Humerus bone blank diagram
Soldiers Keep Moving (Part 3)
2024.06.07 19:58 HeadOfSpectre Soldiers Keep Moving (Part 3)
Part 2
It was late when I got back home but for as tired as I was, I knew that I wasn’t going to sleep a wink.
I went into my computer room and opened up my laptop, before plugging in the USB the bartender had given me. There were four folders on it, each one containing the feed from a different camera in the Rooster. I clicked into one of the folders at random and picked through the video files inside, looking for the stretch of footage that I needed. It didn’t take me long to find it either.
I clicked into one of the video files, and watched as the chaos of the Red Rooster played out before me. People drinking, flirting, laughing. Living their lives. Nothing I hadn’t seen before. I let the footage play for a bit, before getting up to grab myself a couple of beers from the fridge. When I got back, I started skipping through the video, waiting for the moment my two victims showed up.
When I’d taken the bartender's statement, he’d told me that he’d seen the two before, both separate and together. He didn’t know their names, but he knew their faces. Other patrons recognized them too. One of them had identified the red haired girl as ‘Kayley’ and had mentioned she lived down at River Ridge, a trailer park outside of town. Nobody had been able to name the Elegant Woman, although a lot of patrons had said they’d seen her around before.
Apparently, both of them usually came to hook up, leaving with a different stranger on most nights. Odds are, they’d why they were there on that night too. They’d come in at around 8:47. The Elegant looking dark haired woman seemed to be the one taking the lead, and seemed to be the one doing most of the talking. She and Kayley went to sit at the bar, talking amongst each other all the while. I couldn’t say for sure what they were talking about. Even if the file had audio, I doubt I’d have been able to single them out over the crowd. They looked at ease though.
They shared a couple of drinks. Nothing seemed that out of the ordinary. I took a sip of my beer, watching them. Eventually, Kayley got distracted talking to a man further down the bar, while the Elegant Woman stayed at the bar, drinking casually as if she had all the time in the world.
The man in the suit came in at around 9:12.
My attention shifted to him the moment he came in through the door.
He fit the description that every witness I’d spoken to had given about the shooter. A tall man with a red beard in a black suit who was wearing a pair of reflective sunglasses despite the fact that it was 9 at night. Even beneath his suit, it was easy to tell he had a good physique, and his crew cut implied a military history to me.
Red Beard took a seat at the bar, a few seats down from the Elegant Woman. He ordered a drink, and nursed it for a bit, discreetly looking around at the other patrons of the bar but not seeming to look directly at either the Elegant Woman or Kayley. He just drank his beer, and when he was finished, he got up and switched seats, moving to sit beside the Elegant Woman. She looked over at him, putting on a charming smile as they talked. I almost got the impression that they were flirting with each other.
They kept talking for a while and as they did, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If I didn’t know what was coming next… it would have caught me completely off guard. When she turned to take a sip of her drink, the gun appeared in his hand, almost without warning. She didn’t even have time to react before he shot her at point blank range. Three bullets straight to the chest.
I saw Kayley spin around and freeze up. Her entire body tensed, as if she was ready to lunge at the shooter. If that was her intention though, she never got the chance. He put two bullets in her without even thinking, then without so much as a glance backward, he took off toward the door.
I rubbed my temples, watching as the chaos of the aftermath unfolded. Some people called 911. Some, like the bartender, ran to the aid of the bodies. I saw myself run in through the door less than six minutes after the shooting had happened.
That was where I stopped the video.
I took another sip of my beer, and sighed. I rewound it a little bit, watching as the shooter came in and watching as he left. I might recognize this man on the street if I saw him, but other than his red hair and sunglasses, there wasn’t really much to go off of.
The way he left… he walked away almost casually, as if he had someplace to be. He didn’t run. He didn’t panic. He was cold, calm, and professional. I guess that fit with the other murders, didn’t it?
I steeled myself to review the footage again, this time from another camera. Maybe there’d be something from one of the angles that I didn’t see. I checked the angles of the other three cameras. Two of them wouldn’t offer me much. One of them didn’t even catch the shooting. But the last one…
The last one looked promising.
It was situated near the back of the bar and through it, you could see out a window onto the street. It wasn’t the best view… but it was different.
From that angle, I could see a black sedan pull up to drop the man in the suit off. I saw him walk in the door and sit by the bar and from there, the scene played out the same as it did before. The man in the suit shot the two women and he left.
He strode out toward the sedan parked out front, got in the passenger seat and the sedan took off like a shot. There’d been a getaway driver. Interesting…
I set my unfinished beer down. I could drink the rest of it later. I needed to go on a little drive.
It was around 4 AM when I returned to the Red Rooster. I parked my car on the street, exactly where the black sedan had parked, and got out. The downtown area around me was dead silent. Lifeless almost. There wasn’t another soul in sight. But that was fine by me. That just meant that there were no distractions.
It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. There was a bank across the street and I walked toward it. The doors were locked, but that was fine. I could see what I needed through the windows.
Bank machines.
More specifically, bank machines with cameras. Cameras that were pointed right at the Red Rooster.
Perfect.
***
I was off shift the next day, but that just gave me time to get some actual work done. It was probably better I do it all from home. This case was Di Cesares now. I wasn’t sure what she’d do if she caught me working on it, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to find out. Judging by those fangs in her mouth, she wasn’t human either. Hell, I wasn’t sure if she was actually even from the State Police… I got the impression that Sheriff Smith didn’t seem to think so. But if she wasn’t with them, who was she with? Why hadn’t the State Police sent someone else? Had she done something to them? Even if she had, I couldn’t just believe that the State Police wouldn’t notice something like that.
No… there was something else going on here. But I could figure that out later.
First things first - I needed to review the footage from the bank machines. The bank was more than willing to give me access to the footage when I asked. They knew who I was, they knew what had happened and they knew why I was asking.
Once I got back home, it didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. Just as I’d hoped, the bank machines had recorded the car that had been waiting outside the Red Rooster. I couldn’t make out the license plate from the footage… but I could see enough to identify the make and model of the car.
An Audi A6 Sedan.
I’m not much of a car guy, but I can say that there’s not a lot of Audi’s in rural Ohio. Even without the license plate, this shouldn’t have been hard to find. I made a call to a buddy of mine in the BMV, told him what I was looking for and within the hour, he had the results for me.
It turns out, there were actually only eight Audi A6 Sedans registered in our county and all of them were registered to the same company.
Apostle Security.
Naturally, I did a bit of research on them. Apostle was a mid-sized private security firm based in Cincinnati, although they had a few other offices in Ohio and some of the surrounding states. It’d been started by a man named Joseph Cray about ten years ago, although beyond that I couldn’t find out much about their history and really, I didn’t care. Their website didn’t list any offices in my county… but the BMV seemed to say otherwise. My friend there had given me an address outside of town and even if I was off duty, I figured that no one could give me any guff for taking a little scenic drive. And if I just so happened to see some black Audi’s that looked like the one that had been parked outside of Red Rooster last night… well, maybe I’d pass that information along to whoever was on duty at the time. I’m pretty sure it was Biggs and Hoffman. They could decide whether or not to tell Di Cesare. It would be completely out of my hands.
I headed out to my car, plugged the address I’d gotten into my GPS and took a little drive.
As I drove through the backroads leading out of town, I felt a sense of quiet apprehension. Maybe I was being naive, putting my hopes on this lead. But I’d done the work. If Apostle really was behind this, it would make sense for them to have some sort of location in the county. If I was right, maybe I wouldn’t find all the answers to this surreal mess of a case, but I’d at least find the shooters. That was something. At least people wouldn’t be dying anymore.
Christ… I still didn’t know what to make of the victims. The gills on Kayley, the fangs on Patricia Russell, the fractures on Geoffery Vickers bones. Maybe these people really were monsters? If so… maybe these shooters knew that. Maybe that was why they did it.
But even if that was the case - I still couldn’t just leave a roving kill squad to wander around unchecked. The way things were going, it was just a matter of time until one of the victims was just some innocent bystander. I passed by a familiar sign as I neared the edge of the county. An advertisement for the local Volkswagen dealership.
‘You’re in Smith Country!’ It declared, along with a prominent smiling photo of Aaron Smith himself. I’d always found that sign a little creepy. The eyes and the smile were both a little too wide. It made the man look downright unhinged. I’d never actually met Aaron Smith in person, despite working for his older brother. The Sheriff would mention him from time to time and I could see the family resemblance, but it was hard to imagine the face on that sign sitting down to an odd Sunday dinner with Sheriff Smith.
To be fair, they probably didn’t talk much. I don’t think Aaron Smith himself even lived in town anymore. He owned a bunch of other dealerships scattered around southwest Ohio. Smith Volkswagen was just the oldest. But the sign had been there forever, and why fix what ain’t broken, even if it is creepy as hell?
Either way, just past that unsettling sign was my destination. Once upon a time, it’d been a small auto garage that had long since gone defunct. It’d been closed down since before I moved to town. From what I’d seen, Smith Volkswagen had used the property as an additional lot to store the cars they had no room for, from time to time but it didn’t seem like they did that anymore. Now the place just looked completely dead. There were no cars parked out front, Audi or otherwise.
I pulled into the parking lot, and checked the address I had to make sure it was correct. This was definitely the place. I parked my car and got out, before making my way to the front door. I found it locked.
Naturally.
Guess my luck had to run out somewhere. Maybe this was a dead end? I already knew I probably wasn’t getting inside without a warrant, and I didn’t exactly know what my chances were of getting one.
I tried the door again. It still didn’t open. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a security camera by the door. I stared up into it. The presence of a camera probably didn’t mean much. Whoever owned this property probably wanted to deter adventurous kids and urban explorers from going in. Maybe it was nothing, but I still couldn’t help but find it interesting.
I considered just going back to the car but didn’t want to feel like I’d wasted my time, so I figured I’d snoop a little bit. I took a quick walk around the perimeter, peeking in through the windows that I passed. I didn’t see much, but judging by what I could see, this place wasn’t abandoned. I didn’t see anyone inside, but the inside looked awfully clean for an abandoned building.
Going out around back, I noticed that there were garbage bags in the dumpsters out back. Not a lot… but enough to confirm to me that there were people here. Maybe this wasn’t a dead end…
I heard a sudden mechanical whirr from the other side of the building that made me pause. I rounded the corner, moving along the back of the building just in time to see a convoy of five black Audi’s rolling out of the garage door, one after the other. They turned onto the road, moving almost in perfect sync as they headed toward town. I felt a knot form in my stomach as I watched them go.
I’d found the cars I’d been looking for… although if they were going somewhere, odds are that we’d be getting a call about it all too soon.
My heart was beating faster in my chest.
I knew I couldn’t just sit there and watch. I knew I needed to do something.
So I did.
I ran back to my car as fast as my legs could carry me, leaping behind the wheel and keying the engine. I tore back out onto the road, speeding after the convoy. I didn’t know what my plan was. I didn’t have a plan. I just knew that if I didn’t do something, people were going to die.
The convoy turned away from downtown, following the river north. They passed by the River Ridge RV park, moving further down the road towards the outskirts of the county. It was hard to say exactly where they were going. There wasn’t much out that way, not for several miles. But they were moving with purpose and so was I.
About ten miles past River Ridge, I noticed something up ahead. Flashing lights, like what you’d see on a squad car, although there was no color to them. They were just white.
The convoy in front of me finally began to pull off the road. I could see them passing another Audi, this one outfitted with an LED bar. Two men on the road waved them off. Both of them were dressed in well pressed suits and wore reflective sunglasses. One of them was bald with a very thick dark stubble, and the other had a familiar red beard and military crew cut.
The knot in my stomach grew tighter as I drove toward the men, waiting for them to stop me. I reached for my pistol, ready for them to make a move. They just waved me on, barely even looking at me. I still kept my hand on my gun as I drove past, watching Red Beard and Baldy like a hawk.
I could see two other men behind the parked Audi with the flashing lights out of the corner of my eye. They were on the ground, fidgeting with something. It took me a moment to figure out what it was.
Spike strips.
I’d seen them before. We’d used them back during my army days at vehicle checkpoints and while we’d never had to use them while I’d been working as a city cop, we did have them.
They were setting up an ambush here. The five Audi’s that had pulled off the road parked along the shoulder further down. I could see men in suits getting out of them. I didn’t see any guns… I guess they were still partially trying to be subtle. But I still had a feeling that they were armed.
I kept on driving, going further down the road. Stopping and confronting these men wasn’t an option. Maybe they weren’t interested in making a mess by shooting any random schmuck who passed by their little trap, but that didn’t change the fact that they were probably dangerous. Charging in and dealing with them by myself wasn’t a smart idea. So instead, I reached for my phone, and I called Biggs.
He answered on the first ring.
“Hey Sawy-”
“Ethan, we have a situation,” I said. “Who’s on duty with you right now?”
“Right now it’s Hoffman, why what’s going on?”
“Call Hoffman, call the Sheriff and call Lopez. There’s going to be another attack.”
“What? Where?”
“I’ve spotted some suspects setting up some kind of ambush ten miles north of River Ridge. How soon can you be here?”
“Twenty, thirty minutes, maybe?” He said, “Sawyer, where are you right now?”
“I just passed the ambush point. They’re gearing up for something, now move your ass!”
“Y-yeah, of course!”
Biggs hung up immediately, and I pulled off to the side of the road. I took a deep breath, before checking the magazine of my pistol and getting out.
I wasn’t going to charge in needlessly… but I needed to have eyes on this situation. It’d be easier if I could get closer on foot. Leaving my car behind, I dipped into the woods along the other side of the road, letting them hide me as I walked back along the road toward the ambush.
The river whispered beside me as I crept through the trees, and the steep incline leading down toward the river helped keep me low and hidden from sight.
I could see the flashing white lights of the parked Audi, and watched as they suddenly went dark. Red Beard was speaking into a walkie talkie, and on the far side of the road, I could see several men waiting by the five parked Audi’s. This time, they had guns. Assault rifles, by the looks of it.
I was right. There was another attack coming and it was coming now.
