Throbbing pain under my armpits

This has been going on for months, maybe a year. I cannot lay on the right side and it's hard for me to sit down properly because of the pain in my groin. My whole body begins vibrating/ throbbing and I get a tinnitus in my right ear. It feels like the whole right side of my body is tense/ bruised, especially in the groin and hip area, lower back and flank, going up the neck and to the temple, inner corner of eye/ nose. My right shoulder is also a lot more sore than the left. It feels like someone punched me in the hip. My right knee is also extremely painful sometimes and under I'm always sore under my right foot.
I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and was hoping that someone has had this happen to them and knows what it is or how to make it better 😥

Seen GP for weird ear pain and they said go to dentist, around 4 months ago. I've called 111 4 times, moved recently, new nhs dentist who said it needs extracting but can't be referred unless it's infected or they've seen me in pain long enough. Been to Scott's Arms (as an emergency self found nhs111 couldn't refer) who said it's class 3 and needs to be done privately or by the hospital (6-12months waiting list).
My temple / eye / jaw are constantly throbbing and my hearing/sight is sensitive now, my ear is crunchy/crackly. I just want it gone now I need the best finance private affordable.
NHS / 111 Don't seem to care about pain only infection or visual swelling.(This post is not hating on NHS/111 I understand they're all under a lot of pressure. I'm also British and in pain so my post isn't the most upbeat grumble grumble)

About Tuesday out of nowhere I felt pain in my armpit area and noticed a sizable inflamed, painful lump. I’ve never had one here, used the same deodorant for years it just randomly appeared. I went to the dermatologist and she prescribed antibiotics and scheduled me a follow up where she may have to drain it if it doesn’t reduce. I believe it’s an ingrown hair or a cyst like entity. Aren’t they able to go away on their own with heat patches and antibiotics? I definitely don’t want to get it drained since it’s crazy painful and it sounded like even with the numbing medication it would still be uncomfortable. Looking for insight, thanks.
Male Age 27 6’0 204lbs Smoke marijuanna Drink occasionally

Hey all! I bought the Panache Envy in 38FF after using the calculator and following some recommendations here. The bra fit like a charm and I was so excited.
However, after wearing for a few hours I was in a lot of pain from the underwire digging in under my boobs and into my armpit area on the side. Anyone have recommendations for what to try next? I really liked the cup shape and style of the Envy but it was too painful to wear from the intense underwire.
Thanks!!

Im writing this post because I am honestly at the end of my rope… I’m a 23 year old female and I’ve been in therapy for a year now. I’ve talked with my therapist about majority of the things I am going to discuss and over time I did see some improvement but now I’m back at square one. Recently something happened that completely triggered me and now I just feel hopeless. Last month I had surgery and I was supposed to have an ovarian cyst removed from my ovary but the surgery did not go as planned and I ended up losing a fallopian tube and diagnosed with stage 3 endometriosis. I was told that I may still be able to have children but there will be some difficulties. And unfortunately, a month later I already feel as if I can feel another cyst growing because my ovaries constantly throb and feel swollen. Having children is very important to me, I’ve always dreamed of one day being able to have my own family that I will love and they love me in return. Finding out there’s a possibility I might not be able to have children has completely shattered me. I feel as if this event has confirmed the fact that I am unlovable. It seems as if anything involving “love” it gets ripped away from me or I’m completely rejected from it. My therapist thinks I shouldn’t just accept the fact that I can’t have kids but still remain hopeful because there is some possibility I could but that’s honestly too painful. If I keep that hope alive and it doesn’t happen, it will destroy me mentally and emotionally. It’s the same as dating, I’ve always told myself that one day I’ll find someone who loves and cherishes me but in the end I always get left or abused. There is no one for me, it’s just wishful thinking and I get disappointed every-time. Right about now I feel broken in entirety, I was honestly doing very well for myself. I brought my first vehicle cash, I graduated last May with a bachelors, I just started working in a job within my professional career, and I was planning to go back to school next fall to obtain my masters. I felt happy and stable for once and now I’ve fallen on my face. Apart of me wants to just throw in the towel and be done but another part of me feels as if I need to keep going because I do deserve to live I just want to experience something new instead of being hurt all the time. I know life comes with good and bad but I just want a moment of time where I can finally experience more of the good. So I guess what I’m asking is, could anyone give me some advice or tips on healing? I don’t want to give up yet I just feel broken. This will probably be a very long post so I’ll break everything into sections that I would like to address.
Homelife/sexual abuse
I come from a dysfunctional family. If you asked, my family would tell you that we all love each other and we are one perfect family but that is delusional. We all love each other but it’s a toxic love not pure. For starters, at age 4, my father started exposing porn to me. The first time it happened, I had woken out of my sleep and looked over at the tv and there was porn up there and my dad was asleep. For a very long time, I just dismissed it because I felt like he had done it accidentally and just fell asleep. However, looking back he had watched porn while I was in the room or close by enough to see on multiple occasions as a little girl. He never made an effort to even change the channel when he would be watching this stuff so I know it was intentional. Soon after he began exposing me to porn, I became hypersexual. I never really knew what I was doing but more so copying what I had been shown. One day, there was an incident with a cousin of mine and I got in trouble by my mom for kissing him. My mother beat me and began asking me if anyone was touching me. And naturally, I responded no because my dad wasn’t molesting me or touching me inappropriately or atleast not in a way that four year old me could identify. I never thought to mention this to my mom because I didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to be watching it around me. I didn’t know what sex was. Overtime my behavior worsened and my mom immediately began to point fingers at my dad, yelling at him and saying that he was molesting me. My dad always denied and eventually my mom left it alone but decided to just start beating me everytime I behaved in a sexual manner.
It wasn’t until I was about 7 years old, when I had gotten in trouble at school for behaving sexually inappropriate with another little girl in the schools bathroom that my dad stopped showing me pornography. He suddenly became very “concerned” with making sure all content in the household was kid appropriate but now looking back he just didn’t want to get caught because there was investigation going on with both families of the children involved and he knew that I had gotten older and might be able to articulate that I had learned those behaviors from him. Eventually, after he stopped showing me, I stopped being so overly hypersexual and actually behaved like a normal child. But at age 9, my brother began molesting me. The molestation lasted from around 9-11 but I never told anyone because I was afraid I would be blamed or that I might be accused of lying. I just swept it under the rug and for years I’ve always just told myself he was also a child as a way to cope but it doesn’t take away the fact that I felt used and violated. I understand that he may have been abused as well but still till this day he behaves in an inappropriate manner. He doesn’t touch me anymore, but he’s always staring at my breast and butt and it’s creepy.
After my brother began molesting me, for some odd reason my dad completely stopped talking to me. Despite his behavior, my dad and I were very close but immediately after the molestation began he kind of just started treating me like I didn’t exist anymore. Even my mom noticed and talked to him about ignoring me multiple times. I never realized that what my dad was doing was sexual abuse, I just always pushed it aside, it wasn’t until college where I took a class on child welfare and child abuse that I learned knowingly exposing children to porn is abuse.
Bullying
Meanwhile I was being sexually abused in my household, I also have an older sister who was my very first bully. My sister is ten years older than me and for as long as I can remember she has always been my biggest critic. Anything I did as a child whether good or bad she had a negative comment. She has always used her age to push me around and. As I’ve gotten older, she gotten worse. Over the years, she has body shamed me, made jokes about my mental illness, called me all sorts of sluts and whores and just plain berated me. Anytime I have ever tried to stand up to my sister, she speaks over me and yells and I just shut down. My family always takes her side and just says to ignore her but it’s hurtful.
Not to mention, when I was 14 years old, freshman in high school, someone decided that it would be fun to circulate a rumor around the school that I was a “whore” and slept with everybody. Now I understand the stereotype that every person who has been sexually abused is hypersexual but that wasn’t the case for me. I battled hypersexuality as a very young child but once I learned what sex was and that it was for “adults” I pretty much moved forward and just didn’t give it second thoughts. These rumors lasted my whole time in high school, even teachers joined in on the bullying. I was told that I would never amount to anything more than a whore or that I would get pregnant and drop out. So many people told me that no man would ever love me or date me because I was known as just a slut. And honestly all of this broke me. I’ve always wondered what I did wrong to deserve it. I was very quiet in school, never dressed inappropriately, and didn’t even talk to boys. I was still a virgin then and still a virgin now at 23.
Even though my parents were strict and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere but to school and back my mom still thinks I’m lying and was actually sleeping with multiple people at my school. And I would like to note my mom was a stay at home parent so she home with me 24/7 yet her speculation is that I would have sex at school. And anytime I have ever cried about this situation my mom would yell at me and say”that’s not trauma get over it.” And this is where I’ve learned to face the fact that maybe I am unlovable. I feel like everybody thinks I’m only good for sex my own mom always told me men would only want sex from me. If my own father and brother couldn’t love me in a pure way why would anyone else? And because of that I have a big fear of sex and won’t give my body away to anyone because I’m afraid of being used. I seem to be rejected from everyone. My family mistreats me, I have no friends, all of my previous relationships have been dysfunctional or abusive… there is no one who loves me. I know it’s easy to say “love yourself” but when you’ve been through so much abuse sometimes you just want a support system or even just a hug. I now suffer with anxiety and OCD and honestly I never feel safe I’m constantly waiting for something or someone to hurt me. I just don’t get why I’m unlovable.
How do you heal from this? What do I even do to move forward? Like I’m at a standstill..

Hello!
I am a 28 year old white male. I am 190lbs and 5'11" tall. I do not smoke, I rarely drink, and I am quite active. I currently take 20mg of Prilosec twice a day in the morning and evening. I've been dealing with chest pain of an unknown origin since January. The pain is located just below the left peck, and it feels like its origin is under the ribs. I've been unable to recreate the pain with activity or prodding of the area. It is just a constant pain that can travel up my ribs into my armpit area. Feels like a large marble causing pain under my ribs.
The pain came on suddenly and felt like a heart attack when I was taking Advil to deal with thyroid pain (I had a partial lobectomy a month ago, not cancer). I stopped taking Advil and was put on Prilosec. The pain went away after several days and was gone for about a month (February). Since then, it has come back and it does not seem like Prilosec is doing the trick.
I've had blood work (CBC, tested pancreas and liver), EKGs, a chest X-Ray, a CT scan of my chest, and an endoscopy. The endoscopy included biopsies which indicated signs of "moderate chronic gastritous". However, that was the only "positive" result I received through all these tests. The Gastro Doc said that I should look into musculoskelatal causes, but my primary and the cardiologist seem to think its a gastro issue. People are pretty confident that my heart and lungs are okay at this point.
I now have no where to go, and no follow up offered to me. This has caused me to spiral a bit as I try and identify what might be causing my chest pain as the pain has already caused me to go to urgent care once already after I couldn't sleep for a night due to the pain. It feels like my doctors have given up on my case. I don't want a diagnosis, but I'm wondering if someone has some helpful next steps or other tests I could try as I try to identify the cause or eliminating other possible causes.

My cat was trying to jump up on the sofa from under the coffee table, in doing so she hit her back near her tail fairly hard, after getting up her back looked to be throbbing for a little while, she didn’t cry or anything, though after i made physical contact with her back she cried and pushed me away, she’s running about, walking, eating and drinking fine, should i be worried? is it just temporary pain she’ll be in?

