D6	This form of faster-than-light travel
1	shunts vessels between this universe and an alternate, bizarre one where distances are much shorter.
2	opens a stable wormhole between two points in space.
3	can only transfer information, and not matter as such.
4	warps the laws of physics around a vessel, effectively increasing the speed of light for it.
5	attaches a vessel like a remora to the bodies of higher-dimensional entities capable of moving in ways that defy the expectations of our lower-dimensional science.
6	instantly teleports a vessel to its destination.

D6	This form of faster-than-light travel is dependent on
1	enormous, fantastically-expensive relay structures.
2	the worship and appeasement of beings outside the normal flow of time, who will annihilate any egregious violations of causality.
3	extensively-trained operators dosed up on rare, difficult to synthesize nootropics.
4	correctly measuring and waiting for certain cosmic alignments which open the way for it.
5	the discovery and charting of pre-existing "corridors" - a risky business.
6	bespoke engines that have to be custom-made to exacting specifications for each and every vessel.

D6	A side-effect of this form of faster-than-light travel is
1	that conscious minds and sufficiently-advanced active computer systems exposed to it experience it as narcotic & highly addictive.
2	that its use weakens the membrane of reality, risking anomalous entities slipping through.
3	that it disables vessels that use it for a while after arriving at their destination, leaving them vulnerable.
4	that vessels using it (and the people on those vessels) subjectively experience as many years in transit as lightyears they traveled - most people need to be kept in stasis during the journey, or they'll go mad from understimulation.
5	that it exposes vessels and people to deviant radiation that's neither particle nor wave, inducing inhuman mutations & mentalities.
6	that sometimes vessels and people using it end up where they're really not supposed to - fused together, in a parallel universe, showing up 1,000 years after they were supposed to arrive, etc.

D6	This form of faster-than-light travel was discovered
1	by an alien species, and then shared partially with humanity in an attempt to make us their client species.
2	disastrously, in an accident which destroyed Earth's moon.
3	simultaneously by a couple countries, in a time when global tensions were funneled into scientific and cultural competition.
4	in ancient alien ruins on Saturn's moon Titan.
5	under circumstances that have since become mythic - many polities and ideologies now claim credit for it.
6	accidentally, in an attempt to create a new form of computation after the gains from quantum computing plateaued.

D6	A limit of this form of faster-than-light travel
1	is its range - you have to make a number of smaller "hops" with it rather than one large "leap" to get just about anywhere.
2	is that its use is disrupted by gravity wells - in Earth's solar system you'd have to fly out to about the orbit of Pluto to use it.
3	is volume - vessels using it must be small, and ration space exactingly.
4	is that consecutive uses within a certain span of time cause damage to build up in vessels and people, often lethally.
5	is that its energy usage is very intensive - antimatter-matter reaction cores are often necessary.
6	is its imprecision - you can aim for the ballpark of your destination, but anything closer than that is up to luck.

D6	Besides traveling faster-than-light, the technology of this form of faster-than-light travel can be used for
1	weapons that bypass conventional defenses.
2	artificial gravity, and anti-gravity.
3	projecting forcefields.
4	manufacturing materials with exotic properties.
5	creating pocket dimensions, and spaces that are larger on the inside than the outside.
6	a process of ascension to a god-like (at least relative to baseline humans) state, though this is not easy by any means, and can quite quickly lead to fates worse than death.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be dead in the next 24 hours.
Whether that's the Costella family, or whatever this is, I'm not sure.
The police are taking forever, and part of me knows they're either refusing to believe me, or RC got them too.
I'm holed up on our school bus, so I've got nothing better to do.
I want to tell you about my team.
We met in our sophomore year.
Strangers standing outside the club room.
Levi was the freckled brunette who wouldn't stop talking about Game of Thrones.
Sunny, a pretty redhead, told him to shut up.
Tom, a sandy blonde, nodding his head to music corked in his ears.
I just wanted to be part of a club, and get away from my overbearing mother.
I won't say it was a perfect start. Our school was lacking in funding, so anyone could join, which made us more of a Quiz Club. I had some serious anxiety, so I stayed on the sidelines for a while, watching, rather than taking part.
It's not like we actually talked to each other initially. The first few weeks, we played Jeopardy, and attempted to find more members to cement us as an official Academic Decathlon club.
Unfortunately, though, it was just the four of us.
Which made it extremely hard for us to be taken seriously.
According to Google, Academic Decathlon teams were made up of nine members, placed by their GPA.
Our principal laughed at us, but he did let us become official.
Which was out of pity, I assumed.
The club was assembled, and we started meeting up after school.
Sort of.
Sunny barely showed up, and Levi didn't take anything seriously, preferring to spend the time telling us about his weird family turf-war.
Our principal dumped us in a tiny classroom with a resident rat living under the floorboards.
There was barely enough room to move, and the four of us crammed together for three hours was less than appealing.
Still, though, I wanted to be part of a club.
I had grown up with parents who were obsessed with board games, so I was pretty good at general knowledge questions. Our club room was too small for anything else but three desks (Sunny and I shared one) and a whiteboard we had to shove through the door.
But, again, we didn't start as an Academic club.
It was more akin to Story Time Club.
Arriving late on my third day, armed with quiz cards from home, I found Tom and Sunny completely mesmerised by Levi’s storytelling skills, drowned in shadow.
They didn't even turn the lights on.
I strictly remember squeezing next to Sunny, and hearing the words, “But there was so much blood all over the floor, and my Mom told me to go upstairs and hide under the bed…”
Sitting in front of them was Levi, perched on a desk, his legs swinging, a whiteboard marker between his teeth.
Sometimes he'd get up, and illustrate parts of his story.
It sucked that his drawings were all stick people.
I won't go into full details of his life, but Levi grew up as part of a family who had… interesting methods of making a living. I had seen the guy’s father multiple times when we hung out at his place, and, yeah, my friend’s family definitely had Soprano vibes.
Levi’s Draw My Life was nothing to do with the club, but it did bring us closer.
Even if, at that point, I was considering leaving.
But it's not like it was easy to walk away from these guys. It's like finding your soulmates. Levi wasn't the only one with an interesting life. Sunny Lang was an ex kpop trainee, who was kicked out for being too fat, which led her to develop a severe eating disorder, and a hatred for her own body.
Sunny explained her family were originally from Boston, her mother growing up in Korea.
She signed up for an idol agency focusing on creating a new girl group, and had gotten all the way to the final stages, before being kicked for her weight. Sunny told us her story with a smile, though there was a hollowness in her eyes I couldn't ignore. The other girls were judgemental bullies, and the idol diet and brutal regime almost killed her.
Sunny lived in a tiny apartment with 9 girls, who would tear each other apart for a chance to debut. Sunny said all the other girls debuted, and when we (not so patiently) asked for names, she shrugged, admitting she signed an NDA that prevented her spilling the beans.
What she did say, was the K-pop idol is a product, not a person– and are made and moulded into a product.
She had zero interest in throwing her humanity away to become a manufactured doll.
So, one of us was the son of an underground family, and the other was an ex idol.
Tom was an aspiring horror writer with a famous older step-brother.
His story times were usually, That one time I went to the Met Gala.
When it was my turn to reveal my story, I told them the only interesting thing about me.
I could smell when something bad was going to happen.
They laughed, but I was being serious.
When I was a kid, I smelled my mother’s brain tumor.
I remember it smelled like curdled milk.
I asked Mom why her head smelled of mouldy milk, and Mom laughed and said it was her shampoo.
It was actually a grade two tumor growing inside her brain.
Thankfully, the tumour was found quickly and removed.
Growing older, I became sensitive to smell. The little girl choking on the bus smelled of singed wood, and the old man crossing the road stunk of gasoline.
In the fourth grade, my classmate Alex Castor smelled of lemons all morning.
I sat behind him, choking on the stink all the way through class.
Ever since I met him, Alex had always smelled… off.
It was a distinct smell I could never understand, and as the days and months and years went by, that smell morphed into a subtle orangey musk that was so strong I had to cover my mouth and nose. Then, he smelled like lemons.
During Recess, I watched Alex fall off of the jungle gym, straight onto his head.
Alex Castor was dead before the paramedics arrived, my panicked teacher attempting CPR when his brains were leaking out of his ears.
The school claimed it was an accident, but Alex would have been fine if the jungle gym wasn't built on solid concrete.
I told my team members this, and Levi was sceptical.
“You can smell bad things?” He said, his lips curved around his milkshake straw. In the early days, we hung out in the local bar. It's not like we were allowed inside, but Levi could get us in anywhere.
I was squeezed between Tom and Sunny, while Levi took the seat opposite us. I couldn't help noticing our waitress was insisting on free milkshake refills, her frantic eyes glued to Levi.
I had zero idea why. Levi Costella was about as intimidating as a fruit fly.
Wearing a white shirt with a popped collar, a leather jacket thrown over the top, Levi was giving rebellious Harvard student, rather than son of a crime family.
Leaning forward, he raised a brow, clearly not believing me.
“So, you're like a stink psychic?”
I shrugged, sipping my own shake.
“Sure.”
I wasn't planning on telling him the club room smelled off on our first day.
Once we actually started the club, Levi surprised us as the smartest member, and getting to know him further, I came to the realization his family were infamous in our town.
However, his parents hid it well. Lucy and Michael Costella were the owners of a popular ramen store in our town, hiding under the facade of two successful business owners. The Costella’s were an attractive family.
Lucy was a sophisticated brunette with a lipstick smile, Michael, a handsome fluffy haired man who looked like he modelled glasses.
The two were fiercely protective over their youngest son, not so casually reminding us behind grinning smiles, that if anything happened to Levi, we would automatically be involved in the family.
I mean, they did laugh and say, “We’re joking! Look at your little faces!” when Sunny went deathly pale. But there was definitely truth behind their words.
Being Levi’s friend was… challenging at first.
Tom and I were in his room studying for finals, and an alarm went off, flooding Levi’s room in red light.
I had zero idea where it was coming from, but it locked all the doors and windows, forcing the Costella residence into temporary lockdown. Levi didn't seem fazed, casually mentioning his parents were taking care of it.
He had a whiteboard set up in his room, and was standing in front of it, cramming all of our textbook notes into one easily digestible drawing.
Levi wasn't just smart.
He was Ivy League smart, so we had struck gold with him.
His family were questionable, and yes, sometimes I did fear for my life, but as the more time we spent at his house, the Costella household became a second home. We got used to the alarms.
I just brought along ear plugs.
I wish I was writing this post about Levi’s family, and sure, they are a factor in what is going on right now, but I want to preface this by saying the events below involve the 2024 scholastic decathlon final in our town with the school’s listed:
Starbrook High School.
Ratcliffe High School.
Please note, the incident that took place last night was immediately covered up, and all phone footage was destroyed. Our town is mostly out of the way, and does not show up on Google searches.
We also have our own version of the academic decathlon, which is a more town-level competition, due to lacking funds. The four of us were desperate to start competing with our schools.
So, we started taking things a little more seriously.
We got a coach.
Mr Hanes, who was hesitant at first.
In his words, “You will hate me as your coach.”
He started by recruiting more members, announcing, “If you want to be taken seriously as an actual club, then I'll be taking the reins from now on.”
He did, and with our teachers guidance (and sometimes brutal honesty), we reached a level where we could start competing with other school’s in town. Now, none of us knew this, but Mr Hanes was obsessed with winning.
So, club meetings were twisted into two hour study sessions with no talking, followed by Mr Hanes Jeaprody, which was Jeaprody, without the actual fun.
We were quizzed multiple times, answer cards and practise questions quite literally thrown directly in our faces.
I hate to admit this (I really hate to admit this) but Mr Hanes’s tactics worked. Sure, we had been mildly brainwashed by our slightly unhinged coach, but with Levi Costella, we destroyed our competitors. Like I said, our town held their own version of the academic scholastic decathlon, but it was pretty much the same, with some changes.
Ten subjects. Language and Literature, Math, Social Science, Economics, Art, Music, Interview, Speech, and Essay.
Unlike the official Decathlon, ours was more like a game show, with the ability to be knocked out if a team member answers a question wrong. Whoever answers the most questions correctly wins. Team meet ups were either tests, study sessions, or quizzing each other.
Which leads me to last night.
The finals were held in the reigning champions, Ratcliffe High School’s, auditorium.
And we were about to win our town’s Scholastic Decathlon 2024 Championships.
Well…I was knocked out in the music section. Standing next to my coach who I was sure was going to asphyxiate from excitement, I could smell the sudden potent stink of lemon. I tried to ignore it at first, but the more questions my team were answering correctly, the smell got worse, suffocating my senses.
This wasn't just lemon. The stink was like a burning, singing smell trickling into my nose and the back of my throat.
It was stronger than what Alex smelled like.
This was suffocating, drowning my thoughts.
“Are you okay, Cassandra?”
Mr Hanes nudged me when a Ratcliffe girl was struggling to answer a question, only for Sunny to jump in with the answer. “You look quite pale.”
I nodded, forcing a smile.
My gaze was on the Ratcliffe coach, a scary looking blonde woman, whispering in one of her student’s ears.
The Ratcliffe kid freaked me out. He was way too tall, dark blonde hair, and bulging eyes I swear were not blinking.
His gaze was glued to Levi, who wore a smug grin.
There was a smaller girl next to the Ratcliffe kid, a Macbook balanced on her knee. Every so often, he leaned into her, the two of them in deep conversation.
“I'm just nervous.”
I jumped when Ratcliffe scored a point, their side erupting into cheers.
During the break, we had a mini team meeting.
Sunny rushed to the bathroom to freshen up, and I noticed a Ratcliffe girl with a bouncing ponytail following her.
Ignoring our coach’s speech, I joined the two girls in the corridor, that lemony scent hanging thick in the air.
I caught them in an awkward position.
The Ratcliffe girl had her fingers pinched between the material of Sunny’s dark blue shirt bearing our school’s name.
Sunny looked confused, her lips parted like she was going to yell.
Ponytail dropped her hand, suddenly, with a nervous laugh. “Oh! I'm so, so, sorry,” she gushed. “You had, like, the biggest spider crawling on your back.”
Sunny caught my eye, shooting me a reassuring smile.
“Thanks.” She made sure to keep her distance. “Uh, where's your bathroom?”
The Ratcliffe girl nodded down the hallway. “It's just down there. I'm going there too if you want me to show you?”
Sunny motioned for me to go back to the auditorium. “Uh, sure! That'd be great!”
I did try to follow them, only for Sunny to cough loudly.
I took the hint, reluctantly heading back into the auditorium.
My team was hyping each other up, Levi in the centre, sweating through his team shirt. He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I can't do this,” He groaned. “Ratcliffe High is known to play dirty, man. They're unbeatable.”
“In what way do they play dirty?” I asked, joining them.
Levi gulped down water, shrugging.
“I dunno! They're already trying to distract me with the stink eye.” The boy narrowed his eyes at a grinning Ratcliffe kid who, after noticing our stares, jumped to his feet, waving at us.
“Hey guys!”
“That's Harry Cartwright, the son of the Cartwright family who tried to kill my parents in the third grade.” Levi mockingly waved back. “As you can see, their kid is a fucking sociopath.”
Huh. I wasn't expecting the smiley kid to be the mobster’s son.
Harry Cartwright was not what I expected.
Unlike his team members, he was the only one in casual clothing, a short sleeved white shirt and jeans, a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.
Tom went pale.
“Fuck.” He hissed. “He’s one of you? Then those bastards will have a reason to play dirty, right?”
Levi shrugged, averting his gaze. It was the first time I saw his eyes darken, like he was subtly telling the boy to back off.
“The Cartwright’s have been trying to buy our land for a while,” he muttered. “I wouldn't put it past them to use the Decathlon as a way to attack.”
“Attack?!” April, another member of our team, hissed. “Like, attack attack?”
Mr Hanes grabbed the boy, resting his hands on Levi’s shoulders. “Ignore them,” he said. “Hey. Look at me.”
Levi did, raising a brow.
“You're losing that spark in your eye, young man.”
“Spark?”
Our coach nodded. “Look at me, kid.”
Levi rolled his eyes. “I am looking at you, Mr Hanes.”
The man was shaking. I was guessing his whole career (or coaching career) was on the line.
“They know they're losing, Mr Costella.”
Hanes shook the boy, squeezing his shoulders. “You are being positive and Ratcliffe doesn't like that. They want you to be nervous. They want to make you second guess yourself and lose confidence. Don't let them get into your head.” he smiled, giving the boy a playful shove. “Kick their asses.”
“Exactly!”
I didn't realize Sunny was back from the bathroom.
The faint smell of lemons had followed her. I noticed a wet patch on her shirt collar, though she was quick to smile at me, admitting she'd spilled water down herself. Sunny wrapped her arms around Levi, squeezing him into a hug.
She hung on for a little too long, Tom dragging her away with a laugh. “Good luck, all right?” she backed away, ruffling his hair. “We’ve got this!”
When I hugged Levi good luck too, I had to resist covering my nose.
The smell of lemon was unbearable, just like fourth grade Alex.
But it wasn't as potent as earlier.
I vaguely remembered the smell starting to fade once Alex’s body was being carted away on a stretcher.
Following my captain through the crowd, I was right. The smell was less suffocating. Before he went back to the stage, I grabbed the back of his shirt.
The material was soaking wet.
“How are you so wet?” I said, swiping my hands on my shirt.
“Huh?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. Do you remember what I told you in sophomore year?”
Levi settled me with a confident, but nervous smile. “Thaaaat you're scared of clowns?”
“No. I mean the boy who smelled of lemons.” I gritted out.
Levi surprised me with a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
Levi did know what I was talking about. He brought up my stink sense a day earlier in front of his parents, and I had to cover his mouth to shut him up.
Leaning close, I whispered in his ear. “You stink of rotten lemons.”
He nodded slowly, pulling away. “Uh… thanks?”
I bit back a hiss of frustration. “No, you don't understand what I'm saying–”
“Starbrooke High School,” The host announced. “Can all members please return to the stage.”
Levi held up his hand for a high five.
“Can we do this later?” He winked. “I'm kinda busy carrying this spelling-bee on my back right now.”
I nodded shakily, high fiving him, and letting him jump back onto the stage.
Before his words hit like a tidal wave, ice cold water slammed into me.
Spelling Bee?
Slowly making my way back to the stands, Levi’s mistake was circling around my head. He did win a spelling bee, but that was in middle school.
Thankfully, the smell of lemons was gone when I returned to my seat.
Mr Hanes handed me a soda. “Chill out, Cassandera, it's just a game.”
He could talk. The guy was on his fifth coffee.
Mr Hanes was not chilled out in the slightest.
Surprisingly, the event went well. I was half expecting my team to be crushed by the rafters, or caught in a blaze started in the crowd. But we were doing well. No, we were winning.
Reaching the climaxing round, Sunny choked against a smug Ratcliffe boy, joining me on the sidelines.
Levi answered the next question with a confident smile.
We were winning, but Ratcliffe could still catch up with a miracle.
The second to last question was to Ratcliffe, and it was general knowledge.
”Where on the human body would one find the *orbit?*
I knew the answer, and so did Levi, his lips breaking out into a smile when the Ratcliffe boy was hesitating, eyes wide.
Our school’s buzzer went off, Levi slamming his hand down.
Bzzz!
The host turned to our team. “Starbrooke, can I have your answer?”
Levi nodded, shooting our team a victory grin.
“It's…!“ He opened his mouth to answer, his jaw slackening suddenly.
The boy’s shoulders slumped.
“Uh… “
“Um…”
“Huhhhhh…”
Levi inclined his head, blinking, his eyes glazing over. There was a sudden, hollow vacancy that sent chills down my spine. It was like someone had reached into his skull, and yanked out his brain, leaving a shell in his place.
To my confusion, our team captain frowned at his buzzer like he'd never seen one before. He pressed it, exploding into child-like giggles.
Bzzz!
The audience laughed along nervously.
Tom nudged me. “What the fuck is he doing?”
Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz!
Levi’s entire body was slumped, his hand slamming down on the buzzer.
I caught something pooling down his chin.
“Is he… drooling?” I whispered.
Mr Hanes looked mildly horrified. “Has he been drinking?
“Levi?” Tom spluttered. “Drinking?!"
Whatever we were watching, however, was definitely influenced by… something.
Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz!
“Young man, that is not a toy!”
The host wasn't amused. “Starbrooke High School, I need an answer from you,” He nodded to Levi, who was pressing the buzzer, his smile growing.
“Once again,” The host backed away, like Levi was contagious. “Where on the human body would one find the Orbit?”
Levi cocked his head, lips parted.
His gaze found the overhead lights, and he winced, his lips curling into a frown.
“Starbrooke High School!”
Levi jumped, tipping his head back and blowing a raspberry. “Palm tree?”
The audience laughed, and I started feeling nauseous.
Across from us, I could see the twist of a smirk on the Ratcliffe coach’s lips.
Bzzz! Levi slammed the buzzer again giggling.
“Starbrooke High School, if your team member continues to act like this, I will be forced to disqualify all members.”
Our captain stopped, gaze glued to the host, his hand creeping towards the buzzer, like it was a big red button.
The audience loved it, laughing like they were watching a sitcom.
“He wouldn't.” Tom whisper-shrieked.
The auditorium was silent for a moment, awaiting Starbrooke’s response.
Levi stuck out his tongue, slamming his hand down.
Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz–
When Tom dragged Levi away from his podium, a Ratcliffe girl hit her buzzer.
“Starbrooke High School, you are disqualified,” the host announced. “Ratcliffe High School, do you have an answer?”
It was Ponytail who nodded with a grin.
“The answer is the eye socket! The Orbit is part of the eye socket!”
“That is the correct answer.” The host was distracted, his eyes glued to Levi.
“Ratcliffe High School wins.”
Levi jumped when the Ratcliffe wide erupted into cheers.
His eyes were wide, clinging onto the buzzer for comfort.
Next to me, our coach looked like he was going to faint.
I barely noticed Ratcliffe’s victory, too busy watching our team captain, who was Harvard bound, tipping his head back and smiling at the ceiling like a new-born baby. Tom dragged the stumbling boy over to me, his mouth twisted.
“This was Ratcliffe, right?” He hissed, shaking our captain, who was struggling, squirming in his grip.
“Did they put something in his drink?!” He prodded Levi. “Hey! What did they do to you?!”
Still, though, drugging his drink didn't make sense.
Levi never left the auditorium, and kept his water bottle with him the whole time.
How did they even manage to slip something into his drink in the first place?
Did I smell our competitors drugging him?
Sure, intentionally inebriating my teammate was morally wrong and illegal, but why could I smell lemon?
“I doubt it was Ratcliffe.” Sunny squeezed next to me. “I've been watching them. They're harmless.”
“Then how the fuck do we explain this to his parents?!” Tom whispered, grappling with Levi, who was fighting to get back to the buzzer.
When Tom let go of him, he dropped onto the floor, crawling over to his podium. It was like watching a child.
Who was determined to piss off the adults.
Levi jumped back to instead feet, his gaze was glued to the host, a smile curved on his lips, when he slammed the buzzer again.
Bzzz!
“Someone, please remove the Starbrooke boy from the stage!”
I was embarrassed, our whole team ducking our heads as our captain was forcibly removed from the podium.
Mr Hanes grabbed Levi, pulling him off of the stage.
I expected our coach to be mad at him, but I think the teacher was more worried, a phone pressed to his ear while he forced the boy into a sitting position.
No, I don't think it's influence from alcohol, I could hear his conversation.
Levi kept trying to get up, mesmerised by the buzzer. The teacher was firm but gentle. “Hey. Sit down, all right? Keep still.” He went back to his phone call, gently prying Levi’s eyes open.
From what I can see, there's nothing wrong. He's just kind of…
Mr Hanes swiped his own hands on his jeans. ... wet?
Team Ratcliffe came over to rub it in our faces, though I was still tuned into our coach’s hissed whispering.
Water? No, I don't think it's water. It smells… no, I haven't told his parents…
“You guys did awesome!” Ponytail's voice was sugary sweet. Too sugary.
She held the 2024 trophy, bearing a satisfied smile. I noticed the Ratcliffe members were surrounding Harry, like guards.
“Better luck next time, okay?” She held out her hand, her eyes twinkling.
“No hard feelings?”
“Control your dog.” Harry said, amused eyes flicking to Levi, who was once again sprinting back to the fucking buzzer. His eyes had visibly darkened, lips curled into a triumphant smile.
Harry Cartwright was watching Mr Hanes chase our team captain like it was his own personal entertainment.
I had to look away before I died of second hand embarrassment.
“What did you put in his drink?” Tom demanded. “Weed? Edibles?” the boy attempted to shove Harry, only to be pushed back. “What the fuck did you do to him?”
Harry’s smile didn't waver. “Like I said. Control your mut.”
When the Ratcliffe team walked away, our red faced coach struggling with Levi, who was behaving progressively more erratically, informed us we were longer welcome inside the school.
Tom suggested calling an ambulance, but our coach was hesitant.
We all knew who Levi’s family were.
On the way out, Tom matched my stride. He was frowning at our team captain struggling to walk.
The way he was acting was already eyebrow raising.
But walking at an angle and being unable to stand up straight was worrying.
“I don't think they drugged his drink.” Tom muttered.
We pushed through the doors out of the school, and I revelled in the cool night air grazing my cheek. “If they did, he would be acting out of it, right? So, what's the deal with him acting like–”
“A child.” I finished for him.
“Yeah.” Tom leaned closer. “Do you think this has something to do with their turf war?”
I slapped at a bug creeping across my cheek.
Levi fell over again, this time bursting into giggles.
“Almost definitely.”
Levi was right about Ratcliffe playing dirty. I didn't realize how dirty until we were on the losers bus home. Levi was in the seat next to me, and the kid hadn't moved since we left Ratcliffe, his eyes wide, lips pulled into a dazed grin.
Bzzz!
The noise startled me from slumber. I was drooling, my head pressed against the window. Outside, the sky was pitch dark, and squinting through the glass, I couldn't get a bearing on where we were. I thought I was hearing things, but when I sat up, I heard it again.
Bzzz!
It was close.
Leaning over the boy, I glimpsed a smear of scarlet on his headrest.
I choked on my next words.
“Tom.”
Tom was in front of me, listening to music.
He didn't reply, his head of dark blonde curls nodding to the beat.
“Levi.” I managed to get out. I prodded him, and his head lolled into his shoulder. “Hey. Can you… sit up?”
Bzzz! Bzzz!
When the boy didn't move, I gently grabbed his shoulders and pulled him forward myself, something contracting in my stomach.
I don't know how long it takes for your mind to fully register something, but my body was already reacting.
Levi’s seat was infested with bugs, eating their way through the upholstery. I was aware of my body moving back. I threw up, instantly, screaming into my hand.
The back of my best friend's skull resembled a deflated soccer ball, what was left of his brain leaking from his skull where a swarm of skittering bugs chewed their way through brain tissue, metallic legs scratching the curved, pearly white of the base if his skull.
Levi’s head hung, his body flopping into mine.
But his eyes were still open, lips still stretched into a smile.
Blood ran in thick rivulets from his nose and ears.
Bzzz!
I could see them, black writhing dots alive in his eyes, wriggling movement under his skin.
“Tom!”
I jumped up, stumbling into the aisle, my stomach heaving.
And it was only when I was on my knees, swiping bile from my lips, when I realized the others weren't reacting.
Tom wasn't moving.
I pulled an Airpod out of his ear, a long, slithering string of pink attached to the end.
There was a stray bug skittering across his hand, his face starting to twitch and writhe.
Moving back, I checked myself over, my hands shaking.
Head.
Shoulders.
Hair.
Clawing through it, my breath was stuck in my throat.
Arms.
Legs.
Feet.
Mr Hanes was slumped against the window, a reddish froth bubbling from his mouth.
Sunny.
I started towards the back of the bus, but all I had to see was her bowed head, half of her skull chewed through.
Sunny was in a far more deteriorated state, her face had been ripped through, a skeletal smile glinting in the dim.
The thick black smear on the window next to her was moving.
When I screamed for the driver to stop the bus, he ignored me.
If anything, he stamped on the gas.
I moved forward to shake him, before glimpsing a bug creeping down his face.
Calling 911, the operator laughed at me.
“Bugs are eating your friends.” He said. “Do you know the penalty for calling with bullshit pranks?”
The bus didn't stop, so I stayed at the front, while the bugs took over the back, eating through my teammates.
After four hours, I risked leaning over the seat next to Tom to check on Levi.
They were eating him.
Chewing all the way through skin, muscle and bone.
I tried to stop the bus, but the driver’s hands were tightly wrapped around the wheel.
Another hour, and blood was seeping down the aisle, crawling with bugs.
Levi was gone, and in his place, a buzzing skittering pile of bugs, that I thought were going to move to a second victim, maybe burrowing into the seats.
But, no.
These things began to tremble, replicating.
Building.
Slowly, nothing became static, and static became muscle.
Then bone.
Then flesh.
When a body began to slowly form, moulded from the dead boy, I stumbled back.
These things weren't eating Levi Costella.
They were rewriting him.
…
Edit: I'm still on the bus. I'm 99.9% sure that I'm infected with whatever this thing is. I can't stop fucking itching.
I keep picking them off me but they won't stop. This bus isn't going to stop until I'm like the others.
…
Edit 2:
I can feel them chewing into my skull. They're in my ears. I keep spitting them out. Please, someone get them off of me. Help me. I don't want to die at 17.
Edit 3:
Still alive. Still breathing. Maybe they're leaving me alone????? I think I'm okay. There is a pile of bugs at my feet, but they're crawling off of me.
Edit 4:
Levi really wants to go home. Like, he just told me he REALLY wants to go home. He's got a gift for his parents.
~~Edit 5 :) ~~
Levi is next to me right now, an odd smile on his face.
The bugs are not finished building him yet, but he'll be ready soon.
We will be ready soon.
Your son says hello! He is a wonderful boy, is he not?
Mr and Mrs Costella, I cannot wait for you to meet him.
He is our greatest achievement, and rest assured, you will give us what we want.
Warm regards.
The Cartwright's.