“Fish market’s on the move, gentlemen. Put out the nets!” Red Beard said.
On his order, I watched one of the men pull the spike strip across the road, while Red Beard addressed the men on the far side of the road. He spoke like a drill instructor and the men he addressed carried themselves like soldiers.
“As of right now, we are locked in on this operation! We run things smooth, we run it clean, we get the job done. No mistakes like last time! No stragglers! Understood?”
“Sir yes sir!” Came a familiar chorus.
After a few minutes, headlights appeared further down the road. I watched them from my vantage point, praying they belonged to Biggs. But the oncoming vehicle was too big to be a squad car. This looked more like an RV.
No…
This was a whole convoy of RV’s. Most likely coming from River Ridge.
I couldn’t count them all, but they were all heading towards the ambush… and that was when the pieces slowly began to click into place.
Kayley, the girl who’d survived… the girl the people at Red Rooster had been able to ID. She’d lived at River Ridge. If she and her friend from the other night weren’t human… then there was a damn good chance that there were others just like them there. Other women with gills. I guess River Ridge would be the perfect place for them… it was quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of downtown and close to the water. Whatever these people were… it’d just about be the perfect place for them.
‘Fish market’s on the move.’
That’s what Red Beard had said.
The other killings hadn’t exactly been low key… if there were more girls like Kayley at River Ridge, odds are they’d heard about them. And odds are that once they realized they were being targeted too, their first instinct would be to get the hell out of dodge. That would explain why they were carrying out this attack in broad daylight too. They weren’t going off of their own schedule, they were trying to catch the monsters as they fled. And now their targets were here… drawing closer and closer to their massacre with each passing second.
There was no sign of Biggs or anyone else. They still had to be at least fifteen minutes out… probably more.. By the time they got here, the shooting would probably already be over.
I couldn’t let that happen.
For the record - I knew that what I was about to do was extraordinarily stupid, but I didn’t see a whole lot of other options. I couldn’t allow them to ambush those RV’s. I couldn’t. I didn’t really stop to weigh the pros and cons in my head. Sure, I knew that what I was about to do had a chance of survival that was damn near zero… but hey, everyone dies sometime, right? This was the only option I had available to me. In a lot of ways, it wasn’t really even a choice I made. I just did it. I took aim at the nearest target, and I fired.
I saw one of the men by the car, the bald one with the scruff grab his shoulder and stumble back a step. He wasn’t dead, but he was hurt. I shot at him again, but he was low enough to the ground and far enough away that I didn’t hit him. He hastily dragged himself off the road and behind the Audi. He still managed to stand, so clearly he wasn’t in that bad a shape.
The moment he heard the gunshots, Red Beard spun around, drawing his own pistol as he did. I knew that he saw me. I could see his expression creasing into a scowl the moment he did. Our eyes locked for only a split second before the air was filled with the sound of gunshots.
POP. POP. POP.
I felt a white hot pain sting across my arm as one of his bullets grazed me, and even though I returned fire I doubt I hit him. Red Beard dove behind his Audi, but behind him I could see his little kill squad moving in.
I couldn’t count how many of them there were. More than ten. Fifteen, maybe? Twenty at most? Who could say.
I retreated back into the trees, skidding down the forested incline toward the river as I waited for the gunmen to come for me.
“Keep off the road!” Red Beard snarled, “Watch your fire! Wait until you have a shot!”
He must’ve been trying to salvage this operation… Although from where I sat, the RV’s looked to be slowing down. Seems they’d noticed the gunfire.
Red Beard glanced in the direction of the RV’s, and I could see the gears in his head spinning. This was all going wrong… but he didn’t seem the type to give up. On the road, the lead RV moved to make a U turn. I could see Red Beard watching it, and took a pot shot at him. It didn’t hit him, but it did shatter the driver's side window of his Audi.
Roaring in frustration, Red Beard fired three shots back at me.
“Goddamnit! Fuck it! Squads 1 and 2, kill that son of a bitch! 3 to 5, intercept the convoy, NOW!”
I saw some of his men back off, running back to their cars. The rest moved onto the road, coming after me. I fired at them, and I saw one of them stumble back as I shot him dead in the chest. But he didn’t die. He stumbled, but picked himself right back up.
Great, they were armored too.
I was punished for poking my head out by a burst of machine gun fire. The trees by my head splintered as I dove down into cover. I lost my footing, sliding further down the incline toward the river. The only reason I didn’t fall all the way down was because I caught myself on a tree. Looking up, I could see about eight figures at the top of the incline, coming down off the road. One of them spotted me and opened fire. All I could do was scramble out of the way and roll further down the hill toward the water.
Gunfire followed me, but I couldn’t see who was shooting. I couldn’t see where they were. I couldn’t stop to try and get a shot. There were too many of them. I dove down to safety behind a fallen old tree. Bullets rained down on it, tearing off chunks of bark and sending splinters raining down on me.
I gripped my gun tight. My blood rushing in my ears. Somehow… I always wondered if I’d die like this. Dug into the dirt, with bullets whizzing past my head. Maybe there wasn’t any other way for me to die? Who’s to say? But I’d be damned if I didn’t take at least one of those bastards down with me.
I took a deep breath. Steeled myself for what I was sure was going to be my last stand.
Then, gun in hand I rose to return fire.
Only when the rifles went off, they weren’t aimed at me.
I could see the eight figures standing in between the trees, but they’d turned away from me. They were shooting at something else now, although I couldn’t immediately see what. I just saw a shape, moving between the trees. I heard the ground shift and saw a cloud of dirt fly up. One of the armed men was sent screaming down the incline, into the river. I wasn’t sure if he’d survived the fall or not.
One of the other men opened fire, only for the shape to grab his rifle, I saw them force it down, before lunging at his throat. He screamed as they sank their teeth into him, but didn’t seem to be able to put up much of a fight otherwise. Two of his friends opened fire on him, hoping to kill the shape that had him in its grasp. The ground seemed to shift beneath them, sending both of them down the incline and into the river. Within seconds, whoever or whatever the hell this was had just taken out half of the men who were supposed to be killing me.
They tossed the man they’d just bitten to the ground and for the first time, I got a good look at my savior. Clementine Di Cesare’s mouth was smeared red with blood. Her sunglasses were absent and in her blue eyes I could see an unsettling calm. As if this wasn’t so much different to her than any other mundane chore.
The remaining gunmen seemed to freeze at the sight of her, not seeming to know how to react until Di Cesare moved. She was fast. It was hard to tell if she was running, or if the ground simply shifted beneath her. She lunged for the nearest gunman, kneeing him in the stomach and tossing him aside like he weighed nothing, although while she dealt with him, the man beside him got off a lucky shot.
Before Di Cesare could deal with him, he emptied half his magazine into her chest… but she didn’t fall. Hell, there wasn’t a scratch on her. The guy who’d shot her on the other hand?
Blood dribbled from his mouth. His body jerked violently as he collapsed to the ground. It was as if he’d been the one who’d gotten shot, not her. Di Cesare barely paid him any mind, regarding the final two men with that eerie calmness.
I could see one of them stumbling away, trying to get back up the incline. The other one just gritted his teeth and decided to fight on until the end. He was smart enough to know that shooting her wasn’t going to work, so instead he pulled a combat knife from his jacket and charged at her, as if it would do him any good.
Di Cesare barely even reacted. She sidestepped him and casually sent him down the incline into the river below. I saw him tumble down into the river before crashing into the water below with a final scream.
Di Cesare watched him fall with a quiet disinterest, before her attention shifted to me. I took a step back, half expecting her to come for me just like she did with the others. Instead, she simply wiped the blood from her mouth before she turned away from me, and headed back up the incline, moving with purpose.
I hesitated for a moment before following her. Di Cesare stepped out onto the road and surveyed the scene before her with an intense gaze. Whatever Red Beards plan had been… clearly everything had gone catastrophically wrong. I could see some of the black Audi’s on the road, trying to follow the RV’s, although the one that got the closest to one of the RV’s near the back of the convoy got rammed by it and sent careening off the road.
The tires of Red Beard’s Audi screeched as it tore back out onto the road. I saw him behind the wheel, sparing Di Cesare and I a single glance as he took off at top speed. I raised my gun to shoot at him but Di Cesare seized me by the wrist, stopping me from doing so. I looked over at her, confused.
“Let them run,” She said calmly. “We know where they are now.”
She looked down the road, back toward the fleeing RVs, and seemed momentarily content. One of the five parked Audi’s, driven by the survivor of the group who’d gone after me sped onto the road and Di Cesare regarded it with quiet disinterest before walking over to the road spikes and beginning to move them.
“Help me with this,” She said coolly.
I hesitated for a moment before doing exactly what she asked.
“You called for backup?” She asked, as we dragged the spikes off the road.
“I did,” I said. “Wait, you’re not with them?”
“No,” She replied plainly. We packed away the spikes but left them at the side of the road. Someone else could collect them as evidence. “I was with the RV convoy.”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“You were with them?” I asked. “So you knew about the attack?”
“I knew it was likely,” She said. “Although I didn’t expect you here, Deputy Sawyer,”
She tilted her head at me.
“Working behind my back, I see.”
“I was following up on a lead,” I said. “I tracked the vehicle that last night's shooter used to a garage just on the edge of town. I saw some cars leaving and figured it was probably bad news, so I followed them here.”
“I see… you’re quite sedulous, aren’t you?”
“Well I couldn’t exactly sit around given the past few days, could I?” I asked. “What the hell just happened back there, on the incline? How did you… what the hell did you do? I watched someone shoot you, then die of their own gunshot wounds! How the hell did you do that? What the hell are you?”
The questions spilled out of me without much thought, although Di Cesare didn’t seem to care much.
“That’s a question with a complicated answer,” Di Cesare replied.
“Uncomplicate it, then!”
“I’m an old soldier, same as you,” She said. “Maybe I know a little bit of magic… maybe I’m not entirely human anymore, but that’s what I am at my core.”
“Vampire…” I said quietly.
She didn’t answer, but there was a look in her eyes that told me I was right. At this point, after seeing what I’d just seen, I wasn’t in much of a state of mind to doubt it.
“So that trick with the bullet wounds… was that a vampire thing or a magic thing” I asked.
“Attribution spell,” She said. “Makes me harder to kill. Not a lot gets through it. I’ll tell you what. Give me your car keys, and I’ll answer any questions you have later.”
She extended a hand to me.
“I’m sorry, my car keys?” I asked, “Why?!”
“I need to follow the RV’s to make sure they make it out of the county safely. You said you’ve called in backup. You still need to be here for when they arrive. So… I’ll be borrowing your vehicle.”
I hesitated for a moment, before swearing under my breath and handing my keys off to her.
“Do what you’ve got to do…” I said under my breath.
She nodded.
“It’ll be returned to you when I’m done, no worse for wear.”
With that, she pushed past me and walked toward my car and all I could really do was just watch. She took my car, and sped off after the RV’s, leaving me in the road to clean up the mess.
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It was late when I got back home but for as tired as I was, I knew that I wasn’t going to sleep a wink.
I went into my computer room and opened up my laptop, before plugging in the USB the bartender had given me. There were four folders on it, each one containing the feed from a different camera in the Rooster. I clicked into one of the folders at random and picked through the video files inside, looking for the stretch of footage that I needed. It didn’t take me long to find it either.
I clicked into one of the video files, and watched as the chaos of the Red Rooster played out before me. People drinking, flirting, laughing. Living their lives. Nothing I hadn’t seen before. I let the footage play for a bit, before getting up to grab myself a couple of beers from the fridge. When I got back, I started skipping through the video, waiting for the moment my two victims showed up.
When I’d taken the bartender's statement, he’d told me that he’d seen the two before, both separate and together. He didn’t know their names, but he knew their faces. Other patrons recognized them too. One of them had identified the red haired girl as ‘Kayley’ and had mentioned she lived down at River Ridge, a trailer park outside of town. Nobody had been able to name the Elegant Woman, although a lot of patrons had said they’d seen her around before.
Apparently, both of them usually came to hook up, leaving with a different stranger on most nights. Odds are, they’d why they were there on that night too. They’d come in at around 8:47. The Elegant looking dark haired woman seemed to be the one taking the lead, and seemed to be the one doing most of the talking. She and Kayley went to sit at the bar, talking amongst each other all the while. I couldn’t say for sure what they were talking about. Even if the file had audio, I doubt I’d have been able to single them out over the crowd. They looked at ease though.
They shared a couple of drinks. Nothing seemed that out of the ordinary. I took a sip of my beer, watching them. Eventually, Kayley got distracted talking to a man further down the bar, while the Elegant Woman stayed at the bar, drinking casually as if she had all the time in the world.
The man in the suit came in at around 9:12.
My attention shifted to him the moment he came in through the door.
He fit the description that every witness I’d spoken to had given about the shooter. A tall man with a red beard in a black suit who was wearing a pair of reflective sunglasses despite the fact that it was 9 at night. Even beneath his suit, it was easy to tell he had a good physique, and his crew cut implied a military history to me.
Red Beard took a seat at the bar, a few seats down from the Elegant Woman. He ordered a drink, and nursed it for a bit, discreetly looking around at the other patrons of the bar but not seeming to look directly at either the Elegant Woman or Kayley. He just drank his beer, and when he was finished, he got up and switched seats, moving to sit beside the Elegant Woman. She looked over at him, putting on a charming smile as they talked. I almost got the impression that they were flirting with each other.
They kept talking for a while and as they did, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If I didn’t know what was coming next… it would have caught me completely off guard. When she turned to take a sip of her drink, the gun appeared in his hand, almost without warning. She didn’t even have time to react before he shot her at point blank range. Three bullets straight to the chest.
I saw Kayley spin around and freeze up. Her entire body tensed, as if she was ready to lunge at the shooter. If that was her intention though, she never got the chance. He put two bullets in her without even thinking, then without so much as a glance backward, he took off toward the door.
I rubbed my temples, watching as the chaos of the aftermath unfolded. Some people called 911. Some, like the bartender, ran to the aid of the bodies. I saw myself run in through the door less than six minutes after the shooting had happened.