Sorry this took so long, kinda got caught up.
Don't have too much to say, other than Maple Whiskey is rapidly becoming one of my favorite drinks, and I'm sorry this took so long to come out. Real life kinda got in the way for a bit (I have one of those?), and I had to put stuff on the backburner. Sorry.
That about covers it.
Previous/Main/Discord/Next
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Fries limped his way down the ship’s hallways, using the wall to his right to support himself. Twisted metal and debris littered the hallways, but it had clearly not come from this sector. He was in the center of the ship, far enough away that nothing was dangerously damaged yet, but they were obviously putting stuff in the wide, CEVA-rated hallways for the time being. He gritted his teeth from the pain and was forced to take short, shallow breaths as he walked. He clutched his side as he shuffled along, almost wishing that he was in one of the suits to help support him.
“Fuck me.” He muttered, pausing for a moment outside of his room to breathe. He was about to type in his code to unlock the door when he realized that it was already unlocked. Not sure why and fearing the worst, he drew his personal pistol from the back of his suit’s waistband, keeping it close in to himself to make sure that it couldn’t get pulled away from him. Exhaling sharply as he brought his arm away from his chest to hit the button that opened the door.
It quickly slid open with a sharp hiss and allowed him into the room. The lights were on, and the room didn’t seem to be different, but he distinctly remembered having locked the room prior. He slowly walked in, trying to clear as much as possible while coming in. He took note of the new bag in the room, but couldn’t see anything else new in the room.
His attention was rapidly divided by a shipwide alert that the admiral had left the vessel, causing him to turn around suddenly.
“You alright?” a voice behind him asked, causing him to rapidly turn around to aim the gun, but wound up hurting him more and causing him to drop to one knee.
“What in the fuck are you doing in my room?” the ODST whispered, barely able to speak from pain.
“Got moved down here for safety, you can ask Donahue.” she stated, helping him up and taking the gun from him.
“Got it… he just left the ship?” he asked, immediately attempting to lay himself down on the bed.
“Yeah, he’s heading to see the Tikaqick.” Firdaus stated with a slight bit of disdain in her voice.
“You got a problem with them?” the ODST muttered, barely looking at her.
“Not as many as with my own people, but certainly a fair number of problems with them.” she hissed, helping the man move towards the bathroom.
“You’re going to need to explain, but in a bit. I have like six different bandages to switch.” Fries grunted, closing the door behind him.
_____
“Sir?” the lieutenant Marine beside him asked, racking a round into her rifle’s chamber, “You alright?”
“Hmm?” The man asked, his head quickly snapping up to look at her, “Oh, yes. I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?” she asked again, watching as the man sealed on his helmet.
“Yes.” He nodded, shooting a glance back at the ship they left from, “Yes… it’s not my first time doing this…”
The crew continued on in relative silence. The Marines and ODSTs were a mix of the two crews, one of each being from the old crew and one of each being the replacement crew. The Marine Lieutenant was one of the new crew, along with the ODST Sergeant. The Marine Sergeant and ODST Captain, however, were both well experienced in combat.
“We’re approaching the landing bay.” The pilot called out over radio, “Thirty seconds.”
“Copy that.” Donahue nodded, standing up and bracing himself against the roof to avoid floating around, “Well… Guess it’s that time again.”
“There’s no CIA on board and the ship isn’t a USS.” The Marine sergeant stated, unbuckling himself but not standing up, “It’ll be different this time.”
“Let’s hope not. Flu’ron’s still on board.” James Orwell, the xenobiologist muttered, attempting to raise his reflective visor, to little avail.
The Marine floated over and helped the man with his visor before floating towards the pilots’ cabin door and letting himself in, floating between the two so he could see out the front window.
“Siddown, Sergeant.” One of the pilots muttered, not looking back as he did minute adjustments to the ship’s trajectory as they approached.
“This whole damn thing could be made of gold…” The Marine muttered, magnetically locking himself to the floor and kneeling down as they approached.
“Crossing threshold, standby for turbulence.” One of the pilots radioed out, a hydraulic whine reverberating through the ship’s hull as they lowered the landing gear.
“Back and seal the hatch, Sergeant.” The other pilot snapped, barely looking back at the Marine, instead focusing on the windows and displays ahead of them.
“Copy that.” The Marine nodded, taking the time to check the two pilots’ weapons stowed behind their chairs before floating himself back into the crew compartment and sealing the hatch behind him.
“Ten seconds to landing. Artificial Gravity is off in the bay, disarming OMS.” A pilot called out, still keeping a smooth voice about him, “Threshold crossed, stand by.”
The ship seemed to do nothing for a moment before a very light shudder echoed through the hull, followed by a sharp, metallic ‘thud’.
“We have contact, maglocks engaged.” The first pilot informed.
“Gravity systems and harmonics coming online. Disengaging RCS.” the second pilot called out, likely talking to his partner over the crew in the back. After a few seconds of silence, the ship seemed to spool down and orange lights came on in the back of the crew compartment, showing up just over the CEVA-sized, round airlock doors at the sides of the craft and above the regularly-sized hexagonal door at the back of the craft. After a moment, a female robotic voice called out ‘Pressure stable’ and the lights switched to green.
“We’re down. Thank you for flying Air Peregrine, please take your bags from the overhead compartments and leave in an orderly fashion.” one of the pilots called out, putting on an extremely good and smooth ‘airline’ voice.
“You are aware that you’re talking to an Admiral, right.?” the Marine Lieutenant asked, seemingly disappointed at the pilot.
“Oh, I imagine he does.” Donahue smiled, motioning for the ODSTs to head out the door first.
The two armored figures were already moving towards the door, letting the ladder come out first before checking pressure one last time and opening the rear door. To their shock and horror, the void of space lay just outside the door, though nothing was losing pressure.
“Plasma barrier?” a Marine asked, his voice faltering slightly when he saw the smoking form of the Dracula in the distance.
“Something like that…” James muttered, waiting for the Admiral to head down the ladder after the ODSTs before following him down.
There were no aliens directly off their ship, which surprised them slightly, but gave the crew time to prepare themselves. They were supposed to form a ‘triangle’ with Donahue at the front, the two ODSTs behind him, and the two Marines on either side of James, behind the ODSTs. However, they had more than enough time to prepare, to the point of it becoming awkward. The team moved to the left side of the Ranger, and sat in waiting. The Marine Sergeant began to get skeptical and checked the chamber of his rifle while his reflective visor dropped into place, subtly preparing for a conflict.
However, before their thoughts could fester any further, a door off the left-side nose of the Ranger opened to reveal the creatures that owned the ship. They were around the same height as a Human, albeit seeming a little taller on average. They were obviously Avian-esque, with short, stubby, owl-like faces, in opposition to the long beaks of Afi’end. They had two large eyes just behind their beak, with what appeared to be two sets of closed eyelids underneath them. Their feathers were gray and black, with a small amount of crow-like iridescence in them. They had long wings which wrapped around their bodies, making a ‘cloak’ around them. Their legs were similar to that of an Afi’end’s, but seemed slightly thinner.
They wore thick, heavily stylized armor. It had gold plating with ivory and blue-diamond accents, glassy pauldrons, and other, seemingly glowing, lines and accents in it.
The rest of the ship looked similar; with gold, ivory, and blue-diamond glass seeming to come from all parts of the ship. The ship looked incredibly clean, with no smudging seeming to come from anything except the Humans. The flight deck they were on was made of some kind of ivory-esque compound as well, with the only scuffs on it being from the RCS thrusters the Ranger had used earlier. Against the gold, whites, and blues of the alien vessel, the greens, grays, and oranges of the Human suits contrasted hard;
Donahue’s suit was nothing special, nor was it too dirty, but it was not perfectly hermetic, like the rest of the ship seemed to be. James’ suit did seem to fit their criteria of cleanliness everywhere except his boots, where it was obvious that he hadn’t put hours of work into cleaning the dirt out of the fabric on the last surface mission he had done. The Marines’s suits were the most well-loved; boasting patches of stained mud, foliage, and other assorted junk all over the suit. The ODSTs were clearly battle-damaged, however: Cuts and scrapes into the plating could be seen around the arms and chest, with plasma burns etched into the metal of the helmet on the more experienced man.
Donahue almost wished he had been able to wash his suit now, but he hoped they would understand.
“Hey, we’re not the only ones to bring armed guards.” The ODST to his right stated.
“Oh thank Christ.” Donahue muttered, shifting his reflective faceplate up, “I would have felt awful if they trusted us that much.”
“Feel better, they don’t.” The ODST muttered back, standing up straighter as the aliens approached.
“Admiral Donahue?” the creature at the front of the group asked, looking at the admiral in the front of his own group.
“Captain Kinlykc?” Donahue asked, stepping towards the aliens. The creature seemed mildly amused at the Admiral’s suit, but went back to looking him in the eyes shortly after.
There was an awkward silence for a moment before the alien decided that it was likely in everyone’s best interests if something was said.
“Apologies for my awkwardness in this situation; it has been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of doing a proper first-contact scenario.” it stated, clearly motioning for his own guards behind him to be less on-guard. The Humans were taken aback a bit, as the creature didn’t move his mouth to speak, but more seemed to emanate the words from itself.
Donahue nodded, but didn’t have to motion to his own men, as they had already come to stand down themselves.
“Entertainingly enough, I was still captaining that ship out there for our true first contact.” Donahue nodded, making sure that both his hands were visible in front of him.
“Really?” the avian asked, motioning for the admiral to follow him deeper into the ship, “Is your ship the only one in your fleet?”
Donahue paused for a moment before following the alien Captain, motioning for his team to follow shortly behind him.
“Negative, we’re just lucky.” The Admiral smiled, attempting to hide his trepidation through humor. The ODSTs were just as slow to follow behind, but eventually caught back up, seemingly worried about leaving the pilots alone. They were brought into a wide hallway. It had the same stylings as the docking bay had, but seemed to have ‘tiling’ instead of the solid piece that the other room had. James slowly pushed his way through the column of armored personnel and wound up beside the Admiral.
“Umm, excuse me, Captain Kinlykc?” He asked, fiddling with his suit to attempt to make sure the external speakers were working.
“Yes?” the avian asked, looking back at the scientist.
“How… are you talking?” He asked, not sure whether the question was to be considered rude or not, “As in, your mouth isn’t moving, how are you talking to us?”
After the scientist clarified himself, the avian seemed to understand the question.
“We do not breathe through our mouth, I’m assuming like you do then.” It nodded, tapping on its beak and unfolding its wings. It raised its arms and pointed at a set of openings under the creature’s armpits, “We breathe and vocalize through these.”
James was speechless for a moment, but the Admiral was relatively sure that was because he was deciding whether or not it was entirely wrong to lean in closer for a better look.
“If you do not mind me asking a question of my own, what are the clothes you’re wearing?” The avian asked, motioning to everybody except the ODSTs, “Are they your uniforms?”
“These?” James repeated, pulling at his suit, “These are pressure suits. To keep our own atmosphere in.”
“But why?” The bird asked, continuing down the path, “We scanned your vessel as the door opened to analyze what your atmosphere was to accommodate, and they were almost identical.”
"We pressurized our vessel to the bay’s atmosphere.” Donahue stated, nodding at the two, “Our atmospheres are similar, and very breathable, but not the same.”
“Why the pressurized suits then? We can breathe the same atmosphere, no?”
“Our people are not nearly as advanced as some others, who can do bacterial scans of atmospheres before they even land to make sure that neither side will infect the other. We cannot do that, so we hermetically seal off from everybody else to avoid infecting them.” James stated, finishing Donahue’s explanation.
That was an answer that seemed to sit well with the avian, who nodded at them and continued down the hallways.
_____
Kinsey practically dive-rolled out of her vessel’s docking port and into the Dracula’s gravity field, her helmetless RHEV suit’s bulk causing her to roll erratically to the side. She quickly got back up and started jogging her way to the other side of the ship, her quickly-moving, armored figure moving everybody out of her way. She wasn’t in any actual hurry, but the message did have to be delivered relatively quickly.
She quickly dog-legged down a side hallway and towards flight bay 3, near the primary medical bay. As soon as she was at the area, she started heading back towards the outer hull of the ship again, turning only when she was directly on a course with the med bay. After a few moments of running, she turned into the medbay, where Flu’ron was inspecting a rifle another Marine had given him.
“Feathers!” she called out, skidding to a halt outside the door.
“Oh Hells.” Flu’ron muttered as he looked up at her. He handed the rifle back to the Marine and walked towards her, “What do you need, Doctor?”
“Only us Marines can call him ‘Feathers’.” the Marine muttered, putting on a fake pout for her.
“Look!” She exclaimed, ignoring the Marine’s protest and shoving a datapad into the avian’s face.
After pulling back a bit, he took the pad from her and started reading the text on it. After a moment, during which the Marine came over to see what the commotion was, Flu’ron looked up from the pad and nodded at her.
“Well… Goddamn!” He smiled, handing the pad back and pulling out his own tablet, “One-hundred. Going your way.”
“Woah, hold on, I think I missed something. What’s going on?” the Marine asked, confused as to why the Afi’end was sending the scientist money.
“Her brother, who was listed KIA a month and a half ago, is not dead.” Flu’ron explained calmly, watching as the scientist practically bounced off the walls with excitement. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of the money or that Frost was still alive.
“And the fucker made it onto Xalantun before me!” Kinsey stated, calming down enough to get the words out.
“You saw the ‘sent’ date, right?” Flu’ron stated, making sure she knew how recently she had received it.
“Three hours, forty-five minutes ago!” she stated, nodding enthusiastically.
“If the round-trip time isn’t that long, why’d it take him nearly a month to respond?” Flu’ron asked, just sitting down to enjoy the show.
“I’ve got two theories; either he’s been too busy to respond, or this is the first time he’s gotten a data dump in months.” She stated, “Where’s Firdaus, she owes me money!”
Flu’ron shrugged, but the Marine perked up, “To my knowledge, she’s down in Deck 5, section 6, subsection 3, room 156. She’s keeping hidden from the alien ships around us.”
Kinsey perked up at that knowledge, suddenly looking concerned, “Hold on, what?”
“Yeah, she’s residing in an ODST’s room, to my knowledge. Not sure why she’s hiding though. I’m not saying anything to anybody who isn’t a crewmember on board this ship though, aside from you, doc; she wants to stay hidden, we’ll keep her that way.”
“In an ODST’s room?” Kinsey asked, looking immediately at Flu’ron.
“He’s got four broken ribs, you need to go stop her.” the avian stated, rolling his eyes, “I’ll prep the machines, just in case.”
“Ok, I gotta check on two things with her then.” Kinsey stated, nodding at the two before running out of the room and yelling “Carry on!” at the pair.
_____
“Peregrine, we’re going deeper into the vessel, think you can handle yourselves?” The Marine Sergeant asked, slinging his rifle onto his back.
“Hey! Keep that thing out!” the Lieutenant snapped, motioning to his gun again.
The man rolled his eyes, but unlimbered his rifle again.
“Copy that, Praetor. We’re good for the time being.”
“Understood. Keep us apprised, yeah?” the Marine radioed back, shifting his suit around to relieve a pinch he had created in his armpit.
“Copy that, Praetor. Out.” one of the pilots responded back, killing the communications network afterwards. The Marines and ODSTs walked alongside the Admiral and xenobiologist in silence, taking intrigued glances down hallways as they passed them, and receiving intrigued glances back from aliens as they passed them in the hallways. They weren’t entirely privy to the conversation that was happening ahead of them, but they weren’t looking to be part of it either. The two veterans were far more interested in getting a good look at the ship than having to talk to anybody, and the two newer members were still too paranoid to pay attention to anything other than their duties.
They were brought into an unoccupied room with a large window that looked out into the deep space just beyond, though the Dracula and other alien vessel blocked the view. The guards from both species gave a quick visual sweep of the room as they came in. Upon watching the Tikaqick guards sit down or generally relax, the veteran ODST and Marine slung their weapons and moved towards the back of the room, motioning for the other two to do so as well. Despite obvious hesitation to do so, they eventually moved to the back with the other two soldiers.
“So what, if you are able to tell me, are your people doing out here?” Captain Kinlykc asked, glancing back at the soldiers momentarily before returning his gaze to the Human ship.
“Sadly, I am not able to give you our reasoning for being out here. That’s not exactly something I can give away freely.” Donahue sighed, not even sure why he’d actually have to explain that, “What I can tell you is that we weren’t planning to be out this far.”
“Really?” the avian asked, looking at the man with surprise, “Scans have indicated that your vessel is prepared for long-range assignments, based on compartmentalization and areas theorized to be for food.”
Donahue raised an eyebrow at the statement, realizing that they likely had a near-perfect model of the interior of the ship if they could theorize about the ship’s rooms, even if they couldn’t entirely see the contents of the rooms. He was relatively concerned at the revelation, but didn’t let it show.
“Well, that ship is a modification of our first attempt at a long-range exploration ship, but the project was canceled five years before first contact.” Donahue explained, watching as a few suited figures climbed around the hull of his vessel, “There were only ever three of the ships created, all of which got converted to combat duty."
“Really? I know they got converted, but what became of the other vessels?” the avian asked, seemingly entranced by the same men on the hull.
“Well, the Armstrong-Class exploration vessels, named the AC-00 J.T.K., AC-01 J. Harker, and AC-02 M. Reynolds, were all brought back to our home planet as soon as possible, be that from assignment or construction, for retrofit.” Donahue explained, turning away from the window so he could better look at the avian, who saw the gesture and did the same, “The J.T.K. was a prototype, and was axed shortly thereafter. The Reynolds was renamed to Serenity and moved to be part of the United States Space Force, but was destroyed on assignment after the newly-fitted reactors went on runaway and melted half the ship off.”
“And the J. Harker?” it asked, indicating towards the window, clearly already knowing the answer.
Donahue nodded and motioned out the window, “Refused the new reactors, renamed to Dracula, joined the USSF, made first contact, made first contact negotiations, made first Human-to-alien combat, limped back to our space, received the first official ship-systems AI, became the first ship in the UNITF a year later, and still remains in combat as the oldest space combat ship in our service. As a species.”
The bird looked at the vessel with a new form of respect in its eyes, though whether for the crew or the vessel was unknown. It gave a shallow nod to the vessel before turning back to the man in front of him, “How old is it?”
Donahue had to pause to think for a moment, trying to remember everything he could about his ship.
“Well… the program to make them started nearly seventy years ago, and she was the first ‘production’ model. After decades of systems upgrades and additions, she’s the embodiment of Theseus’s ship, but her original christening would have been… forty-eight years ago.” He muttered, ignoring the confused look on the alien’s head when he mentioned Theseus, “I remember her first launch. I would have been around seven at the time.”
“How… Do you keep something like that running for that long? Especially if it’s a combat device.”
“Same way we keep the grandfather clock and jukebox in the primary lounge running; good care from a good crew.” Donahue nodded, watching as the blue sparks from a plasma cutter lit up a section of hull that was surrounded by CEVAs.
_____
“Watch it! Merde!” The Marine snapped out as Kinsey sprinted past him, intent on quickly making it to the room.
“Sorry! A life is at stake!” she called back, hearing another string of words in French that she didn’t care to translate yelled back at her.
The scientist slid to a halt in front of room 156, trying the door, then knocking on it rapidly. When nobody came to the door, she looked up and down the halls, locking eyes with the Marine, who was still watching her.
While still looking at him, she grabbed a tool out of her belt and started to plug it into a receptacle below the keypad.
“Code is two-five-four-eight.” The Marine called out, shaking his head and just walking away.
“Oh.” was all she could manage, pausing for a second to put the tool away before waving back at the Marine, “Thanks, Frenchie.”
“Je m'appelle Mauvieux…” he mumbled from down the hall, turning down another hall, seemingly to get away from her and the scene of the crime.
She ignored him entirely as she punched in the code and hit the button to open the door. The door had barely slid open entirely before she slipped inside and looked around for the snake.
“Firdaus, don’t! His ribs are-” She started, pausing when she realized that the snake was not doing anything other than sitting curled up in a corner of the room, a book in her hands. She looked surprised when she saw the suited Kinsey enter the room.
A door slid open to the scientist’s right, revealing the ODST she was looking for. Unfortunately, he was covered only by a towel around his waist, was clutching at his floating ribs with one arm, and had a pistol in his other hand, pointed directly at her head. As soon he recognized who he was looking at, he lowered the sidearm and leaned against the doorframe.
“Jesus Christ, Ev. What th’ fuck yeh doin’ in here?” He hissed, letting her take the gun from his hand and put it on a nearby desk, “And who th’ fuck gave you the emergency code to my door?”
“Someone who I forgot the name of.” Kinsey shrugged, stopping the man from bending over to pick up his clothes, which had been unceremoniously dumped onto the floor. She handed them to the ODST, who nodded at her and headed back into the bathroom, leaving the door open and hoping, or simply not caring, that the two women didn’t look into the room while he was dressing.
“Ok then, better question; and one I already asked you: Why the fuck are ya barging in here?” he wheezed out from the bathroom, obviously struggling a bit as he tried to dress himself.
“Making sure the thirty-odd foot long constrictor isn’t doing anything to the poor man with the four broken ribs.” She shrugged, shooting a shit-eating grin back at the snake, who flipped off the woman as she smiled back.
“Hey, don’t worry, I drew a gun on her as well.” Fries chuckled, grunting immediately afterwards. After a moment, he came out of the bathroom far more clothed than previous. He immediately went towards the scientist and gave her a quick, one-armed hug that leaned a fair deal of his weight on her, something that took her off-guard.
“Hey… you alright?” She asked, clearly realizing that something was wrong. She knew how the ODST usually acted, and he wasn’t generally the kind to hug without a stiff drink or three in him, let alone put weight on somebody else.
“Yeah, just… didn’t like what happened out there.” He sighed, pulling his weight off of her and going to lean against a wall.
“Didn’t hear what happened. You mind filling me in?” She muttered, moving to sit in a nearby chair. It creaked in protest to the woman’s suited 6’2” frame sitting down, but didn’t break.
“Thought I was going to die stranded out in the middle of fuck-off=nowhere space.” Fries wheezed, knocking his head on the wall behind him, “Kinda… put into perspective what I was told from day one was still a possibility.”
“Well, now I’m more interested in who told you what from the start.” She chuckled, clearly attempting to lighten the mood.
“Me mum always told me that I’d die alone in space, a billion and a half miles away from home.” He muttered somberly. He thought for a moment before his face twisted into a sad grin, “First time she’d shown concern for me in years.”
“Jesus, man. I’m sorry.” the woman muttered, feeling bad about her previous attempt at humor.
“Seriously; my condolences.” Firdaus piped up, simply sitting in her coils and watching the ODST sadly.
“Ehh… Whatever. That cunt never wanted to have me to begin with.” the man shrugged, grunting slightly as he sat down, “I did her a favor when I joined the forces.”
“That’s… not how you should look at that…” Kinsey muttered, standing up slightly when the man sat down, but sat back down when he waved her down.
“Ehh. Don’t care anymore. She’s six feet under an’ can’t bitch at me anymore.” He stated callously, rolling his eyes.
Kinsey quickly snapped to look at him, an expression of horror and sadness on her face. Firdaus seemed to share the same reaction as her, but was far less expressive in her movements.
“What the hell, dude?! Your mother died?! When! How?!” she exclaimed, getting out of her chair and motioning her arms out.
“Three years ago, MDMA overdose.” he muttered, clearly wanting the subject to change.
“Fuck…” the scientist muttered, picking up on the man’s clear reluctance to continue the conversation, “You could have said something.”
Fries paused for a moment, before simply shaking his head, “Nope.”
Kinsey paused for a heartbeat before nodding and stepping back towards the door, “Well, I’m sorry that there’s no better place to leave this at, but I’m going to head out.”
“Alright. Have a good time doc.” the ODST muttered, looking down at the floor for a moment before looking back up at her and nodding again, “Check in again sometime soon, yeah?”
“Yeah. Can do.” She nodded, opening his door and stepping out.