As the world faded away into nothing but a dark void, Tom felt the only mildly familiar sensation of magic flowing like a gentle stream. It wasn’t much of a draw, but it was certainly noticeable.
“Right, best make this quick then,” he tried thinking to himself, feeling the flow peak as he did.
“Who is this? Make what quick?” an ethereal sounding female voice replied. It did sound a bit like how he remembered Joelina sounding. Though she did not exactly sound calm.
“Uhm… Hello? Anyone there?”
“Yes hello. Who is this? What must be done quick? Answer me at once!”
“It’s Tom… Is that you, Joelina?”
“Yes of course it is! Stupid dragons taking ages, I have questions for you! So many questiiioooonssss...”
“Yeah I figured that… Fire away I suppose.” Tom replied a little uncertainly as to just what he might be in for.
“Firstly! Did you read the letters?”
“I did yeah…”
“Disregard them, I have learned much since they were written! So much more yes, cursed blessed knowledge…”
“So you do know we have gone to space then?”
“What? No, I re-experienced the memory you had of the movie about the moon mission. It was evident on the second watching that it was trickery of the eye! Spaceflight is but a myth!”
“Riiight.”
“Then how have your kind visited space? And what of the gods above!? it was evident that the woman with the crystals was but a fraud!” Joelina explained with all the calm and restraint of a shoppingmall Karen
“Well the rockets to the moon, that did happen.” Tom attempted, doing his best to remain calm and diplomatic. “The movie you saw was probably a recreation… Tell me, did things go wrong on that trip but they made it home anyway?”
“Yes, do you know of what I speak? Ahr what am I proclaiming! of course you do it is your own memories, how could I forget.”
“Yea…, you watched a movie about Apollo 13 I think. Good movie, and that all happened too. Like for real happened”
“I see…” Joelina replied, sounding rather unstable. “And what of the gods?”
“We ain’t got any. Well not in space at least.”
“Impossible!”
“No, quite possible. Many still believe in gods though, but let’s not get into that too much. It’s a right old mess.”
“No, you must tell me what happened to the gods? Have they left you?”
“Well some think so, but no. I just think it all works a bit different for us. They might be a little more hands off.”
“But the churches… and these religious warriors you did battle with,” the inquisitor all but muttered to herself, sounding like she was struggling to put pieces together. “Do Jesus and Islam fight for power then? no no, they would have long since lost the battles to the ancient gods of war the teachers spoke of… though why they were always naked eludes me yeeees…”
“No, again we don’t really have gods just floating around... Could we please talk about something else? Or is that all you wanted to know?” Tom tried, hoping he really didn’t have to dive deeper into that particular subject.
“No no don’t you dare cut me off! I have seen what you talked of, nuclear fire and missiles, ships of the oceans and planes soaring in the skies. But is it not all fake? Surely it must be! It must be? It must be…”
“I don’t know what you saw… but we have ships sailing around. If you’ve ever seen flying ships like you have here then that’s fake I can assure you of that. We do have airships, but they look more like really big long balloons.”
“But we could make such vessels, or someone could from times past. If you can visit the moon then surely you can make a ship for the skies!”
“No no, we ain’t got grav oil. Or dragon essence as I guess it’s called. That means no anti gravity, and that means weight is a very very big problem for anything you wanna make fly. Planes and helicopters are how we fly. Remember how I flew to Afghanistan on a big ass plane? Or when I learned to parachute later?”
“What is parachute? is it the ham from your times doing, vacationing? what has dried meat products got to do with flying machines of battle!”
“Wooo easy now easy. I guess you didn’t get that far yet. Uhm. It’s a cloth kite you dangle from and then glide to the ground. Very good fun.”
“A cloth kite used to fly?... such strange inventions. Wait was there not a movie of with something of that nature? yeeee… there was a song. I liked that song… something something brains upon his chute. Yeesss…”
“Yeah… You’ll know it when you see it. I have one actually.” Tom clarified trying not to get too weirded out.
“You must demonstrate on a suitable occasion.”
“Yeah… I do have a question too though,” Tom replied, letting silence reign for a short time. “...Your last letter was in Danish.”
“Oh, uhm yes. I- I was having some difficulty separating what was real and what was not… I still am. Do not tell Glazz, she musten know the truth yet. She seeks to limit my excursions.”
“You’ve ended up like I did, have you?”
“No no no, the effects do indeed recede as expected, everything is in good order… But I had to know more. So so much moooore.”
“Maybe you should cool it a bit. You never know when a brain snaps. Or how,” Tom tried, confident his advice would be ignored.
“There is not time!”
“And why is that? How is it going in our beloved Inquisition?”
“Mind your tongue, human! Things are progressing, but so are our enemies. Infiltrators have been caught, traitors within our ranks are making their moves. The reemergence of Rashan, attacks on mines, keeps and a daring heist attempt at a Royal Guard fortress! The game is afoot, we cannot delay.”
“You can’t overreach yourself either. Weren’t you supposed to be winning over the rest of the inquisition right about now? Can’t do that as a gibbering mess.”
There was silence for a while more after that. “Glazz sent you a letter? What did it say?! You may not keep secrets from me- wait not… I should confiscate her arm… she cannot write with her left. Yes far better plan, avoid upsetting him. And fill her pen with invisible ink. Yes very good.”
“No, it’s just obvious to any idiot. But what about winter, won’t things slow down?”
“They should, yet as autumn progresses it has only been picking up. I hope they too are running out of time… But time for what? I must know what they are planning. They might be behind schedule. But what SCHEDULE! sorry…”
“Well you’re not gonna find the answer to that in my memories, now are you?”
“You were sent by someone. You are here for a purpose. I must know this purpose. It will help me understand. The puzzle is large and much of the box kept from me.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m here to help you guys get in gear. That’s a decades to centuries long sorta problem, not a couple of years. Sounds like this war will be in the couple of years category.”
“Then why now? Why did you arrive now?!”
“Shitty luck? Sounds like 10 years ago would have been a lot better… Oh on that note, did you hear? We found something down below.”
“No, Paulin would have told me.”Joelina dismissed, he could almost feel her turning her snout up and away from him.
“Well we opened the vault like 3 days ago,” Tom replied, quite surprised Paulin hadn’t said anything. “Wait yeah she can send you messages, no? She sent the message about what we wanted to buy too, didn’t she?... How did she do that by the way? Why didn’t you just have her ask me questions?”
“That is not for you to know, and this is not for her.”
“Really? More secrets still? Come on, tell me or I’ll let you think flying whales exist.”
“I know those are not real. If they were, you would have harvested them long ago! likely for some deranged snack… or facial decoration.”
“True, but you get the idea,” Tom persisted, feeling like this was something worth pushing for. Why would Paulin not have let her precious Joelina know?
“Very well. This does not leave your mind… In the name of, what was it called… camaraderie. Paulin is in possession of joined paper. Messages may be written down and read by anyone with similarly joined paper. Unsecured. Originally believed to be fore love letters… dastardly studs and wenches using perfectly good magic for such trivialness… simply tie the message to a rock and throw it though the window. Most peasants cannot even afford glass” Joelina trailed off, seemingly zoning out once more.
“You have magical paper that can relay written information… and you don’t fucking use it!?” Tom explaimed, not quite believing what he was hearing.
“No, we do not know how to make freshly bonded paper… only more linked to all other paper in existence…” Joelina agreed. He could almost feel her looking at the floor in shame. “But it is not as if you are infallible, why did you not bring one of these radios?”
“I uhm…”
“Why didn’t you?!”
“I forgot,” Tom admitted, thinking back to his packing days. Of all the things that could have proven useful, that one might have been his biggest blunder.
“For the love of all that is holy! You are our saviour?!” Joelina scolded, understandably so, but still.
“Hey I never claimed to be smart!”
“I have lived your dreams. That is a lie! You very much claim to be smart!”
“Fuck off, I know you are just a scared little insecure girl.”
“She died 30 years ago!”
“Well I haven’t gotten to that bit yet!”
“What in the devils do you mean?” Joelina questioned calming right down in a fraction of a second.
“I’ve only had like three proper dreams about you… wait no, not like that,” Tom blurted out as it clicked just how wrong that sounded. Joelina didn’t seem to care in the slightest though.
“Three? That is it!?” going right back to outrage.
“Yeah… Wait, how many have you had?” Tom questioned. He rather wanted to know just how much she might know about him in addition to the memories she had already picked through when inside his head.
“Several a day!” the inquisitor exclaimed in reply.
“Okay, I can see how that would drive someone a bit mad.”
“I am not going mad!”
“Did Glazz say the same thing?” Tom questioned, quite certain he was striking a nerve.
There was no reply for quite some time, Tom feeling the headache growing as things grew tranquil once more. He could feel his breath. It was rapid, and his heart was pounding. He probably shouldn’t do this for much longer. Thus he endeavored to break the silence.
“You probably should listen to her you know.”
“No! These matters are above her station!”
“Hasn’t she been in the Inquisition longer than you?”
“She has yes. But she is no inquisitor. She is a body guard.”
“Seems like she is a wee bit more than that,” Tom pushed on. He didn’t yet know how those two came to stick together, but it was clear they had been working together for decades by now. All the way since she was assigned to Harvik
“Mind your own matters, human.”
“Very well, don’t think I can keep this up anyway.”
“We have barely been chatting! Where do the dogs come from?!”
“Selective breeding for thousands of years. But I’m gonna go. Take a break, do what Glazz says… even if Jacky hates her.”
Yet more silence followed that, though it was brief and Joelina was the first to speak again.
“Fine! In the interest of cooperation I shall let you rest. Wear the earring at all times, I shall be contacting you again soon.”
“I think I’m gonna be the judge of that. I’ll put it on when I feel like it.”
“You will do as I say!”
“You need a nap and a bit to calm down. I’ll give you three days. Around noon. See yah… How do I get this thing off?”
“I’m not telling you,” Joelina grumped like a little girl. She really didn’t seem quite like herself at all today. She had been the spitting image of restraint and arrogance before. The arrogance was still there, but the restraint had certainly gone.
“Come on, do I just try to cut off the magic or is that a bad idea?”
“If you answer a question I might answer.”
“Right then… Gimme gimme gimme aaaa-”
“JUST CUT IT! Farewell!” she called out loud enough Tom’s head pulsed and then there was blissful silence once more.
“Hehe. That did the trick, right concentrate on that funny feeling aaan-”
__________________________________________________________________________________
After dinner had been rounded up, Dakota had given a brief address as to some of the news received. There wasn’t much that hadn’t already made the rounds at the tables during the dinner itself. The war had been expanding, recruitment had started in full in the cities, and if not for the rather special situation at Bizmati they could have expected their banners to get called by spring.
Rumors had it that the kingdom was preparing itself for counterstrikes the following spring, which meant training through the winter for many volunteers.
“And a lot of not so volunteers,” Fengi muttered as Dakota carried on with the address.
“You can say that twice. At least the street rats might get something to eat and a place to sleep,” Tirox the trader escort added.
“I suppose that is true. Not a bad deal in winter time… I might even have taken it.”
“But we must instead keep our minds on our home,” Dakota carried on, talking to the whole hall. “There can be no mistake, we will be a target. We will be ready. They are getting bolder by the day it seems. It is not impossible they may attempt to take our keep before the winter comes. Or perhaps they will be waiting for spring. It is equally clear their forces are spread thin. We will weather such assaults, I have no doubt. But we must keep training. We must keep vigil. We cannot afford to be surprised or outmatched. I know you will all do your best. And tonight, we have no less than 4 dragons here. So breathe easy, have your snacks and your drinks. If the weather holds soon we will be finished with the warehouse and then we may make final preparations for winter. It is sure to be an interesting one for once.”
The hall replied with a half-discordant cheer, not overly enthusiastic unlike what Dakota had likely envisioned. The talk of them possibly getting attacked even before the snow came wasn’t really that encouraging. But Dakota tended to speak her mind, and she was probably right. Bizmati keep would be a damn tough nut to crack. And to Dakota’s credit she did seem to recognize she hadn’t really managed to rile them up.
“Didn’t you hear me?” she tried again in a slightly more humorous tone. “Eat, drink, and have fun! And put those tables together, don’t want you brooding in your corners.”
That did get a bit more of a reaction, as well as some good humored chuckles. People started getting up and set about moving the tables closer together.
It was a little rude to split up their guests in the same way as they normally did. Saph carried one of the benches over to the new spot, glancing around for any sign of Maiko, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
Feeling a little miffed, she sat down with the others as Ray came back with one of the small kegs of cider looking very excited. “We should have a taste, right?”
“Oh yes please!” Pho called out, Essy giving her a slight slap on the wrist.
“This one is only for those who paid for it. You will have to do with whatever you bought. Or the ale I’m sure they intend to serve.”
“Aww man. Not even a sip?”
“Okay, maybe a sip,” Essy relented. “Oh, I should get Koko his gift.”
“You got him a gift?” Saph questioned with mirth in her voice.
“Of course, that is what people do for each other… you did get Maiko something, right?”
Saph felt her expression slip a little as she prepared to disappoint their chief people person. “No, not really…”
“All that money and you didn’t get him shit? That’s cold girl,” Pho laughed, clearly finding it hilarious.
“Oh shut up, not as if I got something for Unkai either,” Fengi added, springing to Sapphire’s defence, though it seemed like the delivery had Fengi second guessing herself as well.
Esmeralda did look a little saddened by the news, but she was far too nice to say anything. Tirox however had no such filter.
“Oh don’t worry about it, just gotta go with a different sort of gift.” The diminutive guard laughed heartily at his joke. Udanti found it quite funny as well, and Pho certainly loved it. Bo just shook her head a little and went back to a small puzzle of some sort she had been working on, on and off, for most of the dinner by now.
“So uhm… One mug each?” Ray questioned, having been left hanging at the keg.
“Oh yes sorry, just the one, this stuff is expensive,” Saph replied, holding out her mug, Ray pushing it back down.
“One moment.” And she produced a wooden mallet and one of the metal taps. It looked like one of Raulf’s, so it was probably old as faded dragonscales.
Ray gingerly placed it against the cork and raised the mallet as the table fell silent in anticipation.
With a whack the tap went in clean with hardly a drop spilled, and Ray breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Right there we go.”
There was a quick round of cheers from the table, and Ray started pouring servings.
“Oh got yours open, have you?” the voice of Balethon came as the guard came walking up to the table, mug in hand and lizard on shoulder. “You all know we are gonna have to work out who got the better stuff, right?”
“Oh does it always have to be a competition with you, Balethon?” Saph questioned. She had just wanted to enjoy the cider.
“Look who is talking… And yeah of course we do! Just think of the bragging rights.”
Ray didn’t look too thrilled, nor did any of the girls who had actually paid for the keg. The rest of the table seemed to think it was a brilliant idea, even as Balethon’s voice carried and heads started to turn as people started to mingle between the now closely together tables.
“I’ll be the independent adjudicator!” Tirox declared, not receiving much attention as the full mugs started to get passed around. “Oh come on. I’ll be fair!”
“Shut it pipsqueak, you’ll end up taking 10 rounds of tastings before you make up your mind,” Udanti scolded, though in good humor.
“I might…” the guy relented, looking to Balethon. “Ey, by the way. Did you teach the brainlet any tricks?”
“Sure, Skitters can do a few things.”
“Aside from chasing the food?”
“You know what I think he might yeah,” Balethon replied sarcastically, gently tapping the static lizard twice on the head. The lizard didn’t do much save skitter about on his shoulder to face Balethon’s head, one eye pointing in whichever direction.
‘That thing just looks so dumb,’ Saph thought to herself as Ray handed her a mug. “Oh thank you.”
“Okay, Skitters. Up,” Balethon went, raising a claw into the air as if he wanted the lizard to jump. Or perhaps stand up. “Up… come on.”
There was no reaction from the lizard aside from it jerking to the left a bit, possibly having spotted a fly or something.
“Weeeell obedience might need some work,” Udanti chuckled. “Have you tried with some food in your hand?”
“Sure, then he just tries to eat the hand. Come on, Skitters. Up!” Balethon tried again, doing the gesture once more. And this time the little lizard jumped into the air. The little legs stretched out, taking its pitiful excuse for wings with it, and it half-fell half-glided to the floor where it hit with all the grace of a 6 year old on his first lesson. The slightly fat lizard bounced once, then rolled over twice before coming to a stop, looking around confused.
“Aaayyy! That’s a good boi,” Balethon went, going to pick it up again before someone stepped on it or it ran off under the tables. “And now you get a treat.” True to his word Skitters was fed a small piece of something or other which it seemed quite happy to snap up.
Fengi leaned in to whisper to Saph. “Was that the trick or did it just get sick of staying there?”
“I have no idea,” Saph replied, holding up her mug. “Cheers though.”
“Cheers,” Fengi replied as they clinked mugs.
“Oh hang on now, wait for me,” Essy protested as Ray finished pouring her mug and started on her own, looking to the girls as she questioned “Oh, also what about Jacky? Should we wait for her?”
“Who knows how long that will take?” Fengi replied, holding her mug impatiently.
“I’m sure she won’t mind. She is with Tom. We’ll let him have a mug as well,” Essy added with a reassuring nod, looking up to the high table. “Oh but we are missing Lin!”
“Oh right yeah she paid too… I can’t remember, did Edita chip in?”
“I don’t think so,” Sapphire replied, shaking her head as Essy got up to go fetch Linkosta. Balethon decided to take her place, a big grin on his face.
“So what else is going on over here?”
“Oh not much, hellooo little guy,” Pho went, trying to give skitters a scritching. In exchange he tried to eat her finger. “Oh… I mean I guess it doesn’t hurt.”
“Oh yeah, he can’t hurt a fly… well he can, but nothing more.”
“Shame he won’t get any bigger either,” Udanti added, nodding sagely. “Would have made a good rat hunter.”
“Nah… toe hunter though. Also where is the ale at?”
“Oh Raulf and Wiperna are getting ale and some of the bubble beer.”
“What is bubble beer?” Udanti questioned, tilting her head.
“Oh you’ll love it,” Saph interjected, waiting patiently as she saw Essy and Linkosta returning to the table out of the corner of her eye. “It’s an ale but it’s all fizzy.”
“Riiight… I’ve heard of fizzy beers before.”
“Oh yes, but this one is so much more fizzy.”
“It’s light and almost springlike.”
“Light ale? You mean for kids?”
“No no no. Just trust us it’s good.”
“Right right, I trust you,” the archer replied, looking to Essy and Linkosta, who seemed to be looking for a place to sit. “Should we not just put two end to end rather than this scrunching up business?”
“Yeah we should… Right get the craftsman table over here then. We don’t wanna have to smell the guards,” Saph called out, holding up her mug.
“Hey! That was uncalled for,” Balethon protested as Ray passed a mug to Linkosta. The girls all raised their mugs and had a sip, not willing to wait any longer. They all smacked their chops a little, looking down at the golden liquid. It was slightly fizzy too… and it tasted like the brew of the gods themselves. Ray was looking at them all visibly tense with anticipation and perhaps a twinge of fear.
“Ray… You have not disappointed,” Saph declared, nodding her approval, a smile creeping onto her face once more.
“Oh this is the best drink I think I’ve ever had,” Fengi added, taking another gentle sip.
Ray looked visibly relieved, her expression changing to one of ecstasy as she too took a sip herself. “Oh it’s even better than I remember. I’m glad you liked it.”
“Like it?! I love it!” Fengi cheers, Essy giving an appreciative nod to Ray before looking to Lin.
“Sooo?”
“It’s very good… Do you think we could try and cool it down a little? Imagine this cold.”
“It is often served cold, yes,” Ray confirmed, nodding her assent.
“I’ll go get the powder!” Saph called out, getting up. “I have got to try that.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
The strange ethereal world that had seemed so all-consuming started to quickly fade. Holes grew as light and reality started seeping in, sounds and noise starting to build around him. “Oom-Tom… Tom, are you okay?” came the familiar voice of Jacky as his eyes shot open and he blinked a few times as he returned to reality proper.
“Yeah yeah, I’m here… That is trippy, but hey, I think it worked.”
“How many fingers?” Jacky questioned, holding up her hand.
“4. Clear as day.”
“Pheeew. Okay look around, anything strange?”
Tom obeyed, sitting up a bit straighter and glancing about the room. “Nnnnn, nope all good. Just like last time I used one of these.”
“Right, good. Now what did she say?”
“Oh a bunch of stuff… mostly we chatted a bit about how she’s going a touch mad. Even Glazz thinks she’s falling apart at the seams apparently. She was also not happy I wanted a break.”
“Oh don’t tell me you have to do this every day from now on?”
“I said she had 3 days to get ready to try again. Hopefully she’ll have her case worked out by then.”
“Here’s to hoping… also how is your head? Does it hurt?”
“A bit, it’ll go away I’m sure.”
“Right,” Jacky replied, looking at him skeptically. “If it gets worse, tell me. But dinner was served a while ago I think. And I’m hungry.”
“Me too, let’s go.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
Well then, Joelina got her chat. She seems fine... I am sure she will continue to be a steadfast ally, within the walls of the inquisition for many weeks to co- I mean years, definetly years.
As always I hope you enjoyed the chapter, if not you know who to blame. I promise I won't cry to much if you tell me what was wrong... I promise.
Not really any news, other than fuck me I'm a busy boi, luckily I found the time to keep up with the writing yet, hopefully things will quet down soon so I can get back to begin a bit further ahead.
Untill next time, take care
Wiki and Art Gallery If you can't remember who someone is, want to read any of the side stories of fanfiction, or you just wanna watch some of the cool art that's been made for the story. Patreon If you want to help get more cool shit made consider joining the Patreon, you also get chapters two weeks ahead of time. HoH Subreddit if you want more stories from the HoH universe or are interested in writing something for this funny little world. Discord if you wanna have a chat about the story or just hang out First Previous

So far sales had been steady but not spectacular. Jenna hoped they would pick up after the school let out. She chatted and sampled with customers, pitching her spiel about supporting their troop's efforts to earn badges. It was fun work even if tiring on her feet.
Gazing up at the cloudless sky, Jenna wondered idly if it might rain later. The forecast hadn't mentioned anything, but you never knew. A tiny speck in the distance caught her eye. She squinted, trying to make it out. It grew rapidly in size—and shape. Whatever it was, it wasn't a bird.
"Hey Jamie, do you see that?" Jenna nudged her friend, pointing. Now the other girls had turned to look as well. What had been a speck was now clearly some large, cylindrical object descending from the heavens. It shone silvery-grey in the sunlight.
"Is that...a rocket ship?" breathed Tammy.
As it neared the treetops, its design became evident. Definitely not any spacecraft Jenna had seen on the news or in movies. It was smoothly rounded on all ends, with no visible engines or fins. Eerily silent, it drifted toward an open field and settled softly on four tapering legs.
The girls stared open-mouthed, cookies momentarily forgotten. A hatch appeared in the side of the ship. Light spilled out, glowing an ethereal blue. Then towering figures emerged, moving with an inhuman grace.
Jenna caught her breath. Peering closer, she could just make out bipedal forms wrapped in loose, silvery garments. Their limbs seemed overly long and jointed in odd places. As they turned in her direction, two dark eyes set wide in hairless faces met hers. No nose or mouth was visible beneath.
"Aliens," Jamie whispered. "Actual aliens. I don't believe it."
Tammy squeaked and clung to Jenna's arm. But Jenna's mind was racing. This was an incredible opportunity, too good to pass up. She flashed the others a mischievous smile. "Come on, girls. Let's go make some sales!"
The troop fell into step behind her as she marched into the field. The creatures had paused, gazing around at their surroundings with a palpable air of curiosity and caution. As Jenna neared, they angled their expressive eyes down at the little band approaching. Up close, their skin shimmered in shades of aqua and moss green, veined with silvery networks.
The tallest one shifted its gaze between the girls, as if taking their measure. It spoke, but the sound was like rushing wind and dripping water blended into an eerie melody. Its friends chattered in response, their voices blending into a dissonant choir.
Undeterred, Jenna beamed and proudly presented her box of Thin Mints. "Cookies!" she enunciated clearly. "Would you like to buy some cookies?" To her astonishment, a glowing rectangle like a computer screen lit up on the tall one's torso. Words scrolled across it in crisp English letters.
WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND. WHAT ARE COOKIES? IT SEEMS YOU ARE SELLING SOMETHING, BUT WE HAVE NO CURRENCY OF YOUR WORLD.
Jamie leaned in to whisper, eyes shining, "They can understand us! This is so cool."
Jenna gathered her thoughts, focusing on her sales pitch despite everything unusual about the situation. "Cookies are a sweet treat made of chocolate and biscuits. They're very popular here on Earth. And all the money we earn from selling them goes towards fun trips and learning new skills as Girl Scouts. Please, won't you buy a box to help support our troop? I'm sure you'll love them!"
The aliens conferred amongst themselves, still in untranslatablespeech. Finally, the glowing display lit up again. I APOLOGIZE, BUT WE HAVE NO MEANS OF TRANSACTION. WE ARE EXPLORERS HERE IN PEACE TO STUDY YOUR WORLD. PERHAPS ANOTHER TIME WE CAN BARTER. FOR NOW, WE ONLY WISH TO LEARN.
Jenna tried to hide her disappointment. This wasn't how she'd envisioned the interaction going at all. But she had come this far, so she wasn't giving up yet. An idea bloomed in her mind. "Well, since you want to learn about us, how about a trade? We'll give you a box of cookies to try in exchange for letting our whole troop come aboard your ship for a little while. What do you say?"
The girls held their breath. This was assuredly against every safety rule. But an opportunity for an out of this world experience was too enticing to pass up. The aliens conversed quietly before responding.
VERY WELL, HUMAN CHILDREN. FOR THE SAKE OF CULTURAL EXCHANGE, WE AGREE TO YOUR TRADE. COME, WE SHALL GIVE YOU A TOUR OF OUR VESSEL.
Screeches of delight arose from the Scout troop. Jenna tried to shush them, not wanting the aliens to change their minds. But she couldn't contain her own grin of excitement and triumph. This was going to be one very memorable cookie sale!
Jenna stepped forward nervously, holding out the box of Thin Mints for the aliens to see. She did her best salesperson smile while gesturing to the colorful packaging. "Cookies!" she said again loudly and clearly.
The tallest alien leaned down, its large dark eyes fixing on the box in Jenna's hands. A long, nimble finger reached out to poke gently at the box, then drew back just as swiftly. Its companions murmured again in their strange tongue.
Frustrated not being able to communicate properly, Jenna popped open the lid so the sweet scent could waft up. She took one mint and mimed taking a bite, sighing happily and rubbing her belly. The aliens copied the sign for stomach, looking quizzical.
An idea sparked in Jenna's mind. Rummaging in her bag, she pulled out her phone and found the notepad app. Typing awkwardly with her thumbs, she showed them the words "Will you trade for this?" Arrows pointed to the cookies and to their ship.
A spark of understanding lit in the aliens' eyes as they studied the makeshift message. Their glowing display lit up in response. I APOLOGIZE, SMALL HUMAN, BUT WE HAVE NOTHING OF VALUE FROM OUR WORLD TO OFFER IN RETURN. OUR MISSION HERE IS ONE OF DISCOVERY ONLY.
"Please?" Jenna typed, giving her best pleading look. The girls clustered behind her, joining in the silent begging. But the aliens only seemed perplexed by this behavior.
Suddenly Tammy piped up, "What if we clean your ship for you? We'll dust and sweep and take out the garbage." The others stared at her, surprised by this inventive offer.
The display considered this. THAT IS A GENEROUS OFFER. HOWEVER, OUR CRAFT UTILIZES TECHNOLOGY FAR BEYOND YOUR WORLD'S CURRENT STAGE. I DOUBT YOU COULD PERFORM MAINTENANCE TO OUR STANDARDS.
At this rejection, the girls deflated with twin sounds of disappointment. But Jenna wasn't giving up yet. She furiously texted another message. "How about you give us a little tour then? We promise to be very careful and not touch anything."
The aliens conferred quietly amongst themselves for several moments. The girls held their breath, hoping their persistence was finally paying off. Then the glowing display lit up once more.
VERY WELL, SMALL HUMANS. FOR THE SAKE OF CULTURAL EXCHANGE, WE WILL ALLOW YOU A BRIEF LOOK INSIDE OUR VESSEL. BUT YOU MUST FOLLOW OUR INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. OUR TECHNOLOGY COULD PROVE DANGEROUS IF MISUSED.
The Girl Scouts whooped and cheered, doing a little victory dance. Jenna grinned, popping another Thin Mint in her mouth triumphantly. "Deal! Thank you so much for this."
The tallest alien gestured gracefully with one long arm. "THIS WAY, YOUNG ONES. WE SHALL BEGIN OUR TOUR."
Clutching their cookie boxes eagerly, the girls fell into line behind the extraterrestrials. They followed them up a floating gangway into the belly of the ship.
Inside, the walls glowed with an otherworldly luminescence. Strange symbols and interfaces winked all around, totally indecipherable. The floors felt bouncy underfoot, as if made of gelatin.
"Wow," breathed Jamie. "It's so beautiful in here."
The aliens guided them through sleek corridors and compartments full of glowing tech. They pointed out living quarters, a laboratory, hydroponic gardens, and an observation deck showing the curve of the Earth.
In the cockpit, countless viewscreens displayed alien constellations and scans of their small town below. Control panels rippled like liquid mercury beneath touch.
"This is where we navigated our journey to your solar system," explained their guides. "Truly a marvel, the distances stars can be bridged.
Tammy peered out the main viewing portal. "Your ship is so fast! How did you get here from wherever you came from?"
As the explorers launched into an explanation involving hyperdrives and folded spacetime, Jenna began to lose the thread. Space travel clearly worked very differently where these beings hailed from.
Their tour lasted nearly an hour, the aliens answering every barrage of questions patiently. All too soon, it was over, and they found themselves back outside in the late afternoon sun
"Thank you so much for the amazing tour!" Jenna gushed, hugging her now-empty cookie box. "Learning about aliens is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
The tallest being dipped its head graciously. "IT WAS OUR PLEASURE, SMALL HUMANS. YOU HAVE PROVIDED US AN INSIGHT INTO YOUR YOUNG ONES AS WELL."
Its fellows chattered in their musical language, some holding half-eaten cookies and gesturing appreciatively. Jenna beamed, glad they seemed to have enjoyed the treats.
"Will you come back to see us again?" asked Jamie hopefully.
"PERHAPS, IF OUR EXPLORATIONS BRING US BACK THIS WAY," was the reply. "BUT FOR NOW, WE MUST RESUME OUR JOURNEY AMONG THE STARS. FAREWELL, AND THANK YOU ONCE MORE FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY.
The aliens turned as one and glided back up the gangway. The rockets flared, rising gracefully into the sky until they vanished into the dusk.
The girls stood watching long after, buzzing with excited chatter about this unforgettable day. In the end, it had been the best cookie sale ever. Maybe even worth breaking a few rules...

TL;DR: After 3 miscarriages and a diagnosis of DOR, I had two healthy pregnancies without IVF or other ART.
We started TTC when I was 35.5, my partner 37. We got pregnant quickly, and quickly had 3 miscarriages, all around 8 or 9 weeks. We never had them tested, but my OB suspected genetic abnormalities.
My partner's test results were normal for a man his age. After the 2nd miscarriage, I had bloodwork and an SHG, a procedure where my OB filled my uterus with saline and looked at it on an ultrasound to see whether I had any visible issues that could explain what was wrong. This procedure was timed to a specific day in my menstrual cycle, so that while we were at it, she could look at my ovaries on the ultrasound as well, to make a prediction about how many eggs she could expect to retrieve if we decided to try IVF.
The SHG turned out normal. My uterus was perfectly fine. My ovaries, however, looked like those of a woman nearing menopause. My antral follicle count (AFC) was only 4. If we did IVF now, the doctor said, that’s how many eggs she expected to harvest -- just 4. Not nearly enough for a promising cycle. The results from the blood test also corresponded to the levels of a menopausal woman. Here are the numbers, for those of you who already know what these mean:
Day 3 AMH: 0.311
Estradiol: 23.8
FSH: 13.8
I might have looked 30 on the outside, but I’d just turned 36, and on the inside I was closer to 50. Our doctor did not recommend that we move forward with IVF. We asked her what we could do instead. She suggested I try supplementing with DHEA, and gave us the recommended dosage (25 mg 3 times/day, for a total of 75 mg daily). She also recommended CoQ10, though she didn’t have a suggested dosage for that, and noted that my vitamin D levels were low. I started supplementing with each of those three things.
I noticed the effects of the DHEA very quickly. It’s an androgen, and can cause women to start sprouting extra body hair. My libido sprang up to teenager levels, and I got acne again.
I decided to take only 200 mg/day of the CoQ10 because it was expensive. That and the vitamin D seemed to give me more energy, maybe, but I couldn’t say for sure.
It took us longer to get pregnant the 3rd time. The miscarriage was the same.
Our OB explained again why she didn't recommend IVF for women with DOR, and told us about a patient of hers who’d had 9 miscarriages before having a successful pregnancy. We were lucky we were able to get pregnant so easily, she said. We were lucky that we didn’t have any other issues compounding the DOR.
If we wanted to explore other options, she told us, our best chance was to use an egg donor. Other than that, all we could do was keep trying. During my fertile window, and given our age, she recommended intercourse every 48 hours.
I doubled down on my research. I read everything I could find online, and read a lot of posts on message boards like the one I’m writing now. Here’s what I decided to do:

1. Lots of exercise, or at least “lots” by my desk-worker standards (brisk walks every day, gentle training with 10-to-20-pound weights a few times a week, and frequent bike rides)
2. Lots of time being happy and relaxed and out in the sun
3. Supplements:
   1. DHEA, 75 mg/day divided in 3 doses
   2. CoQ10, 800 mg/day (ubiquinone, the cheaper kind)
   3. Vitamin D3, 2,000 IU/day
   4. Acetyl L-carnitine, or Alcar, 250 mg/day (the typical dose is 500 mg, but I found this amount gave me nightmares; at 250 mg I felt more energetic, like I could do twice as much exercising as I normally did)
   5. Alpha lipoic acid, 300 mg/day (this makes your urine stink, but it’s inexpensive and safe, and in addition to helping with fertility, I also found studies about its benefit to diabetics and its effect on the pancreas)
   6. Black cohosh on cycle days 1 through 12 (it’s an herb, so I have no idea how much I was actually getting)
   7. Vitex (ditto)
   8. Prenatal vitamins
   9. Fish oil (why not)
   10. More soy foods and freshly ground flax seeds in my diet, for extra estrogen

A note about CoQ10: There are two kinds on the market, a cheaper one (ubiquinone) and an expensive one (ubiquinol), which is supposed to be better absorbed. Both are similar in structure to vitamin E, but are not classified as vitamins because your body can make them on its own. I went with a low-ish dosage of the expensive one the first time around, but after the third miscarriage, I switched to a higher dose of the cheaper one, 800 mg. I definitely noticed an increase in energy while I was taking it.
Here is a study on CoQ10 in follicular fluid and its association with better outcomes: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00404-011-2169-2
Here’s another (“Conclusion: Our observation leads to the hypothesis that the oral supplementation of CoQ10 may improve follicular fluid oxidative metabolism and oocyte quality, specially in over 35-year-old women”): https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/7/10/141
The positive news about CoQ10 keeps coming. I’ll stop with these: https://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12958-018-0343-0, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.12368
From what I learned while researching this stuff, both CoQ10 and acetyl l-carnitine are antioxidants that are thought to be active in the mitochondria. The mitochondria is sometimes called the “battery” of the cell, supplying its energy as it does its job. After an egg leaves the nourishing environment of the ovary for its journey down the fallopian tube, its only source of energy is its own mitochondria. That’s what keeps it fresh and alive. So an antioxidant that might help the mitochondria have more energy might be crucial for keeping egg cells, and the DNA inside them, better organized for longer -- long enough to conceive. This theory would apply to sperm cells as well, and is thought to be why taking these supplements gives people more energy. Young people have a lot of CoQ10 in their bodies, but after age 25 or so, our natural production goes down.
Here’s a study about egg quality and acetyl l-carnitine (ALCAR): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378432012002436
There isn’t as much research, especially in humans, on ACLAR as there is on CoQ10, but what’s been done so far looks promising. Here’s a study in mice: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378432012002436
As for alpha lipoic acid (ALA), my understanding is that this is thought to be beneficial for diabetics because of its effects on the pancreas. The pancreas and the ovaries are similar in the way they age (again, according to things I read while I was researching like crazy). While I’m not overweight, I’ve always had high blood sugar, and have type 2 diabetes on both sides of my family. So I added this to my regimen too.
Research: ALA supplementation is thought to be safe during pregnancy: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09513590.2018.1462320
A small study has shown ALA to be helpful in patients with PCOS undergoing IVF: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luisa_Caponecchia/publication/303088959_Effect_of_myo-inositol_and_alpha-lipoic_acid_on_oocyte_quality_in_polycystic_ovary_syndrome_non-obese_women_undergoing_in_vitro_fertilization_a_pilot_study/links/584fb41c08ae4bc8993b3211/Effect-of-myo-inositol-and-alpha-lipoic-acid-on-oocyte-quality-in-polycystic-ovary-syndrome-non-obese-women-undergoing-in-vitro-fertilization-a-pilot-study.pdf
Anyway, if you're still reading, pregnancy number 4 was a success. I quit every supplement except for prenatal vitamins. My doctor at the IVF clinic put me on progesterone until I got through week 10, in case a progesterone deficiency was the cause of my previous miscarriages. She’d never tested for this, so the progesterone was just a precaution. I’d always been plenty nauseated with each of my pregnancies, and the supplemental progesterone only made it worse. All I could eat were dry crackers. After reading a few things about the potential effects of progesterone on an embryo, I don’t think I’d do it again, not unless my doctor had a test result suggesting that it was what I really needed.
My doctor also recommended I start taking baby aspirin, 81 mgs/day, to be continued throughout the pregnancy, in case I had an issue with blood clotting that was causing the miscarriages. She’d never tested me for it, and given my AFC and AMH and FSH levels, it seemed like we already knew what my problem was, but she said it couldn’t hurt, so I went on it and stayed on it until 36 weeks.
Two years later, while I was supplementing with just prenatal vitamins and CoQ10, and without really trying, we got pregnant again. Baby #1 is now five years old, and #2 is three.