That was where I stopped the video.
I took another sip of my beer, and sighed. I rewound it a little bit, watching as the shooter came in and watching as he left. I might recognize this man on the street if I saw him, but other than his red hair and sunglasses, there wasn’t really much to go off of.
The way he left… he walked away almost casually, as if he had someplace to be. He didn’t run. He didn’t panic. He was cold, calm, and professional. I guess that fit with the other murders, didn’t it?
I steeled myself to review the footage again, this time from another camera. Maybe there’d be something from one of the angles that I didn’t see. I checked the angles of the other three cameras. Two of them wouldn’t offer me much. One of them didn’t even catch the shooting. But the last one…
The last one looked promising.
It was situated near the back of the bar and through it, you could see out a window onto the street. It wasn’t the best view… but it was different.
From that angle, I could see a black sedan pull up to drop the man in the suit off. I saw him walk in the door and sit by the bar and from there, the scene played out the same as it did before. The man in the suit shot the two women and he left.
He strode out toward the sedan parked out front, got in the passenger seat and the sedan took off like a shot. There’d been a getaway driver. Interesting…
I set my unfinished beer down. I could drink the rest of it later. I needed to go on a little drive.
It was around 4 AM when I returned to the Red Rooster. I parked my car on the street, exactly where the black sedan had parked, and got out. The downtown area around me was dead silent. Lifeless almost. There wasn’t another soul in sight. But that was fine by me. That just meant that there were no distractions.
It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. There was a bank across the street and I walked toward it. The doors were locked, but that was fine. I could see what I needed through the windows.
Bank machines.
More specifically, bank machines with cameras. Cameras that were pointed right at the Red Rooster.
Perfect.
***
I was off shift the next day, but that just gave me time to get some actual work done. It was probably better I do it all from home. This case was Di Cesares now. I wasn’t sure what she’d do if she caught me working on it, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to find out. Judging by those fangs in her mouth, she wasn’t human either. Hell, I wasn’t sure if she was actually even from the State Police… I got the impression that Sheriff Smith didn’t seem to think so. But if she wasn’t with them, who was she with? Why hadn’t the State Police sent someone else? Had she done something to them? Even if she had, I couldn’t just believe that the State Police wouldn’t notice something like that.
No… there was something else going on here. But I could figure that out later.
First things first - I needed to review the footage from the bank machines. The bank was more than willing to give me access to the footage when I asked. They knew who I was, they knew what had happened and they knew why I was asking.
Once I got back home, it didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. Just as I’d hoped, the bank machines had recorded the car that had been waiting outside the Red Rooster. I couldn’t make out the license plate from the footage… but I could see enough to identify the make and model of the car.
An Audi A6 Sedan.
I’m not much of a car guy, but I can say that there’s not a lot of Audi’s in rural Ohio. Even without the license plate, this shouldn’t have been hard to find. I made a call to a buddy of mine in the BMV, told him what I was looking for and within the hour, he had the results for me.
It turns out, there were actually only eight Audi A6 Sedans registered in our county and all of them were registered to the same company.
Apostle Security.
Naturally, I did a bit of research on them. Apostle was a mid-sized private security firm based in Cincinnati, although they had a few other offices in Ohio and some of the surrounding states. It’d been started by a man named Joseph Cray about ten years ago, although beyond that I couldn’t find out much about their history and really, I didn’t care. Their website didn’t list any offices in my county… but the BMV seemed to say otherwise. My friend there had given me an address outside of town and even if I was off duty, I figured that no one could give me any guff for taking a little scenic drive. And if I just so happened to see some black Audi’s that looked like the one that had been parked outside of Red Rooster last night… well, maybe I’d pass that information along to whoever was on duty at the time. I’m pretty sure it was Biggs and Hoffman. They could decide whether or not to tell Di Cesare. It would be completely out of my hands.
I headed out to my car, plugged the address I’d gotten into my GPS and took a little drive.
As I drove through the backroads leading out of town, I felt a sense of quiet apprehension. Maybe I was being naive, putting my hopes on this lead. But I’d done the work. If Apostle really was behind this, it would make sense for them to have some sort of location in the county. If I was right, maybe I wouldn’t find all the answers to this surreal mess of a case, but I’d at least find the shooters. That was something. At least people wouldn’t be dying anymore.
Christ… I still didn’t know what to make of the victims. The gills on Kayley, the fangs on Patricia Russell, the fractures on Geoffery Vickers bones. Maybe these people really were monsters? If so… maybe these shooters knew that. Maybe that was why they did it.
But even if that was the case - I still couldn’t just leave a roving kill squad to wander around unchecked. The way things were going, it was just a matter of time until one of the victims was just some innocent bystander. I passed by a familiar sign as I neared the edge of the county. An advertisement for the local Volkswagen dealership.
‘You’re in Smith Country!’ It declared, along with a prominent smiling photo of Aaron Smith himself. I’d always found that sign a little creepy. The eyes and the smile were both a little too wide. It made the man look downright unhinged. I’d never actually met Aaron Smith in person, despite working for his older brother. The Sheriff would mention him from time to time and I could see the family resemblance, but it was hard to imagine the face on that sign sitting down to an odd Sunday dinner with Sheriff Smith.
To be fair, they probably didn’t talk much. I don’t think Aaron Smith himself even lived in town anymore. He owned a bunch of other dealerships scattered around southwest Ohio. Smith Volkswagen was just the oldest. But the sign had been there forever, and why fix what ain’t broken, even if it is creepy as hell?
Either way, just past that unsettling sign was my destination. Once upon a time, it’d been a small auto garage that had long since gone defunct. It’d been closed down since before I moved to town. From what I’d seen, Smith Volkswagen had used the property as an additional lot to store the cars they had no room for, from time to time but it didn’t seem like they did that anymore. Now the place just looked completely dead. There were no cars parked out front, Audi or otherwise.
I pulled into the parking lot, and checked the address I had to make sure it was correct. This was definitely the place. I parked my car and got out, before making my way to the front door. I found it locked.
Naturally.
Guess my luck had to run out somewhere. Maybe this was a dead end? I already knew I probably wasn’t getting inside without a warrant, and I didn’t exactly know what my chances were of getting one.
I tried the door again. It still didn’t open. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a security camera by the door. I stared up into it. The presence of a camera probably didn’t mean much. Whoever owned this property probably wanted to deter adventurous kids and urban explorers from going in. Maybe it was nothing, but I still couldn’t help but find it interesting.
I considered just going back to the car but didn’t want to feel like I’d wasted my time, so I figured I’d snoop a little bit. I took a quick walk around the perimeter, peeking in through the windows that I passed. I didn’t see much, but judging by what I could see, this place wasn’t abandoned. I didn’t see anyone inside, but the inside looked awfully clean for an abandoned building.
Going out around back, I noticed that there were garbage bags in the dumpsters out back. Not a lot… but enough to confirm to me that there were people here. Maybe this wasn’t a dead end…
I heard a sudden mechanical whirr from the other side of the building that made me pause. I rounded the corner, moving along the back of the building just in time to see a convoy of five black Audi’s rolling out of the garage door, one after the other. They turned onto the road, moving almost in perfect sync as they headed toward town. I felt a knot form in my stomach as I watched them go.
I’d found the cars I’d been looking for… although if they were going somewhere, odds are that we’d be getting a call about it all too soon.
My heart was beating faster in my chest.
I knew I couldn’t just sit there and watch. I knew I needed to do something.
So I did.
I ran back to my car as fast as my legs could carry me, leaping behind the wheel and keying the engine. I tore back out onto the road, speeding after the convoy. I didn’t know what my plan was. I didn’t have a plan. I just knew that if I didn’t do something, people were going to die.
The convoy turned away from downtown, following the river north. They passed by the River Ridge RV park, moving further down the road towards the outskirts of the county. It was hard to say exactly where they were going. There wasn’t much out that way, not for several miles. But they were moving with purpose and so was I.
About ten miles past River Ridge, I noticed something up ahead. Flashing lights, like what you’d see on a squad car, although there was no color to them. They were just white.
The convoy in front of me finally began to pull off the road. I could see them passing another Audi, this one outfitted with an LED bar. Two men on the road waved them off. Both of them were dressed in well pressed suits and wore reflective sunglasses. One of them was bald with a very thick dark stubble, and the other had a familiar red beard and military crew cut.
The knot in my stomach grew tighter as I drove toward the men, waiting for them to stop me. I reached for my pistol, ready for them to make a move. They just waved me on, barely even looking at me. I still kept my hand on my gun as I drove past, watching Red Beard and Baldy like a hawk.
I could see two other men behind the parked Audi with the flashing lights out of the corner of my eye. They were on the ground, fidgeting with something. It took me a moment to figure out what it was.
Spike strips.
I’d seen them before. We’d used them back during my army days at vehicle checkpoints and while we’d never had to use them while I’d been working as a city cop, we did have them.
They were setting up an ambush here. The five Audi’s that had pulled off the road parked along the shoulder further down. I could see men in suits getting out of them. I didn’t see any guns… I guess they were still partially trying to be subtle. But I still had a feeling that they were armed.
I kept on driving, going further down the road. Stopping and confronting these men wasn’t an option. Maybe they weren’t interested in making a mess by shooting any random schmuck who passed by their little trap, but that didn’t change the fact that they were probably dangerous. Charging in and dealing with them by myself wasn’t a smart idea. So instead, I reached for my phone, and I called Biggs.
He answered on the first ring.
“Hey Sawy-”
“Ethan, we have a situation,” I said. “Who’s on duty with you right now?”
“Right now it’s Hoffman, why what’s going on?”
“Call Hoffman, call the Sheriff and call Lopez. There’s going to be another attack.”
“What? Where?”
“I’ve spotted some suspects setting up some kind of ambush ten miles north of River Ridge. How soon can you be here?”
“Twenty, thirty minutes, maybe?” He said, “Sawyer, where are you right now?”
“I just passed the ambush point. They’re gearing up for something, now move your ass!”
“Y-yeah, of course!”
Biggs hung up immediately, and I pulled off to the side of the road. I took a deep breath, before checking the magazine of my pistol and getting out.
I wasn’t going to charge in needlessly… but I needed to have eyes on this situation. It’d be easier if I could get closer on foot. Leaving my car behind, I dipped into the woods along the other side of the road, letting them hide me as I walked back along the road toward the ambush.
The river whispered beside me as I crept through the trees, and the steep incline leading down toward the river helped keep me low and hidden from sight.
I could see the flashing white lights of the parked Audi, and watched as they suddenly went dark. Red Beard was speaking into a walkie talkie, and on the far side of the road, I could see several men waiting by the five parked Audi’s. This time, they had guns. Assault rifles, by the looks of it.
I was right. There was another attack coming and it was coming now.
“Fish market’s on the move, gentlemen. Put out the nets!” Red Beard said.
On his order, I watched one of the men pull the spike strip across the road, while Red Beard addressed the men on the far side of the road. He spoke like a drill instructor and the men he addressed carried themselves like soldiers.
“As of right now, we are locked in on this operation! We run things smooth, we run it clean, we get the job done. No mistakes like last time! No stragglers! Understood?”
“Sir yes sir!” Came a familiar chorus.
After a few minutes, headlights appeared further down the road. I watched them from my vantage point, praying they belonged to Biggs. But the oncoming vehicle was too big to be a squad car. This looked more like an RV.
No…
This was a whole convoy of RV’s. Most likely coming from River Ridge.
I couldn’t count them all, but they were all heading towards the ambush… and that was when the pieces slowly began to click into place.
Kayley, the girl who’d survived… the girl the people at Red Rooster had been able to ID. She’d lived at River Ridge. If she and her friend from the other night weren’t human… then there was a damn good chance that there were others just like them there. Other women with gills. I guess River Ridge would be the perfect place for them… it was quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of downtown and close to the water. Whatever these people were… it’d just about be the perfect place for them.
‘Fish market’s on the move.’
That’s what Red Beard had said.
The other killings hadn’t exactly been low key… if there were more girls like Kayley at River Ridge, odds are they’d heard about them. And odds are that once they realized they were being targeted too, their first instinct would be to get the hell out of dodge. That would explain why they were carrying out this attack in broad daylight too. They weren’t going off of their own schedule, they were trying to catch the monsters as they fled. And now their targets were here… drawing closer and closer to their massacre with each passing second.
There was no sign of Biggs or anyone else. They still had to be at least fifteen minutes out… probably more.. By the time they got here, the shooting would probably already be over.
I couldn’t let that happen.
For the record - I knew that what I was about to do was extraordinarily stupid, but I didn’t see a whole lot of other options. I couldn’t allow them to ambush those RV’s. I couldn’t. I didn’t really stop to weigh the pros and cons in my head. Sure, I knew that what I was about to do had a chance of survival that was damn near zero… but hey, everyone dies sometime, right? This was the only option I had available to me. In a lot of ways, it wasn’t really even a choice I made. I just did it. I took aim at the nearest target, and I fired.
I saw one of the men by the car, the bald one with the scruff grab his shoulder and stumble back a step. He wasn’t dead, but he was hurt. I shot at him again, but he was low enough to the ground and far enough away that I didn’t hit him. He hastily dragged himself off the road and behind the Audi. He still managed to stand, so clearly he wasn’t in that bad a shape.
The moment he heard the gunshots, Red Beard spun around, drawing his own pistol as he did. I knew that he saw me. I could see his expression creasing into a scowl the moment he did. Our eyes locked for only a split second before the air was filled with the sound of gunshots.
POP. POP. POP.
I felt a white hot pain sting across my arm as one of his bullets grazed me, and even though I returned fire I doubt I hit him. Red Beard dove behind his Audi, but behind him I could see his little kill squad moving in.
I couldn’t count how many of them there were. More than ten. Fifteen, maybe? Twenty at most? Who could say.
I retreated back into the trees, skidding down the forested incline toward the river as I waited for the gunmen to come for me.
“Keep off the road!” Red Beard snarled, “Watch your fire! Wait until you have a shot!”
