say the least.
All at once, I felt the need to get out of there; out of that house.
I made a decision.
I cleaned myself up quickly, dressing in my favourite Iron Heart jeans, a green Momotaro t-shirt and boots. Hastily, I threw t-shirt, flannel, some toiletries, my meds and a clean pair of undies and socks into a backpack and headed out the door.
As I was about to shut the front door behind me, I heard a little meow. Sasha- our...my tortoiseshell cat we had adopted from the Humane Society was looking at me quizzically. Sighing, I went back inside, put down my backpack and began to get her travel kit and carrier ready- I could actually use her company tonight.
I headed north on I-95 towards Maine. I really didn’t have a clue as to where I was going, but the drive and the sound of Sasha’s purr-snores underscoring Chris Rea’s “Looking For Summer” put my mind at ease.
Until I the memories began replaying themselves in the back of my mind,
The fights, the yelling, my tears, his unfaithfulness, MY unfaithfulness… where did the good memories go?
My stomach growled as though it were empty, which- it might be; I don’t recall if I ate at all this evening. I know I fed Sasha. She was awake now, regarding me with her “What’s up, papa” look on her face. It growled again with surprising intensity- I needed to find a place to stop, have a rest and perhaps a bite to eat.
Come to think of it, I had no idea where I was- my iPhone was getting no service- even on its LTE network, and the onboard GPS was...frozen?
The road was approaching a bend. When did I exit the highway? Slowing down, I saw an imposing structure slowly become visible- in the midst of trees and fog, it reminded me of the huge seemingly haunted manors one would see in horror films- but this building was beautifully maintained and nicely lit- even at this hour.
In bold, timeless lettering the building introduced itself: Whispering Willows Inn.
After parking- and taking a moment to take a deep breath; I grabbed my backpack, lured Sasha into her carrier with some treats and with both in tow, made my way to the entrance. I recall wondering whether this place would have an issue with pets; when the huge oak doors opened and a man… or, teenager stepped outside to smile warmly at me.
It was hard to guess at his age, he seemed neither young nor old.
“Good evening...er, morning” I said to him attempting a smile.
He said nothing in response- but nodded and smiled back- it wasn’t one of those false, polite smiles though, this smile was warm and reached his eyes- instantly putting me at ease.
I made my way through the deceptively large lobby, stepping on lightly coloured hardwood floors to the reception desk taking note of the Hotel’s decor: was it Art Deco? Belle Époque? Or perhaps something else entirely....Björn would have known.
He knew so much.
‘Back in 8 minutes’, read the hastily scrawled sign at the reception desk- its haphazard appearance at odds with the immaculate appearance of the rest of the lobby. After waiting about 10 minutes, I pushed the button to try and speak to someone. Surprisingly, Sasha was still snoozing; I could hear her snoozing away.
The sound of a staticky kind of crackle from a speaker startled me.
“Umm..hello?” I ventured tentatively.
“Good evening, sir.” came a woman’s voice from the speaker- an accent I couldn’t quite place.
“I think...I mean, I’d like a room for the night please. I may extend my stay in the morning for a day or two more; I don’t know yet. Oh, also, I have my cat with me- she’s really well trained and won’t be a bother...” I found myself rambling at that point, flustered and unsure as to why.
“Very good, Mr. Oxenstierna.” the speaker woman said. “We have you in Room 222 on the second floor. Sasha is more than welcome here. Please don’t hesitate to contact the concierge should you need anything, and enjoy your stay with us.”
The late hour and lack of food was getting to me. I didn’t notice the voice pronounced my Swedish surname flawlessly.
“Wait- did I tell you my name? Or my cat’s? Don’t you need my ID and a credit card or something?” I asked- somewhat confused. I don’t recall giving any info at all and how did the speaker lady know about Sasha? And why was I so rattled?
“It’s quite alright Mr. Oxenstierna. It’s late. Please come down to the lobby later on this morning and we can tend to business then.” crackle
“Um...ok.”
That was odd I thought to myself. The gentleman who greeted me when I arrived had approached and escorted me to the elevator. When it arrived, he handed me what I presumed was my room key- heavy, old-fashioned and made of iron, the number “222” etched elegantly at its base.
Room 222 was surprisingly perfect- not too big or small, dark, hardwood floors, a nicely sized Persian rug a double bed and a dressing table. “Ok, Sashers- let’s get you situated.” I said to my cat. As I busied myself getting her travel litterbox and food/water dishes ready, she happily left her carrier and made herself comfortable at the foot of the bed. While sitting at the edge of the bed and kicking off my boots, a voice right next to my ear snarled; “What the Hell are you doing here?”
I literally almost fell off the bed. Also- it wasn’t just a voice. His voice. “Fuck- I’m losing it,” I thought to myself. Reaching for my backpack I fished out my meds.
2 bottles.
In one bottle was an anti-psychotic medication (Seroquel) prescribed to me by my Ivy League trained shrink as part of my ‘Grief Management’; in the other one was Klonopin for my anxiety. Both were part of ‘The Programme’. He said it would help with my ‘issues’, my grief and anger at the world- at happy couples (fuck those guys) that passed me on the way to and from my job, at everybody and their perfect, happy fucking lives with each other.
One 100mg tablet of the Seroquel was supposed to be more than enough help me sleep. The Klonopin was to help with my angeanxiety during the day. It wasn’t really supposed to be used in conjunction with the Seroquel before bed, but fuck it. Again- the 100mg of Seroquel should have been enough to knock me out cold.
Except this time it wasn’t.
“Are you really doing this?” his voice again- right in front of me.
“Fuck you,” I said swallowing both pills down dry. And then some more.
I seemed to only get me even more agitated with my Dr.’s prescribed dosage; and after the first night I began to gradually increase it by one, then two, pills. I really wanted to numb myself, numb my mind so I could rest.
Soon, even that wasn’t enough to help me calm down enough to sleep. I started adding the Klonopin that I was able to obtain from some offshore online “pharmacy” without telling my doctor. I knew he would only insist I stop, and blending the two actually helped me find some sleep here and there.
My stomach felt like it was doing back flips as I swallowed down the last few pills in those bottles. Instead of feeling numb and sleepy like I usually did; I began to feel disoriented and a little bit dizzy. I tried to fight back the nausea rapidly progressing in my stomach, also seeming to have lost control of my motor functions. I may have thrown up, I don’t remember. The next thing I could recall was that I was face-down on my hotel room floor, Sasha circling me, voicing her concern. I felt like were so many things going on with me right then. I felt as if I were being pulled underwater; above the water being consciousness. I may have shit myself. I felt like I was walking a tightrope- staying alive on one side- succumbing to the Klonopin/Seroquel induced ‘sleep’ on the other.It was taking everything I had to keep balanced, while it was becoming so tempting to just give in and let go. I was just so, so tired.
Something in my gut told me if I were to succumb to the ‘sleep’ I was being pulled into, I wouldn’t wake again. Not this time. I was beyond exhausted. Every inch of my body, mind and spirit felt numb and became chilled as I decided to stop fighting and let myself drift away into a dreamy, swirling darkness.
There were no sounds. There was no light. There was nothing.
“Am I dead?” I thought. “Is this what purgatory was like?” My body felt suspended in that place the living should not visit. The only things that seemed to permeate above all else was the cold and the silence. That bitter kind of cold that cuts deep into your bones, and settles right into the marrow.
All I could feel was that cold.
And in that silence, I heard him again.
“Why are you even here?” he asked, his voice becoming angrier.
“I’m imagining this, you’re not real,” I said out loud, although more to myself than in response to his voice.
“You always ran away.” he said. God- his voice...it’s like he was right there in the room.
“I...I couldn’t be around you, after the cheating. You… you didn’t even bother trying to hide it.” I replied, finding the strength to stand.
“You ran away.” he repeated. “I needed you, and you ran away.”
I don’t know of it was the meds, lack of food, sheer exhaustion or a combination of all three, but I could see him starting to coalesce into view.
“What the...” I stammered, getting off the bed and slowly backing away from the apparition.
“You ran away”... he was solidifying, appearing as I remembered him: tall, blond, handsome.
“No...” I whispered, continuing to back away as my husband- my DECEASED husband continued to advance towards me. “That’s not... that isn’t...” I buried my hands in my face as he reached for me-
“Even now, you’re running away”, he said enveloping me in his strong arms that I knew so well.
As he held me, that cold dissipated, replaced by a feeling of warmth and...something I hadn’t felt in a long time: I felt ‘loved’.
After a little while of just being held my mind was at peace, devoid of the fear, anger and anxiety I had been feeling for over a year- even before he died. It was a welcome respite from all than and the unrelenting grief that seemed to adhere to me every waking moment since Björn was taken from me.
They called it an ‘aneurysm’. I called it the universe deciding to be a cunt that day. I couldn’t take it, seeing him in the hospital like that. To me he was so big and strong, my rock; my foothold in life.
He was right.
I ran.
At that moment (or through many moments) I was adrift in a pure vast nothingness. It was so cold. It was warm. To me it felt as though it stretched on endlessly. I wasn’t able to form coherent thoughts in this state. I felt like I didn’t exist but was somehow still there, still aware.
In the periphery of my hearing it came, so quietly:
“Wake up.”
Startled, I could feel my senses beginning to regain their function.
Again, louder:
“Wake up.”
Feeling strength and coherence return to me, I realised It was his voice. The room was definitely colder. It was mid-August and i was shivering.
“Wake up!”
I opened my eyes. Groggy, semi-functional and fully aware. My head was throbbing.I sat up cross legged on floor. My God it was cold. Despite the chill, sweat darkened my shirt and made it stick to my body.
I could see my breath like smoke in front of me. And standing over me- him. My Björn, smiling at me, his image dissipating as my cat came trotting over, while voicing her concern- looking me up and down before she decided to make my lap a bed and looked up at me.
Do any of you own a cat? If you do, then you know what I mean when I say she was looking at me with a mixture of worry, relief and comfort on her fuzzy visage.
While picking Sasha up and putting her on the bed, I caught myself smiling. Stripping off my sweat soaked shirt, I burrowed deep into the blankets.
I’d take a shower later.
I could still feel his embrace- warm, safe and comforting. And I could feel forgiveness.
I wasn’t afraid, and I wasn’t going to run anymore.
2024.04.09 04:11 CompetitiveRun3635 Cause of code?
Hello! I just had a very interesting call:
Female, 48, nausea, public park.
Thinking it's another bs call we roll up to the scene. Patient is sitting on a park bench, complaining of pain which started in her left leg and now her whole body hurts. She is extremely agitated and does opposite of anything we tell her. We notice she is sweating profusely (like fresh out of the shower).
First thought - MI. Ok, lets get her in the van.
12-lead shows us Sinus rythm 82x. Oxygen at 96% although her lips were a bit blueish, T.A - 168/100, Glucose - 10.1
Lungs sound clear, without any pathologies.
Okay, aortic aneurysm? Aortic dissection? No pulsating in the stomach area, auscultation also is fine.
Then it really hits the fan. Patient is now going crazy, ripping everything off, playing fish out of the water on the stretcher.
While we consult a doctor for possible diagnosis and treatment plan, it suddenly gets real quiet. Patient is now unconciouss, breathing (Cheyne-Stokes)
Ok, so maybe a stroke?
Her HR slowly droops from 82x to 50x and I can't hear any breathing anymore. Check for pulse - PEA. We did two cycles before achieving ROSC. We start driving and 2mins later we are back at it. Same story, HR goes from 82x to 50x without pulse. This time only one cycle needed for ROSC. We decide that the issue (4H 4T) is hypoxia and try to intubate. After three unsuccessful attempts, we continue ventilating with ambu. The drive to the hospital was 60 km. In total we coded her 11 times, using 14 adrenalines. Got her in the ER with a pulse.
In the ER, Echo is clear for heart abnormalities, head CT shows no sign of hemorhage or trombosis. Troponines negative. Now she is in the ICU. (Got this info when visited the hospital later with another pt).
I am really confused about this call. All the possible diagnoses I could think of summarized:
MI PE Aortic Aneurysm/Disection Stroke
Re-reading this. Pain in leg - DVT? DVT->PE? We could ventilate her up to 92% but yeah, really sucks that we couldn't intubate her :/
But yeah, the whole trip to the hospital, all 11 times the patient went from Sinus rythm ~80x to 50x dropping the pulse.
EDIT: I have the code summary from the call, but its like 20 meters long, i can post it later if that would help
submitted by CompetitiveRun3635 to ems [link] [comments]
Female, 48, nausea, public park.
Thinking it's another bs call we roll up to the scene. Patient is sitting on a park bench, complaining of pain which started in her left leg and now her whole body hurts. She is extremely agitated and does opposite of anything we tell her. We notice she is sweating profusely (like fresh out of the shower).
First thought - MI. Ok, lets get her in the van.
12-lead shows us Sinus rythm 82x. Oxygen at 96% although her lips were a bit blueish, T.A - 168/100, Glucose - 10.1
Lungs sound clear, without any pathologies.
Okay, aortic aneurysm? Aortic dissection? No pulsating in the stomach area, auscultation also is fine.
Then it really hits the fan. Patient is now going crazy, ripping everything off, playing fish out of the water on the stretcher.
While we consult a doctor for possible diagnosis and treatment plan, it suddenly gets real quiet. Patient is now unconciouss, breathing (Cheyne-Stokes)
Ok, so maybe a stroke?
Her HR slowly droops from 82x to 50x and I can't hear any breathing anymore. Check for pulse - PEA. We did two cycles before achieving ROSC. We start driving and 2mins later we are back at it. Same story, HR goes from 82x to 50x without pulse. This time only one cycle needed for ROSC. We decide that the issue (4H 4T) is hypoxia and try to intubate. After three unsuccessful attempts, we continue ventilating with ambu. The drive to the hospital was 60 km. In total we coded her 11 times, using 14 adrenalines. Got her in the ER with a pulse.
In the ER, Echo is clear for heart abnormalities, head CT shows no sign of hemorhage or trombosis. Troponines negative. Now she is in the ICU. (Got this info when visited the hospital later with another pt).
I am really confused about this call. All the possible diagnoses I could think of summarized:
MI PE Aortic Aneurysm/Disection Stroke
Re-reading this. Pain in leg - DVT? DVT->PE? We could ventilate her up to 92% but yeah, really sucks that we couldn't intubate her :/
But yeah, the whole trip to the hospital, all 11 times the patient went from Sinus rythm ~80x to 50x dropping the pulse.
EDIT: I have the code summary from the call, but its like 20 meters long, i can post it later if that would help
2024.04.02 20:17 JoaozeraPedroca Health anxiety sucks
I was just walking around and suddenly felt a pain in the right side of my head, then it went away, nothing too bad.
Then I began wondering if that pain was something more serious, like an aneurysm. Right after that I began getting dizzy and cold sweat.
I came back home in a hurry, scared.
Now I dont know if what im feeling is just on my mind or not.
It just sucks so hard worrying if you are about to die everyday...
submitted by JoaozeraPedroca to Anxiety [link] [comments]
Then I began wondering if that pain was something more serious, like an aneurysm. Right after that I began getting dizzy and cold sweat.
I came back home in a hurry, scared.
Now I dont know if what im feeling is just on my mind or not.
It just sucks so hard worrying if you are about to die everyday...
2024.03.22 03:09 Trash_Tia It's all fun and games until your English Language Arts class can read each other's thoughts.
“The ‘Men in Black’ are definitely coming to dissect us.”
Imagine your own mind is no longer private.
Your thoughts are out in the open, no longer just yours.
A constant stream of consciousness slamming into your skull.
A single thought multiplying, erupting inside your head with enough pressure to almost knock you off of your chair.
“The ‘Men in Black’ are definitely going to dissect us,” Ten individual and equally irritating voices hit me like a wave of ice water, a rabid hive mind of thoughts creeping into the back of my mind.
There was always an echo, a sharp reverberation rattling my skull, like phantom fingers poking my brain.
Sitting in front of my college Dean, my gaze on the grains of her desk, it took everything in me, grasping hold of the upholstery of my chair and digging the heels of my shoes into the carpet, not to let out an audible cry. Ten voices, ten thoughts, ten sensations screaming into my skull at the same time, I would compare it to a nuclear bomb going off.
I could never pick out one thought, so it was either all of them, or none of them.
Sam’s thoughts often repeated, and Liam’s were too quiet. Josie screamed, and Blair was unintentionally painful.
Sometimes voices entangled into one single string, a singularity so powerful, I was well aware of blood dripping from my nose. I tentatively pressed the sleeve of my jacket over my nose.
Liam and Freddie were the human embodiment of dentist drills. And it was their words, their tangled inner shrieks, that were trying to rip me apart.
THE MEN IN BLACK WERE DEFINITELY HERE TO DISSECT US.
Dean Carter had a framed photo of a kitten on her desk. I focused on that, on her desk, photos of smiling children and a dog with a squeaky toy lodged into its mouth, until my brain stopped bouncing around. I managed to exhale when, finally, it stopped, fading into that same white noise of voices I still couldn't untangle no matter how hard I tried.
“Miss Duran,” Dean Carter’s low murmur was a relief, actual speech, opposed to whatever the hell we were.
“Are you all right?”
Swallowing a hiss, I nodded.
“Yes.” I said. “But… could I ask why I'm here?”
Dean Carter’s smile was strained. “Lana, we just want to talk to you.”
I nodded, sweat beading down my neck and back. “That's fine,” I spoke coolly, holding my concentration.
The white noise shrieking stopped, though I still couldn't sense the eleventh and twelfth voices missing from that spiderweb inside my head.
I gestured toward the deep blue coloured door on the other side of the room. Which hadn't moved in a while.
“But isn't it illegal to trap your students in the supply closet?”
Her expression didn't waver. “They're fine.”
The muffled cries we both heard said otherwise.
Dean Carter’s smile crumpled a little.
“They don't sound fine,” I said.
Cocking her head, she changed the subject, of course, back to me. “Lana, is there something on your mind?”
I wasn't sure how to answer that.
Suddenly developing telepathic abilities wasn't the strangest part of my day.
In fact, the telepathy part isn't new. It's been going on for several weeks.
Getting questioned by my college Dean who was definitely suspicious of us, was new.
Weirdly enough, our college has always been at the centre of strange happenings and disappearances that couldn't be explained. Well, the student body couldn't explain them.
Anyone with half of a brain cell could. In 2017, a freshman girl dropped off of the face of the earth with no trace, and 2022, a group of students now infamous for their campus podcast Know It All told the story of their apparent trip into the 1980’s after slipping through a crack in time in the old student lounge.
Their wild story garnered so much attention that some kids had decorated it in fairy lights, penning it a gateway.
I guess if someone really wanted to dig into these events, the 2017 disappearing freshman and the student lounge being a gateway to the 1980’s– they would find semi-plausible explanations for both.
The guys were probably on some type of high and had some mass hallucination, and the girl dropped out of school without telling anyone. There.
The unexplained was now the explained. One look at CCTV footage showed the girl leaving campus in the middle of the night. Mystery solved.
However, there was actual credibility to some of these happenings.
Such as Tommy Phelps.
I think I spoke to him once or twice, casual conversion.
He was a nice guy, a bit of a cinephile, a twinge of an aussie accent, and slightly on the pretentious side. In my freshman year, just two months into the semester, Tommy claimed he was kidnapped and experimented on.
Something had definitely happened to him.
Kidnapping was possible, given the state of the kid. The boy’s eyes were wide, unseeing, half of his hair shaved off.
He stumbled into class one day insisting his mind had been fucked with, and he couldn't remember anything except walls of glass. I remember that class vividly. It was my first time feeling real proper fear, the type that creeps up on you, a phantom snake winding its way around my throat.
I watched a normal level-headed boy completely break apart, dropping to his knees and rocking back and forth.
What he was wearing confused me, an ancient college sweatshirt, and a crumpled pair of shorts. It was the college gym clothes, but Tommy didn't go near the sports department.
Everyone else was paying attention to the markings on his face, noticeable stitches on the back of his head, while I was frowning at Tommy's clothes.
Known for his stark taste in clothing, often flaunting waistcoats or tweed jackets with elbow patches, sportswear was definitely different. Not to mention the gym clothes were ancient.
Why would he be wearing an outdated sweater dating back to the early 2000’s?
His feet were bare, pointing to him being in captivity.
“Please.” Staggering through the doorway, his steps were clumsy, topsy turvy. When he hit the ground on his stomach, our startled looking professor ran out of the room, yelling for help.
“Pleasehelpme.”
“Tommy.” Ria Martinez dropped onto her knees in front of him.
Ria had the kind of face you automatically wanted to trust.
Her eyes were kind, light brown hair framing a heart shaped face.
She was gentle, tracing the tips of her fingers across his cheek.
He wouldn't let her fully touch him, shaking his head rapidly, letting out a soft moan when she firmly placed her hands on his shoulders.
“Tommy, what happened?”
“I don't know,” he whispered, frenzied eyes meeting hers. “I got…I got away.”
Ria nodded slowly. “Got away from where?”
Tommy's eyes widened, his lips splitting into a cry. “So loud.” he slammed his hands over his ears. “Why are you so… loud? So loud. So LOUD.”
“Tommy.” Ria said softly.
“No! No, get off me! Get away from me!”
Tommy's words were nonsensical and tangled, hands clawing clumps of his hair. Something about a room of glass, and his head being prodded and poked at.
As he spoke, the boy's sanity bled away, his eyes widening with mania, terror, lips twisting into a snarl, and then a twisted grin. Followed by three words that have been analysed by every amateur journalist on campus.
I witnessed them firsthand.
”Red” Tommy spoke through his teeth. His gaze was frantic, trying to find a face he could trust. Ria was already backing away, stumbling over herself.
I don't think he really saw any of us, shuffling into the wall like a wild animal.
Wrapping his arms around his knees Tommy continued, rocking back and forth, like he was lulling himself to sleep. "Gemini."
His voice rose into an animalistic cry, and the boy's body seemed to react, his expression going flat, arms falling to his sides. When his eyes rolled back to pearly whites, I turned away, a sour barf filling my mouth.
But I still heard him in vivid clarity, his tone bleeding of emotion. Norebrook.
The last word slipped from the boy's lips, and when I twisted around, his head was lolling to the side, deep red rivulets running from his nose. “Nore… brook.”
He spoke like he was tasting the words, his body rattling, like it was reacting.
Tommy's head snapped up, and through vacant eyes, he peered at us like a confused child, frowning at his blood-slicked hands.
“Red.”
He made a fist.
“Gemini.”
When Tommy turned to look at us again, his eyes flickered, like he was waking up, emotion igniting his face.
“Nore… brook?”
Everyone had their own version of what happened that day through word of mouth. Some idiot said Tommy started giggling hysterically, while the head of the college newspaper published that he held us hostage with a box cutter.
The most popular and talked about version was that Tommy Phelps attacked a student like an animal.
But that's just the sensationalised version.
People wanted to believe he was violent because that was interesting. It got likes and comments. It got kids talking, making more rumors and adding to the fire, igniting fear of a viral outbreak and a new strain of rabies.
The thing is, though, that reality wasn't nearly as horrifying as the rumours made it out to be. Tommy didn't attack anyone. Blinking rapidly and seemingly himself again, he reached out blindly, shaking with terror.
For a disorienting moment, his expression bled coherency despite empty eyes staring straight through us.
So much so that part of me wanted to believe what he was saying. His hands were caked with dirt, clawing at us.
I noticed the nails on his index, pinky, and thumb had been pulled off.
“Help me,” he whimpered, when security dragged him from the room.
Tommy erupted into hysterics halfway down the hallway, those same three words coming out in sharp, heavy breaths, his body violently squirming, kicking and screaming, his voice growing louder, more desperate.
"Red!” He spluttered, choking on the word like it suffocated him. I glimpsed red splatter on the floor.
“Gemini.” Tommy's voice tripped up, his body going limp.
The guard wrestling with him threw the boy over his shoulder.
We watched silently as the door slammed on the boy, but I could still hear his slurred cry bouncing off of the walls.
“Nore….Brook!”
Tommy didn't come back to class after that. He did, however, make a cryptic social media post saying, “I was high on cocaine lol” when the guy was a top student and never touched the stuff.
Sure, we could buy it if we really wanted. But after listening to multiple episodes of Know it All I knew the hosts had not only proved the social media post was fabricated, but also had stalked his dorm, which had been mysteriously emptied, his roommate also MIA. In Episode 12, they revealed Tommy's parents had randomly uprooted their life in southern California, and moved to Australia.
The college brushed all of this under the rug, however. Know It All asked them to comment, and were swiftly threatened with a shutdown and forced to make the podcast private.
So, I count Tommy's state and disappearance as an actual strange occurrence on campus.
The conspiracy nut part of me wondered if the college were purposely over exaggerating the easily explained to cover up the unexplainable. There was no big mystery, and these so-called strange happenings were just vocalised to make our mediocre community college actually look interesting. While the actual unexplained events (ie. The infamous Red, Gemini, Norebrook) were ignored.
Why don't you apply to Hollingwood University!
We have disappearing students and cracks in space and time! (forget about the uh, the whispers about the boy who actually went missing) Have you ever wanted to fall directly into 1985? Our student lounge is a portal!
What couldn't be explained in any logic, sense, or aspect however, was my English Language Arts class simultaneously developing telepathy out of nowhere. You could argue that it wasn't completely out of nowhere, considering the already weird things going on around campus. But for us?
This was new.
It was fucking weird and confusing, and zero of us had any idea how it had happened. Nothing connected us.
There were no secret experiments and we hadn't signed up for shady after hours classes, or been caught up in an explosion. Nope. Two months ago, I fell asleep with a mostly empty head, and woke up to a hurricane of painful white noise I couldn't stop or control. It felt like my brain was being cooked alive.
When I opened my eyes, my pillow was covered in blood, my lips and chin dripping and smeared scarlet. I stood up, and my body wouldn't work, tipping onto the side.
My housemate was already in class.
It was the TV, I thought dizzily, blinking colors from my eyes.
That noise... it had to be the TV.
Surely.
But the TV wasn't on.
The TV was never fucking on, because who watched TV anymore?
I thought I was going crazy.
Seriously.
I called the doctor, kneeling on my bathroom floor with my forehead pressed to the cool porcelain of my toilet.
“I can hear things,” I croaked out. “I need you to get it out of my head. Now.”
“Miss Duran, could you please repeat that?”
Her lack of interest in the call boiled my blood. "I said,” I gritted through my teeth. “I think…" Squeezing my eyes shut somehow made the pressure worse, spiralling colors in my eyes and the worst fucking migraine imaginable.
I did everything to combat it. I lay down in a dark room, but the stream of noise in my head grew louder, TV static buzzing in the root of my brain. I'm going crazy, I could barely hear the receptionist over the constant, never ending fucking screech in my head.
I was still speaking, my lips moving, curving and curling and forming words I couldn't even hear.