So far sales had been steady but not spectacular. Jenna hoped they would pick up after the school let out. She chatted and sampled with customers, pitching her spiel about supporting their troop's efforts to earn badges. It was fun work even if tiring on her feet.
Gazing up at the cloudless sky, Jenna wondered idly if it might rain later. The forecast hadn't mentioned anything, but you never knew. A tiny speck in the distance caught her eye. She squinted, trying to make it out. It grew rapidly in size—and shape. Whatever it was, it wasn't a bird.
"Hey Jamie, do you see that?" Jenna nudged her friend, pointing. Now the other girls had turned to look as well. What had been a speck was now clearly some large, cylindrical object descending from the heavens. It shone silvery-grey in the sunlight.
"Is that...a rocket ship?" breathed Tammy.
As it neared the treetops, its design became evident. Definitely not any spacecraft Jenna had seen on the news or in movies. It was smoothly rounded on all ends, with no visible engines or fins. Eerily silent, it drifted toward an open field and settled softly on four tapering legs.
The girls stared open-mouthed, cookies momentarily forgotten. A hatch appeared in the side of the ship. Light spilled out, glowing an ethereal blue. Then towering figures emerged, moving with an inhuman grace.
Jenna caught her breath. Peering closer, she could just make out bipedal forms wrapped in loose, silvery garments. Their limbs seemed overly long and jointed in odd places. As they turned in her direction, two dark eyes set wide in hairless faces met hers. No nose or mouth was visible beneath.
"Aliens," Jamie whispered. "Actual aliens. I don't believe it."
Tammy squeaked and clung to Jenna's arm. But Jenna's mind was racing. This was an incredible opportunity, too good to pass up. She flashed the others a mischievous smile. "Come on, girls. Let's go make some sales!"
The troop fell into step behind her as she marched into the field. The creatures had paused, gazing around at their surroundings with a palpable air of curiosity and caution. As Jenna neared, they angled their expressive eyes down at the little band approaching. Up close, their skin shimmered in shades of aqua and moss green, veined with silvery networks.
The tallest one shifted its gaze between the girls, as if taking their measure. It spoke, but the sound was like rushing wind and dripping water blended into an eerie melody. Its friends chattered in response, their voices blending into a dissonant choir.
Undeterred, Jenna beamed and proudly presented her box of Thin Mints. "Cookies!" she enunciated clearly. "Would you like to buy some cookies?" To her astonishment, a glowing rectangle like a computer screen lit up on the tall one's torso. Words scrolled across it in crisp English letters.
WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND. WHAT ARE COOKIES? IT SEEMS YOU ARE SELLING SOMETHING, BUT WE HAVE NO CURRENCY OF YOUR WORLD.
Jamie leaned in to whisper, eyes shining, "They can understand us! This is so cool."
Jenna gathered her thoughts, focusing on her sales pitch despite everything unusual about the situation. "Cookies are a sweet treat made of chocolate and biscuits. They're very popular here on Earth. And all the money we earn from selling them goes towards fun trips and learning new skills as Girl Scouts. Please, won't you buy a box to help support our troop? I'm sure you'll love them!"
The aliens conferred amongst themselves, still in untranslatablespeech. Finally, the glowing display lit up again. I APOLOGIZE, BUT WE HAVE NO MEANS OF TRANSACTION. WE ARE EXPLORERS HERE IN PEACE TO STUDY YOUR WORLD. PERHAPS ANOTHER TIME WE CAN BARTER. FOR NOW, WE ONLY WISH TO LEARN.
Jenna tried to hide her disappointment. This wasn't how she'd envisioned the interaction going at all. But she had come this far, so she wasn't giving up yet. An idea bloomed in her mind. "Well, since you want to learn about us, how about a trade? We'll give you a box of cookies to try in exchange for letting our whole troop come aboard your ship for a little while. What do you say?"
The girls held their breath. This was assuredly against every safety rule. But an opportunity for an out of this world experience was too enticing to pass up. The aliens conversed quietly before responding.
VERY WELL, HUMAN CHILDREN. FOR THE SAKE OF CULTURAL EXCHANGE, WE AGREE TO YOUR TRADE. COME, WE SHALL GIVE YOU A TOUR OF OUR VESSEL.
Screeches of delight arose from the Scout troop. Jenna tried to shush them, not wanting the aliens to change their minds. But she couldn't contain her own grin of excitement and triumph. This was going to be one very memorable cookie sale!
Jenna stepped forward nervously, holding out the box of Thin Mints for the aliens to see. She did her best salesperson smile while gesturing to the colorful packaging. "Cookies!" she said again loudly and clearly.
The tallest alien leaned down, its large dark eyes fixing on the box in Jenna's hands. A long, nimble finger reached out to poke gently at the box, then drew back just as swiftly. Its companions murmured again in their strange tongue.
Frustrated not being able to communicate properly, Jenna popped open the lid so the sweet scent could waft up. She took one mint and mimed taking a bite, sighing happily and rubbing her belly. The aliens copied the sign for stomach, looking quizzical.
An idea sparked in Jenna's mind. Rummaging in her bag, she pulled out her phone and found the notepad app. Typing awkwardly with her thumbs, she showed them the words "Will you trade for this?" Arrows pointed to the cookies and to their ship.
A spark of understanding lit in the aliens' eyes as they studied the makeshift message. Their glowing display lit up in response. I APOLOGIZE, SMALL HUMAN, BUT WE HAVE NOTHING OF VALUE FROM OUR WORLD TO OFFER IN RETURN. OUR MISSION HERE IS ONE OF DISCOVERY ONLY.
"Please?" Jenna typed, giving her best pleading look. The girls clustered behind her, joining in the silent begging. But the aliens only seemed perplexed by this behavior.
Suddenly Tammy piped up, "What if we clean your ship for you? We'll dust and sweep and take out the garbage." The others stared at her, surprised by this inventive offer.
The display considered this. THAT IS A GENEROUS OFFER. HOWEVER, OUR CRAFT UTILIZES TECHNOLOGY FAR BEYOND YOUR WORLD'S CURRENT STAGE. I DOUBT YOU COULD PERFORM MAINTENANCE TO OUR STANDARDS.
At this rejection, the girls deflated with twin sounds of disappointment. But Jenna wasn't giving up yet. She furiously texted another message. "How about you give us a little tour then? We promise to be very careful and not touch anything."
The aliens conferred quietly amongst themselves for several moments. The girls held their breath, hoping their persistence was finally paying off. Then the glowing display lit up once more.
VERY WELL, SMALL HUMANS. FOR THE SAKE OF CULTURAL EXCHANGE, WE WILL ALLOW YOU A BRIEF LOOK INSIDE OUR VESSEL. BUT YOU MUST FOLLOW OUR INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. OUR TECHNOLOGY COULD PROVE DANGEROUS IF MISUSED.
The Girl Scouts whooped and cheered, doing a little victory dance. Jenna grinned, popping another Thin Mint in her mouth triumphantly. "Deal! Thank you so much for this."
The tallest alien gestured gracefully with one long arm. "THIS WAY, YOUNG ONES. WE SHALL BEGIN OUR TOUR."
Clutching their cookie boxes eagerly, the girls fell into line behind the extraterrestrials. They followed them up a floating gangway into the belly of the ship.
Inside, the walls glowed with an otherworldly luminescence. Strange symbols and interfaces winked all around, totally indecipherable. The floors felt bouncy underfoot, as if made of gelatin.
"Wow," breathed Jamie. "It's so beautiful in here."
The aliens guided them through sleek corridors and compartments full of glowing tech. They pointed out living quarters, a laboratory, hydroponic gardens, and an observation deck showing the curve of the Earth.
In the cockpit, countless viewscreens displayed alien constellations and scans of their small town below. Control panels rippled like liquid mercury beneath touch.
"This is where we navigated our journey to your solar system," explained their guides. "Truly a marvel, the distances stars can be bridged.
Tammy peered out the main viewing portal. "Your ship is so fast! How did you get here from wherever you came from?"
As the explorers launched into an explanation involving hyperdrives and folded spacetime, Jenna began to lose the thread. Space travel clearly worked very differently where these beings hailed from.
Their tour lasted nearly an hour, the aliens answering every barrage of questions patiently. All too soon, it was over, and they found themselves back outside in the late afternoon sun
"Thank you so much for the amazing tour!" Jenna gushed, hugging her now-empty cookie box. "Learning about aliens is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
The tallest being dipped its head graciously. "IT WAS OUR PLEASURE, SMALL HUMANS. YOU HAVE PROVIDED US AN INSIGHT INTO YOUR YOUNG ONES AS WELL."
Its fellows chattered in their musical language, some holding half-eaten cookies and gesturing appreciatively. Jenna beamed, glad they seemed to have enjoyed the treats.
"Will you come back to see us again?" asked Jamie hopefully.
"PERHAPS, IF OUR EXPLORATIONS BRING US BACK THIS WAY," was the reply. "BUT FOR NOW, WE MUST RESUME OUR JOURNEY AMONG THE STARS. FAREWELL, AND THANK YOU ONCE MORE FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY.
The aliens turned as one and glided back up the gangway. The rockets flared, rising gracefully into the sky until they vanished into the dusk.
The girls stood watching long after, buzzing with excited chatter about this unforgettable day. In the end, it had been the best cookie sale ever. Maybe even worth breaking a few rules...

Caveat that I am not saying this IS a comprehensive list yet, I just didn't find any source online that managed to capture everything I know so I'm putting what I know here in hopes that others will add to it and it gets put into a wiki or somewhere consolidated that looks prettier than this reddit post.
If there already is a list then please forgive and enlighten me.

• Cyclops: Breakable Parts; Tusks, Armor
  • Hitting their eye will enrage and "blind" them temporarily. I don't know what temporarily blinding them does except to be a spot of increased damage and pissing them off
  • knocking them over certain key terrain
    • bridges/ravines will make them reach out to the other side while keeping their feet propped up on the original side in a hilarious wannabe spiderman cyclops bridge formation.
    • near walls can have them hit their head and instantly topple them rather than just down to their knees
  • When they are on their knees you can grab their hands and pull them to knock them down prone
  • If they have a helmet on you can grab it while theyre prone and pull it off
  • Hitting their weapon hand will cause them to drop it, but eventually they will try to find it and pick it back up. i have tried many techniques to dispose of the weapon but have never successfully interacted with it on the ground
  • I have heard as the trickster if you place your clone on their face, they will bonk their own face. I have not confirmed this.
  • This isn't a weakness and vulnerable spot post but because Cyclops' have a PARTICULAR weakness against electricity I feel like it's worth mentioning they get stunned much easier than other monsters due to their fleshy surface area I guess.
• Ogre Breakable Parts; Hands
  • They fixate on women and if a male is feminine appearing it will trick the ogre and they will become extra enraged when they find out a feminine appearing male is actually a dude. Not super sure if they become easier to enrage for the rest of the battle
  • You can break their hands. This takes a lot of damage and is kind of hard to justify over hitting their head. Supposedly this makes it easier to break out of their grip but i can't say I've definitely noticed a difference in battle when after I broke their hands
  • When they are curled up and covering their head like a jiu-jitsu turtle move you can grab their hands and pull them out of it. I assume this would prone them, but I've never gotten to their arms in enough time to actually finish pulling them out of it. They are stubborn.
  • GORE VERSION: I don't THINK it's any different. Just stronger and uglier
• Griffin Breakable Parts: None
  • Not much here except that they are super vulnerable to being set on fire which will knock them out of the sky
  • Maybe it's worth saying you can ride them to their nest if you want an extra method of really inconvenient faster travel
• Chimera Breakable Parts: Goat head, Lion Head, Snake head, Snake body(severed)
  • The last phase of this fight will be different depending on if you killed the Goat head or Lion head first. The last one alive will become a bit empowered and be extra annoying to deal with
  • You can cut the snake head off after you kill it. I don't know what the point is other than possibly an extra chance at grabbing a monster drop, but I've only ever gotten a measly beast skin from the snake part
  • After you kill either the goat or the lion it becomes SUPER easy to knock over. since it's out of balance
  • GORE VERSION: I don't believe you can cut off the tail, but silencing the Goat will prevent it from resurrecting the other heads
• Garm Breakable Parts: none
  • I got nothing. Big puppy
• Worg Breakable Parts: none
  • Also big puppy. Oh I forgot, I haven't confirmed it but they possible have the same inclination towards dropped meat or meat in your packs as wolves. See note below because that's when I remembered. I mix these two up a lot and honestly they are one of the rarest monsters for me.
• Minotaur Breakable Parts: Horns
  • You can break the horns obviously and trick it into ramming a wall which will stun them
  • I have tried to attack their weapon hand but I have never been able to get them to drop it
  • GORE VERSION: Like the ogre. No differences I've noticed other than stronger and uglier.
• Drakes Breakable Parts: Chest, Wings(slashed)
  • Obviously hitting the chest breaks open their heart cavity which reveals their only true weakpoint
  • Supposedly you can slash their wings. I've never done it but I imagine it would prevent them from flying away
  • They shit talk you and wanna cash you ouside
• Dragons Breakable Parts: All the boils and pus sacks.....gross
  • Not sure if the wings are also slash able
• Dullahan Breakable Parts: Just the flames of your own ambition
  • They will help you put your foolish ambitions to rest
  • They don't even give AF about the brine. They are immune to it and will write your meager attempt on your grave
  • Enough hits to the head will stagger it and put it on it's knees temporarily until it feels like it has given thee courtesy enough
  • If your strength befits a crown they still don't give AF because they wear two severed heads with crowns as a predator's battle trophy.
• Sphinx Breakable Parts: Consent
  • Don't touch her no-no zone. If you attack her human parts she doesn't like that and I think will immediately fly away to file a restraining order and won't show up again in your game. I figured out the clues to hit her beast half so I'm not sure EXACTLY the repercussions since I am also a big fan of enthusiastic consent.
  • She doesn't mind rides though so you can ride her from her first location to her second if you can act fast enough to grab on.
• Liches and Wights: Breakable parts, none.
  • Straightforward fight. Did not notice any unique interactions or mechanics. One of them said something about interrupting him and how dare I (in the waterfall cave I believe) The others weren't as conversationalist as that one for me, Sad.

Small enemies I won't do an individual breakdown for each one but

• If you kill the biggest most leaderist looking hobgoblin the others will supposedly scatter. I'm either too busy looking for my life alert because i cant get up while getting curb stomped by Mad Max's Mordor little league team or too busy thinking about how much I dislike sand as I wipe out every last one of them to notice their behavior change all that much
• Oil oozes combust with fire, Other oozes freeze super easy and make them vulnerable to physical attacks
• You can grab onto harpies and sort of kind of steer them after you give up pointing at a 4 foot cliff with a 3 foot jump to your Patrick faced pawn with springboard for the 234th time.
• Wolves will be attracted to whoever has the most meat in their packs and will be distracted by dropped meat
• Saurians: Tails obviously. I have tried to see if there was any differencce in spawn time if I burned and destroyed all the eggs in a cave. I don't think there is but have not confirmed.
• Phantasms, ghosts, and such: They are attracted to your lantern light but not as much as my ice volley shot is attracted to them. Fie upon them and their bullshit guerilla warfare.
• Bandits: I have never tried carrying one into jail but let me know if any of you pull this off and if it was worth it.

That's all I got. Let me know if Im missing anything or if got anything wrong or if I completely wasted my time here and this already exists but better and prettier somewhere else.
Edits from other comments:
-Magma slimes can be cooled and hardened by water. -if slimes die with you inside they'll fill your oil lantern up a bit

• confirmed garm and warg have the same behavior as wolves with meat

-Anodyne/holy magic underneath Liches and wights will stun them. -They may also resurrect corpses of other large monsters that are then weak to the same since they're undead now
-I totally forgot about golems, lol. When they are "decompressing or going into cool down mode you can topple then and they will become headless although their head will still shoot lasers. But now you can point that laser by moving the head around with grab
-one of the ghost things(specters maybe) can mind control you or your pawns which can be healed with anodyne
-drakes can be toppled while they are trying to mind control your pawn but you have to be quick about pushing their legs as soon as they rear up

What am I doing? Dominick Mason asked himself for the hundredth time that night. It was late on a rainy Sunday evening and Dom, a tall, lanky man-boy of twenty-five with a prominent Adam’s apple and too big eyes, stared out the rain-slicked window of the 905. The big bus swayed and jostled as it lumbered down Central Avenue, the movements strangely comforting, conducive to reflection…and self-doubt.
As if on cue, his phone buzzed, and a pit opened up in his stomach. He fumbled it out with long fingers and read the text. Are u almost here
His thumb hovered over the screen, but he did not reply. Part of him wanted to block the number, slink back home with his tail between his legs, and forget the whole thing. He could boot up his PS4 and play Red Dead Redemption or GTA V like always. Safe. Familiar. The thought, however, stirred a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It was dread.
Every night, he did the same thing. He came home from work to his tiny prison cell apartment. He had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He played video games until it was time to go to bed. The worst part of the whole night was when he turned off the TV and saw his murky reflection in the screen. Plaid. Scrawny. Disgusting. He hated being locked in that apartment, with its old smells and white walls, but he hated going out even more. At least in his hole, he was safe, like a mouse. No one hurt or lied to him there. No one gave him funny looks. No one rejected him. He was completely safe in his solitude, a wounded animal hiding in its den and licking its wounds.
He was wounded and he knew it.
And he hated himself for it. Hated that he wasn’t stronger or better. Hated that even though he tried so hard, everything he did fell apart…if it even came together in the first place, which it rarely did.
The phone buzzed again.
Just a question mark this time.
His heart began to race and a steely fist slowly closed around his lungs. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and took a deep breath. He pictured himself alone in his little apartment. He loved the image, but he hated it too. Most nights, he didn’t mind being alone. He had to not mind it, because he didn’t have a choice. Some nights…some nights he didn’t want to be alone. Some nights he wanted warmth, he wanted tenderness…some nights, he wanted to be human.
Every so often, Dom would get the urge to find those things. They came less frequently than they did before, but unfortunately, they still came. He would create an account on Plenty of Fish and OKCupid, maybe some of the other sites as well. He would agonize over his stupid intro and his stupid list of hobbies. He would spend hours - literally hours - writing and rewriting them, trying at first to be serious, then light and funny, then cool, then aloof, then vulnerable. He would take the best possible pictures from the best possible angles, then upload them, never lingering over them because he hated the way he looked. He didn’t think he was ugly - mid was more like it - but apparently, he was ugly. Too ugly for love, too ugly even to talk to.
The ugly barnacle. So ugly that everyone died. The end.
All of Dom’s pictures were all selfies, of course. Guys he listened to on YouTube said he needed action shots, shots with friends, shots that showed women he had a life, was valued by those around him, and knew how to have fun. Too bad for him, he had no friends and no one valued him, not even his own mother. On the surface, maybe, but she had hurt him so many times over the years in so many ways that even the most devout son would stop and think.
It had to be selfies.
When his profile was in order - or as much in order as he could get it - he would start to browse. Dom knew his place and never messaged women who were too beautiful. He used to, but they never responded. He eventually began to skip their profiles with a pang of loss and a quiet what if? Now, he barely noticed them. Blonde. Petite. Blue eyes. Maybe she was a cheerleader at one time, maybe she was the type of girl who looked down her nose at guys like him. Maybe she was a sweetheart. In any case, he would never find out, so who cares?
He went for women he could realistically obtain…the type of women he’d dated and hooked up with in the past. Some were attractive in their own way, others were hard to look at, he wasn’t picky; he couldn’t afford to be picky. One woman he saw was a good three hundred pounds. She was nice and he liked her enough, but he lapsed into depression while they were dating and he never messaged her back…not that she made a huge effort to message him. Another was a pre-K teacher in her mid-thirties. Overweight with a big nose, glasses, and a plain face when she wasn’t wearing make-up. He liked her a lot and wanted to be with her, but after a month of weekend hookups, she said she didn’t love him. She told him she wanted a family - three kids, to be exact - but “changed her mind.” No, she didn’t. She just didn’t want those things with him.
Now she was in her late thirties, single, and having regrets.
She still wouldn’t settle for him, though.
Another woman he’d seen recently (six months ago) was fifty, but not unattractive. They texted for weeks, hot and heavy. She outright told him that she wanted to have sex with him. Said all sorts of nasty and sexual things. Their first (and only date) was her coming to his apartment. Instead of tender kisses, loving caresses, and intense emotions, they shared an awkward two hours on his couch. When he tried to hold her hand and put his arm around her, she stiffened. Not much, just a little. She said she “wasn’t ready.” He sat there and watched the flowers he’d gotten her wilt as she talked about her ex for an hour and a half, his arms pointedly crossed. He even leaned as far away from her as humanly possible, trying to communicate with his body language what he didn’t have the guts to communicate with his words: I’m uncomfortable, please leave. He planned to take her to a nice restaurant after they made love. Instead, he ordered something after she finally got the hint and left, eating alone like always.
After her, he deleted his profile (again) and resolved to never bother with dating again. Obviously there was something wrong with him. He saw guys who were uglier and more awkward than him with girlfriends, some actually stunning, but there was something about him in particular, something that repelled women…and men too.
Everyone.
It repelled everyone.
Maybe it was his self-loathing. After all, no one likes a sad sack. But that’s the thing: He was like this because of those experiences. It was a what came first, the chicken or the egg situation. Looking back, he had almost normal confidence at one point. Then all of this happened. The hundreds of messages he sent on the dating apps staying on read, unanswered, like he never sent them at all, like he was garbage unworthy of even a hello. The awkward dates. The occasional “success” that eventually fell apart…sometimes because of him, and sometimes because of them. The one girl who ran away from him when he tried to walk her to her car after a date. They didn’t click, he knew that, but he didn’t say or do anything creepy. Why did she do that? The girls who lead him on, talking about sex and sometimes even love but always had a reason they couldn’t meet.
There were other examples - many others - but it was all the same. Who cared?
Dom wanted to crawl back into his hole and stay there, to stop poking his head out and getting hurt. He wanted it so bad…but he was only human. Deep down, buried beneath layer after layer of scar tissue, there was still hope. Hope for love, for companionship, for acceptance, for intimacy and human touch. It was only an ember now, but even an ember is enough to spark a fire.
Some nights, he wanted to be safe. Other nights, he wanted to take a risk.
And this night was one of the latter.
Be there soon, he texted. He swallowed hard and wetted his lips. His heart was pounding faster and his bowels were loose. He really hoped this worked out. He didn’t think he could handle another rejection. If she turned him down, he’d probably go home and kill himself. Why go on like this?
He’d had that thought before…but he never followed through.
Maybe one day he’d actually shut the fuck up and do it already.
Maybe.
Ok :)
Her name was Heather and she was fat. She was not unattractive in the face and she wore her weight well, not that that mattered - he would take what he could get. They started talking on OKCupid last week and very soon, the conversation became sexual. He didn’t start it, though, she did. She was ahem very excited, she said. He liked to think that she was lonely, desperate, and wanted intimacy - any intimacy - just like him.
That really turned him on.
They agreed to meet, and now here he was, on the bus to her apartment on the other side of the city, hoping against hope that she didn’t hurt him too.
He put the phone away and stared straight ahead. The bus was nearly deserted, save for an old bag lady up front and a few Mexican guys in the back. Lights lined the bus’s roof, providing a cold, impersonal light. Dom took a deep breath and forced his dark emotions away. It was all on him to make this work. He would accept her fat, ugly, poor, and crippled, but he had to work to earn her love. He could do it.
When the bus finally reached his stop, he yanked the cord and got off. There was a plexiglass shelter lit by a single, lonely bulb. Trash littered the ground. Beyond the shelter, a park lay in darkness. Behind him, on the other side of the road, a housing project not unlike his own towered into the sky, lit up like a ship at sail. Dom swallowed his nerves and crossed the street. He found the door that she had directed him to use, and climbed the stairs. He expected trash, graffiti, and winos passed out on every landing. Instead, the stairwell was clean and deserted. His nerves welled as he climbed but he forced them down again. On the ninth floor, he went down the hall, battered on all sides by the stale smells of cooking and the murmur of TVs and voices coming from every apartment.
Dom paused at Apartment 237.
Heather’s.
You got this, he told himself.
And really, he did. Their plan - well, Heather’s, really - was simple and straightforward. She told him that she would leave the door unlocked. He was to come in, go to the bedroom, and she would be waiting for him. She said it was a fantasy of hers.
On some level, he knew all along that the whole setup sounded fishy. Was he being set up to get robbed? Would he walk in and get jumped by a bunch of Crips? He hesitated, but his need for love - and, yes, release - pushed him on.
He opened the door.
Inside, the apartment was small and messy, a living room to the right and a tiny kitchen to the left. The only light on was the one above the stove.
Everything else was in shadows.
Dom’s heart skipped a beat.
This didn’t feel right.
That thought was overpowered by the smell, a sickly sweet odor that suddenly seemed to be everywhere. His stomach twisted and he turned his head slightly to one side, as if to spare his nose. It smelled like something spoiled.
A voice spoke from the darkness, startling him. “I’m in here.”
It was light, airy, and cute.
For the last time, Dom hesitated. Some primal sense told him to turn around and leave…
…but he wanted to be loved.
Dom entered and shut the door behind him.
The smell was stronger. The atmosphere darker.
Ahead, he could barely make out an open doorway in the shadows.
He crossed to it.
The smell was overpowering here and Dom felt like he was going to puke. Any desire he had felt was gone, replaced only by revulsion and claustrophobia. It was cold, he realized, so cold that his teeth chattered.
Okay, fuck this.
He started to turn around, intent on leaving, but a small, white hand reached from the darkness. Icy fingertips brushed his cheek and his heart blasted into his throat.
Then she was there, her body pressing against his and her lips fused with his. The smell, the freezer chill, both stronger than ever.
They were both coming from her.
Her tongue hungrily lashed his own, and she pushed him against the wall. Her hands slipped under his shirt and pressed flat against his chest. They were so cold that he almost cried out.
Dom wanted to push her away, to run, but he didn’t. Instead, he froze up and allowed her to push him onto the bed. Was he too gutless to tell her no, the way he’d been too gutless to tell the woman who went on and on about her ex to shut up and leave? Did he secretly want to go through with this? He didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to figure it out. She was on top of him now, straddling him, his legs caged between her ample thighs. She grabbed his hands and pressed them to her bare breasts.
They were as cold as the rest of her.
She leaned down and kissed him again. He hadn’t noticed it before, but her tongue was…dry. Her mouth itself tasted strange. Off.
Heather broke from his lips and peppered kisses on his cheek and forehead, assaulting him with an intimacy that Dom no longer wanted.
Through it all, she was as silent as a tomb. She wasn’t panting or rasping with excitement. In fact, he didn’t think she was even breathing.
She brushed her lips along the exposed curve of his throat, and tingles of revulsion shot down his spine. She found his pulse and kissed it. Trembles of excitement raced through her body and she started to lap his neck like a dog.
Without warning, a fiery pinprick of pain exploded over him and Heather began to shake and pant. Dom cried out and tried to fight her off, but she was too heavy, too much.
With a tiny, mouse-like squeak - a sound of pitiable fear and resignation - Dom blacked out.

What am I doing? Dominick Mason asked himself for the hundredth time that night. It was late on a rainy Sunday evening and Dom, a tall, lanky man-boy of twenty-five with a prominent Adam’s apple and too big eyes, stared out the rain-slicked window of the 905. The big bus swayed and jostled as it lumbered down Central Avenue, the movements strangely comforting, conducive to reflection…and self-doubt.
As if on cue, his phone buzzed, and a pit opened up in his stomach. He fumbled it out with long fingers and read the text. Are u almost here
His thumb hovered over the screen, but he did not reply. Part of him wanted to block the number, slink back home with his tail between his legs, and forget the whole thing. He could boot up his PS4 and play Red Dead Redemption or GTA V like always. Safe. Familiar. The thought, however, stirred a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It was dread.
Every night, he did the same thing. He came home from work to his tiny prison cell apartment. He had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He played video games until it was time to go to bed. The worst part of the whole night was when he turned off the TV and saw his murky reflection in the screen. Plaid. Scrawny. Disgusting. He hated being locked in that apartment, with its old smells and white walls, but he hated going out even more. At least in his hole, he was safe, like a mouse. No one hurt or lied to him there. No one gave him funny looks. No one rejected him. He was completely safe in his solitude, a wounded animal hiding in its den and licking its wounds.
He was wounded and he knew it.
And he hated himself for it. Hated that he wasn’t stronger or better. Hated that even though he tried so hard, everything he did fell apart…if it even came together in the first place, which it rarely did.
The phone buzzed again.
Just a question mark this time.
His heart began to race and a steely fist slowly closed around his lungs. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and took a deep breath. He pictured himself alone in his little apartment. He loved the image, but he hated it too. Most nights, he didn’t mind being alone. He had to not mind it, because he didn’t have a choice. Some nights…some nights he didn’t want to be alone. Some nights he wanted warmth, he wanted tenderness…some nights, he wanted to be human.
Every so often, Dom would get the urge to find those things. They came less frequently than they did before, but unfortunately, they still came. He would create an account on Plenty of Fish and OKCupid, maybe some of the other sites as well. He would agonize over his stupid intro and his stupid list of hobbies. He would spend hours - literally hours - writing and rewriting them, trying at first to be serious, then light and funny, then cool, then aloof, then vulnerable. He would take the best possible pictures from the best possible angles, then upload them, never lingering over them because he hated the way he looked. He didn’t think he was ugly - mid was more like it - but apparently, he was ugly. Too ugly for love, too ugly even to talk to.
The ugly barnacle. So ugly that everyone died. The end.
All of Dom’s pictures were all selfies, of course. Guys he listened to on YouTube said he needed action shots, shots with friends, shots that showed women he had a life, was valued by those around him, and knew how to have fun. Too bad for him, he had no friends and no one valued him, not even his own mother. On the surface, maybe, but she had hurt him so many times over the years in so many ways that even the most devout son would stop and think.
It had to be selfies.
When his profile was in order - or as much in order as he could get it - he would start to browse. Dom knew his place and never messaged women who were too beautiful. He used to, but they never responded. He eventually began to skip their profiles with a pang of loss and a quiet what if? Now, he barely noticed them. Blonde. Petite. Blue eyes. Maybe she was a cheerleader at one time, maybe she was the type of girl who looked down her nose at guys like him. Maybe she was a sweetheart. In any case, he would never find out, so who cares?
He went for women he could realistically obtain…the type of women he’d dated and hooked up with in the past. Some were attractive in their own way, others were hard to look at, he wasn’t picky; he couldn’t afford to be picky. One woman he saw was a good three hundred pounds. She was nice and he liked her enough, but he lapsed into depression while they were dating and he never messaged her back…not that she made a huge effort to message him. Another was a pre-K teacher in her mid-thirties. Overweight with a big nose, glasses, and a plain face when she wasn’t wearing make-up. He liked her a lot and wanted to be with her, but after a month of weekend hookups, she said she didn’t love him. She told him she wanted a family - three kids, to be exact - but “changed her mind.” No, she didn’t. She just didn’t want those things with him.
Now she was in her late thirties, single, and having regrets.
She still wouldn’t settle for him, though.
Another woman he’d seen recently (six months ago) was fifty, but not unattractive. They texted for weeks, hot and heavy. She outright told him that she wanted to have sex with him. Said all sorts of nasty and sexual things. Their first (and only date) was her coming to his apartment. Instead of tender kisses, loving caresses, and intense emotions, they shared an awkward two hours on his couch. When he tried to hold her hand and put his arm around her, she stiffened. Not much, just a little. She said she “wasn’t ready.” He sat there and watched the flowers he’d gotten her wilt as she talked about her ex for an hour and a half, his arms pointedly crossed. He even leaned as far away from her as humanly possible, trying to communicate with his body language what he didn’t have the guts to communicate with his words: I’m uncomfortable, please leave. He planned to take her to a nice restaurant after they made love. Instead, he ordered something after she finally got the hint and left, eating alone like always.
After her, he deleted his profile (again) and resolved to never bother with dating again. Obviously there was something wrong with him. He saw guys who were uglier and more awkward than him with girlfriends, some actually stunning, but there was something about him in particular, something that repelled women…and men too.
Everyone.
It repelled everyone.
Maybe it was his self-loathing. After all, no one likes a sad sack. But that’s the thing: He was like this because of those experiences. It was a what came first, the chicken or the egg situation. Looking back, he had almost normal confidence at one point. Then all of this happened. The hundreds of messages he sent on the dating apps staying on read, unanswered, like he never sent them at all, like he was garbage unworthy of even a hello. The awkward dates. The occasional “success” that eventually fell apart…sometimes because of him, and sometimes because of them. The one girl who ran away from him when he tried to walk her to her car after a date. They didn’t click, he knew that, but he didn’t say or do anything creepy. Why did she do that? The girls who lead him on, talking about sex and sometimes even love but always had a reason they couldn’t meet.
There were other examples - many others - but it was all the same. Who cared?
Dom wanted to crawl back into his hole and stay there, to stop poking his head out and getting hurt. He wanted it so bad…but he was only human. Deep down, buried beneath layer after layer of scar tissue, there was still hope. Hope for love, for companionship, for acceptance, for intimacy and human touch. It was only an ember now, but even an ember is enough to spark a fire.
Some nights, he wanted to be safe. Other nights, he wanted to take a risk.
And this night was one of the latter.
Be there soon, he texted. He swallowed hard and wetted his lips. His heart was pounding faster and his bowels were loose. He really hoped this worked out. He didn’t think he could handle another rejection. If she turned him down, he’d probably go home and kill himself. Why go on like this?
He’d had that thought before…but he never followed through.
Maybe one day he’d actually shut the fuck up and do it already.
Maybe.
Ok :)
Her name was Heather and she was fat. She was not unattractive in the face and she wore her weight well, not that that mattered - he would take what he could get. They started talking on OKCupid last week and very soon, the conversation became sexual. He didn’t start it, though, she did. She was ahem very excited, she said. He liked to think that she was lonely, desperate, and wanted intimacy - any intimacy - just like him.
That really turned him on.
They agreed to meet, and now here he was, on the bus to her apartment on the other side of the city, hoping against hope that she didn’t hurt him too.
He put the phone away and stared straight ahead. The bus was nearly deserted, save for an old bag lady up front and a few Mexican guys in the back. Lights lined the bus’s roof, providing a cold, impersonal light. Dom took a deep breath and forced his dark emotions away. It was all on him to make this work. He would accept her fat, ugly, poor, and crippled, but he had to work to earn her love. He could do it.
When the bus finally reached his stop, he yanked the cord and got off. There was a plexiglass shelter lit by a single, lonely bulb. Trash littered the ground. Beyond the shelter, a park lay in darkness. Behind him, on the other side of the road, a housing project not unlike his own towered into the sky, lit up like a ship at sail. Dom swallowed his nerves and crossed the street. He found the door that she had directed him to use, and climbed the stairs. He expected trash, graffiti, and winos passed out on every landing. Instead, the stairwell was clean and deserted. His nerves welled as he climbed but he forced them down again. On the ninth floor, he went down the hall, battered on all sides by the stale smells of cooking and the murmur of TVs and voices coming from every apartment.
Dom paused at Apartment 237.
Heather’s.
You got this, he told himself.
And really, he did. Their plan - well, Heather’s, really - was simple and straightforward. She told him that she would leave the door unlocked. He was to come in, go to the bedroom, and she would be waiting for him. She said it was a fantasy of hers.
On some level, he knew all along that the whole setup sounded fishy. Was he being set up to get robbed? Would he walk in and get jumped by a bunch of Crips? He hesitated, but his need for love - and, yes, release - pushed him on.
He opened the door.
Inside, the apartment was small and messy, a living room to the right and a tiny kitchen to the left. The only light on was the one above the stove.
Everything else was in shadows.
Dom’s heart skipped a beat.
This didn’t feel right.
That thought was overpowered by the smell, a sickly sweet odor that suddenly seemed to be everywhere. His stomach twisted and he turned his head slightly to one side, as if to spare his nose. It smelled like something spoiled.
A voice spoke from the darkness, startling him. “I’m in here.”
It was light, airy, and cute.
For the last time, Dom hesitated. Some primal sense told him to turn around and leave…
…but he wanted to be loved.
Dom entered and shut the door behind him.
The smell was stronger. The atmosphere darker.
Ahead, he could barely make out an open doorway in the shadows.
He crossed to it.
The smell was overpowering here and Dom felt like he was going to puke. Any desire he had felt was gone, replaced only by revulsion and claustrophobia. It was cold, he realized, so cold that his teeth chattered.
Okay, fuck this.
He started to turn around, intent on leaving, but a small, white hand reached from the darkness. Icy fingertips brushed his cheek and his heart blasted into his throat.
Then she was there, her body pressing against his and her lips fused with his. The smell, the freezer chill, both stronger than ever.
They were both coming from her.
Her tongue hungrily lashed his own, and she pushed him against the wall. Her hands slipped under his shirt and pressed flat against his chest. They were so cold that he almost cried out.
Dom wanted to push her away, to run, but he didn’t. Instead, he froze up and allowed her to push him onto the bed. Was he too gutless to tell her no, the way he’d been too gutless to tell the woman who went on and on about her ex to shut up and leave? Did he secretly want to go through with this? He didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to figure it out. She was on top of him now, straddling him, his legs caged between her ample thighs. She grabbed his hands and pressed them to her bare breasts.
They were as cold as the rest of her.
She leaned down and kissed him again. He hadn’t noticed it before, but her tongue was…dry. Her mouth itself tasted strange. Off.
Heather broke from his lips and peppered kisses on his cheek and forehead, assaulting him with an intimacy that Dom no longer wanted.
Through it all, she was as silent as a tomb. She wasn’t panting or rasping with excitement. In fact, he didn’t think she was even breathing.
She brushed her lips along the exposed curve of his throat, and tingles of revulsion shot down his spine. She found his pulse and kissed it. Trembles of excitement raced through her body and she started to lap his neck like a dog.
Without warning, a fiery pinprick of pain exploded over him and Heather began to shake and pant. Dom cried out and tried to fight her off, but she was too heavy, too much.
With a tiny, mouse-like squeak - a sound of pitiable fear and resignation - Dom blacked out.