He must’ve been trying to salvage this operation… Although from where I sat, the RV’s looked to be slowing down. Seems they’d noticed the gunfire.
Red Beard glanced in the direction of the RV’s, and I could see the gears in his head spinning. This was all going wrong… but he didn’t seem the type to give up. On the road, the lead RV moved to make a U turn. I could see Red Beard watching it, and took a pot shot at him. It didn’t hit him, but it did shatter the driver's side window of his Audi.
Roaring in frustration, Red Beard fired three shots back at me.
“Goddamnit! Fuck it! Squads 1 and 2, kill that son of a bitch! 3 to 5, intercept the convoy, NOW!”
I saw some of his men back off, running back to their cars. The rest moved onto the road, coming after me. I fired at them, and I saw one of them stumble back as I shot him dead in the chest. But he didn’t die. He stumbled, but picked himself right back up.
Great, they were armored too.
I was punished for poking my head out by a burst of machine gun fire. The trees by my head splintered as I dove down into cover. I lost my footing, sliding further down the incline toward the river. The only reason I didn’t fall all the way down was because I caught myself on a tree. Looking up, I could see about eight figures at the top of the incline, coming down off the road. One of them spotted me and opened fire. All I could do was scramble out of the way and roll further down the hill toward the water.
Gunfire followed me, but I couldn’t see who was shooting. I couldn’t see where they were. I couldn’t stop to try and get a shot. There were too many of them. I dove down to safety behind a fallen old tree. Bullets rained down on it, tearing off chunks of bark and sending splinters raining down on me.
I gripped my gun tight. My blood rushing in my ears. Somehow… I always wondered if I’d die like this. Dug into the dirt, with bullets whizzing past my head. Maybe there wasn’t any other way for me to die? Who’s to say? But I’d be damned if I didn’t take at least one of those bastards down with me.
I took a deep breath. Steeled myself for what I was sure was going to be my last stand.
Then, gun in hand I rose to return fire.
Only when the rifles went off, they weren’t aimed at me.
I could see the eight figures standing in between the trees, but they’d turned away from me. They were shooting at something else now, although I couldn’t immediately see what. I just saw a shape, moving between the trees. I heard the ground shift and saw a cloud of dirt fly up. One of the armed men was sent screaming down the incline, into the river. I wasn’t sure if he’d survived the fall or not.
One of the other men opened fire, only for the shape to grab his rifle, I saw them force it down, before lunging at his throat. He screamed as they sank their teeth into him, but didn’t seem to be able to put up much of a fight otherwise. Two of his friends opened fire on him, hoping to kill the shape that had him in its grasp. The ground seemed to shift beneath them, sending both of them down the incline and into the river. Within seconds, whoever or whatever the hell this was had just taken out half of the men who were supposed to be killing me.
They tossed the man they’d just bitten to the ground and for the first time, I got a good look at my savior. Clementine Di Cesare’s mouth was smeared red with blood. Her sunglasses were absent and in her blue eyes I could see an unsettling calm. As if this wasn’t so much different to her than any other mundane chore.
The remaining gunmen seemed to freeze at the sight of her, not seeming to know how to react until Di Cesare moved. She was fast. It was hard to tell if she was running, or if the ground simply shifted beneath her. She lunged for the nearest gunman, kneeing him in the stomach and tossing him aside like he weighed nothing, although while she dealt with him, the man beside him got off a lucky shot.
Before Di Cesare could deal with him, he emptied half his magazine into her chest… but she didn’t fall. Hell, there wasn’t a scratch on her. The guy who’d shot her on the other hand?
Blood dribbled from his mouth. His body jerked violently as he collapsed to the ground. It was as if he’d been the one who’d gotten shot, not her. Di Cesare barely paid him any mind, regarding the final two men with that eerie calmness.
I could see one of them stumbling away, trying to get back up the incline. The other one just gritted his teeth and decided to fight on until the end. He was smart enough to know that shooting her wasn’t going to work, so instead he pulled a combat knife from his jacket and charged at her, as if it would do him any good.
Di Cesare barely even reacted. She sidestepped him and casually sent him down the incline into the river below. I saw him tumble down into the river before crashing into the water below with a final scream.
Di Cesare watched him fall with a quiet disinterest, before her attention shifted to me. I took a step back, half expecting her to come for me just like she did with the others. Instead, she simply wiped the blood from her mouth before she turned away from me, and headed back up the incline, moving with purpose.
I hesitated for a moment before following her. Di Cesare stepped out onto the road and surveyed the scene before her with an intense gaze. Whatever Red Beards plan had been… clearly everything had gone catastrophically wrong. I could see some of the black Audi’s on the road, trying to follow the RV’s, although the one that got the closest to one of the RV’s near the back of the convoy got rammed by it and sent careening off the road.
The tires of Red Beard’s Audi screeched as it tore back out onto the road. I saw him behind the wheel, sparing Di Cesare and I a single glance as he took off at top speed. I raised my gun to shoot at him but Di Cesare seized me by the wrist, stopping me from doing so. I looked over at her, confused.
“Let them run,” She said calmly. “We know where they are now.”
She looked down the road, back toward the fleeing RVs, and seemed momentarily content. One of the five parked Audi’s, driven by the survivor of the group who’d gone after me sped onto the road and Di Cesare regarded it with quiet disinterest before walking over to the road spikes and beginning to move them.
“Help me with this,” She said coolly.
I hesitated for a moment before doing exactly what she asked.
“You called for backup?” She asked, as we dragged the spikes off the road.
“I did,” I said. “Wait, you’re not with them?”
“No,” She replied plainly. We packed away the spikes but left them at the side of the road. Someone else could collect them as evidence. “I was with the RV convoy.”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“You were with them?” I asked. “So you knew about the attack?”
“I knew it was likely,” She said. “Although I didn’t expect you here, Deputy Sawyer,”
She tilted her head at me.
“Working behind my back, I see.”
“I was following up on a lead,” I said. “I tracked the vehicle that last night's shooter used to a garage just on the edge of town. I saw some cars leaving and figured it was probably bad news, so I followed them here.”
“I see… you’re quite sedulous, aren’t you?”
“Well I couldn’t exactly sit around given the past few days, could I?” I asked. “What the hell just happened back there, on the incline? How did you… what the hell did you do? I watched someone shoot you, then die of their own gunshot wounds! How the hell did you do that? What the hell are you?”
The questions spilled out of me without much thought, although Di Cesare didn’t seem to care much.
“That’s a question with a complicated answer,” Di Cesare replied.
“Uncomplicate it, then!”
“I’m an old soldier, same as you,” She said. “Maybe I know a little bit of magic… maybe I’m not entirely human anymore, but that’s what I am at my core.”
“Vampire…” I said quietly.
She didn’t answer, but there was a look in her eyes that told me I was right. At this point, after seeing what I’d just seen, I wasn’t in much of a state of mind to doubt it.
“So that trick with the bullet wounds… was that a vampire thing or a magic thing” I asked.
“Attribution spell,” She said. “Makes me harder to kill. Not a lot gets through it. I’ll tell you what. Give me your car keys, and I’ll answer any questions you have later.”
She extended a hand to me.
“I’m sorry, my car keys?” I asked, “Why?!”
“I need to follow the RV’s to make sure they make it out of the county safely. You said you’ve called in backup. You still need to be here for when they arrive. So… I’ll be borrowing your vehicle.”
I hesitated for a moment, before swearing under my breath and handing my keys off to her.
“Do what you’ve got to do…” I said under my breath.
She nodded.
“It’ll be returned to you when I’m done, no worse for wear.”
With that, she pushed past me and walked toward my car and all I could really do was just watch. She took my car, and sped off after the RV’s, leaving me in the road to clean up the mess.
2024.06.07 17:04 SpiritedBrilliant703 The Dark Truth About Reddit: From Faking Users To A Billion Dollar Company
How did two broke college students with a failed business end up creating one of the most popular internet forum ever? The story of Reddit is filled with scandals, lies, money and even death - as Reddit has been involved in countless controversies, including turning against its own users. But let’s dive in behind Reddit's insane history to the billion dollar company that we know of today.
In 2001, Alexis Ohanian enrolled at the University of Virginia to study computer science. His destiny changed when he met his dorm neighbor Steve Huffman, another self-taught programmer majoring in computer science.
The two bonded over video games but Alexis felt behind his peers' skills. Fearing failure, he switched to pre-law despite his passion for coding. As he prepped for the grueling law entrance exam, visions of a monotonous future as a lawyer overwhelmed him. Mid-exam, he walked out and envisioned running his own impactful tech company instead.
Luckily, Steve already had a business idea - a mobile app for ordering food ahead from gas stations or any restaurant to skip the line. Excited, they named it "My Mobile Menu" and devoted their senior year to building the startup.
However, smartphones were still primitive with no app stores. Steve struggled to connect their SMS-based system to restaurants'. Meanwhile, Alexis struggled to sell the vision to restaurants. Their innovative idea was simply too ahead of its time.
As spring break arrived, Alexis and Steve embarked on a 500-mile trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their goal? Seeking help for their struggling business from entrepreneur Paul Graham, who was lecturing at Harvard on "How to Start a Startup."
Steve was a fan of Graham's books and hoped to get one autographed. But Alexis saw an even bigger opportunity. After the lecture, they approached Graham, bought him a drink, and pitched their mobile food ordering app "My Mobile Menu." Surprisingly, Graham liked the idea of eliminating waiting in line for food.
The pair exchanged contacts with Graham and returned to Virginia reinvigorated. Weeks later, Graham emailed about launching a new startup accelerator program called Y Combinator, inviting them to pitch for funding. Though confident, the investor panel couldn't envision their app working with current technology nor saw two college kids having restaurant connections.
Rejected but not dejected, Graham revealed he still believed in Alexis and Steve if they conceived a better idea. Literally getting off the train at the next stop, they brainstormed a new concept that would change everything.
Abandoning the mobile app, Graham advised building something web-based to solve "your problem every morning." By 2005, content flooded the internet from multiple sources needing better aggregation. Sites like Slashdot let users submit articles that moderators rated. Delicious bookmarked popular links.
But Alexis and Steve envisioned an open platform where anyone could share any content for users to upvote or downvote - a platform where content is rated by the people. After tossing names like Oobaloo and 360scope, they landed on "Reddit" - allowing people to simply say "I read it on Reddit."
Graduating in 2005 with a new company name and vision, the founders of Reddit were ready to disrupt how content spreads online.
Armed with $12,000 in funding from Y Combinator, Alexis and Steve moved to Massachusetts to work full-time on their new idea. They spent months operating on little sleep, barely leaving as they built Reddit day and night. However, Paul Graham soon emailed questioning why they hadn't launched yet, pushing them to release a bare-bones beta version immediately.
Unexpectedly, Graham then linked to Reddit on his blog, driving their first 1,000 visitors. Ready or not, Reddit was now live - but missing a crucial element: users.
Alexis tried everything to attract an audience - posting flyers around Boston, asking friends to contribute content, even pitching fellow Y Combinator founders. But without an existing userbase, there was little content.
Desperate for traction, Alexis and Steve resorted to creating hundreds of fake accounts to populate Reddit with posts, giving the illusion of an active community. "Reddit's no fun if the page is blank," Alexis rationalized their moves.
At first, there was no evident impact until they started noticing unfamiliar usernames joining the platform. By summer's end, Reddit had amassed over 12,000 daily users.
However, the homepage was simply a jumble of random links voted to the top with no categorization system. This sparked Alexis and Steve's first major clash - Alexis wanted tags for organization, but Steve opposed subjective labeling concerns.
Their compromise? Separate "subreddit" sections for every interest, becoming Reddit's backbone. The first was the not-safe-for-work subreddit, followed by science, programming, politics and many more niche communities united on one novel platform.
With this innovative structure, Reddit's prospects were looking very bright - especially after crossing paths with a pivotal new player, Aaron Swartz.
At just 18 years old, Aaron Swartz was a talented programmer also backed by Y Combinator for his startup Infogami, that built web development tools. However, Infogami struggled - Aaron hadn't launched yet and found himself broke, homeless and partnerless. Paul Graham saw Aaron's potential to help with developing Reddit and suggested merging companies.
Late 2005, around 6 months after Reddit's launch, Infogami merged into a new parent company Not A Bug Inc with Reddit. Steve, Alexis and Aaron each owned 24% of Reddit, with Paul at 7% and the rest reserved.
Alexis and Steve welcomed Aaron's coding skills. As users grew, Reddit added comment sections for discussions, plus a "karma" points system incentivizing quality contributions. The trio collaborated well initially.
However, underlying tensions brewed. Alexis and Steve felt it unfair Aaron publicly called himself a Reddit co-founder when he joined 6 months after their idea's inception. This founder friction intensified as Reddit caught the attention of media giant Condé Nast.
The multi-billion dollar publisher of Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair sought to acquire the rapidly growing, user-generated Reddit to expand digitally after acquiring Wired. Though not looking to sell their 1-year-old startup yet, the 23, 22 and 19-year-old founders entertained Condé Nast's millions.
After tense negotiations, one hurdle remained - Aaron voicing concerns over a massive corporation controlling the free user-driven platform. His antics like secretly tweaking contracts caused frustration until Steve warned him not to jeopardize the deal.
Relenting, Condé Nast acquired Reddit for around $10-20 million, making the founders overnight millionaires. Though required to remain for 3 more years, they operated independently with resources to grow Reddit. What seemed like a dream quickly turned into a nightmare as the Reddit founders' story took a dark twist.
Everyone worked hard to impress Condé Nast, Reddit's new corporate owners - except Aaron. He had envisioned Reddit as a voice for the people against big governments and corporations. So being owned by a massive media company felt like a bad cultural fit.
Aaron rarely showed up to the office, even blogging about hating the "grey walls, grey desks, grey noise". Finally in January 2007, Alexis, Steve and Condé Nast leadership fired the problematic Aaron.
Without him, the team continued developing Reddit, rethinking core features.