So I've had this spot about a inch or less, it's left to my belly button. About 3 years now, maybe more. I remember I was feeling my belly for some reason and it feels like a ball point pen tip if it's closed.
Didn't really bother me until last few months. Most likely from weight gain.
I was doing a twist at work and felt/heard a pop noise and it was throbbing for about a minute. Made appt with my doc.
She couldn't feel what I was talking about. (My BF & aunt have felt it). She got me a CT scan then told me it showed I have umbilical hernia. Also have benign lesions on my spleen or something.
Went to see the lovely Kaiser "specalist". The first guy gave me D-bag vibes. I told him the area, what triggers it (sitting after eating, sitting and doing my back PY exercises but mostly sitting/eating). He tells me oh you need a CT scan. I said that's why I'm here... to go over the scan and if need surgery. He tells me I'm under the BMI but should still loose weight. OK got that.
Gets the surgeon and he asks me the same thing. They both feel inside my belly button. Claim they don't feel anything but then feel a little blockage. I'm guessing the umbilical hernia. But say they can't help me cause the spot I'm pointing to isn't the umbilical hernia. That basically go lose weight and go back to My primary doctor.
(Also stood outside the door and I could hear them saying they can't feel what I'm talking about, ect, ect).
So just wondering anyone have any similar issues? It doesn't stick out or anything and hasn't changed in size but I think I used to be able to push it back in a little it seemed. But it just always feels the same
Tl;Dr have a pointy spot about 1inch away from my belly button. Specalist & primary saw I have umbilical hernia, but since my pain is not in my belly button it's something else

I am having every symptoms of both. It started with lip swelling and tiny bumps all over my them that crusted and went away after a few days along with gum swelling. After those came out I had a severe headache severe fatigue.. throat pain ear pain that went down to my neck. Throbbing lymph nodes. My jaw pain has been horrible. I see a faint white oval patch on my tongue. And some very faint white lines all over upper lip gums.
Then vaginal itching started I see some red areas with raised bumps down there. I’ve noticed over the past few weeks some white spots all over my gums under or over my teeth. Now I have one single itchy spot near my hand injury. It does flair when I eat spicy food and seems to have created cheilitis on my top lips. I have a purple spot on bother upper side of my lips that have opened into a painful sore after using a spoon 😫 every symptom started mid march. I’ve gone to 3 dentist in a 2 day span during my last lip flair even showed them my gums. Said nothing…. I have gone to the OBGYN TWICE for a vaginal exam. Nothing. Went to the primary 3 times… no care and barely looked at my mouth and lips. A dermatologist, And walk in clinics twice. All since march. I’ve showed them everything. I’ve showed them pictures I’ve explained every timeline and they say oh oral herpes here’s some antivirals even though the swab was negative. I’m exhausted I feel like my own dr who’s doing an investigation on myself because so far they all push me away. SOMETHINGS going on with me all these symptoms all these changes. I finally believe it’s all my symptoms wholeheartedly I have OLP/LP/ AND VLP.
I’m definitely calling my primary with my concerns and more info and I hope she takes me seriously. I need help who do I see for this. A primary? A dentist? The obgyn? An ENT? What do I do and how do I find out what’s causing my body to do this. I’m broken right now I’m lost. Will anyone share their stories? It doesn’t seem like many people have this on here. I just feel like my whole world is changing just because of these symptoms.