What am I doing? Dominick Mason asked himself for the hundredth time that night. It was late on a rainy Sunday evening and Dom, a tall, lanky man-boy of twenty-five with a prominent Adam’s apple and too big eyes, stared out the rain-slicked window of the 905. The big bus swayed and jostled as it lumbered down Central Avenue, the movements strangely comforting, conducive to reflection…and self-doubt.
As if on cue, his phone buzzed, and a pit opened up in his stomach. He fumbled it out with long fingers and read the text. Are u almost here
His thumb hovered over the screen, but he did not reply. Part of him wanted to block the number, slink back home with his tail between his legs, and forget the whole thing. He could boot up his PS4 and play Red Dead Redemption or GTA V like always. Safe. Familiar. The thought, however, stirred a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It was dread.
Every night, he did the same thing. He came home from work to his tiny prison cell apartment. He had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He played video games until it was time to go to bed. The worst part of the whole night was when he turned off the TV and saw his murky reflection in the screen. Plaid. Scrawny. Disgusting. He hated being locked in that apartment, with its old smells and white walls, but he hated going out even more. At least in his hole, he was safe, like a mouse. No one hurt or lied to him there. No one gave him funny looks. No one rejected him. He was completely safe in his solitude, a wounded animal hiding in its den and licking its wounds.
He was wounded and he knew it.
And he hated himself for it. Hated that he wasn’t stronger or better. Hated that even though he tried so hard, everything he did fell apart…if it even came together in the first place, which it rarely did.
The phone buzzed again.
Just a question mark this time.
His heart began to race and a steely fist slowly closed around his lungs. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and took a deep breath. He pictured himself alone in his little apartment. He loved the image, but he hated it too. Most nights, he didn’t mind being alone. He had to not mind it, because he didn’t have a choice. Some nights…some nights he didn’t want to be alone. Some nights he wanted warmth, he wanted tenderness…some nights, he wanted to be human.
Every so often, Dom would get the urge to find those things. They came less frequently than they did before, but unfortunately, they still came. He would create an account on Plenty of Fish and OKCupid, maybe some of the other sites as well. He would agonize over his stupid intro and his stupid list of hobbies. He would spend hours - literally hours - writing and rewriting them, trying at first to be serious, then light and funny, then cool, then aloof, then vulnerable. He would take the best possible pictures from the best possible angles, then upload them, never lingering over them because he hated the way he looked. He didn’t think he was ugly - mid was more like it - but apparently, he was ugly. Too ugly for love, too ugly even to talk to.
The ugly barnacle. So ugly that everyone died. The end.
All of Dom’s pictures were all selfies, of course. Guys he listened to on YouTube said he needed action shots, shots with friends, shots that showed women he had a life, was valued by those around him, and knew how to have fun. Too bad for him, he had no friends and no one valued him, not even his own mother. On the surface, maybe, but she had hurt him so many times over the years in so many ways that even the most devout son would stop and think.
It had to be selfies.
When his profile was in order - or as much in order as he could get it - he would start to browse. Dom knew his place and never messaged women who were too beautiful. He used to, but they never responded. He eventually began to skip their profiles with a pang of loss and a quiet what if? Now, he barely noticed them. Blonde. Petite. Blue eyes. Maybe she was a cheerleader at one time, maybe she was the type of girl who looked down her nose at guys like him. Maybe she was a sweetheart. In any case, he would never find out, so who cares?
He went for women he could realistically obtain…the type of women he’d dated and hooked up with in the past. Some were attractive in their own way, others were hard to look at, he wasn’t picky; he couldn’t afford to be picky. One woman he saw was a good three hundred pounds. She was nice and he liked her enough, but he lapsed into depression while they were dating and he never messaged her back…not that she made a huge effort to message him. Another was a pre-K teacher in her mid-thirties. Overweight with a big nose, glasses, and a plain face when she wasn’t wearing make-up. He liked her a lot and wanted to be with her, but after a month of weekend hookups, she said she didn’t love him. She told him she wanted a family - three kids, to be exact - but “changed her mind.” No, she didn’t. She just didn’t want those things with him.
Now she was in her late thirties, single, and having regrets.
She still wouldn’t settle for him, though.
Another woman he’d seen recently (six months ago) was fifty, but not unattractive. They texted for weeks, hot and heavy. She outright told him that she wanted to have sex with him. Said all sorts of nasty and sexual things. Their first (and only date) was her coming to his apartment. Instead of tender kisses, loving caresses, and intense emotions, they shared an awkward two hours on his couch. When he tried to hold her hand and put his arm around her, she stiffened. Not much, just a little. She said she “wasn’t ready.” He sat there and watched the flowers he’d gotten her wilt as she talked about her ex for an hour and a half, his arms pointedly crossed. He even leaned as far away from her as humanly possible, trying to communicate with his body language what he didn’t have the guts to communicate with his words: I’m uncomfortable, please leave. He planned to take her to a nice restaurant after they made love. Instead, he ordered something after she finally got the hint and left, eating alone like always.
After her, he deleted his profile (again) and resolved to never bother with dating again. Obviously there was something wrong with him. He saw guys who were uglier and more awkward than him with girlfriends, some actually stunning, but there was something about him in particular, something that repelled women…and men too.
Everyone.
It repelled everyone.
Maybe it was his self-loathing. After all, no one likes a sad sack. But that’s the thing: He was like this because of those experiences. It was a what came first, the chicken or the egg situation. Looking back, he had almost normal confidence at one point. Then all of this happened. The hundreds of messages he sent on the dating apps staying on read, unanswered, like he never sent them at all, like he was garbage unworthy of even a hello. The awkward dates. The occasional “success” that eventually fell apart…sometimes because of him, and sometimes because of them. The one girl who ran away from him when he tried to walk her to her car after a date. They didn’t click, he knew that, but he didn’t say or do anything creepy. Why did she do that? The girls who lead him on, talking about sex and sometimes even love but always had a reason they couldn’t meet.
There were other examples - many others - but it was all the same. Who cared?
Dom wanted to crawl back into his hole and stay there, to stop poking his head out and getting hurt. He wanted it so bad…but he was only human. Deep down, buried beneath layer after layer of scar tissue, there was still hope. Hope for love, for companionship, for acceptance, for intimacy and human touch. It was only an ember now, but even an ember is enough to spark a fire.
Some nights, he wanted to be safe. Other nights, he wanted to take a risk.
And this night was one of the latter.
Be there soon, he texted. He swallowed hard and wetted his lips. His heart was pounding faster and his bowels were loose. He really hoped this worked out. He didn’t think he could handle another rejection. If she turned him down, he’d probably go home and kill himself. Why go on like this?
He’d had that thought before…but he never followed through.
Maybe one day he’d actually shut the fuck up and do it already.
Maybe.
Ok :)
Her name was Heather and she was fat. She was not unattractive in the face and she wore her weight well, not that that mattered - he would take what he could get. They started talking on OKCupid last week and very soon, the conversation became sexual. He didn’t start it, though, she did. She was ahem very excited, she said. He liked to think that she was lonely, desperate, and wanted intimacy - any intimacy - just like him.
That really turned him on.
They agreed to meet, and now here he was, on the bus to her apartment on the other side of the city, hoping against hope that she didn’t hurt him too.
He put the phone away and stared straight ahead. The bus was nearly deserted, save for an old bag lady up front and a few Mexican guys in the back. Lights lined the bus’s roof, providing a cold, impersonal light. Dom took a deep breath and forced his dark emotions away. It was all on him to make this work. He would accept her fat, ugly, poor, and crippled, but he had to work to earn her love. He could do it.
When the bus finally reached his stop, he yanked the cord and got off. There was a plexiglass shelter lit by a single, lonely bulb. Trash littered the ground. Beyond the shelter, a park lay in darkness. Behind him, on the other side of the road, a housing project not unlike his own towered into the sky, lit up like a ship at sail. Dom swallowed his nerves and crossed the street. He found the door that she had directed him to use, and climbed the stairs. He expected trash, graffiti, and winos passed out on every landing. Instead, the stairwell was clean and deserted. His nerves welled as he climbed but he forced them down again. On the ninth floor, he went down the hall, battered on all sides by the stale smells of cooking and the murmur of TVs and voices coming from every apartment.
Dom paused at Apartment 237.
Heather’s.
You got this, he told himself.
And really, he did. Their plan - well, Heather’s, really - was simple and straightforward. She told him that she would leave the door unlocked. He was to come in, go to the bedroom, and she would be waiting for him. She said it was a fantasy of hers.
On some level, he knew all along that the whole setup sounded fishy. Was he being set up to get robbed? Would he walk in and get jumped by a bunch of Crips? He hesitated, but his need for love - and, yes, release - pushed him on.
He opened the door.
Inside, the apartment was small and messy, a living room to the right and a tiny kitchen to the left. The only light on was the one above the stove.
Everything else was in shadows.
Dom’s heart skipped a beat.
This didn’t feel right.
That thought was overpowered by the smell, a sickly sweet odor that suddenly seemed to be everywhere. His stomach twisted and he turned his head slightly to one side, as if to spare his nose. It smelled like something spoiled.
A voice spoke from the darkness, startling him. “I’m in here.”
It was light, airy, and cute.
For the last time, Dom hesitated. Some primal sense told him to turn around and leave…
…but he wanted to be loved.
Dom entered and shut the door behind him.
The smell was stronger. The atmosphere darker.
Ahead, he could barely make out an open doorway in the shadows.
He crossed to it.
The smell was overpowering here and Dom felt like he was going to puke. Any desire he had felt was gone, replaced only by revulsion and claustrophobia. It was cold, he realized, so cold that his teeth chattered.
Okay, fuck this.
He started to turn around, intent on leaving, but a small, white hand reached from the darkness. Icy fingertips brushed his cheek and his heart blasted into his throat.
Then she was there, her body pressing against his and her lips fused with his. The smell, the freezer chill, both stronger than ever.
They were both coming from her.
Her tongue hungrily lashed his own, and she pushed him against the wall. Her hands slipped under his shirt and pressed flat against his chest. They were so cold that he almost cried out.
Dom wanted to push her away, to run, but he didn’t. Instead, he froze up and allowed her to push him onto the bed. Was he too gutless to tell her no, the way he’d been too gutless to tell the woman who went on and on about her ex to shut up and leave? Did he secretly want to go through with this? He didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to figure it out. She was on top of him now, straddling him, his legs caged between her ample thighs. She grabbed his hands and pressed them to her bare breasts.
They were as cold as the rest of her.
She leaned down and kissed him again. He hadn’t noticed it before, but her tongue was…dry. Her mouth itself tasted strange. Off.
Heather broke from his lips and peppered kisses on his cheek and forehead, assaulting him with an intimacy that Dom no longer wanted.
Through it all, she was as silent as a tomb. She wasn’t panting or rasping with excitement. In fact, he didn’t think she was even breathing.
She brushed her lips along the exposed curve of his throat, and tingles of revulsion shot down his spine. She found his pulse and kissed it. Trembles of excitement raced through her body and she started to lap his neck like a dog.
Without warning, a fiery pinprick of pain exploded over him and Heather began to shake and pant. Dom cried out and tried to fight her off, but she was too heavy, too much.
With a tiny, mouse-like squeak - a sound of pitiable fear and resignation - Dom blacked out.

Hey folks, hello again. I took a bit longer this time to update (Part 1 and Part 2 here) you but at least I bring good news: this weekend, I got the definitive answer from the prison's legal department, and now I know how much I can tell (and I believe it's enough). For your information, after this incident and my eventual release from prison, I haven't contacted anyone I met behind bars, except of course for my wife, Linda. The point is, even after all these years, this story has troubled me a lot, and since my first post, I've become even more paranoid. Finally, this morning, I went out to get the mail but as soon as I opened the door, I came face to face with a small untouched white envelope, except for two identical characters stamped on its surface: 11. Linda is sleeping, and I don't want to worry her, I'm at the kitchen counter thinking about what to do with this envelope while reliving the final events of all this mess, of what was really inside cell 11.
It was morning, and there I was in my cell, in a scene poetically similar to this. I held a playing card, an 11 of clubs. I later searched for such a card online, but found nothing. It was strange, very well made. Before I could reflect more deeply on this, one of the guards passed by our corridor, opening the cell doors for our breakfast.
So, slowly, as if in a trance, I got up from bed and put the playing card in my pocket. Somehow, the card seemed to heat up in my pocket, I could feel the heat increasing and increasing, almost burning my skin. It was a strange stupor, almost drunken, I could even swear I smelled ether lingering in the air as I staggered to the cafeteria.
I slumped into the seat as I placed the tray on the table. Old Munford looked at me in a friendly manner:
"Overdid it yesterday, lad? Your hangover face is priceless."
I forced a weak smile in response to Munford's comment, trying to seem normal despite the whirlwind of thoughts racing through my mind. The heat still burned in my pocket, an uncomfortable sensation that seemed to be intensifying with each passing moment.
"No, nothing much," I muttered, looking away to my food tray. "Just didn't sleep very well."
Munford seemed satisfied with my response and turned his attention back to his own meal. As I stirred the food without really eating, struggling to maintain my composure, I began to think about what to do.
My thoughts were interrupted when Francis joined us at the table, his usual smile lighting up his face. He looked at me with a questioning expression.
"Hey man, everything okay? You look awful."
"I think it was the heat, or maybe something I ate last night."
Francis frowned. Unlike the elder, he clearly wasn't convinced by my superficial explanation.
"Some of the guys told me they saw Bob talking to you last night. Did he do something?"
The question caught me off guard. All this news about the playing card had prevented me from thinking about the strange interaction with Bob since the previous night, but now the memories began to resurface, mixed with the heat sensation coming from my pocket.
"Oh, it was nothing," I said quickly, trying to sound casual. "Bob was just being a bit... Bob."
I felt Francis's gaze linger on my face for a moment.
"If he does anything, you know you can talk to us, right? I know he's one of ours, but that doesn't mean I'll go easy on him."
I analyzed the options for a moment, reflecting on everything. Well, now it seemed to make sense, a prank by Bob, or an attempt to intimidate me...
"There's... something, Francis," I said in a low tone, feeling tense about the confession I was about to make. "Last night, after the card tournament, I... I ran into Bob in the hallway. He was questioning me about the tournament, accusing me of cheating."
Francis's face hardened at my words, a displeased expression passing over his features.
"Cheating? And you?"
"I swear I played fair," I replied quickly, the pressure building inside me. "But he was convinced I had some advantage, and... well, things got a bit tense... He walked away, and this morning I found this in my cell."
Deciding to omit the encounter with Tulley, I got straight to the point, pulling the card out of my pocket and placing it on the table. I could feel it almost incandescent now.
Munford looked at the card for a moment, his gaze narrowing as he studied it. The heat emanating from it was almost palpable, a strange aura that seemed to envelop the table.
"Is that... an 11 of clubs?" he murmured, his voice tinged with surprise and suspicion.
I nodded, my own confusion mingling with growing anxiety.
"Yes... I don't know, maybe Bob did this to scare me, to show that he has access to my cell, or to try to provoke me, knowing my fear of cell 11..."
My words were cut off when the guard's voice echoed through the cafeteria, interrupting our conversation as he announced that the meal period was over.
Francis looked at me with a serious expression.
"We'll talk about this later," he pointed to the card. "Mind if I take it with me?"
I nodded.
"No problem, feel free."
We began our march back to the cells, and I couldn't help but exchange glances with old Munford. He seemed to hesitate on the matter, as if he wanted to say something but was afraid. I made a mental note to speak with him as soon as possible. Our yard time would be in the next 4 hours, and I spent half of that time trying to ponder what had happened.
I don't know how long it took, but I fell asleep, sitting, with my back pressed against the wall of my cell. The dream, or rather, nightmare resulting from this was a disturbing experience.
I found myself standing, walking through the prison corridors in a way that seemed endless. The walls seemed to close in around me, creating a claustrophobic labyrinth that I couldn't escape. Every door I tried to open was locked, and the sound of footsteps echoed behind me, as if someone were following my every step.
Finally, I reached a door that was ajar, a dim light emanating from within. With a knot in my stomach, I pushed it slowly, revealing what seemed to be cell 11. But something was terribly wrong. A man was there, his back to me. Disheveled, uneven hair, a hunched posture, he was crouched down, rummaging through something I couldn't see, seemed to regurgitate. Suddenly, he stopped. He slowly got up and then looked at me.
Somehow, I knew that man was that prisoner, the one who had committed those atrocities and painted the eye on the damn cell. I noticed something dripping from his mouth, forming a red puddle in the center. On the wall, what seemed to be an incomplete sketch of the dreaded painting was there.
I watched, hypnotized by the horror before me, as the man slowly raised his trembling hand towards his face. Drops of that dark liquid dripped from his fingers, echoing in the oppressive silence of the cell. It was as if the very air was tainted with that impurity.
Before I could fully process what was happening, he began to move towards me, his irregular steps echoing like the distant clinking of chains. A visceral panic seized me, preventing me from retreating as he came closer and closer, his distorted figure gaining sharper contours as he advanced through the gloom. I could now smell the terrible scent he had, not just as something rotten, but a pure and concrete smell of death.
"Who... who are you?" My own voice sounded weak and trembling.
The man didn't answer. Instead, he kept advancing, his empty eyes seeming to pierce my soul. My heart was now pounding uncontrollably in my chest, a deafening cacophony that seemed to fill the entire space of the cell. I was about to retreat, to beg for mercy, when a voice whispered in my mind, a distorted echo reverberating like the sigh of a ghost:
"You... can you see? The watchful eye. He wants you. He liked looking at you."
The sound of my own breath echoed in the silence that followed, a dissonant note of fear and desperation. I wanted to scream, to run, to escape this living nightmare, but I was paralyzed by the terror that enveloped me like a coffin.
It was then that I woke up, gasping and covered in sweat, the echo of the whisper still resonating in my mind like a distant echo of a nightmare. For a moment, everything around me seemed distorted and unreal, a fleeting mirage, and then, I startled again. Munford was standing in front of my cell, staring at me with curiosity.
"Are you okay, son?" the old man asked in a soft voice, as if trying to calm a frightened animal.
I shook my head slowly, trying to gather my thoughts amidst the whirlwind of information.
"I... I think so," I murmured, my voice sounding strange and distant even to myself. "I had a horrible nightmare... It felt so real."
Munford nodded understandingly, his eyes fixed on mine.
"Yeah, the situation isn't good... but I came to talk about that letter, earlier in the cafeteria."
"Oh yeah, what about it?"
"Let's just say I've never seen a card like that, but the energy coming from it, oh yeah, I've seen that before."
"What do you mean?"
"You know, a few years ago, there was a murder in one of the cells. This was before Francis arrived, we didn't have much organization, lynchings were common, and in an attempt to reduce these incidents, we decided that the main suspect, a newly captured serial killer, would be forcibly transferred to cell 11. It was one of the most terrible incidents I've ever witnessed in here. And do you know how that man was known?"
I shook my head negatively. Munford leaned his hands on two bars, bringing his face closer to the center of them.
"The Card Cutter."
A wave of shivers ran down my spine.
"He used to leave playing cards as a kind of signature on the bodies of his victims. They say he would choose the card based on the person or the method of murder. So, when he was put in cell 11, things got even weirder."
"What happened to him?" I asked, a bittersweet and macabre curiosity in my mouth.
Munford sighed heavily, looking at a fixed point this time.
"A few weeks after being transferred, he was found dead in his cell. Hung with sheets. And next to his body..."
"What was it?" I could barely breathe as I listened.
"A playing card. An ace of spades, if I'm not mistaken. And that cell... well, since then, no one wants to stay there. They say it does something to people, kills them."
The shock of Munford's revelation reverberated in my chest, trembling as I thought about what could happen to Guard Tulley from now on, or worse, what could happen to us.
"So you think this card is... a warning?" I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper, staring into the old man's green eyes.
Munford nodded slowly, responding more to himself than to me.
"I can't say for sure, but it's a possibility to consider."
I swallowed hard.
"What should we do then?"
He fell silent for a moment, as if pondering his words carefully.
"I have no idea. I guess all we can do is keep quiet; we don't want to scare the other inmates. Francis doesn't believe in these things, so I won't waste my time trying to convince him, and I advise you to do the same. Maybe if we just keep pretending that nothing is happening, things will sort themselves out. But remember: whatever this force is, it wants to take you to the cell, wants you to face the eye. Resist those urges, okay?"
The clock struck 12:30. Time for yard time. I walked with Munford to the yard, the sun burning our heads as we stepped outside, futilely trying to erase the worry from our minds.
As I watched the other inmates spreading out across the yard, trying to appear normal, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to find Bob, his voice low and threatening.
"What did you tell Francis?" he whispered, he was behind me, and I couldn't see him.
The flesh on my back trembled and twisted, the fluid of fear rising up to my brain.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Bob," I replied firmly, trying to sound confident.
He paused for a few seconds.
"You cheat first, and now, you make up lies about what I did or didn't do."
"I think there's a misunderstanding-"
"Shut up!" his voice rose sharply "I'm just here to say that I'm not a kid, I don't go around sending playing card letters or anything like that. I didn't threaten you with that thing, but now I am, and in a very direct way, and if I were you, I'd sleep with one eye open."
He was dead serious, and the threat was as clear as day. But what could I do? Confront Bob directly like Francis? That could mean he wasn't trustworthy... My thoughts were interrupted by the guard watching us.
"You two, no contact!" he shouted.
"No problem here, officer," Bob said, pulling me into a hug that felt more like an attempted chokehold.
I tried to pull away unsuccessfully, and the officer seemed to simply not care.
"Okay, but we'll be watching," he turned away, and Bob shoved me against the yard bars.
"Listen here, Bob," I began, my voice firm, confused about where this courage had even come from. "I don't know what you're up to, but I won't stand still while you try to intimidate me. If you have something to say, then say it like a man. Otherwise, leave me alone." I pushed him away with my hand.
"You're a fool, you know that?" he muttered.
"I'm not looking for trouble, but if you want it, you'll get it. Let's just leave it be, okay? If anything happens to me, I'll make sure some people know and-"
My assailant's hand closed around my neck, tightening. I squirmed, struggling to breathe as I desperately tried to free myself from his grip.
"Going to call daddy? Look, Francis may have that whole attitude, but he won't do anything to me, or any of the guys," he remarked.
I noticed the usual group of big guys who hung around with Francis, they were watching us from afar, seeming to distract the boss.
"He's getting out in two months...but honestly, I don't think I need to wait that long."
I couldn't breathe. Fighting against the grip on my neck, my eyes desperately searched for any help.
"Let him go!" The guard shouted from afar, starting to make his way down the stairs to reach us.
Bob didn't obey. I felt my body losing strength, so I did what I could: I focused my strength into a clenched fist and punched the bastard in the stomach, aiming right at his gut. And judging by his expression, it worked. I saw him lean over, his hands releasing my body and being placed on his belly.
I knew if I let it slide, he would come back and continue to harass me, so that had to be a definitive response to the jerk that I wasn't an easy prey. I lunged at him again, this time with a well-aimed kick to his knee, trying to destabilize him. He staggered backwards with a groan of pain, falling to his knees on the yard ground.
The other prisoners now realized what had happened, and soon their shouts in a circle were audible.
"Go, get him! Don't hold back! Finish this guy off!"
I lunged at Bob, raising my hand time after time to punch him. He didn't take it lightly, grabbing my right hand as I prepared to hit him; I could feel the pressure applied to the joints, my fingers starting to crack, and I could feel them tense, about to break. In desperation, I threw myself onto him with the only weapon I had left: my teeth.
I felt the flesh of his neck between the rows of teeth in my mouth. Without thinking and trying to loosen the grip on my hand, I pressed on the pearly bones harder and harder, feeling them slide against the skin, the metallic taste slowly emerging as the flesh was torn.
The scene around me seemed blurry, as if I were watching everything happen from afar, in slow motion. Bob's scream echoed through the yard, mixing with the encouragement shouts from the other inmates. I felt a mix of adrenaline and horror as my teeth sank into his neck flesh, a strange feeling of power and disgust.
While still hunched over that bloody man, I felt the blows on my back: it was the guards. Their batons striking time after time as the adrenaline rush passed, and I now began to feel the pain. Without resistance, I let myself be pulled away. Bob wasted no time and moved away, stumbling as he covered the wound.
"YOU SCUMBAG, WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL ARE YOU?"
As I was being taken away, everything around me seemed blurred, as if I were in a state of stupor. The voices of the other inmates echoed in my ears, mixed with images of the fight that had just occurred. I still felt the blood running through my mouth, dripping lightly onto the ground and forming a trail of red dots marking my path. However, before we left the yard, our warden arrived at the scene, and the guards stopped, my arm uncomfortably twisted behind my body.
"What's going on here?" His voice was calm, but there was an unquestionable tone of authority in his words.
"He... he bit a detainee, sir," one of the guards explained, firmly holding my arm.
The warden looked at me, his eyebrows furrowed in disapproval.
"Why did you do that?"
My mind was spinning, trying to find a coherent explanation for what had happened. I knew it would be useless to tell about Bob's threat, about the playing card, about the fear he had instilled in me. So, I found the most plausible words I could gather:
"He... he provoked me, sir," I murmured, my voice trembling. "I... couldn't take it anymore. He was intimidating me, threatening me, and I... I lost control."
The warden looked at me for a long moment, as if assessing my words. Finally, he sighed, seeming resigned, approaching me with slow, steady steps.
"No, you did that because you're an animal."
He gave me two pats on the cheek, then wiped the blood running from my mouth.
"Take this one to solitary."
The prisoners began to shout, a real noisy commotion. I trembled at the thought of being locked up there. No one came back the same from solitary, but at that moment, I really think I'd prefer to go there than what was to come.
"But sir," one of the guards said, causing the inmates to fall silent in an attempt to hear something, "The solitary is occupied..."
The warden frowned, clearly irritated by the interruption.
"Then take him to cell 11," he ordered, his voice cold and authoritative.
That was the final blow, causing the uproar to become widespread, with even some inmates needing to be subdued with tear gas. I could see as I was pushed, Munford looking at me, a worried and distressed expression on his face; he said something I couldn't understand amidst the noise.
With my heart pounding erratically in my chest and my mind clouded with fear and uncertainty, I was led by the guards towards cell 11. Each step felt like it weighed tons, as if I were walking towards the abyss. I could feel the stares of the other inmates watching the scene, some with expressions of shock, others with a mixture of curiosity and indifference.
Finally, we arrived, and by this point, I was sweating uncontrollably; they opened the cell and threw me inside. My eyes instinctively closed as I fell to the ground. I didn't want to look at it. I got up, still blinding my vision, slowly groping around until I found the bed. I lay on it and turned to the wall beside it, my face as close as possible.
Lying on the hard bed, I could feel my heart beating so loudly that it seemed to echo off the concrete walls around me. Each beat was a pulsating reminder of my situation. I tried to push away the thoughts, but it was like trying to hold back a raging river with bare hands. All the while, I heard stories, heard things about that place, and now I was there, cornered by circumstances beyond my control.
Gradually, I noticed the thick layer of sweat forming around me. I could even feel my pores opening, pouring the water from my body in an attempt to cool myself in that stuffy, hot environment. I couldn't help but think about the heat of the card and... about Francis. He still had the card. Wasn't that dangerous? I fixated on musings about it.
In my feverish frenzy, time seemed to stretch infinitely in that dark cell, minutes dragging on like hours as I struggled to maintain my sanity. Every sound, every shadow was a source of growing anxiety until somehow, I fell into a deep sleep, dreamless this time.
I woke up in the middle of the night, with a faint noise coming from behind the heavy steel door. At first, I feared, wondering what it could be, but as soon as I regained my senses, I remembered where I was, and frankly, nothing outside could be worse. I cautiously approached the source of the sound, trying to listen better, when a "Hey, kid, it's me!" sounded whispered.
"Munford! Munford, I'm glad you're here, knew you wouldn't abandon me."
"Ha, I know, I know," he sounded nervous, perhaps hiding from the guards. "Look, I'd help you out, but I can't get it open from this side, try it there." A small plastic rectangle slid through the door gap. A credit card... I remembered I had done this many times before.
I grabbed the card and started working, carefully sliding it into the lock. Each movement was made with the precision I gained from years of street experience, trying not to make any noise that could attract the guards' attention. My mind was racing, and the tremor it transmitted to my fingers made motor coordination difficult.
Finally, after several minutes of trial and error, I heard a soft click, and the door opened slowly. I could smell the fresh air from the corridor and was already about to smile when, along with the bright light of a flashlight, I saw Bob, now with his neck and shoulder bandaged, along with three more of his cronies. Munford was being held by one, who held an improvised knife to his neck.
"Sorry, kid, they forced me," the old man lamented.
"Not so fast, princess." Bob pushed me inside, onto the floor, and then he entered with one of his cronies, closing the door behind him and illuminating me with the halo of his flashlight.
"What's up, Bob, can't you leave me alone?"
"You wanted to settle things, didn't you? Well..." he pointed to his wound. "You just signed your death warrant! But first, I'm going to make sure to pull out all your teeth and make you swallow them."
He lifted me by the collar of my shirt and landed a punch with his heavy hand. I felt dizzy, seeing stars, curling up into a fetal position. His laughter was now a terrifying melody to me.
"Look at this crybaby. Where did your bravery go?" He kicked my stomach, and I'm sure he found it an ironic poetic justice.
His cohort laughed until the beam of his flashlight shifted away from me.
"Hey Bob, what's that over there?" He said, simultaneously pointing with his finger and the flashlight.
Even though it was on the wall behind me, I knew what it was. I saw Bob straighten up to face it, becoming petrified. He and the other, standing there, mouths agape. I waited for seconds, counting mentally and holding my breath, expecting anything, but nothing. Until suddenly, I began to see small puddles forming under their lower eyelids, dark marks... of blood.
The red tears started to stream down their faces like large crimson waterfalls. Soon, they began to make a noise... a familiar noise, which made my mind freeze as I felt my toes curling inside my shoes and my mouth trembling uncontrollably. It was the same sound as Tulley's. They were now allowing these moans to escape their throats and resonate in the tight concrete walls.
I had to do something. I began slowly to pass by them, trying to edge around. When, however, I was almost reaching the door, I could see their shadows turning slowly in my direction. The tension in the air was palpable, as if it could be cut with a knife. I held myself back from trembling as I tried to maintain composure in front of those men, whose bloodshot eyes were now fixed on me, full of terror and despair.
"What... what's happening?" My voice came out in a trembling whisper, barely able to make myself heard.
Bob and his cohort remained silent. They began to walk towards me, and in desperation, I opened the cell door and slammed it loudly behind me, not caring about attracting the guards' attention. As I looked around, I actually noticed that this was a concern I didn't need to have.
The environment where I was wasn't what I expected, from the prison corridor. It was actually another cell. I stopped for a moment, confused, only to be surprised by a figure in the center of it. A man in a straitjacket looking at me with a petrified smile.
"I've been waiting for you," he said. His voice was blood-curdling, sounding like someone scratching a chalkboard with their nails or scraping a fork on a glass plate.
I tried to open the door but it was stuck. When I turned around again, he was leaning, his face inches from mine, eyes bloodshot. I almost fell backward. He laughed. It was like the last time, he had his mouth covered by a sticky red mass that dripped, probably serving as material for the painting, which now displayed an almost complete surreal eye. He turned and walked to the painting, and then he regurgitated it again. Since his hands were tied, he used his tongue as a brush, finishing the last line of the drawing.
"This," he whispered. "Is my masterpiece."
I was trembling. I had forgotten Munford's advice, and now I found myself petrified, just like the others, staring at the eye. I don't know how much time passed, but I felt like it was hours, days... years. All in the blink of an eye, or rather, in a stare without a single blink.
I tried in vain to regain my composure. Scenes of horror penetrated my mind. Cadavers, bodies marked by playing cards. Criminals, inmates being violently beaten with batons, pepper spray, and all sorts of luxuries the police can serve, I saw gang fights, blood, death, and abuse. I saw people being killed inside the prison. Each scene of violence that each of those who looked had already witnessed. My legs were no more than reeds in the wind now, and I just wanted to run away and scream, cry, and sleep to never wake up again. I tried to scream but the man came to me, placing his foot over my mouth.
"Shhh... you need to see."
He repeated this indefinitely. "need to see, need to see, need to see, need to see"
With superhuman effort, I managed to free myself from the weight of his foot on my mouth, but I could barely articulate coherent words. My voice came out trembling and weak when I finally managed to speak:
"What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?"
He simply continued smiling, as if my words were just another piece in his sadistic game. Then, with a quick and fluid movement, he approached me, so close that I could feel his fetid breath and the metallic smell of blood dripping from his mouth.
"Your mind is a fascinating playground," he murmured, his voice echoing in the claustrophobic space of the cell.
I felt tears running down my cheek, and I knew what color they were. I stood there, in shock, staring at the large painted eye, while my entire being was eaten alive in fear and dread. I don't know how much time passed, maybe the entire age of the universe, eternity, who knows. I woke up on the infirmary bed. Wires connected to my arm while a machine reproduced the "beeps" of my heart.
I looked to the side, seeing the green eyes of nurse Linda looking at me, concerned.
"Are you okay?"
"You need to see," I said, not even wanting to.
She frowned, evidently confused by my response. Linda seemed hesitant, as if she were trying to decide whether to ask more or simply ignore my strange statement. I could see the concern in her eyes, but also a certain curiosity, as if something inside her was intrigued by what I had to say.
"What do you mean by that?" She finally asked, her soft voice echoing in the silence of the infirmary.
I sat up slowly on the bed, feeling a wave of dizziness pass over me. My mind was still cloudy, as if I were struggling to emerge from a deep nightmare. I tried to articulate my words as coherently as possible.
"I... I saw things," I murmured, my voice still trembling. "Terrible things. In the cell... in there... something... something is wrong."
Linda watched me with a serious expression, her green eyes analyzing me carefully. She seemed to understand that something serious had happened, but couldn't fully comprehend what I was trying to communicate.
"Look... you and the others had a collective hallucination in that cell... The director has already arranged for an investigation, but we suspect carbon monoxide poisoning, we've already talked to him about the lack of windows in that place, but it seems he doesn't listen."
I stopped, confused by that information. Was I hallucinating? Well, maybe I would even think that if it weren't for what followed. A man in a dark suit entered. He had a serious and intimidating expression, and he asked Linda to leave.
"Listen here, young man, you're lucky to have come back. The others are catatonic... and probably won't come back to themselves. That's why your cooperation is extremely important, and we need to know: what did you see?"
I stumbled, recounting as much information as I could remember, from Tulley to Bob. The man listened to me without making any expression. After that, he took a radio that was hanging from his blazer and said some words that I didn't quite understand, something like "Ceter," "Queter"... and then he took a clipboard, handing it to me.
"This is your letter of freedom. Our proposal is as follows: We release you from prison and in exchange, you don't open your mouth about the specific events mentioned here," he pointed to the clauses.
That was five years ago, and given my freedom, you must imagine that not everything that happened is transcribed here, but the most important parts are. I ended up visiting Munford a few times after that, and I was horrified to discover that Francis, on the eve of his release, hanged himself with the bedsheet. The old man and I stared at each other after this discovery, in a mutual silent understanding. Shortly after, they closed not only the cell, but our entire pavilion, relocating the inmates. I never saw Munford or any of the others again after that. My nightmares persisted, but in recent months they have been much less frequent, and I think I might be slowly healing.
I wanted to say that this story ends well, with my rehabilitation. A troublesome prisoner full of stories becoming a family man. And it would be, if it weren't for the last 15 minutes of this morning. I believe you may remember that I received a letter this morning like that cursed number. I left it on the counter in the living room while I came here, to have breakfast and finish reporting this to you. When I finished the last paragraph, I went back to the room, but now, it seems like the whole nightmare is back.
I felt the tears, transparent this time, forming in my eyes. In the center of the room right now is Linda, holding the letter, looking at something in it that I can already imagine. She's standing there, wet and red stains on her face, I can hear her whispering "You need to see... need to see," and by God... I can see...