Until 2008, only employees could create new topic subreddits despite increasing user requests. Their solution? Allowing any user to make their own subreddit.
This brilliant move spawned subreddits for every niche interest imaginable, from niche bands to financial advice to bizarre meme topics like "BreadStapleToTrees" with over 300,000 members. Users could now find or create communities for any interest.
Another clever tactic was to let the most active users moderate the subreddits they created for free.
Reddit's popularity soared to over 2 million users and 10,000+ subreddits by late 2008. Yet the company struggled to monetize this traffic.
So despite explosive growth, Reddit remained unprofitable, merely introducing paid memberships and awards. Meanwhile, tensions boiled over between Alexis and Steve - the former grieving his late mother, accusing Steve of mismanagement while Steve felt Alexis schemed behind his back. Sharing an apartment worsened their explosive office fights.
By 2009 when their Condé Nast contracts expired, the fractured co-founders both abandoned Reddit just as a new Congressional bill threatened the site's very existence.
In 2011, Congress proposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would hold platforms like Reddit responsible for all user-generated content on their sites - even content they didn't publish themselves. For a site with millions of users freely posting, copyright owners could sue Reddit, potentially leading to massive fines, legal fees or even a shutdown.
At the time, Reddit had over 46 million users but only 20 employees, making it impossible to monitor all content for compliance. Reddit publicly declared SOPA an "all-out war against the internet" they wouldn't go down without a fight.
Many tech giants like Google and Wikipedia also lobbied against the law amid intense public backlash. On January 18, 2012, Reddit took the dramatic step of shutting down for 12 hours in protest, stating in a blog post: "We wouldn't do this if we didn't believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to Reddit and the internet as we know it."
Days later, Congress abandoned SOPA after succumbing to public pressure. One key leader emerging from this internet freedom battle was none other than Aaron Swartz. After leaving Reddit, he had become an activist fighting internet censorship and campaigning for an open internet.
But his activism landed him in serious legal trouble in 2011 when arrested for illegally downloading millions of academic journals from MIT to make them freely accessible online. He faced up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.
Aaron was offered a plea deal of just 6 months if he admitted guilty, however he rejects it to avoid being a lifelong felon. As his case lingered, the depressed Aaron became isolated, not wanting to burden others. Tragically, his girlfriend found him dead by suicide weeks before the trial.
Tributes poured in across the internet, hailing Aaron as using "his prodigious skills not to enrich himself, but to make the internet and world a fairer, better place." Though inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for co-founding Reddit and creating RSS feeds and Creative Commons licenses, Aaron's pivotal role has largely been erased from Reddit's official history.
In March 2012, Yishan Wang from PayPal became Reddit's new CEO as the site reached billions of monthly pageviews and gained cultural relevance. Even President Barack Obama did an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") Q&A on the site's popular subreddit.
However, this immense growth caused problems. Since anyone could create subreddits, many disturbing communities proliferated from watching people die to cannibalism forums. Reddit's anonymity made it ripe for abuse by extremists, hate speech, and controversies.
One tragic example followed the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings killing 3 and injuring hundreds. A "FindBostonBombers" subreddit emerged with thousands speculating and sharing unauthorized personal information against site rules. They falsely accused missing student Sunil Tripathi based on resemblance, leading to vicious harassment of his grieving family before authorities identified the true perpetrators.
When Tripathi's body was discovered on April 23, news outlets blamed Reddit's witch-hunt. As the userbase swelled into the millions, pressure mounted on executives like Yishan to crack down on offensive subreddits. Though believing "we will not ban legal content even if odious," he eventually prohibited forums like "BeatingWomen" with graphic violence.
By 2014, conflicting views on content moderation led Yishan to resign after just two years, citing stress from the internal conflicts and negative publicity scaring investors amidst sexism claims. Ellen Pao soon replaced him as CEO to address Reddit's escalating controversies.
Ellen Pao, formerly Reddit's VP known for suing a past employer over gender discrimination, succeeded Yishan as CEO in 2014. Her hiring aimed to rehabilitate Reddit's concerning reputation.
Around this time, co-founder Alexis Ohanian also returned as executive chairman, hoping to steer Reddit clear of controversies. Shortly after, Pao implemented stricter anti-harassment policies and banned some of the most offensive subreddits.
While some lauded her efforts to clean up Reddit, many core users considered it censorship - especially after Pao stated: "We are not a completely free speech platform." Matters escalated when she fired beloved employee Victoria Taylor, who coordinated high-profile AMAs. In protest, moderators shut down hundreds of subreddits, effectively blacking out the site.
With over 160,000 petitions calling for her removal, Pao resigned after just 7 months amid Reddit's tailspin and uncertain future. The company desperately needed stable leadership after cycling through 3 CEOs in under a year.
Offering a glimmer of hope, co-founder Steve Huffman returned as CEO in 2015 alongside Ohanian's renewed involvement. The original founders' comeback reignited optimism, with design upgrades, mobile apps, and clearer direction initially.
However, in 2016 Huffman himself sparked an ethics scandal. After insulting comments on the controversial "The_Donald" subreddit, he abused admin privileges to edit them, redirecting insults towards the subreddit's moderators instead. Though calling it "trolling the trolls," many felt an admin editing user posts broke trust in Reddit's freedom and openness - severely damaging Huffman's credibility.
In April 2023, Reddit announced it would start charging to access its API - the interface allowing third-party apps and websites to pull data from Reddit. One of the most popular alternative apps was Apollo, offering a different browsing experience by freely accessing Reddit's data when the API was free.
However, Reddit's new pricing of 24 cents per 1,000 API requests meant Apollo estimated yearly costs over $20 million - forcing the beloved third-party app to shut down. Many moderator tools relying on Reddit's API to provide enhanced functionality beyond Reddit's official app were also hit with massive unexpected bills.
Many in the community felt the exorbitant pricing and lack of warning suggested Reddit deliberately aimed to kill competitor apps, not giving developers time to adapt. Outraged moderators and developers grouped together, staging a blackout where over 7,000 subreddits including major communities like AskReddit went dark simultaneously to protest the API charges.
With huge portions of Reddit inaccessible, the company lost substantial ad revenue during one of the biggest online protests ever. Many thought this backlash would force Reddit to rescind the changes. However, since the blackout stated a hard 48-hour timeline, Reddit simply waited it out despite some subreddits staying private longer until threatened with moderator bans.
Post-blackout, animosity towards Reddit's leadership like CEO Steve Huffman has intensified. However, Reddit argued the monetization move was necessary, as the company remains unprofitable while third-parties freely integrated Reddit's entire infrastructure and content without generating any income for Reddit itself.
While Reddit's position is defensible from a business perspective, most agree better foresight like improving their official app with requested features could have avoided controversy. Nonetheless, Reddit achieved its API paywall aims - but at the cost of worsening tensions with its very own community.
Despite nearly 20 years online and around 430 million monthly users as of 2023, Reddit incredibly still operates at a loss and has never turned a profit. However, Reddit's collective community has managed to accomplish some incredible feats.
Users have raised massive amounts for charities and orphanages, organized the world's largest secret Santa gift exchange, and created millions of connections through niche interest communities. Reddit is undeniably useful too - its threads frequently appear as top Google results for inquiries.
But no event demonstrated Reddit's community power quite like the 2021 GameStop stock frenzy. Amateur traders on the WallStreetBets subreddit banded together against hedge funds betting on GameStop's decline. Redditors began purchasing the struggling company's shares en masse, driving its stock price from under $3 to an astonishing $483 peak.
This monumental short squeeze caused multi-billion losses for major Wall Street firms, while making numerous Redditors overnight millionaires simply by clinging together. While Reddit itself has yet to solve profitability, one thing remains clear - the website's most powerful asset and liability is its vast unified user base.
Despite the controversies and roller coaster ride detailed in Reddit's story, the site's populist underpinnings and harnessed collective continue redefining what an online community can achieve, for better or worse. Reddit's unconventional journey is far from over.
submitted by SpiritedBrilliant703 to EntrepreneurRideAlong [link] [comments]
In 2001, Alexis Ohanian enrolled at the University of Virginia to study computer science. His destiny changed when he met his dorm neighbor Steve Huffman, another self-taught programmer majoring in computer science.
The two bonded over video games but Alexis felt behind his peers' skills. Fearing failure, he switched to pre-law despite his passion for coding. As he prepped for the grueling law entrance exam, visions of a monotonous future as a lawyer overwhelmed him. Mid-exam, he walked out and envisioned running his own impactful tech company instead.
Luckily, Steve already had a business idea - a mobile app for ordering food ahead from gas stations or any restaurant to skip the line. Excited, they named it "My Mobile Menu" and devoted their senior year to building the startup.
However, smartphones were still primitive with no app stores. Steve struggled to connect their SMS-based system to restaurants'. Meanwhile, Alexis struggled to sell the vision to restaurants. Their innovative idea was simply too ahead of its time.
As spring break arrived, Alexis and Steve embarked on a 500-mile trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their goal? Seeking help for their struggling business from entrepreneur Paul Graham, who was lecturing at Harvard on "How to Start a Startup."
Steve was a fan of Graham's books and hoped to get one autographed. But Alexis saw an even bigger opportunity. After the lecture, they approached Graham, bought him a drink, and pitched their mobile food ordering app "My Mobile Menu." Surprisingly, Graham liked the idea of eliminating waiting in line for food.
The pair exchanged contacts with Graham and returned to Virginia reinvigorated. Weeks later, Graham emailed about launching a new startup accelerator program called Y Combinator, inviting them to pitch for funding. Though confident, the investor panel couldn't envision their app working with current technology nor saw two college kids having restaurant connections.
Rejected but not dejected, Graham revealed he still believed in Alexis and Steve if they conceived a better idea. Literally getting off the train at the next stop, they brainstormed a new concept that would change everything.
Abandoning the mobile app, Graham advised building something web-based to solve "your problem every morning." By 2005, content flooded the internet from multiple sources needing better aggregation. Sites like Slashdot let users submit articles that moderators rated. Delicious bookmarked popular links.
But Alexis and Steve envisioned an open platform where anyone could share any content for users to upvote or downvote - a platform where content is rated by the people. After tossing names like Oobaloo and 360scope, they landed on "Reddit" - allowing people to simply say "I read it on Reddit."
Graduating in 2005 with a new company name and vision, the founders of Reddit were ready to disrupt how content spreads online.
Armed with $12,000 in funding from Y Combinator, Alexis and Steve moved to Massachusetts to work full-time on their new idea. They spent months operating on little sleep, barely leaving as they built Reddit day and night. However, Paul Graham soon emailed questioning why they hadn't launched yet, pushing them to release a bare-bones beta version immediately.
Unexpectedly, Graham then linked to Reddit on his blog, driving their first 1,000 visitors. Ready or not, Reddit was now live - but missing a crucial element: users.
Alexis tried everything to attract an audience - posting flyers around Boston, asking friends to contribute content, even pitching fellow Y Combinator founders. But without an existing userbase, there was little content.
Desperate for traction, Alexis and Steve resorted to creating hundreds of fake accounts to populate Reddit with posts, giving the illusion of an active community. "Reddit's no fun if the page is blank," Alexis rationalized their moves.
At first, there was no evident impact until they started noticing unfamiliar usernames joining the platform. By summer's end, Reddit had amassed over 12,000 daily users.
However, the homepage was simply a jumble of random links voted to the top with no categorization system. This sparked Alexis and Steve's first major clash - Alexis wanted tags for organization, but Steve opposed subjective labeling concerns.
Their compromise? Separate "subreddit" sections for every interest, becoming Reddit's backbone. The first was the not-safe-for-work subreddit, followed by science, programming, politics and many more niche communities united on one novel platform.
With this innovative structure, Reddit's prospects were looking very bright - especially after crossing paths with a pivotal new player, Aaron Swartz.
At just 18 years old, Aaron Swartz was a talented programmer also backed by Y Combinator for his startup Infogami, that built web development tools. However, Infogami struggled - Aaron hadn't launched yet and found himself broke, homeless and partnerless. Paul Graham saw Aaron's potential to help with developing Reddit and suggested merging companies.
Late 2005, around 6 months after Reddit's launch, Infogami merged into a new parent company Not A Bug Inc with Reddit. Steve, Alexis and Aaron each owned 24% of Reddit, with Paul at 7% and the rest reserved.
Alexis and Steve welcomed Aaron's coding skills. As users grew, Reddit added comment sections for discussions, plus a "karma" points system incentivizing quality contributions. The trio collaborated well initially.
However, underlying tensions brewed. Alexis and Steve felt it unfair Aaron publicly called himself a Reddit co-founder when he joined 6 months after their idea's inception. This founder friction intensified as Reddit caught the attention of media giant Condé Nast.
The multi-billion dollar publisher of Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair sought to acquire the rapidly growing, user-generated Reddit to expand digitally after acquiring Wired. Though not looking to sell their 1-year-old startup yet, the 23, 22 and 19-year-old founders entertained Condé Nast's millions.
After tense negotiations, one hurdle remained - Aaron voicing concerns over a massive corporation controlling the free user-driven platform. His antics like secretly tweaking contracts caused frustration until Steve warned him not to jeopardize the deal.
Relenting, Condé Nast acquired Reddit for around $10-20 million, making the founders overnight millionaires. Though required to remain for 3 more years, they operated independently with resources to grow Reddit. What seemed like a dream quickly turned into a nightmare as the Reddit founders' story took a dark twist.
Everyone worked hard to impress Condé Nast, Reddit's new corporate owners - except Aaron. He had envisioned Reddit as a voice for the people against big governments and corporations. So being owned by a massive media company felt like a bad cultural fit.
Aaron rarely showed up to the office, even blogging about hating the "grey walls, grey desks, grey noise". Finally in January 2007, Alexis, Steve and Condé Nast leadership fired the problematic Aaron.
Without him, the team continued developing Reddit, rethinking core features.
Until 2008, only employees could create new topic subreddits despite increasing user requests. Their solution? Allowing any user to make their own subreddit.