Some info: 22F, currently taking prescribed lithium, birth control, and perindiprol for over two years History of high blood pressure, and mood disorder (both stabilised for a long time)
About 7 months ago I started getting extreme fatigue and generally feeling unwell to the point where tasks such as hygiene had to be spaced out over days instead of all being able to be done in one day as usual, I felt like I couldn't get off the couch because I was so physically exhausted. I started losing my appetite around that time too and felt sick eating.
I went to the doctor in January because forcing myself to get up wasn't working and I was offered antidepressants. I said I didn't want to go on them because I knew this wasn't an issue with depression as I've experienced it in the past and my mood was still perfectly fine. Blood test results came back and they had slightly high iron (resolved by itself) and slightly low vitamin D.
I then started getting a stabbing pain right undedirectly next to the bottom of my left rib. This wasn't constant, but it was multiple times a day and extremely painful, when it wasn't there it was usually an ache. I also started getting short of breath very easily and when I tried to sleep I would struggle because I couldn't breathe properly (I've gotten used to how to put my pillows to make it easier now)
I went to the doctor for this in February and he ordered a chest X ray which came back with "unknown densities in the lungs" and prescribed me antibiotics which didn't work and I went back which he prescribed another round with penicillin free which didn't work.
Around this time the lymph nodes under my jaw started swelling. After about a couple of weeks, more started swelling in my neck and on my collarbones which were smaller ones.
I started having a low grade fever for an extended period of time and I went to the doctor in early April and asked about my lymph nodes where he did an examination and checked all of them except what was in my collarbones. I got an ultrasound which said they were most likely reactive in origin and to repeat in three months if not resolved.
I went back to the doctor last week and ordered a blood test again hoping I could at least find what's wrong to fix it and asked for a test for EBV which my bloods said that everything is okay and EBV was a previous infection.
Throughout this whole experience I feel like my doctor isn't listening to me because he keeps cutting me off and disregarding the majority of what I have to say which I don't understand because I've seen him since I was 14 and have never come with an issue like this before. He's been a really good doctor in the past, but at the moment it feels like I'm just being rushed. For example, the first time I had gone for the blood test, he told me if it comes back fine I'm just being a sook. Or when I tried to explain that I was having pains, he cut me off to say that he didn't ask what type of pain I was feeling and ignored what I was saying all together.
At this point I am still have extreme fatigue, it feels like something is pressing on my throat, I'm still short of breath with chest pains and a dry cough, my lymph nodes have gotten bigger and have moved to my right armpit, still getting that pain under my ribs, and I've lost 15kg (was slightly overweight, still in the healthy weight range)
I don't really know where to go from here and it all feels a bit hopeless, so I was wondering if there's anything I can do to make this better or figure out what's going on so I can get it treated. It's really hard and I don't think I'm being taken seriously, but I have to deal with this 24/7 and it's really hard.
Any advice would really be appreciated, thank you :)

Willow Whisperer moved silently through the brush towards his target. The latest in the strikes, the elves were launching against the pitiful human race.
They had declared war on the barely sentient animals all but three centuries ago—a traditional amount of time to grant both sides a chance to prepare. But so far, they had been woefully unimpressed.
The closest to a weapon Willow Whisperer could find when searching the remains of the humans they had silently killed was a small dagger affixed to their waists.
“This isn’t a war, brother,” Oak Heart said as he approached Willow. “It is basic extermination of pests.”
Willow nodded. His father had told stories of brave humans in full plate armour, covered head to toe in steel. “Hard as dragon scales,” Willow muttered under his breath. The armour the humans wore, if it could be called that was close to what he knew to be called gambison. Only it was able to stop a few arrows. However, aiming for exposed spots resolved that issue quickly enough.
A small movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. With the speed of the wind, he spun around and launched an arrow into the armpit of the human who was trying to sneak away.
“Yet another disappointment,” Willow bemoaned as he approached the groaning man.
“You’ll pay for this,” the man sputtered his teeth, already stained red with blood.
“I doubt we will, human. You were given three centuries to prepare, and this is what we get?” Willow said, gesturing around him.
“Ackh-Heh,” the human half sputtered. “You think this is everything we have?” the human asked between pained chuckles.
“You only have those knives,” Willow said, pointing to the knife on the man's belt.
“The bayo-ack-net?” The human let a large grin spread across his face. “You really didn’t watch us at all, did you?”
“Why watch animals roll in their own filth?”
“You know three hundred years is a long time for us, right?”
“I seem to recall your lifespan is barely a few decades, yes,” Willow replied, wondering where this was going.
“Well, the decade after your declaration, a clever alchemist was playing with some stuff,” the human paused to wheeze a weak breath. “Saltpeter, sulphur, a bunch of other stuff. He mixed it in an iron cauldron to see what would happen.”
“And he made some kind of wonder drug?” Willow asked, curious where this train of thought was going.
“No, the pot lid shot off with a loud boom when he began cooking the mixture. Right then, the most terrible force yet was unleashed.”
“Something that goes bang?”
“Yes-ack- something that goes bang. Clever people with big brains worked out what if we repeated this on purpose. What if we made something that sends something flying with a bang?”
“So you made a projectile? Surely, it was useless. Nothing compared to our bows and millennia of training,” Willow boasted.
“Maybe, but we don’t live long, you see.”
“Yes, you established this. Get to the point, vermin!” Willow snarled as he twisted the arrow, causing the man’s face to contort in agony.
“Raghhh!!! Damn you, you knife-eared prick! We spent centuries improving this toy. Using it on each other in our many wars against one another.”
“You had centuries to prepare and you wasted it on one another?”
“Heh, you see, knife-ear, we are not as long-lived as you bastards. We aren’t as industrious as the dwarves, either. What we are, though, is very busy.”
“Busy?” Willow parroted.
“Yes, we know we don’t have long, so we try to cram as much into each life as possible. Sometimes, that involves creating a gun to kill another human.”
“And this gun will be your salvation?”
“Should be, you know, when you aren't targeting unarmed civilian camps.” the human replied, taking out a hand-sized tube of some kind.
“Is this the gun?” Willow asked, unimpressed.
“No, I left my guns back at base. I was just meant to be delivering food to the refugees. Big oversight on our part,” the human meekly smiled. “This here is a smoke grenade,” he explained, pulling the pin and throwing the device away. Soon, a pop went out, and red smoke began to billow upwards.
“Signalling for help then?” Willow asked cocking his head.
“Yes, calling all one hundred and twenty of my friends to come down on everyone here. You see that red means no survivors.”
“It doesn’t matter how many humans come here. Not one hundred and twenty, not even a thousand, can match our unit!”
“You seem to misunderstand me, knife-ear. The one-twenty isn’t the number of men. It’s the size of the gun. You see, soon after someone made a gun, they asked what if we made it bigger.” Several thunderous booms echoed off in the distance as if to punctuate his point.
“They know the range and settings to hit any and all settlements, just in case.” the human grinned before hacking up a glob of blood.
“Well then, I will shoot down the projectile with my bow,” Willow barked, raising his bow and arrow and scanning the horizon. “Worst case, we can run.”
“How fast?” the human asked.
“Fast as the wind!”
“Tell me… is the wind faster than sound?”
“What?!” Willow barked, looking at the human. “What could possibly move faster than sound?”
“Shrapnel from the very big rounds our big guns just shot. Less than a few seconds before, this place is nothing but a-”
—-----------------------------
“All good hits, sir,” one of the observers announced.
“How many pointy pricks did we get?”
“A good few dozen, sir. They were just all standing around like they were celebrating?”
“I see… well, to be fair, they did need three hundred years to get their heads so far up their arses they can see out their mouths. Send word along the line; we might have more breaches. No more assuming we know where they are.”

Hi all!
I was diagnosed with gastritis and Gerd. My main issue is pain in my left abdomen but on the back under the rib cage. Also pain in my left upper arm, sometimes around elbow, neck, shoulder, sometimes is numb too and sometimes I feel burning sensation around left shoulder blade armpit.
Did someone experience it and how did you treat that? I am having also appointment to test SIBo I honestly don’t know where to start.
Thanks for any advice.

Hello! I (27F, Caucasian, 189lbs, 5’4) apologize in advance as this is my first ever Reddit post and I am a little nervous, so please feel free to remove if any rules are broken.
I am currently struggling with a range of unusual sudden symptoms that have me worried as to whether or not what I am experiencing is a nerve injury of sorts or if it falls under the category of neurodegenerative/neuromuscular disorders. I do not know where to begin so I will start from the beginning (I apologize if it is lengthy):
**January 2024*\*
*Jan. 11^th, 2024*
-I get a sudden, intense, shooting pain in the back of my head along my cervical spine which causes me extreme pain, discomfort, and nausea to the point that I was unable to get out of bed as it would shoot around the back of my head and into my jaw.
-This makes me develop sudden weakness all along my left arm and shoulder as well as a sudden pain that shoots down the arm and into my wrist.
*Jan. 18^th, 2024*
-Along with shooting pain, I get a minor case of Bell’s Palsy which promptly went away with the help of medication as per the ER doctors’ orders (went to ER the morning after it happened).
*Jan. 28^th, 2024*
-I go back to ER for a follow-up and explain the worsening nerve/back of head and neck pain situation.
-They do a CT without contrast of my head and sinuses (due to the neck/back of head pain situation) and given an all clear.
**February 2024*\*
-Pain behind neck, head, and back worsens to the point that I missed several university classes and work because of severe headaches, nausea, wobbly vision, and arm weakness.
-My primary care physician tells me it's nothing and to go home.
*Feb. 14^th, 2024*
-Pain, nausea, and headache from whatever is happening behind my neck causes me to go to the ER where I do a CT without contrast of my cervical spine (C1-D1) which ended up showing (and I'm quoting the results directly):

• Mild intervertebral disc space narrowing and early-right side uncarthrosis (c4-c5)
• Mild intervertebral disc space narrowing and early bilateral uncarthrosis, right more than left (c5-c6)
• Mild intervertebral disc space narrowing with very minimal posterior disc osteophyte complex (c6-D1).
• Reversal of the normal cervical lordosis with kyphosis centered around c5-c6).

-I was simply referred to physio,
**March 2024*\*
-Weakness and shoulder, neck, and back pain persist but the headaches and nausea subside. Eventually, the pain becomes less intense but the weakness throughout the shoulder, neck, and arm continues.
*March 19^th, 2024*
-My doctor. finally reluctantly referred me to a neurologist where I do nerve conduction study of both my arms, hands, and face (my doctor initially thought I had peripheral neuralgia). I also do needle EMG on my left arm from the wrist up to the neck. The neurologist says I should wear braces for carpal and cubital tunnel syndrome (not new information, have known this for years) but that I am showing symptoms of cervical radiculopathy on my left side and need physio.
-A few days later, I developed odd fasciculations and spasming all over my body including the left side of my jaw which were relentless until they subsided on their own about two weeks later.
**April 2024*\*
*April 18^th/20^th, 2024 (Somewhere between that time I do not remember the dates)*
- I do not know if it is because I messed up at the gym, have terrible posture, and sit on my laptop too much because of finals and work and all that, or because I slept on the couch in a weird position that essentially compressed my entire left side), I really hurt myself. Symptoms start with:

• Intense burning pain behind/above the elbows, (which I initially thought was just me exacerbating my cubital tunnel syndrome as it has happened before) but then suddenly it became so painful I was nauseous.
• Further weakness in my left arm/shoulder. Developed wobbly wrists, a wobbly pinky when I try to press it onto my thumb (left more than right), shooting and burning pain up and down my arm, and burning and pins and needles in my shoulder blade, left side of my back down to my ribs when I would lie down on my back or left side.
• Trying to sleep on my right side causes me to mess up my elbow and shoulder on that side too (though not same extent as my left) and wobbly.
• Unusual throbbing, trembling rippling sensations in the back rippling from left lumbathoratic spine outward. Same thing in my shoulder blade on left side.
• Weird rippling sensation of pressure/dull squishing aches that rippled down my arms to the point that they made my wrists ripple.
• Burning/shooting pain near clavicle going down to under armpit, more so on left and right, as well as more pain in the neck.
• Unable to get up from seated/lying down position without having knees tremble and limp. Walking over the next few days worried me as I was afraid I would just drop because my knees felt like jelly. This has since subsided and I'm feeling fine and overall walking normally again.
• I had an appointment with another doctor (unrelated reason) where I also mentioned the jelly knees and the spasm/fasciculation situation from March and she said that could a be neuromuscular disorder.