Link to original nosleep post:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1atvnh2/i_ended_up_in_the_lost_and_found_at_the_end_of/
It was around 2am on a Thursday, when I must have dozed off on the subway, after a double shift at work.
I had done it a few times before, always waking up to the bright lights of the subway car just a few stops too far, only to have to hop off and wait for a train going back in the other direction.
But this time, I woke up to...
...Darkness.
What the? Where am I? I thought to myself, before inspecting my surroundings.
And as my eyes adjusted, I realized that I was still on the train car, its lights turned off, parked at the end of the line.
Fuck!
I hopped out of my seat and ran to the doors, but they were all locked.
So I started pounding on them and screaming, "Help! Help!"
And after a minute of silence...
...I saw a bouncing light approaching.
To my relief, it was a train worker, wearing a yellow vest and carrying a flashlight, as he walked along the platform outside.
I kept yelling louder and louder, until he must have finally noticed me, shining his flashlight through the window and directly into my face.
"Help! Please!" I called out, as he reached into his pocket, removed a set of keys, and opened the doors.
"Thank you!" I cried out, so happy to be rescued that I nearly gave him a great big hug.
"Got yourself lost, did you?" The train worker asked, as he finished relocking the doors and turned back to me.
He was a tall, older man, with a heavy build and a weathered face.
"Yeah, I must have fallen asleep." I replied, before surveying my surroundings...
...Sure enough, I was at the end of the line after all. All around us, I saw countless darkened trains lined up along different tracks, and not a soul in sight.
"Wow, I've never seen the end of the line before." I said, distracted by the sight.
"Not many have. No reason to really." He replied.
"Fair point. So... what's the best way to get out of here?"
"Oh , don't worry, I'll escort you out. Wouldn't want you getting lost twice in one night." He chuckled.
"Thank you. I really appreciate it."
"Right this way." The train worker said, as he guided me down the platform and into an adjacent building that presumably led to the street.
But when we got inside, it started to feel as though he was leading me further into the structure.
"Um, isn't that the way out?" I asked nervously, pointing to a hallway with a neon red exit sign.
"Last I checked, you were the one who got lost. Trust me." He reassured me.
A minute or so later, when we still hadn't left the building, I stopped and asked, "Seriously. Where are you taking me?"
"To the lost and found." He said, his face betraying no emotion.
"Lost and found?"
"Trust me. You'll see."
In that moment, I knew something was off, and, looking back at it, I should have made a run for it right then and there...
...But for some reason, I wanted to know what he meant, and decided to keep following him.
And when we arrived at our destination, I finally understood what he meant by "lost and found."
There, at the end of the hallway, was a large cage, containing about ten poor souls, each of which looking sickly, emaciated, and exhausted.
"This is the lost and found." The train worker said, before opening the door and gesturing for me to enter.
A wave of panic washed over me, and I tried to run away...
...But he immediately caught my shoulder, dragged me back over, and tossed me into the cage...
SLAM.
...Before slamming its door and walking away.
I looked around at the others, to find them simply sitting there in silence, staring at me.
Only one of them had the energy to greet me. "Welcome to the end."
He was a thin, bald man, wearing a suit that must have been new when he got here, but was now tattered.
"The end of what?" I asked.
"Of the train tracks. And, well... everything else, I suppose." He explained.
"What in the world goes on here?" I asked, still shaking in fear.
"All we know is that every day or two, he brings someone to the cage, and they pick one of us to take away. What happens after that, is anyone's guess... because no one's ever come back."
"Wait, what?"
"Oh, and I'm Phil by the way."
"Ryan."
"Nice to meet you, Ryan. Sorry it had to be under these circumstances."
I spent the rest of the night lying silently in the cage, curled up in its far corner in fetal position, until I eventually passed out from exhaustion.
Sure enough, when I woke up the next day, the train worker had returned with a stranger, just as Phil had warned.
"Pick one." Our captor said to the nondescript man, who turned to the cage, and took a good look at every single one of its prisoners...
...Before taking a moment to decide.
Please not me. Please not me. I thought to myself, as I tried to lessen my posture, and did my best to hide away in the back of the cage.
And then, the stranger made his decision...
"I'll take that one."
...Pointing to someone in the front.
Phew. I thought to myself, before feeling sorry for the poor sucker.
The train worker then opened the door to the cage, pulled the unlucky prisoner out, locked the door again, and carried the chosen man off down the hallway.
My strategy of hiding myself away in the back of the cage, and thus avoiding getting picked, had worked.
So I stuck to that plan, every couple days or so, when the train worker returned with a new stranger.
But eventually, the number of prisoners began to dwindle, and one night, one of the men that the train worker brought to the cage...
...Chose me.
At least I'll finally know where they've been taking them. I thought to myself, before the train worker grabbed me by the collar, and dragged me down the hallway with the man.
A little while later, we arrived at a small room, which at first, appeared to be covered in paint...
...But I quickly realized that it wasn't paint at all, but instead a collage of splattered blood, caked on to its once white walls.
The room was otherwise quite sparse, containing only a table at its center...
...And what appeared to be a rack full of weapons in one corner.
Fuck. This is the end.
"Now what?" The stranger asked the train worker, as he gave me a strange look.
"You kill him. That's what." My captor replied.
"But I've never done this before." The man said, nervously.
"Here," The train worker said, before grabbing an ax from the rack and handing it to him. "Try this. It's a favorite."
The stranger took the ax in both of his hands, then looked back at me.
He was a short, rather unimposing man, with glasses and a bald spot.
Had he not already volunteered it was his first time, I would have guessed it anyway, as I could see his teeth chattering, and his hands shaking.
"Here let me get him for you." The train worker said, noticing the stranger's hesitation. He then walked over, picked me up, and threw my torso down onto the table, holding me down, as I flailed my arms, attempting to break free. "Well go on. Do it!"
"Uh... I don't know if I can." The man replied.
"Well just start with one body part then. It'll warm you up. You'll be surprised."
The stranger hesitated for a moment, before taking a step back, then running over, swinging the ax high above his head, and bringing it down on my arm... hacking it clean off.
"AAARGHHHH!"
I started screaming and wailing, as the train work nodded in approval. "Great job. Now finish him off!"
But when he turned back, the stranger was just standing there with wide eyes, in disbelief of what he had just done, ax dangling from his hands. "I... I... I... can't do it."
"Of course you can!" The train worker encouraged, a hint of frustration in his voice, as I nearly passed out on the table, blood pouring out of my amputated arm.
"I'm sorry I can't." The stranger replied, dropping the ax to the floor.
"What do you mean you can't? You paid for this. He's yours. Do it!"
"No, just give me my money back, I don't want to do it anymore."
"But he's no good to me now! You cut his arm off. He's used goods! No one's gonna pick him now." The train worker screamed.
"I don't know." The man whimpered, still torn about what to do next.
"Well make a decision, he's bleeding out all over the table!"
"I'm sorry, I can't! Keep the money!" The stranger finally said, before letting himself out of the room and running off down the hallway.
"Motherfucker." The train worker said to himself, before looking down at me.
But rather than kill me, he instead removed a flamethrower from the rack and torched my arm, cauterizing the wound and knocking me out in the process.
I woke up the next day in the back of the cage with gauze wrapped around what was left of my arm, in the most extreme pain I'd ever felt, save for the pain that I'd felt the day before.
"Take these." The train worker said, tossing me a bag of painkillers through the bars of the cage.
And then it was...
...Back to business as usual, as he continued to bring strangers to the cage every couple days.
But from that point forward, just as the train worker had suspected, whenever he brought them by...
...No one wanted me.
"What about that one?" He would always suggest to the stranger, pointing to me, as I lay there, lifeless and armless in the back.
But every time, the strangers would always decline, saying things like, "No thanks. Looks like someone already had a go at him. I want a fresh one."
As time went on, and more and more people got picked, eventually only Phil and I remained.
"We made it pretty far." My best, and now only, friend in the cage said one night. "Looks like I'm next."
"Don't say that." I said, "There's still hope."
"Hope?" Phil replied.
I stood up, walked over to the cage door, and began to push as hard as I could, before calling back to him. "Help me push it!"
Phil did as I asked, and together, we tried our best to push and push, but the lock was too strong, and ultimately, the door never budged from its hinges.
The next day, when the train worker brought a stranger by and asked him to choose between Phil and myself, I raised my hand and volunteered to go, attempting to buy Phil another day.
But they scoffed at the unsettling condition of my body, and chose my best friend instead, dragging him away down the hallway as he looked back at me and smiled.
And then it was down to me. The one that no one wanted.
I was so unwanted, in fact, that it nearly drove the train worker mad, after having repeatedly failed to get rid of me, over and over and over again.
On one such day, after a stranger had stopped by and left empty handed, the train worker started screaming at me from outside the cage. "You're a pathetic and useless excuse for a prisoner! I should have let you die that day, instead of saving you."
"Well if you had others, you wouldn't have to blame me now would you?" I replied. "What happened to your once steady supply of victims?"
"Beats me. Maybe someone figured it out. Or maybe victims just ain't in season right now."
"Sounds like a supply chain issue to me."
"Maybe. But I'm still left with the question. What do I do with you?"
"Let me go."
"Well I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"'Cause you know too much. Where this place is. What I look like."
"I promise, if you let me go, I won't turn you in. I'll just forget about it."
"Yeah, yeah. That's what they all say. Easy to say now. Then once you're free you start thinking about this place. Thinking of me. And want retribution for what happened to you. Next thing I know, there's a swat team at my door."
"Please."
"Besides, I can't just let you go. The bosses wouldn't be too happy about that."
"Bosses?"
"You know, the people that hired me."
"Hired you? Someone hired you to do this? Who?"
"You think I know? And even if I did, they made me sign an NDA."
"Okay fine don't tell me. Just let me go."
"Nope. If no one takes you in the next week, I'm gonna do it myself."
Sure enough, a week went by without any takers, and the train worker came walking up to the cage, with a smile on his face.
"I'm a man of my word. It's time to put you out of your misery." He said, opening the door and dragging me off, down the hallway, and back into the small room with the table and weapons rack.
When we stepped inside, the train worker instructed me to sit on the table in the center of the room, facing a very specific direction.
"Now don't look back. But the security camera behind you is recording everything. But only video. So if you want to get out of here, I want you to do exactly as I say." He began.
"Um... okay." I replied, not entirely sure where he was going with it.
"Now I'm going to grab a knife from the rack. Then I'm gonna come back over here, and pretend to stab you. After that happens, all I need you to do is play dead. And then I'll carry you out of here, and leave you in the dumpster. You'll wait until dark, at which point in time you can crawl out of it and run away from here. Understood?"
"I guess. But wait. Why are you doing this?"
I shouldn't have asked, but I needed to know.
"Cause I'm getting transferred." The train worker replied, "This lost and found's not meeting their quota. They’re sending me to another and decommissioning this one."
"Wait. There's more of these?" I asked, trying to wrap my mind around what he had just said.
"Yeah. Lots of them."
"But why not just free me? What's with the theatrics?"
"Cause they told me to finish you off. And they're watching."
"And why not just kill me then? Not that I want that."
"Cause I ain't no killer, kid. A facilitator maybe, but I don't got it in me to go through with it myself."
"Uh... I don't know what to say. Thank you?"
"Don't mention it. Now, before we commence. Any other questions."
"Yeah," I said, looking him in the eye. "What's your name?"
"Dave." He said, with a smile.
"Ryan."
"Nice to meet ya, Ryan. And apologies for the arm, and what you went through here. It's just business."
"Sure," I said with a smile of my own, as I began to realize that I probably had Stockholm Syndrome.
Nevertheless, I trusted him, and went along the plan in full, and he was, as he had promised, a man of his word.
Later that day, as soon as I saw the daylight turn to darkness through the crack between the garbage bin and its lid, I did as he instructed, crawling out of the dumpster and running as fast as I could to the nearest sign of civilization... a gas station a few streets away.
After I told my story to the police, they raided the building at the end of the line, but just as my captor had told me, the place had been fully decommissioned, its cage removed and blood-splattered room now clean.
It took me a little while to get readjusted to the outside world, the real world again, and acclimated to life with just one arm, but I got good at typing with one hand pretty quick.
Now whenever I take the train, I set an alarm for the time it'll take me to get to my stop, even though I know I could never fall asleep on the train again.
And every now and then, when I look at the subway map and see the last stop, I think about Dave, and wonder where all those other lost and found locations might be.

Battle beyond Saturn

They came out of deep space, always preying on weaker opponents. With their gigantic ships, they smashed through any system defenses they encountered before looting and pillaging valuable resources and food. No one knew where their home world was located to go after them.
They had a Behemoth Class Ship which had been up-gunned to have no equal in a 1:1 battle. Having laid waste to a system, they would disappear once again into the vastness of space. They were gone before anyone could assemble a fleet large enough to engage them in battle.

Pluto Station - Sol System

Alarms started ringing all over the station. Sensor satellites in the Kuiper belt had detected a large fleet emerging from jump, inbound to Sol system. Since no known convoy was scheduled, this was most likely the hostile raiders.
Captain Karlson - Commander Pluto Station: “Hail on all frequencies. ‘Unknown ships. Please identify yourselves. You are entering Sol System Space’. ”
“No response. I think we have our answer. All hands, General Quarters”
“Sensors - what do we have?”
“Eleven ships in total. One ship over 2 million tonnes. Nine large vessels from 600 kilo-tonnes to one mega-tonnes. And one smaller vessel approximately 150 kilo-tonnes accelerating and heading above the orbital plane”.
“Comms - open FTL channel to Fleet HQ at Ganymede Station. Leave it open and send continuous telemetry.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”

Behemoth Class - Havoc

For Admiral Goranth of the H’runik, this was the 14th system raid and frankly, things were routine and boring. His Captains knew what to do and were getting into battle formation. The Scout Ship “Seeker” was already accelerating above the planetary orbital plane in its capacity of Spaceborne Early Warning. All engines and sensors, it was the one ship in the raiding fleet to have defensive armament only.
The only surprise was how quickly the natives had detected his fleet and sent out a challenge. No matter - their puny fleet was no match for his ships.
“Comms - tell the Captain of Smasher to take care of that station. I don’t want any surprises from behind once we are in-system”. Within a few minutes, the Admiral watched the ship fall out of formation and head towards the source of annoyance.
Jump drives could take ships between the stars rapidly. The bigger the drives, the further the jumps and consequently fewer jumps needed. However, once inside the gravity well of a star system, normal physics took over and ships were limited to sub-light speeds. Due to the mass and inertia of Havoc, Admiral Goranth was expecting to take about 10 standard days to get to the populated third and fourth planets. He wasn’t expecting the defending fleet to slow him down at all.

Sol Fleet HQ - Ganymede Station

Admiral Vir Singh (CinCSDF), thanks to the FTL data feed, watched the events unfold on the edge of the Solar System. He and his team analyzed the movements of the approaching enemy fleet.
Analyst 1: Marking them as “Bandits” starting with “1” from the biggest to smallest. On screen now. Those ten ships in the main body are huge. Even the smallest out-masses our largest carriers.
Analyst 2: If intel is right from previous raids, they’ve added bigger and many more weapons to the original designs.
Analyst 3: Bandit-11 ascending above the orbital plane is obviously their eyes. They will be able to watch and report our movement.
Commodore Perera: Hello? What’s Bandit-9 doing? He’s going after Pluto Station!
Admiral Singh: Ganymede Actual to Pluto Actual. There’s big trouble headed your way. Get ready to evacuate to the Charon bunker.
Captain Karlson (on comms): Aye-aye Sir. We saw them. We will be out of here within 20 minutes. Will leave the channel open and will take command from the bunker on Charon.
Admiral Singh: Destroyer Squadron 8 - hide in the Kuiper Belt for now. You can’t match the enemy and we will need you later.
“Admiral Singh to all ships. Recall all personnel and get ready to deploy within 12 hours. Replenish stores, especially ammunition. I’ll be calling a meeting with all Captains and XOs at 14:00 today.”

Behemoth Class - Havoc

Admiral Goranth: Seeker - report on enemy strength.
Seeker: This system only has three Dreadnought class ships. These have the biggest weapons. Then there are six heavy Cruisers. Their biggest ships are of an unknown configuration. These don’t seem to have any major armament. There are eleven of these.
Admiral Goranth: Tell me more about these big ships.
Seeker: They only seem to have close in defensive weapons. Analysis suggests they are big in volume but not heavy in tonnage so maybe some sort of troop ships or freighters?
Admiral Goranth: We’ll deal with those later. Tell me about the Dreadnoughts and Cruisers.
Seeker: Standard configuration. The Dreadnoughts may be a match for Smasher or Hammer but even together will not be a problem for Havoc. The Cruisers individually will not be a problem but they look like they operate in teams so the combined firepower may cause some damage.
Admiral Goranth: So, these are the ones we need to destroy first.

Sol Fleet HQ - Ganymede Station

Analyst 3: Bandit 11 is on station and watching our fleet movements. We won’t be able to hide anything while it’s up there.
Commodore Perera: Admiral, I have some aviators who may have come up with a solution. With your permission, we’d like to set up in the small conference room.
—
Lt. Wang “Hornet” Bo Wen (Sqr.Ldr): May I introduce Lt. Bill “Dingo” Saunders and 2nd Lt. Stella “Orbits” Ceres.
Admiral Singh: At ease. Have a seat. Tell me your plan?
Dingo: It was Orbits’ idea, Sir. She is somewhat of a genius when it comes to trajectories.
Orbits: Yes Sir. None of our ships have the power or the fuel to accelerate straight up to Bandit-11. However, we may have a way of looping around Saturn and using its gravity to slingshot up to Bandit 11.
Dingo: We estimate that 2 attack craft each with 2 buddy drones will be sufficient to take care of Bandit 11. Each ship will carry 4 torpedoes and the buddies have six.
Hornet: And our squadron of 4 attack ships with 8 buddy drones are volunteering. The extra ships and torpedoes will ensure that we get the job done.
Commodore Perera: You need to tell the Admiral all of it.
Orbits: Once we loop around Saturn and accelerate up to Bandit 11 to destroy it, we’ll only have enough fuel to turn around and stop our forward velocity. While we will be slowly moving back to the ecliptic plane, we will not be able to rejoin the fleet without a tanker.
Admiral Singh: What’s the timeframe for this operation if approved.
Hornet: If we leave at 12:00 Hrs today, we will engage Bandit-11 around 14:00 Hrs tomorrow.
Admiral Singh: My analysts will go through what you’ve written up. Get ready to go but wait for my approval. I’ll make my decision within the hour.

Sol Fleet HQ - Ganymede Station - 14:00 Hrs

All fleet encrypted holo-meeting.
Admiral Singh: Thank you all for assembling. As you know by now, we are facing a fleet of raiders that out mass and outgun us by a huge margin. But we do have a trick up our sleeves. They are used to slugging it out with the big guns, they have never encountered carriers and our strike craft.
Admiral Vassily: In fact, apart from Bandit 11, our analysis of the sensors on the big vessels is that they just don’t have the resolution to pick out the individual strike craft. Nor do they have any Close In Point Defense weapons to engage anything this small.
Captain Park: So how are we going to get rid of Bandit 11?
Admiral Singh: We have already sent an attack squadron to take care of it. If all goes to plan, it will no longer be a problem by this time tomorrow.
Admiral Vassily: So, since they are expecting to fight our Dreadnoughts and Cruisers, that’s what we will show in our fleet movement for the next 24 hours. It’s part of our Maskirovka.
The Dreadnoughts, Shambala, Shanghai-La and Taprobana will be at the center of the formation like a spearhead. Three cruisers on each of their flanks. The carriers will be in the rear. That is until Bandit 11 is destroyed. After that, they’ll spread apart to allow the carriers through. Since there is no need for a Combat Space Patrol to protect our ships, every strike spacecraft will be launched as soon as they are in range.
This meeting went on for another hour with questions and refinement of the plan. Everything depended on Bandit 11 being taken out as scheduled.

Squadron 471 “The Howling Wolves” - looping around Saturn

Lt. Wang “Hornet” Bo Wen: Wolf 1 to Wolf Pack - get ready for final slingshot burn.
“Wolf 2, everything green”
“Wolf 3, Green”
“Wolf 4, Green”
Five minutes later
Hornet: Burn in 3-2-1
…
…
Dingo: Wolf 3 to Wolf Pack - we have a problem. The computer went off-line and didn’t initiate the burn.
Hornet: Wolf 3 - Can’t you burn now and catch up?
Orbits: Sorry Sir. It was a tight window and we missed it. The computer crashed at just the wrong time and took the engines off-line. By the time we got the engines back up, it was too late.
Hornet: Wolf 3 - Return to fleet.
Wolf 4 - Tighten up formation.
Dingo: Aye and Sorry. Give them hell.

Behemoth Class - Havoc

Admiral Goranth: I don’t know if these Humans are brave or foolish. I expected them to run. But it looks like we are going to have some target practice soon.
Comms, tell all ships that I want it quick and easy. Just smash those battleships and cruisers on our way through. They are the priority but take out those troop carriers if they are in range. I don’t want to send anyone back to do cleanup.

Wolf 3 - still looping Saturn

Orbits: Hey Dingo, I’ve been doing the math and I’ve got a crazy idea.
Dingo: I’m not going anywhere, so let’s hear it.
Orbits: Between us and the buddies, we have 16 torpedoes. I don’t like the idea of going back to the fleet with a full load. What do you say that we expend them on that big bastard?
Dingo: How?
Orbits: Instead of decelerating during this orbit, we do measured burns and accelerate. We’re going to swing by Titan and use its gravity to send us towards the enemy.
Dingo: What about the Nav-Comp. What if it craps out again?
Orbits: I don’t trust it. I’m going to time all the burns and tell you where to point the nose. Do you trust me?
Dingo: With my life!
Orbits: There’s bad news! Once we swing around Titan, we’ll be going about 0.45c. We will only have enough fuel to make minor course corrections but not enough to turn around or stop. And if the enemy slows down, speeds up or even fractionally changes course, we’re going to miss them.
Dingo: So, this is a one-way mission. Okay, I’m in if you are!
Orbits: Alright! First burn is going to be in 6 minutes and 43 seconds, and I’ll give you a countdown.

Squadron 471 “The Howling Wolves” - approaching Bandit 11

Hornet: Wolf 1 to Wolf 2 and 4. We’re only going to have one pass at this. I’m going to aim for the engines. Wolf 2 - you’ve got the main body and sensors. Wolf 4 - hang back a little and hit anything that looks undamaged.
And remember, as soon as the torpedoes are away, do a hard 180º turn and full power to thrusters to kill forward velocity.
Tally Ho and Good Hunting!
Wolf 2: Aye, aye and good luck
Wolf 4: Let’s get them!

Scout ship Seeker

The scout ship had detected the nine tiny ships approaching but the defensive weapons couldn’t track or target them. They were just too small. Besides, what threat could they be? The captain hadn’t even bothered to inform the Admiral of these gnats approaching.

Sol Fleet HQ - Ganymede Station

Commodore Perera: Admiral, sensors indicate that the Howling Wolves have successfully taken out Bandit-11.
Admiral Singh: Excellent. Send an all-fleet message - “Execute Operation Anvil now”
The Battleships and Cruisers moved aside and allowed the Fleet Carriers to surge forward. So far undetected, the Destroyer squadrons made their way behind the enemy hidden by the Kuiper belt objects.
Admiral Singh: And now we wait.
Commodore Perera: Yes Sir. Oh, and a tanker has been sent to refuel Wolf Squadron. Except for Wolf 3 who is rounding Saturn again.
Admiral Singh: Keep me updated. Thank you.

Behemoth Class - Havoc

Comms: Admiral, communication lost with Seeker.
Admiral Goranth: What? How?
Comms: Unknown Sir. They were transmitting and then suddenly stopped.
Admiral Goranth: Try to re-establish contact. We need their data.
Sensors: Admiral, the enemy fleet is moving. The capital ships are moving aside, and those transport carriers are moving forward.
Admiral Goranth: This is not a coincidence. They must have done something to Seeker. What are they up to? Get me all the information on those eleven big ships.
Sensors: Sir, I don’t understand what’s happening but there seems to be a cloud in front of those ships. Our sensor resolution is not enough to see what that is. Our best guess is that it’s some sort of electronic countermeasures, but it doesn’t seem very effective against our sensors.
Admiral Goranth: Guess! That’s not good enough. I want answers.

Sol Fleet HQ - Ganymede Station

Commodore Perera: Admiral, all carriers indicate that every available fighter, bomber, attack craft and their buddy drones have been launched. The count is 2,267 craft with over 9,000 torpedoes, missiles and bombs.
Admiral Singh: Tell them not to bunch up. The enemy may not be able to track and target our craft but even firing blindly those big guns can take out hundreds if they hit.
Commodore Perera: Yes sir, the attack plan is to go above or below the enemy. We believe their guns have very limited elevation. They typically target other big ships by maneuvering their entire ship and firing broadsides.

Wolf 3

Orbits: This final burn has got us pointed right to rendezvous with the enemy fleet - nice flying. You bounced off Titan's atmosphere like skipping rocks on a pond.
Dingo: Hey, I’m only the driver. I just followed your instructions. And we are traveling at 0.449c - isn’t that a record in normal space?
Orbits: Yeah! But who are we going to tell?

Behemoth Class - Havoc

Sensors: Admiral, whatever that cloud is, it’s still coming towards us but is dispersing and slightly above and below our path.
Admiral Goranth: I was thinking space mines, but then why are they not in our path? Navigation, can we proceed in the gaps?
Navs: Yes sir. They seem to be leaving a huge gap in the middle.
Admiral Goranth: This still bothers me. I don’t like it.

Wolf 3

Dingo: On my mark, fire all 16 torpedoes. I’m going to target their bridge.
Orbits: All torpedoes armed and ready. You have plasma cannon as well.
Dingo: Stella, it’s been an honor and a pleasure serving with you
Orbits: It goes both ways, Bill.
Dingo: Fire …

Behemoth Class - Havoc

Admiral Goranth: I don’t like this at all. I want all weapons on all ships firing when we get in range. Open a channel to all shi …
The sixteen torpedoes and three ships slammed into the bridge area of Havoc. Just the kinetic energy due to the velocity would have been enough. But the delayed fuzes in the explosives caused even more devastation. The Admiral and entire fleet command were vaporized, as were sixteen decks and over 400 other personnel.
The sudden loss of communication from Havoc caused a vacuum in command on the other ships. There was just no structure in place for any other Captain to take charge of the fleet. The situation was unthinkable.
And that’s when the carrier strike craft struck. They specifically targeted the guns on all ten ships. In less than 30 minutes, the ships were defenseless. Confusion and panic reigned on all ships and exasperated by the fire and smoke and the blaring alarms.
Now, Admiral Singh sent in the Destroyer squadrons. The twenty-three Destroyers had been hiding in the Kuiper Belt and had stealthily been moving in while the enemy’s attention was focused elsewhere. They first hid in Neptune’s shadow and then Uranus’. Their job was to target the engines and sensors on all the enemy ships.
Pretty soon, all ten ships were literally blind and dead in space with their heads cut off. Now it was the turn of the Battleships and Cruisers. When they were done, all that was left of the ten ships was a debris field slowly scattering between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus.

Sol Fleet HQ - Ganymede Station

Admiral Singh: Please send my personal congratulations to each and every member of the fleet. Their actions will be studied for centuries to come. Now give me the numbers.
Commodore Perera: The actual number of enemy dead is unknown but estimated to be around 30,000 to 40,000. We captured over 5,000 and they are being interrogated. Unfortunately, none of these seem to be navigators who know the location of their home system.
Admiral Singh: And our losses?
Commodore Perera: I have the complete list here but 87 KIA, no wounded or missing. Top of the list are Lt. Saunders and 2nd Lt. Ceres. If Wolf 3 hadn’t taken out the bridge on the enemy ship, we might have had a bloodier fight. They transmitted all their data before they hit, so we know it was a suicide run.
Admiral Singh: This is the part I hate - writing to the families. Writing the after-action report is a breeze compared to that.
Commodore Perera: That’s why you have a staff, sir.
Admiral Singh: No, I have to do this myself. I sent them out to die. Medals just don’t seem to be enough.

H’runik Home World - location unknown

After 47 days, Seeker finally limped home. With only 2 of its 19 engines working, it was a slow journey with many short jumps. Most of its crew was dead. Fortunately, Ensign M’thul knew the coordinates to get home and Second Engineer K’gala kept the ship running … after a fashion.
C-in-C Admiral A’zeneth: Ensign M’thul, I want a full report. What happened to all our ships? Where is the treasure you should have brought back?
Ensign M’thul: Sir, I regret to inform you that the fleet was destroyed. They were ambushed. We almost didn’t make it back either.
Just then alarms blared as multiple fleets with hundreds of ships from several star systems jumped in around the system.
C-in-C Admiral A’zeneth: You fool! Why didn't you disguise your route back. You led them straight here! Now you have killed us all!