“Do you hear me?!” I had to screech to hear the slightest fragments of my own voice bleeding into my ears. “I'm going crazy!” I grabbed at my hair, hysterical, clawing at my scalp. “There's something in my head,” I sobbed, burying my face into the cool silk of my pyjama shorts.
"There's something there. I can feel it.”
I was well aware of how fucked up I sounded, but I kept stabbing at my temple. The pain was helping me visualise it perfectly. I could feel them, sense them. Tiny bugs writhing into the meat of my brain, razor sharp teeth gnawing into the tumour sized cavern they had already chewed. “There.” I hissed over the a whistling that had started up, digging deep down into the root of my skull. “It's right there!”
“Miss Duran, I'm not sure what you mean–”
Throwing my phone down, I found myself half conscious, blinking down at the sharpest knife I could find.
Standing in front of my bathroom mirror, I was deathly pale, almost a greenish color, my hair glued to my forehead with sweat. It was never going to fucking stop; the light show of colors dancing in my eyes, my blurry vision contorting the world around me into a slowly collapsing pinprick.
I wasn't aware I’d successfully broken skin until sharp beads of red slid down my wrist. I couldn't feel it. The stinging pain of the blade slicing into my flesh. I couldn't feel the twist of my gut, the sour tasting barf bridging the back of my throat. All I could feel was the thrumming, the BANG, BANG, BANG on the back of my skull. Like someone was knocking.
I was dazedly staring down at the knife cinched between my fingers, when it… stopped.
I dropped to my knees when the pressure on my head lifted just slightly, a single drop of red splashing onto the tiled floor. Followed by a voice so casual, so clear, I thought they were standing behind me.
Okay, so if I buy three packs of chips, a Coke, and leave like fifteen dollars for gas, I should be good. Dad is picking me up in the evening for that football game, aaand I need to think of an excuse not to meet him after. I can't miss Simon’s thirtieth.
When I turned my head, there was nobody there. I was kneeling in my bathroom in front of piles and piles of bloody tissue paper and my toilet seat stained revealing red. The voice continued, a foreign feeling growing in my head, seeping into my bones.
I'm cold, The voice hit me again, this time like a brick to the face. Should I wear a jacket? No. Nah, I'm good..
Before I could stop myself, I was diving to unsteady feet and clamouring out of the bathroom and down the stairs.
Just as I thought, the stranger inside my head was getting louder.
I reached the front door, sticking my head out into the early morning sunlight. And there he was.
Ooh, it's cold. I should have worn a coat. Mom was right…
His voice slipped into static once more, before drifting back into fruition.
--and anyway, it's not like the sex is bad…
It was just a normal guy cruising down the sidewalk. Clad in a suit and tie, hair slicked back, he looked like a recent graduate.
The guy walked past my house and offered me a shy smile. But I noticed the strain in his expression. He quickly turned away, his lip curling. Is that girl okay? Was that blood? Shit. Fuck. Does she need me to call someone?
The guy risked a look back, before turning back around. No, I'm late. Probably a nosebleed… he stopped for a moment, pretending to check his phone.
Why is she staring at me? Do I have shit on my face–
The guys voice didn't disappear until I was standing under my shower spigot, blasting cold water on my face.
And even when it did, another tangle of sharp consciousness dug its way into the back of my mind, a single voice bleeding from the hurricane of noise. Hanna needs to get her head out of his ass, because he's playing her like a fucking–
Staring down at the shower drain, at red tinged water, the voice skipped again. This time a woman. I couldn't tell where it was coming from. Outside? Across the road? This thing worked like a cellphone, bleeding in and out of the network. I don't think I can deal with today, the woman sighed, I should have had more sleep, but that spider on the wall could be anywhere and I'm…
So good, a frat boy sounding guy this time. And this time she pulled out–
--Late! This time, a southern accent pierced my skull. I’m late! Jess is going to kill me–
Then, a teenage girl's violent hiss that might as well have been the curved age of a blade sticking into my cortex. How many times is she going to do this? How many snaps is she going to Ignore? She’s a petty, childish fucking–
The voices kept skipping until I stuffed in earphones and cranked up the volume.
Music didn't help, but it did sooth slightly. The voices were still there, but I could drown it out with Screamo.
Officially, the phenomenon I was going through was telepathy. I Googled it just to make sure.
Telepathy, also known as mind reading, is the supposed communication of thoughts and ideas by means other than the known senses.
Mind reading had always sounded cool in the movies, but actually having it is the equivalent of someone implanting a radio into the back of your head.
It's not like I could control it.
The second I stepped onto campus and removed my earphones, the rush of noise came back, slamming into me, this time in a hiss of incomprehensible voices in an explosion I could feel in the backs of my eyes. The pressure of several thousand voices brought the pressure back tenfold.
Different tones, accents, languages, and volumes. People think loudly, and they don't even realise they're doing it. Thinking, to anyone else, is normal.
To me, it's a tsunami.
I had a semi-plan. I would try and tolerate my first class, and if it was too much, escape to the nurse’s office off of campus and beg for an MRI.
There had to be a logical explanation to why I was hearing people's thoughts, and why they were so fucking loud and intrusive. I had heard of medical phenomenons that even top scientists couldn't explain. Some girl had woken up speaking mandarin, despite not knowing the language.
So, these things did happen. It was just rare.
Keeping my earphones corked in, I stepped into English Language Arts.
I wasn't expecting to bump into a congregation of my classmates standing around a table.
A glance to the front immediately put me on guard.
Where was Professor King?
Standing a few feet away was Jordan Maine, an ex host of Know it All.
The others kicked him out when he suggested spying on Tommy's family was insensitive.
As usual, Jordans expression was annoyed, his features prickling with irritation. His hair was an untidy mop of dark curls, and standing in a crumpled pyjama shirt over well-worn jeans, I noticed he wasn't as put together as usual. His camera, also an extension of his identity, was nowhere to be seen.
I don't think I had ever seen the guy looking so dishevelled, like he had just crawled straight out of bed. There was a subtle tension in his posture, with the way he was rocking back and forth on his heels. When he caught my eye, I realised the others weren't speaking.
The entire class were half dressed, odd socks and tousled hair, jackets half thrown on.
The only one who wasn't joining in was Harry Astor, hiding at the back of the classroom. “What's going on?” I spoke out loud over my screamo music.
Jordan didn't speak, instead motioning for me to remove my headphones.
“I'm good!” I said, forcing a smile that hurt my head. “Where's Professor King?”
His lip curled and again, motioned for me to remove my music.
I did, after glimpsing the smear of dark red crusting his nostril.
Uncorking my ears, the sensation slammed into me, this time a physical wave almost knocking me off of my feet. I could hear them, all of them, a tangled wave of screaming, slicing into my skull. Jordan’s hands pressed down on my shoulder when I tried to back away, forcing me to face the others.
Okay, try now, his voice slipped through the noise, Can you hear me?
His lips weren't moving, wide eyes glued to me.
Something ice cold skittered down my spine. Jordan Maine was speaking directly into my mind.
I nodded shakily, drinking in ten pairs of eyes staring at me.
Testing, testing, Jordan’s voice slipped into my thoughts, and it was just his. From the other’s expressions, Liam’s lip curling, and Min gritting her teeth, they could hear him too.
All right. So, this works. It takes time to tune everyone out, but it works.
He turned to Sierra Miller, the class's spokesperson. You were saying?
Sierra rolled her eyes. Okay, yes, congratulations. You stopped us from having an aneurysm. and folded her arms. But that's only if you're concentrating, right? So, if you let go, the floodgates open and we get blasted.
Jordan nodded, shrugging. Pretty much.
I managed to speak with my mouth. “But how…?”
No idea, his voice boomed into my skull.
Stop that, Sierra hissed out. You're going to blow my brains out!
“Telepathy.” Jordan said out loud instead, a shaky laugh escaping his lips.
But there was a darkness to his tone, a hollow look in his eye, I couldn't help glimpse.
“That's…fucking cool."
I knew the moment Jordan had lost control, because, just like Sierra said, the floodgates flew open, a vicious stream of voices flooding into my skull.
No, not just mine.
Everyone's.
That was 2 months ago, and we still hadn't gotten the hang out of it.
Three days ago, I was trying to talk to my friend, already jittery from our professor's sudden disappearance, which happened to be the same day the twelve of us developed telepathy. Two months had passed and there was no sign of him.
With us being Professor King’s students, we were the prime suspects.
Bess was talking about a TV show, or something, but her real voice was lost inside the sea of noise scrambling inside my head. I was getting better at tuning people in and out, but it was still a challenge.
The buzzing stream of noise was particularly bad that morning, like someone had cranked it up to 100.
I think I'm pregnant…. am I pregnant?
I'm dropping out. This is too… I’m not happy anymore.
Did I feed my cat this morning? No, I did. I definitely–
And she's not even being subtle about it! It's painful. What a evil bitch–
“Lana?”
Bess’s low murmur barely scratching the surface of my mind drifted into incoherent mumbling when the doors to the main reception opened, two men appearing. Immediately, they drew attention. Men in Black. Literally.
The two of them were heavily clad in crisp, black suits with matching sunglasses, exuding an air of authority, and for the student body to move aside.
Bess’s mouth dropped open, her eyes wide. She pulled me to the side when they walked past. “Do you think they're here for the Professor King case?”
I couldn't hear her voice, but I was getting good at lip reading when the swarm of voices drowned out real ones.
“I don't know,” was all I responded with, my gaze snapping to Sierra down the hall, buried behind a mop of curls, and then Jordan standing with his friends, his head ducked, jaw clenched.
He didn't stand out in the crowd like usual, wearing darker colours, hiding under his hood.
I sensed the prickle of fear in the back of his head, his voice a soft, Fuck, fuckpleasedon’tlookatmepleasedon’tlookatme.
Sierra’s expression was twitching, her gaze dropping to the ground when the men strode past her.
Stay calm, Sierra’s voice was a low murmur, a gentle prod into the meat of my brain. It's a routine visit, she paused.
Probably. I mean, why else would they be here?
A routine visit? Jordan’s sharp Boston accent joined the wave. Since when do the Men in Black regularly drop by?
Shut up, I managed to say. Both of you. Just get off of the hallway. We’re attracting attention to ourselves here..
I was right. We couldn't have looked any less suspicious.
I thought the men were heading toward the office, but they seemed to pivot at the last minute, and directly toward me.
“Lana Duran?”
Lana, what did you do?! Sierra’s voice was like symbols being crashed together. Fuck! They're here for us! They're going to slice us up and dissect us into tiny pieces! What did you do?!
Chill out, Jordan hissed.
But even he was sceptical.
He was an ex host of Know It All, after all. Tommy, I don't think he meant to say that, but his thoughts were no longer private. Could they be here about–
“Lana.”
The man's voice easily sliced through Jordan’s mental cry, a prickle creeping down my spine. The physical presence that had become almost familiar to me, which was Jordan and Sierra, was cut away, severed suddenly, enough to sting. And the silence in my head that followed was enough to unnerve me.
The man’s stance in seemed to kill every other thought around me, a short circuit, leaving me alone inside my head for the first time in months, and suddenly, deeply, deeply lonely.
“Yes?” I felt like I was speaking in tongues.
Instinctively, my gaze snapped to Jordan and Sierra. Who were no longer there. I blinked. The two of them had been spirited away, right in front of me.
The world kept going around me, students bustling around and Bess gently nudging me, letting me know she was heading to class. Ten voices entered my mind this time, not twelve.
And all of them were screaming at me.
The man cleared his throat. “Lana, I'm Agent Cassidy. This is Agent Powell. Would we be able to talk to you regarding a certain Professor Jason King? Don't worry, we’re talking to everyone in your class, so call it a…”
The guy's voice slipped in and out of my ears, the cries in my head once again being drowned out. This time I did know the reason. Harry Astor was what we called a barricade. No matter what we did, none of us could hear him.
His thoughts were null, nothing, a startling oblivion that was so stark, so deep, I kept my distance.
His mind and thoughts were impenetrable. Afflicted with telepathic abilities like the twelve of us, Harry didn't take part in emergency meetings, or hanging out. He wanted nothing to do with us. His mind was a vacuum, sucking in thoughts, as he walked by with his head ducked.
“Miss Duran, are you listening to me?”
I snapped out of it, my own mind detaching from the swarm of nothing which was Harry.
Nodding, I let them escort me to the Dean’s office, only for them to disappear, leaving me stuck with her. Ten other voices followed, a confusing string of, Are we getting dissected?! Oh God, are the Men in Black coming to dissect us? Are we being cut up?!
Jordan and Sierra were in the closet. I could sense them.
Still couldn't hear them though.
When Dean Carter pursed her lips, I tried again.
“You have my friends locked in your supply closet,” I said, and as if on cue, the door rattled, startling her from her chair. It hadn't really bothered me before, but now it felt significant. Why couldn't I hear my Dean’s thoughts too?
“That is none of your concern," Dean Carter relaxed. “Where were you on the night of September 18th?”
“Home.”
She hummed. “What were you doing at home?”
Lana, what's going on in there? Liam’s hiss was prodding at my skull.
I shoved him out.
“Sleeping.” I said. Which was true. I slept most of the night.
She nodded. “All right. Well, I have some visitors who would like to talk to you.” The door opened, and once again the voices in my head were drowned out, severed, by the duo’s presence.
It felt wrong, alien, a vicious vacuum bleeding into my skull. I didn't realize I was shuffling back on my chair until I had to force my feet into the ground to hold myself. The two of them could be differentiated by their faces.
The one on the right had a smile that was almost friendly, while the one on the left was scowling.
They asked me the same questions, and each time, I felt myself start to break apart, my facade crumbling.
The two of them held themselves well, suave and confident while I shattered under the weight of each question.
I was trying to find Sierra and Jordan that black hole of nothing, but they were gone. Physically, they were in the closet. But I couldn't find them.
“Miss Duran, were you aware your professor was conducting research into life after death?”
That caught me off guard.
I meant to keep my gaze glued to the floor and mutter that I wanted a lawyer for each question, but that one in particular sent my head snapping up.
“What?”
Agent Powell, or the scowler, nodded.
“In 2012, he was arrested for conducting unethical experiments on several volunteers. Including sleep deprivation and intentional cardiac arrest. Professor King's medical licence was suspended in 2017, under the name Professor David Castiel.” his eyes were penetrating mine.
“Miss Duran, have you witnessed anything you have not been able to explain?” His words were eerily gentle. “Strange lights, phenomena, or perhaps an affliction?"
I swallowed. The lamp on my Dean’s desk was suddenly too bright, too in my face.
“No.”
Agent Cassidy’s smile widened. “Lana, there's nothing to be afraid of. We can help you.”
I shook my head, my palms clammy. “No, I haven't seen anything. Sorry.”
The two exchanged glances.
“Lana, are you aware Jordan Maine and Sierra Nicholson were in possession of your professor’s phone and ID?”
I tried to keep my expression nonchalant.
“No.”
Powell pushed harder. “How about DNA that matches your professor underneath Sierra Nicholson’s bed?”
“No.”
This time I didn't sound sure of myself.
I thought they were finished, but the two just stood up. Powell turned to me with a sigh. I’m not sure at what point it was when my brain exploded.
Both men didn't seem fazed by the sudden shrieking in my head.
There was a steel rod cracking through my skull and stirring my mind into a soupy mess.
I was on my knees before I could stop my body’s knee jerk reaction pinning me to the ground.
It was worse than every voice put together, a hellish, banshee wail bleeding into my head that was so fucking powerful, so painful, warm, wet redness seeped from my mouth and nose, swimming in my ears.
Not just voices, but emotions, sensations, slamming into me in a wave.
I heard them, all of them, thousands of mental cries pouring into my skull.
Pressing my head into the carpet, I was aware I was screaming, but my own cry was null, drowned out.
Across the room, two voices slipped into my consciousness, entangled and wrong and poisoned, harsh enough to rip from my own lips. I was on my feet, stumbling, toward the closet, and then backward, when they hit full throttle.
Red.
Gemini.
Norebrook.
Jordan and Sierra’s voices were lower, a synchronised thrum drained of emotion.
Red.
Gem..ini.
Nore… brook.
There was something horrifyingly permanent about those words not coming from their lips, but astray in their minds, loose thoughts finally hitting me.
“Miss Duran, it's okay, we are trying to help you. Now, if you could tell us where Agent King is–”
Agent Powell was behind me trying to talk to me, but I was screaming, trying to push all of the voices out, and those three words were already threading through me.
Before they could, I managed to get out.
The last thing I saw was Powell grabbing Sierra and Jordan, who were like dolls, limp, dropping onto the ground.
Red. Gemini. Norebrook.
Their eyes were empty, but their lips moved.
Red.
Gemini.
Norebrook.
Before those words could swamp me too, I slammed the door behind me.
I was back in the hallway, and there was silence.
Silence, that almost knocked me off of my feet.
It was a familiar silence, a void I almost craved. He was close. Harry Astor was standing at the vending machine, his fingers lingering on the diet soda button. The closer I got to him, I expected that void of nothing.
Instead, however, a voice entered my skull, sharp, like the blade of a knife protruding inside my head. Skin them alive, dismembering them one by one. His voice was almost a manic laugh.
Not… natural, his whisper was violent. Not natural, not natural, not natural. I'll stop it. I'll make sure it stops. I promised them. I promised him.
He stabbed at the soda button, his other hand clawing at his arm, fingernails scratching at his skin until it bled.
I'll stop it. his expression remained nonchalant. --I’ll slice up every part, every organ, brain, heart, everything. Nothing left. he stabbed at the button again, impatiently, the spider web of insanity growing and growing, leeching itself to me like a virus.
My legs buckled when I felt, sensed, the cold ice. I was somewhere hollow, devoid of light and warmth.
There was freezing cold concrete beneath me, something wet and sticky spreading around my head.
I wasn't moving.
My lips were numb, and it was so dark, swirling black suffocating me.
I could feel others next to me, lumps of flesh piled underneath like dolls.
Voices in my head crying out, mangled, begging for mercy. Something cold and cruel slipped into the back of my neck in one single stroke, and then again, cutting, slicing through muscle and bone.
His heavy breaths tickled my flesh.
The knife plunged in again, this time severing my arms, a chunkier, thicker blade for my torso. I felt his hands slick with my blood, my insides staining him, dripping and smeared on his apron.
I sensed him stuffing me in a bag, careful to pile the chunks of me so I would fit.
His heavy breath when he lifted the bag, and I weighed it down.
The splash of my remains, our remains, hitting deep water.
Sinking.
Deep, deep, down.
I still heard them, frightened whispers grazing my being.
I existed at the bottom of the lake, swallowed in the dark.
And I existed as splattered lumps of flesh inside Harry Astor’s bathroom.
Dissolving in a tub full of acid, glued to white porcelain and clinging to the drain.
I was still thinking, sensing, drinking things in.
I had no body, no fucking brain, and thoughts still poured inside my consciousness, that endless relentless hissing.
Buzzing.
Screeching.
It never ends. This thing I have, it will never stop.
CLANG
The diet soda can finally dropped down, the vending machine beeping loudly.
Harry Astor stuck his hand through the flap, grabbed it, and cracked it open.
He took a long gulp, his thoughts still latched onto me.
He was going to murder me.
Dismember my body, dump me in a river, and then destroy my remnants in acid.
And I will keep going.
Keep thinking, screaming into the abyss, tied to this thing.
I was still standing in my college hallway, my stomach heaving. Harry was gone by the time I'd managed to get a hold of myself. The agents were gone, and so were Jordan and Sierra.
My Dean, of course, pretended they didn't exist.
Just like Tommy.
We had a meeting earlier, this time off of campus. It doesn't make sense why just Jordan and Sierra were taken.
They didn't kill our professor, right?
Why would they kill him?
The agents opened up my mind to Harry's thoughts, and then left? Do they know what he’s going to do, or are they as clueless as me?
If they knew I was a telepath, surely I would be taken too.
I don't know how to tell the others they're going to die.
I start to tell them, but the words get stuck in my throat.
Because then I have to add on that they too are stuck like me, eternally awake.
Thinking.
And I don't know how to tell them Harry will be the one to do it.
I'm not going to die.
I'm going to keep going.
Even after I am brutally ripped apart by my psychotic classmate, I will keep going.
I won't have an ending, a real, proper peaceful slumber, a real death.
I'm never going to die.
And that terrifies me more than my inevitable murder.
submitted by Trash_Tia to TheCrypticCompendium [link] [comments]
Imagine your own mind is no longer private.
Your thoughts are out in the open, no longer just yours.
A constant stream of consciousness slamming into your skull.
A single thought multiplying, erupting inside your head with enough pressure to almost knock you off of your chair.
“The ‘Men in Black’ are definitely going to dissect us,” Ten individual and equally irritating voices hit me like a wave of ice water, a rabid hive mind of thoughts creeping into the back of my mind.
There was always an echo, a sharp reverberation rattling my skull, like phantom fingers poking my brain.
Sitting in front of my college Dean, my gaze on the grains of her desk, it took everything in me, grasping hold of the upholstery of my chair and digging the heels of my shoes into the carpet, not to let out an audible cry. Ten voices, ten thoughts, ten sensations screaming into my skull at the same time, I would compare it to a nuclear bomb going off.
I could never pick out one thought, so it was either all of them, or none of them.
Sam’s thoughts often repeated, and Liam’s were too quiet. Josie screamed, and Blair was unintentionally painful.
Sometimes voices entangled into one single string, a singularity so powerful, I was well aware of blood dripping from my nose. I tentatively pressed the sleeve of my jacket over my nose.
Liam and Freddie were the human embodiment of dentist drills. And it was their words, their tangled inner shrieks, that were trying to rip me apart.
THE MEN IN BLACK WERE DEFINITELY HERE TO DISSECT US.
Dean Carter had a framed photo of a kitten on her desk. I focused on that, on her desk, photos of smiling children and a dog with a squeaky toy lodged into its mouth, until my brain stopped bouncing around. I managed to exhale when, finally, it stopped, fading into that same white noise of voices I still couldn't untangle no matter how hard I tried.
“Miss Duran,” Dean Carter’s low murmur was a relief, actual speech, opposed to whatever the hell we were.
“Are you all right?”
Swallowing a hiss, I nodded.
“Yes.” I said. “But… could I ask why I'm here?”
Dean Carter’s smile was strained. “Lana, we just want to talk to you.”
I nodded, sweat beading down my neck and back. “That's fine,” I spoke coolly, holding my concentration.
The white noise shrieking stopped, though I still couldn't sense the eleventh and twelfth voices missing from that spiderweb inside my head.
I gestured toward the deep blue coloured door on the other side of the room. Which hadn't moved in a while.
“But isn't it illegal to trap your students in the supply closet?”
Her expression didn't waver. “They're fine.”
The muffled cries we both heard said otherwise.
Dean Carter’s smile crumpled a little.
“They don't sound fine,” I said.
Cocking her head, she changed the subject, of course, back to me. “Lana, is there something on your mind?”
I wasn't sure how to answer that.
Suddenly developing telepathic abilities wasn't the strangest part of my day.
In fact, the telepathy part isn't new. It's been going on for several weeks.
Getting questioned by my college Dean who was definitely suspicious of us, was new.
Weirdly enough, our college has always been at the centre of strange happenings and disappearances that couldn't be explained. Well, the student body couldn't explain them.
Anyone with half of a brain cell could. In 2017, a freshman girl dropped off of the face of the earth with no trace, and 2022, a group of students now infamous for their campus podcast Know It All told the story of their apparent trip into the 1980’s after slipping through a crack in time in the old student lounge.
Their wild story garnered so much attention that some kids had decorated it in fairy lights, penning it a gateway.
I guess if someone really wanted to dig into these events, the 2017 disappearing freshman and the student lounge being a gateway to the 1980’s– they would find semi-plausible explanations for both.
The guys were probably on some type of high and had some mass hallucination, and the girl dropped out of school without telling anyone. There.
The unexplained was now the explained. One look at CCTV footage showed the girl leaving campus in the middle of the night. Mystery solved.
However, there was actual credibility to some of these happenings.
Such as Tommy Phelps.
I think I spoke to him once or twice, casual conversion.
He was a nice guy, a bit of a cinephile, a twinge of an aussie accent, and slightly on the pretentious side. In my freshman year, just two months into the semester, Tommy claimed he was kidnapped and experimented on.
Something had definitely happened to him.
Kidnapping was possible, given the state of the kid. The boy’s eyes were wide, unseeing, half of his hair shaved off.
He stumbled into class one day insisting his mind had been fucked with, and he couldn't remember anything except walls of glass. I remember that class vividly. It was my first time feeling real proper fear, the type that creeps up on you, a phantom snake winding its way around my throat.
I watched a normal level-headed boy completely break apart, dropping to his knees and rocking back and forth.
What he was wearing confused me, an ancient college sweatshirt, and a crumpled pair of shorts. It was the college gym clothes, but Tommy didn't go near the sports department.
Everyone else was paying attention to the markings on his face, noticeable stitches on the back of his head, while I was frowning at Tommy's clothes.
Known for his stark taste in clothing, often flaunting waistcoats or tweed jackets with elbow patches, sportswear was definitely different. Not to mention the gym clothes were ancient.
Why would he be wearing an outdated sweater dating back to the early 2000’s?
His feet were bare, pointing to him being in captivity.
“Please.” Staggering through the doorway, his steps were clumsy, topsy turvy. When he hit the ground on his stomach, our startled looking professor ran out of the room, yelling for help.
“Pleasehelpme.”
“Tommy.” Ria Martinez dropped onto her knees in front of him.
Ria had the kind of face you automatically wanted to trust.
Her eyes were kind, light brown hair framing a heart shaped face.
She was gentle, tracing the tips of her fingers across his cheek.
He wouldn't let her fully touch him, shaking his head rapidly, letting out a soft moan when she firmly placed her hands on his shoulders.
“Tommy, what happened?”
“I don't know,” he whispered, frenzied eyes meeting hers. “I got…I got away.”
Ria nodded slowly. “Got away from where?”
Tommy's eyes widened, his lips splitting into a cry. “So loud.” he slammed his hands over his ears. “Why are you so… loud? So loud. So LOUD.”
“Tommy.” Ria said softly.
“No! No, get off me! Get away from me!”
Tommy's words were nonsensical and tangled, hands clawing clumps of his hair. Something about a room of glass, and his head being prodded and poked at.
As he spoke, the boy's sanity bled away, his eyes widening with mania, terror, lips twisting into a snarl, and then a twisted grin. Followed by three words that have been analysed by every amateur journalist on campus.
I witnessed them firsthand.
”Red” Tommy spoke through his teeth. His gaze was frantic, trying to find a face he could trust. Ria was already backing away, stumbling over herself.
I don't think he really saw any of us, shuffling into the wall like a wild animal.
Wrapping his arms around his knees Tommy continued, rocking back and forth, like he was lulling himself to sleep. "Gemini."