This brilliant move spawned subreddits for every niche interest imaginable, from niche bands to financial advice to bizarre meme topics like "BreadStapleToTrees" with over 300,000 members. Users could now find or create communities for any interest.
Another clever tactic was to let the most active users moderate the subreddits they created for free.
Reddit's popularity soared to over 2 million users and 10,000+ subreddits by late 2008. Yet the company struggled to monetize this traffic.
So despite explosive growth, Reddit remained unprofitable, merely introducing paid memberships and awards. Meanwhile, tensions boiled over between Alexis and Steve - the former grieving his late mother, accusing Steve of mismanagement while Steve felt Alexis schemed behind his back. Sharing an apartment worsened their explosive office fights.
By 2009 when their Condé Nast contracts expired, the fractured co-founders both abandoned Reddit just as a new Congressional bill threatened the site's very existence.
In 2011, Congress proposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would hold platforms like Reddit responsible for all user-generated content on their sites - even content they didn't publish themselves. For a site with millions of users freely posting, copyright owners could sue Reddit, potentially leading to massive fines, legal fees or even a shutdown.
At the time, Reddit had over 46 million users but only 20 employees, making it impossible to monitor all content for compliance. Reddit publicly declared SOPA an "all-out war against the internet" they wouldn't go down without a fight.
Many tech giants like Google and Wikipedia also lobbied against the law amid intense public backlash. On January 18, 2012, Reddit took the dramatic step of shutting down for 12 hours in protest, stating in a blog post: "We wouldn't do this if we didn't believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to Reddit and the internet as we know it."
Days later, Congress abandoned SOPA after succumbing to public pressure. One key leader emerging from this internet freedom battle was none other than Aaron Swartz. After leaving Reddit, he had become an activist fighting internet censorship and campaigning for an open internet.
But his activism landed him in serious legal trouble in 2011 when arrested for illegally downloading millions of academic journals from MIT to make them freely accessible online. He faced up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.
Aaron was offered a plea deal of just 6 months if he admitted guilty, however he rejects it to avoid being a lifelong felon. As his case lingered, the depressed Aaron became isolated, not wanting to burden others. Tragically, his girlfriend found him dead by suicide weeks before the trial.
Tributes poured in across the internet, hailing Aaron as using "his prodigious skills not to enrich himself, but to make the internet and world a fairer, better place." Though inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for co-founding Reddit and creating RSS feeds and Creative Commons licenses, Aaron's pivotal role has largely been erased from Reddit's official history.
In March 2012, Yishan Wang from PayPal became Reddit's new CEO as the site reached billions of monthly pageviews and gained cultural relevance. Even President Barack Obama did an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") Q&A on the site's popular subreddit.
However, this immense growth caused problems. Since anyone could create subreddits, many disturbing communities proliferated from watching people die to cannibalism forums. Reddit's anonymity made it ripe for abuse by extremists, hate speech, and controversies.
One tragic example followed the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings killing 3 and injuring hundreds. A "FindBostonBombers" subreddit emerged with thousands speculating and sharing unauthorized personal information against site rules. They falsely accused missing student Sunil Tripathi based on resemblance, leading to vicious harassment of his grieving family before authorities identified the true perpetrators.
When Tripathi's body was discovered on April 23, news outlets blamed Reddit's witch-hunt. As the userbase swelled into the millions, pressure mounted on executives like Yishan to crack down on offensive subreddits. Though believing "we will not ban legal content even if odious," he eventually prohibited forums like "BeatingWomen" with graphic violence.
By 2014, conflicting views on content moderation led Yishan to resign after just two years, citing stress from the internal conflicts and negative publicity scaring investors amidst sexism claims. Ellen Pao soon replaced him as CEO to address Reddit's escalating controversies.
Ellen Pao, formerly Reddit's VP known for suing a past employer over gender discrimination, succeeded Yishan as CEO in 2014. Her hiring aimed to rehabilitate Reddit's concerning reputation.
Around this time, co-founder Alexis Ohanian also returned as executive chairman, hoping to steer Reddit clear of controversies. Shortly after, Pao implemented stricter anti-harassment policies and banned some of the most offensive subreddits.
While some lauded her efforts to clean up Reddit, many core users considered it censorship - especially after Pao stated: "We are not a completely free speech platform." Matters escalated when she fired beloved employee Victoria Taylor, who coordinated high-profile AMAs. In protest, moderators shut down hundreds of subreddits, effectively blacking out the site.
With over 160,000 petitions calling for her removal, Pao resigned after just 7 months amid Reddit's tailspin and uncertain future. The company desperately needed stable leadership after cycling through 3 CEOs in under a year.
Offering a glimmer of hope, co-founder Steve Huffman returned as CEO in 2015 alongside Ohanian's renewed involvement. The original founders' comeback reignited optimism, with design upgrades, mobile apps, and clearer direction initially.
However, in 2016 Huffman himself sparked an ethics scandal. After insulting comments on the controversial "The_Donald" subreddit, he abused admin privileges to edit them, redirecting insults towards the subreddit's moderators instead. Though calling it "trolling the trolls," many felt an admin editing user posts broke trust in Reddit's freedom and openness - severely damaging Huffman's credibility.
In April 2023, Reddit announced it would start charging to access its API - the interface allowing third-party apps and websites to pull data from Reddit. One of the most popular alternative apps was Apollo, offering a different browsing experience by freely accessing Reddit's data when the API was free.
However, Reddit's new pricing of 24 cents per 1,000 API requests meant Apollo estimated yearly costs over $20 million - forcing the beloved third-party app to shut down. Many moderator tools relying on Reddit's API to provide enhanced functionality beyond Reddit's official app were also hit with massive unexpected bills.
Many in the community felt the exorbitant pricing and lack of warning suggested Reddit deliberately aimed to kill competitor apps, not giving developers time to adapt. Outraged moderators and developers grouped together, staging a blackout where over 7,000 subreddits including major communities like AskReddit went dark simultaneously to protest the API charges.
With huge portions of Reddit inaccessible, the company lost substantial ad revenue during one of the biggest online protests ever. Many thought this backlash would force Reddit to rescind the changes. However, since the blackout stated a hard 48-hour timeline, Reddit simply waited it out despite some subreddits staying private longer until threatened with moderator bans.
Post-blackout, animosity towards Reddit's leadership like CEO Steve Huffman has intensified. However, Reddit argued the monetization move was necessary, as the company remains unprofitable while third-parties freely integrated Reddit's entire infrastructure and content without generating any income for Reddit itself.
While Reddit's position is defensible from a business perspective, most agree better foresight like improving their official app with requested features could have avoided controversy. Nonetheless, Reddit achieved its API paywall aims - but at the cost of worsening tensions with its very own community.
Despite nearly 20 years online and around 430 million monthly users as of 2023, Reddit incredibly still operates at a loss and has never turned a profit. However, Reddit's collective community has managed to accomplish some incredible feats.
Users have raised massive amounts for charities and orphanages, organized the world's largest secret Santa gift exchange, and created millions of connections through niche interest communities. Reddit is undeniably useful too - its threads frequently appear as top Google results for inquiries.
But no event demonstrated Reddit's community power quite like the 2021 GameStop stock frenzy. Amateur traders on the WallStreetBets subreddit banded together against hedge funds betting on GameStop's decline. Redditors began purchasing the struggling company's shares en masse, driving its stock price from under $3 to an astonishing $483 peak.
This monumental short squeeze caused multi-billion losses for major Wall Street firms, while making numerous Redditors overnight millionaires simply by clinging together. While Reddit itself has yet to solve profitability, one thing remains clear - the website's most powerful asset and liability is its vast unified user base.
Despite the controversies and roller coaster ride detailed in Reddit's story, the site's populist underpinnings and harnessed collective continue redefining what an online community can achieve, for better or worse. Reddit's unconventional journey is far from over.
2024.06.07 15:32 AdamLuyan 12 Meditation
 | Content of the Chapter: submitted by AdamLuyan to LifeTree [link] [comments] 12.1 Basics of Meditation 12.2 Four Fundamental Meditation 12.3 Four Empty Stillness What is Meditation? The Compendium of Buddhism defines meditation as mind cultivation. Mundane people do not have enough hallucinational experiences to understand the phenomena of ghosts Buddhas and gods; the practice of meditation can make up such insufficiencies. Through these experiences of many different states of mind and body (as shown in Illustrations 12.0-1 through 13), the practitioner can grow celestial eye and testify “intellectual testament of birth and death”, which are the experiences of the births and extinctions of many interests in meditation. https://preview.redd.it/47yd7c4ei55d1.jpg?width=2178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a12652a317a09c7663e7624783b5b2e2e3975fc3 12.1 Basics of MeditationThe practice of meditation is concerned with three adjustments, the adjustment of posture, the adjustment of breath, and the adjustment of heart (i.e., mind). I) A cross-legged sitting posture is best, the straighter the spine the better, as shown in Illustration 12.0, lower right. The eyes are closed, and the gaze is directed inward toward the area of concentration, as in the so-called Eye watches Nose, Nose watches Mouth, and Mouth watches heart. The tongue is rolled upwards with the tip of the tongue at the root of the front upper teeth.II) Breathing should be as deep, long, thin, and even as possible. Author me adopts abdominal breathing, i.e., when inhaling, I imagine breathing into my chest (i.e., Middle Dantian as shown in Fig. 12.0) or Lower Dantian, with my lower abdomen bulging out. When exhaling, the lower abdomen is deflated and the chest is lifted up, breathing like animals such as cats and dogs. III) In the sense that both the body and the external world are projections of the heart: my heart is the universe; the universe is my heart. Interests and intentions control the direction of the heart, which means that where the intention dwells, where the heart is formed, so tuning the heart is talking about where the intention dwell, or where it is directed to. First coarse tuning, the author when I was a teenager practicing meditation commonly used this spell to harmonize the internal and external environment of the body and heart (i.e., mind). The passing gods and spirits above sky, the lord of this land, the lonely souls in the wilderness, and the devils underground bear witness to me. I now swear that when I, Luyan, practice meditation today, I am not doing it just for myself, nor just for my family and friends, but for countless and boundless sentient beings. If I learn to be successful, I will return the favor to countless and boundless all living beings. 12.1.2 Meditation EntranceBeginners have this transition phase. Close your eyes and look inward at the Middle Dantian (as in the illustration 12.0). On inhalation, one's intention (think this way, think like this) is that the true air (i.e., warm feelings) slowly tends to the chest along with the inhalation; one feels (one's intention is all in the sensation) that the true air is sucked up to the chest. Exhale naturally without any intentional action. After a few times of practice, the true air will be gathered in the Middle Dantian.In the beginning, Meditator (or Migrator) uses the Middle Dantian, and after the true air has gathered in the chest, pushes the true air towards the Dantian (i.e., Lower Dantian) with suction force; this is called Transporting Air. After the true air has established a base in the Dantian, Meditator always uses the Dantian as the home base and the other acupoints practiced as the line camps. When the true air reaches a certain acupoint, it triggers corresponding hallucinations of touching, hearing, and so on. After practicing for some time, beginners may feel a steady flow of true air to the Dantian as inhaling; at this point, the Ren Mai has been opened. The Ren Mai is the middle line on the surface of the body from the lower jaw to the Dantian. Subsequently, Meditator can practice opening the whole circle of meridians, etc., according to the diagrams of acupuncture. Or Meditator just guards the Dantian to accumulate more and more true air. That true air is tactile hallucinations, so accumulating more and more of it, eventually will trigger the phenomena described later. 12.1.3 Tactile HallucinationsThe phenomena of the true air transportations described above is called tactile hallucinations in modern psychology. As the meditator continues to progress, more hallucinations will appear. Where the true air cannot pass through, it will stagnate, manifesting phenomena such as distension, pain, and so on. Meditator may also encounter many more, such as moving touch (the throbbing of localized flesh on a limb), itching, coolness, warmth, lightness, heaviness (localized heaviness of the body), astringency, smoothness, ripples (such as a finger or droplet of water touching the skin or limb), joy, anger, sadness, happiness, crying, and so on.Meditator may also encounter phenomena such as the body wobbling, getting bigger, smaller, or floating; a flow of air under the skin; someone or something tapping you; and a bug or a small mouse running under or on the skin. When there is something running under the skin, if the Meditator is practicing with his eyes open, he can even see that the skin bulges where that thing is running. When something runs on the skin, the Meditator can even see that a concave place (the footprint of that thing) appears. In ancient times, there were many names for the above phenomena, such as naughty ghosts, tickling ghosts, and so on. https://preview.redd.it/kbur5wxii55d1.jpg?width=1209&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1f3a8bcfb6f65bfd5fd2ad38a66772f54acf96ed How do you remove the tactile hallucinations? The usual approach is to reprimand, e.g., Go! Go away! Leave me alone. After a few times or weeks, when unconsciousness receives the message, the hallucination will be restrained. In addition, stroking or tapping the Baihui acupoint on the top of the head is helpful in absorbing the hallucinating air into the meridians. You can also remove hallucinations by touching the place of hallucination with your hands, other things such as bathing. The reader may wonder why it is necessary to utter or say aloud, go away, I don't like you. A: The unconscious (i.e., God-sense) only accepts the present quantity. Generally, direct physical and verbal behavior can be received by the unconscious; while information about thoughts and intentional behaviors (i.e., intents, plans) are poorly received or not received. 12.1.4 Merits and Virtues of MeditationWhen Meditator has already mastered and become accustomed to the basic techniques mentioned above, and prefers to study supernormal capabilities, the following periods of time are better, with a strong sense of air, and are prone to triggering hallucinations. Around 12:00 noon, around 6:00 p.m., and from around 12:00 midnight to around 6:00 a.m.; these are what the ancients called Zi Wu Mao You. Some people say that these time periods attract demons, and they especially avoid these time periods. Many of the hallucinatory phenomena are what people call devils, but we meditators call those states as Stillness, and we call those ghosts, gods, devils, and other hallucinatory experiences in them as merits and virtues. Why do we call those merits and virtues?When I was a child, once Uncle Dragon told me, for example, that a little girl felt a little mouse running around in her body, so she was very scared and got sick. The parents went to the temple and asked the Great Virtue Master. Upon hearing this, the Great Virtue Master said, "Ah! It's nothing! I had that phenomenon when I was a child, and it was nothing harmful; ignore it, or drive it away, hit it a little, and speak out and say to it, 'Go away! I don't like you!' Maybe two or three times, after a month or two, that stopped happening." As a result, the little girl was cured. The other monks in this temple looked and listened, and wondered: why, when Master Great Virtue said a few words, did that person get well? Through observation, they realized that Master Great Virtue had virtue (i.e., that kind of experience) in him. Because he had virtue in him, he said a few words, and when the patient heard them, she was cured. Uncle Dragon also told me. The virtue in the Great Virtue Master is not easy to come by, not only the insights he gained from his hard work in practicing meditation, but also the fact that he was probably engaged in many different kinds of industries and knew the secrets of many different kinds of industries, and those experiences are also merits and virtues. 