Compromise
First Prev
“Alright, so uh...” Alex picked the last larva out of the bowl and ate it. A burst of umami and the unexpected taste of alcohol. Now that it had soaked up some of the spice from the broth, it was pretty good. Not particularly flavorful, but a better eating experience than he would expect from a grub. “Why did Eleya put two towns into a warship?”
“I do not know.” Carbon was less fussy about the variety of ingredients presented, eating without playing favorites. It was what she’d picked out when pressed to recommend something for him, and the speed of the devastation she was enacting on what had been a bowl nearly filled to the brim said that it was actually a personal favorite. “I had heard some suggesting converting retired Naval ships into housing, using a decommissioned carrier as a space station once it could be towed into a proper location. Swapping out launch bays for community towers is not a long bridge.”
“That seems...” It seemed desperate. But given what he’d seen, desperate was where they had been in the weeks following the disaster. Where they still were, even if things were improving.
Were things improving?
“Born out of desperation, yes.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “We did not have many colonies, we had not built so many stations. We only kept old ships for parts as another means of efficiency in our fleets. There had been hundreds of thousands in transit all over the Empire at the time. On their way home, on their way to relieve others who now no longer had a home to return to.”
“Yeah, that-” He shifted some of the shredded cabbage-potato around his bowl, trying to figure out what to say. The ‘that sucks’ he had stopped himself from blurting out felt offensively inadequate. “That does present a huge challenge. Did they end up bringing ships online for that?”
“Oh, we did everything. Any idea that was not completely untenable got the blue light. Repurposing ships, building sealed micro-arcologies on less habitable planets, mining out sufficiently large asteroids, asking the Confederation for help. I saw one proposal that suggested an inflatable space station. I thought it was a completely deranged idea.” She paused and picked up the bowl, slurping out some of the broth. “Then Humans arrive to bring aid, and do you know what the first structure they brought with them was?”
“An inflatable space station.” He saw that coming. Everyone - well, everyone who was sufficiently interested in space ships - would recognize the Redoubt class from that description alone. The very definition of form following function, each ship was little more than a central cylinder with hard points for a dozen habitat modules, and engines bolted to one end. Light, fast, cheap. Once deployed, you had a small space station that could be packed up when you were done. Old technology, sure, but they were everywhere, and the configuration options were extensive.
“Exactly. Forgive me, but I laughed. I knew the intent was to help, but having seen that proposal just weeks before...” She smiled and laughed despite having just apologized for such a thing.
“No I get it, it’s a goofy looking ship.” He could see the humor in the situation as well. Having gone from ‘this is too dangerous’ to ‘of course the Humans brought one’ was pretty funny. It put a smirk on his face and got him close to laughing along with her. “Probably used it as a command post until something heavier arrived. Kind of the primary use case for those in Search and Rescue, which is what I think the aid mission was first considered.”
“I was not involved with that aspect of recovery operations, but it stands to reason.” She set her utensils aside in a very specific way, sliding the bowl towards the end of the table. “I cannot tell you why they put all these people here. My first guess would be that it was a somewhat straightforward swap. The bays are very securely attached to the structure, but they are intended to be removed and replaced. It would be important that Eleya use her ship as a proof of concept.”
“Royals lead?” Seemed the logical jump.
Carbon nodded. “The Sword is recognized as her flagship. It is named after her. The Stronghold is based heavily on the Imperial Palace in Ama’o - may it rest. Taking in civilians, thousands of them, is hard proof that she is not simply hiding in here. Having the senate on board also brings with it the need for support staff, creating a symbiotic relationship. It is... a good compromise.”
“Okay, wait. How is The Sword of the Morning Light named after Eleya?” That legitimately confused him. “All I know is the -ya suffix is feminine.”
“Another name mauled by your automatic translation, though this time it is a portion of the Empress’ full formal titles.” She gave him a pointed look, a little smirk hiding on the side of her muzzle. “The strictest translation would be ‘the sword that is used to cut back the night,’ but that is even worse. If I were doing translations and feeling poetic, perhaps I would call it Dawnsword. It would convey the meaning of the name well enough, I think, without being verbose.”
“Then why do you call it the Sword like we do?” He figured just using the actual Tsla name would be easy enough if Dawnsword was a better translation.
“When in Rome.” Carbon snickered. “The Confederate systems I was working with before leaving for the Haultain were not set up to handle Tsla, and none of the Humans I spoke to recognized the name when I said it, so it became a force of habit.”
“Ah, that’d do it.” He’d ask about the actual name another time - it being one of Eleya’s titles felt like a natural transition to learning the rest of her titles, and he didn’t give a single damn about doing that right now.
“Alright, Eleya needs places to put people, and a place to put a temporary capital until the new location can be properly sorted. Two birds with one stone, I suppose. Wouldn’t staying at Schoen be more of the... leader thing to do?”
“If she were to stay here beyond the end of this endeavor, perhaps so. For now, having this ship - and its civilians - as a base of operations, in what even we consider to be one of the most secure solar systems, is reasonable. Most governing at that level has been done remotely since before the disaster, so it doesn’t impede anything.” She paused to sip her tea. “No one needs a senator to be on site anyway. Their presence traditionally just interferes with real work.”
That did get a laugh out of Alex. “The more things change.”
“The more they stay the same, yes?” She said with a grin.
“It is so. All right, mystery of the Dawnsword’s surprise towns is put to rest.” He stopped talking as Haraya came out of the woodwork to remove Carbon’s dishes, bustling away with even less stiffness than before. Why did he feel like he was forgetting something? “Heck. Did... Did anyone tell you we have an appointment to see a designer about our uh, our insignia?”
“No, but my communicator has been going off like I am being told something like that.” Carbon laughed and leaned back into her chair, fishing the slim black device from her jacket, the screen coming on.
Alex was not intentionally staring at his wife’s abdomen as he pushed the bowl away and set his chopsticks out like she had done. “Zenshen said it was this afternoon.”
“Mmh, afternoon. Another curious translation.” She teased him gently, flicking items off her screen one by one. “Neya says it is with Aetena Lyshen, at three. He has stated that his schedule is open today, and we may come in earlier if we so desire. Oh. How unexpected.”
Three o'clock, Tsla’o time, was probably like a solid five or six hours away. Plenty of time to have a deeply personal conversation about what Neya had told him. Or, perhaps, just go talk to the guy sooner. It wasn’t like he was putting it off... but he was putting it off for now. “What’s up?”
“Neya contacted the Colonel to make sure that Zenshen was attached to your detail properly - it turns out she was. You are both already on the artifact project, so it was just a slight shift of duties. The Empress went through appropriate channels, and Lehnan agrees with her decision.” She glanced up at him as she processed that. “I did not expect it to be so proper.”
“She is trying to turn over a new leaf, at least as far as you are concerned. Ensuring I have the help to not fuck things up, and doing it properly, could be a part of that.” He managed to make it sound like a statement, even though it was very much a question. Did his insistence that Eleya needed to start following through on her words actually sink in?
“It is possible. She will need to do more than fill out a little paperwork to prove herself.”
“Yeah, obviously. It’s just that you seemed surprised, so I was left with the impression that was unusual.”
Carbon stared down at the phone in her hands. “I do not know. From what I have seen, she will normally adhere to formal channels. But in the past, when it has come to dealings with me, she has not. Relied on her word being law to make things happen.”
Like making it legal to marry a Human. Changed who knows how much legal history with a stroke of a pen, to unfold some new machinations. “Zenshen made it sound like she was mostly there to act as a buffer between me and the military, keep me from offending anyone. Which strikes me as Eleya looking after her investment.”
“That is a reasonable assumption. I fear she has more intent sunk into you than we can see, so...” She also stopped talking when their waitress returned for Alex’s dishes, giving the young woman a warm smile. “Perhaps it really is.”
Alex, being privy to at least one plan that Carbon was unaware of, instantly did not want to comment on that. “Like you say, it lies with her to prove... herself good.”
“So it does.” Carbon smiled at his butchering of their turn of phrase before glancing down at her communicator again. “All right. Do you have any further plans for this morning?”
“Not a one. Want to push up the meeting with Lyshen? For that matter, do we have any plans tonight?”
“I do want to get that done. Designers can be particular. Best to get started sooner, and also have a meal that we can excuse ourselves for without appearing rude.” She smirked, displaying a little bit of the knowledge she had accumulated growing up in an elevated class, and started tapping away at the screen with both thumbs. “As for this evening, nothing that Neya has made me aware of.”
“Sounds good to me.” Left the evening open to actually have a sit down with Neya, perfect. “Oh shit, that reminds me. Neya wants us to bring her breakfast.”
“Does she. Very upset about not being able to come along?” The tone she had said that Carbon was familiar with Neya pretending to be put out by that, as did the barely hidden smile and tiny little snort of a laugh.
“Absolutely heartbroken.” He played along. “I had to promise that we’d get her something this morning and that you’d make breakfast again tomorrow.”
“Mh. We will see who is making breakfast when the time comes, but I will have something sent to her and we will proceed to our appointment.” She flipped through the applications on her phone and started typing something else out. “There.”
Carbon slipped the slim black screen back into her jacket and stood, stretching a little bit before walking over to the end of the bar, Haraya hustling out to meet them with a small device like the one Carbon had used to pay in the other little restaurant. She set her palm down on it, it processed for a moment and played a happy little tune.
“Thank you both, it was an honor to serve you.” Haraya bowed again now that the transaction was done.
“You did well, thank you.” Carbon said it in Tsla as she returned the bow, glancing over at Alex to ensure he was doing the same thing.
“Sa meha.” He was. Paying attention to what Carbon was doing was getting him pretty far, as was having memorized how to say ‘thank you’ in Tsla.
They turned to leave, but Haraya spoke again before they could take a step. Quiet, and very timid. “May I ask you a question?”
Carbon didn’t even think about it as she looked back. “Of course.”
“I was mostly asking the prince, I am very sorry.” She looked just this side of terrified to be correcting a Royal.
“Oh yeah, shoot.” Alex caught himself speaking in English way too late. He pursed his lips and inhaled, just barely preventing himself from rolling his eyes at that little faux pas. Based on what Carbon had said about Haraya getting her information about how nobles work from movies, she would have interpreted that as aimed at her. He queued up a very quick reply. “Please do.”
“After you left, last night.” She glanced over at the bartender, who was not paying them any attention at all. “Adana kept saying a strange word, I assume it to be Human - untranslatable.”
The irony of the translator not being able to digest something in English was not lost on Alex. What had he said to the kid?
Carbon, meanwhile, thought it was hilarious. “It is actually two words, a phrase. Oh, busted. In this case I believe it means that he got caught doing something he should not have been doing.” She laughed, looking up at Alex with a grin.
Haraya’s relief at how this turned out was immediately visible. She was still tense, but didn’t look like she might have just caught an execution. “Adana likes to play with the door controls. They beep and flash, and he can activate the viewscreen... And open the door. That is what he was doing when he found the prince in the hallway, when he should have been in bed. It is not an offensive term?”
“Et.” Alex shook his head no. Score another point for knowing the basics.
“It is as he says. A harmless statement.” Carbon picked up the slack from Alex trying not to advertise that he spoke their language yet. She looked over to him again. “Perhaps used to tease a friend when they get caught out?”
He nodded as sagely as he could, a smirk barely suppressed as he caught that shade she was directing at him.
“His mother will be so glad. She has been concerned it was some kind of swearing, or something worse. I told her that the prince had been kind in my interaction with him, but she was-” Haraya exhaled sharply, wide brown eyes darting between them with a hint of that fear creeping back in. “She was afraid despite that.”
“Ah. If that does not settle her, please get in contact with me.” She pulled her communicator out, swiping along the screen for a moment and holding it out to the young woman. “We can arrange a meeting to clear anything up.”
She looked down at a swirling orange circle on Carbon’s phone, “I am not allowed to carry my- May I get it?”
“Of course.” Carbon smiled.
Alex lowered his voice as Haraya hustled away. “You sure giving her your number is a good idea?”
“No. But she is earnest and correct in her assessment of you.” She shook her head, her words quiet and sharp. “That boy learned a simple phrase, and his mother thinks it is a curse? I know why she did. I have met my own people. I think a gentle nudge may be in order to prevent it from being passed along.”
“When you say gentle nudge...”
She held a hand out to ease his concern. “I was thinking tea.”
Haraya returned, phone in hand and followed by an older, grumpy looking male dressed in the same natural fiber clothes save for a vibrant red scarf around his neck, voice raised as he tried to keep up with the excited teen. “You may not use your-”
“Akai.” Alex gave what he assumed was a manager a needlessly cheery greeting with a little wave of his fingers. Oh man, he had loved being a shit to managers when he was younger, particularly if they were on a power trip. The opportunity hadn’t presented itself recently, and the urge to abuse the power that he allegedly had now was so tempting.
“Floor boss!” Carbon was a step ahead of him, greeting the gray male in their own language loud enough to draw his attention away from their waitress. “What is it that I may not use?”
Alex’s translator sat unused for several seconds as the sounds that guy made never made it past shocked guttural noises, the realization of who he’d been yelling in the general direction of sinking in. Haraya was too busy getting Carbon’s contact information to notice, or might have just been ignoring this exchange as hard as the bartender was.
“It was- My words- Did not for you.” He held up his hands and backed away.
“Ah, a simple misunderstanding?” Carbon offered him as the phone dinged complete, and she slipped it back into her jacket.
“Yes, of course.” Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Haraya bowed again as she hid her communicator, the same black rectangle that Carbon and Alex appeared to have. “Thank you. I hope I will not have to contact you, but that you have offered...”
“The prince has shown me who he is, what is in his heart... It will not do to have anyone doubting his character.” Carbon smiled and returned the bow.
Alex followed suit.
The fear in her eyes was gone, and if anything there was a little bit of admiration in there now as she thanked them again, quietly, before running off to whatever her next duty was.
They left the same way they had come in, through the main dining area. The crowd had shifted, some groups gone, new ones in their place. Conversations to fill boredom, meals he didn’t recognize being consumed at every pace conceivable. Once again, he was pretty sure this was his kind of joint.
It only took the gentlest of questions to get Carbon talking about what she’d been doing all morning as they walked back to the tram, riding all the way to the stop closest to the bow this time. Alex was only slightly familiar about what she was talking about - had something to do with preventative maintenance checks on one of the shuttles. It was interesting to find out they had developed a very similar system to what he was used to, checking in on functionality after so many hours of use.
He didn’t understand the majority of what she was describing, but he enjoyed listening to her talk about things with such enthusiasm.
Lyshen’s office was easily the furthest forward he had been on the ship yet. Took the elevator up to deck 20 and then just walked towards the bow for another five minutes. He must have been as close as one could get to the plate armor and whatever buffer they put between it and the habitable areas. It seemed almost entirely unused - he was sure some of the bulkheads had dust on them.
For Alex, there were two potential reasons for this. Aetena Lyshen preferred the solitude of the area. It was actually very quiet, even compared to the hall in front of their cabin. Or, he had pissed someone off and gotten banished to a spot as far away as possible.
Whichever option, Lyshen had put some work into his workspace. The door was ringed in a delicate gold filigree, a lacework of glittering geometric shapes with his name and title contained in a small banner above the door. They were meeting with a Royal Artisan.
Carbon tapped the door controls and it slides open almost instantly. The young woman with light red fur inside is dressed nearly as formally as they had been last night, though in muted grays. She bows. Not too deep. “Welcome, the Chief Artisan is preparing for your arrival. It should be just a few minutes.”
Chief Artisan. Well. Alex shot Carbon a sidelong glance as the receptionist turned and they followed her through a waiting room. A simple rectangular area, with a few upholstered chairs and benches scattered around. It was the most Human looking area he’d been in so far.
The far wall caught his eye as they walked through, windows looking into a workshop. Alex walked over, the large floor beyond housing a dozen or so Tsla’o, all seated at desks or workbenches, engrossed in whatever they were working on. Almost to the last, they were using hand tools.
Alex had never really seen craftsmen up close, doing their thing. In movies, or videos, sure. But not right here a few steps away, carefully engraving some sort of... Breastplate? Cuirass? Big chunk of metal that looked like it went over the chest.
“I believe that is yours.” Carbon stepped up next to him, a smirk in her voice as she leaned against his shoulder. “To go with your gauntlets, and the rest of the armor that is no doubt being fabricated.”
“What makes you say that?” How could she pick that up from looking at it for, what, three or four seconds?
“Consider the size.” She nodded at it, the artist working on it laying out a star near the shoulder. “Who else would wear such a piece?”
“Huh.” Compared to the guy who was doing the work, it wasn’t exactly massive, but he would need a lot of padding to wear that. This raised a few questions for him about the ethics of receiving such gifts. But he wasn’t a politician... Not as far as the Confederation was concerned. “I guess it is.”
They stood in silence and watched work progress. A woman in the back was carving something, perhaps a chair leg. One guy in the corner making hinges with an induction forge and a tiny, specialized anvil.
Before long, the secretary approached them again. “The Chief Artisan is prepared for you now. Please.” She gestured to the only door that went somewhere other than the corridor.
The Chief Artisan was sitting behind his desk, wearing an outfit similar to his receptionist, pale green eyes switching back and forth between two screens. The primary one was built into the desk, and had been jury rigged to a Human made laptop that sat on top of it, a rat’s nest of cables connecting the two. There was a holoprojector built into the desk, a jumble of images floating over it. He waved them in and gestured to the chairs across from him, “Please, sit.”
Alex was quick to oblige, glad to be just some guy for the moment. Carbon didn’t seem to mind either, taking the seat beside him without a word. Aetena was the first green Tsla’o Alex had seen, sort of a dark forest green with jade stripes visible on his neck. Apparently a bit of a rarity given how often he saw the other colors on the ship.
“I am sorry to keep you waiting, the connection to your Solanet has gone down. Despite that, I believe I have enough saved locally to begin the process.” Lyshen trailed off, lost between the two displays before closing a dozen images from the holo. He picked a pen up from the table and arranged the remaining pictures neatly, four different coats of arms that claimed to belong to a Sorenson. The red enamel barrel blurred into an arc as he spun the pen in his fingers, voice picking up speed as he locked on to Alex. “There is a large amount of heraldry available for your surname, do you know which coat of arms belongs to your particular family?”
There was a deer, a deer head, a rearing horse and a weird shaped star. Maybe it was a flower, or a drip of paint. They were all surrounded by leaves and the occasional knight’s helmet. Alex wasn’t sure what any of it meant and up until now, he’d never even thought about it. Knights and damsels in distress had never really been his thing. “Uh, can’t say that I do, no.”
“Mmh. What geographic region does your lineage trace back to? I could find no significant references to the Berkley Soresons on your Solanet.” He leaned back and the pen continued to trace crimson circles in his hand.
“The name comes from Europe, but the last couple of generations have lived in California, and America before that for who knows how long... We’re from a little bit of everywhere.” It was an inside joke with the family, which had ties back into nearly every corner of the globe at this point. Now they had a relative from somewhere way off the globe as well.
That puzzled Aetena, ears flicking as he turned back to the Human screen and picked over the keyboard slowly. He didn’t like what he found. “All of these originate from the continent of Europe. Do you happen to know which country?”
“No, I’m not sure. Had an uncle do the family tree thing once, but between the civil wars and The Collapse, the lineage got spotty about a hundred years ago.” Alex wasn’t really into the whole ancestry thing once you got outside of living relatives. It was novel, sure, but right now all he really wanted to do was ask if he could borrow that Solanet access when it came back up. The rest of the ship had access to the Confed’s milnet, which tightly restricted what he could be sending across it - he just wanted to download a couple of movies and some music, but milnet barely overlapped with the wider public network.
Lyshen set his hand down and the pen switched back and forth like a metronome, clicking on his desk at the end of each arc. He closed his eyes for a moment, jaw working silently before he closed the images and started pulling up new ones. “Perhaps we should move on to other aspects of this endeavor. As I have been told that you wish to integrate Tsla’o and Human cultures in your marriage, I had intended to blend the existing Tshalan sigil with some of the Sorenson family heraldry. I thought it would be best to use the gear-star surround from the Princess’ family crest as a base to build from. Something that is immediately familiar to Tsla’o, to put the viewer at ease. As it is indicative of starship commands, exploration and the outer colonies, it will solidly represent both of you and the way you met.”
Alex raised an eyebrow at Carbon, “sound reasonable?” He had no idea if it was or not, but it did sound like it. Also, if they were serious about integrating parts of Tsla’o and Human cultures, they needed to actually get on that.
“Yes. I agree, that would be a good place to start.”
“Thank you.” He busied himself bringing up a few more pictures, rough combinations of the ten point gear-star and the various items from the Sorenson crests, bits of decoration and detail work.
The door chimed behind them and Lyshen stopped with a sharp glare. He eyed the clock and sighed, a whispered curse under his breath before he set his pen down and straightened up. “Come.”
There was a soldier partially concealed behind the door, the rank plate on his uniform loaded with details, not that Alex could read them yet. He swept the room with a rifle as he entered, the short barrel ending up pointed just a hair under Alex’s sternum. A pair of soldiers took up positions on either side of the door and covered him, a few more lined up in the waiting room.
When he spoke, it was crisp and authoritative. “Please back away from the Human.”
 
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*****
Never a dull moment on that ship.
Art pile: Carbon reference sheet. Art by Tyo_Dem

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Chapter 49
Master General Kirain Yith
Adventurer Level: N/A
Half-Breed Drow - Balushenian
​
"The enemy has done nothing more than lob the occasional fireball at us, sir," General Smarn informed me. "They have encamped in the wooded area to the southwest, though, which hinders our visibility."
"So we don't know what they're planning, or even the full disposition of their forces," I grumbled.
"Yes, sir. I do have some good news, though."
"Out with it."
"You were right about their caravan, and we were able to successfully ambush it," he said with a hint of a smug smile. "Our forces returned today and reported that we managed to capture eighteen slaves, and even secured the equipment the orcs were escorting."
"Excellent. Put the equipment to use and put the slaves with the others. Dismissed," I absentmindedly waved him toward the door.
He bowed and left as I returned my attention to the map. While I was glad that I had successfully predicted the enemy caravan's movements, their lack of action against us here has me concerned. I expected at least one heavy assault before they laid siege. Yet it has been a week since our scouts confirmed their presence and they haven't tried anything serious yet.
Are they waiting for reinforcements? That would be foolish. A bird sent by my own reinforcements informed me that they had made contact with a small enemy host and weren't able to completely eliminate it, which means that the enemy knows about my archers. Even with all of the forces of the entire Unified Chiefdoms they would have difficulty taking this position, and once the archers arrive I can go on the offensive.
Even foreign aid won't arrive before my archers do, so what are they planning? Have they decided against an assault altogether? Our defenses were designed to look ramshackle, but a discerning eye would be able to tell how solid they really are. They would know that they require better equipment to launch a successful assault, but if my ambushers returned today the ambush had to have happened at least two weeks ago. It's unlikely that they're still waiting on their caravan. So what ARE they waiting for?
I stared at the map, trying to glean a clue as to what the enemy is up to. No matter how hard I stared, though, nothing came to mind. I scoffed and turned to my bed. I had just fed, so I wasn't feeling particularly tired, but it's important to remain on a schedule when one can. I removed my boots and armor, then slid under my covers.
As I lay there, I couldn't help but feel like the orcs were up to something and I was missing a key piece of information. I tossed and turned, my mind fighting over whether to think or to sleep. After what seemed like hours, I finally grew tired and fell into slumber.
'Well... you tried,' A hauntingly familiar voice forced its way into my mind. 'It was a valiant attempt to subvert the will of the divine, if nothing else.'
My eyes snapped open and caught a glimpse of the dawn's early light shining through my curtain before my ears had a chance to register what had awakened me. Once they caught up, I heard screams, crashes, and the clanging of metal striking metal. The sounds of a battle taking place nearby.
I leapt from the bed and quickly donned my armor, nearly forgetting my boots in the process. Once I was dressed, I grabbed my sword and flung open the door and promptly froze in shock. There were orcs within my barricades, but I had already realized that was the case.
There was a hole in my barricade which had allowed the orcs access to my camp. The creation of this hole had to have been extremely violent, judging by the distance in which the logs had been thrown. The reason for my shock, though, was because my mind was trying to figure out how this happened while my eyes were simultaneously providing the explanation.
Orcs and drow were fighting tooth and claw while mages rode by them on hnarses, flinging the occasional spell to horrid effect. My soldiers had been taken by surprise, and hadn't yet recovered or formed up. In the middle of all of this was a great and terrible beast. Its red and yellow hide was covered in arrows and its massive, fang filled mouth was ripping my soldiers apart like they were made of paper. A Nahalim, and it was fighting alongside the orcs. How? Where did they get it? Did they tame it? HOW?
Once the Nahalim finished decimating a group of my soldiers it rose up to its full height, standing at least twice as high as the tallest orcs. Then the beast roared, a deafening and blood-curdling sound even from my distance. Its bellow made me wince, and this finally struck me from my stupor. I began to run toward the battle, determined to rally my men and push these bastards back. We would figure out what to do about the Nahalim once we'd killed a few orcs.
"FORM UP!" I shouted, trying to be heard over the clamor of battle.
I raised my sword and shouted again. A few of my soldiers heard me, and began to form their lines. A mounted mage rode past them, narrowly avoiding a swipe from a sword. An arrow narrowly missed his head, but that didn't stop him from locking eyes with me. I knew for certain what his target was.
I began to ready my blade to try to cut him down, but his staff was already pointed at me. The spell that slipped his lips formed at the tip of the staff and rushed toward me at blinding speed. Just before it hit me, I realized that this was wind spear. I sighed at the triviality of the magic being used, and then the spell hit me.
I flew backward and felt a crunch as I was forced through the wall behind me, then another as I continued through the next wall. I slammed into the ground alongside a load of rubble and tried to get up, but flopped back to the ground. My eyes weren't able to focus and I could no longer breathe properly. I felt my chest and checked my hand, barely registering that the blood covering it was my own. Then the abyss took me.
'We do not have a lot of time,' the familiar voice once again rasped in my mind. 'You remember our agreement?'
I tried to speak, but no air left my mouth. I vaguely recalled our previous conversation and nodded.
'Good. You are smart enough to know that there is nothing further you can do, and the orcs will take your camp. Once they do, it will not take them long to figure out that you are the commander, and that you are also a half-breed vampire. This will result in a rather unfortunate demise for you.'
'Then what do you want me to do?' I asked.
'Flee to the west.'
'Not home?'
'No. After you flee, the orcs will find your sister and she will tell them all about you. Once the orcs learn of your heritage, they will gleefully inform King Lofin. Your home and family will be destroyed before the end of this week, despite your contingencies. If you are with them, you will also perish.'
A slew of emotions played through my mind. At first, I doubted this being's words, but quickly realized those doubts were likely wishful thinking. Even if the orcs didn't manage to capture Esmira alive, there are the slaves that have been converted. With some clever magic, the will that Alurgas imbued into them would dissolve, leaving them to their own devices. It would be foolish to believe that they would keep my secrets.
The contingencies that I put in place to prevent Lofin from targeting my family in my absence would also fail once my vampirism became public knowledge. No one would be stupid enough to be caught helping a vampire. Moorn and my trusted servants will die. My grief nearly overwhelmed me. Everything that I had built, everything that I have loved, gone. And there's nothing I can do.
'You will flee, then,' the voice rasped. 'You must go west. You will be pursued, but if you keep fleeing to the west they will eventually give up. You mustn't stop until you're certain they aren't following you.'
'Where am I going? What awaits me?'
'I would like to tell you, but...'
I awoke, gasping for air. I instinctively grabbed my chest, feeling a hole in my armor and the cloth beneath it. The bare skin that I felt assured me that the wound had healed. I stood and looked for my sword, but it was nowhere to be found. Swearing under my breath, I looked to the sky to get my bearings. The sun was still rising, so my destination was in the opposite direction.
I paused for a moment, gazing at the hole in the wall I had left. Esmira was in there, and I couldn't help but think about killing her. While it would better my mood to feel what meager life she has left leave her body, it would cost me precious time. I decided against it and began to run. If I'm lucky, King Lofin will find a way to kill her for me.
Before I could get far, a hnarse stopped in front of me. Atop the hnarse was an orc spell-caster with a very familiar face. He looked at me with surprise, not expecting me to be standing. His shock caused a moment of hesitation that when combined with his proximity to me spelled his doom.
Before he could raise his staff I leapt, landing behind him on the hnarse. I grabbed his skull and pulled his head to the side hard enough to hear a crack, and tore into his throat with my fangs. He began to seize as a sweet, coppery taste filled my mouth. I gulped it down greedily, but I couldn't have my fill. I had to get moving.
I threw him from the saddle and grabbed the reins, urging the hnarse to the west. It began to gallop as I heard shouting from behind me. A wind spear flew past my head, taking a small portion of my ear with it. I pressed the hnarse faster and lowered myself to avoid more close calls.
The gate had been left open, indicating that a portion of my forces had abandoned their posts and fled. Typical of King Lofin's finest. An explosion hit the gate as I cleared it, sending splinters in all directions. A large one took residence in my left arm, but I quickly removed it. The wound began to heal as I continued into the trees as fast as the hnarse could take me.
I continued to dodge both foliage and spells for most of the day, and eventually my hnarse tired. It was well-trained, though, and it kept going until it finally collapsed. I leapt from its back and continued running, nearly as fast as the hnarse had. A few minutes later, my pursuer's hnarses also tired and I finally lost them.
I kept running until the sun was in front of me, and finally slowed my pace. My heart was pulsing in my ears, and my breath was heavy. I wiped sweat from my brow as I continued to walk toward wherever my goal happened to be.
As the sun began to set, I found a small cave. After determining that it was empty, I decided to take a rest. I grabbed some nearby branches from a bush to mask its entrance, then crawled inside. After adjusting the camouflage a little, I made myself as comfortable as possible. Then, I was finally left alone with my thoughts.
I've lost everything. My family, my friends, my home, my career, and even my dreams. All I have left is my body and the clothes on my back. Which have a conspicuous hole in the chest. I felt my anger build up within me, but it was the cold sort of anger. What do people normally do to cope with loss and grief? Cry?
Crying would waste water, though, and I am in a survival situation. No, the best way to cope with my grief is to analyze what went wrong and learn from it. Unfortunately, I have no idea how I can learn from whatever mistake it is that I made.
A beast of the wastes had laid low my plans for conquest. Did they capture it in the wastes and bring it here? No, that would have taken them far too long. Could they have already had it tamed and ready to fight? If that's the case, why wasn't it used against my forces to begin with? Could it be that they stumbled upon the Nahalim, managed to capture it without killing it, and one of them knew how to tame it?
While it sounded ridiculous, that hypothesis resonated within me. The separate and unlikely coincidences happening all at once, culminating in my defeat. It absolutely reeks of divine interference. The question is, which divine? The one claiming to help me, or one of the other ones? Which of the little bodiless worms had decided to meddle with reality and force my failure?
'It was a group effort, actually. And I had no hand in it.'
I was so exhausted that I hadn't even realized I'd fallen asleep. I glanced around the abyss, trying to locate the god that had spared my life.
'Why me?' I demanded. 'Why would I be targeted like this?'
'They do not see it as you do. To them, you are nothing. They didn't see a half-breed vampire trying to conquer the Night Kingdom and become king. Instead, they saw the vampires about to make a return to power. Obviously, they decided to prevent that from happening.'
'But why?'
'Their motives are as unknown to me as they are to you. They likely acted upon a whim,' it said with a cruel laugh. 'Yet, this is precisely what I wanted to demonstrate to you. As a mortal acting on your own volition, you are powerless against the meddling of the beings known as gods. If they care enough about your plans to dislike them, your plans will fail. Regardless of the thought or effort you put into them. All it took this time was a whisper to a beast and an orc.'
'Like you are whispering to me now?'
'No, I am speaking to you. A whisper is much more subtle. Your hearing suddenly becoming clear enough to make out what someone is saying in a busy marketplace. A sudden craving for a specific dish at a specific restaurant that a certain someone happens to be at. Even something as simple as fatigue can be used to guide you to where we want you to be, as you'll recall.'
And recall I did. I remembered the first time I had heard this being's voice. I'd become so tired so quickly that I thought I'd been poisoned. That was a whisper, then.
'As you can infer from our current conversation, we're capable of more direct interference. If you had managed to somehow disrupt their scheme with the Nahalim, one of the other gods may have spoken to the enemy commander and told him about the escape tunnel your orc slaves were digging. If the enemy commander failed, then a lightning storm may have formed and stricken your barricades, causing them to explode.'
'So why didn't you stop them? I thought you are trying to help me?'
I knew the answer to this question and felt foolish for asking it, but my anger and indignation forced it out of me.
'I am helping you in such a way that allows us both to achieve our goals, as was agreed. It should be obvious that I have no interest in your petty ambitions outside of what they can do to achieve my goals. And that's the point. If you listen to me and do as I bid you, I will help you achieve your goal. You will gain power and purpose, and no being will be able to look down on you again. If you do not, I will leave you at the mercy of the other gods to do with as they please. It is very unlikely that they will aid you.'
I allowed myself to calm once more, and thought about my situation. This being is promising to help me gain power, but not help me do anything except gain power. So what's stopping other gods from eliminating me once our bargain is completed?
'They will try, but not because they want you dead. They have another goal in mind, and you will be an obstacle to that goal. However, we can only interfere when we are allowed to. There is a greater being at work here that will make certain the coming contest will be fair. And if you survive, you will be allowed to do as you please, free from the meddling of beings like me.'
'Then what would you have me do?'
​
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The light coloured wooden floorboards creaked softly under my weight as I struggled. Using human crutches wasn’t difficult, but it was demeaning. They were miss matched and that was confusing. One was from a set I'd had as a child, while I didn’t recognise the other at all.
Without giving it too much thought I turned into my fathers study to find the room was changed. It was dilapidated. The furniture was rotten and falling apart while all the books were moth eaten. Brigetta sat on the floor, weaving thread into talismans.
‘Brigetta…? What are you doing?’ I asked as the space gradually fell away around us.
‘Making an anchor for you,” she answered softly. She wasn’t crying exactly, her eyes weren’t red and she wasn’t sobbing, but water ran down her face from her eyes. It was an unnatural amount that pooled around her in a puddle as she worked.
‘Why?” my voice echoed, confused.
‘Because they’re going to kill you.’
Cold dread trickled down my spine, ‘…Who are..?’
‘The Fae.’
As she spoke a shadow moved beside her and Markos appeared from nowhere. He held something in his hand, however I wasn’t able to make it out as the panic jolted me back to consciousness.
Taking a deep breath in, I was awake before I opened my eyes. Sweat dampened my clothes and I blinked slowly as understanding came to me, I had been dreaming. I couldn’t remember falling asleep, but I awoke in darkness. My mouth was dry and the only part of me that didn’t hurt was the leg I couldn’t feel, every other part wished for death.
However I was laying on something soft under light sheets. They ruffled softly as I turned over, and the warning came immediately, “Don’t try anything stupid.” It was Nathaniel who had spoken. His voice was somehow reassuring, smooth and calm. He was sitting not far from me beside the glow of a small lamp with a book in hand. It backlit his hair, giving him an ethereal halo, and he didn’t so much as bother to look over when I stirred.
“Where am I?” I asked, confused. My voice was husky and quiet as the vocal cords struggled to work.
“You’re in my chambers, and if you try anything, I’ll kill you outright.”
It came back to me gradually, being carried through endless marble hallways, and forced to bathe. I exhaled with shame as I remembered. Showing weakness was unacceptable in my family and I was a disgrace for being captured alive… My father would hate me if he knew, he would probably never speak to me again.
“...Why haven’t you killed me already?”
“Because you’re of no use dead.”
I wasn’t sure I was of any use alive either, “...Thank you,” I murmured softly.
“It’s too soon to thank me,” he answered, uncaring, as he turned a page and I allowed my gaze to drop
He was probably right. Even if I was safe right now, this was only temporary, and I didn’t have the energy to argue even if I wanted to. “How long has it been?” I asked instead.
“A couple of days,” he moved when he spoke and I automatically tried to recoil.
It was a wasted effort. I could hardly move at all, let alone defend myself. My injuries had set, and the muscles were simultaneously weak and stiff. I swallowed anxiously as he walked past. “Whatever you’re going to do, please don’t… I’ll do anything you want…”
Of course I was lying. Pretending to be afraid and hoping I was correct in what he wanted to hear as I tried to anticipate how best to survive this situation. “What I want right now, is for you to stop talking.”
Nathaniel passed me again and I flinched, maybe I wasn’t pretending as much as I wanted to be, I thought bitterly. However, I realized then that he was largely ignoring me. He had grabbed another book from somewhere in the darkness, and returned to his seat without acknowledging me.
Gradually, my heart rate slowed. The fae wasn’t going to do anything, he was just existing in the same space… but why? Was it a ruse? Another interrogation technique? Maybe he was trying to break my mind with the endless uncertainty. I watched him with wary caution as I debated whether or not I could use my charm to get him to let me go.
However, between the warmth of the bed and the gentle rustle of paper turning, my eyelids were growing heavy. My thoughts drifted and my consciousness was slipping away. I didn’t trust him, and I didn’t want to risk being killed in my sleep, but, maybe that wouldn’t be the worst way to die. At least I wouldn’t know it had happened…
***
When I awoke next I was alone in the plush bed. Sunlight glistened off my lashes and I turned over to get away from the brightness. The air was cold and every part of me ached, but the blankets were warm. I pulled them tighter around myself, nesling lower into them as I cautiously looked around.
In daylight, the room was cluttered. A thousand different ornaments, tapestries, crystals and pendulums crowded every surface. Books were haphazardly stacked in piles on the floor and leaned at precarious angles, leaving only narrow pathways through the mess.
To the right were french doors leading to a balcony. They were framed by burgundy velvet curtains that cascaded downward into heavy folds of excess fabric, and semi-transparent curtain sheers. At the foot of the bed was a Victorian era fainting lounge with similar dark velvet upholstery and an asymmetrical, ornately carved, wooden backrest.
On the left was a small partitioning wall that blocked the rest of the space from immediate view and the entryway to the bathroom. Antique furniture hidden among the mess lined the perimeters of the room and refracted light cast dull rainbows across the walls. It was beautiful, in a chaotic way.
Nathaniel was nowhere in sight and the room was quiet except for the gentle tick of the pendulums. I was alone as far as I could tell, but it was with caution that I began to move.
“Hello?” I called, wincing as I put pressure on my arm to push myself up.
The room remained silent and I glanced around to be sure. I had half expected this to be some kind of trap, however, nothing happened and I carefully swung my legs over the edge of the bed. Heaving the damaged one over with disgust.
A thin trail of magic wrapped around my ankle and I smiled bitterly. It was a tether, binding me to the bed with a limited range of freedom. The writing itself wasn’t overly complicated, but I had no magic to use and the breakpoint was on the ceiling where I couldn’t reach just yet. With a small irritated huff I gave up, moving instead to find a weapon. That fae bastard would regret bringing me here.
Using the bed frame as support, I stood before awkwardly hopping across the room. I tried the balcony doors first, they were locked both physically and with a rigid barrier spell. Next I tried the main door only to find a similar situation before debating whether or not I could make it out the bathroom window. Most likely not, I realized bitterly. Escaping wasn’t a task I was capable of in my injured state.
However, that didn’t make me defenseless. I limped toward the desk and rummaged through the draws. Inside each drawer was no better than the rest of the room. They were filled with ink pots and quills, pens, pencils, paintbrushes and loose paperwork.
Small trinkets and other useless things that I suppose he simply couldn’t find any other place for only added to the disarray. Shutting the drawer I snorted in exasperation. It was ridiculous. What kind of person keeps so many pointless items? He must’ve had a hundred shiny but harmless trinkets.
Eventually I came across an engraved pocket knife made of silver. It opened with a swift click and the blade was remarkably sharp. I could kill Nathaniel easily with it… However, the thought of doing so made me nauseous and I closed the blade. It was pointless anyway, even if I killed him now, I was still trapped in the fae castle.
Placing it back on the desk I slowly sank to the floor instead. I hated myself for this, for being so weak. My fingers had little grip strength with my knuckles still healing, and with my good leg being compromised it was difficult to stand for too long. If I had killed him in the forest none of this would be a problem and I would still be with my family.
Some part of me knew I had sealed my own fate, but I wasn’t sure I regretted it. At least if I died, the war would be closer to ending and I sighed, running my hands back through my hair. The situation was hopeless. I didn’t know what to do, and I was afraid of what Nathaniel would do to me when he returned. For all I knew this was just another interrogation technique…
A muted click interrupted my thoughts and I glanced up. A moment of silence followed the sound and I waited in tense uncertainty: had Nathaniel returned? Seconds passed before I heard the soft swoosh of the door closing again and the hair on the back of my neck prickled. Someone had entered the room.
Boots clacked on the floorboards in purposefully slow steps as they navigated and I moved immediately. I crawled quietly across the floor and slipped under the bed, wedging myself between the clutter beneath it. Moments later the footsteps came closer, and I watched as small white shoes with a neat heel walked past the bed. Slender legs with tanned skin filled the shoes and the girl came to a stop beside the desk where I had been.
She stood there a moment and I held my breath as she examined the area. However when she turned to go, the pocket knife fell off the desk. It landed among the junk on the floor and she stooped to collect it. The woman was human, and remarkably beautiful.
Her long white-blonde hair fell forward over her shoulders and her slender fingers wrapped around the pocket knife. Her nails were manicured, painted pastel pink with small gems encrusted on them. She wore light makeup with matching diamantes on her upper cheek bones and bore the contract marks of a Fae agreement under them.
For a brief moment I wondered who’s ‘property’ she was. Probably not Nathaniel’s otherwise, she wouldn’t be creeping around his room like a thief, I thought as she stood again. No emotion crossed her face as she set the knife back where it had been before it fell and wondered what would happen if she saw me. Would I be able to convince her to help me? She didn’t seem unkind, however, fae ‘pets’ are well trained.
They’re loyal to their masters in all ways, and in combat they’re deadly. On the battlefield they cut through my father’s human worshipers with no remorse or restraint, and will just as easily cut down any un-reveanted vanir who crosses their path. Worse still is that they’re impossible to spot until they attack.
They look alike to any other human and blend in among our forces. That was part of the reason we began to poison our horde, the trace of death separates them from the vibrant life of those controlled by the Fae.
Eventually the girl turned away and disappeared from view. It seemed whatever she was looking for she hadn't found it and I exhaled with pure relief when I heard the door close again as she exited. I wasn’t sure I could have taken the stress if I had been found.
Laying under the bed my body ached and my bruised ribs hurt. I waited there a while, gathering the willpower to wriggle back out before deciding not to. It would take too much effort, and I felt safer in a hidden place. I fell asleep again curled among a pile of worn, but not dirty, clothes.
(Next chapter available on Patreon, as well as some ahhh spicy posts...)