His voice rose into an animalistic cry, and the boy's body seemed to react, his expression going flat, arms falling to his sides. When his eyes rolled back to pearly whites, I turned away, a sour barf filling my mouth.
But I still heard him in vivid clarity, his tone bleeding of emotion. Norebrook.
The last word slipped from the boy's lips, and when I twisted around, his head was lolling to the side, deep red rivulets running from his nose. “Nore… brook.”
He spoke like he was tasting the words, his body rattling, like it was reacting.
Tommy's head snapped up, and through vacant eyes, he peered at us like a confused child, frowning at his blood-slicked hands.
“Red.”
He made a fist.
“Gemini.”
When Tommy turned to look at us again, his eyes flickered, like he was waking up, emotion igniting his face.
“Nore… brook?”
Everyone had their own version of what happened that day through word of mouth. Some idiot said Tommy started giggling hysterically, while the head of the college newspaper published that he held us hostage with a box cutter.
The most popular and talked about version was that Tommy Phelps attacked a student like an animal.
But that's just the sensationalised version.
People wanted to believe he was violent because that was interesting. It got likes and comments. It got kids talking, making more rumors and adding to the fire, igniting fear of a viral outbreak and a new strain of rabies.
The thing is, though, that reality wasn't nearly as horrifying as the rumours made it out to be. Tommy didn't attack anyone. Blinking rapidly and seemingly himself again, he reached out blindly, shaking with terror.
For a disorienting moment, his expression bled coherency despite empty eyes staring straight through us.
So much so that part of me wanted to believe what he was saying. His hands were caked with dirt, clawing at us.
I noticed the nails on his index, pinky, and thumb had been pulled off.
“Help me,” he whimpered, when security dragged him from the room.
Tommy erupted into hysterics halfway down the hallway, those same three words coming out in sharp, heavy breaths, his body violently squirming, kicking and screaming, his voice growing louder, more desperate.
"Red!” He spluttered, choking on the word like it suffocated him. I glimpsed red splatter on the floor.
“Gemini.” Tommy's voice tripped up, his body going limp.
The guard wrestling with him threw the boy over his shoulder.
We watched silently as the door slammed on the boy, but I could still hear his slurred cry bouncing off of the walls.
“Nore….Brook!”
Tommy didn't come back to class after that. He did, however, make a cryptic social media post saying, “I was high on cocaine lol” when the guy was a top student and never touched the stuff.
Sure, we could buy it if we really wanted. But after listening to multiple episodes of Know it All I knew the hosts had not only proved the social media post was fabricated, but also had stalked his dorm, which had been mysteriously emptied, his roommate also MIA. In Episode 12, they revealed Tommy's parents had randomly uprooted their life in southern California, and moved to Australia.
The college brushed all of this under the rug, however. Know It All asked them to comment, and were swiftly threatened with a shutdown and forced to make the podcast private.
So, I count Tommy's state and disappearance as an actual strange occurrence on campus.
The conspiracy nut part of me wondered if the college were purposely over exaggerating the easily explained to cover up the unexplainable. There was no big mystery, and these so-called strange happenings were just vocalised to make our mediocre community college actually look interesting. While the actual unexplained events (ie. The infamous Red, Gemini, Norebrook) were ignored.
Why don't you apply to Hollingwood University!
We have disappearing students and cracks in space and time! (forget about the uh, the whispers about the boy who actually went missing) Have you ever wanted to fall directly into 1985? Our student lounge is a portal!
What couldn't be explained in any logic, sense, or aspect however, was my English Language Arts class simultaneously developing telepathy out of nowhere. You could argue that it wasn't completely out of nowhere, considering the already weird things going on around campus. But for us?
This was new.
It was fucking weird and confusing, and zero of us had any idea how it had happened. Nothing connected us.
There were no secret experiments and we hadn't signed up for shady after hours classes, or been caught up in an explosion. Nope. Two months ago, I fell asleep with a mostly empty head, and woke up to a hurricane of painful white noise I couldn't stop or control. It felt like my brain was being cooked alive.
When I opened my eyes, my pillow was covered in blood, my lips and chin dripping and smeared scarlet. I stood up, and my body wouldn't work, tipping onto the side.
My housemate was already in class.
It was the TV, I thought dizzily, blinking colors from my eyes.
That noise... it had to be the TV.
Surely.
But the TV wasn't on.
The TV was never fucking on, because who watched TV anymore?
I thought I was going crazy.
Seriously.
I called the doctor, kneeling on my bathroom floor with my forehead pressed to the cool porcelain of my toilet.
“I can hear things,” I croaked out. “I need you to get it out of my head. Now.”
“Miss Duran, could you please repeat that?”
Her lack of interest in the call boiled my blood. "I said,” I gritted through my teeth. “I think…" Squeezing my eyes shut somehow made the pressure worse, spiralling colors in my eyes and the worst fucking migraine imaginable.
I did everything to combat it. I lay down in a dark room, but the stream of noise in my head grew louder, TV static buzzing in the root of my brain. I'm going crazy, I could barely hear the receptionist over the constant, never ending fucking screech in my head.
I was still speaking, my lips moving, curving and curling and forming words I couldn't even hear.
“Do you hear me?!” I had to screech to hear the slightest fragments of my own voice bleeding into my ears. “I'm going crazy!” I grabbed at my hair, hysterical, clawing at my scalp. “There's something in my head,” I sobbed, burying my face into the cool silk of my pyjama shorts.
"There's something there. I can feel it.”
I was well aware of how fucked up I sounded, but I kept stabbing at my temple. The pain was helping me visualise it perfectly. I could feel them, sense them. Tiny bugs writhing into the meat of my brain, razor sharp teeth gnawing into the tumour sized cavern they had already chewed. “There.” I hissed over the a whistling that had started up, digging deep down into the root of my skull. “It's right there!”
“Miss Duran, I'm not sure what you mean–”
Throwing my phone down, I found myself half conscious, blinking down at the sharpest knife I could find.
Standing in front of my bathroom mirror, I was deathly pale, almost a greenish color, my hair glued to my forehead with sweat. It was never going to fucking stop; the light show of colors dancing in my eyes, my blurry vision contorting the world around me into a slowly collapsing pinprick.
I wasn't aware I’d successfully broken skin until sharp beads of red slid down my wrist. I couldn't feel it. The stinging pain of the blade slicing into my flesh. I couldn't feel the twist of my gut, the sour tasting barf bridging the back of my throat. All I could feel was the thrumming, the BANG, BANG, BANG on the back of my skull. Like someone was knocking.
I was dazedly staring down at the knife cinched between my fingers, when it… stopped.
I dropped to my knees when the pressure on my head lifted just slightly, a single drop of red splashing onto the tiled floor. Followed by a voice so casual, so clear, I thought they were standing behind me.
Okay, so if I buy three packs of chips, a Coke, and leave like fifteen dollars for gas, I should be good. Dad is picking me up in the evening for that football game, aaand I need to think of an excuse not to meet him after. I can't miss Simon’s thirtieth.
When I turned my head, there was nobody there. I was kneeling in my bathroom in front of piles and piles of bloody tissue paper and my toilet seat stained revealing red. The voice continued, a foreign feeling growing in my head, seeping into my bones.
I'm cold, The voice hit me again, this time like a brick to the face. Should I wear a jacket? No. Nah, I'm good..
Before I could stop myself, I was diving to unsteady feet and clamouring out of the bathroom and down the stairs.
Just as I thought, the stranger inside my head was getting louder.
I reached the front door, sticking my head out into the early morning sunlight. And there he was.
Ooh, it's cold. I should have worn a coat. Mom was right…
His voice slipped into static once more, before drifting back into fruition.
--and anyway, it's not like the sex is bad…
It was just a normal guy cruising down the sidewalk. Clad in a suit and tie, hair slicked back, he looked like a recent graduate.
The guy walked past my house and offered me a shy smile. But I noticed the strain in his expression. He quickly turned away, his lip curling. Is that girl okay? Was that blood? Shit. Fuck. Does she need me to call someone?
The guy risked a look back, before turning back around. No, I'm late. Probably a nosebleed… he stopped for a moment, pretending to check his phone.
Why is she staring at me? Do I have shit on my face–
The guys voice didn't disappear until I was standing under my shower spigot, blasting cold water on my face.
And even when it did, another tangle of sharp consciousness dug its way into the back of my mind, a single voice bleeding from the hurricane of noise. Hanna needs to get her head out of his ass, because he's playing her like a fucking–
Staring down at the shower drain, at red tinged water, the voice skipped again. This time a woman. I couldn't tell where it was coming from. Outside? Across the road? This thing worked like a cellphone, bleeding in and out of the network. I don't think I can deal with today, the woman sighed, I should have had more sleep, but that spider on the wall could be anywhere and I'm…
So good, a frat boy sounding guy this time. And this time she pulled out–
--Late! This time, a southern accent pierced my skull. I’m late! Jess is going to kill me–
Then, a teenage girl's violent hiss that might as well have been the curved age of a blade sticking into my cortex. How many times is she going to do this? How many snaps is she going to Ignore? She’s a petty, childish fucking–
The voices kept skipping until I stuffed in earphones and cranked up the volume.
Music didn't help, but it did sooth slightly. The voices were still there, but I could drown it out with Screamo.
Officially, the phenomenon I was going through was telepathy. I Googled it just to make sure.
Telepathy, also known as mind reading, is the supposed communication of thoughts and ideas by means other than the known senses.
Mind reading had always sounded cool in the movies, but actually having it is the equivalent of someone implanting a radio into the back of your head.
It's not like I could control it.
The second I stepped onto campus and removed my earphones, the rush of noise came back, slamming into me, this time in a hiss of incomprehensible voices in an explosion I could feel in the backs of my eyes. The pressure of several thousand voices brought the pressure back tenfold.
Different tones, accents, languages, and volumes. People think loudly, and they don't even realise they're doing it. Thinking, to anyone else, is normal.
To me, it's a tsunami.
I had a semi-plan. I would try and tolerate my first class, and if it was too much, escape to the nurse’s office off of campus and beg for an MRI.
There had to be a logical explanation to why I was hearing people's thoughts, and why they were so fucking loud and intrusive. I had heard of medical phenomenons that even top scientists couldn't explain. Some girl had woken up speaking mandarin, despite not knowing the language.
So, these things did happen. It was just rare.
Keeping my earphones corked in, I stepped into English Language Arts.
I wasn't expecting to bump into a congregation of my classmates standing around a table.
A glance to the front immediately put me on guard.
Where was Professor King?
Standing a few feet away was Jordan Maine, an ex host of Know it All.
The others kicked him out when he suggested spying on Tommy's family was insensitive.
As usual, Jordans expression was annoyed, his features prickling with irritation. His hair was an untidy mop of dark curls, and standing in a crumpled pyjama shirt over well-worn jeans, I noticed he wasn't as put together as usual. His camera, also an extension of his identity, was nowhere to be seen.
I don't think I had ever seen the guy looking so dishevelled, like he had just crawled straight out of bed. There was a subtle tension in his posture, with the way he was rocking back and forth on his heels. When he caught my eye, I realised the others weren't speaking.
The entire class were half dressed, odd socks and tousled hair, jackets half thrown on.
The only one who wasn't joining in was Harry Astor, hiding at the back of the classroom. “What's going on?” I spoke out loud over my screamo music.
Jordan didn't speak, instead motioning for me to remove my headphones.
“I'm good!” I said, forcing a smile that hurt my head. “Where's Professor King?”
His lip curled and again, motioned for me to remove my music.
I did, after glimpsing the smear of dark red crusting his nostril.
Uncorking my ears, the sensation slammed into me, this time a physical wave almost knocking me off of my feet. I could hear them, all of them, a tangled wave of screaming, slicing into my skull. Jordan’s hands pressed down on my shoulder when I tried to back away, forcing me to face the others.
Okay, try now, his voice slipped through the noise, Can you hear me?
His lips weren't moving, wide eyes glued to me.
Something ice cold skittered down my spine. Jordan Maine was speaking directly into my mind.
I nodded shakily, drinking in ten pairs of eyes staring at me.
Testing, testing, Jordan’s voice slipped into my thoughts, and it was just his. From the other’s expressions, Liam’s lip curling, and Min gritting her teeth, they could hear him too.
All right. So, this works. It takes time to tune everyone out, but it works.
He turned to Sierra Miller, the class's spokesperson. You were saying?
Sierra rolled her eyes. Okay, yes, congratulations. You stopped us from having an aneurysm. and folded her arms. But that's only if you're concentrating, right? So, if you let go, the floodgates open and we get blasted.
Jordan nodded, shrugging. Pretty much.
I managed to speak with my mouth. “But how…?”
No idea, his voice boomed into my skull.
Stop that, Sierra hissed out. You're going to blow my brains out!
“Telepathy.” Jordan said out loud instead, a shaky laugh escaping his lips.
But there was a darkness to his tone, a hollow look in his eye, I couldn't help glimpse.
“That's…fucking cool."
I knew the moment Jordan had lost control, because, just like Sierra said, the floodgates flew open, a vicious stream of voices flooding into my skull.
No, not just mine.
Everyone's.
That was 2 months ago, and we still hadn't gotten the hang out of it.
Three days ago, I was trying to talk to my friend, already jittery from our professor's sudden disappearance, which happened to be the same day the twelve of us developed telepathy. Two months had passed and there was no sign of him.
With us being Professor King’s students, we were the prime suspects.
Bess was talking about a TV show, or something, but her real voice was lost inside the sea of noise scrambling inside my head. I was getting better at tuning people in and out, but it was still a challenge.
The buzzing stream of noise was particularly bad that morning, like someone had cranked it up to 100.
I think I'm pregnant…. am I pregnant?
I'm dropping out. This is too… I’m not happy anymore.
Did I feed my cat this morning? No, I did. I definitely–
And she's not even being subtle about it! It's painful. What a evil bitch–
“Lana?”
Bess’s low murmur barely scratching the surface of my mind drifted into incoherent mumbling when the doors to the main reception opened, two men appearing. Immediately, they drew attention. Men in Black. Literally.
The two of them were heavily clad in crisp, black suits with matching sunglasses, exuding an air of authority, and for the student body to move aside.
Bess’s mouth dropped open, her eyes wide. She pulled me to the side when they walked past. “Do you think they're here for the Professor King case?”
I couldn't hear her voice, but I was getting good at lip reading when the swarm of voices drowned out real ones.
“I don't know,” was all I responded with, my gaze snapping to Sierra down the hall, buried behind a mop of curls, and then Jordan standing with his friends, his head ducked, jaw clenched.
He didn't stand out in the crowd like usual, wearing darker colours, hiding under his hood.
I sensed the prickle of fear in the back of his head, his voice a soft, Fuck, fuckpleasedon’tlookatmepleasedon’tlookatme.
Sierra’s expression was twitching, her gaze dropping to the ground when the men strode past her.
Stay calm, Sierra’s voice was a low murmur, a gentle prod into the meat of my brain. It's a routine visit, she paused.
Probably. I mean, why else would they be here?
A routine visit? Jordan’s sharp Boston accent joined the wave. Since when do the Men in Black regularly drop by?
Shut up, I managed to say. Both of you. Just get off of the hallway. We’re attracting attention to ourselves here..
I was right. We couldn't have looked any less suspicious.
I thought the men were heading toward the office, but they seemed to pivot at the last minute, and directly toward me.
“Lana Duran?”
Lana, what did you do?! Sierra’s voice was like symbols being crashed together. Fuck! They're here for us! They're going to slice us up and dissect us into tiny pieces! What did you do?!
Chill out, Jordan hissed.
But even he was sceptical.
He was an ex host of Know It All, after all. Tommy, I don't think he meant to say that, but his thoughts were no longer private. Could they be here about–
“Lana.”
The man's voice easily sliced through Jordan’s mental cry, a prickle creeping down my spine. The physical presence that had become almost familiar to me, which was Jordan and Sierra, was cut away, severed suddenly, enough to sting. And the silence in my head that followed was enough to unnerve me.
The man’s stance in seemed to kill every other thought around me, a short circuit, leaving me alone inside my head for the first time in months, and suddenly, deeply, deeply lonely.
“Yes?” I felt like I was speaking in tongues.
Instinctively, my gaze snapped to Jordan and Sierra. Who were no longer there. I blinked. The two of them had been spirited away, right in front of me.
The world kept going around me, students bustling around and Bess gently nudging me, letting me know she was heading to class. Ten voices entered my mind this time, not twelve.
And all of them were screaming at me.
The man cleared his throat. “Lana, I'm Agent Cassidy. This is Agent Powell. Would we be able to talk to you regarding a certain Professor Jason King? Don't worry, we’re talking to everyone in your class, so call it a…”
The guy's voice slipped in and out of my ears, the cries in my head once again being drowned out. This time I did know the reason. Harry Astor was what we called a barricade. No matter what we did, none of us could hear him.
His thoughts were null, nothing, a startling oblivion that was so stark, so deep, I kept my distance.
His mind and thoughts were impenetrable. Afflicted with telepathic abilities like the twelve of us, Harry didn't take part in emergency meetings, or hanging out. He wanted nothing to do with us. His mind was a vacuum, sucking in thoughts, as he walked by with his head ducked.
“Miss Duran, are you listening to me?”
I snapped out of it, my own mind detaching from the swarm of nothing which was Harry.
Nodding, I let them escort me to the Dean’s office, only for them to disappear, leaving me stuck with her. Ten other voices followed, a confusing string of, Are we getting dissected?! Oh God, are the Men in Black coming to dissect us? Are we being cut up?!
Jordan and Sierra were in the closet. I could sense them.
Still couldn't hear them though.
When Dean Carter pursed her lips, I tried again.
“You have my friends locked in your supply closet,” I said, and as if on cue, the door rattled, startling her from her chair. It hadn't really bothered me before, but now it felt significant. Why couldn't I hear my Dean’s thoughts too?
“That is none of your concern," Dean Carter relaxed. “Where were you on the night of September 18th?”
“Home.”
She hummed. “What were you doing at home?”
Lana, what's going on in there? Liam’s hiss was prodding at my skull.
I shoved him out.
“Sleeping.” I said. Which was true. I slept most of the night.
She nodded. “All right. Well, I have some visitors who would like to talk to you.” The door opened, and once again the voices in my head were drowned out, severed, by the duo’s presence.
It felt wrong, alien, a vicious vacuum bleeding into my skull. I didn't realize I was shuffling back on my chair until I had to force my feet into the ground to hold myself. The two of them could be differentiated by their faces.
The one on the right had a smile that was almost friendly, while the one on the left was scowling.
They asked me the same questions, and each time, I felt myself start to break apart, my facade crumbling.
The two of them held themselves well, suave and confident while I shattered under the weight of each question.
I was trying to find Sierra and Jordan that black hole of nothing, but they were gone. Physically, they were in the closet. But I couldn't find them.
“Miss Duran, were you aware your professor was conducting research into life after death?”
That caught me off guard.
I meant to keep my gaze glued to the floor and mutter that I wanted a lawyer for each question, but that one in particular sent my head snapping up.
“What?”
Agent Powell, or the scowler, nodded.
“In 2012, he was arrested for conducting unethical experiments on several volunteers. Including sleep deprivation and intentional cardiac arrest. Professor King's medical licence was suspended in 2017, under the name Professor David Castiel.” his eyes were penetrating mine.
“Miss Duran, have you witnessed anything you have not been able to explain?” His words were eerily gentle. “Strange lights, phenomena, or perhaps an affliction?"
I swallowed. The lamp on my Dean’s desk was suddenly too bright, too in my face.
“No.”
Agent Cassidy’s smile widened. “Lana, there's nothing to be afraid of. We can help you.”
I shook my head, my palms clammy. “No, I haven't seen anything. Sorry.”
The two exchanged glances.
“Lana, are you aware Jordan Maine and Sierra Nicholson were in possession of your professor’s phone and ID?”
I tried to keep my expression nonchalant.
“No.”
Powell pushed harder. “How about DNA that matches your professor underneath Sierra Nicholson’s bed?”
“No.”
This time I didn't sound sure of myself.
I thought they were finished, but the two just stood up. Powell turned to me with a sigh. I’m not sure at what point it was when my brain exploded.
Both men didn't seem fazed by the sudden shrieking in my head.
There was a steel rod cracking through my skull and stirring my mind into a soupy mess.
I was on my knees before I could stop my body’s knee jerk reaction pinning me to the ground.
It was worse than every voice put together, a hellish, banshee wail bleeding into my head that was so fucking powerful, so painful, warm, wet redness seeped from my mouth and nose, swimming in my ears.
Not just voices, but emotions, sensations, slamming into me in a wave.
I heard them, all of them, thousands of mental cries pouring into my skull.
Pressing my head into the carpet, I was aware I was screaming, but my own cry was null, drowned out.
Across the room, two voices slipped into my consciousness, entangled and wrong and poisoned, harsh enough to rip from my own lips. I was on my feet, stumbling, toward the closet, and then backward, when they hit full throttle.
Red.
Gemini.
Norebrook.
Jordan and Sierra’s voices were lower, a synchronised thrum drained of emotion.
Red.
Gem..ini.
Nore… brook.
There was something horrifyingly permanent about those words not coming from their lips, but astray in their minds, loose thoughts finally hitting me.
“Miss Duran, it's okay, we are trying to help you. Now, if you could tell us where Agent King is–”
Agent Powell was behind me trying to talk to me, but I was screaming, trying to push all of the voices out, and those three words were already threading through me.
Before they could, I managed to get out.
The last thing I saw was Powell grabbing Sierra and Jordan, who were like dolls, limp, dropping onto the ground.
Red. Gemini. Norebrook.
Their eyes were empty, but their lips moved.
Red.
Gemini.
Norebrook.
Before those words could swamp me too, I slammed the door behind me.
I was back in the hallway, and there was silence.
Silence, that almost knocked me off of my feet.
It was a familiar silence, a void I almost craved. He was close. Harry Astor was standing at the vending machine, his fingers lingering on the diet soda button. The closer I got to him, I expected that void of nothing.
Instead, however, a voice entered my skull, sharp, like the blade of a knife protruding inside my head. Skin them alive, dismembering them one by one. His voice was almost a manic laugh.
Not… natural, his whisper was violent. Not natural, not natural, not natural. I'll stop it. I'll make sure it stops. I promised them. I promised him.
He stabbed at the soda button, his other hand clawing at his arm, fingernails scratching at his skin until it bled.
I'll stop it. his expression remained nonchalant. --I’ll slice up every part, every organ, brain, heart, everything. Nothing left. he stabbed at the button again, impatiently, the spider web of insanity growing and growing, leeching itself to me like a virus.
My legs buckled when I felt, sensed, the cold ice. I was somewhere hollow, devoid of light and warmth.
There was freezing cold concrete beneath me, something wet and sticky spreading around my head.
I wasn't moving.
My lips were numb, and it was so dark, swirling black suffocating me.
I could feel others next to me, lumps of flesh piled underneath like dolls.
Voices in my head crying out, mangled, begging for mercy. Something cold and cruel slipped into the back of my neck in one single stroke, and then again, cutting, slicing through muscle and bone.
His heavy breaths tickled my flesh.
The knife plunged in again, this time severing my arms, a chunkier, thicker blade for my torso. I felt his hands slick with my blood, my insides staining him, dripping and smeared on his apron.
I sensed him stuffing me in a bag, careful to pile the chunks of me so I would fit.
His heavy breath when he lifted the bag, and I weighed it down.
The splash of my remains, our remains, hitting deep water.
Sinking.
Deep, deep, down.
I still heard them, frightened whispers grazing my being.
I existed at the bottom of the lake, swallowed in the dark.
And I existed as splattered lumps of flesh inside Harry Astor’s bathroom.
Dissolving in a tub full of acid, glued to white porcelain and clinging to the drain.
I was still thinking, sensing, drinking things in.
I had no body, no fucking brain, and thoughts still poured inside my consciousness, that endless relentless hissing.
Buzzing.
Screeching.
It never ends. This thing I have, it will never stop.
CLANG
The diet soda can finally dropped down, the vending machine beeping loudly.
Harry Astor stuck his hand through the flap, grabbed it, and cracked it open.
He took a long gulp, his thoughts still latched onto me.
He was going to murder me.
Dismember my body, dump me in a river, and then destroy my remnants in acid.
And I will keep going.
Keep thinking, screaming into the abyss, tied to this thing.
I was still standing in my college hallway, my stomach heaving. Harry was gone by the time I'd managed to get a hold of myself. The agents were gone, and so were Jordan and Sierra.
My Dean, of course, pretended they didn't exist.
Just like Tommy.
We had a meeting earlier, this time off of campus. It doesn't make sense why just Jordan and Sierra were taken.
They didn't kill our professor, right?
Why would they kill him?
The agents opened up my mind to Harry's thoughts, and then left? Do they know what he’s going to do, or are they as clueless as me?
If they knew I was a telepath, surely I would be taken too.
I don't know how to tell the others they're going to die.
I start to tell them, but the words get stuck in my throat.
Because then I have to add on that they too are stuck like me, eternally awake.
Thinking.
And I don't know how to tell them Harry will be the one to do it.
I'm not going to die.
I'm going to keep going.
Even after I am brutally ripped apart by my psychotic classmate, I will keep going.
I won't have an ending, a real, proper peaceful slumber, a real death.
I'm never going to die.
And that terrifies me more than my inevitable murder.
2024.03.17 19:22 Just_Kris1102 Any guesses?
25f 205lb 5'3"
Previous history : migraines, functional neurological disorder (tics and seizure like episodes), ocd, Adhd, and anxiety.
Medications: Prozac 80mg, Qulipta 60mg, tompamax 100mg, Adderall 10mg, b12 60mg.
Recreational drug use: marijuana vape regularly for migraines and anxiety. Reports it works well for the nerve pain as well "it's the only way I can get to sleep some nights"
Family history: parents; father- high bp. mother- anxiety, Adhd, bpd, narcolepsy. Siblings; older sister- POTS, anxiety, bpd. younger sister - high bp, high iron undiagnosed. Grandparents; pat grandmother--unknown chronic illness, cervical cancer, stroke (Deceased), pat grandfather--migraines, alcoholic, aneurysm (deceased). Mat grandmother, unknown chronic illness (alive). mat grandfather, unknown chronic illness, small cell sarcoma of the bladder (deceased).
Rapid presentation of symptoms, patient reports being the healthiest she'd ever been on February 20, and by March she reports being the sickest she'd ever felt, "spiraling towards a painful death".
Symptoms:
• Tremors • Numbess and tingling in extremeties that spread to the core • Muscle weakness • Pain descriped as an electrical fence widespread and intermittent throughout the body, patient rates it between 6-8/10 • Nausea • Loss of appetite • Swelling in fingers • Long distance visual changes • Memory problems • Extreme fatigue • Sweating • excessive goosebumps • Loss of bladder control • Unintentional weight loss (220 when last weighed in Nov)
MRI, blood work, emg ordered, and rheumatology referral placed.