12.1.5 ClairaudienceAs Meditator’s capability rises, the senses of touch and hearing and sight become acute. Before falling asleep, Meditator may hear the sound of his or her own heartbeat. According to modern psychological analysis, the sound of hearing one's own heartbeat before going to sleep is actually caused by the contraction and dilatation of blood vessels near the small bones of the ear. Meditators may experience auditory hallucinations such as whistling, hissing, ticking, whimpering, birds chirping, water running, frogs chirping, wind blowing in a cave, rain, thunder, etc.; or someone discussing a problem as if they were in a meeting, or someone greeting them, or someone telling them something.As Meditator continues to study and understand, understands that the objectives are projected and held by internal considerations, and thus proves the Celestial Ear through, Celestial Leg Through, and the Others Heart through, etc. intelligences and gnosis. Later in this article, we will explain these kinds of godly powers in terms of visual hallucinations, which are the same as this Celestial Ear through. How do you remove auditory hallucinations? The usual approach is to scold, such as, "Go away! Do not bother me! Leave me alone." After a few times, when the unconscious receives the message, the hallucination is suppressed. 12.1.6 ClairvoyanceVisual hallucinations are what the celestial eye sees, and the following are examples of several phenomena in the world of visual hallucinations.（1. Function Flies to Have） One day, when I was a child, I was meditating when I suddenly saw a book flying in front of my head. I thought to myself, "What is that? It's too far away to see clearly, but it would be nice to see it closer! The book flew closer. I thought, "Oh! You're still alive, you have intelligence! The book wiggled as if it knew what I meant and bounced with joy. I then said (actually thinking): are you really an intelligent living thing? And the book wiggled again. I'm like, "Then where did you come from? What do you want with me? The book wiggled a lot, like it was in a terrible hurry. At this time, the hallucinational environment was a little unstable, so I hurriedly concentrated, adjusting to maintain the hallucination, while thinking: you can't talk, so I won't ask; the front of this book is like this, then what is the back like? Immediately, the picture of that book presented its back. At this point I was happy again and had nothing to do. After reading it for a while, I got bored of it. The book flew away. When the hallucination ended, I also ended my meditation. I felt relief all over my body, and there was a sensation of subtle electric currents on the surface of my body. https://preview.redd.it/s16sq7ini55d1.jpg?width=604&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a54d332609841d49da35306918d9a3dd8385bf99 （2. Demon Phenomena） One morning when I was in junior high school, I woke up especially early, about three o'clock in the morning, in order to prepare for an exam. After reading a book for a while, I was sleepy and fell asleep, so I lay on my back on the bed, with my head against the south wall, and habitually did the breathing of practicing meditation several times. As a result of practicing for a long time, the tip of my tongue was always at the root of my front upper teeth. Suddenly, I felt that the upper right side of my head was empty, (it was a wall), and there were a couple of faces that looked like children's drawings, glittering. I thought, "What's that? I can draw with my feet better than you guys!” I was in trouble! The glowing faces came at me in a line and hit me on the right side of my forehead. At that time, due to my habit of practicing meditation, I did not react easily to changing my posture. I was still feeling the state of my whole body, and I felt that the skin and flesh of my face, abdomen, and legs were all deformed and moving in a wave-like manner toward the part of my right forehead where I had been hit. The deformation of the skin of my face was so strong that I hurriedly pushed the skin of my face back with my hands. Feeling that it worked well, I followed it up by pressing and pushing the skin and flesh on my abdomen to reset. Then I quickly stood up and reset the skin and flesh of my legs and whole body. By the time I was done, I was sweating. The good thing is that I didn't notice any soft tissue strains and my whole body quickly returned to normal. It makes no difference whether the phenomena mentioned earlier are called hallucinations or demons; the key is to understand the truth. In the world of hallucination, all animals, plants, and inanimate mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas are equal. From then on, I began to pay attention to politeness, keep the precepts, and try to respect anything, living or inanimate. This is because of practicing meditation, so that I conscientiously obey the precepts. The precepts emanate from within my own body, are Path Fruits. Remove the visual hallucination in the same way as above: whatever it is, either communicate politely as if you were treating a six- or seven-year-old child or shoo it away. Visual hallucinations respond directly to reprimands, for example, if you tell it to leave, it leaves. Whereas auditory hallucinations are slower to respond, usually taking a few days; tactile hallucinations are even slower to respond and can take weeks. 12.1.7 TeleportationStepping into a painting is when, in meditation, staring at something in the hallucination may be mindful of curiosity, fascination, and then, as above, an instantaneous change of objective target. What gives rise to Celestial Leg, i.e., instant translocation, teleportation, is that such objective targets change so much that even the whole environment changes within an instant, as if coming to another place in an instant, see the cases in Section 14.1, and the cases below.In hallucination, the environment usually changes to match the mind, and the objective is based on the thinks, or saying that the objective environment is think brought there. The omnipresent heartland law Think is by fetch image as nature. For example, on a very hot evening, I was meditating and the hallucination I just entered was of an evening hillside. I feel very cool. When I saw the grass fluctuating, as if a wind was blowing, I thought: a little wind is good, it's cooler. In this world, the wind became stronger. I thought: this wind is getting stronger, as if it is going to rain. In this world, it was raining. I thought rain is good, because the crops are dry now; it's good that it's raining more! And the rain became heavier. I thought: No good! Where am I? It's raining so hard; if there's a flood, where can I run to? The flood came. 12.1.8 ClairsentienceOnce in meditation I saw a beautiful woman. Looking, looking I thought, "It seems like her cheekbones are a little high." This beautiful woman suddenly turned into a skeleton. I was scared out of my vision and realized that I was sweating all over. I was still thinking: "It's just to look at you, why are you scaring me!" Then I thought: yes, of course, people don't want to when I stare at them that much. I still have to keep the precepts properly, don't look at if it is not polite!In conjunction with the above example, use a few lines from Master Sangchan's Inscription on Faith to explain what happened above: 1. return to get the purpose, 2. lose the sect with the illumination, 3. the illumination returns simultaneously, 4. more victorious than the former emptiness, 5. the former emptiness is transformed, 6. it is all due to the illusion of (It seems like her CHEEKBONES are a little high) the mind. The reader can bring these six sentences into the previous paragraph to interpret Clairsentience or Reading Others Mind. ↪️Back to Catalog of Luyan's Memoirs |
2024.06.07 12:59 TheAbnormalLife I'm not sure where to post this? I'm so confused and scared..
Country: New Zealand. Age: 19
Summary: I've had lots of medical problems such as "blood"? In urine, lots of physical pain problems in abdomen, and below regions non functioning with little to no sperm and pain. Doctors do a lot of medical tests on me all the time with students sometimes coming in, but every time they say I'm normal and healthy they recommend genital reconstruction surgery for me and have put me on the waitlist for it.
People couldn't tell if I was a girl or boy before Hormone treatment and then less than a week on treatment people stopped being confused by what my gender is. The doctors pretty much immediately prescribed me estrogen and diagnosed me with gender dysphoria when I stated that I was confused as to what I am.
Doctors insist on calling me trans even tho I don't relate to problems trans people face and my issues are more similar to intersex issues.
Every time I ask about intersex they get all quiet and move the topic, I told my doctor I'm not allowed access to all of the images on the CT Scan that was done on me and her response was "We're definitely not trying to withhold any information from you, and I can request the radiology department to see if they could give you the full images" I responded with "yes please as I will like to see all of the images" so I'll see if I will get all of the images sent to me this time.
I'm extremely confused and scared as to what is happening and don't know what's happening or who to talk to, I don't even know what I am.. I want help but don't know what's happening.
Full post: Edit: trigger warning? I'm not sure how this post will be viewed as, I'm sorry..
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to post this here and I'm sorry if I say anything that accidentally upsets anyone.
For context this is a brand new account so this post may or may not get deleted because of it being brand new. I don't have social media so this will be my only social media account that will probably get deleted eventually.
My experience probably wouldn't be a trans experience, I've never experienced transphobia and don't even know what it feels like, the most I got was when I was a child and was called a hermaphrodite or a freak of nature, or comments such as "are you a girl or a boy? Giggle giggle" by other kids in my schools and adult strangers along side being physically hurt and being almost killed constantly, I'm 19 now and I don't have that happen to me anymore, so you can probably already tell this is probably not the place I should be posting this.
My doctor thinks I may have partial androgen insensitivity syndrome or may have mosaicism, We know I have XY Chromosomes but she wants to test me more to see if I have mosaicism or chimerism and any other type of chromosome, like XXY.
When I was a younger teen I saw what I thought was blood in my urine, my puberty didn't start until I was 14, I think, I never grew facial hair or any body hair for that matter except for the armpits, legs, and pubic hair, I sound and look entirely female except for the obvious bit, and my downstairs area does not function at all, I had little to no sperm according to the fertility clinic that I went to when I was 16 and while I was trying to store my non existent sperm touching that region was super painful for me, and according to the doctors my bone structure is entirely female from the X-Ray or CT Scan that was done on me a few months ago.
Before my hormone treatment which I'll talk about later, my joints in my feets, legs, hands and arms would make crackling noises that were painful, I told my doctors about it constantly and they didn't listen to me about the problem and would just gaslight me, less than a month on the hormone treatment the problem stopped.
I had my hormones, cortisol and genital culture checked. Normal, except my Testosterone was slightly lower than average for my age at the time.
I was pressured by the doctors to have my genitals checked multiple times and they all said everything was normal and "healthy"
My doctors diagnosed me with gender dysphoria immediately after I stated I was confused with what I am and why I'm not like the other kids, I said I felt somehow connected with female issues, as well as male issues too of course. I was told to see a psychologist who confirmed it with my doctors that I had gender dysphoria, however when doctors sent me in to see him again to get a diagnosis of autism by my choice this time, he said "you have symptoms of autism but I can't diagnose you because you aren't as naughty as the other kids I see." I'm honestly not sure how I got a diagnosis of gender dysphoria so quickly in less than three months but cant even get my obvious autism diagnosed?
Right before I turned 17 I got prescribed a 1mg dose of estrogen and a I believe 25mg Cyproterone, I'm not sure why I'm on cyproterone if I have PAIS. Okay and this is where it gets even more confusing for me. Before the treatment I was having issues with my joints and people couldn't tell if i was a boy or a girl and would mock me and call me a hermaphrodite, the teachers would constantly move me from the boys sports and the girls sports, less than a week on treatment all of that went away, although the bone issue continued for a little while longer. And suddenly everyone started seeing me as a girl and for the people who knew me in my school previously they just assumed I was a late bloomer. For most trans people it takes longer than a week to pass doesn't it? Is passing the right term?
Doctors continued to examine me sometimes even bringing students in with them, they would ask if I wanted a student to be with them and me being a teen I uncomfortably said yes instead of no..
I continued to have my hormones, cortisol, and genital culture tested, every time I would get tested or examine it's always a "you're perfectly normal and healthy"
They enrolled me to get my genital reconstruction surgery done and so I'd be on the waitlist for that. I'm honestly actually super fine with this if it means I can have functioning genitalia, no pain, and a normal sex life. Also I do kind of want a vagina so I'm not upset by this one, I'm probably going to have it done when I'm 23.
When I was 19 the tests started to slow down, however my current doctor had me do a karyotype test, and I was told that's I had normal result XY.
I asked my doctor if I could have the scan given to me on a Disc and she told me to ask the lab that did my scan, so I asked the lab that did the scan if I could have the scan on a Disc and then the lab told me to ask my doctor as they didn't have permission to give it to me.
After hours of arguing with me they finally sent the images to me on a disc, however some of the images aren't accessible to me? I messaged my doctor that some of the images aren't accessible for me and her response was "We're definitely not trying to withhold any information from you, and I can request the radiology department to see if they could give you the full images" I responded with "yes please as I will like to see all of the images" so I'll see if I will get all of the images sent to me this time.
Thing's are just confusing for me how every test comes back as normal despite all of these major health problems I'm having, and it's annoying having urologists and what not say to me "you're perfectly healthy and normal" constantly but then immediately after saying I'm normal and healthy they recommend surgery and show me peoples genitalia being mutilated on google images?
When I was a young teen I got so depressed with feeling different and not knowing why, I remember in middle school I would purposely try to deepen my voice to the point where I strained it, I have audio recordings of my voice from when I strained it, I've since stopped doing that and my voice is less strained now than it used to be, however it's still strained and it's hard to speak sometimes, I actually got kind of good at deepening my voice and I'm able to sound like a high pitched gay man lol, I don't do it anymore though as it hurts my throat and it creeps my boyfriend out.
I don't know who to relate to, the people I relate to the most are intersex people and their problems, however I don't want to join their groups as I don't have a diagnosis and according to my doctor's I'm being told I'm normal XY perfectly healthy male.
Doctors continue to call me trans even after I tell them I don't relate to trans issues, when I tell them I relate to intersex issues they ignore my comment on me saying that.
The sex on my medical records keep switching from male to female, back to male again, and back to female again, as if the doctors can't decide on what to put me under?