Me and Lila always carved dozens of jack o’ lanterns every October, so they’d absolutely saturate our lawn on Halloween night. It was our thing. But looking back on it, now that I’ve lost her, I just feel bad for the pumpkins. I almost relate to them, somehow. The way they were carved up, had everything of substance inside of them torn out, and left as hollow, rotting shells with forced smiles.
Needless to say, I didn’t cope with her death well. I didn’t want to cope with it. I wanted the world to drown in the black sludge of my grief. I loathed the people I saw going about their lives, unaware that the world had already ended the moment Lila died. The Earth shouldn’t keep spinning. Life shouldn’t go on. Not without her.
Even my relatives bringing me along on a trip to Kauai only made it worse. The most gorgeous place on Earth, and it made me sick with hatred. Nothing that beautiful deserved to exist if Lila wasn’t ever going to get to see it. It wasn’t fair.
I thought I’d never enjoy or care about anything again. Then I discovered media preservation.
It started with taking some of Lila’s old VHS tapes to a video repair place to fix some issues with the footage before it’s digitized. The job fascinated me. In a universe based on entropy, where everything inevitably fades away and is forgotten… restoring something lost is like snatching it from the jaws of death, right? Like flipping the bird to the universe and its so-called ‘natural order’. People die, but information doesn’t have to.
Now, it doesn’t matter how small — be it some god-awful plug-and-play licensed game, or a cereal commercial from 80’s — it’s my mission to recover it in as high a quality as I’m able, and make sure it’s freely available online for as long as possible.
A couple weeks ago, I came across a big haul. Four boxes of old VHS tapes offered up on E-Bay for dirt cheap. Most of the tapes were just recordings of Cheers episodes already preserved in higher qualities, but one Maxell E-240 caught my interest.
First of all, I’d never seen one so melted. Sure, sometimes they were left in an attic too long, and the colors and audio start to degrade. But this one looked like it had survived a house fire. It was covered in soot and the smell of smoke, and had the overall shape of a chocolate bar left out in the sun a little too long.
Second was the label, which read in neat sharpie: ᴇᴘɪꜱᴏᴅᴇ 4,679,329 ᴍᴀʀ 8 2035.
The casing was so disfigured, I had to bust it apart just pull out the tapes and respool them in a fresh cassette. I tried to iron out the creases in the tape as best I could, but I had no illusions about it accomplishing much — the mylar surface had been irreparably warped in places by whatever fire had half-melted the thing.
Imagine my despair at the sight of that dreaded ‘ɴᴏ ꜱɪɢɴᴀʟ’. I could clearly see the tape wasn’t blank, yet no amount of adjusting the tracking or trying different TVs or VCRs accomplished anything. Just as I was about to give up, though, the thing just suddenly started playing properly at the exact instant the clock struck 3 AM, as if it had only now decided to work. My all-nighter had paid off.
I didn’t dwell on the fact that this ‘miracle fix’ had been impossible. If I’d had any sense, I’d have torn the horrid thing out of my VCR and buried it beneath holy ground. Instead, fool I was, I sat down and watched.
At first, the thing seemed unwatchable. The audio was so distorted that the show’s theme song emerged as a low, crackling, staticky wail that made my head throb, and the logo was completely indistinguishable through the flickering and interference. I thought it was a lost cause for a moment. But then a figure appeared and cleared away the static, like Noah parting the Red Sea.
It was the sight of the show’s host that hooked me. He was just… perfect. Perfect in every way. I knew it just looking at him. Infinitely handsome and likable and charismatic, and he always said the exact perfect thing. The only issue is, I don’t remember a single thing about him now, in the same way you can’t remember a dream that seemed so clear to you while you were experiencing it. He just appears in my memory as this abstract blur in a sharp suit. Yet at the time, I was awestruck, even before he said a single word.
I can’t even remember a word he said. It was like he was speaking another language, one I felt as opposed to heard. I’ll try and transcribe it as best I can into words, but know that it’s only a pathetic imitation.
“... for another night of laughs, prizes, and fun for the whole family, with your host, #####!” I noticed that the audio and visual distortion seemed to suddenly intensify the instant he said his name, rendering it completely illegible. Idiot I was, I figured that was a coincidence. “Tonight is a night of celebration, folks, because thanks to the support of loyal viewers like you, we have just been approved for, get this: two hundred thousand more seasons!”
The “live studio audience” went wild with applause. I put that in scare quotes because, as far as I could tell, besides the host, the studio seemed completely empty. As if he was standing on a plain white stage that extended outwards into infinite darkness on all sides.
“For those just joining us, the game here is simple…” He explained that this was some sort of a trivia show. Every time a guest got an answer wrong, it brought them a little closer to some sort of unspecified ‘punishment’. And if they got it right? He smirked. “Well, they get to delay the inevitable.”
I wondered what he meant by ‘inevitable’. I didn’t have to wonder long.
The host gestured to a curtain that hadn’t been there moments ago, which raised to reveal a middle-aged man. You know the type — bushy mustache, gray hair, round-rimmed glasses. Kind of guy you’d have doing your plumbing. He couldn’t look any more out of place stood up and restrained in that — what the hell is that?
I recognized that metal coffin-looking thing from a medieval torture museum I went to once. The iron maiden. The lid hung open, countless long, needle-like blades poking inwards, threaten to poke a million new holes in him if it was shut.
His situation was not lost on him. “Where… where am I? What the hell is this!?”
“Oh, lucky guess!” The host ‘joked’. More canned laughter. “I know you always loved watching those trivia shows, Malcolm? Weren’t you always sitting there, grinding your teeth, seething that it wasn’t fair? That you should be the one up on stage, winning big?”
The man paused. Even he seemed mesmerized by the unreal perfection of the host before him. “I… this is a… game show?”
“All you have to do is answer a few questions! Think you can handle that, Malcolm?” He pulled out a cue card without waiting for an answer. “And our first question! What were you doing the night of February 18th, 1998?”
The man seemed baffled. “Just… sat on my couch watching the NFL, I think? I’m not sure how I’m supposed to remember —“
He let out a startled squeal as a horrid buzzer sounded. On cue, the lid slid a third of the way closed, making him flinch. “Oooh, I’m afraid that’s the wrong answer, Frank! But you know what? I’ll give you one more chance. What were you —“
“Following a girl home!” The man cried out. “F-from the bar. There, are you happy?”
“Cor-rect!” The canned audience began cheering! “Such honesty! Now, our second question: just what were you carrying while you followed her?”
He hesitated for a little too long. And then the buzzer sounded again, and the lid slid so near to closing that its blades began poking uncomfortably against his skin. He tried to press himself against the back of the maiden as well as his restraints would allow. “Jesus! Okay! A knife, a knife!”
“Awww, if only you’d said that just a second earlier!” Another big question. “Our third question: why, Malcolm? Why did you do it?”
That set Malcolm off. He started thrashing, clawing, screaming. “Let me out of this thing, you maniac! You can’t do this to me! Do you know who I am? Is this some sort of sick joke? My lawyers will have your head for this, you—“
And then the buzzer. All of a sudden, the lid slammed shut full-force, and the man was utterly silenced save for an unnatural, drawn-out wheeze. “Another wrong answer, Malcolm! I’m afraid I was looking for: ‘because if I can’t have her, no one can’!”
I admit it. I laughed. Out of shock more than anything. How was this allowed on TV? I took it as some sort of dark comedy show, and it was kind of satisfying to see that freaky character get his comeuppance. Still, there was something unnerving to me, seeing the man’s eyes through the openings in the maiden. Wide and red and terrified. They just looked a little… too real.
But the maiden disappeared as quickly as it came, before I could dwell on it too much. “Oh, envy! Definitely one of my favorite sins.” More laughter. “Stay tuned, folks! We’ve still got a night of fun and games in store for you! But first… how’s about a word from our sponsors?”
Cut to a corporate logo which I again couldn't recognize.
“This segment was made possible by Buer Health, which has recently announced a brilliant new initiative to protect our citizens from skin cancer by removing their skin completely.”
The camera cut to a massive industrial building, resembling a solid concrete cube around 50 meters in width and height. Its surface bore arcane symbols etched using carvings of wailing, tormented faces. The host would occasionally be rendered inaudible by a deafening metallic scraping from within, though he didn’t seem to notice. The only protrusion from the building’s cubic shape was a single smokestack, belching a scarlet red smoke into the atmosphere. A queue of gaunt figures waited at the entrance, herded and coerced by their grim overseers, and there were no words to describe the procession of scarlet ghouls limping out the building’s other end.
“Owing to the nonlinearity of time, the brand new Grand Skinpeeling Machine has spontaneously appeared several years before construction deadlines, and indeed, before it was even conceived of by anyone in our timeline. People have rushed all the way from Malebolge just to try this miracle of technology out on opening day, and so far, the reviews have been stellar!”
He shoved his microphone in the face of a shambling thing that could only scarcely be called a human. Tatters of flesh clung to its exposed musculature, blowing in the wind. Its eyes were the only hint of color in that sea of bloody red, and they were wide, white and terrified. The thing screamed and wailed for as long as it could before the last tendons connecting its jaw to its face snapped, and it was left to choke and gurgle.
“An amazing wail! The results speak for themselves, folks. The Grand Skinpeeling Machine is a hit!”
So far, I was still laughing along and having a good time. The sight of the next ‘guest’, however, started making me nervous.
It was an old lady.
She couldn’t be a day younger than sixty, the sort of sweet elderly woman who in a just world would be cooking chocolate chip cookies for her grandchildren in a comfy cottage somewhere. But here she was, tied to a metal chair, eyes wide, shaking like a leaf. Unlike the last contestant, she seemed to know exactly what was happening.
“In exchange for our loving endorsement, they’ve agreed to loan us one of their star employees. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for: the Liqisma!”
Something slunk from the darkness far behind her — or perhaps it’d be more apt to say that the darkness birthed it whole-cloth. It was like a living shadow, and it took my eyes a moment to register what I was even seeing.
How do I even begin describing this creature? I could say it looked almost human, or at least like something that may have been human long ago. Or I could start with its skin, which was all black and shiny as latex and seemingly smooth on first glance, but if you looked closer you’d realize it was covered in a million tiny reptilian scales, almost like a shark. Its head was a bald man’s, utterly devoid of any distinguishing features, like the basic stock template for a human being. It was notable only for a complete lack of pupils and irises, its eyes a pure white.
Its body defied basic biology in so many key ways, I had to stare it at for what felt like an eternity just to wrap my mind around its physiology. It was at least five or six meters long, by my estimate, composed of multiple human torsos stacked one on top of the other like segments of a centipede, each melding with the ones around it at the waist and shoulders. Each torso sported a pair of short, stubby arms that propelled it with terrifying grace. It ended with a pair of human legs, perpetually bent on their knees, beneath a ‘tail’ that looked more like its coccyx was poking free from its body.
The old last could clearly hear it, and kept futilely trying to turn her head around enough to get a peek at what stood behind her. I mouthed uselessly, don’t. You don’t want to know.
“Glad you could join us again, Miss Wethersby! Judging by our ratings last week, you seemed to have been a fan favorite!”
Her voice was so soft, I could barely hear it below the static. “Oh, God. Please, why won’t you people let me go? I’ve told you, I’ve never done anything, never hurt anybody. There must be some sort of—”
He waved a hand over her, and it seemed to forcefully snap her mouth shut. “Please, Miss Wethersby, save your breath for our questions!” Another cue card. “Your first question, my friend: where did you and your husband buy your first home?”
She had to think about it for a long time. Eventually, she cried out, “Alabama! Tuscaloosa, Alabama!”
“Ding ding ding! Why, you’re already doing better than our first contestant! Next question: what breed of dog was your childhood pet?”
She had a pained look on her face as she thought. Eventually, a timer started ticking down. It wasn’t visible, so it wasn’t clear how much time she had left exactly, but the sound it made got more shrill and high-pitched with every second. “Miss Wethersby, need I remind you that we have a time limit on this show?”
A tear ran down her cheek. “I… I keep telling you people, I don’t know. I have dementia, I can’t remember, please—”
That buzzer again. “I’m afraid that was the wrong answer! Liqisma?” The old lady shuddered at the sounds of hundreds of feet drawing a little closer to her. “Now, your first grandchild. What did he look like? What color were his eyes? His hair?”
She was crying harder now, like it hurt her that she couldn’t remember something so dear to her. “I told you I can’t remember! Why are you doing this to me!?”
“If you don’t remember them, why would they remember you?” The host mocked as the buzzer sounded, and the beast drew a little closer. “Really, do you believe they still even think about you? Or do you think they’re glad that the old bag of bones isn’t there sucking up their inheritance?”
This went on for… God, it could have been an hour. I was glued to the screen all the while, frozen with terror, praying for this nightmare to just end, for her to make it out okay somehow. He poured over every little detail of the life she lived and the people she loved, delighting in how little of it she could still recall.
And the thing grew closer, and closer… until she finally felt multiple pairs of hands resting upon her shoulders. The thing was looming over her now, and a long, black tongue a few feet in length emerged from its mouth and ran trails of dark saliva over the back of her head. She looked broken down, eyes raw from crying, and I could tell by the dampness of her dress that she’d wet herself.
“Now, Miss Wethersby, our time here has been fun, but I do believe it is time for our final question. Tell me, what is the name… of your only son?”
She couldn’t even answer anymore. She just stared ahead, like her mind was a million miles away. He cackled as the buzzer sounded one final time, and threw his cue cards aside. “Thank you for playing, Miss Wethersby. Better luck next time.”
I would say the thing unhinged its jaw like a snake, but that’d be an understatement. The way the thing’s face malformed and wrinkled and stretched as it opened its maw, it no longer looked even remotely human. Its jaws must have parted at least thirty centimeters apart, revealing a second, pharyngeal pair of jaws that lashed out and gripped the woman’s skull, pulling her headlong into that darkness.
I could hear bones crunching and snapping as its throat constricted down around her body, peristaltic muscles compacting her into a meat slurry, bit by bit. Yet she just wouldn’t die. Even as her skull and upper body were already crushed and compacted, organs and muscles pressed into mulch, she still kicked her legs, twitched her fingers, let out a gurgling that must have been some attempt at screaming. She was squirming even as the beast snapped its jaw shut around the last of her, condemning her to whatever torments awaited her inside the creature.
And all the while, that horrible laughter. “Don’t worry, folks! She’ll be back next week! And the next. And the next…”
Needless to say, I wasn’t having fun anymore. In fact, I had to turn away and fight the urge to throw up. I stood, about to turn the TV off and —
“Ah, ah, ah! Don’t touch that dial, now!” I froze. There was something chilling about the way he said that, staring right into the screen as if reacting to what I was doing. I hated that grin on his face. “The real show is just beginning.”
And with the barely restrained excitement of a child on Christmas morning, he yanked back another curtain, and I recognized everything.
I recognized that crappy bootleg knockoff Always Sunny in Philadelphia jacket that was so gaudy and terrible it instantly became her favorite thing in her wardrobe. I recognized those subtle hints of slight acne she disguised as fake freckles. I recognized the way her gray eyes would remind me of those overcast mornings at the beach at Hilton Head and pointing out all the cannonball jellyfish washed up on the sands. I recognized that tattoo of the name ʀᴏᴄᴋʏ, how I’d held her all night long as she cried into my shirt after her childhood cat had died.
It was Lila.
I shuddered, gasped, fell from my seat as if I’d been punched in the stomach and the air had been knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be real. I was dreaming right now. I must be. I just had to wake up.
But I couldn’t wake up. Nothing I could do dispelled the sight of her curled up in that… that thing. That bronze statue of a bull, horns jutting on either side of a head that roaring silently up at the heavens, all while the love of my life was locked in its hollowed out belly, visible only through a pane of glass. I could hear her cry out in shock at where she’d found herself, and every whimper felt like it drove a knife through my chest.
The host soaked in the moment. It was ecstasy for him, the suffering of it all. He stared dead into the camera like he was looking right at me as she called, “What is this? Where am I?”
“Why, I have good news, my dear Lila! You’re exactly where every American dreams of being: you’re on TV.” He pointed to the camera. “And we have a very special guest in the audience tonight. Your very own beloved Jackson!”
I shuddered, hearing my own name ooze from his fetid lips. His façade of perfection was slipping, and there was something so profoundly ugly beneath it. Her eyes snapped to the camera, confused, despairing. “Jackson? Baby? What — what’s happening? What is this?”
I don’t know, I thought, gripping the sides of the TV so hard my knuckles turned white, but I’m going to get you out of there, baby. I’m going to find whoever did this and I’m going to bury them all so far beneath that studio that they’ll never-
“I’m afraid Jackson hasn’t joined us quite yet, my dear. But if you truly love him, surely you’ll give him a show to remember, won’t you?” He taunted her. “All I want, after all, is to ask you a few questions! In fact, I’ll offer you a special deal: get even a single answer right, and I’ll let you go free! But get one wrong and, well…”
On cue, a fire was lit beneath her. Small, smoldering for now, but she whimpered as she noticed the heat. We both realized in that instant what this was. By now, I was screaming things I can’t repeat here, and slamming my hands against the TV screen as if I could reach through and save her.
She bit her lip and acquiesced. Not like she had any room to argue. The host grinned and readied a cue card. “Your first question: where are you, Lila?”
“I… I don’t know. How am I supposed to know?”
“You do know, Lila. You know exactly where you are.” He smirked at her. “Here’s a free hint: what’s the last thing you remember, before you woke up here?
She thought about it… and choked back a sob, visibly shaking as the realization slowly settled in. “But… but why? I… I…”
The horrible wail of the buzzer cut her off. “Oooh, too bad! I’m afraid you’ve run out of time!”
Seemingly as if on its own, the fire doubled in size. Sparks licked the belly of the bronze bull, and began to ever-so-slowly heat the surface. She pawed around in the tight confines, searching for any reprieve from the scalding heat all around her as the metal grew hot like it’d been left out in the sun on a summer’s day. “Please! Oh, God, let me out of this thing! It hurts! It hurts!”
The host seemed to breathe in her pain as if stealing a moment’s indulgence. “Now that there is no doubt about where you are, my dear, let us proceed to the second question.” He switched to his next card. “Did you believe in God, in the end?”
“O-of course!” She pled her case as if she was being tried in court. “My entire life… every day I gave to the poor, helped the sick, did whatever I could to honor Hi-“
“I’m afraid you misunderstood my question. I asked, did you believe in him at the end? The very moment your pitiful little life was snuffed out?”
“I always believed! I’d never forsake Him!”
“Yes, yes, I know. You lived a good and holy life, didn’t you?” He cackled. “But what of the very end? You and your little husband were so excited to deliver your first little baby boy. But o, tragedy! It all went wrong, didn’t it? Your precious little boy didn’t make it through childbirth… and you followed closely behind.”
“That whole business with the botched pregnancy, it was… what do you call it? Ah, yes. A ‘test of faith’. And I’m afraid you failed. In your final moments, you watched the light fade from your child’s eyes, and you assumed — wisely, in my humble opinion — that no ‘kind’ and ‘loving’ God would allow something like that to happen.” He laughed. “Funny how after a lifetime of dutiful service, all it takes is one little mistake at the end… to bring you here. To us.”
I’d never seen such depths of despair in a person’s eyes. Such emptiness. Like with every word, he’d been scooping out another piece of her until she was hollow. And then that buzzer roared again, more shrill than ever, and I could barely see her little window through the smoke and flames. The belly of the bull was turning orange in places, and I could hear her flesh start to sizzle like meat on a grill. There are no words for the noises she made. No words at all.
“And our last, final question,” he continued. “What were your last words to your poor, beloved Jackson?”
“I love you!” I called out the answer. Bloody fingerprints stained the TV screen from my slamming my hands against it, as I screamed the answer over and over. “I love you, I love you, I love you!” At some point, I forgot that there was ever a question. I was just screaming it at her as if hoping that she could hear it, that it could bring her a modicum of comfort in that place.
The buzzer sounded again. I couldn't bring myself to look. All I could hear was the roaring of the bull, and the steam rising from its bronze nostrils.
The curtain fell. Silence drowned the sound. The host dropped all pretense that he hadn’t been speaking directly to me. “Now, Jackson. You just might be one of my new favorite audience members this show had ever had. I know this must have been hard for you. But if you’ll just stay tuned, I have one more show I know you’re certain to love!”
I didn’t bother to touch the remote. After all, nothing could be worse than what I’d just seen, right?
Wrong. Horror wracked me as the curtain rose, and I saw the man chained to a chair. I pulled away like a caveman witnessing fire, cringing and stuttering, face wet with sweat. It was the sort of fear that worked its way into your bones like a bad chill, that left you shaking, teeth chattering.
It was me.
An older me, sure. But not by much. Ten years, maybe. A gaunt and hollow version of me, one twisted by ten years of depression and hard drugs. But it was unmistakable.
His eyes widened as he recognized the host. “Oh — oh God, God please no! It can’t be — oh Christ, let me out of this chair, you —“
“Come, now! We wouldn’t want to use the lord’s name in vain, would we? I mean, that would be a sin!” The host laid a hand on the other me’s shoulder. “It may have been a few years since you watched our program, but I’m sure you remember the rules, don’t you, old friend?”
The other me was wordless, on the verge of hyperventilating, just as I was. The host was giddy with delight. “Now! Our first and only question is one I’m sure our viewer will be very interested in: what sins, exactly, do you think landed you here?”
The other me tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat. I could see it in his eyes. The years of self-destruction, the bitter hopelessness, the whirlpool of nihilism and vice and decay. The suffocating depths of a man. The darkness. How could he put it into words?
The sound of the buzzer was like a pig’s squeal. “Mmm, I’m afraid that our viewer is going to have to figure that out for himself! In the meantime, your punishment? Well, we wouldn’t want to spoil anything…”
The curtains slowly began to fall just as a couple other of those black, grotesque monstrosities emerged from the darkness. The curtain covered them all before I could get a good look at their obscene, twisted, asymmetrical figures. All I could hear was the crunching, the sound of skin tearing like paper, the screaming that went on for longer and louder than a human throat or vocal chords could endure.
The image and audio were beginning to distort, glitch, burn away. The tapes were physically melting as they played. My VCR was starting to overheat, sparks pouring from its front panel. The host voice jumped around in tone, his voice fading into the static blur as the tapes bubbled and boiled and distorted. “But, my friends, I’m afraid that concludes tonight’s episode of our show! So, with a final farewell to our dear, beloved viewer, Jackson…”
Just before the image melted away, the camera seemed to jump forward until his face filled the screen, his eyes piercing into mine as he cackled in that singsong voice.
“See you sooooon~”

First / Previous
So, everyone in town saw what had happened at the zoo on the morning news. Luckily, it seemed Andrew was a master of spin with authorities, so while the word spread like wildfire, everyone simply said, “Boys will be boys” and nobody blamed us. There was also no actual footage inside the zoo, only establishing shots, emphasizing the fact that this was private property and we could decide who to let in, and that did not include reporters. Andrew apparently only spoke once to those at our gate the next morning.
They were told that it was a rare territorial bear, who was even more protective than usual because she currently had cubs, having been impregnated to help the species grow. And there was no footage of the small fence that served as the only visible barrier, and no one doubted the police’s report, so that was that. Everyone was left to believe the two boys hadn’t just been foolish enough to break into a zoo and go into an enclosure, but that they had chosen the enclosure of a bear.
‘Everyone’, by the way, included my dad. For Stanley, however, I had written a note. I hadn’t wanted him to be ambushed at school about what happened, but I took the coward’s way out rather than waiting for him to wake up. Instead, I fell asleep at about 6 a.m. like I usually do after my shift. In the note, I apologized for what happened and for not being able to keep his friends safe. I went with the same bland cover story as the news.
Dad knew I tended to wake at a little after 1 p.m., though my alarm was set to wake me at two in the afternoon if I overslept. So, he took a late lunch from his job and came home when he knew I’d be up for the special occasion of freaking out at me for a few minutes. I’d just finished my breakfast when he walked in through the front door.
“I saw what was on the news, but what in the hell happened?” he snapped. “You’ve been working with these animals for weeks now. Are you saying this could have been you?”
“If I had about half as many braincells, sure,” I told him. He glared at me and I glared back defensively. “There’s a reason I’ve been working there for weeks and I’m fine. There are rules, and I follow them, not to mention I have my taser and pepper spray. But those are literally supposed to be used on intruders. The fact that I wish I’d tasered one of those boys instead of-”
I cut myself off, not wanting to start crying again like I had as I’d tried to get to sleep the previous night. Taking a deep breath, I shut my eyes and let it out slowly before reopening them and looking to my father, who’d released some of the tension in his stance at the sight of this clearly affecting me. “This isn’t about me,” I growled. “It’s about two kids who didn’t listen when I told them they couldn’t come into the zoo. Who literally climbed the fence, went over to the nearest enclosure, and strolled on in as I continued to tell them over and over that they needed to leave.”
“I understand that part of all this,” my father told me. “What I don’t understand is how it happened. Were they really so stupid that they walked past the signs saying it was a bear enclosure?”
I shook my head tiredly. “There are no signs,” I told him. “There don’t need to be signs because the private parties who pay for a tour have a tour guide with them. That’s my boss. He talks about the animals and answers questions.”
He finally fell into a chair at the table I was sitting at, adjacent to me, letting out a long sigh of pent-up exhaustion that had clearly been simmering since that morning. “Listen, Rip, I don’t want you to be doing a dangerous job just because it pays well,” he said. “Is that what this is?”
“No,” I said softly. “I mean, the pay is part of it, I won’t lie, but this is…important. The animals are important. I’m putting together enrichment ideas right now. The first one went great, so I’m going to try all the others on my next shifts. And the animals are treated really well. The owner sincerely cares about them; it’s obvious from how much effort she put into building this zoo for them.
“And it’s not just that the money is good; I genuinely enjoy my job. Most of it has been sitting and reading, checking the cameras, and I’ve been able to watch the animals. Like I said, I can’t talk about them, but they’re incredible. This job is important, and…” It took me a moment to finish what I wanted to say. “I want to do important things. With all the horrible shit people do every day, I’m in a place where what I do matters and I see the results, and it…it’s awesome.”
My father stared at me for a long moment before looking away, having some internal debate. “Okay,” he finally said quietly. Some crumpled up tension in my chest released when he spoke that word. “If you say you’re not in danger, I trust you. And I get how much pride you have for what you do. I don’t want you to quit when you’ve been so happy there. It’s clear to me that it makes you genuinely happy.”
I blinked. “Really?”
He managed a small smile as he met my gaze. “You kidding? You got home one morning recently and instead of going to bed you made chocolate-chip pancakes, leaving them in the fridge with a little note that said, ‘For my favorite brother and favorite dad’. The only time you cook is on our birthdays. Not to mention you complain less. Even working in the back of a store, you always had someone who bothered you. Now, with no coworkers to deal with and working with animals, I hear no complaints, not even about your boss. I’m not sure how much you’re familiar with the average person, but pretty much all of them have some sort of complaints about their boss.”
“Right.” I gave a half-smile and shrugged. “He seems like good guy. Always was, from the start. And yeah, he’s the only one I work with. And he didn’t even…” My voice trailed off as my brain caught up with what I was saying.
“Rip?” my dad prompted.
I sighed. “So…he didn’t blame me. For what happened.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why would he blame you? This wasn’t your fault.”
Leaning back in my chair, I wrung my shirt in my hands. “I didn’t stop them,” I told him. “I could’ve backed up my threats to tase them or spray them-”
“Oh no, no no no,” my dad told me. “I don’t want to hear that. You’re thinking this is about how you back off from confrontation, right? You were wary about this job because of the ‘security guard’ label. You mentioned that. Is that what you’re getting at?”
“Yeah.”
“Ripley, look at me.” I did so. “You are not responsible for what happened to those boys,” he said, his voice soft but firm.
I took a breath. “Okay,” I said.
That’s why my dad is so great. He gets me. Do you have a parent who gets you? If not, I suggest you get a surrogate, because that is a role that can make your life infinitely better if it’s filled with someone competent.
I know I mentioned I take pain pills for an old shoulder injury. What I didn’t mention was what happened to me that put me in this state. High school was a bit difficult for me, because I’m asexual. The fact that I knew that by the time I was sixteen, thanks to the internet, probably saved me a lot of trouble in life, but being ace as a teenager meant saying no to boys. One of them took offense to that. I don’t like talking about it, but he got a four-year stretch in juvie/prison. That means he’s out now but, thankfully, he did move to another state.
He didn’t rape me, if that’s what just came to mind, but I ended up in the hospital after he physically assaulted me, including repeatedly kicking me while I was down, literally. To this day I have chronic nerve pain, and occasional numbness and tingling, in my left shoulder. I also have a chronic issue of being hesitant to stand up to people. Great characteristic for someone who’s supposed to be a security guard, right? Except if I’d said that out loud, my father would’ve pointed out that Andrew told me my weapons were for defense, not offense. And he’d be right.
My dad shook his head and pushed himself back to his feet. “I’ve got to get back to work. Just…” Rubbing his hands over his face, he blinked a few times, trying to dislodge everything that was bothering him from his brain. “If you do ever have a moment there where you’re unsafe, promise me you’ll quit, okay? No job is worth your life.”
I stared at him for a few moments, unsure of what to say. When I’d first met Yui, I’d been terrified, but had I actually been unsafe? Well, no, as was proved by the wards keeping her from me. So, I let myself sink into the feeling of being loved and cared for by my dad, which put a genuine smile on my face. “I promise,” I said. And I hoped I wasn’t lying.
I know that I’ve complained a lot about other people being stupid, so I hope that I’m not being stupid. You might understand why I have such disdain for our species, but at this point you know it’s not because of excessive ego issues. Though I’ll admit to having a larger ego than typical. If you don’t understand, all you have to do is look at us, and I don’t mean look at what we do to the planet, which is bad enough. I mean look at us.
Do you know why places all over the country have problems with bears getting into their garbage cans? It’s because there’s a significant overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest human. That’s not an exaggeration; look it up. Us wildlife biology majors have tried our best, and the perfect garbage bin has yet to be designed.
It bothers me like a sibling sitting next to you who would continuously poke you until you boil over and punch them. Stanley went through a phase when he was a kid where he was a little shit who’d do stuff like that. But the worst is when they try to use logic to justify something completely absurd, looking like a three-year-old with Lincoln Logs, presenting a house and declaring it fit for their hamster to live in when it could collapse if you breathed on it.
With Gary and Shaun, it wasn’t just that they hadn’t known what was in the enclosure they’d wanted to go into, but that they’d kept pushing me away when I tried to keep them from it. And so, getting back to the security office tonight was a bit surreal. I didn’t know if I was supposed to call Andrew again, discuss the incident, or whether it was best to just assume things were taken care of.
Actually, I already knew they were, to some extent. Andrew said Suzanne had gone to see the parents of the boys in person and was going to cover all funeral costs, no matter what the parents wanted done. That was a huge deal, considering how much that industry tries to squeeze out of you when a loved one dies.
While we’re on that topic, all of that doesn’t make sense to me. We are supposed to preserve our bodies, which are completely decomposable, and then put them in airtight boxes priced at ten thousand dollars?
That was not my area, though, and I was glad for it. I’ve been trying as hard as I can to put their deaths out of my mind, though I’ve only been marginally successful. Most of what I’m going over again and again was what I could’ve done differently. I determined that I could have kept them from going in the enclosure by tasering just one of them, and that would’ve been better than nothing. So, it was decided. If anyone ever tried it again, they were getting zapped. Even if they tried to sue us, I don’t care. It wasn’t worth their lives.
Today, though, my mind was occupied with enrichment activities.
Andrew told me about the animal in enclosure nine in passing, saying that he wished the boys had chosen that one. Apparently the consensus is that whoever on Earth invented the chupacabra must’ve seen one of these, because it was vampiric, preferring goats as its prey. Not that it wouldn’t go after humans, blood was blood, but it would’ve given me a chance to save the boys, since it would have taken time to drain enough blood to be fatal.
In regard to the enrichment for enclosure nine’s animal, I was thinking about hanging bags of blood from trees and letting it pounce on them in midair, tearing them down. They’d be made from extra thick plastic, of course, so blood wouldn’t go everywhere. But honestly, nothing beat the fact that all the animals received live prey to hunt, so that wasn’t exactly an innovative idea.
I settled on olfactory enrichment, which was a strategy that used objects that smelled like cooking extracts, spices, and/or fresh herbs. Essentially, the equivalent of engaging its brain in that part of hunting, but with toys instead. That would have to wait until I could see it, though, so I put my notes aside in anticipation of another boring shift.
However, two hours later I had some more excitement when I saw my next animal. I wasn’t sure how fast this was supposed to happen, but things seemed to be moving quickly. At least compared to Andrew’s estimate of three months. Maybe he meant that was the point at which I would become comfortable with the animals as animals, but I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get to that point. They’re too spectacular.
My encounter was different, in that I didn’t see the animal first; I saw its prey. There were a handful of animals I’d seen wandering around the enclosures, including the typical ones like squirrels and rabbits to ones that had been put in there purposefully to be hunted like goats and sheep. Allegedly there were also deer, but I hadn’t seen any of those.
I was walking my route and passing the small lake when I heard the roar again. The one that prickled at the hairs on the back of my neck, thrumming through my body and priming me for fight or flight. Slowing to a stop, I kept my flashlight off, since the lamps gave off plenty of that red glow I’d become accustomed to. Then, I saw a shadow start to rise out of the lake and realized it was coming up onto the shore.
“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath, taking a couple steps back instinctively.
Roger had named this one Fiona and called her a seal-hippo, and I could see why. She was amphibious with a round head, long neck, and the body of a hippo, though unlike hippos, I knew for a fact she wasn’t a vegetarian. She had short, sharp tusks, shaggy fur instead of the smooth skin of a seal, and her flippers had claws. Those claws could easily disembowel any prey it went after.
She seemed to be curious about me. Eyes that seemed too small for her head faced forward and locked onto me, which froze me in my tracks. Her jaw spread wide in a yawn, revealing teeth fit for a carnivore and I jerkily took two more steps backwards. My heart pounded in my chest and I blinked rapidly to keep focusing on her rather than avert my gaze, as my instincts were urging. Her front flippers were probably eight feet from tip to tip, and I feel like she must never have problems killing anything, whatever her prey of choice was. Her eyes flashed under the red lights as she scanned the area around me and then trundled further forward, vibrating the ground, which I felt through my shoes.
This was the point where my mind made connections to Jurassic Park. It just felt like this thing was from another epoch. Then she roared.
For those of you who don’t know, there is something called ‘infrasound’. Essentially, it’s a sound found in the roars and snarls of animals like big cats and bears, and our hindbrains have earmarked it so we panic if we hear it. Funnily enough, it’s often found in older buildings, the deep resonance of an elevator built fifty years ago turning out to be one of the reasons people ‘feel’ a place is haunted.
That’s what I felt, deep in the pit of my stomach. I knew that’s what I was feeling. This thing was a predator, I was prey, and there was nothing I could do about it. So, I didn’t. I watched it for a few minutes as it lumbered around, scanning its surroundings, no doubt smelling things that my dinky little nose would never detect. After a while, once my heartbeat had slowed to merely double its typical rate, I managed to get full control over my legs again and slowly turned, keeping the animal in my peripheral vision as I continued on my way.
And yes, of course, there was a little part of my mind that had the same awe you saw in the faces of the main characters in Jurassic Park when they see brachiosaurus grazing in a field. This job has its ups and downs, and its downs are way down, but its ups are way up. It’s a hell of a gig.
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storiesbykaren