**May 2024*\*
*May 1^st, 2024*
-These sensations persist so I go to ER. Doctor did cervical spine X-Ray (showed nothing), as well as an ultrasound of my lungs, liver, spleen, and heart (all clear), as well as regular blood tests to check the basics, CBCs, clotting (all good in terms of bloodwork). All the doctor ended up telling me is that everything looks fine and hopefully this goes away on its own but if it continues for another 4-6 months it might be a neuromuscular disorder. He recommended I follow up with a family doctor.
*May 5^th, 2024*
My primary care doctor says I’m stressing for nothing, and sends me home within 5 minutes.
-I get an emergency same-day appointment at another clinic where the doctor prescribed me naproxen and told me that my trap muscles were just tight, and I needed a massage. Tells me I do not need any CT scans, MRIs, or follow-ups with a neurologist.
*May 5^th, 2024-Present*
-Symptoms have subsided however the deep shooting elbow pain persists sometimes, as does the squeezing/ rippling in both my arms. Left side aches/ burns from the cervical spine down, sometimes causing headaches and I feel it in my jaw and my ear, but also between my back. My shoulder still shakes and now my hand just trembles on its own sometimes depending on what I’m doing. I no longer have continuous intense full-body tremors nor excessive pins and needles and burning in my shoulder blades but I still have exacerbated weakness in my arm and hand and I think now on the right side too. Furthermore, I noticed that I only get weird sensations (like muscle spasms? fasciculations? I don't know) on my back depending on how soft the surface I
-Sometimes I get buzzing/ fluttering around/behind my knees, in the creases where each thigh meets the pelvis (like at the front, not between legs), on my butt, and occasionally, on my sternum.
Note:
-So far, I have not lost any strength since January, I carry/hold stuff without issue though not anything too heavy on either arm because I feel a painful burn shoot from my neck down my shoulders and my left shoulder is killing me (like burning). I do not know what atrophy feels or looks like (but I think my left arm/wrist area) is weaker than my right given how my left wrist shakes, also bending my left wrist causes weird pain that happens around my arm).
-My left arm/side is my dominant side.
-I also have another appointment with a different doctor tomorrow at a private clinic because my doctor said I’m stressing for nothing. Although I am getting another doctor tomorrow, I was wondering if this is ALS or some neurodegenerative situation or if could it be the result of an injury? What steps do I take?
Thank you so much and apologies for the lengthy post. Have a great Sunday!

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

I am 20F, 5’6”, 143 lbs, white.
In this image:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/-/scassets/images/org/health/articles/23218-inguinal-lymph-node
the spot where it is labeled “swollen node”, I can feel a lymph node in that exact spot. It’s a small rubbery ball under the skin and it moves very easily under my fingers. It is not painful, tender, swollen, itchy, red, or irritated. It is not visible at all, and the only reason I know it’s there is because I was specifically pressing for it with my fingers. I can feel the same thing on the other side. Again, both are small, smaller than my fingertip.
I tried googling it and some websites say it’s normal to feel the groinal lymph nodes in slim people, and other sites say that you should never be able to feel the nodes unless they are swollen. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly skinny, but I don’t think I have much fat in that area and my hips are bony when I lie down. So perhaps it’s possible that it’s normal?
I have a bit of a heightened awareness for lymph nodes now because I had a swollen one in my armpit last week. The doctor said it was likely fine and probably a response to my jock itch (which started in my groin and then spread to my armpits). That one was actually tender and painful, visible through the skin, and bigger. The jock itch is pretty much gone now but the lymph node in the armpit is no longer painful and starting to shrink.
So my question is: does the ability to feel a lymph node with your fingertips HAVE to inherently mean that it is swollen? Or can normal healthy lymph nodes be felt too? Should I worry about this?

Hi. 39M, 187 cm, 82 kg, south asian.
I got a around 4 or 5 pea size lumps under my right armpit. it started about a week ago and it's a bit more painful today. I am very confident that they are not from in-grown hair but rather some sort of infection. I have had similar lumps in the past (couplle of times in my whole life. 1st time was in 2007. 2nd time was about 10 yrs ago). My hygine habits are good, although I do think this could be related to hygine issue. Last week I went to the gym and forgot my gym clothes. I worked out in my office collared t-shirt and went back to office after workout for an hour or 2. (wasn't sweating too much). I showered after i returned home (3 hrs after gym). these lumps started after this gym experience. The tshirt i was wearing was a little tight near the armpits and definitely sweated under arms.
pictures available at https://imgur.com/a/ETS4qPO
Is there an OTC ointment i can use for this? otherwise i will go so a derma doc next week.

Vote on a match featuring the detective teams allied against a masked vigilante having gone berserk!