(also yes, it's me, I just feel better writing it like this because it depersonalizes it for me)
submitted by Just_Kris1102 to AskDocs [link] [comments]
Previous history : migraines, functional neurological disorder (tics and seizure like episodes), ocd, Adhd, and anxiety.
Medications: Prozac 80mg, Qulipta 60mg, tompamax 100mg, Adderall 10mg, b12 60mg.
Recreational drug use: marijuana vape regularly for migraines and anxiety. Reports it works well for the nerve pain as well "it's the only way I can get to sleep some nights"
Family history: parents; father- high bp. mother- anxiety, Adhd, bpd, narcolepsy. Siblings; older sister- POTS, anxiety, bpd. younger sister - high bp, high iron undiagnosed. Grandparents; pat grandmother--unknown chronic illness, cervical cancer, stroke (Deceased), pat grandfather--migraines, alcoholic, aneurysm (deceased). Mat grandmother, unknown chronic illness (alive). mat grandfather, unknown chronic illness, small cell sarcoma of the bladder (deceased).
Rapid presentation of symptoms, patient reports being the healthiest she'd ever been on February 20, and by March she reports being the sickest she'd ever felt, "spiraling towards a painful death".
Symptoms:
• Tremors • Numbess and tingling in extremeties that spread to the core • Muscle weakness • Pain descriped as an electrical fence widespread and intermittent throughout the body, patient rates it between 6-8/10 • Nausea • Loss of appetite • Swelling in fingers • Long distance visual changes • Memory problems • Extreme fatigue • Sweating • excessive goosebumps • Loss of bladder control • Unintentional weight loss (220 when last weighed in Nov)
MRI, blood work, emg ordered, and rheumatology referral placed.
(also yes, it's me, I just feel better writing it like this because it depersonalizes it for me)
2024.02.20 10:51 Fireside_story I'm a Driver for the Supernatural (part 2)
Hello dear readers and hopefully fellow drivers if my warning was at all listened to, I've found an appropriate amount of time in my schedule to write you again that may or may not have to do with me having to wait for my arm to reattach itself, a riveting story I may choose to tell here at some point when the scars from the encounter are more mental than physical, in the meantime I've prepared a few more memories for you of things that go bump in the night.
Stacy: vampires: “do vampires always have to have such big orders” I think as I drag a large heavy cooler into the trunk of jez, who lets out a small growl of protest. Opening the cooler to check the order I see it's perfectly im tact, all 23 bags of blood from the general hospital, all ab positive. And then I prepare, jez gets a garlic necklace round her rearview mirror. And I get silver, everywhere. I shudder thinking about the task to come, absently rubbing a line of scars on my arms. Vampires may be overrated but damn me if they aren't old and powerful.
As I pull into the building I swear a couple hundred times realizing I am delivering into an abandoned ally. The shadows look as the sounds of the night distort into monstrous form. I step out of the car, dragging the cooler behind me and trying not to collapse from a stress aneurysm. Out of nowhere a flash of movement knocks me to the floor in a shrieking blur of raw strength and hostile intent, straddling me is a powerfully built woman barely under 7ft tall, I feel my ribs crack as I hit the floor, not to long after the silver kicks in burning her hands and sending her stumbling back
“you fucking bitch” she says, beginning to channel a dark energy into hand, the air becomes heaver as I struggle to breath, coughing and sputtering, as a bit of blood comes out from my mouth. Just for a moment she fixates on it, drool slightly coming down from her no doubt starving lips.
“Delivery for Stacy”
And that my dear readers was the first meeting of a beautiful friendship. Stacy is somewhat of a vampire mercenary who works as hired muscle for any clan that has the money to pay for her abilities, turns out jez and I are a reliable and most importantly discreet ride to wherever she needs to be. And I got a tattoo with her blood after an… unfortunate incident involving a ambush I just barely pulled her out of alive. I fucking hate most vampires, but Stacy has had my back for some odd three years now and is easily my best if not only true friend in the business. My advice for vampires, dress for the occasion, aim for the heart, and for the love of God cover your fucking neck.
Lucia: deer: I can't, I don't, just… pray to anyone or anything you believe in you make it out unscathed.
Asmodeus,belphegor, and Lucifer: demons: I wasn't even on a delivery, just on a nice Monday drive to clear my head. Without so much of a blink of my eye the sky turns blood red, obsidian clouds rolling in the sky. The car becomes almost sweltering hot as a man dressed in a sharp 3 piece suit appears sitting in jez’s back seat, a set of round red tinted sunglasses poorly concealing his pitch black eyes
“Good evening, I heard you are a coveted member of fyre driver. It may be… unorthodox but could you transport me for just a little while? Just keep driving straight down this road if you don't mind” he says the wicked smile that doesn't reach the rest his soulless deadpan face lets me know immediately this is not a request i should refuse
“ A little unexpected but I'm not one to turn down a customer” I say trying to smile in a way that doesn't reveal how much this man unsettles my sou
“Very good. I'm not one to beat around the bush so let's not dodge the subject. I am Lucifer, as in the devil, enemy of God. I wanted to have a little chat with you, and offer you a deal.” the air itself seems to want to pull me into hell itself and I feel the unmistakable sensation of countless eyes boring into me “your soul belongs to the entity entrapping you in this business but i want to… sponsor you. Nothing to bad I assure you all you have to do is complete some task for me and make a few… special deliveries and in return I lend you the material you need to make one of those special tattoos of yours. Think of it friend, the power of Lucifer himself yours to command, pride eternal the strongest of all the sins yours to take, and all I want is you to do the odd job for me when I ask, now thats not so bad is it?” his smile continues growing sickly pointed yellow teeth on full display as his obsidian eyes burn my soul and dare me, no command me to submit to his terms, but I know I can't, I may work a foul industry but to make a deal with the devil would brand me forever to the legions of hell and I just knew deep somewhere unknown to me for all my years I would suffer eternal if I did not say no to this man
“I.. I'm… apologies Mr. Morningstar but I simply cannot accept, favoritism to my customers is not part of my personal policies.” The man's smiles quickly disappears. I feel like the car will quickly become my tomb if it becomes any hotter and jez screeches with effort as the atmosphere around us becomes thick with unbridled malice.
“Make no mistake I am trying to do you a favor. Do you really think nobody has noticed your continued antics in this field. Your becoming a presence in the gaps and if you do not take my deal I promise you this will not be the end their are many abominations that will stop at nothing to manipulate you to their ends.” His voice booms like it's being fed through a subwoofer full blast. I feel my skin blistering underneath his hateful gaze. For the first time since starting this job jez goes from a safe haven to a living coffin closing in on me.
“No offense Mr. Morningstar…” I take a few steaming breaths to fight back the fear and pain “... aren't you doing the same thing?”
Unfortunately he ended up being right. After that day I ended being harassed constantly by demons, Angels, eldritch abominations, and weird chibi animals wanting to make me into sailor moon or some shit. Even now thinking back on those two months of a constant stream of manipulation and bullshit threatens to give me a bloody migraine. Finally one day when Asmodeus and Belphegor were tag teaming me in a desperate bid to be my demonic sponsor after a compelling offer from the angel Ezekiel not even five minutes before I finally snapped and accepted. To be honest it's not that bad. Turns out belphegor or Bella as they prefer to be called is almost always too lazy to do anything with our contract, and asmodeus, or aster, mostly has me bus succubi around, which admittedly is a pain in its own ways, but overall not bad. My advice for demons, hold out as long as possible, they get desperate when the angels show up.
Denir: wendigo: So remember how I said my tattoo gives me various supernatural abilities based on what monster I got it from. Well yeah this particular encounter will explain why having magic bullshit in your corner is so important, it's also at this point as I'm writing this I realized I should probably be explaining exactly what each of my tattoos do. For context, at this point in my career I only had 8 aside from the base tattoo, one from all the creatures mentioned in my writings so far, and two from creatures that have specifically requested I not talk about them here. honestly the powers come so naturally to me most of the time I forget that I need to explain them to strangers even when it would be beneficial for the people in question to know.
As I already said Artemis gives me perfect working knowledge of alchemy, after that there's Selki who gives me the ability to see in the dark and climb on literally any surface, Stacy who gives me the ability to regenerate from almost any physical injury so long as I don't deplete my stores of magic energy, Lucia who gives me the ability to run really fast and perceive creatures that normally run faster than a human eye can track, Belphegor who gave me the ability to recover magic by sleeping (normal you need fresh blood or deep meditation). Asmodeus how gave me the ability to shoot hellfire and… other more bedroom suited abilities. And my other two mystery friends who gave me the ability to teleport about 5 inches in any direction i want three time a day, and the ability to turn invisible for about five minutes at a time (with about a 10 minute cool down). With that explanation out of the way let's get down to the real story.
I'll admit I was getting a little cocky by this point into my job, only a year and a half in and I had some good reliable contacts, and power to spare for most jobs I handled. Sure against any monster with more than the baseline power for its species I'd most likely be fucked but I could hold my own against hunters and a vast majority the monsters I came across, at least long enough to bail my ass back to the safety of Jez anyway. That being said I found myself with cold sweats looking at my task for this delivery, body retrieval. I know I say this a lot but I fucking hate body retrieval, on the surface it's simple, a monster fucked up some poor guy and now I have to go haul his ass somewhere so the police or park rangers or whatever actually have a shot at finding the body. Problem with this is that whatever killed the guy is almost always lurking around, and will inevitably be pissed your trying to take away it's midday snack. I'm telling you this rn, if you aren't absolutely 100 percent sure you're ready for a fight with whatever fucked up thing your stealing the body from, DO NOT accept body retrieval jobs. Whatever the app does to punish you is still better than being dead.
So yeah I accepted the body retrieval job. I was nervous sure but I was confident I could handle it. That was until my stop put me at the edge of a fucking forest. Home of literally every ridiculously ancient and powerful monster not currently napping at the bottom of the fucking ocean.
“Shit.” I cursed, it had to be a fucking forest, in the middle of the night, fucking great.
“Jez if I'm not out of this In like 39 minutes find a nice family.” to which the old girl whined sadly. Good to know someone will miss me when I'm dead.
I walked slowly through the forest following the fyre navigation. Somehow it keeps me on track even though I lost reception an hour ago. Im breathing heavily under the oppressive aura of the dark trees around me, about 15 minutes back the sounds of the forest stopped. A single rustle In the bush. I whip around to nothing.
Suddenly I'm blindsided by a claw to the side of my head sending me spiraling into the side of a tree. Lucky me my regeneration kicks in and starts sealing me back up. Hurts like a bitch tho and I start to panic mentally. Regeneration sucks through my stores of magic, I can only take about five more hits like that before I'm dead. Only good thing is the creature obviously isn't used to dealing with things that don't die Immediately after being smacked.
Standing over 9ft tall is a fucking wendigo, god I knew what wendigo’s are supposed to look like but you'll never understand the sheer fucking horror of looking at one. Its pale rotting skin is poorly wrapped over an emaciated skeleton. Blood, pus, and other vial liquids sleeping out of its various wounds, pale yellow eyes behind its elongated deer skull of a face boring holes into your soul doing their damnedest to reduce your will to nothing but that of a meal waiting to be devoured. I'm forced to take in this sight as it charges towards me ready to rip my what it thinks to be dead body apart.
I teleport to the side at the last second. The creature slams straight into a tree. The wendigo reals from the impact. I take the opportunity tho throw my fist into its ribcage. It feels like I'm hitting steel instead of feted rotten flesh. It still skids a couple inches black blood spurting out of its horribly sharp jaws. It charges at me, I sidestep, it catches me in the jaw. I the side of the skull. It swipes my legs, I go down, fuck. It jumps on top of me, it caves my face in, it claws my throat out. I teleport to the left and bathe it in hellfire. It screams in pain rolling around on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in a nearby lake, picked up the body and dragged it back towards Jez. It had to be a fucking forest
Turns out throwing that wendigo saved its life, now the damn thing follows me around like a lost puppy leaving me little gifts. My advice for wendigo's, run, never go into the forest alone, bring fire
That's it for the day for me, my other arm seems to be functioning well enough to take a drive down to Artemis and see if he can update my tattoo with the teeth of a werewolf. I know I said to make friends In this industry but if you ever see a werewolf do me a personal favor and shove a silver stick right up its ass. I'm sure I'll get around to telling you why I hate them so much at some point, but for now just know that being half wolf apparently has a way of automatically making you a full arrogant asshole.
submitted by Fireside_story to WritersOfHorror [link] [comments]
Stacy: vampires: “do vampires always have to have such big orders” I think as I drag a large heavy cooler into the trunk of jez, who lets out a small growl of protest. Opening the cooler to check the order I see it's perfectly im tact, all 23 bags of blood from the general hospital, all ab positive. And then I prepare, jez gets a garlic necklace round her rearview mirror. And I get silver, everywhere. I shudder thinking about the task to come, absently rubbing a line of scars on my arms. Vampires may be overrated but damn me if they aren't old and powerful.
As I pull into the building I swear a couple hundred times realizing I am delivering into an abandoned ally. The shadows look as the sounds of the night distort into monstrous form. I step out of the car, dragging the cooler behind me and trying not to collapse from a stress aneurysm. Out of nowhere a flash of movement knocks me to the floor in a shrieking blur of raw strength and hostile intent, straddling me is a powerfully built woman barely under 7ft tall, I feel my ribs crack as I hit the floor, not to long after the silver kicks in burning her hands and sending her stumbling back
“you fucking bitch” she says, beginning to channel a dark energy into hand, the air becomes heaver as I struggle to breath, coughing and sputtering, as a bit of blood comes out from my mouth. Just for a moment she fixates on it, drool slightly coming down from her no doubt starving lips.
“Delivery for Stacy”
And that my dear readers was the first meeting of a beautiful friendship. Stacy is somewhat of a vampire mercenary who works as hired muscle for any clan that has the money to pay for her abilities, turns out jez and I are a reliable and most importantly discreet ride to wherever she needs to be. And I got a tattoo with her blood after an… unfortunate incident involving a ambush I just barely pulled her out of alive. I fucking hate most vampires, but Stacy has had my back for some odd three years now and is easily my best if not only true friend in the business. My advice for vampires, dress for the occasion, aim for the heart, and for the love of God cover your fucking neck.
Lucia: deer: I can't, I don't, just… pray to anyone or anything you believe in you make it out unscathed.
Asmodeus,belphegor, and Lucifer: demons: I wasn't even on a delivery, just on a nice Monday drive to clear my head. Without so much of a blink of my eye the sky turns blood red, obsidian clouds rolling in the sky. The car becomes almost sweltering hot as a man dressed in a sharp 3 piece suit appears sitting in jez’s back seat, a set of round red tinted sunglasses poorly concealing his pitch black eyes
“Good evening, I heard you are a coveted member of fyre driver. It may be… unorthodox but could you transport me for just a little while? Just keep driving straight down this road if you don't mind” he says the wicked smile that doesn't reach the rest his soulless deadpan face lets me know immediately this is not a request i should refuse
“ A little unexpected but I'm not one to turn down a customer” I say trying to smile in a way that doesn't reveal how much this man unsettles my sou
“Very good. I'm not one to beat around the bush so let's not dodge the subject. I am Lucifer, as in the devil, enemy of God. I wanted to have a little chat with you, and offer you a deal.” the air itself seems to want to pull me into hell itself and I feel the unmistakable sensation of countless eyes boring into me “your soul belongs to the entity entrapping you in this business but i want to… sponsor you. Nothing to bad I assure you all you have to do is complete some task for me and make a few… special deliveries and in return I lend you the material you need to make one of those special tattoos of yours. Think of it friend, the power of Lucifer himself yours to command, pride eternal the strongest of all the sins yours to take, and all I want is you to do the odd job for me when I ask, now thats not so bad is it?” his smile continues growing sickly pointed yellow teeth on full display as his obsidian eyes burn my soul and dare me, no command me to submit to his terms, but I know I can't, I may work a foul industry but to make a deal with the devil would brand me forever to the legions of hell and I just knew deep somewhere unknown to me for all my years I would suffer eternal if I did not say no to this man
“I.. I'm… apologies Mr. Morningstar but I simply cannot accept, favoritism to my customers is not part of my personal policies.” The man's smiles quickly disappears. I feel like the car will quickly become my tomb if it becomes any hotter and jez screeches with effort as the atmosphere around us becomes thick with unbridled malice.
“Make no mistake I am trying to do you a favor. Do you really think nobody has noticed your continued antics in this field. Your becoming a presence in the gaps and if you do not take my deal I promise you this will not be the end their are many abominations that will stop at nothing to manipulate you to their ends.” His voice booms like it's being fed through a subwoofer full blast. I feel my skin blistering underneath his hateful gaze. For the first time since starting this job jez goes from a safe haven to a living coffin closing in on me.
“No offense Mr. Morningstar…” I take a few steaming breaths to fight back the fear and pain “... aren't you doing the same thing?”
Unfortunately he ended up being right. After that day I ended being harassed constantly by demons, Angels, eldritch abominations, and weird chibi animals wanting to make me into sailor moon or some shit. Even now thinking back on those two months of a constant stream of manipulation and bullshit threatens to give me a bloody migraine. Finally one day when Asmodeus and Belphegor were tag teaming me in a desperate bid to be my demonic sponsor after a compelling offer from the angel Ezekiel not even five minutes before I finally snapped and accepted. To be honest it's not that bad. Turns out belphegor or Bella as they prefer to be called is almost always too lazy to do anything with our contract, and asmodeus, or aster, mostly has me bus succubi around, which admittedly is a pain in its own ways, but overall not bad. My advice for demons, hold out as long as possible, they get desperate when the angels show up.
Denir: wendigo: So remember how I said my tattoo gives me various supernatural abilities based on what monster I got it from. Well yeah this particular encounter will explain why having magic bullshit in your corner is so important, it's also at this point as I'm writing this I realized I should probably be explaining exactly what each of my tattoos do. For context, at this point in my career I only had 8 aside from the base tattoo, one from all the creatures mentioned in my writings so far, and two from creatures that have specifically requested I not talk about them here. honestly the powers come so naturally to me most of the time I forget that I need to explain them to strangers even when it would be beneficial for the people in question to know.
As I already said Artemis gives me perfect working knowledge of alchemy, after that there's Selki who gives me the ability to see in the dark and climb on literally any surface, Stacy who gives me the ability to regenerate from almost any physical injury so long as I don't deplete my stores of magic energy, Lucia who gives me the ability to run really fast and perceive creatures that normally run faster than a human eye can track, Belphegor who gave me the ability to recover magic by sleeping (normal you need fresh blood or deep meditation). Asmodeus how gave me the ability to shoot hellfire and… other more bedroom suited abilities. And my other two mystery friends who gave me the ability to teleport about 5 inches in any direction i want three time a day, and the ability to turn invisible for about five minutes at a time (with about a 10 minute cool down). With that explanation out of the way let's get down to the real story.
I'll admit I was getting a little cocky by this point into my job, only a year and a half in and I had some good reliable contacts, and power to spare for most jobs I handled. Sure against any monster with more than the baseline power for its species I'd most likely be fucked but I could hold my own against hunters and a vast majority the monsters I came across, at least long enough to bail my ass back to the safety of Jez anyway. That being said I found myself with cold sweats looking at my task for this delivery, body retrieval. I know I say this a lot but I fucking hate body retrieval, on the surface it's simple, a monster fucked up some poor guy and now I have to go haul his ass somewhere so the police or park rangers or whatever actually have a shot at finding the body. Problem with this is that whatever killed the guy is almost always lurking around, and will inevitably be pissed your trying to take away it's midday snack. I'm telling you this rn, if you aren't absolutely 100 percent sure you're ready for a fight with whatever fucked up thing your stealing the body from, DO NOT accept body retrieval jobs. Whatever the app does to punish you is still better than being dead.
So yeah I accepted the body retrieval job. I was nervous sure but I was confident I could handle it. That was until my stop put me at the edge of a fucking forest. Home of literally every ridiculously ancient and powerful monster not currently napping at the bottom of the fucking ocean.
“Shit.” I cursed, it had to be a fucking forest, in the middle of the night, fucking great.
“Jez if I'm not out of this In like 39 minutes find a nice family.” to which the old girl whined sadly. Good to know someone will miss me when I'm dead.
I walked slowly through the forest following the fyre navigation. Somehow it keeps me on track even though I lost reception an hour ago. Im breathing heavily under the oppressive aura of the dark trees around me, about 15 minutes back the sounds of the forest stopped. A single rustle In the bush. I whip around to nothing.
Suddenly I'm blindsided by a claw to the side of my head sending me spiraling into the side of a tree. Lucky me my regeneration kicks in and starts sealing me back up. Hurts like a bitch tho and I start to panic mentally. Regeneration sucks through my stores of magic, I can only take about five more hits like that before I'm dead. Only good thing is the creature obviously isn't used to dealing with things that don't die Immediately after being smacked.
Standing over 9ft tall is a fucking wendigo, god I knew what wendigo’s are supposed to look like but you'll never understand the sheer fucking horror of looking at one. Its pale rotting skin is poorly wrapped over an emaciated skeleton. Blood, pus, and other vial liquids sleeping out of its various wounds, pale yellow eyes behind its elongated deer skull of a face boring holes into your soul doing their damnedest to reduce your will to nothing but that of a meal waiting to be devoured. I'm forced to take in this sight as it charges towards me ready to rip my what it thinks to be dead body apart.
I teleport to the side at the last second. The creature slams straight into a tree. The wendigo reals from the impact. I take the opportunity tho throw my fist into its ribcage. It feels like I'm hitting steel instead of feted rotten flesh. It still skids a couple inches black blood spurting out of its horribly sharp jaws. It charges at me, I sidestep, it catches me in the jaw. I the side of the skull. It swipes my legs, I go down, fuck. It jumps on top of me, it caves my face in, it claws my throat out. I teleport to the left and bathe it in hellfire. It screams in pain rolling around on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in a nearby lake, picked up the body and dragged it back towards Jez. It had to be a fucking forest
Turns out throwing that wendigo saved its life, now the damn thing follows me around like a lost puppy leaving me little gifts. My advice for wendigo's, run, never go into the forest alone, bring fire
That's it for the day for me, my other arm seems to be functioning well enough to take a drive down to Artemis and see if he can update my tattoo with the teeth of a werewolf. I know I said to make friends In this industry but if you ever see a werewolf do me a personal favor and shove a silver stick right up its ass. I'm sure I'll get around to telling you why I hate them so much at some point, but for now just know that being half wolf apparently has a way of automatically making you a full arrogant asshole.
2024.02.20 10:51 Fireside_story I'm a Driver for the Supernatural (part 2)
Hello dear readers and hopefully fellow drivers if my warning was at all listened to, I've found an appropriate amount of time in my schedule to write you again that may or may not have to do with me having to wait for my arm to reattach itself, a riveting story I may choose to tell here at some point when the scars from the encounter are more mental than physical, in the meantime I've prepared a few more memories for you of things that go bump in the night.
Stacy: vampires: “do vampires always have to have such big orders” I think as I drag a large heavy cooler into the trunk of jez, who lets out a small growl of protest. Opening the cooler to check the order I see it's perfectly im tact, all 23 bags of blood from the general hospital, all ab positive. And then I prepare, jez gets a garlic necklace round her rearview mirror. And I get silver, everywhere. I shudder thinking about the task to come, absently rubbing a line of scars on my arms. Vampires may be overrated but damn me if they aren't old and powerful.
As I pull into the building I swear a couple hundred times realizing I am delivering into an abandoned ally. The shadows look as the sounds of the night distort into monstrous form. I step out of the car, dragging the cooler behind me and trying not to collapse from a stress aneurysm. Out of nowhere a flash of movement knocks me to the floor in a shrieking blur of raw strength and hostile intent, straddling me is a powerfully built woman barely under 7ft tall, I feel my ribs crack as I hit the floor, not to long after the silver kicks in burning her hands and sending her stumbling back
“you fucking bitch” she says, beginning to channel a dark energy into hand, the air becomes heaver as I struggle to breath, coughing and sputtering, as a bit of blood comes out from my mouth. Just for a moment she fixates on it, drool slightly coming down from her no doubt starving lips.
“Delivery for Stacy”
And that my dear readers was the first meeting of a beautiful friendship. Stacy is somewhat of a vampire mercenary who works as hired muscle for any clan that has the money to pay for her abilities, turns out jez and I are a reliable and most importantly discreet ride to wherever she needs to be. And I got a tattoo with her blood after an… unfortunate incident involving a ambush I just barely pulled her out of alive. I fucking hate most vampires, but Stacy has had my back for some odd three years now and is easily my best if not only true friend in the business. My advice for vampires, dress for the occasion, aim for the heart, and for the love of God cover your fucking neck.
Lucia: deer: I can't, I don't, just… pray to anyone or anything you believe in you make it out unscathed.
Asmodeus,belphegor, and Lucifer: demons: I wasn't even on a delivery, just on a nice Monday drive to clear my head. Without so much of a blink of my eye the sky turns blood red, obsidian clouds rolling in the sky. The car becomes almost sweltering hot as a man dressed in a sharp 3 piece suit appears sitting in jez’s back seat, a set of round red tinted sunglasses poorly concealing his pitch black eyes
“Good evening, I heard you are a coveted member of fyre driver. It may be… unorthodox but could you transport me for just a little while? Just keep driving straight down this road if you don't mind” he says the wicked smile that doesn't reach the rest his soulless deadpan face lets me know immediately this is not a request i should refuse
“ A little unexpected but I'm not one to turn down a customer” I say trying to smile in a way that doesn't reveal how much this man unsettles my sou
“Very good. I'm not one to beat around the bush so let's not dodge the subject. I am Lucifer, as in the devil, enemy of God. I wanted to have a little chat with you, and offer you a deal.” the air itself seems to want to pull me into hell itself and I feel the unmistakable sensation of countless eyes boring into me “your soul belongs to the entity entrapping you in this business but i want to… sponsor you. Nothing to bad I assure you all you have to do is complete some task for me and make a few… special deliveries and in return I lend you the material you need to make one of those special tattoos of yours. Think of it friend, the power of Lucifer himself yours to command, pride eternal the strongest of all the sins yours to take, and all I want is you to do the odd job for me when I ask, now thats not so bad is it?” his smile continues growing sickly pointed yellow teeth on full display as his obsidian eyes burn my soul and dare me, no command me to submit to his terms, but I know I can't, I may work a foul industry but to make a deal with the devil would brand me forever to the legions of hell and I just knew deep somewhere unknown to me for all my years I would suffer eternal if I did not say no to this man
“I.. I'm… apologies Mr. Morningstar but I simply cannot accept, favoritism to my customers is not part of my personal policies.” The man's smiles quickly disappears. I feel like the car will quickly become my tomb if it becomes any hotter and jez screeches with effort as the atmosphere around us becomes thick with unbridled malice.