Well, this is the final story I can think of for Naeriu. If there are any more situations you'd like to see him in, be sure to comment on them and I’ll see if I can’t work with them. I’ve been inspired by comments before, it can absolutely happen again.
The first story is here: Endure
The second story is here: Persist
And the thrid story's here: Strive
Being accepted is something everyone wants to be, but sometimes people can’t accept you for who you are. Sometimes, in the most heartbreaking cases, it’s someone you are close to.
Shout out to SpacePaladin15 for the universe.
Memory Transcription Subject: Naeriu, Kolshian Missionary
Date [Standardized Human Time]: January 11, 2150
I couldn’t help but feel nervous as I rode in the shuttle. Even if I knew I was safe here, I wasn’t scared of anything physically dangerous. This planet had gone mostly untouched by the wars that had plagued the outside universe, left alone orbiting an insignificant star in an unimportant location. The only thing useful in this solar system was the planet itself, an agro-world devoted to having as many high-yield farms as possible.
It was a beautiful marble from above, swirling vibrant colors painting the surface intricately. The polar oceans almost made it look like a tennis ball, funnily enough. I could even see some of the larger farms from above, large patches of brown, miscolored green, or any other number of colors broadcasting what vegetables were being grown.
Where there weren’t farms, there were prairies or small forests, the only refuge for any animal, predator or not, to avoid the ire of the farmers. Herbivores would ruin crops and carnivores would taint them, there was no winning against the farmers. However, in recent years, there has been an ecological comeback with the help of the Humans.
Forests were a little bit larger, pests were killed a little less ruthlessly, and the farmers' hatred toward Humans grew evermore. While they were not outright hostile, I could only be thankful I had not heard what they had said behind closed doors.
This planet, Toktkala, was once my home, but now it couldn’t feel any more strange to me. I could only pray for more strength for what I was about to face, being a supporter of Humans and an open believer of Christ was sure to have me ostracized by everyone. I had a feeling that there were only two refuges for me; the UN embassy, something that was never not swarmed with protesters, and my childhood home.
That was the reason my stomach felt like it was turned inside out, I had finally found the time to find my family again. It wasn’t difficult, they hadn’t moved away from the house, but I had broken all contact with them after the Battle of Earth. That was fourteen Earth years ago, fifteen on Toktkala. Fifteen years of no contact, left wondering the fate of their oldest son, I couldn’t fathom what that could have done to them. I wondered if they were even still together, after losing my little sister they were already stressed, losing me might have broken them. It made me feel guilty already, and I didn’t even know if it was true. Hopefully, they managed to stay together for my little brother, Bolop always deserved the best.
I wonder if he hated me, blaming me for our parents’ divorce. I wonder if he hated me for leaving for the military in the first place. I wonder what my parents will say, seeing their dead son on their doorstep.
The uncertainty ate away at me, but the only way to cure it was to face it, and I intend to face it head-on and with full honesty. I’ll take everything they throw at me on the chin and keep walking, relieved no matter the outcome.
The shuttle touched down in one of the very few spaceports built on the planet, all of which were humble in the worst way. Frequent traffic wasn’t a problem, so they had all been equipped with the bare necessities to be classified as a spaceport. Most were little more than a pad, a few administrative buildings, and a luggage check. The only one with any extra expense was located in the only city on the entire planet, on the complete opposite side of where I needed to be.
However, the underfunded port might have been a boon in the end, as it let me experience the rural air sooner. Nostalgia flooded my mind as the familiar scent reignited memories from my childhood. Running through fields with my mother, watching the sunset with my father, eating a home-cooked bowl of kotla on the porch, climbing the lone tree in the backyard when I was sad, swinging from it when I was happy, there were so many melancholic memories tied to this smell, and I would never get tired of them.
I gathered what little luggage I brought with me and waited for a bus to pick me up, mixed feelings caused me to stare off into the distance. It felt great to finally be back in the warm, welcoming, slightly humid air of Toktkala, but that just meant I was one step closer to facing my family. I wouldn’t and couldn’t back down, but that didn’t make me any less nervous.
“Feeling okay, deary? You look like you’re about to run away.”
I blinked as I turned to face the lady, slightly surprised that anyone would bother talking to me. She was an older Kolshian, decorated in old-timey jewelry and carrying an expensive-looking bag. I could tell from her thick accent that she was a Toktkala native, the people from her tended to take their time in everything, including speaking.
I accepted the distraction with a sigh, causing her to sit down and pay attention. “I’m fine, just nervous.”
“Aww, what for? I don’t know anyone who could be down in weather like this. Haven't had a nice day like this in a while.”
“Well, you see, I haven’t been home in a long time. Fifteen years, give or take.”
“Oh deary, that’s wonderful! I’m so glad you could finally make it home.”
“Yeah… I guess. It’s just, what has changed since I left. I haven’t said or heard a single word from my parents since the war, I don’t even know if they are still together. I-I know where they live, but that’s about all I know about my parents. What if they don’t recognize me? What if they hate me for leaving and not saying anything? And I’ve changed so much, I’m not sure they would even accept me for who I am now. I know I have to do this, I’m not backing down no matter what, but that doesn’t make me any less anxious.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “That is quite the predicament. Fifteen years is a long time to not speak with someone, but always remember, it is never too late to reconnect.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle and grab my cross. “Kinda like me and…”
“What was that deary?”
“Uh, nothing important. Now that I’ve given you my side, I think it’s only fair you give me yours.”
She shifted on the bench. “Oh well, there’s not much to say. Just going back to town after a visit off planet. A buyer was looking to buy some crops in bulk and I went out to meet him for some discussion. Really nice boy, almost as old as you.”
“Ma’am, I’m thirty-two.”
She waved a tentacle in chucked. “Well everyone is a boy when you are as old as me, deary.”
I let myself laugh. “Oh you can’t be that old, you barely look a day over sixty!”
She pressed a tentacle to her chest. “Well, I’m flattered. I guess there still are some gentlemen in this world.”
“Oh I think there are plenty, they just don’t get the chance to act like them.”
She tilted her head to the side. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
We fell into silence for a moment, but with no bus in sight, it would be better to keep talking. “If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of crops do you sell?”
She clicked her tongue. “Oh, all kinds, but I think the one you're asking about is the stuff I talked about earlier, am I right?”
I raised a tentacle as if I were surrendering, noticing a bus cresting over the horizon as I did. “You got me.”
“That was some dlut, you know the stuff. Tall stocks, bright purple, sweetish tasting fruit.”
I leaned back. “Ah, dlut. I bet that would be good in a kotla in this weather.”
“It sure would. I just can’t get over who I was selling to.”
I turned to face her head-on. “And that is?”
“A Human, can you believe that?”
I laughed. “You know? I can actually. I’m…”
I considered my wording carefully. I didn’t want to offend this nice old lady accidentally. After a brief pause, I found the right words. “I’m surprised that someone from Toktkala would even be willing to talk with them though, considering the popular sentiment.”
“Oh I know, and I think it’s just dreadful that those people get so much hatred. I’ll be honest, I was in the same wagon at the beginning, but I came around once they became the only people buying my products. After what was revealed about our history… well, I don’t think I need to tell you of all people how Kolshians were treated.”
“Trust me, I know. I just think it’s kind of ironic that Humans, people we all seemed hell-bent on making hate us, were the first to forgive.”
She sighed. “I just wish some of the other foolhardy people here could see that too. With any luck, your parents are like us.”
I nodded as the bus pulled to a stop. “Yeah, maybe. This was a nice chat, hope you have a wonderful day.”
She waved me off. “With a little luck, we’ll see each other again. Oh, what’s your name.”
I paused and pivoted before I stepped on the bus. “I’m Naeriu, and you are?”
“I’m Moelly. And I hope to see you too.”
I waved to her one final time as the bus accelerated away, feeling much better having talked with someone instead of just dwelling on my feelings. I felt more hopeful about my future now that the idea of my parents not hating Humans was rolling around in my head, it let me believe there was a chance my parents might not disown me. Dad was always supportive of me when I said I wanted to join, he had always had complete faith in the Federation, but Mom might be a little more lenient, even if she also held the Federation in high regard.
I wonder if they became the type to claim the Humans faked it all and Nikonus’ accidental confession was fabricated. There were a lot of those kinds of people still around to this day, almost twenty years after the war ended. I could only pray that they would realize the error in their ways and accept reality sooner rather than later.
I stared out of the window for a long time, passing the time by reliving every field, tree, and house that passed by the window. I couldn’t pull my eyes away even for a second, everything looked so familiar, but at the same time, just different enough to make it strange. Some things were out of place or missing, while others were just how I remember them. It was surreal to see how my childhood home had changed, and I could feel my anxiety bubbling back up just as we reached the stop I needed to get off at.
I tugged the suitcase behind me, thanking and tipping the bus driver as I left. He responded with a simple huff of acknowledgment before driving off. I watched him for only a moment before turning around.
At the end of a long driveway, standing just as tall as I remember it, flanked on both sides by fields of budding crops, was my childhood home. Vines crawled up one side of the house, a decoration that Mom refused to cut down despite Dad’s objections. There was an ever-so-slightly rusted shed peeking out from the back, inside should be all of the farming equipment used to control the drones and irrigation systems. Even further behind that, there was a tall, lonely-looking tree with a small swing hanging from one of its sturdy branches.
Everything looked the same, down to the plants on the window sill.
I decided I needed to pray one last time before I met my parents, silently mumbling to myself as I did. I asked God for the wisdom to know what to say, for the courage to face their questions, and for the strength to stand tall if they ridicule me for my path in life. I had prayed like this many times before, and I was surely going to continue praying after.
I finished the prayer with the sign of the cross and a gentle kiss on the cross around my neck as I reached the porch, looking up with hesitation as I climbed the steps. I set my luggage aside and took a deep breath, staring at the doorbell. Every question and wandering thought I had raced through my mind, causing me to stand stunned for at least a minute until finally I shook them out of my head and pressed the button with all of my might.
A strange sense of release and simultaneous anxiety flooded me. There was no turning back now, even if I ran away they could still easily see me. All I could do now was stand here and face the music.
There was a commotion inside, some thumping going down the stairs, and a loud voice calling out. “Hold on, I’m coming.”
It was Mom’s voice. Even if it was muffled through the walls and slightly more hoarse than the last time I heard it, it was still Mom’s. The first of the doors was opened, but Mom hadn’t seen me through the glass one yet. She was looking off to the side, setting something on the side table as she spoke.
“I’m sorry it took so long, Bullo, I was in the middle of making a meal.”
She reached up and began opening the glass door, only to stop in her tracks as she finally saw me.
“Who…”
I could see the gears turning in her head, and the slow realization dawned upon her of just who I was. Tears began welling up in her eyes and her mouth hung open. With a quiet sob, she covered her mouth, trying to form any words. She could only cry and shake her head before stepping forward and hugging me warmly.
“I always knew…”
I returned the hug eagerly, rubbing the back of her head. I tried to find words to convey the flurry of emotions, but couldn’t. “I’m back, Mom.”
She pulled away for a second, wiping a final few tears in her eyes. Suddenly her demeanor changed from overwhelming joy to concern. “Where have you been? Oh, my little baby, where have you been?”
I sucked in a nervous breath. “On Earth, Sillis, Fahl, Skalga… I’ve been everywhere.”
I could see her freeze up for a second. “Then… then why didn’t you come back?”
“I… I felt like you wouldn’t accept me. And every day I didn’t return, I felt like you would only grow to hate me.”
Mom stepped forward, caressing my face with a gentle touch. “Sweetie, I could never hate you. There is nothing you could ever do to make me hate you.”
“I… Thank you, Mom, you don’t know how much I needed to hear that.”
She stepped back and held the door open. “Of course, sweetie, now come inside. You have to tell me all about, well, everything that has happened to you, from the beginning. And while you are at it, I’ll finish making dinner. I bet you missed your mom’s kotla, didn’t you?”
I laughed as I tugged my luggage through the door. “More than you will ever know. Every other bowl I’ve had has left me wanting something more, but I know that the only place I could find it was here.”
Mom laughed as she pulled out a few plates. “Love, a mother’s specialty. Is that the reason you came back, just for some food?”
I sat at the dinner table, taking in the house around me. It would be considered old-timey by modern standards, though that just meant that not everything was super high-tech. There were still rustic aspects to my house, pictures still in frames and not screens, religious symbols that have been passed down for generations, wood used over metal in some places, and rustic pieces of tech that my father refused to change, claiming that it would outlast all of us. It was old, slightly musky, and it was home.
“That’s not the only reason, it’s more like a bonus. I just kept thinking about home, how I effectively abandoned you, and I needed to come back to give you closure. Thoughts of home would pop into my head at the most random times, like signs that I should come back, so I followed.”
Mom turned around from the stove, setting down a steaming pot on the counter before sitting next to me. “Well, I am certainly glad you decided to do so. Your father and I have both been torn up by what we thought was your death, having you here now is a blessing for us both.”
“Speaking of, where is Dad?”
Mom waved a tentacle. “Oh, he’s off protesting at the embassy again. At his age, he should be staying home and watching the field, but he’s a stubborn oaf and when he’s determined to do something he does it, you know that. I told him to give it up and to come home, but he resents the Humans and won't rest ‘till they are off this planet, maybe not even then.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and looked away. This was the worst outcome. Not only did Dad not like the Humans, it sounded like he outright hated them. I’m glad I prayed because I had a feeling that a shouting match was on the horizon.
“Is something wrong?”
I sighed. “Well, we might have… conflicting opinions on the Humans. I’m worried that we might fight.”
Mom sucked in a breath as if she was preparing a response, but it died in her throat before she could speak. She took a moment to recollect her thoughts, confusion growing in her eyes, before shaking her head.
“It’ll be fine. Your father loves you, no matter who you’ve become. You will always be his son, our son. There is nothing that can change that. I don’t know the experiences you've had, maybe I don’t want to know, but I know that you’re an adult now and can choose your own path, even if I don’t agree with it wholly.”
I grabbed Mom’s tentacle. “Thank you, Mom, you have no idea how much that means to me. I was so worried that you wouldn’t accept me, it was eating me alive. I just hope that Dad feels the same way. He is stubborn, you said it yourself.”
“I know he-”
The sound of the garage door opening cut Mom off and caused my nerves to flare up again. Through the walls, I could hear him shut the car door and stomp his way into the house. He had always been a heavy-stepper, but these seemed a little heavier than normal. Maybe he had just put on a little weight since I last saw him.
“Muola, I’m-”
Dad froze as he turned into the dining room, stopping suddenly as he saw me. He looked me up and down, putting the pieces together in his mind. He dropped a bag to the floor carelessly and took a half-step forward.
“Naeriu… you’re… you're alive!”
He rushed forward as fast as his old limbs could carry him, meeting me with a hug just as I stood from my seat. He rocked me back and forth, blubbering with joy and trying to bury his head in my chest.
“My son’s alive!”
He pulled himself back. “Where have you been? I thought…”
His breath hitched in his throat. “I thought you were dead.”
I held his tentacle with compassion. “I’m sorry, I was just so… I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, all that matters now is that you are back with us, safe and sound.”
We stared at each other for a moment before Dad couldn’t sit still any longer, almost jumping toward the table. “You have to tell me all about it. Start to finish. You must have some interesting stories for us, right? I mean, you were gone for fifteen years, there has to have been something interesting going on, right? You could start with the story of that necklace, it looks pretty interesting. Is it something from Sillis?”
I glanced down to the cross on my neck as I pulled out a chair for him, sitting back down in mine with a huff after I did. “Not quite. It’s a later story. Why don’t we start from the beginning, like you said?”
Dad flung a tentacle in excitement. “Sure, yeah, from the beginning.”
I took in a deep breath. “After my last call with you, the Battle of Earth started. There wasn’t much I could do with my training, so all I could do was watch and wait. I was scared, and I only got more scared when boarding alarms went off. After they captured the ship, we had to evacuate. With no other option, I had to get in a life pod with the Humans.”
Both Mom and Dad gasped. “That must have been horrible, sweetie, how did you get out?”
Dad shook his head. “That must have been a terrible experience. I couldn’t imagine being trapped in such a cramped space with those monsters. Muola is right, how did you get out?”
I brushed past the casual Human-hate and continued with my story. “I didn’t. We landed in the northern part of the planet and it was late fall. All you need to know is that it was very, very cold. We had to travel with the Humans to avoid freezing to death, clinging to the belief that maybe we would be handed off to an authority later on and not be eaten. In the end, that was the best choice I had ever made. We made it to a cabin, but not after losing two others, a Harchen named Tekt and a Krakotl named Kulilim. It was just me and Kotern.”
Mom gasped. “How is Kotern? You two seemed like such good friends.”
I didn’t respond immediately, letting Dad’s mind run wild. “Did… T-they ate him, didn’t they?”
I shook my head. “No, in fact, they never even hit us. For the next few days, all we did was talk with each other. Just Me, Kotern, the Humans, and a Venlil named Leenek that we had picked up along the way. We just sat and talked.”
I could see the confusion building on Dad’s face. “Were they threatening you?”
I shook my head again. “Only one, Billy, the leader. He was the only one to make any threats, but he never acted on it. He was just angry. Some never even spoke to me, a few had very deep conversations, but only one ever made threats. One, named Brandon, talked to me about God for a while, after I told him that he had probably lost his entire family.”
Dad tilted his head in confusion, but didn’t make any comments, letting me continue with my story. “One day, Kotern goes out to gather some wood. The Humans had rope so we tied it on to him, but he didn’t come back. They sent a soldier named Valya out to find him, and comforted me the entire time he was gone. Around an hour passes and Valya returns, but Kotern isn’t with him.”
Mom leaned forward, engrossed in the story. “So what happened?”
I sighed. “I hid away in a room for a while, depressed that I had lost my friend, when I heard a bunch of arguing. I come out to see what’s happening, and Kotern is there, standing in the middle of the room, waving a pistol around and screaming for them to give me back to him. There were a bunch of people with him, led by a captain named Suklal. They wanted the cabin for shelter, but it ended up in a gunfight. Kotern died first.”
Dad sunk his head in sadness. “He was such a nice boy, you two seemed to get along so well. It’s a shame the Humans did that to him.”
“It wasn’t the Humans. Suklal shot him in the head after Kotern wouldn’t fall back. The Humans only started shooting after Suklal shot first.”
I let out a deep sigh, remembering how everything played out right in front of me. Even now his death brings tears to my eyes, he was such a nice man, he had just been misguided by the horrible teachings of the Federation. Teachings that I knew my Mom and Dad still clung to.
Wanting something to take my mind off of his death, I looked over to Mom. “I think I want some kotla now.”
Mom let out a breath. “Of course sweetie, I was wondering when you would ask.”
Mom got up to get some dishes, but Dad kept staring at me with a growing look of concern and confusion. “Hey son, what’s your opinion on the Humans.”
The bowls in Mom’s hands clattered slightly as everyone froze. I was hoping that I would be able to ease Dad into my opinion, but it seemed he wanted to take the more direct approach. “Well, I’m going to be honest, I like them. In fact, I love them. I love them the same way that I love everyone else. I wouldn’t be here without them, I wouldn’t be the man I am here today without them. It was a Human who pulled me out of the gutter and gave me direction in life.”
Dad sunk his head slightly. “They got to my son…”
I raised a tentacle. “Now, Dad, they didn’t get me. I came to this decision on my own. I looked at all the facts and saw that they were just as sapient as everyone else. They feel empathy, sadness, and regret just like all of us, and not just watered-down versions.”
He closed his eyes and raised his head. “Son, it’s going to be fine, we'll get you some help a-and cure this brainwashing.”
“I’m not brainwashed, Dad, that doesn’t exist. I’m-”
I sighed. “I’m not being controlled by anyone, I’m still the same Naeriu, just older and with more experienced. I’ve been gone for fifteen years, I’m going to change a little, but I’m still me. I just want to come back and reconnect.”
Dad stuttered in his own breath. “But the Humans tried to kill you.”
“Only after we attacked them first. And I forgave them long ago. A-”
I cut myself off before I told Dad that I was a Christian, that might just send him over the edge. I’d have to save that for later, when he’s calmed down a little.
“Can we eat something before we get too into this, please?”
Mom set the bowls down, eagerly accepting the distraction. “Of course, the kotla should be finished setting now anyway.”
Mom reached over and grabbed a wooden ladle, scooping up hearty spoonfuls into the bowls before setting them in front of Dad and me. I could feel the warm steam hit my face, carrying the savory taste of the various vegetables with them. Among the healthy chunks, I could spot the purplish color of dlut floating, slightly lighter now that it had been boiled.
“It looks amazing Mom, I can’t wait to try it.”
But just as I raised my tentacle, I froze. I glanced at my father, who was watching me with concern, confusion, and a little bit of fear. “What’s wrong son?”
I had never eaten a meal without praying beforehand. Sure, I might have sped up a prayer if I was excruciatingly hungry or late for something, but I always found a way to include it. Dad would freak out if he found out about my faith, it would start a full-blown fight.
Should I skip this one time to avoid making a scene?
I blinked and shook my head, feeling disappointed in myself. No, I had never missed a prayer before now, and I wasn’t about to start. I am not ashamed of who I am, I am a Christian and I am proud of it. If that means that my father is going to fight with me, then so be it. I don’t care if he doesn’t accept me, I don’t need him to. I am a grown man, and even if the words he says hurt, I know that I am being true to myself and God.
I am not skipping my prayer.
Slowly, I raised my tentacle and tapped my forehead, before lowering it to my chest, then my left shoulder followed by my right. “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
I repeated the sign of the cross and closed my prayer, keeping my eyes closed for a moment before grabbing the spoon and taking a bite. “It tastes amazing, Mom.”
She was too confused to speak, but Dad wasn’t. “What was that?”
“A prayer.”
“To who?”
“Christ.”
Dad shared a glance with Mom. “I don’t recognize any god named Christ.”
“That is because He is from Christianity, a Human religion.”
Everyone went silent for a moment, the words I said still ringing in their ears. Mom’s confusion only deepened, while Dad’s turned to anger. “What?! You-You worship a Human god?”
“Yes, I worship God. I am a Christian, a believer in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.”
Dad shook his head and laughed. “You’re not kidding… You really mean it. H-how?”
“I was at the lowest point in my entire life, Kotern had just died, I was alone on an alien planet, I was hungry, thirsty, tired, homeless, and broke. A Human named Ben brought me to a church, the St. Louis Cosmic Christian Church, and that’s where I found God. I opened myself up to Him, and I’ve never felt more safe in my entire life.”
Mom remained stunned, falling back into a seat while Dad stood up. “I-I don’t… I can’t believe this. I cannot accept this. You’re not my son. Naeriu would never… H-he’d never…”
Mom leaned forward. “Solue, calm down. Take a deep breath and-”
“I can’t calm down! Not after that reveal. My son worships Humans. My son…”
“No, Dad, I don’t worship Humans, I worship God.”
“A Human god! Who is a Human! I don’t know if this is better or worse than you coming out as a Linked Chains member, at least they don’t think predators are gods! What does your god call for, hmm? Killings? Blood sacrifices?”
“Dad, hold on, slow down and give me a chance.”
“No. I want you out of my house, now.”
Mom gasped. “Solue! That is our son.”
Dad didn’t even glance at Mom, ignoring the building tears in his eyes. “No, he’s not. He’s some freak trying to impersonate our son. I hate to tell you Muola, but our son died in that war, and he’s never coming back.”
His words sank into my heart, causing me to wince away and take a deep breath. With my eyes closed, barely holding back the tears, I set my spoon down and stood slowly from the table. “If that’s what you think, then I won’t bother you any longer. Mom, it was wonderful to have your food one last time. Dad, I’m sorry that you can’t accept the facts. I’m glad I could at least give you some closure, goodbye.”
I turned to gather what little luggage I had as Mom frantically jumped up from her seat. “Naeriu, wait! Just give us some time to talk, Solue and I are just confused, is all. Please, wait here, for me.”
I paused at the door and sighed. “Anything for you, Mom. I’ll be by the tree in the back.”
As soon as I closed the door behind me, I started to sob. Dad’s words had hurt me more than I imagined they would, twisting my insides around like he knew exactly what to say to hurt me the worst. I stumbled my way around the house, wiping tears away with each step. I could hear Mom and Dad arguing loudly through the wall, both of them screaming with each other over what to think about the situation, though the words were muffled enough that I couldn’t understand them. By the time I reached the tree, there was no hope of me catching a single word.
I wiped away a few final tears and looked up into the tree. The first thing I noticed was that the branch I had fallen from long ago had finally healed, however, it was fixed in a completely new direction. I can vividly remember when I fell from that branch and broke my leg. I had never seen my parents so worried in their entire lives. Dad must have broken every traffic law on the planet to get me as quickly as he could to a hospital. Mom told me that he couldn’t sit still while they were x-raying me, every second that passed felt like an eternity for him.
He cares for me, a lot, and that makes it difficult for him to accept that I’ve gone on my own path now. Of course, I’d be ecstatic to have him and Mom join me, but something told me that they wouldn’t be diverting from their generational ways. They were both rooted in the past, and the tradition that came with it, and that shaped their worldview to a rigid stance where everything stays the same. At least Mom was a little more accepting, though I knew she felt about the same as Dad did, she just didn’t vocalize it.
With a sigh, I slid against the tree, looking out over the fields as the sun set in the distance. It seemed as if my worst fears were coming true, they wouldn’t accept me for who I was. I had changed too much from the last time they had seen me, I might as well have been a new person to them.
After a long moment, Mom finally exited the house through the back door, closely followed by Dad. I stood with a huff as they approached, preparing myself for whatever they would say.
Mom spoke first. “Sweetie, uhm, we are sorry for the fight. It’s just, well, we have a hard time accepting what you say to be true.”
Mom paused for a moment and Dad picked up where she left off. “The last time we saw you, you were still just a boy, barely an adult, and you held… beliefs that aligned with ours.”
Mom glanced between Dad and me. “And now seeing you here in front of us, the age we were when we last saw you, with beliefs that completely go against everything we believed, that our religion taught…”
Dad sighed. “It’s a little much, son, and I’m… I’m sorry I… lashed out like that.”
I looked between them and stepped forward. “Mom, Dad, I don’t expect you to understand me, especially not on the first day of me being back, but just know that you accepting me means more than you will ever know. Thank you, and I love you, both of you.”
I embraced them both in a big group hug, rocking back and forth. Dad only hugged me for a brief moment before pulling away, but Mom clung to me for a long time. After she finally pulled away, she sniffled once more and wiped away a few final tears.
She laughed slightly and shook her head. “I just hope you can forgive us.”
I couldn’t help but melt at Mom’s concern. “Mom, Dad, you never even needed to ask. I forgave you as soon as the words were said. I love you both with all my heart, it will take more than harsh words to prevent me from forgiving you.”
I smiled. “Though, I wish I could have gotten some more kotla before it went cold.”
Dud huffed and turned around. “It should still be warm in the pot, but you better hurry.”
Mom and I watched him disappear into the house, not looking back to see if we were following him at all. Mom sighed before speaking. “He’ll come around, you know he will. He’s just principled. He has his way that he thinks is right and there is not a lot you can do to change that.”
I nodded. “I know that, but I’m sure he’ll be more accepting once he gives me a chance to explain what I believe in. And tell the rest of my story.”
“That will be nice to hear. I’d love to understand what you have been doing all of this time that prevented you from coming home.”
I opened my mouth to respond, only to realize something. “Oh! Now that I think about it, where is Bolop?”
Mom sighed. “He moved away, wanted to be free from Totkala’s chains, he said. Just like you, only he didn’t join the military, thankfully. Just moved away. Haven’t had much contact with him, as far as I know he’s on Fahl, but you know him. He can’t sit still to save his life, he might be all the way in Sivkit territory for all we know.”
“But you still have his info?”
“Yes, but with the time it takes for a message to reach him and the distance he has to travel to get to us…”
“I understand, but I’d still like to have it. I’d like to set up a meeting time sometime later.”
Mom stepped up the stairs to the back door, but paused when I didn’t follow her in. “Something wrong sweetie? The kotla is only going to get colder.”
“Nothing’s wrong, Mom, I just want a second to be alone. I’ll be right in.”
She nodded understandingly and slipped inside, leaving me alone to reflect. I turned around to face the sunset, taking a deep breath as it passed below the horizon slowly. My life had been completely turned around since I left home all those years ago. I became a soldier, attacked a planet, survived the freezing Alaska wilderness, lost my closest friend, and fell into a deep depression, even losing contact with my family. But it was anything but bad, from there I built my life back from nothing, found my faith in God, traveled all across the galaxy doing missionary work, met and talked with an Arxur, only to return home to my family finally. I’ve had some extreme ups and heart-wrenching downs, never knowing just what would happen next, but even now I don’t have any regrets.
Even when I’m being ridiculed for my faith or spat on for my species, I don’t regret a thing. I accept the challenges, uncertainty, and hate, even welcome it, because I know that I am living my best life.
I let out a content breath, smiled a warm smile, and turned to open the door, welcoming whatever would come next.

You’ve all likely taken a pain medication at some point, so I thought I might offer a little more info about some of the different types.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is great for pain and fever, but it is not an anti-inflammatory medicine. Acetaminophen is known to cause liver damage when taken in large quantities, and this medication is included in many different OTC formulations such as cough and cold medicines. Patients should always check ingredients to ensure they are not double dosing unintentionally, and limit use when possible.
The term Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) encompasses a wide range of medications that help with pain, fever, gout, blood clots, and inflammation. Because these medications work differently from acetaminophen, it is generally safe to use both if your primary issue is pain and/or fever; however, you should never use two types of NSAIDs together due to their adverse drug effect (ADE) risks.
All NSAIDs are known to cause kidney damage, but liver damage is possible in high doses. In addition, some NSAIDs can increase the risk of bleeding, cause heartburn and stomach ulcers, increase blood pressure, cause heart problems or stroke, and may cause allergic reactions. Frequent/long term use is not recommended without oversight by a physician. NSAIDs are best taken with food and possibly a H2RA/PPI (see previous reflux post for more info on these meds) to help prevent GI bleeding.
Some common NSAIDs include: Aspirin (Bufferin, Ecotrin-low dose used often for blood clot prevention) Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) Naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn-12h dosing) Diclofenac (Voltaren-topical options available; higher risk for liver and heart ADEs) Indomethacin (Indocin) Meloxicam (Mobic-24h dosing) Ketorolac (Toradol-high risk for ADEs; use should be limited to 40mg max daily and 5 days use) Celecoxib (Celebrex-less risk of GI ulcers but increases risk of heart problems)
Also note that children with viral infections should NOT take aspirin due to the risk of Reye’s Syndrome
Corticosteroids (different from anabolic steroids) are synthetic versions of cortisol that are also used for inflammation by affecting the body’s immune response. They are commonly used for allergies, asthma, arthritis, and autoimmune diseases, yet they can have a wider variety of ADEs especially when used systemically, such as weight gain/water retention, mood changes, increased body hair growth, increased risk of infection/difficulty fighting infections, easy bruising, GI bleed risk, increased blood pressure and sugar, etc. Some examples are cortisone, hydrocortisone, methylprednisolone, prednisolone, prednisone, triamcinolone, betamethasone, dexamethasone, and fludricortisone. (NSAIDs and steroids should not be taken together.)
Lidocaine and/or menthol is also a great option for pain that is available in many different dosage forms. Some antidepressants like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), or tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and some anticonvulsants can be used for certain chronic pain conditions. Muscle relaxers are useful for muscle tension and spasms.
When necessary opioid pain medications may be prescribed. These should only be used as directed because they carry high risks for ADEs, such as respiratory depression and dependence. Opioids cause intestinal movement to slow resulting in constipation so it’s important to also take senna, which directly stimulates the intestines to move, otherwise you get “all mush, no push” if you only use other constipation meds! 🤪
P.S. Physical therapy and dry needling can also be a great way to relieve pain!! I get needling regularly for my myofascial pain syndrome so I can attest that it helps tremendously!🤩
This website has some great additional info if you want to check it out!