(Shoutouts to u/ShimoDragon and Heart of the Rose for the match!)
Scenario: The Kamala Rose International, Vasitanagarh — 2:06PM
Weeks ago, in the very center of The Kamala Rose International lay the fantastical garden known as the Heart of the Rose, in the center of that garden stood a gazebo, and in the center of that gazebo was a table surrounded by four individuals in a heated discussion.
“That was sloppy work, Margherita!” Sulka slammed their fist against the table in an uncharacteristically loud fit of rage, “I told you to get rid of that man last week! Now because of your pointless delays he was able to leak that scandal to the news!”
“Hey hey, levati dai coglioni! I don’t appreciate the blame being thrown onto me here,” Margo threw up his arms in response, looking more annoyed than upset, “You never told me there was any urgency. Besides, it takes a bit of time to frame an accidental death. What, do you think you can just shoot a guy in the head and call it a suicide? You watch too many movies if you think that kind of thing can just happen overnight, mammalucco.”
“Do you even care that our operation here is in jeopardy now that that video is drawing prying eyes our way?!” Sulka almost spat at the italian man, “Your nonchalance is insulting!”
“Easy, Sulka,” Jim Peckle interjected, “Margo did his best. No way for him to know that things would turn this way.”
“You’re both right, actually,” Margo sneered, “I did my best, as I do with every job, but I honestly couldn’t care less if this little crime ring collapses. You lot are nothing more than a side hustle to me, my allegiances lie back in Italy. In other words, stop pestering me and vai a cagare.”
With a swish of his apron Margo left, leaving Sulka to smolder in a more recognizable quiet anger.
“That’s the last time we give him a time sensitive job, if you ask me,” Pluto spoke up for the first time since arriving (late), “The unwanted attention is a problem, don’t get me wrong, but I’m more concerned with how we even got to this in the first place, hey? That guy in the video was talking about missing people, Kiisseli. Just what the hell have you been up to?”
“Need I remind you, Hendrix,” Sulka’s cold gaze turned to meet Pluto’s, “that part of our arrangement involves the right to privacy. I do not intend to pry about what you use our resources for so I expect that you will do me the same decency.”
“Excuse me…?” Pluto straightened up from his relaxed position, “You don’t get to just shrug this off after bringing the feds to our damn doorste-”
“To be curt,” Sulka cut him off, “It’s none of your damn business, Pluto. So drop it.”
Behind Sulka’s back, Jim quietly scoped his nearest emergency exit.
Pluto’s vein bulged visibly at Sulka’s words, “You’ve got people paying attention to the airport cuz you’ve been pulling some shady bullshit and you just managed to get your ass handed to you by a cat and some whackjob in a mask, hey. Obviously this is my fucking business!”
“I may have been beaten by a “whackjob” as you put it,” Sulka slowly rose from their chair, “but I could certainly beat you if you’re going to keep acting like a thorn in my side.”
“You could beat who?” Pluto’s voice raised an octave in sheer frustration and confusion, “Trust me, you don’t want this smoke, Kiisseli.”
“What’s this about smoke?” Dark Disquiet shimmered into view and lit a fire in its palm behind Sulka as they spoke, “Because from where I stand you’re the only one who should fear getting burned, Hendrix.”
“This isn’t the time or place for a fight,” Jim stepped in between the two, holding up his hands. Behind his dark sunglasses, his eyes flicked cautiously over to Sulka. “Everything just goes up in flames. Nobody wins… Best cool things down and make peace.”
An uneasy silence hung over the gazebo until Pluto clicked his tongue in frustration, “Yeah. Fine. Better an ally than an enemy, I suppose. But let it be known that next time I have to deal with problems caused by your actions I’ll be expecting a damn good explanation, hey? Now I’m getting out of here before your self important face pisses me off any more than it already has.”
Once Pluto had left earshot, Sulka let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of their nose, “I hate to admit it but I too am in a state where I still need to rely on Hendrix’s assistance. Oh how I despise co-leadership…”
“I like having him around,” Jim replied, shrugging minutely, “He brings a lot to the Heart. He’s easygoing, and a lot more dedicated than he seems on the surface. It would be a shame to drive him away.”
“You’ve already deescalated the situation, Jim Peckle. Any further arbitration would be pointless, unless you mean to crawl your way back onto my good side. In which case you have a long way to go,” Sulka made a dispassionate gesture towards the exit, “You may leave as well, but don’t assume that this means you’re off the hook. You’ve not yet been forgiven for leaving me in the dirt and running off with that costumed clown after our fight.”
Jim hesitated for a moment before deciding to swallow his pride and take his own advice. Instead, he simply gave a light nod in response and scurried out of the gazebo.
For a time Sulka sat in silence, partially to gather their thoughts and partially to make sure their team members had cleared out. “Marko, Olli, come here now.”
Barely missing a beat, the Runoilija brothers ran in to greet Sulka, “Right here boss!” Marko, the bigger of the two, responded, “Sorry we weren’t here for the meeting–that kid you hired a while back was break dancing in the halls outside the garden and we were entranced by the little guy!”
“Enough!” Sulka was all too familiar with how the brothers could prattle on if left unchecked, “I didn’t call you over to have you discuss your simplistic entertainment. I have a job for the two of you.”
“Lay it on us boss, we’ll get it done in no time,” Olli rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
“To be more accurate it’s closer to a reassignment than a job,” Sulka tucked their hands behind their back, beginning to pace across the raised dais. “Thanks to this mess we’re in, I’ll be forced to decrease, if not totally halt, my… cultivation, we’ll call it, her at the Rose. In order to make up for the drop-off in offerings we will need to expand operations outside of the airport. I’ve already made the arrangements. Starting tomorrow, you two will be stationed at Club Naraka over in Port Konwar. You will remain vigilant for any and all stand users that enter the building. I don’t care how you do it but make sure you check every guest. Once you find a stand user you are to restrain them and call for me. This is by far the most promising location I’ve managed to get a hold of, so I am expecting big things. Are there any questions?”
“Uh, it’s a club, yeah?” Marko cocked his head, “That means there’ll be booze, right?”
“...Yes Marko,” Sulka sighed, “There will be drinks of all kinds.”
“Alright! We won’t let you down boss! You can count on us!” Olli beamed—and promptly tripped on Marko’s heels in his haste as the two of them rushed for the door.
Sulka sighed again, if that pair of fools weren’t so loyal they would’ve discarded them long ago.
Scenario: ???, ??? — 1:20 AM
THUMP
THUMP
THUMP
Reese’s eyes slowly opened, his vision hazy. His head stung—that was the first thing he noticed, the dull throbbing pain in his temple. He couldn’t think straight. Where was he? Why was he here? What was-
God, his head.
“Ghhh...” He massaged his temples, blearily trying to force some sense into his brain. He was... Where was he...
Memories came back to him slowly, filtered through heavy bass and the scraping of a rusty fan overhead. He was looking for leads on something... His father was looking into Nightblooms... There were rumors of knowledgeable Stand users here... His teammates had told him not to go, but he-
The door creaked open, slamming against a dingy, degraded concrete wall. Reese lifted his head, slowly. His head felt like a ten ton weight on his shoulders. He could hardly see. What the fuck happened?
Through the now open door a stream of light poured in highlighting the silhouettes of two men. The bigger man on the right spoke first, “So this kid is the fresh meat, huh? And you’re sure he’s one of us this time?”
“Oh definitely,” The skinny man on the left replied, “This guy’s a stand user, no doubt about it.”
Reese could hear what the men were saying but his mind was covered in a fog and it was difficult to comprehend the words. Fresh meat? Stand user? Did these two bring him here? What did they want?
The skinny man kneeled down to bring himself face to face with Reese. Even in the darkness of the room he was close enough that Reese could make out his distinctly crooked nose , “I’m gonna make this real simple for you, pal. You see our boss is a very important person. They are the type with big plans that some people might not agree with. Because of that, they like to make powerful friends whenever possible. Friends like you, for example. For that very reason the boss is on their way here right now to meet you! I’m sure the two of you will get along great but I thought I should give you a bit of a warning. The boss doesn’t like it when their offer of friendship gets turned down, you see. There’s only one thing they hate more than that. Unnecessary risk. If they can’t have you as a friend… Well, I’m sure you’ll make the right choice once you meet them.”
“Uhhh, Olli?” The bigger one tapped the skinny man on the shoulder, “I don’t think this kid is hearing you. Look at his eyes, it’s like he’s still asleep.”
“Wha-?” Olli aggressively grabbed Reese’s head and forcefully opened his eyelids all the way to stare into the boy’s pupils, “Goddamnit, the drugs still haven’t worn off! Urgh, just put him back to sleep Marko. I’ll give him the speech again once he wakes up.”
Reese wanted to run or fight or something but he could barely move as the skinny man- Olli let go of his head. Drugs? Had these two drugged him? His mind was swimming with Olli’s monologue creating a whirlpool of words and phrases that he recognized but could not focus on. With every ounce of his available strength he lifted his body onto his elbows and looked up to his captors.
“W-wait a se-” He couldn’t even form a full sentence before the bigger man- Marko reeled back and threw out a punch.
There was a violent shake.
A loud thud.
And then black.
Scenario: Club Naraka, Port Konwar — 1:22 AM
Club Naraka was, if nothing else, accurately named.
When you first stepped into the subterranean hell pit of human desire, you were greeted with the thick smell of booze and cigarettes and other far less legal things. It had a way of overwhelming every sense, actually. Harsh lights strobed against the otherwise dim chambers of each floor, and the bass thumped hard enough to feel in your ribs. When you eventually found yourself in a place where it didn’t smell so harshly of booze, it was because it smelled like vomit instead, or some other thing you didn’t really want to figure out the source of.
Emile Gulati, 27 years old, stared with half lidded eyes at the air freshener she’d hung behind the bar, wishing with all of her heart that it actually worked. It was her last little rebellion against this place. She tried wearing earbuds, but she couldn’t hear her own music over the stuff they played in the club. She tried normal earplugs, but those hardly worked, and just made it harder to bartend. She considered nose plugs, but that’d just make her look weird - customers gave her enough shit already.
“Evening, bartender~.” A sleazy looking man had somehow wandered over to the bar without her noticing, splaying himself over the counter. Emile tried her best to hide her immediate disdain. “You, uh, wow, huh, eheh.” He pointed at her. “Nnnn~ice outfit. Eheh.”
She scowled.
“You gonna order something or what?” Emile made sure to step back a few feet. Best not to stand too close to guys like this - she’d learned that the hard way just a week ago. “I don’t work here as a fucking model. Get a drink.”
“Bitch.” The man sneered. “You people should be more agreeable. Tsch.” He wandered off, having seemingly forgotten what he came for in the first place. Emile sighed in relief. She idly looked back at the little bottle under the counter, and winced. She’d made a routine of reminding herself it was there and feeling like shit about it.
Being a bartender here was bad enough, but every now and then she’d get a lovely text from a higher up on the burner phone they’d given her to slip a few drops of that into their drink. Within moments a security guard would drag them away, leaving Emile with no explanation. Not that she was expecting one, granted. But she would’ve liked to know what exactly she was doing here. For closure, or something. Maybe.
Couldn’t pay rent in Mist City without a job, she reminded herself for the fourth time that night. The latest one really got to her - some bright eyed youngster filled with determination who was trying so hard not to look like he was there on some sort of mission. She had hope that whatever job it was would succeed, but that hope seemed to evaporate like a fine mist when she watched him disappear behind the elevator doors.
She rubbed her temples.
“...”
And exhaled. This place got in the way of her reason, the music keeping her from thinking. Was next month’s rent worth the people she’d screwed over? Hell if she knew.
“I’m taking my fifteen,” said Emile, to no one in particular. She marched away from the bar, stalking towards the elevator. When the doors closed behind her, she found herself blessed by something close to peace and quiet. It reassured her.
Equally reassuring was the golden coin beneath her feet, glinting in harsh LED light.
“...Lucky coin, huh?” She picked it up, admiring it for a moment before pressing down on the lowest button on the elevator keypad. She didn’t know what she was actually going to do - but it’d probably be better than doing nothing.
When the doors opened, Emile found the floor was completely barren. No one wandered through the dusty concrete halls; the only thing that gave her company was the thick, noxious smell that clung to the air. Preferring not to investigate its source, Emile began walking through the halls…until her eye caught on an open door. Unsure where else to go, she peeked inside.
Curled on the cold floor was a body. Emile’s stomach dropped–until she saw movement in the person’s chest. Still alive. That she could work with. Rushing over, Emile knelt next to the unconscious person, as she had with countless blackout drunks. She made sure he was on his side, and then gently stirred him until he woke. All the while, dread tangled her organs in knots. Who would do such a thing? Why? Still, the answers didn’t matter. What mattered is that something was very wrong with this place, and they needed to leave as fast as possible.
Yet, when the young man opened his eyes, he didn’t look at her with shock or fear, but anger. A righteous fury that had him just about jumping to his feet.
“Woah! Woah, settle down, you were unconscious, your body needs time-” Emile began, before the man shook his head. That alone seemed to dizzy him, as he braced himself against the wall.
“I don’t have time. I need to- I can’t have been the only one. I need to-”
Emile stepped closer, trying to put a hand on his shoulder, but he immediately bristled at the touch, as if on reflex.
“You’re hurt- look, man… something’s up with this place. We need to get out of here.”
But he just shrugged her off, moving towards the nearest unlocked door. Without hesitation, he flung it open, frantically looking for other survivors. Yet, what he and Emile found…were rows of bathtubs. That horrid, sharpened smell was even stronger now, nearly overwhelming. It was all Reese could do to not keel over. Instead, Emile moved to support him, and the two crept closer, peering over the edge.
Inside the tub, something boiled, bubbled, churned.
The thing inside could barely be called human. The acid gnawed at the corpse like a desperate, starving animal, stripping the charred flesh off of its bones. Unable to support itself, it collapsed further, head sinking under the liquid. Soon, its blank, lifeless expression was stripped down to its gleaming bone. Gone. All gone.
Reese felt like he was standing in a tunnel. Lightless. Empty. Infinite. The feeling of Emile letting go, the sound of sharp retching, something splattering against the tile, all of it was muffled.
What cruel animal is man.
It was the twin jolts of fear and rage that hit him like an IED. Pounding adrenaline restarted his heart, clicking the world into focus. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Emile heaving, shuddering, pulling at her hair. All the unconscious drunkards, for all the rowdy bar fights, none of it could have prepared her for these horrors. That adrenaline pumped through her in turn, she could feel that fear grow sharp and jagged-
She could feel something take that fear, guiding it towards a sound. Footsteps. Reese didn’t seem to hear them, only her. She tried to speak- nothing. No sound could escape her lips. The fear that gripped her chest was unlike anything she had ever felt before. She couldn’t make a whisper but with the full force of her adrenaline she could still move.
The next few moments were a blur. A bottle on a shelf, shouting from the previous room, a desperate lunge, and the distinct sound of rending flesh. Suddenly everything was vivid and clear again. She felt the guards blood trickle through her fingers as Emile looked down and witnessed what she had done. The bottle had become a knife, and she had stabbed someone.
The guard fell to the ground as Emile stared at her shaking, blood stained hands, “I- that wasn’t- I didn’t mean-” She was stammering all while Reese watched on in silent shock.
“He’s not dead Emile,” a feminine voice echoed through her skull, “You have to finish it. You have to make sure.”
Her eyes darted from one end of the room to the other, trying desperately to find the source, but the longer she delayed the louder it got.
“Kill him. Kill Him. KILL HIM. KILL HIM.”
What happens when an animal is backed into a corner?
It attacks.
Suddenly, something in Emile snapped- no, it shattered like a broken bottle. A low scream escaped her throat betwixt clenched jaws as she savaged upon the barely breathing man.The knife became her teeth, raised into the air and plunged into red flesh. A wet schlllrk rang as she pulled it back out, only to bury it down again and again and again.
Reese moved quickly, instinctually- tackling her to the ground. A desperate move- to break this haze that she was in, end whatever vile urge had overcome her.
His eyes widened as they tumbled onto the floor, spotting several pairs of feet. Guards. He had tackled them into the direct view of more guards.
”Shit.”
A snapping noise split the air. An ethereal crocodile came from the ether, ready to defend its user.
A cornered animal attacked.
Meanwhile in the upper floors of the club the Runoilija brothers sat at a bar. Olli casually nursed an elaborate cocktail as he criticized his larger brother, “I think you hit that guy a little too hard, he should be awake again by now but there’s no news from the guards… You better not have killed him by accident like that last guy, Sulka’s already pissed enough at us as is.”
“That was not my fault!” Marko slammed his beer mug on the counter, “That last one wouldn’t stay down, so I just kept hitting him until he did. How was I supposed to know that he’d die so easily!”
“You literally just gave a textbook description of negligence, you moron. Of course it was your fault!” Olli smacked Marko on the side of his head to emphasize his point.
“Why’d you always gotta hit me…” Marko grumbled as he rubbed his head, “If you’re so sure that I’m the moron then let's bet on whether the fresh meat has gone cold or not. Whoever loses pays for the other’s drinks for the rest of the night.”
“Alright deal,” Olli snickered as they shook hands, “I’ll go take a look.”
Olli’s hand restlessly gripped the switchblade in his pocket as he descended through the floors of the nightclub. He fully intended to finish off the drugged up kid in the basement, assuming he refused to work for the boss like most did. He would pin the blame on his dumbass brother and have him pay for his drinks for the whole night. A win-win scenario.
Suddenly, a vibration from his phone. An update from the guards:
The prisoner got out. There are two of them now.
Marko received the same message back at the bar above. In a fit of rage he chucked his mug of beer at the wall with his full strength, just barely missing the skull of the bartender who was serving him. Before he had a chance to cause any more senseless damage another message addressed to himself and all the other guards came through, this time from his brother.
Find them both, NOW! Kill them if you have to, just make sure they don’t leave! If they’re gone when Sulka gets here we’ll all be fucked!
Marko stood up from the bar and began to push through the flirting couples and stumbling drunkards of the nightclub as his Ultraviolet materialized. The fresh meat had a helper and the two were trying to scurry away like rats? That was fine by him. Marko specialized in hunting down rats.

The music seemed to distort more intensely the longer Reese listened. Maybe it was the dull ache of the base, punctuated by a hundred frenzied footfalls, a rhythm that toppled over itself. Maybe it was the rage that sent his own heart racing. He could feel it pound against ｢Magenta Mountain｣ as he held the hourglass close to his chest. Still, there was no time to rest.
Finally, the two of them found the source of the noise. A dark, dingy dancefloor. It stunk of sweat and mildew, and the dancing bodies seemed to twist in the low light. Even as the two entered, splattered in blood, no one took notice. They were too caught up in dance, alcohol, god knows what else. In this moment of respite, Reese turned to Emile. Her gaze was as vacant as his own, she seemed to look right past him.
“Hey, focus.” Impatience had made his voice sharp. There wasn’t time for niceties, not for her. Emile’s eyes readjusted, finding him. In the dark, he could not see that was shone in her expression wasn’t malice, but fear.
“What the hell was that!?” he pressed. She shrunk away in turn.
“...I had to get out.”
“I know that,” Reese frowned, “We’re in the same boat. But that’s not an excuse- I could have helped! You didn’t have to-”
“I have to get out,” Emile continued. Her gaze went past him yet again. Her body shuddered. “Please, please just let me out. I’ll do anything, anything you want, I can’t stand this hell- just let me out!”
“I…” Reese swallowed, hugging his Stand tight. “What?”
His mind reeled, trying to process his next steps. This woman was unstable, that was clear. Unstable, violent, dangerous—not just to others, but herself. If Reese allowed her to simply leave, without understanding what was happening, who knew how many would suffer? Yet, the crowd shifted in strange ways, the beat becoming frantic, the music growing warped and mutilated. Should he stop the woman? Should he protect her from these maddening halls? What should he do? What should he do?
The moment Reese looked up, trying to make a call–Emile was gone. She had vanished deep into the crowd, following that horrid, golden voice. The music reminded Reese of the howl of coyotes in the night. The raucous celebrations of beasts who found their meal.
Against his beating heart, he felt ｢Magenta Mountain｣. Inside those grains lay the vast expanse of evolution, and its uniting link: the will to survive at any cost. His beasts had all failed, each one had faced death, and lost. At this moment, Reese understood them. He knew what it was to be a cornered animal. He would deal with the moral quandaries of man once he escaped. But first, he had to escape. The grains of sand were slipping through the hourglass. He knew he would not die like all those beasts that came before him. He would escape. He would survive. He had to.
Nothing else mattered.
Lost in the crowd, he and Emile reached that same conclusion.
Nothing else mattered.
Open the Game.
Location: Club Naraka, with the players currently on the second basement floor. Throughout the stage, the brown sections of the map are doors, furniture, lockers, crates, and whatever makes sense for the location. The players may interpret the map to read furniture as what would make sense for the location and may find any items that would be reasonable to find in that area of a club; if these ever would conflict in strategies, treat both readings as, somehow, correct.
Green circles are guards, each of which have 333 physicals, Guard: 3, and Basic Weapon Use: 3. These are overall competent operatives who aren’t going to be utterly trivial to get past, and each is armed with a handgun loaded with 9mm bullets and a baton.
The 2nd basement floor has MARKOV on one side in the bar, and Reese on the other in the boiler room. A few guards are already on the map; neither has immediate line of sight on either player.
North of MARKOV is a storage closet, which opens into a bathroom. North of this is the backrooms of the club, with the currently full dance floor in the middle. North of the boiler rooms is the security guard room, and at the far northeast of the map is the office of the club’s owner, filled with various trophies.
Of note for Reese, there are a few dead rats (purple triangles) in the boiler room, and a piece of coral (purple circle) in the office. This chunk of coral is 8 kg, and when reanimated by ｢Magenta Mountain｣ forms as a sort of hemisphere 2m across and 1.5m high.
The 1st basement floor is mostly for club business, with speakers and various technical material spread around. Of note, the many, many guards on the south of the first level will, if the players choose not to fight through the closest stairways, slowly fill into the lowest level, chasing the players. In essence, there will be significantly less guards around the stairs to the ground floor if the players take the longer path.
Finally, the Ground Floor is an open warehouse space with no traditional obstacles- as everything in this room is currently floating airborne, with a gloating Sulka armed with a fire extinguisher acting as the final obstacle. Between Sulka’s mobility, their guards acting as easier targets, and the needs of the match, they may not be RETIRED, but attacks launched at them will temporarily distract them and force them to block or avoid them. Otherwise, Sulka will alternate between launching single massive crates and flurries of small objects at the players as they fight their way through the ground floor, up to the doors at the north.
Goal: Fight your way out of Club Naraka! In particular, leave the club in better shape than your opponent.
While combat is allowed and expected, for the most part guards won’t leave too far from their base location; they can be snuck past. The winner of the match is who gets out of the club in the overall best condition.
Combat between players with the intent or foreseeable result of RETIREMENT is not recommended, though other types of interference are.
Additional Information: MARKOV’s current user is Emile Gulati, who has 233 physicals and 3 Bartending; Bartending gives Emile a thorough understanding of the layout of the club as well as preternatural skill in being able to throw around glass bottles or other similarly hefty items.
As for other NPCs besides the guards, the clubgoers have 222 physicals, Ignoring Any Chaos Around Them 5, and Mostly Irrelevant To The Match 4. Essentially they can act as a sort of cover in the dance floor, but besides hiding among them, don’t worry about anyone besides guards too much.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Gallery of Wayward Reverie	Markov	“Come on, what are you doing anyway? Calm down—got up on the wrong side of the bed or something?” Use a variety of tools, items, and tactics during your escape!
I.M.P.A.C.T.	Reese McGuffin	“What I have to do is look for the bone using my strings…” Use a variety of tools, items, and tactics during your escape!