“Make no mistake I am trying to do you a favor. Do you really think nobody has noticed your continued antics in this field. Your becoming a presence in the gaps and if you do not take my deal I promise you this will not be the end their are many abominations that will stop at nothing to manipulate you to their ends.” His voice booms like it's being fed through a subwoofer full blast. I feel my skin blistering underneath his hateful gaze. For the first time since starting this job jez goes from a safe haven to a living coffin closing in on me.
“No offense Mr. Morningstar…” I take a few steaming breaths to fight back the fear and pain “... aren't you doing the same thing?”
Unfortunately he ended up being right. After that day I ended being harassed constantly by demons, Angels, eldritch abominations, and weird chibi animals wanting to make me into sailor moon or some shit. Even now thinking back on those two months of a constant stream of manipulation and bullshit threatens to give me a bloody migraine. Finally one day when Asmodeus and Belphegor were tag teaming me in a desperate bid to be my demonic sponsor after a compelling offer from the angel Ezekiel not even five minutes before I finally snapped and accepted. To be honest it's not that bad. Turns out belphegor or Bella as they prefer to be called is almost always too lazy to do anything with our contract, and asmodeus, or aster, mostly has me bus succubi around, which admittedly is a pain in its own ways, but overall not bad. My advice for demons, hold out as long as possible, they get desperate when the angels show up.
Denir: wendigo: So remember how I said my tattoo gives me various supernatural abilities based on what monster I got it from. Well yeah this particular encounter will explain why having magic bullshit in your corner is so important, it's also at this point as I'm writing this I realized I should probably be explaining exactly what each of my tattoos do. For context, at this point in my career I only had 8 aside from the base tattoo, one from all the creatures mentioned in my writings so far, and two from creatures that have specifically requested I not talk about them here. honestly the powers come so naturally to me most of the time I forget that I need to explain them to strangers even when it would be beneficial for the people in question to know.
As I already said Artemis gives me perfect working knowledge of alchemy, after that there's Selki who gives me the ability to see in the dark and climb on literally any surface, Stacy who gives me the ability to regenerate from almost any physical injury so long as I don't deplete my stores of magic energy, Lucia who gives me the ability to run really fast and perceive creatures that normally run faster than a human eye can track, Belphegor who gave me the ability to recover magic by sleeping (normal you need fresh blood or deep meditation). Asmodeus how gave me the ability to shoot hellfire and… other more bedroom suited abilities. And my other two mystery friends who gave me the ability to teleport about 5 inches in any direction i want three time a day, and the ability to turn invisible for about five minutes at a time (with about a 10 minute cool down). With that explanation out of the way let's get down to the real story.
I'll admit I was getting a little cocky by this point into my job, only a year and a half in and I had some good reliable contacts, and power to spare for most jobs I handled. Sure against any monster with more than the baseline power for its species I'd most likely be fucked but I could hold my own against hunters and a vast majority the monsters I came across, at least long enough to bail my ass back to the safety of Jez anyway. That being said I found myself with cold sweats looking at my task for this delivery, body retrieval. I know I say this a lot but I fucking hate body retrieval, on the surface it's simple, a monster fucked up some poor guy and now I have to go haul his ass somewhere so the police or park rangers or whatever actually have a shot at finding the body. Problem with this is that whatever killed the guy is almost always lurking around, and will inevitably be pissed your trying to take away it's midday snack. I'm telling you this rn, if you aren't absolutely 100 percent sure you're ready for a fight with whatever fucked up thing your stealing the body from, DO NOT accept body retrieval jobs. Whatever the app does to punish you is still better than being dead.
So yeah I accepted the body retrieval job. I was nervous sure but I was confident I could handle it. That was until my stop put me at the edge of a fucking forest. Home of literally every ridiculously ancient and powerful monster not currently napping at the bottom of the fucking ocean.
“Shit.” I cursed, it had to be a fucking forest, in the middle of the night, fucking great.
“Jez if I'm not out of this In like 39 minutes find a nice family.” to which the old girl whined sadly. Good to know someone will miss me when I'm dead.
I walked slowly through the forest following the fyre navigation. Somehow it keeps me on track even though I lost reception an hour ago. Im breathing heavily under the oppressive aura of the dark trees around me, about 15 minutes back the sounds of the forest stopped. A single rustle In the bush. I whip around to nothing.
Suddenly I'm blindsided by a claw to the side of my head sending me spiraling into the side of a tree. Lucky me my regeneration kicks in and starts sealing me back up. Hurts like a bitch tho and I start to panic mentally. Regeneration sucks through my stores of magic, I can only take about five more hits like that before I'm dead. Only good thing is the creature obviously isn't used to dealing with things that don't die Immediately after being smacked.
Standing over 9ft tall is a fucking wendigo, god I knew what wendigo’s are supposed to look like but you'll never understand the sheer fucking horror of looking at one. Its pale rotting skin is poorly wrapped over an emaciated skeleton. Blood, pus, and other vial liquids sleeping out of its various wounds, pale yellow eyes behind its elongated deer skull of a face boring holes into your soul doing their damnedest to reduce your will to nothing but that of a meal waiting to be devoured. I'm forced to take in this sight as it charges towards me ready to rip my what it thinks to be dead body apart.
I teleport to the side at the last second. The creature slams straight into a tree. The wendigo reals from the impact. I take the opportunity tho throw my fist into its ribcage. It feels like I'm hitting steel instead of feted rotten flesh. It still skids a couple inches black blood spurting out of its horribly sharp jaws. It charges at me, I sidestep, it catches me in the jaw. I the side of the skull. It swipes my legs, I go down, fuck. It jumps on top of me, it caves my face in, it claws my throat out. I teleport to the left and bathe it in hellfire. It screams in pain rolling around on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in a nearby lake, picked up the body and dragged it back towards Jez. It had to be a fucking forest
Turns out throwing that wendigo saved its life, now the damn thing follows me around like a lost puppy leaving me little gifts. My advice for wendigo's, run, never go into the forest alone, bring fire
That's it for the day for me, my other arm seems to be functioning well enough to take a drive down to Artemis and see if he can update my tattoo with the teeth of a werewolf. I know I said to make friends In this industry but if you ever see a werewolf do me a personal favor and shove a silver stick right up its ass. I'm sure I'll get around to telling you why I hate them so much at some point, but for now just know that being half wolf apparently has a way of automatically making you a full arrogant asshole.
submitted by Fireside_story to Nonsleep [link] [comments]
Stacy: vampires: “do vampires always have to have such big orders” I think as I drag a large heavy cooler into the trunk of jez, who lets out a small growl of protest. Opening the cooler to check the order I see it's perfectly im tact, all 23 bags of blood from the general hospital, all ab positive. And then I prepare, jez gets a garlic necklace round her rearview mirror. And I get silver, everywhere. I shudder thinking about the task to come, absently rubbing a line of scars on my arms. Vampires may be overrated but damn me if they aren't old and powerful.
As I pull into the building I swear a couple hundred times realizing I am delivering into an abandoned ally. The shadows look as the sounds of the night distort into monstrous form. I step out of the car, dragging the cooler behind me and trying not to collapse from a stress aneurysm. Out of nowhere a flash of movement knocks me to the floor in a shrieking blur of raw strength and hostile intent, straddling me is a powerfully built woman barely under 7ft tall, I feel my ribs crack as I hit the floor, not to long after the silver kicks in burning her hands and sending her stumbling back
“you fucking bitch” she says, beginning to channel a dark energy into hand, the air becomes heaver as I struggle to breath, coughing and sputtering, as a bit of blood comes out from my mouth. Just for a moment she fixates on it, drool slightly coming down from her no doubt starving lips.
“Delivery for Stacy”
And that my dear readers was the first meeting of a beautiful friendship. Stacy is somewhat of a vampire mercenary who works as hired muscle for any clan that has the money to pay for her abilities, turns out jez and I are a reliable and most importantly discreet ride to wherever she needs to be. And I got a tattoo with her blood after an… unfortunate incident involving a ambush I just barely pulled her out of alive. I fucking hate most vampires, but Stacy has had my back for some odd three years now and is easily my best if not only true friend in the business. My advice for vampires, dress for the occasion, aim for the heart, and for the love of God cover your fucking neck.
Lucia: deer: I can't, I don't, just… pray to anyone or anything you believe in you make it out unscathed.
Asmodeus,belphegor, and Lucifer: demons: I wasn't even on a delivery, just on a nice Monday drive to clear my head. Without so much of a blink of my eye the sky turns blood red, obsidian clouds rolling in the sky. The car becomes almost sweltering hot as a man dressed in a sharp 3 piece suit appears sitting in jez’s back seat, a set of round red tinted sunglasses poorly concealing his pitch black eyes
“Good evening, I heard you are a coveted member of fyre driver. It may be… unorthodox but could you transport me for just a little while? Just keep driving straight down this road if you don't mind” he says the wicked smile that doesn't reach the rest his soulless deadpan face lets me know immediately this is not a request i should refuse
“ A little unexpected but I'm not one to turn down a customer” I say trying to smile in a way that doesn't reveal how much this man unsettles my sou
“Very good. I'm not one to beat around the bush so let's not dodge the subject. I am Lucifer, as in the devil, enemy of God. I wanted to have a little chat with you, and offer you a deal.” the air itself seems to want to pull me into hell itself and I feel the unmistakable sensation of countless eyes boring into me “your soul belongs to the entity entrapping you in this business but i want to… sponsor you. Nothing to bad I assure you all you have to do is complete some task for me and make a few… special deliveries and in return I lend you the material you need to make one of those special tattoos of yours. Think of it friend, the power of Lucifer himself yours to command, pride eternal the strongest of all the sins yours to take, and all I want is you to do the odd job for me when I ask, now thats not so bad is it?” his smile continues growing sickly pointed yellow teeth on full display as his obsidian eyes burn my soul and dare me, no command me to submit to his terms, but I know I can't, I may work a foul industry but to make a deal with the devil would brand me forever to the legions of hell and I just knew deep somewhere unknown to me for all my years I would suffer eternal if I did not say no to this man
“I.. I'm… apologies Mr. Morningstar but I simply cannot accept, favoritism to my customers is not part of my personal policies.” The man's smiles quickly disappears. I feel like the car will quickly become my tomb if it becomes any hotter and jez screeches with effort as the atmosphere around us becomes thick with unbridled malice.
“Make no mistake I am trying to do you a favor. Do you really think nobody has noticed your continued antics in this field. Your becoming a presence in the gaps and if you do not take my deal I promise you this will not be the end their are many abominations that will stop at nothing to manipulate you to their ends.” His voice booms like it's being fed through a subwoofer full blast. I feel my skin blistering underneath his hateful gaze. For the first time since starting this job jez goes from a safe haven to a living coffin closing in on me.
“No offense Mr. Morningstar…” I take a few steaming breaths to fight back the fear and pain “... aren't you doing the same thing?”
Unfortunately he ended up being right. After that day I ended being harassed constantly by demons, Angels, eldritch abominations, and weird chibi animals wanting to make me into sailor moon or some shit. Even now thinking back on those two months of a constant stream of manipulation and bullshit threatens to give me a bloody migraine. Finally one day when Asmodeus and Belphegor were tag teaming me in a desperate bid to be my demonic sponsor after a compelling offer from the angel Ezekiel not even five minutes before I finally snapped and accepted. To be honest it's not that bad. Turns out belphegor or Bella as they prefer to be called is almost always too lazy to do anything with our contract, and asmodeus, or aster, mostly has me bus succubi around, which admittedly is a pain in its own ways, but overall not bad. My advice for demons, hold out as long as possible, they get desperate when the angels show up.
Denir: wendigo: So remember how I said my tattoo gives me various supernatural abilities based on what monster I got it from. Well yeah this particular encounter will explain why having magic bullshit in your corner is so important, it's also at this point as I'm writing this I realized I should probably be explaining exactly what each of my tattoos do. For context, at this point in my career I only had 8 aside from the base tattoo, one from all the creatures mentioned in my writings so far, and two from creatures that have specifically requested I not talk about them here. honestly the powers come so naturally to me most of the time I forget that I need to explain them to strangers even when it would be beneficial for the people in question to know.
As I already said Artemis gives me perfect working knowledge of alchemy, after that there's Selki who gives me the ability to see in the dark and climb on literally any surface, Stacy who gives me the ability to regenerate from almost any physical injury so long as I don't deplete my stores of magic energy, Lucia who gives me the ability to run really fast and perceive creatures that normally run faster than a human eye can track, Belphegor who gave me the ability to recover magic by sleeping (normal you need fresh blood or deep meditation). Asmodeus how gave me the ability to shoot hellfire and… other more bedroom suited abilities. And my other two mystery friends who gave me the ability to teleport about 5 inches in any direction i want three time a day, and the ability to turn invisible for about five minutes at a time (with about a 10 minute cool down). With that explanation out of the way let's get down to the real story.
I'll admit I was getting a little cocky by this point into my job, only a year and a half in and I had some good reliable contacts, and power to spare for most jobs I handled. Sure against any monster with more than the baseline power for its species I'd most likely be fucked but I could hold my own against hunters and a vast majority the monsters I came across, at least long enough to bail my ass back to the safety of Jez anyway. That being said I found myself with cold sweats looking at my task for this delivery, body retrieval. I know I say this a lot but I fucking hate body retrieval, on the surface it's simple, a monster fucked up some poor guy and now I have to go haul his ass somewhere so the police or park rangers or whatever actually have a shot at finding the body. Problem with this is that whatever killed the guy is almost always lurking around, and will inevitably be pissed your trying to take away it's midday snack. I'm telling you this rn, if you aren't absolutely 100 percent sure you're ready for a fight with whatever fucked up thing your stealing the body from, DO NOT accept body retrieval jobs. Whatever the app does to punish you is still better than being dead.
So yeah I accepted the body retrieval job. I was nervous sure but I was confident I could handle it. That was until my stop put me at the edge of a fucking forest. Home of literally every ridiculously ancient and powerful monster not currently napping at the bottom of the fucking ocean.
“Shit.” I cursed, it had to be a fucking forest, in the middle of the night, fucking great.
“Jez if I'm not out of this In like 39 minutes find a nice family.” to which the old girl whined sadly. Good to know someone will miss me when I'm dead.
I walked slowly through the forest following the fyre navigation. Somehow it keeps me on track even though I lost reception an hour ago. Im breathing heavily under the oppressive aura of the dark trees around me, about 15 minutes back the sounds of the forest stopped. A single rustle In the bush. I whip around to nothing.
Suddenly I'm blindsided by a claw to the side of my head sending me spiraling into the side of a tree. Lucky me my regeneration kicks in and starts sealing me back up. Hurts like a bitch tho and I start to panic mentally. Regeneration sucks through my stores of magic, I can only take about five more hits like that before I'm dead. Only good thing is the creature obviously isn't used to dealing with things that don't die Immediately after being smacked.
Standing over 9ft tall is a fucking wendigo, god I knew what wendigo’s are supposed to look like but you'll never understand the sheer fucking horror of looking at one. Its pale rotting skin is poorly wrapped over an emaciated skeleton. Blood, pus, and other vial liquids sleeping out of its various wounds, pale yellow eyes behind its elongated deer skull of a face boring holes into your soul doing their damnedest to reduce your will to nothing but that of a meal waiting to be devoured. I'm forced to take in this sight as it charges towards me ready to rip my what it thinks to be dead body apart.
I teleport to the side at the last second. The creature slams straight into a tree. The wendigo reals from the impact. I take the opportunity tho throw my fist into its ribcage. It feels like I'm hitting steel instead of feted rotten flesh. It still skids a couple inches black blood spurting out of its horribly sharp jaws. It charges at me, I sidestep, it catches me in the jaw. I the side of the skull. It swipes my legs, I go down, fuck. It jumps on top of me, it caves my face in, it claws my throat out. I teleport to the left and bathe it in hellfire. It screams in pain rolling around on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in a nearby lake, picked up the body and dragged it back towards Jez. It had to be a fucking forest
Turns out throwing that wendigo saved its life, now the damn thing follows me around like a lost puppy leaving me little gifts. My advice for wendigo's, run, never go into the forest alone, bring fire
That's it for the day for me, my other arm seems to be functioning well enough to take a drive down to Artemis and see if he can update my tattoo with the teeth of a werewolf. I know I said to make friends In this industry but if you ever see a werewolf do me a personal favor and shove a silver stick right up its ass. I'm sure I'll get around to telling you why I hate them so much at some point, but for now just know that being half wolf apparently has a way of automatically making you a full arrogant asshole.
2024.02.20 10:51 Fireside_story I'm a Driver for the Supernatural (part 2)
Hello dear readers and hopefully fellow drivers if my warning was at all listened to, I've found an appropriate amount of time in my schedule to write you again that may or may not have to do with me having to wait for my arm to reattach itself, a riveting story I may choose to tell here at some point when the scars from the encounter are more mental than physical, in the meantime I've prepared a few more memories for you of things that go bump in the night.
Stacy: vampires: “do vampires always have to have such big orders” I think as I drag a large heavy cooler into the trunk of jez, who lets out a small growl of protest. Opening the cooler to check the order I see it's perfectly im tact, all 23 bags of blood from the general hospital, all ab positive. And then I prepare, jez gets a garlic necklace round her rearview mirror. And I get silver, everywhere. I shudder thinking about the task to come, absently rubbing a line of scars on my arms. Vampires may be overrated but damn me if they aren't old and powerful.
As I pull into the building I swear a couple hundred times realizing I am delivering into an abandoned ally. The shadows look as the sounds of the night distort into monstrous form. I step out of the car, dragging the cooler behind me and trying not to collapse from a stress aneurysm. Out of nowhere a flash of movement knocks me to the floor in a shrieking blur of raw strength and hostile intent, straddling me is a powerfully built woman barely under 7ft tall, I feel my ribs crack as I hit the floor, not to long after the silver kicks in burning her hands and sending her stumbling back
“you fucking bitch” she says, beginning to channel a dark energy into hand, the air becomes heaver as I struggle to breath, coughing and sputtering, as a bit of blood comes out from my mouth. Just for a moment she fixates on it, drool slightly coming down from her no doubt starving lips.
“Delivery for Stacy”
And that my dear readers was the first meeting of a beautiful friendship. Stacy is somewhat of a vampire mercenary who works as hired muscle for any clan that has the money to pay for her abilities, turns out jez and I are a reliable and most importantly discreet ride to wherever she needs to be. And I got a tattoo with her blood after an… unfortunate incident involving a ambush I just barely pulled her out of alive. I fucking hate most vampires, but Stacy has had my back for some odd three years now and is easily my best if not only true friend in the business. My advice for vampires, dress for the occasion, aim for the heart, and for the love of God cover your fucking neck.
Lucia: deer: I can't, I don't, just… pray to anyone or anything you believe in you make it out unscathed.
Asmodeus,belphegor, and Lucifer: demons: I wasn't even on a delivery, just on a nice Monday drive to clear my head. Without so much of a blink of my eye the sky turns blood red, obsidian clouds rolling in the sky. The car becomes almost sweltering hot as a man dressed in a sharp 3 piece suit appears sitting in jez’s back seat, a set of round red tinted sunglasses poorly concealing his pitch black eyes
“Good evening, I heard you are a coveted member of fyre driver. It may be… unorthodox but could you transport me for just a little while? Just keep driving straight down this road if you don't mind” he says the wicked smile that doesn't reach the rest his soulless deadpan face lets me know immediately this is not a request i should refuse
“ A little unexpected but I'm not one to turn down a customer” I say trying to smile in a way that doesn't reveal how much this man unsettles my sou
“Very good. I'm not one to beat around the bush so let's not dodge the subject. I am Lucifer, as in the devil, enemy of God. I wanted to have a little chat with you, and offer you a deal.” the air itself seems to want to pull me into hell itself and I feel the unmistakable sensation of countless eyes boring into me “your soul belongs to the entity entrapping you in this business but i want to… sponsor you. Nothing to bad I assure you all you have to do is complete some task for me and make a few… special deliveries and in return I lend you the material you need to make one of those special tattoos of yours. Think of it friend, the power of Lucifer himself yours to command, pride eternal the strongest of all the sins yours to take, and all I want is you to do the odd job for me when I ask, now thats not so bad is it?” his smile continues growing sickly pointed yellow teeth on full display as his obsidian eyes burn my soul and dare me, no command me to submit to his terms, but I know I can't, I may work a foul industry but to make a deal with the devil would brand me forever to the legions of hell and I just knew deep somewhere unknown to me for all my years I would suffer eternal if I did not say no to this man
“I.. I'm… apologies Mr. Morningstar but I simply cannot accept, favoritism to my customers is not part of my personal policies.” The man's smiles quickly disappears. I feel like the car will quickly become my tomb if it becomes any hotter and jez screeches with effort as the atmosphere around us becomes thick with unbridled malice.
“Make no mistake I am trying to do you a favor. Do you really think nobody has noticed your continued antics in this field. Your becoming a presence in the gaps and if you do not take my deal I promise you this will not be the end their are many abominations that will stop at nothing to manipulate you to their ends.” His voice booms like it's being fed through a subwoofer full blast. I feel my skin blistering underneath his hateful gaze. For the first time since starting this job jez goes from a safe haven to a living coffin closing in on me.
“No offense Mr. Morningstar…” I take a few steaming breaths to fight back the fear and pain “... aren't you doing the same thing?”
Unfortunately he ended up being right. After that day I ended being harassed constantly by demons, Angels, eldritch abominations, and weird chibi animals wanting to make me into sailor moon or some shit. Even now thinking back on those two months of a constant stream of manipulation and bullshit threatens to give me a bloody migraine. Finally one day when Asmodeus and Belphegor were tag teaming me in a desperate bid to be my demonic sponsor after a compelling offer from the angel Ezekiel not even five minutes before I finally snapped and accepted. To be honest it's not that bad. Turns out belphegor or Bella as they prefer to be called is almost always too lazy to do anything with our contract, and asmodeus, or aster, mostly has me bus succubi around, which admittedly is a pain in its own ways, but overall not bad. My advice for demons, hold out as long as possible, they get desperate when the angels show up.
Denir: wendigo: So remember how I said my tattoo gives me various supernatural abilities based on what monster I got it from. Well yeah this particular encounter will explain why having magic bullshit in your corner is so important, it's also at this point as I'm writing this I realized I should probably be explaining exactly what each of my tattoos do. For context, at this point in my career I only had 8 aside from the base tattoo, one from all the creatures mentioned in my writings so far, and two from creatures that have specifically requested I not talk about them here. honestly the powers come so naturally to me most of the time I forget that I need to explain them to strangers even when it would be beneficial for the people in question to know.
As I already said Artemis gives me perfect working knowledge of alchemy, after that there's Selki who gives me the ability to see in the dark and climb on literally any surface, Stacy who gives me the ability to regenerate from almost any physical injury so long as I don't deplete my stores of magic energy, Lucia who gives me the ability to run really fast and perceive creatures that normally run faster than a human eye can track, Belphegor who gave me the ability to recover magic by sleeping (normal you need fresh blood or deep meditation). Asmodeus how gave me the ability to shoot hellfire and… other more bedroom suited abilities. And my other two mystery friends who gave me the ability to teleport about 5 inches in any direction i want three time a day, and the ability to turn invisible for about five minutes at a time (with about a 10 minute cool down). With that explanation out of the way let's get down to the real story.
I'll admit I was getting a little cocky by this point into my job, only a year and a half in and I had some good reliable contacts, and power to spare for most jobs I handled. Sure against any monster with more than the baseline power for its species I'd most likely be fucked but I could hold my own against hunters and a vast majority the monsters I came across, at least long enough to bail my ass back to the safety of Jez anyway. That being said I found myself with cold sweats looking at my task for this delivery, body retrieval. I know I say this a lot but I fucking hate body retrieval, on the surface it's simple, a monster fucked up some poor guy and now I have to go haul his ass somewhere so the police or park rangers or whatever actually have a shot at finding the body. Problem with this is that whatever killed the guy is almost always lurking around, and will inevitably be pissed your trying to take away it's midday snack. I'm telling you this rn, if you aren't absolutely 100 percent sure you're ready for a fight with whatever fucked up thing your stealing the body from, DO NOT accept body retrieval jobs. Whatever the app does to punish you is still better than being dead.
So yeah I accepted the body retrieval job. I was nervous sure but I was confident I could handle it. That was until my stop put me at the edge of a fucking forest. Home of literally every ridiculously ancient and powerful monster not currently napping at the bottom of the fucking ocean.
“Shit.” I cursed, it had to be a fucking forest, in the middle of the night, fucking great.
“Jez if I'm not out of this In like 39 minutes find a nice family.” to which the old girl whined sadly. Good to know someone will miss me when I'm dead.
I walked slowly through the forest following the fyre navigation. Somehow it keeps me on track even though I lost reception an hour ago. Im breathing heavily under the oppressive aura of the dark trees around me, about 15 minutes back the sounds of the forest stopped. A single rustle In the bush. I whip around to nothing.
Suddenly I'm blindsided by a claw to the side of my head sending me spiraling into the side of a tree. Lucky me my regeneration kicks in and starts sealing me back up. Hurts like a bitch tho and I start to panic mentally. Regeneration sucks through my stores of magic, I can only take about five more hits like that before I'm dead. Only good thing is the creature obviously isn't used to dealing with things that don't die Immediately after being smacked.
Standing over 9ft tall is a fucking wendigo, god I knew what wendigo’s are supposed to look like but you'll never understand the sheer fucking horror of looking at one. Its pale rotting skin is poorly wrapped over an emaciated skeleton. Blood, pus, and other vial liquids sleeping out of its various wounds, pale yellow eyes behind its elongated deer skull of a face boring holes into your soul doing their damnedest to reduce your will to nothing but that of a meal waiting to be devoured. I'm forced to take in this sight as it charges towards me ready to rip my what it thinks to be dead body apart.
I teleport to the side at the last second. The creature slams straight into a tree. The wendigo reals from the impact. I take the opportunity tho throw my fist into its ribcage. It feels like I'm hitting steel instead of feted rotten flesh. It still skids a couple inches black blood spurting out of its horribly sharp jaws. It charges at me, I sidestep, it catches me in the jaw. I the side of the skull. It swipes my legs, I go down, fuck. It jumps on top of me, it caves my face in, it claws my throat out. I teleport to the left and bathe it in hellfire. It screams in pain rolling around on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in a nearby lake, picked up the body and dragged it back towards Jez. It had to be a fucking forest
Turns out throwing that wendigo saved its life, now the damn thing follows me around like a lost puppy leaving me little gifts. My advice for wendigo's, run, never go into the forest alone, bring fire
That's it for the day for me, my other arm seems to be functioning well enough to take a drive down to Artemis and see if he can update my tattoo with the teeth of a werewolf. I know I said to make friends In this industry but if you ever see a werewolf do me a personal favor and shove a silver stick right up its ass. I'm sure I'll get around to telling you why I hate them so much at some point, but for now just know that being half wolf apparently has a way of automatically making you a full arrogant asshole.
submitted by Fireside_story to campfirecreeps [link] [comments]
Stacy: vampires: “do vampires always have to have such big orders” I think as I drag a large heavy cooler into the trunk of jez, who lets out a small growl of protest. Opening the cooler to check the order I see it's perfectly im tact, all 23 bags of blood from the general hospital, all ab positive. And then I prepare, jez gets a garlic necklace round her rearview mirror. And I get silver, everywhere. I shudder thinking about the task to come, absently rubbing a line of scars on my arms. Vampires may be overrated but damn me if they aren't old and powerful.