Link to Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

I have a myriad of symptoms that have slowly gotten worse since 2015, but have gotten much worse since around ~2021/22. Note that all swollen lymph nodes I have mentioned are generally pretty small (ball point tip size maybe, if that. The one in the groin is prolly the biggest if at all). Also, the only one that has been called a swollen node is the one near my right ear and the right groin. The hand one was stated to be a cyst by my PCP.
Also if it helps, I live a pretty sedentary lifestyle partly because of these conditions, partly because that's how I am and partly because I work in tech. My diet is also not the best recently due to the stress/impending doom from these long standing conditions stalling my life, but I am underweight if anything.
It's also worth nothing that other than the floaters, I feel like a lot of my symptoms started getting worse after I had an episode 6 years back where my right end of the lower abdomen was feeling intense pain. It passed but as you will see below, the pain/discomfort has always remained in a dull form. I went through a panel for appendicitis after that and nothing was found.
Any insight would be appreciated. My latest step is waiting on a MS focused neurologist appointment from the other neurologist I just saw and described below. Let me know if I can provide more details for anything! A lot of detail on both symptoms and test is slightly lacking.
Primary Symptoms:

1. Neurological and Muscular:
   • Right side of body less functional
   • Constant light tremors in muscles
   • Head pressure on the right side
   • Slight difficulty talking from the right side of mouth
   • Stiffness in the right hand, small cyst/lymph node in the center of the hand
   • Stiffness and slight difficulty walking with the right leg. A lot of it also probably due to the abdominal discomfort I feel from the right part of my body. swollen lymph node in the right leg
   • Frequent lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion, fatigue, and inability to think clearly
   • In general when I sit down and lie down a lot, especially when I have not eaten for a long time, my body feels very light (like I might faint) and passes after I walk around or drink water for a bit
   • I've also been a lot more jumpy and almost shaky when standing still the past year
2. Visual:
   • Floaters, flashing lights in the dark, small dancing dots in bright light
   • Small black dots flashing in bright sunlight
   • Occasional blurry vision
   • Double vision with high contrast (e.g., bright white text on black)
   • Fear of eventual vision loss
3. Respiratory:
   • Difficulty breathing, especially from the left lung, feeling of drowning
   • Heavy breathing through the mouth, worsened by anxiety medication
   • Discomfort in the bottom right of the left lung
4. Pain:
   • Dull pain/strain above the right hip, worse with exercise
   • Pain to the right of the belly button and above the right hip bone
5. Urological:
   • Urinary incontinence
   • Slight discharge after urination
   • Difficulty emptying bladder
   • Frequent but unfounded urge to pee
   • Swollen lymph node between the leg and right testicle
   • Testicular pain and persistent swelling, multiple inconclusive ultrasounds
6. Lymphatic and Skin:
   • Swollen lymph nodes near the right ear, right neck, and right armpit.
   • Boils or nodes near the collarbone, differently colored
   • Red boils/lumps around the chest and neck, focused on the right, some popping and redness
7. Ear, Nose, and Throat:
   • Chronic ear infections
   • Tinnitus
   • Swollen feeling in the right neck (under jaw, above adam's apple), pressing under my jaw/
   • Constant phlegm, septum deviation
8. Miscellaneous:
   • Feeling of having the flu, body being hot, occasional full-body itches. I used to have what I felt were heat flashes 2 years back but not really anymore except the itchy feeling when entering hot places
   • Discomfort closing right arm due to the armpit, feels like something is swollen in there. Found a rubbery boil like thing but it seems to be popped? Very tiny
   • Tons and tons of clear phlegm throughout the day
   • Discomfort sleeping on the right side of the head, causing nausea and light-headedness

Medical Consultations and Tests:

1. Urologists:
   • Multiple ultrasounds and CT scans of kidneys, urinary tract, and testes (4 years ago and 1.5 years ago), all inconclusive
   • Recent urine tests showed no concerns
2. Ophthalmologists:
   • Multiple visits over the years, last year saw a retina specialist
   • Findings: astigmatism, common floaters, no notable issues
3. Neurologists:
   • Two neurologists in the last two years
   • First MRI of brain and cervical spine, nothing notable
   • Second MRI of brain and entire spine, some cervical degeneration
   • Recent neurologist suspects MS, ordered extensive blood panels
   • Abnormal results: CMV IgG, LDL, cholesterol, and vitamin D
   • More results available in case something suspected!
4. ENTs:
   • Multiple visits, X-rays, and MRIs of sinuses, found nothing significant
   • Noted abnormal facial structure and septum deviation
   • Allergy test: dust allergy
5. Gastroenterologist:
   • Consulted since abdominal pain and breathing difficulty
   • Colonoscopy done, suspected IBS
6. Primary Care Physician (PCP):
   • EEG and chest X-ray for breathing issues, no abnormalities found
7. Misc:
   1. Also did an ultrasound of the blood vessels in my right leg around 4 years back when the right leg discomfort started (due to concerns of DVT), nothing found

Next Steps:

• Considering cardiology and oncology (lymphoma) evaluations
• Seeking insights on potential diagnoses or additional tests

One would’ve thought I’d be used to this by now – typing with one arm. It takes time to get used to; especially when you’ve spent most of your life in front of a keyboard. Muscle memory digs deep.
A few years ago, I was in a car accident. I was going 60 down an empty road, coming home from a long day of overtime, when some kind of animal came charging out of the woods. Trying to avoid a collision, I swerved off the road. My front left wheel got caught in a ditch, sending the entire vehicle careening off the road; only to smash into the trunk of an ill-placed black walnut tree, driver’s side first.
I have this vague memory of blinking lights and vague shapes in the distance. I was so cold. But at the same time, it was so unreal. I couldn’t even understand what had happened.

I was brought into emergency surgery. My left arm was, literally, hanging by the thread of my jacket. It had come off clean by the socket.
According to the surgeons, I was lucky. Most of my shoulder was intact, so it became a matter of salvaging what they could. The cut had been clean. I did suffer some whiplash damage to my neck and lower back, but considering I could’ve easily died or gotten paralyzed, losing an arm was considered “mild”.
Looking back at it, I am inclined to agree. Considering what could’ve gone down, I was damn lucky. Still, in that luck, I wished I could’ve gotten just a tiny bit luckier. See, I had this gold ring that I’d been given by my later mother. A simple thing with the engraving of a musical note on the inside – a memento of our shared love of music. We played Louis Armstrong at her funeral.
That ring disappeared in the accident. Somehow, that’s what bothered me the most. My arm could be reattached. It could heal. But that little memento was just gone.

What followed was a long period of intense physical therapy, medication, and painful readjustments. It took weeks before I could even move my fingers again, and when I did, it felt like pushing your nerves through an unwashed garlic press. It was this stunning chemical-level kind of pain. The kind where your body just shuts down, begging you to stop.
But over time, I started to get over it. Small movements started to get better. I could tie my shoes. Press the space bar. Hold a knife. I wasn’t about to juggle anytime soon, or play the piano, but I could get by.
Soon enough, I got back to work.

People were glad to see me. I wasn’t gonna be able to work at full capacity in my usual role, but I could still sit in on meetings. I won’t bore you with the details, but most of my work relies on answering e-mails, proofreading, and translation. It’s pretty technical stuff that requires a lot of pitter-patter on keyboards.
At one point, I was stuck in a particularly drawn-out meeting between two clients that we were facilitating. I was there mostly as an observer (to fill the seats), but I was supposed to weigh in if something related to my department came up. Of course, it didn’t, but I still had to act interested. My colleague was trying to draw up a compromise between the two parties, laying out terms and conditions. Meanwhile, I was nursing a cup of coffee and waiting for the day to be over.
Looking over to my side, I noticed something odd. I wasn’t just holding the coffee cup with my left hand; I was stroking it with my index finger. Sort of like how you’d scratch a wary cat under its chin.

It was a strange sensation. I was looking at my own arm, my own hand, and I couldn’t feel what was happening. I couldn’t feel the ceramics tapping against my finger, or the twitch of the nerve as it contracted and extended. It was just happening. An involuntary twitch, perhaps.
But it didn’t feel like it. It felt intended, somehow.
A few similar events took place that day. Grabbing the bathroom door for a little too long. Knocking over desktop decorations. Suddenly letting go of my jacket as I was about to head home. It was just little things. I was still having trouble even using my arm in the first place, so these quirks didn’t bother me too much.
A friend of mine was giving me a ride home. I wasn’t at 100% yet and sitting behind the steering wheel felt like inviting disaster. Instead, I sat in the passenger seat, nodding off as the trees passed me by with a steady rhythm; causing me to blink.

A noise pulled me back. The driver said something, but I wasn’t paying attention. Turning to him, I excused myself.
“Sorry, what was that?” I asked.
“What are you doing?” the driver repeated.
I looked over. My left hand was wrapped around the parking brake, as if ready to pull. I forced myself to let go.
“Nothing,” I said. “Sorry, I don’t… it’s nothing.”
“Right,” he nodded. “Just… don’t do that.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Yeah, no. Sorry.”

That night, I was exhausted. It felt like my lungs had been robbed of breath. I felt weak and trembling. I was cold, yet feverish. Famished, but without an appetite. I went to bed early, faceplanting into the pillow.
I had horrible nightmares, none of which I can remember. I kept waking up over and over, not being able to discern dream from reality. My bed was soaked with cold sweat, sending shiver after shiver up my spine.
By the early hours of the morning, a stray ray of sunshine burned my eyes open. I was lying on my side, looking towards the window, leaning on my left shoulder.
The fingers of my left hand were moving on their own. And not just moving, but bent in every which way; as if lacking bones. They were vibrating, shuddering, like wounded worms fearing a predator.

I grabbed my hand, and my fingers were back to normal. I could move them as usual. For a moment, I was doubting what I’d seen. It was one thing to experience oddities, but that was unreal. I must’ve laid there for half an hour, just expanding and contracting my hand, begging my body to work with me.
“Enough of this,” I begged. “Please. Enough. Please.”
I clapped my hands, cracked my fingers, and ran them through my hair. It was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. Right?

A couple of weeks passed without any serious peculiarities. I could even work a little. There were a few of oddities, like unknowingly grasping a warm cup, or my fingers pointing in all directions when in contact with cold water. Just strange little things that I could easily get control of.
That was, until one morning at work. We were out of coffee, so I was making myself a cup of tea instead. As the water came to a boiling point, I accidentally spilled some on my arm.
The reaction was immediate.