As I pull into the building I swear a couple hundred times realizing I am delivering into an abandoned ally. The shadows look as the sounds of the night distort into monstrous form. I step out of the car, dragging the cooler behind me and trying not to collapse from a stress aneurysm. Out of nowhere a flash of movement knocks me to the floor in a shrieking blur of raw strength and hostile intent, straddling me is a powerfully built woman barely under 7ft tall, I feel my ribs crack as I hit the floor, not to long after the silver kicks in burning her hands and sending her stumbling back
“you fucking bitch” she says, beginning to channel a dark energy into hand, the air becomes heaver as I struggle to breath, coughing and sputtering, as a bit of blood comes out from my mouth. Just for a moment she fixates on it, drool slightly coming down from her no doubt starving lips.
“Delivery for Stacy”
And that my dear readers was the first meeting of a beautiful friendship. Stacy is somewhat of a vampire mercenary who works as hired muscle for any clan that has the money to pay for her abilities, turns out jez and I are a reliable and most importantly discreet ride to wherever she needs to be. And I got a tattoo with her blood after an… unfortunate incident involving a ambush I just barely pulled her out of alive. I fucking hate most vampires, but Stacy has had my back for some odd three years now and is easily my best if not only true friend in the business. My advice for vampires, dress for the occasion, aim for the heart, and for the love of God cover your fucking neck.
Lucia: deer: I can't, I don't, just… pray to anyone or anything you believe in you make it out unscathed.
Asmodeus,belphegor, and Lucifer: demons: I wasn't even on a delivery, just on a nice Monday drive to clear my head. Without so much of a blink of my eye the sky turns blood red, obsidian clouds rolling in the sky. The car becomes almost sweltering hot as a man dressed in a sharp 3 piece suit appears sitting in jez’s back seat, a set of round red tinted sunglasses poorly concealing his pitch black eyes
“Good evening, I heard you are a coveted member of fyre driver. It may be… unorthodox but could you transport me for just a little while? Just keep driving straight down this road if you don't mind” he says the wicked smile that doesn't reach the rest his soulless deadpan face lets me know immediately this is not a request i should refuse
“ A little unexpected but I'm not one to turn down a customer” I say trying to smile in a way that doesn't reveal how much this man unsettles my sou
“Very good. I'm not one to beat around the bush so let's not dodge the subject. I am Lucifer, as in the devil, enemy of God. I wanted to have a little chat with you, and offer you a deal.” the air itself seems to want to pull me into hell itself and I feel the unmistakable sensation of countless eyes boring into me “your soul belongs to the entity entrapping you in this business but i want to… sponsor you. Nothing to bad I assure you all you have to do is complete some task for me and make a few… special deliveries and in return I lend you the material you need to make one of those special tattoos of yours. Think of it friend, the power of Lucifer himself yours to command, pride eternal the strongest of all the sins yours to take, and all I want is you to do the odd job for me when I ask, now thats not so bad is it?” his smile continues growing sickly pointed yellow teeth on full display as his obsidian eyes burn my soul and dare me, no command me to submit to his terms, but I know I can't, I may work a foul industry but to make a deal with the devil would brand me forever to the legions of hell and I just knew deep somewhere unknown to me for all my years I would suffer eternal if I did not say no to this man
“I.. I'm… apologies Mr. Morningstar but I simply cannot accept, favoritism to my customers is not part of my personal policies.” The man's smiles quickly disappears. I feel like the car will quickly become my tomb if it becomes any hotter and jez screeches with effort as the atmosphere around us becomes thick with unbridled malice.
“Make no mistake I am trying to do you a favor. Do you really think nobody has noticed your continued antics in this field. Your becoming a presence in the gaps and if you do not take my deal I promise you this will not be the end their are many abominations that will stop at nothing to manipulate you to their ends.” His voice booms like it's being fed through a subwoofer full blast. I feel my skin blistering underneath his hateful gaze. For the first time since starting this job jez goes from a safe haven to a living coffin closing in on me.
“No offense Mr. Morningstar…” I take a few steaming breaths to fight back the fear and pain “... aren't you doing the same thing?”
Unfortunately he ended up being right. After that day I ended being harassed constantly by demons, Angels, eldritch abominations, and weird chibi animals wanting to make me into sailor moon or some shit. Even now thinking back on those two months of a constant stream of manipulation and bullshit threatens to give me a bloody migraine. Finally one day when Asmodeus and Belphegor were tag teaming me in a desperate bid to be my demonic sponsor after a compelling offer from the angel Ezekiel not even five minutes before I finally snapped and accepted. To be honest it's not that bad. Turns out belphegor or Bella as they prefer to be called is almost always too lazy to do anything with our contract, and asmodeus, or aster, mostly has me bus succubi around, which admittedly is a pain in its own ways, but overall not bad. My advice for demons, hold out as long as possible, they get desperate when the angels show up.
Denir: wendigo: So remember how I said my tattoo gives me various supernatural abilities based on what monster I got it from. Well yeah this particular encounter will explain why having magic bullshit in your corner is so important, it's also at this point as I'm writing this I realized I should probably be explaining exactly what each of my tattoos do. For context, at this point in my career I only had 8 aside from the base tattoo, one from all the creatures mentioned in my writings so far, and two from creatures that have specifically requested I not talk about them here. honestly the powers come so naturally to me most of the time I forget that I need to explain them to strangers even when it would be beneficial for the people in question to know.
As I already said Artemis gives me perfect working knowledge of alchemy, after that there's Selki who gives me the ability to see in the dark and climb on literally any surface, Stacy who gives me the ability to regenerate from almost any physical injury so long as I don't deplete my stores of magic energy, Lucia who gives me the ability to run really fast and perceive creatures that normally run faster than a human eye can track, Belphegor who gave me the ability to recover magic by sleeping (normal you need fresh blood or deep meditation). Asmodeus how gave me the ability to shoot hellfire and… other more bedroom suited abilities. And my other two mystery friends who gave me the ability to teleport about 5 inches in any direction i want three time a day, and the ability to turn invisible for about five minutes at a time (with about a 10 minute cool down). With that explanation out of the way let's get down to the real story.
I'll admit I was getting a little cocky by this point into my job, only a year and a half in and I had some good reliable contacts, and power to spare for most jobs I handled. Sure against any monster with more than the baseline power for its species I'd most likely be fucked but I could hold my own against hunters and a vast majority the monsters I came across, at least long enough to bail my ass back to the safety of Jez anyway. That being said I found myself with cold sweats looking at my task for this delivery, body retrieval. I know I say this a lot but I fucking hate body retrieval, on the surface it's simple, a monster fucked up some poor guy and now I have to go haul his ass somewhere so the police or park rangers or whatever actually have a shot at finding the body. Problem with this is that whatever killed the guy is almost always lurking around, and will inevitably be pissed your trying to take away it's midday snack. I'm telling you this rn, if you aren't absolutely 100 percent sure you're ready for a fight with whatever fucked up thing your stealing the body from, DO NOT accept body retrieval jobs. Whatever the app does to punish you is still better than being dead.
So yeah I accepted the body retrieval job. I was nervous sure but I was confident I could handle it. That was until my stop put me at the edge of a fucking forest. Home of literally every ridiculously ancient and powerful monster not currently napping at the bottom of the fucking ocean.
“Shit.” I cursed, it had to be a fucking forest, in the middle of the night, fucking great.
“Jez if I'm not out of this In like 39 minutes find a nice family.” to which the old girl whined sadly. Good to know someone will miss me when I'm dead.
I walked slowly through the forest following the fyre navigation. Somehow it keeps me on track even though I lost reception an hour ago. Im breathing heavily under the oppressive aura of the dark trees around me, about 15 minutes back the sounds of the forest stopped. A single rustle In the bush. I whip around to nothing.
Suddenly I'm blindsided by a claw to the side of my head sending me spiraling into the side of a tree. Lucky me my regeneration kicks in and starts sealing me back up. Hurts like a bitch tho and I start to panic mentally. Regeneration sucks through my stores of magic, I can only take about five more hits like that before I'm dead. Only good thing is the creature obviously isn't used to dealing with things that don't die Immediately after being smacked.
Standing over 9ft tall is a fucking wendigo, god I knew what wendigo’s are supposed to look like but you'll never understand the sheer fucking horror of looking at one. Its pale rotting skin is poorly wrapped over an emaciated skeleton. Blood, pus, and other vial liquids sleeping out of its various wounds, pale yellow eyes behind its elongated deer skull of a face boring holes into your soul doing their damnedest to reduce your will to nothing but that of a meal waiting to be devoured. I'm forced to take in this sight as it charges towards me ready to rip my what it thinks to be dead body apart.
I teleport to the side at the last second. The creature slams straight into a tree. The wendigo reals from the impact. I take the opportunity tho throw my fist into its ribcage. It feels like I'm hitting steel instead of feted rotten flesh. It still skids a couple inches black blood spurting out of its horribly sharp jaws. It charges at me, I sidestep, it catches me in the jaw. I the side of the skull. It swipes my legs, I go down, fuck. It jumps on top of me, it caves my face in, it claws my throat out. I teleport to the left and bathe it in hellfire. It screams in pain rolling around on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in a nearby lake, picked up the body and dragged it back towards Jez. It had to be a fucking forest
Turns out throwing that wendigo saved its life, now the damn thing follows me around like a lost puppy leaving me little gifts. My advice for wendigo's, run, never go into the forest alone, bring fire
That's it for the day for me, my other arm seems to be functioning well enough to take a drive down to Artemis and see if he can update my tattoo with the teeth of a werewolf. I know I said to make friends In this industry but if you ever see a werewolf do me a personal favor and shove a silver stick right up its ass. I'm sure I'll get around to telling you why I hate them so much at some point, but for now just know that being half wolf apparently has a way of automatically making you a full arrogant asshole.
2024.02.20 10:50 Fireside_story I'm a Driver for the Supernatural (part 2)
Link to part 1 https://www.reddit.com/scarystories/s/CvsJuF90Vl
Hello dear readers and hopefully fellow drivers if my warning was at all listened to, I've found an appropriate amount of time in my schedule to write you again that may or may not have to do with me having to wait for my arm to reattach itself, a riveting story I may choose to tell here at some point when the scars from the encounter are more mental than physical, in the meantime I've prepared a few more memories for you of things that go bump in the night.
Stacy: vampires: “do vampires always have to have such big orders” I think as I drag a large heavy cooler into the trunk of jez, who lets out a small growl of protest. Opening the cooler to check the order I see it's perfectly im tact, all 23 bags of blood from the general hospital, all ab positive. And then I prepare, jez gets a garlic necklace round her rearview mirror. And I get silver, everywhere. I shudder thinking about the task to come, absently rubbing a line of scars on my arms. Vampires may be overrated but damn me if they aren't old and powerful.
As I pull into the building I swear a couple hundred times realizing I am delivering into an abandoned ally. The shadows look as the sounds of the night distort into monstrous form. I step out of the car, dragging the cooler behind me and trying not to collapse from a stress aneurysm. Out of nowhere a flash of movement knocks me to the floor in a shrieking blur of raw strength and hostile intent, straddling me is a powerfully built woman barely under 7ft tall, I feel my ribs crack as I hit the floor, not to long after the silver kicks in burning her hands and sending her stumbling back
“you fucking bitch” she says, beginning to channel a dark energy into hand, the air becomes heaver as I struggle to breath, coughing and sputtering, as a bit of blood comes out from my mouth. Just for a moment she fixates on it, drool slightly coming down from her no doubt starving lips.
“Delivery for Stacy”
And that my dear readers was the first meeting of a beautiful friendship. Stacy is somewhat of a vampire mercenary who works as hired muscle for any clan that has the money to pay for her abilities, turns out jez and I are a reliable and most importantly discreet ride to wherever she needs to be. And I got a tattoo with her blood after an… unfortunate incident involving a ambush I just barely pulled her out of alive. I fucking hate most vampires, but Stacy has had my back for some odd three years now and is easily my best if not only true friend in the business. My advice for vampires, dress for the occasion, aim for the heart, and for the love of God cover your fucking neck.
Lucia: deer: I can't, I don't, just… pray to anyone or anything you believe in you make it out unscathed.
Asmodeus,belphegor, and Lucifer: demons: I wasn't even on a delivery, just on a nice Monday drive to clear my head. Without so much of a blink of my eye the sky turns blood red, obsidian clouds rolling in the sky. The car becomes almost sweltering hot as a man dressed in a sharp 3 piece suit appears sitting in jez’s back seat, a set of round red tinted sunglasses poorly concealing his pitch black eyes
“Good evening, I heard you are a coveted member of fyre driver. It may be… unorthodox but could you transport me for just a little while? Just keep driving straight down this road if you don't mind” he says the wicked smile that doesn't reach the rest his soulless deadpan face lets me know immediately this is not a request i should refuse
“ A little unexpected but I'm not one to turn down a customer” I say trying to smile in a way that doesn't reveal how much this man unsettles my sou
“Very good. I'm not one to beat around the bush so let's not dodge the subject. I am Lucifer, as in the devil, enemy of God. I wanted to have a little chat with you, and offer you a deal.” the air itself seems to want to pull me into hell itself and I feel the unmistakable sensation of countless eyes boring into me “your soul belongs to the entity entrapping you in this business but i want to… sponsor you. Nothing to bad I assure you all you have to do is complete some task for me and make a few… special deliveries and in return I lend you the material you need to make one of those special tattoos of yours. Think of it friend, the power of Lucifer himself yours to command, pride eternal the strongest of all the sins yours to take, and all I want is you to do the odd job for me when I ask, now thats not so bad is it?” his smile continues growing sickly pointed yellow teeth on full display as his obsidian eyes burn my soul and dare me, no command me to submit to his terms, but I know I can't, I may work a foul industry but to make a deal with the devil would brand me forever to the legions of hell and I just knew deep somewhere unknown to me for all my years I would suffer eternal if I did not say no to this man
“I.. I'm… apologies Mr. Morningstar but I simply cannot accept, favoritism to my customers is not part of my personal policies.” The man's smiles quickly disappears. I feel like the car will quickly become my tomb if it becomes any hotter and jez screeches with effort as the atmosphere around us becomes thick with unbridled malice.
“Make no mistake I am trying to do you a favor. Do you really think nobody has noticed your continued antics in this field. Your becoming a presence in the gaps and if you do not take my deal I promise you this will not be the end their are many abominations that will stop at nothing to manipulate you to their ends.” His voice booms like it's being fed through a subwoofer full blast. I feel my skin blistering underneath his hateful gaze. For the first time since starting this job jez goes from a safe haven to a living coffin closing in on me.
“No offense Mr. Morningstar…” I take a few steaming breaths to fight back the fear and pain “... aren't you doing the same thing?”
Unfortunately he ended up being right. After that day I ended being harassed constantly by demons, Angels, eldritch abominations, and weird chibi animals wanting to make me into sailor moon or some shit. Even now thinking back on those two months of a constant stream of manipulation and bullshit threatens to give me a bloody migraine. Finally one day when Asmodeus and Belphegor were tag teaming me in a desperate bid to be my demonic sponsor after a compelling offer from the angel Ezekiel not even five minutes before I finally snapped and accepted. To be honest it's not that bad. Turns out belphegor or Bella as they prefer to be called is almost always too lazy to do anything with our contract, and asmodeus, or aster, mostly has me bus succubi around, which admittedly is a pain in its own ways, but overall not bad. My advice for demons, hold out as long as possible, they get desperate when the angels show up.
Denir: wendigo: So remember how I said my tattoo gives me various supernatural abilities based on what monster I got it from. Well yeah this particular encounter will explain why having magic bullshit in your corner is so important, it's also at this point as I'm writing this I realized I should probably be explaining exactly what each of my tattoos do. For context, at this point in my career I only had 8 aside from the base tattoo, one from all the creatures mentioned in my writings so far, and two from creatures that have specifically requested I not talk about them here. honestly the powers come so naturally to me most of the time I forget that I need to explain them to strangers even when it would be beneficial for the people in question to know.
As I already said Artemis gives me perfect working knowledge of alchemy, after that there's Selki who gives me the ability to see in the dark and climb on literally any surface, Stacy who gives me the ability to regenerate from almost any physical injury so long as I don't deplete my stores of magic energy, Lucia who gives me the ability to run really fast and perceive creatures that normally run faster than a human eye can track, Belphegor who gave me the ability to recover magic by sleeping (normal you need fresh blood or deep meditation). Asmodeus how gave me the ability to shoot hellfire and… other more bedroom suited abilities. And my other two mystery friends who gave me the ability to teleport about 5 inches in any direction i want three time a day, and the ability to turn invisible for about five minutes at a time (with about a 10 minute cool down). With that explanation out of the way let's get down to the real story.
I'll admit I was getting a little cocky by this point into my job, only a year and a half in and I had some good reliable contacts, and power to spare for most jobs I handled. Sure against any monster with more than the baseline power for its species I'd most likely be fucked but I could hold my own against hunters and a vast majority the monsters I came across, at least long enough to bail my ass back to the safety of Jez anyway. That being said I found myself with cold sweats looking at my task for this delivery, body retrieval. I know I say this a lot but I fucking hate body retrieval, on the surface it's simple, a monster fucked up some poor guy and now I have to go haul his ass somewhere so the police or park rangers or whatever actually have a shot at finding the body. Problem with this is that whatever killed the guy is almost always lurking around, and will inevitably be pissed your trying to take away it's midday snack. I'm telling you this rn, if you aren't absolutely 100 percent sure you're ready for a fight with whatever fucked up thing your stealing the body from, DO NOT accept body retrieval jobs. Whatever the app does to punish you is still better than being dead.
So yeah I accepted the body retrieval job. I was nervous sure but I was confident I could handle it. That was until my stop put me at the edge of a fucking forest. Home of literally every ridiculously ancient and powerful monster not currently napping at the bottom of the fucking ocean.
“Shit.” I cursed, it had to be a fucking forest, in the middle of the night, fucking great.
“Jez if I'm not out of this In like 39 minutes find a nice family.” to which the old girl whined sadly. Good to know someone will miss me when I'm dead.
I walked slowly through the forest following the fyre navigation. Somehow it keeps me on track even though I lost reception an hour ago. Im breathing heavily under the oppressive aura of the dark trees around me, about 15 minutes back the sounds of the forest stopped. A single rustle In the bush. I whip around to nothing.
Suddenly I'm blindsided by a claw to the side of my head sending me spiraling into the side of a tree. Lucky me my regeneration kicks in and starts sealing me back up. Hurts like a bitch tho and I start to panic mentally. Regeneration sucks through my stores of magic, I can only take about five more hits like that before I'm dead. Only good thing is the creature obviously isn't used to dealing with things that don't die Immediately after being smacked.
Standing over 9ft tall is a fucking wendigo, god I knew what wendigo’s are supposed to look like but you'll never understand the sheer fucking horror of looking at one. Its pale rotting skin is poorly wrapped over an emaciated skeleton. Blood, pus, and other vial liquids sleeping out of its various wounds, pale yellow eyes behind its elongated deer skull of a face boring holes into your soul doing their damnedest to reduce your will to nothing but that of a meal waiting to be devoured. I'm forced to take in this sight as it charges towards me ready to rip my what it thinks to be dead body apart.
I teleport to the side at the last second. The creature slams straight into a tree. The wendigo reals from the impact. I take the opportunity tho throw my fist into its ribcage. It feels like I'm hitting steel instead of feted rotten flesh. It still skids a couple inches black blood spurting out of its horribly sharp jaws. It charges at me, I sidestep, it catches me in the jaw. I the side of the skull. It swipes my legs, I go down, fuck. It jumps on top of me, it caves my face in, it claws my throat out. I teleport to the left and bathe it in hellfire. It screams in pain rolling around on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in a nearby lake, picked up the body and dragged it back towards Jez. It had to be a fucking forest
Turns out throwing that wendigo saved its life, now the damn thing follows me around like a lost puppy leaving me little gifts. My advice for wendigo's, run, never go into the forest alone, bring fire
That's it for the day for me, my other arm seems to be functioning well enough to take a drive down to Artemis and see if he can update my tattoo with the teeth of a werewolf. I know I said to make friends In this industry but if you ever see a werewolf do me a personal favor and shove a silver stick right up its ass. I'm sure I'll get around to telling you why I hate them so much at some point, but for now just know that being half wolf apparently has a way of automatically making you a full arrogant asshole.
submitted by Fireside_story to scarystories [link] [comments]
Hello dear readers and hopefully fellow drivers if my warning was at all listened to, I've found an appropriate amount of time in my schedule to write you again that may or may not have to do with me having to wait for my arm to reattach itself, a riveting story I may choose to tell here at some point when the scars from the encounter are more mental than physical, in the meantime I've prepared a few more memories for you of things that go bump in the night.
Stacy: vampires: “do vampires always have to have such big orders” I think as I drag a large heavy cooler into the trunk of jez, who lets out a small growl of protest. Opening the cooler to check the order I see it's perfectly im tact, all 23 bags of blood from the general hospital, all ab positive. And then I prepare, jez gets a garlic necklace round her rearview mirror. And I get silver, everywhere. I shudder thinking about the task to come, absently rubbing a line of scars on my arms. Vampires may be overrated but damn me if they aren't old and powerful.
As I pull into the building I swear a couple hundred times realizing I am delivering into an abandoned ally. The shadows look as the sounds of the night distort into monstrous form. I step out of the car, dragging the cooler behind me and trying not to collapse from a stress aneurysm. Out of nowhere a flash of movement knocks me to the floor in a shrieking blur of raw strength and hostile intent, straddling me is a powerfully built woman barely under 7ft tall, I feel my ribs crack as I hit the floor, not to long after the silver kicks in burning her hands and sending her stumbling back
“you fucking bitch” she says, beginning to channel a dark energy into hand, the air becomes heaver as I struggle to breath, coughing and sputtering, as a bit of blood comes out from my mouth. Just for a moment she fixates on it, drool slightly coming down from her no doubt starving lips.
“Delivery for Stacy”
And that my dear readers was the first meeting of a beautiful friendship. Stacy is somewhat of a vampire mercenary who works as hired muscle for any clan that has the money to pay for her abilities, turns out jez and I are a reliable and most importantly discreet ride to wherever she needs to be. And I got a tattoo with her blood after an… unfortunate incident involving a ambush I just barely pulled her out of alive. I fucking hate most vampires, but Stacy has had my back for some odd three years now and is easily my best if not only true friend in the business. My advice for vampires, dress for the occasion, aim for the heart, and for the love of God cover your fucking neck.
Lucia: deer: I can't, I don't, just… pray to anyone or anything you believe in you make it out unscathed.
Asmodeus,belphegor, and Lucifer: demons: I wasn't even on a delivery, just on a nice Monday drive to clear my head. Without so much of a blink of my eye the sky turns blood red, obsidian clouds rolling in the sky. The car becomes almost sweltering hot as a man dressed in a sharp 3 piece suit appears sitting in jez’s back seat, a set of round red tinted sunglasses poorly concealing his pitch black eyes
“Good evening, I heard you are a coveted member of fyre driver. It may be… unorthodox but could you transport me for just a little while? Just keep driving straight down this road if you don't mind” he says the wicked smile that doesn't reach the rest his soulless deadpan face lets me know immediately this is not a request i should refuse
“ A little unexpected but I'm not one to turn down a customer” I say trying to smile in a way that doesn't reveal how much this man unsettles my sou
“Very good. I'm not one to beat around the bush so let's not dodge the subject. I am Lucifer, as in the devil, enemy of God. I wanted to have a little chat with you, and offer you a deal.” the air itself seems to want to pull me into hell itself and I feel the unmistakable sensation of countless eyes boring into me “your soul belongs to the entity entrapping you in this business but i want to… sponsor you. Nothing to bad I assure you all you have to do is complete some task for me and make a few… special deliveries and in return I lend you the material you need to make one of those special tattoos of yours. Think of it friend, the power of Lucifer himself yours to command, pride eternal the strongest of all the sins yours to take, and all I want is you to do the odd job for me when I ask, now thats not so bad is it?” his smile continues growing sickly pointed yellow teeth on full display as his obsidian eyes burn my soul and dare me, no command me to submit to his terms, but I know I can't, I may work a foul industry but to make a deal with the devil would brand me forever to the legions of hell and I just knew deep somewhere unknown to me for all my years I would suffer eternal if I did not say no to this man
“I.. I'm… apologies Mr. Morningstar but I simply cannot accept, favoritism to my customers is not part of my personal policies.” The man's smiles quickly disappears. I feel like the car will quickly become my tomb if it becomes any hotter and jez screeches with effort as the atmosphere around us becomes thick with unbridled malice.
“Make no mistake I am trying to do you a favor. Do you really think nobody has noticed your continued antics in this field. Your becoming a presence in the gaps and if you do not take my deal I promise you this will not be the end their are many abominations that will stop at nothing to manipulate you to their ends.” His voice booms like it's being fed through a subwoofer full blast. I feel my skin blistering underneath his hateful gaze. For the first time since starting this job jez goes from a safe haven to a living coffin closing in on me.
“No offense Mr. Morningstar…” I take a few steaming breaths to fight back the fear and pain “... aren't you doing the same thing?”
Unfortunately he ended up being right. After that day I ended being harassed constantly by demons, Angels, eldritch abominations, and weird chibi animals wanting to make me into sailor moon or some shit. Even now thinking back on those two months of a constant stream of manipulation and bullshit threatens to give me a bloody migraine. Finally one day when Asmodeus and Belphegor were tag teaming me in a desperate bid to be my demonic sponsor after a compelling offer from the angel Ezekiel not even five minutes before I finally snapped and accepted. To be honest it's not that bad. Turns out belphegor or Bella as they prefer to be called is almost always too lazy to do anything with our contract, and asmodeus, or aster, mostly has me bus succubi around, which admittedly is a pain in its own ways, but overall not bad. My advice for demons, hold out as long as possible, they get desperate when the angels show up.
Denir: wendigo: So remember how I said my tattoo gives me various supernatural abilities based on what monster I got it from. Well yeah this particular encounter will explain why having magic bullshit in your corner is so important, it's also at this point as I'm writing this I realized I should probably be explaining exactly what each of my tattoos do. For context, at this point in my career I only had 8 aside from the base tattoo, one from all the creatures mentioned in my writings so far, and two from creatures that have specifically requested I not talk about them here. honestly the powers come so naturally to me most of the time I forget that I need to explain them to strangers even when it would be beneficial for the people in question to know.
As I already said Artemis gives me perfect working knowledge of alchemy, after that there's Selki who gives me the ability to see in the dark and climb on literally any surface, Stacy who gives me the ability to regenerate from almost any physical injury so long as I don't deplete my stores of magic energy, Lucia who gives me the ability to run really fast and perceive creatures that normally run faster than a human eye can track, Belphegor who gave me the ability to recover magic by sleeping (normal you need fresh blood or deep meditation). Asmodeus how gave me the ability to shoot hellfire and… other more bedroom suited abilities. And my other two mystery friends who gave me the ability to teleport about 5 inches in any direction i want three time a day, and the ability to turn invisible for about five minutes at a time (with about a 10 minute cool down). With that explanation out of the way let's get down to the real story.
I'll admit I was getting a little cocky by this point into my job, only a year and a half in and I had some good reliable contacts, and power to spare for most jobs I handled. Sure against any monster with more than the baseline power for its species I'd most likely be fucked but I could hold my own against hunters and a vast majority the monsters I came across, at least long enough to bail my ass back to the safety of Jez anyway. That being said I found myself with cold sweats looking at my task for this delivery, body retrieval. I know I say this a lot but I fucking hate body retrieval, on the surface it's simple, a monster fucked up some poor guy and now I have to go haul his ass somewhere so the police or park rangers or whatever actually have a shot at finding the body. Problem with this is that whatever killed the guy is almost always lurking around, and will inevitably be pissed your trying to take away it's midday snack. I'm telling you this rn, if you aren't absolutely 100 percent sure you're ready for a fight with whatever fucked up thing your stealing the body from, DO NOT accept body retrieval jobs. Whatever the app does to punish you is still better than being dead.
So yeah I accepted the body retrieval job. I was nervous sure but I was confident I could handle it. That was until my stop put me at the edge of a fucking forest. Home of literally every ridiculously ancient and powerful monster not currently napping at the bottom of the fucking ocean.
“Shit.” I cursed, it had to be a fucking forest, in the middle of the night, fucking great.
“Jez if I'm not out of this In like 39 minutes find a nice family.” to which the old girl whined sadly. Good to know someone will miss me when I'm dead.
I walked slowly through the forest following the fyre navigation. Somehow it keeps me on track even though I lost reception an hour ago. Im breathing heavily under the oppressive aura of the dark trees around me, about 15 minutes back the sounds of the forest stopped. A single rustle In the bush. I whip around to nothing.
Suddenly I'm blindsided by a claw to the side of my head sending me spiraling into the side of a tree. Lucky me my regeneration kicks in and starts sealing me back up. Hurts like a bitch tho and I start to panic mentally. Regeneration sucks through my stores of magic, I can only take about five more hits like that before I'm dead. Only good thing is the creature obviously isn't used to dealing with things that don't die Immediately after being smacked.
Standing over 9ft tall is a fucking wendigo, god I knew what wendigo’s are supposed to look like but you'll never understand the sheer fucking horror of looking at one. Its pale rotting skin is poorly wrapped over an emaciated skeleton. Blood, pus, and other vial liquids sleeping out of its various wounds, pale yellow eyes behind its elongated deer skull of a face boring holes into your soul doing their damnedest to reduce your will to nothing but that of a meal waiting to be devoured. I'm forced to take in this sight as it charges towards me ready to rip my what it thinks to be dead body apart.
I teleport to the side at the last second. The creature slams straight into a tree. The wendigo reals from the impact. I take the opportunity tho throw my fist into its ribcage. It feels like I'm hitting steel instead of feted rotten flesh. It still skids a couple inches black blood spurting out of its horribly sharp jaws. It charges at me, I sidestep, it catches me in the jaw. I the side of the skull. It swipes my legs, I go down, fuck. It jumps on top of me, it caves my face in, it claws my throat out. I teleport to the left and bathe it in hellfire. It screams in pain rolling around on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in a nearby lake, picked up the body and dragged it back towards Jez. It had to be a fucking forest
Turns out throwing that wendigo saved its life, now the damn thing follows me around like a lost puppy leaving me little gifts. My advice for wendigo's, run, never go into the forest alone, bring fire
That's it for the day for me, my other arm seems to be functioning well enough to take a drive down to Artemis and see if he can update my tattoo with the teeth of a werewolf. I know I said to make friends In this industry but if you ever see a werewolf do me a personal favor and shove a silver stick right up its ass. I'm sure I'll get around to telling you why I hate them so much at some point, but for now just know that being half wolf apparently has a way of automatically making you a full arrogant asshole.
2024.02.09 22:05 New-Ad-8630 red rank is a nightmare
 | as a surv main( mostly solo queue), when the killer sees any competent survivor they immediately choose to tunnel and slug like is this the meta for red ranks? Im not even talking about the number of skull merchant matches ended up by me dc'ing right in the middle of the match cuz the killer is just slugging, they sweat so hard to get that 4k sensation like it's not even fun. I dont want to be a whining baby but game is defo killer sided on the mobile version and it gives me aneurysm whenever i play solo submitted by New-Ad-8630 to DeadByDaylightMobile [link] [comments] |
2024.02.08 00:50 bobert_the_wise 12 year old, day after migraine having sensory overload and dizziness. Just wanting to make sure this is normal migraine stuff.
12F 5’2” 100 pounds History of epilepsy and migraines No meds
My daughter had epilepsy as a baby but grew out of it. Last seizure was age 3. At 6 she had her first migraine (dx’edd after several by neurologist) which presented with pain, light sensitivity, paleness, weakness, sweating, dizziness and vomiting but only lasted about 5 hours.
She’s then had them pretty regularly since. She had rescue meds but now she doesn’t want to take them. She doesn’t live with me and her dad and step mom are very anti medications and doctors. To be clear we all have a great coparenting relationship, just throwing that out there to explain why I don’t have much i can do.
Anyway. Yesterday she had a migraine at school. The aura started and she recognized that and went to the nurse and went home. She lost more than half her vision in both eyes and had all the regular migraine stuff all day yesterday. Today she said she just feels really weird. She went back to school and she said everything seems 10x louder and 10x brighter and she feels dizzy and weak. Is this a normal post migraine thing? That’s all i want to know is if this is normal or if i should push for her to see a neurologist.
Her father and I both have migraines and her brother has cyclical vomiting syndrome. Not sure if any of this is relevant but I have a history of brain aneurysm with family history, as well as white matter changes associated with migraine and cerebral microbleeds (i have to get a lot or MRIs after the aneurysm).
Thank you!
submitted by bobert_the_wise to AskDocs [link] [comments]
My daughter had epilepsy as a baby but grew out of it. Last seizure was age 3. At 6 she had her first migraine (dx’edd after several by neurologist) which presented with pain, light sensitivity, paleness, weakness, sweating, dizziness and vomiting but only lasted about 5 hours.
She’s then had them pretty regularly since. She had rescue meds but now she doesn’t want to take them. She doesn’t live with me and her dad and step mom are very anti medications and doctors. To be clear we all have a great coparenting relationship, just throwing that out there to explain why I don’t have much i can do.
Anyway. Yesterday she had a migraine at school. The aura started and she recognized that and went to the nurse and went home. She lost more than half her vision in both eyes and had all the regular migraine stuff all day yesterday. Today she said she just feels really weird. She went back to school and she said everything seems 10x louder and 10x brighter and she feels dizzy and weak. Is this a normal post migraine thing? That’s all i want to know is if this is normal or if i should push for her to see a neurologist.
Her father and I both have migraines and her brother has cyclical vomiting syndrome. Not sure if any of this is relevant but I have a history of brain aneurysm with family history, as well as white matter changes associated with migraine and cerebral microbleeds (i have to get a lot or MRIs after the aneurysm).
Thank you!
2024.01.28 01:32 WRickWrites The Spirit Of Mars (part 1) Genre: SciFi Horror
More sci-fi horror: this time not so much the distant, unknowable cosmic horror as the up close and personal kind. I'm not going to include trigger warnings on my stories, but all the work I've posted so far has been fairly tame so it's only fair to mention that this story has a few short passages with graphic injury descriptions.
*
There's something wrong with the captain. The others can't see it, but I can.
It started with the crashed ship. No, wait, it started with the distress call. We were three weeks from Earth, near the end of a six month long cargo run out to Nova Volgograd. The ship woke us from cryosleep once a month to check the systems and perform essential maintenance, but there was never anything more dramatic than a burst coolant pipe. I thought we were going to make it home ahead of schedule and collect our bonuses, for once.
We went to sleep for the sixth time thinking we'd wake up back in our own solar system. When we opened our eyes there was nothing around us but the void. The Conrad - our ship, and its AI - had woken us early, and there was nothing to see but empty space. That, and the blinking red light on the comm system alerting us to an incoming distress call.
Legally we had to check it out. No one wanted to, of course - we'd lose at least a week to the detour and a big chunk of our bonuses. But the Conrad had logged the transmission so we couldn't pretend we hadn't seen it, and besides... it could be a couple of working schmucks like us who were in trouble.
The captain was even less happy than the rest of us, though. From the moment he checked the transmission he was jumpy; I should have taken that as a warning sign, because I'd never seen him agitated like that before. But I just assumed that like the rest of us he was worried about missing the delivery deadline.
Two days later we were in orbit around an unnamed gas giant in a system that only appears on the charts as a jumble of letters and numbers. The planet was pale blue and had rings that must have been twice as large as Saturn's, but the distress call wasn't coming from the gas giant itself. The third largest of its moons was a volcano-strewn wasteland a little bigger than Mars, covered with magma lakes and smoking clouds. We found the ship on the side of a mountain, half buried in the black ash that covered the landscape for as far as the eye could see.
Three of us went down to the cash site - Captain Bryce, First Officer Jericho, and myself. The other four - navigator, pilot, and two engineers - stayed on the Conrad, monitoring us from orbit. I saw the crash site as the lander was coming in, and I knew at once I'd never seen a ship like it. It was like a claw, or a trident with three curved prongs. It looked... alien.
I said as much, and Jericho agreed with me. He seemed freaked out by it as well. But the captain shook his head and told us flatly to stop screwing around. Again, I wasn't used to hearing him talk like that and I was about to protest, but he shut me down before I could open my mouth again: it's not alien, it's just old. One of the Expansion Era battleships.
No wonder I didn't recognise it: they haven't made anything like it for five hundred years. I was surprised for a moment that the captain had, but then I remembered: he's ex-military. They probably teach you about the Expansion Era at the academy. Hell, maybe he recognised the distress signal as a navy code.
Now that I knew the age of the ship, I knew we weren't going to find anyone alive. Even cryo beds would fail after five hundred years. I thought about suggesting we turn around now, but we'd already come this far out of our way and it would only take a few minutes to check out the wreck. Besides, we might get salvage rights.
The airlocks on the lower arm were all swallowed by the ash, so we had to climb in through an emergency hatch that was barely big enough for our suits. I hesitated before I went in. Kneeling on the grey, pockmarked metal, I looked up at the sky, searching for the Conrad. I could just see the faint gleam of her in low orbit, tracking across the universe-spanning arch of the gas giant's rings, that was half in shadow now, and half glowing softly from the light of a distant sun.
There was nothing in my contract that said I had to go in. I could stay with the lander, let Bryce and Jericho check out the signal, then be back on the Conrad and on my way home before I knew it. I only took a second or two, but I thought about it. However... Bryce was a good captain. Call it loyalty, call it common decency. I didn't want to leave him and Jericho wandering round the wreck alone.
I'd never been on a ghost ship before. That's what spacers call wrecks like that, where everything looks just as it did when it was abandoned. The battery backups were still on, all basic systems functioning. No sign of damage in most areas of the ship. If you didn't know any better you'd expect to see its crew walking the hallways, and sometimes out of the corner of your eye you caught a flash of movement that for a moment you might think was a person. But it was always just a screen blinking, or an air vent opening, or a door closing automatically. The lights were on, but there was no one home.
Well, in one sense. In another more physical sense the crew was very much still there. We passed... maybe five or six bodies on our way to the bridge. All withered by the centuries, desiccated by the carefully controlled atmosphere. Eye sockets sunken, papery skin pulled taught. I'd seen corpses before, men and women who'd died to the dangers of space travel. A team of EVA welders who'd somehow got the wrong air tanks and suffocated before they realised what was happening to them; that was while I was waiting to ship out from Marsport on my very first contract. Then there was the crash just before we left Nova Volgograd: mine workers smashed to pieces by an unsecured lifting arm swinging out into their shuttle's path as they approached the dock. That had been quick and messy, and I'd thought it was a bad omen at the time.
This didn't look accidental, though. These people, in naval uniforms centuries out of date, had all died by violence. And although it was just as messy as the shuttle crash, it didn't look like it had been quick. Heads smashed in, broken bones torn through their jump suit, bodies twisted at awkward angles. I thought it must have been trauma from the crash, at first, but how does a crash cause a stab wound, or strangulation marks around the throat? There were signs of fighting, too - pistols unholstered, and burn marks on the wall that could have been from a plasma round. But no bodies with gunshot wounds.
I was more than ready to turn around, but we were already at the bridge. The doors wouldn't open, even after we pulled off the maintenance panel and hot-wired them. Someone all those centuries ago had wanted to make damn sure that nothing could get past them. It took a little trick with a scanner - one they probably didn't have back then - to make the safety systems think there was a fire on the other side that needed to be exposed to vacuum. We were buffeted by a gale as the corridor depressurised, but it wasn't a problem for our suits. The corridor started re-pressurising as soon as the cycle was finished, and cautiously, we stepped onto the bridge.
There were stations for a dozen crew, but only one of them was occupied. The captain's chair. The figure seated there was sitting so upright that from behind you'd almost think he was still alive, refusing to abandon his post even after all that time. Then we stepped round in front, and saw the shrivelled, leather-like skin clinging to pale-white bone. Four bars on his shoulder, and a pistol in his hand. This was the captain alright.
There was a bloodstain on his jumpsuit, around his lower abdomen. Dried, crusted blood turned almost black by the passing years. Big enough that it was safe to assume he'd bled out, although not so quickly he hadn't been able to make it back to the bridge. I thought it was odd that he'd managed to make it here by himself, until we found he wasn't alone. Fallen by the navigation console - on the floor, a male corpse with similar wounds to the rest of the crew, and slumped next to him a female, propped up against the console. Both with lieutenant's stripes.
The woman had a pistol in her hand and a single gunshot wound to her temple. Whatever had happened to the rest of the crew, she hadn't wanted to go the same way.
What the hell happened here? I muttered it to myself, just before Jericho echoed my thoughts out loud. This was a military vessel from an age of war, heavily armed and with a crew that was trained and experienced in combat. Someone had managed to board and slaughter them all, in hand-to-hand combat by the looks of it. It made no sense.
Bryce just shook his head. Whatever had happened, it was long since over and there was nothing we could do for them now. The procedure was to turn off the distress beacon and take a copy of the ship's logs. Once we were back in port we'd hand over the logs and the position of the wreck, and if they wanted to recover the bodies or salvage the ship that was their business. It wasn't our problem, and the longer we stayed here the longer we'd fall behind schedule.
He was nervous. I could see that much, but I couldn't tell why. I'd didn't think he was the sort to be scared by a few old bones - it was something more than that. He wanted us off that ship as soon as possible, and vetoed the suggestion that we search the rest of it, saying something about how there might be old weaponry lying around - after a couple of centuries, the armouries might not have proper containment. Very vague, like he just wanted an excuse for us to leave.
And yet, while we were downloading the logs he went and had a look in the captain's briefing room, just off the bridge. Said he wanted to find the ship's figurehead; ancient naval tradition - a little statuette with the ship's name and serial number on a brass plaque. I thought I might as well check the bodies for dog tags in the meantime, but when he came back with the figurehead he snapped at me to leave them alone, that we were leaving right away. I wonder what else he was looking for in the captain's quarters.
The ship's name was the 'Spirit of Mars'. At least we found out that much about her.
The logs were encrypted of course. A civilian vessel would leave its black-box accessible to everyone, but when a military ship went down the navy didn't like anyone but them knowing where they'd screwed up. However, the encryption was five centuries old. When we got back to the Conrad I loaded them into the mainframe for our AI to take a look at. The captain didn't seem to have much hope it would work, but he didn't object either. The navy weren't likely to be bothered if we found a secret that was five centuries out of date.
Kiel, the navigator, had already plotted a course out of the system by the time we got back. The engineers - Patek and Nguyen - had completed all their maintenance checks and not found any problems. Reyes, as the pilot, was the most senior officer on the ship in our absence, and she reported that their orbit of the unnamed moon had been utterly uneventful. We were on our way out of the system less than an hour after the lander got back. I watched the sun glittering on the icy rings of the gas giant as they receded into the distance, but I didn't think much more about the black planet drifting along them, or the Spirit of Mars. Like the captain said, they were someone else's problem now.
My duties on the Conrad were varied; by law the company had to put a science officer on board its deep space ships in case we encountered some unknown phenomenon, but exploration opportunities on a commercial cargo hauler were limited. Although I never got my MD, I had enough medical training to act as the ship's doctor, which meant my main role aboard was to certify each of the crew was fit to enter cryosleep. I was putting Nguyen through the scanner when Kiel ran in, breathless.
Jericho was dead.
In the shuttle bay. He'd been doing the final checks on the lander, making sure it hadn't suffered any more than the usual wear and tear, and verifying that it was stowed securely before we went back into stasis. I knew that because I'd just been down there to tell him to get to the medbay for his scan as soon as he was done there. A chill ran down my spine... if I'd hung around a bit longer, I might have been able to save him.
Or it might have been me lying alongside him. I got to the shuttle bay, and immediately realised it hadn't been an accident. I thought the lander might have come loose and crushed him, or a damaged fuel valve had burst, or something you'd expect in our line of work. But the lander was fine, and Jericho... Jericho...
There was brain matter on the floor. All over the floor. I had to step around it to get to the body, and be careful where I knelt, but it didn't take a lot of medical training to see the cause of death. Jericho's skull had been smashed open, with a heavy, savage blow. I couldn't see any defensive wounds, or any other sign of injury at all. Someone had taken our First Officer completely by surprise, quickly and brutally, killing him before he had time to react.
A few minutes later, everyone on the ship knew. Kiel helped me cover Jericho with a tarpaulin, then we met the others in the mess hall. Everyone was on edge, understandably. Patek started by shouting at me, asking why I hadn't done more to save Jericho. All he'd heard was that Jericho had been in an accident, and that I'd pronounced him dead as soon as I got to the shuttle bay. The only thing I could say in return was that if he wanted to take a look at the body, he'd see exactly why.
A few of the others tried to calm him down, but the captain was strangely quiet. Maybe he was just in shock, but to me it looked like he was thinking. Weighing his options. Finally he told us that there was nothing to discuss: there was nothing we could do for Jericho now, and as sad as it was, accidents happened.
I tried - I tried to make him understand that it couldn't have been an accident. There was no way Jericho had just fallen and split his head open like that. But he wouldn't hear it. Every time I opened my mouth, he shut me down. He ordered me to get Jericho's body into the medbay, and the rest of the crew to get the Conrad back to the shipping lanes and on course for home.
I wanted to catch Reyes as we were leaving the mess hall. She looked like she wanted to talk more about what might or might not have happened to Jericho. But Bryce followed me out, watching me like a hawk, and I couldn't find a way to speak to her alone without him watching. I tried telling him that I'd need help getting Jericho to the medbay, but he just said he'd do it.
Jericho was a heavy guy, and it did need both of us to get what was left of him into the body bag. It made me wonder who - or what - would have had the strength to kill him like that. The captain didn't help my nerves; we worked in silence, and he spent half the time watching me, and half looking over his shoulder. For what, I had no idea. The only sound I heard was the clanking of loose chains.
The medbay has a freezer. It's mostly meant for blood draws, biopsy samples, but it's also rated to store unknown biological materials in deep freeze, just in case we run across anything alien. It's not meant for bodies - if a crewman dies then regulations say to put him back in his cryobed. But regulations were written with heart attacks, aneurysms and vacuum exposure in mind. I figured we'd all sleep better without what was left of Jericho in the bed next to us.
First, however, I wanted to perform an autopsy. I invited Bryce to stay and watch, but just as I was about to start Reyes called him up to the bridge; some kind of argument with Kiel over the best route back to the shipping lanes. The main reason I wanted to do the autopsy was to force the captain to acknowledge that Jericho's death hadn't been an accident, but I went ahead with it anyway. I didn't find anything new, apart from a bruise on his wrist that looked like someone had grabbed him and twisted his arm. The mark was too indistinct to tell who, or what might have made it, however.
I still had to finish doing the scans to clear everyone for cryosleep. I'd already done Reyes and Kiel, and Nguyen's was on the screen and looking fine, so next on my list was Patek. I put out an announcement on the intercom asking him to come to the medbay, but he didn't respond. I figured he was still upset about Jericho's death, but the scan had to be done so I went looking for him.
I didn't find him. I must have spent a good twenty minutes searching before I used the intercom again to ask if anyone had seen him. Nguyen called back to say that he'd last seen Patek heading for the ship's spine to check that the cargo pods were secure, which was always the last item on the maintenance checklist before we went into cryosleep. Intercom links didn't cover the whole of the cargo area, so maybe he hadn't heard. Nguyen said he was nearby and offered to pass on the message.
Nguyen did find Patek. Dead, with his neck broken. And when I say his neck was broken, I mean his head had damn near been twisted off. Total internal decapitation. I could tell immediately that it couldn't have been an accident - you don't fall and accidentally snap your head round a hundred and eighty degrees. There was more evidence of a fight this time, too: Patek's right arm was broken, and his left arm had almost been wrenched out of its socket.
Bryce was already there by the time I arrived; naturally, Nguyen had called him first. I found him kneeling by the body, examining it for something - what, I couldn't say. When he turned and saw me he jumped to his feet, like I'd startled him.
We took Patek's body back to the medbay and laid him alongside Jericho. Then we convened in the mess hall again, the five of us who were left. Nguyen was sweating and clammy, like he was about to throw up; he and Patek had worked together for years. Reyes and Kiel were stony-faced and grim. And Bryce... I couldn't read Bryce. Normally he was a pretty open guy, but at that moment his face was a wall.
There was no way he could pass this death off as an accident. Patek had been killed deliberately, and most likely Jericho too. The question was, who... or what.
Either one of us had killed our crewmates, or there was something else on board with us. Reyes asked me straight up if my examination of the corpses had turned up anything that pointed at any of us, finally saying what we'd all been thinking. I told her that given the extreme nature of the injures, the perpetrator would have to be immensely strong and fast - beyond even what most augmented soldiers would be capable of. Not only did I not think one of us had killed Jericho and Patek, I didn't think the killer was... well, I didn't think it was human.
And there was only one place an intruder could have come from, and the lander had been unattended for hours - plenty of time for something to slip aboard. I never would have believed that there could still be something living in that centuries old wreck, but the evidence was too strong to ignore: what had happened to our crewmates was disturbingly similar to what we'd seen on the Spirit of Mars. We must have brought something back with us from the planet.
Something alien. Capable of surviving for five hundred years. Capable of still being lethal.
Again, it was Reyes who said what we were all thinking: we needed weapons.
Being a commercial cargo vehicle we didn't carry any firearms, or anything remotely close, but I suggested that we modify some of the welding torches into flamethrowers. Nguyen started to say that we could do that pretty easily, but the captain finally weighed in. No weapons. The safest thing to do was to lock all the doors, seal whatever it was in the cargo hold. Then we could go back into stasis and wait for rescue.
None of us were happy about the idea of going back to cold-sleep while something was crawling around our ship. As Reyes pointed out, if the alien managed to get through the doors we'd be totally helpless. Plus, we couldn't be sure it was still in the hold - there had been plenty of time for it to get out of there after it killed Patek.
Bryce insisted though. Said it was too dangerous to go out looking for this thing. End of discussion, meeting adjourned. I don't think any of us agreed with him, but he was the captain so he had the final say. There was nothing we could do.
Not right then, at least. This time I didn't have to find a way to get to Reyes without Bryce seeing, because she found me. After we left the mess hall Bryce was still keeping an eye on me, until Kiel called him to the bridge to look at a problem with the navigational sensors. As soon as he was gone Reyes stepped through the door; she'd arranged for Kiel to create a distraction.
Reyes was no fool: she wasn't about to wait for Bryce come to his senses, and she had a plan. We needed weapons, even if we had to go behind the captain's back. I was just about to tell her what parts we'd need when Nguyen came in with a cart full of components - welding torches, fuel tanks, pressure valves, and so on. As the science officer I had the technical training to design a flamethrower that could be constructed from those parts, and Nguyen had the engineering experience. Between us, we managed to make four of them.
Then we started planning how we'd hunt the bastard down.
Continued here: The Spirit Of Mars (part 2)
submitted by WRickWrites to WRickWritesHorror [link] [comments]
*
There's something wrong with the captain. The others can't see it, but I can.
It started with the crashed ship. No, wait, it started with the distress call. We were three weeks from Earth, near the end of a six month long cargo run out to Nova Volgograd. The ship woke us from cryosleep once a month to check the systems and perform essential maintenance, but there was never anything more dramatic than a burst coolant pipe. I thought we were going to make it home ahead of schedule and collect our bonuses, for once.
We went to sleep for the sixth time thinking we'd wake up back in our own solar system. When we opened our eyes there was nothing around us but the void. The Conrad - our ship, and its AI - had woken us early, and there was nothing to see but empty space. That, and the blinking red light on the comm system alerting us to an incoming distress call.
Legally we had to check it out. No one wanted to, of course - we'd lose at least a week to the detour and a big chunk of our bonuses. But the Conrad had logged the transmission so we couldn't pretend we hadn't seen it, and besides... it could be a couple of working schmucks like us who were in trouble.
The captain was even less happy than the rest of us, though. From the moment he checked the transmission he was jumpy; I should have taken that as a warning sign, because I'd never seen him agitated like that before. But I just assumed that like the rest of us he was worried about missing the delivery deadline.
Two days later we were in orbit around an unnamed gas giant in a system that only appears on the charts as a jumble of letters and numbers. The planet was pale blue and had rings that must have been twice as large as Saturn's, but the distress call wasn't coming from the gas giant itself. The third largest of its moons was a volcano-strewn wasteland a little bigger than Mars, covered with magma lakes and smoking clouds. We found the ship on the side of a mountain, half buried in the black ash that covered the landscape for as far as the eye could see.