My arm whipped out to the side, throwing the pot across the room. For a moment, my arm looked like it didn’t have any bones; rippling like a skin-covered liquid. It made me think of it not as a part of me, but as an alien thing attached to my shoulder.
And for a brief moment, in the blink of a heartbeat, I could see my fingers grow and shrink. Fingernails throbbing, like a cat throwing up a hair ball.
Suddenly, it stopped. Looking back, I could see one of my co-workers watching me from the other side of the room. She must’ve heard the crash.
“You alright?” she asked.
“Yeah, just got a burn,” I sighed. “I’ll, uh… I’ll be fine.”
She side-eyed the broken pot on the other side of the room and nodded. Not entirely convinced.

As soon as she left, I looked down on my hand as if shying away from a wild animal. It was alien to me. It was something… other. A twitch was one thing, but this was downright unnatural.
Coming home that night, I had a weekend ahead of me. I ran my symptoms through a couple of online services. While there are a few ways the human body can trick itself, like the alien hand syndrome, or phantom pains, this was different. Physical properties do not rapidly change. Then again, maybe I was imagining it?
I decided to do something crazy. An experiment. I wanted to recreate what’d happened in the break room.

I boiled up some water and poured it into a cup. I held my left hand over my sink, grabbing the cup with my right. I stood there, trying to calm myself. I wasn’t insane. This was a rational thought that I had to play out in order to eliminate an outlandish possibility.
I prepped a cold pack and ran the tap. Then, taking a deep breath, I poured some of the boiling water on my left hand.

Twelve fingers.
My hand split into twelve fingers, lined with raw, open wounds. My wrist rolled, like a cobra fixing its eyes on a prey animal. This was no longer an arm – it was a nest of flesh-colored snakes.
My mind blanked. I fell backwards, smacking at my arm as if trying to kill it. I couldn’t feel a thing. It’s as if all sense of touch ended at my shoulder. I crawled backwards on the floor, trying to wave my arm away, but it clung to me like a parasite fixed on my shoulder.
Seconds later, a searing pain ran up my arm. Looking down on my hand, it looked as it always had. It was just a hand with a burn. I could barely feel it through the pounding in my chest. Every noise in the room was overshadowed by my pulse.
I ran my hand under a tap and wrapped a cold pack around the wrist. It wasn’t a bad burn, but it wasn’t nothing.

I did some research, looking up news from around the time my accident took place. There were a couple of reports, but nothing out of the ordinary. A domestic call, a brawl at a local restaurant, a couple of missing pets. There were a couple of other reports, but they were short and didn’t lead anywhere. A mention of a couple disturbances. Some idiot blasting music in a parking lot.
But there was one more thing I noticed. In one of the reports covering my accident, there was a picture of the car. There was spatter of the blood on the hood, with something meaty stuck in the grille – as if I’d hit an animal.
That caught my interest. I couldn’t remember hitting anything, so what the hell was that about?

The next day, my arm was acting up even worse. It kept going cold, as if circulation was cutting in and out. Before heading out, I wrapped it up in bandages. Partly because of the cold sensation and partly because I just didn’t trust it. There was no way to tell what could happen, or why.
I managed to get a hold of the owner of the junkyard where my trashed car had been towed. I went over there early in the day, just before the fog cleared.
Now, this was long after the car had been crushed and stored, but it was the only lead I had. An older woman greeted me at the gates, letting me in. We had a short chat about the accident as she showed me around, ending up at a stack of metal that could hardly be recognized as anything. The only thing to even hint at my car being in that pile was a thin slice of colored metal from one of the doors.

I dug around there for about 20 minutes; all while being observed by this old woman.
“Yeah, won’t find much,” she said. “If the police didn’t get it, the insurance folks did.”
“Been a lot of people digging around?”
“Not a lot, nah,” she said, shaking her head. “But you ain’t the first.”
And she was right. There wasn’t a drop of blood, or bone, or anything. It was just scrap metal in a pile of even more scrap metal. I was wasting my time.

But as I was about to leave, I noticed something. I hadn’t thought about it, but I could see the old woman was wearing a ring. It looked like a wedding ring at first, but she was wearing it on the wrong finger. I pointed to it.
"You found that?"
"What about it?" she asked.
"It’s got a tune engraved on the inside, right? Like, a, uh… music note?”
There was no response. She just looked at me and sighed. Turns out, I was right. She gave it back.

She’d found it near the hood of the car the night they brought it in. Grabbing it was just a spur of the moment thing, and since no one had come asking for it, she’d kept it. I was a bit annoyed, but mostly relieved that I got it back. But the question remained, how had that ended up at the hood of the car?
“There was all kinds of gunk just kinda hanging there,” she said. “Figured it was an animal.”
“And you’re sure that’s where you found it?”
“Sure as sure can be, yeah.”
I stood there for a moment, feeling an uncomfortable thought forming in the back of my head. There was no way for that ring to go from my broken arm on the driver’s side to a pile of meat stuck in the grille of the car.

But the proof of it had been in front of me all along. I had worn that ring for 12 years. There was a permanent indent on my finger.
Looking down at my left hand, there was no such indent.
This wasn’t my arm.

As soon as that thought settled in my mind, I could feel the arm twist and turn. Hadn’t it been for the bandages, there’s no way to tell what it would’ve done. It squirmed and pulled against me, thrashing like a dying fish on land. The old woman just looked at me.
“You alright? Want me to call someone?” she asked.
“I-I… I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”
I had to get to the bottom of this. I hurried out of there as fast as I could.

It was getting late in the afternoon when I got back home. Grabbing an old backpack and a couple of painkillers, I was about to head right back out. But a thought hit me. Maybe it wasn’t as abstract as I thought. Maybe it wasn’t just a feeling – maybe something was really there.
Looking down at my arm, I could feel it stirring, just within my control. Something sleeping, waiting to spring into action. With my right hand on the front door, I stopped, and spoke out loud.
“Whatever you want, just… don’t,” I asked. “Don’t.”
There was no response. No stirring. On a spur-of-the-moment whim, I packed one more thing into my backpack. Just in case. A hail Mary.

Making my way to the scene of the accident, it was impossible to tell anything had ever happened there. I could barely even make out the place where I swerved, or where my wheel got caught in the ditch. I found the general area in the field where my car had spun out of control, and from there it was easy to find the tree I’d smashed into. It was still there.
I spent hours going over it all. Following the path the car had taken, starting from that tree, and working my way back. There was nothing there. Nothing new. It was all just gravel, weeds, and pavement. What had I expected? A signed confession?
As the sun dipped behind the clouds, I could feel a cold wind coming on. I’d lost track of time.

As I turned back, there was a sudden cramp in my arm. A shock of pain crept up my spine, spreading throughout my body like a spider’s web. I could feel my left arm throbbing against the bandage wrap. Something was wrong.
I was in the middle of the field. I could see for miles in every direction. Cars passing by in the distance. Wet grass staining my pants all the way up to my knees. And this one cold wind, cutting straight through my clothes. I shivered, but my left arm didn’t.
Taking a step back towards where I came from, another shot of pain struck me. This one tripped me, sending me face first into the grass. It knocked the air out of my lungs.
I rolled over on my back, gasping for breath. My left hand was creeping up my stomach like a spider with a meaty tail. It stopped over my face, tapping the bridge of my nose with the index finger. I couldn’t feel a thing. Moving to push it off, it instead struck back; grasping my right hand in return.
“Stop,” I wheezed as I sat back up. “Just stop. Stop this.”
But it didn’t. I just sat there. A wounded man holding his arms.

I struggled back and forth for well over half an hour. Getting back on my feet, only to get knocked back down. By the time I’d made my way back to the road, I looked like I’d been hiking for miles. My hair was a mess, and my clothes were covered in grass and mud. I had a handprint across my face, like I’d smacked myself.
I’d trusted myself with a short drive to get there, but I wasn’t sure about going back. It felt reckless to get behind a wheel in my state. Still, I couldn’t just walk all the way back home, and having it towed would be a pain in the ass.
I got back in my car while I thought about it, wiping myself off with a towel from my backpack.

It’d gotten dark outside. The overcast didn’t help, I could almost taste the rain. I contemplated my options and figured that if I kept it slow and only used my right arm, I could carefully make my way home. I put the keys in and turned on the headlights.
There was an elk standing in front of my car.
It sniffed the hood of my car curiously, then proceeded to stare me down. I was just surprised. I got a good look at it. There was something wrong with one of its hind legs – it lacked fur, and there was a sort of spreading baldness reaching halfway up the side of the body.
My arm was slowly rising on its own, as if looking over the dashboard. The elk recoiled, as if in pain, and set off in a troubled three-legged gallop. It disappeared into the woods.

Looking down at my arm, a stray thought hit me.
Was this spreading too?

I painstakingly made my way back home. I dropped my backpack in the hallway, locked my front door, and collapsed into the shower. I was exhausted.
I stood in the shower for about half an hour, looking down at my mother’s ring. I was wearing it on my right hand now, but it just didn’t feel the same. That wasn’t where it was meant to be. Still, it was nice to have it back. Whenever I turned the ring a little, I could feel the engraving against my skin. It was a little gesture I did when I was anxious, as a reminder that it was still there.
I got dressed and ready for a slow evening at home without any further drama. My arm wasn’t acting up. But as I passed through the hallway, something didn’t feel right.

At first, I couldn’t say what it was. Maybe the hum of an old lamp, or some air duct acting up. I wasn’t sure, but it was something. It had to be. I stepped up to the front door.
There used to be a light coming from the hallway outside. That light was always on, and there should be a little light coming in through the peephole. But there wasn’t. Had a fuse blown? I had a closer look.
There was someone just outside my door.

A click.
My left hand had unlocked the door.

The door flung open, knocking me back. A tall silhouette, close to seven feet tall, pushed its way into my apartment. It was dressed in a sort of black poncho, covering its face with layers of bandages. A single frog-like eye stared me down as it pushed forward.
I scrambled backwards on the floor. It was fast. Damn fast. It stepped forward and reached for one of my legs, but I managed to pull away in time. I got back on my feet, barely managing to pull my left arm along. It was trying to grab a hold of something, as if to slow me down.
In a spur-of-the-moment decision I grabbed a lamp from the windowsill, throwing it across the room. The intruder ducked, then came at me again. I ducked under, just in time, and headed for the door.

As I reached the front door, my left arm tried to force it shut. I fought against myself to get out, but it was useless. The door was shut and locked, and my left hand refused to budge. The seven-foot-tall shape came around the corner, slowly approaching. I had to think of something. Anything.
My backpack. It was right there.

I had packed a couple of things earlier. A towel, some bandages, painkillers, and a water bottle. But I’d also packed some lighter fluid. Seeing as how my left arm had reacted so violently to boiling water, I had this stupid idea that the prospect of a straight-up fire would do something even worse to it.
It didn’t seem so stupid anymore.
I grabbed the lighter fluid and sprinkled it on my left arm. The tall shape stopped, seemingly reacting to the smell of it.
I wanted to say something, but all that came out were empty breaths. We were like animals, circling each other, waiting for one to make the first move. I emptied the lighter fluid, grabbing a box of matches. I held the box with my mouth, and a triplicate of matches in my hand. I spilled the rest on the floor.

For a moment, we just looked at one another. A single inhuman eye peeking through the bandage wraps. The vague shape of four, maybe five extremities at its side. How many arms did this thing hide under the poncho?
A flash of realization came to me. This is what I had almost hit with my car.

And with that, I lit the matches. It leapt at me, but it was too late.
The moment the open flame touched the skin on my left arm, it detached. The open nerves just let go of me, and the thing fell off my body. It squirmed on the floor like a dying animal, grasping at whatever its fingers could reach.
Adrenaline forced me out the door. A heartbeat behind me, the seven-foot-tall figure scooped up my burning arm and pushed past me. Within seconds, it was gone – leaving me with an open wound in the stairwell, smelling of lighter fluid.

One of the neighbors called for help. I didn’t even notice how much blood I was losing, but it was bad. They sent me back into emergency surgery; this time without an arm to reattach.
It was deemed that the wound was self-inflicted. A result of some stress-induced psychosis. I wanted to agree, but I saw what I saw. I’ve been trying to convince myself otherwise, but I lived this. This wasn’t any other life but mine.
I’ve since learned to live with a full prosthetic. It’s not much, but I can trust it, and I can wear my mother’s ring the way it was supposed to be. It’s starting to make an indent on the synthetic skin.

I don’t like to think about what would’ve happened if I’d let that thing stay on. But just a couple of weeks ago, I got an answer. I was stuck in traffic, looking out over the fields, when I saw a group of elks in the distance.
One of them had no fur.
None at all.

I'm 3 1/2 weeks post op and started to have pain about an inch under my knee. It throbs a little then quiets down. Then comes back again when I do my exercises. I'm only asking about it because it's a new pain and I'm unsure if I might have done something to injure it.