Three of us went down to the cash site - Captain Bryce, First Officer Jericho, and myself. The other four - navigator, pilot, and two engineers - stayed on the Conrad, monitoring us from orbit. I saw the crash site as the lander was coming in, and I knew at once I'd never seen a ship like it. It was like a claw, or a trident with three curved prongs. It looked... alien.
I said as much, and Jericho agreed with me. He seemed freaked out by it as well. But the captain shook his head and told us flatly to stop screwing around. Again, I wasn't used to hearing him talk like that and I was about to protest, but he shut me down before I could open my mouth again: it's not alien, it's just old. One of the Expansion Era battleships.
No wonder I didn't recognise it: they haven't made anything like it for five hundred years. I was surprised for a moment that the captain had, but then I remembered: he's ex-military. They probably teach you about the Expansion Era at the academy. Hell, maybe he recognised the distress signal as a navy code.
Now that I knew the age of the ship, I knew we weren't going to find anyone alive. Even cryo beds would fail after five hundred years. I thought about suggesting we turn around now, but we'd already come this far out of our way and it would only take a few minutes to check out the wreck. Besides, we might get salvage rights.
The airlocks on the lower arm were all swallowed by the ash, so we had to climb in through an emergency hatch that was barely big enough for our suits. I hesitated before I went in. Kneeling on the grey, pockmarked metal, I looked up at the sky, searching for the Conrad. I could just see the faint gleam of her in low orbit, tracking across the universe-spanning arch of the gas giant's rings, that was half in shadow now, and half glowing softly from the light of a distant sun.
There was nothing in my contract that said I had to go in. I could stay with the lander, let Bryce and Jericho check out the signal, then be back on the Conrad and on my way home before I knew it. I only took a second or two, but I thought about it. However... Bryce was a good captain. Call it loyalty, call it common decency. I didn't want to leave him and Jericho wandering round the wreck alone.
I'd never been on a ghost ship before. That's what spacers call wrecks like that, where everything looks just as it did when it was abandoned. The battery backups were still on, all basic systems functioning. No sign of damage in most areas of the ship. If you didn't know any better you'd expect to see its crew walking the hallways, and sometimes out of the corner of your eye you caught a flash of movement that for a moment you might think was a person. But it was always just a screen blinking, or an air vent opening, or a door closing automatically. The lights were on, but there was no one home.
Well, in one sense. In another more physical sense the crew was very much still there. We passed... maybe five or six bodies on our way to the bridge. All withered by the centuries, desiccated by the carefully controlled atmosphere. Eye sockets sunken, papery skin pulled taught. I'd seen corpses before, men and women who'd died to the dangers of space travel. A team of EVA welders who'd somehow got the wrong air tanks and suffocated before they realised what was happening to them; that was while I was waiting to ship out from Marsport on my very first contract. Then there was the crash just before we left Nova Volgograd: mine workers smashed to pieces by an unsecured lifting arm swinging out into their shuttle's path as they approached the dock. That had been quick and messy, and I'd thought it was a bad omen at the time.
This didn't look accidental, though. These people, in naval uniforms centuries out of date, had all died by violence. And although it was just as messy as the shuttle crash, it didn't look like it had been quick. Heads smashed in, broken bones torn through their jump suit, bodies twisted at awkward angles. I thought it must have been trauma from the crash, at first, but how does a crash cause a stab wound, or strangulation marks around the throat? There were signs of fighting, too - pistols unholstered, and burn marks on the wall that could have been from a plasma round. But no bodies with gunshot wounds.
I was more than ready to turn around, but we were already at the bridge. The doors wouldn't open, even after we pulled off the maintenance panel and hot-wired them. Someone all those centuries ago had wanted to make damn sure that nothing could get past them. It took a little trick with a scanner - one they probably didn't have back then - to make the safety systems think there was a fire on the other side that needed to be exposed to vacuum. We were buffeted by a gale as the corridor depressurised, but it wasn't a problem for our suits. The corridor started re-pressurising as soon as the cycle was finished, and cautiously, we stepped onto the bridge.
There were stations for a dozen crew, but only one of them was occupied. The captain's chair. The figure seated there was sitting so upright that from behind you'd almost think he was still alive, refusing to abandon his post even after all that time. Then we stepped round in front, and saw the shrivelled, leather-like skin clinging to pale-white bone. Four bars on his shoulder, and a pistol in his hand. This was the captain alright.
There was a bloodstain on his jumpsuit, around his lower abdomen. Dried, crusted blood turned almost black by the passing years. Big enough that it was safe to assume he'd bled out, although not so quickly he hadn't been able to make it back to the bridge. I thought it was odd that he'd managed to make it here by himself, until we found he wasn't alone. Fallen by the navigation console - on the floor, a male corpse with similar wounds to the rest of the crew, and slumped next to him a female, propped up against the console. Both with lieutenant's stripes.
The woman had a pistol in her hand and a single gunshot wound to her temple. Whatever had happened to the rest of the crew, she hadn't wanted to go the same way.
What the hell happened here? I muttered it to myself, just before Jericho echoed my thoughts out loud. This was a military vessel from an age of war, heavily armed and with a crew that was trained and experienced in combat. Someone had managed to board and slaughter them all, in hand-to-hand combat by the looks of it. It made no sense.
Bryce just shook his head. Whatever had happened, it was long since over and there was nothing we could do for them now. The procedure was to turn off the distress beacon and take a copy of the ship's logs. Once we were back in port we'd hand over the logs and the position of the wreck, and if they wanted to recover the bodies or salvage the ship that was their business. It wasn't our problem, and the longer we stayed here the longer we'd fall behind schedule.
He was nervous. I could see that much, but I couldn't tell why. I'd didn't think he was the sort to be scared by a few old bones - it was something more than that. He wanted us off that ship as soon as possible, and vetoed the suggestion that we search the rest of it, saying something about how there might be old weaponry lying around - after a couple of centuries, the armouries might not have proper containment. Very vague, like he just wanted an excuse for us to leave.
And yet, while we were downloading the logs he went and had a look in the captain's briefing room, just off the bridge. Said he wanted to find the ship's figurehead; ancient naval tradition - a little statuette with the ship's name and serial number on a brass plaque. I thought I might as well check the bodies for dog tags in the meantime, but when he came back with the figurehead he snapped at me to leave them alone, that we were leaving right away. I wonder what else he was looking for in the captain's quarters.
The ship's name was the 'Spirit of Mars'. At least we found out that much about her.
The logs were encrypted of course. A civilian vessel would leave its black-box accessible to everyone, but when a military ship went down the navy didn't like anyone but them knowing where they'd screwed up. However, the encryption was five centuries old. When we got back to the Conrad I loaded them into the mainframe for our AI to take a look at. The captain didn't seem to have much hope it would work, but he didn't object either. The navy weren't likely to be bothered if we found a secret that was five centuries out of date.
Kiel, the navigator, had already plotted a course out of the system by the time we got back. The engineers - Patek and Nguyen - had completed all their maintenance checks and not found any problems. Reyes, as the pilot, was the most senior officer on the ship in our absence, and she reported that their orbit of the unnamed moon had been utterly uneventful. We were on our way out of the system less than an hour after the lander got back. I watched the sun glittering on the icy rings of the gas giant as they receded into the distance, but I didn't think much more about the black planet drifting along them, or the Spirit of Mars. Like the captain said, they were someone else's problem now.
My duties on the Conrad were varied; by law the company had to put a science officer on board its deep space ships in case we encountered some unknown phenomenon, but exploration opportunities on a commercial cargo hauler were limited. Although I never got my MD, I had enough medical training to act as the ship's doctor, which meant my main role aboard was to certify each of the crew was fit to enter cryosleep. I was putting Nguyen through the scanner when Kiel ran in, breathless.
Jericho was dead.
In the shuttle bay. He'd been doing the final checks on the lander, making sure it hadn't suffered any more than the usual wear and tear, and verifying that it was stowed securely before we went back into stasis. I knew that because I'd just been down there to tell him to get to the medbay for his scan as soon as he was done there. A chill ran down my spine... if I'd hung around a bit longer, I might have been able to save him.
Or it might have been me lying alongside him. I got to the shuttle bay, and immediately realised it hadn't been an accident. I thought the lander might have come loose and crushed him, or a damaged fuel valve had burst, or something you'd expect in our line of work. But the lander was fine, and Jericho... Jericho...
There was brain matter on the floor. All over the floor. I had to step around it to get to the body, and be careful where I knelt, but it didn't take a lot of medical training to see the cause of death. Jericho's skull had been smashed open, with a heavy, savage blow. I couldn't see any defensive wounds, or any other sign of injury at all. Someone had taken our First Officer completely by surprise, quickly and brutally, killing him before he had time to react.
A few minutes later, everyone on the ship knew. Kiel helped me cover Jericho with a tarpaulin, then we met the others in the mess hall. Everyone was on edge, understandably. Patek started by shouting at me, asking why I hadn't done more to save Jericho. All he'd heard was that Jericho had been in an accident, and that I'd pronounced him dead as soon as I got to the shuttle bay. The only thing I could say in return was that if he wanted to take a look at the body, he'd see exactly why.
A few of the others tried to calm him down, but the captain was strangely quiet. Maybe he was just in shock, but to me it looked like he was thinking. Weighing his options. Finally he told us that there was nothing to discuss: there was nothing we could do for Jericho now, and as sad as it was, accidents happened.
I tried - I tried to make him understand that it couldn't have been an accident. There was no way Jericho had just fallen and split his head open like that. But he wouldn't hear it. Every time I opened my mouth, he shut me down. He ordered me to get Jericho's body into the medbay, and the rest of the crew to get the Conrad back to the shipping lanes and on course for home.
I wanted to catch Reyes as we were leaving the mess hall. She looked like she wanted to talk more about what might or might not have happened to Jericho. But Bryce followed me out, watching me like a hawk, and I couldn't find a way to speak to her alone without him watching. I tried telling him that I'd need help getting Jericho to the medbay, but he just said he'd do it.
Jericho was a heavy guy, and it did need both of us to get what was left of him into the body bag. It made me wonder who - or what - would have had the strength to kill him like that. The captain didn't help my nerves; we worked in silence, and he spent half the time watching me, and half looking over his shoulder. For what, I had no idea. The only sound I heard was the clanking of loose chains.
The medbay has a freezer. It's mostly meant for blood draws, biopsy samples, but it's also rated to store unknown biological materials in deep freeze, just in case we run across anything alien. It's not meant for bodies - if a crewman dies then regulations say to put him back in his cryobed. But regulations were written with heart attacks, aneurysms and vacuum exposure in mind. I figured we'd all sleep better without what was left of Jericho in the bed next to us.
First, however, I wanted to perform an autopsy. I invited Bryce to stay and watch, but just as I was about to start Reyes called him up to the bridge; some kind of argument with Kiel over the best route back to the shipping lanes. The main reason I wanted to do the autopsy was to force the captain to acknowledge that Jericho's death hadn't been an accident, but I went ahead with it anyway. I didn't find anything new, apart from a bruise on his wrist that looked like someone had grabbed him and twisted his arm. The mark was too indistinct to tell who, or what might have made it, however.
I still had to finish doing the scans to clear everyone for cryosleep. I'd already done Reyes and Kiel, and Nguyen's was on the screen and looking fine, so next on my list was Patek. I put out an announcement on the intercom asking him to come to the medbay, but he didn't respond. I figured he was still upset about Jericho's death, but the scan had to be done so I went looking for him.
I didn't find him. I must have spent a good twenty minutes searching before I used the intercom again to ask if anyone had seen him. Nguyen called back to say that he'd last seen Patek heading for the ship's spine to check that the cargo pods were secure, which was always the last item on the maintenance checklist before we went into cryosleep. Intercom links didn't cover the whole of the cargo area, so maybe he hadn't heard. Nguyen said he was nearby and offered to pass on the message.
Nguyen did find Patek. Dead, with his neck broken. And when I say his neck was broken, I mean his head had damn near been twisted off. Total internal decapitation. I could tell immediately that it couldn't have been an accident - you don't fall and accidentally snap your head round a hundred and eighty degrees. There was more evidence of a fight this time, too: Patek's right arm was broken, and his left arm had almost been wrenched out of its socket.
Bryce was already there by the time I arrived; naturally, Nguyen had called him first. I found him kneeling by the body, examining it for something - what, I couldn't say. When he turned and saw me he jumped to his feet, like I'd startled him.
We took Patek's body back to the medbay and laid him alongside Jericho. Then we convened in the mess hall again, the five of us who were left. Nguyen was sweating and clammy, like he was about to throw up; he and Patek had worked together for years. Reyes and Kiel were stony-faced and grim. And Bryce... I couldn't read Bryce. Normally he was a pretty open guy, but at that moment his face was a wall.
There was no way he could pass this death off as an accident. Patek had been killed deliberately, and most likely Jericho too. The question was, who... or what.
Either one of us had killed our crewmates, or there was something else on board with us. Reyes asked me straight up if my examination of the corpses had turned up anything that pointed at any of us, finally saying what we'd all been thinking. I told her that given the extreme nature of the injures, the perpetrator would have to be immensely strong and fast - beyond even what most augmented soldiers would be capable of. Not only did I not think one of us had killed Jericho and Patek, I didn't think the killer was... well, I didn't think it was human.
And there was only one place an intruder could have come from, and the lander had been unattended for hours - plenty of time for something to slip aboard. I never would have believed that there could still be something living in that centuries old wreck, but the evidence was too strong to ignore: what had happened to our crewmates was disturbingly similar to what we'd seen on the Spirit of Mars. We must have brought something back with us from the planet.
Something alien. Capable of surviving for five hundred years. Capable of still being lethal.
Again, it was Reyes who said what we were all thinking: we needed weapons.
Being a commercial cargo vehicle we didn't carry any firearms, or anything remotely close, but I suggested that we modify some of the welding torches into flamethrowers. Nguyen started to say that we could do that pretty easily, but the captain finally weighed in. No weapons. The safest thing to do was to lock all the doors, seal whatever it was in the cargo hold. Then we could go back into stasis and wait for rescue.
None of us were happy about the idea of going back to cold-sleep while something was crawling around our ship. As Reyes pointed out, if the alien managed to get through the doors we'd be totally helpless. Plus, we couldn't be sure it was still in the hold - there had been plenty of time for it to get out of there after it killed Patek.
Bryce insisted though. Said it was too dangerous to go out looking for this thing. End of discussion, meeting adjourned. I don't think any of us agreed with him, but he was the captain so he had the final say. There was nothing we could do.
Not right then, at least. This time I didn't have to find a way to get to Reyes without Bryce seeing, because she found me. After we left the mess hall Bryce was still keeping an eye on me, until Kiel called him to the bridge to look at a problem with the navigational sensors. As soon as he was gone Reyes stepped through the door; she'd arranged for Kiel to create a distraction.
Reyes was no fool: she wasn't about to wait for Bryce come to his senses, and she had a plan. We needed weapons, even if we had to go behind the captain's back. I was just about to tell her what parts we'd need when Nguyen came in with a cart full of components - welding torches, fuel tanks, pressure valves, and so on. As the science officer I had the technical training to design a flamethrower that could be constructed from those parts, and Nguyen had the engineering experience. Between us, we managed to make four of them.
Then we started planning how we'd hunt the bastard down.
Continued here: The Spirit Of Mars (part 2)
2024.01.20 18:53 larryanne8884 Numb abdomen while asleep?
F, 50, 155lbs, 5' 4", white, no longer drink, no smoking, taking klonopin 1mg and seroquel 12.5mg
So I've been having unexplained health issues for about 3 years. Mostly GI related. I was recently told I had liver fibrosis, but mild at F2, 5.75kPa...they just said stop drinking alcohol. My bloodwork for liver was fine and the more extensive liver bloodwork said F0, so no fibrosis, so it's confusing.
Have been worried for pancreatic cancer or something abdominal for 3 years. Cysts in spleen, cysts in liver, hemangioma in liver.
Have had cold hands and feet fro 3 years, blood in stool, diarrhea, grey stool, watery eyes, weird bony growths on toe and foot and forehead, feeling of lump in throat, night sweats, bruises, chills, low fevers. Very dry eyes and mouth and lips. Have done every test, bloodwork, CT scans, MRCPs, u/s, speciality tests.
My hand go numb at night when I sleep, this has been about a year. I do not have diabetes.
Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and my abdomen was totally numb, when I moved it "woke up" with pins and needles. It was really weird and troubling. Same sensation as my hands and it's also happened in my face before too. Loss of oxygen? Blood not flowing? Obstruction in abdomen? I also have spine issues and hemangiomas on spine. Really concerned.
A1C is 4.9
Is this serious or scary? What is happening?
Vasculitis? Cancer? Aortic aneurysm?
I have no appetite and highly anxious.
submitted by larryanne8884 to AskDocs [link] [comments]
So I've been having unexplained health issues for about 3 years. Mostly GI related. I was recently told I had liver fibrosis, but mild at F2, 5.75kPa...they just said stop drinking alcohol. My bloodwork for liver was fine and the more extensive liver bloodwork said F0, so no fibrosis, so it's confusing.
Have been worried for pancreatic cancer or something abdominal for 3 years. Cysts in spleen, cysts in liver, hemangioma in liver.
Have had cold hands and feet fro 3 years, blood in stool, diarrhea, grey stool, watery eyes, weird bony growths on toe and foot and forehead, feeling of lump in throat, night sweats, bruises, chills, low fevers. Very dry eyes and mouth and lips. Have done every test, bloodwork, CT scans, MRCPs, u/s, speciality tests.
My hand go numb at night when I sleep, this has been about a year. I do not have diabetes.
Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and my abdomen was totally numb, when I moved it "woke up" with pins and needles. It was really weird and troubling. Same sensation as my hands and it's also happened in my face before too. Loss of oxygen? Blood not flowing? Obstruction in abdomen? I also have spine issues and hemangiomas on spine. Really concerned.
A1C is 4.9
Is this serious or scary? What is happening?
Vasculitis? Cancer? Aortic aneurysm?
I have no appetite and highly anxious.
2024.01.20 16:04 CS0607 Syncope type episodes- why do they happen the way they do?
Hi! I am a 30F and last night I had another episode and I don’t know why. I have no IBS Dx and no other stomach issue Dx.
When I was 17 I was hit by an 18 wheeler and had severe TBI and a bunch of other issues such as brain bleeds, clots, both lungs collapsed, etc. I healed from the accident and ended up having my first syncope type episode about 1.5 after the accident. Since then I’ve had a few episodes a year.
The way they happen and the “aura.” : Typically it’ll start with my stomach making some very loud noises and rumbles. I’ll have cramps on and off for a little while. I NEVER POOP. it’s always just painful gas. I don’t try to sit on a toilet either since I know I won’t poop and usually end up passing out on the toilet when I’ve tried before. Last night was a little different though since I needed to pee and my left leg started to feel a little numb.
I went to pee and instantly I felt nauseous. I get these auras where my thoughts just stop making sense. Like I can’t actually process the thought and it gets lost. I called for my husband (we have a protocol) but he got there a second later than I needed. According to him I called his name and he came but I had already hit my head on my vanity. He said my eyes were open but I couldn’t respond to him and it “was like you were dead, no one was home, there was nothing behind your eyes.”
I was only non responsive for about 30 seconds but I was vomiting right after (not a concussion I’ve had so many I know they protocol for that too— my heads fine) and my entire body was drenched in sweat as if I showered with my clothes on.
These episodes are really starting to scare me and my husband. I wasn’t even trying to poop this time and all I did was pee. I need to know what this could be. My neurologist didn’t want to Dx it as seizures since I drive for a living and I can tell when something will happen but I’m scared. We want to start a family but I don’t know how pregnancy would affect these episodes… any medical advice is appreciated and I do want to see a dr but I don’t even know where to start.
Other medical info: heart condition (aneurysm, SVT, etc).
submitted by CS0607 to AskDocs [link] [comments]
When I was 17 I was hit by an 18 wheeler and had severe TBI and a bunch of other issues such as brain bleeds, clots, both lungs collapsed, etc. I healed from the accident and ended up having my first syncope type episode about 1.5 after the accident. Since then I’ve had a few episodes a year.
The way they happen and the “aura.” : Typically it’ll start with my stomach making some very loud noises and rumbles. I’ll have cramps on and off for a little while. I NEVER POOP. it’s always just painful gas. I don’t try to sit on a toilet either since I know I won’t poop and usually end up passing out on the toilet when I’ve tried before. Last night was a little different though since I needed to pee and my left leg started to feel a little numb.
I went to pee and instantly I felt nauseous. I get these auras where my thoughts just stop making sense. Like I can’t actually process the thought and it gets lost. I called for my husband (we have a protocol) but he got there a second later than I needed. According to him I called his name and he came but I had already hit my head on my vanity. He said my eyes were open but I couldn’t respond to him and it “was like you were dead, no one was home, there was nothing behind your eyes.”
I was only non responsive for about 30 seconds but I was vomiting right after (not a concussion I’ve had so many I know they protocol for that too— my heads fine) and my entire body was drenched in sweat as if I showered with my clothes on.
These episodes are really starting to scare me and my husband. I wasn’t even trying to poop this time and all I did was pee. I need to know what this could be. My neurologist didn’t want to Dx it as seizures since I drive for a living and I can tell when something will happen but I’m scared. We want to start a family but I don’t know how pregnancy would affect these episodes… any medical advice is appreciated and I do want to see a dr but I don’t even know where to start.
Other medical info: heart condition (aneurysm, SVT, etc).
2024.01.20 07:10 Main-Passage555 Thanks for saving my life on 11/26
This is the only place that I could think to put this...
But this is for a man, I think his name is Scott, who was at BLI on Sunday 11/26. Scott was in the airport near the parking lot around 12:30, helped me call 911, and waited while the ambulance came to get me.
As an update, I had a brain aneurysm rupture— this is why I had the horrible headache and was simultaneously sweating and throwing up. The ambulance took me to St. Joseph's in Bellingham, put me in a CT, and saw my brain bleed. From there, I was airlifted to Seattle where I underwent a handful of surgeries over the next three weeks. The surgeons were able to diagnose me with an AVM, which was removed.
I'm alive! I came out with no neurological deficits and am on track for a full recovery, as you'd expect for a healthy young woman :)
Scott, if this post reaches you— I want to extend my gratitude to you. I wouldn't be alive without you.
submitted by Main-Passage555 to Bellingham [link] [comments]
But this is for a man, I think his name is Scott, who was at BLI on Sunday 11/26. Scott was in the airport near the parking lot around 12:30, helped me call 911, and waited while the ambulance came to get me.
As an update, I had a brain aneurysm rupture— this is why I had the horrible headache and was simultaneously sweating and throwing up. The ambulance took me to St. Joseph's in Bellingham, put me in a CT, and saw my brain bleed. From there, I was airlifted to Seattle where I underwent a handful of surgeries over the next three weeks. The surgeons were able to diagnose me with an AVM, which was removed.
I'm alive! I came out with no neurological deficits and am on track for a full recovery, as you'd expect for a healthy young woman :)
Scott, if this post reaches you— I want to extend my gratitude to you. I wouldn't be alive without you.
2023.12.26 14:42 madisontakes Does this sound like a panic attack to you?
For the past week I’ve been having a dull headache that comes on late at night. Each night I’ve been able to sleep it off. Yesterday morning I started to experience that same headache type of pain, combined with a slight brain fog. The effects lingered a little… and while I was driving home I had a full on meltdown. I started breathing heavily, sweating, felt body chills, and had an intense thought I was going to have some sort of brain aneurysm and die because of this headache and brain fog.
I pulled off to the side of the road at a gas station and called my wife and mother in law who were able to calm me down. Since then, for the past 18 hours or so (10 of which I have been awake) the feelings start to come back a little. I start to feel very anxious and try to calm myself down by deep breaths or conversation with a loved one — which has been helping.
Any ideas if this sounds like a panic attack? Or maybe something more serious? Several other key factors that may help…. I am starting a new job after the holidays which will require more energy, and effort and travel. My wife was sick with a stomach bug in the 2 to 3 days prior to this instance and I had been worried about her health. This also caused me to be a bit lighter on sleep than normal. Other than that, everything has been normal. I’m not typically a stressed person. I’m 31. M. In good health. I have a relatively healthy diet and exercise often.
Any suggestions or recommendations will help!
submitted by madisontakes to PanicAttack [link] [comments]
I pulled off to the side of the road at a gas station and called my wife and mother in law who were able to calm me down. Since then, for the past 18 hours or so (10 of which I have been awake) the feelings start to come back a little. I start to feel very anxious and try to calm myself down by deep breaths or conversation with a loved one — which has been helping.
Any ideas if this sounds like a panic attack? Or maybe something more serious? Several other key factors that may help…. I am starting a new job after the holidays which will require more energy, and effort and travel. My wife was sick with a stomach bug in the 2 to 3 days prior to this instance and I had been worried about her health. This also caused me to be a bit lighter on sleep than normal. Other than that, everything has been normal. I’m not typically a stressed person. I’m 31. M. In good health. I have a relatively healthy diet and exercise often.
Any suggestions or recommendations will help!
2023.12.20 00:29 RoseOfTheNight4444 Two questions that are kind of related (at least for the setting in my story) but the second honestly feels stupid of me to ask:
Note: Apologies for the very long post, Reddit won't let me separate 1 and 2 🙃
submitted by RoseOfTheNight4444 to writing [link] [comments]
- Any artists in this sub/r, how do I - as a person whose stick figures plead for death - write about artists? I spend alot of my time admiring artists and their talent/hours of practice, blood, sweat, and tears to have an inkling of how it works but I just cannot wrap my mind around it. Of course, even though it'll be a bit of a time-spender, actually trying to place myself as a virtual fly on the wall might help or what-have-you, but I still feel hearing from artists helps me in some way (maybe, there's no absolute guarantee on this)... If drawing myself wasn't such a pain, I could literally use my own experience but I feel I'd need far more time that I don't have to make it worthwhile. And I'd need a time machine to help write my artistic protagonist. I did look this question on Reddit (which was help but on a minuscule level) and I do watch Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge because I figured that his videos would somehow be useful to me, even if they are 90% about art and not writing (don't ask me how exactly, they just... are lol Maybe I am that interested in art from afar, who knows?)
- How... do you write... a story... about... a writer...? I wrote that sentence in that way because it felt like a slog trying to comprehend just how meta it is... I have this weird mental aneurysm when I hear of singers singing about music/singing, or a movie about making a movie (all of those extra cameras and stuff 😵💫), or artists drawing a character drawing something (unless it's themselves, which sorta makes sense in a way, and as someone who likes to look at art, it is kinda cool), it just breaks my brain for some reason. I cannot tell you why, but it does. However, having thought over who I want my protagonist's love interest to be, I realized her being a writer seemed logical choice since he's an artist and the two go really well together (at least to me, they do). But I've never really explored this before so I don't know where to start. I feel ashamed because even if I've never published anything before, I know enough about writing to theoretically have experience to "write about writing"... Yet I am unable to? Any advice on this as well?