-Conclusion to my post
I'm so confused and scared, I grew up in a verbally aggressive household, thankfully it wasn't physical. I failed all throughout my schooling years and was put down under as a Stanine 2 or 70IQ child, I was tested via the Steinine child test when I was Six. In Kindergarten I didn't want to play in the playground with the other children and would hog the only childrens astrophysics book that was in the classroom.
I failed highschool and didn't get my highschool diploma, not because I didn't understand the work I just decided to give up on life as young as four, I didn't see any point in doing my school work. I had no friends all throughout my childhood and was being attacked and bullied every day, I only had my Imagination, computers and random facts of information to keep me company.
I feel so different and I have no friends to relate to, nobody that understands me, I don't relate to trans people that the doctors keep trying to put me under as, not that I have a problem with transgender people it's just.. I don't relate to anybody who is trans or the trans experience. I do relate to intersex people such as Emily Quin from Ted talk, she's so amazing, however doctors avoid me whenever I say that I relate to intersex experiences, and then they continue to call me transgender and gender dysphoria.
I never really had gender dysphoria, all I had was confusion as to what my body was going through and why I was so different.
Please help me. I don't know what to do, the only person I can trust is my boyfriend and he doesn't know how to help me either. :(
I'm sorry for the long post, if you need more information just comment down below. I should add however, I was able to get my medical records after trying to fight with my clinic for a long time, however for some reason a lot of the records are blank.
For example. "For you Doctor name of doctor" And then it's just blank, or most of my tests will be blank, everything is either completely blank or it says "normal" or "healthy" ?
I'm just confused by everything, so the little support I do get is appreciated. I understand if you won't be able to help and I apologize if I shouldn't be putting this here.
What am I? Am I trans? Are the doctors correct that I'm healthy and all of these physical problems are all just in my head? I'm scared and have been for a long time, I've asked my doctors multiple times if I could get euthanasia done and they just ignore my question on that..
I want this confusion and pain to end, I want to know what's wrong with me, if I am normal and healthy then what is wrong with me?
I feel like I'm still mentally a child after all of the crap I've been through. I do notice that people in 3rd world countries will have it worse than me but I can't stop thinking about the problems I am having..
Again. Sorry for the long post I apoligise.
Edit: forgot to mention that my doctor reduced my Cyproterone dose and upped my estrogen dose to 5mg. I don't know if this information will help but I decided to put it in here anyways just incase.
submitted by TheAbnormalLife to asktransgender [link] [comments]
Summary: I've had lots of medical problems such as "blood"? In urine, lots of physical pain problems in abdomen, and below regions non functioning with little to no sperm and pain. Doctors do a lot of medical tests on me all the time with students sometimes coming in, but every time they say I'm normal and healthy they recommend genital reconstruction surgery for me and have put me on the waitlist for it.
People couldn't tell if I was a girl or boy before Hormone treatment and then less than a week on treatment people stopped being confused by what my gender is. The doctors pretty much immediately prescribed me estrogen and diagnosed me with gender dysphoria when I stated that I was confused as to what I am.
Doctors insist on calling me trans even tho I don't relate to problems trans people face and my issues are more similar to intersex issues.
Every time I ask about intersex they get all quiet and move the topic, I told my doctor I'm not allowed access to all of the images on the CT Scan that was done on me and her response was "We're definitely not trying to withhold any information from you, and I can request the radiology department to see if they could give you the full images" I responded with "yes please as I will like to see all of the images" so I'll see if I will get all of the images sent to me this time.
I'm extremely confused and scared as to what is happening and don't know what's happening or who to talk to, I don't even know what I am.. I want help but don't know what's happening.
Full post: Edit: trigger warning? I'm not sure how this post will be viewed as, I'm sorry..
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to post this here and I'm sorry if I say anything that accidentally upsets anyone.
For context this is a brand new account so this post may or may not get deleted because of it being brand new. I don't have social media so this will be my only social media account that will probably get deleted eventually.
My experience probably wouldn't be a trans experience, I've never experienced transphobia and don't even know what it feels like, the most I got was when I was a child and was called a hermaphrodite or a freak of nature, or comments such as "are you a girl or a boy? Giggle giggle" by other kids in my schools and adult strangers along side being physically hurt and being almost killed constantly, I'm 19 now and I don't have that happen to me anymore, so you can probably already tell this is probably not the place I should be posting this.
My doctor thinks I may have partial androgen insensitivity syndrome or may have mosaicism, We know I have XY Chromosomes but she wants to test me more to see if I have mosaicism or chimerism and any other type of chromosome, like XXY.
When I was a younger teen I saw what I thought was blood in my urine, my puberty didn't start until I was 14, I think, I never grew facial hair or any body hair for that matter except for the armpits, legs, and pubic hair, I sound and look entirely female except for the obvious bit, and my downstairs area does not function at all, I had little to no sperm according to the fertility clinic that I went to when I was 16 and while I was trying to store my non existent sperm touching that region was super painful for me, and according to the doctors my bone structure is entirely female from the X-Ray or CT Scan that was done on me a few months ago.
Before my hormone treatment which I'll talk about later, my joints in my feets, legs, hands and arms would make crackling noises that were painful, I told my doctors about it constantly and they didn't listen to me about the problem and would just gaslight me, less than a month on the hormone treatment the problem stopped.
I'll go in chronological order of the tests that came first and last.
At 15 I had my blood in urine tested and checked when it first happened at 15, that came back as normal according to my doctor's.I had my hormones, cortisol and genital culture checked. Normal, except my Testosterone was slightly lower than average for my age at the time.
I was pressured by the doctors to have my genitals checked multiple times and they all said everything was normal and "healthy"
Despite the penis being super small, not functional at all, the foreskin molting away and "fusing?" to the head of the penis, the head of the penis also molting away too. I don't know if "molting" is the right word?
At 16 I had an Ultrasound scan done to see if I had any damage in my abdomen, normal again, I wasn't allowed a copy of the Ultrasound scan. I got my hormones, cortisol and genital culture checked again, Normal. I was getting my sperm checked and stored before my hormone treatment that started just before I turned 17, my sperm was unviable apparently, they wanted me to do the test and sperm check again but I couldn't because of the pain..My doctors diagnosed me with gender dysphoria immediately after I stated I was confused with what I am and why I'm not like the other kids, I said I felt somehow connected with female issues, as well as male issues too of course. I was told to see a psychologist who confirmed it with my doctors that I had gender dysphoria, however when doctors sent me in to see him again to get a diagnosis of autism by my choice this time, he said "you have symptoms of autism but I can't diagnose you because you aren't as naughty as the other kids I see." I'm honestly not sure how I got a diagnosis of gender dysphoria so quickly in less than three months but cant even get my obvious autism diagnosed?
Right before I turned 17 I got prescribed a 1mg dose of estrogen and a I believe 25mg Cyproterone, I'm not sure why I'm on cyproterone if I have PAIS. Okay and this is where it gets even more confusing for me. Before the treatment I was having issues with my joints and people couldn't tell if i was a boy or a girl and would mock me and call me a hermaphrodite, the teachers would constantly move me from the boys sports and the girls sports, less than a week on treatment all of that went away, although the bone issue continued for a little while longer. And suddenly everyone started seeing me as a girl and for the people who knew me in my school previously they just assumed I was a late bloomer. For most trans people it takes longer than a week to pass doesn't it? Is passing the right term?
Doctors continued to examine me sometimes even bringing students in with them, they would ask if I wanted a student to be with them and me being a teen I uncomfortably said yes instead of no..
I continued to have my hormones, cortisol, and genital culture tested, every time I would get tested or examine it's always a "you're perfectly normal and healthy"
They enrolled me to get my genital reconstruction surgery done and so I'd be on the waitlist for that. I'm honestly actually super fine with this if it means I can have functioning genitalia, no pain, and a normal sex life. Also I do kind of want a vagina so I'm not upset by this one, I'm probably going to have it done when I'm 23.
When I was 19 the tests started to slow down, however my current doctor had me do a karyotype test, and I was told that's I had normal result XY.
She wants to test for mosacism or chimerism because she said she didn't get this tested with the other test. I'm going to assume I'll be told it's normal right?
At 19 I had another scan done which was my CT Scan that also scans some parts of the bone structure. I was told that my bone structure is anatomically female however that everything within me is normal and healthy. Weird thing is tho, when I walked out of the CT Room and saw my result on the computer, that same image wasn't shown to me when my doctor was viewing it with me. I don't know how to describe it but it didn't look anything that a healthy normal male would have, I assume that it's in my head and there's no cancer right? I'm probably just over thinking everything as I always doI asked my doctor if I could have the scan given to me on a Disc and she told me to ask the lab that did my scan, so I asked the lab that did the scan if I could have the scan on a Disc and then the lab told me to ask my doctor as they didn't have permission to give it to me.
After hours of arguing with me they finally sent the images to me on a disc, however some of the images aren't accessible to me? I messaged my doctor that some of the images aren't accessible for me and her response was "We're definitely not trying to withhold any information from you, and I can request the radiology department to see if they could give you the full images" I responded with "yes please as I will like to see all of the images" so I'll see if I will get all of the images sent to me this time.
Thing's are just confusing for me how every test comes back as normal despite all of these major health problems I'm having, and it's annoying having urologists and what not say to me "you're perfectly healthy and normal" constantly but then immediately after saying I'm normal and healthy they recommend surgery and show me peoples genitalia being mutilated on google images?
When I was a young teen I got so depressed with feeling different and not knowing why, I remember in middle school I would purposely try to deepen my voice to the point where I strained it, I have audio recordings of my voice from when I strained it, I've since stopped doing that and my voice is less strained now than it used to be, however it's still strained and it's hard to speak sometimes, I actually got kind of good at deepening my voice and I'm able to sound like a high pitched gay man lol, I don't do it anymore though as it hurts my throat and it creeps my boyfriend out.
I don't know who to relate to, the people I relate to the most are intersex people and their problems, however I don't want to join their groups as I don't have a diagnosis and according to my doctor's I'm being told I'm normal XY perfectly healthy male.
Doctors continue to call me trans even after I tell them I don't relate to trans issues, when I tell them I relate to intersex issues they ignore my comment on me saying that.
The sex on my medical records keep switching from male to female, back to male again, and back to female again, as if the doctors can't decide on what to put me under?
-Conclusion to my post
I'm so confused and scared, I grew up in a verbally aggressive household, thankfully it wasn't physical. I failed all throughout my schooling years and was put down under as a Stanine 2 or 70IQ child, I was tested via the Steinine child test when I was Six. In Kindergarten I didn't want to play in the playground with the other children and would hog the only childrens astrophysics book that was in the classroom.
I failed highschool and didn't get my highschool diploma, not because I didn't understand the work I just decided to give up on life as young as four, I didn't see any point in doing my school work. I had no friends all throughout my childhood and was being attacked and bullied every day, I only had my Imagination, computers and random facts of information to keep me company.
I feel so different and I have no friends to relate to, nobody that understands me, I don't relate to trans people that the doctors keep trying to put me under as, not that I have a problem with transgender people it's just.. I don't relate to anybody who is trans or the trans experience. I do relate to intersex people such as Emily Quin from Ted talk, she's so amazing, however doctors avoid me whenever I say that I relate to intersex experiences, and then they continue to call me transgender and gender dysphoria.
I never really had gender dysphoria, all I had was confusion as to what my body was going through and why I was so different.
Please help me. I don't know what to do, the only person I can trust is my boyfriend and he doesn't know how to help me either. :(
I'm sorry for the long post, if you need more information just comment down below. I should add however, I was able to get my medical records after trying to fight with my clinic for a long time, however for some reason a lot of the records are blank.
For example. "For you Doctor name of doctor" And then it's just blank, or most of my tests will be blank, everything is either completely blank or it says "normal" or "healthy" ?
I'm just confused by everything, so the little support I do get is appreciated. I understand if you won't be able to help and I apologize if I shouldn't be putting this here.
What am I? Am I trans? Are the doctors correct that I'm healthy and all of these physical problems are all just in my head? I'm scared and have been for a long time, I've asked my doctors multiple times if I could get euthanasia done and they just ignore my question on that..
I want this confusion and pain to end, I want to know what's wrong with me, if I am normal and healthy then what is wrong with me?
I feel like I'm still mentally a child after all of the crap I've been through. I do notice that people in 3rd world countries will have it worse than me but I can't stop thinking about the problems I am having..
Again. Sorry for the long post I apoligise.
Edit: forgot to mention that my doctor reduced my Cyproterone dose and upped my estrogen dose to 5mg. I don't know if this information will help but I decided to put it in here anyways just incase.
2024.06.07 12:23 CoquettePrinces Hi im a young writer and i want feedback for a short story i made :)
Two young girls are sitting on scorching hot gritty sand in the middle of nowhere they seem to be passed out. The first girl is a Latino woman with shining black hair wearing a silk black dress and the other is a Vietnamese girl with pale glass-like skin wearing a plain white skirt and tube top. One girl lifts her body and lays her eyes on the desert's bare, deserted nothingness. She is perplexed as to why and how they are here. She remembers just before she was partying late with her friend Tara when all of a sudden they made some deal and were too intoxicated to read the contract packed with a thousand words and now they're here. The girl's name is Sara. Sara frantically stands her feet on the grainy sand, it feels like burning coal. Sara pushes Tara trying to wake her up. Tara opens her misty ochre eyes in a daze looking around thinking it was most likely a dream. Sara screams in panic, awakening Tara who screams with her. Their screams echoed in the secluded desert. Sara yells in a panic
“What is going on? Where are we? What did we agree with that strange man?!”
Tara still half asleep replies
“How am I supposed to know”
“Let's just get out of here”
Sara says hopeful
“How do you suppose we get out genius”
Tara said sarcastically. They agreed to just walk forward and see what happens
Their feet grew swollen blisters from the coarse grainy sand. Groans and grunts drowned out the eerie silence. The air was a slow and gentle breeze. Sand piled in Taras's eyes, she wiped her eyes. To see a tall towering tree in the distance holding a bunch of large sweet and milky coconuts. The girl's eyes grew and sparkled as they stared at the tree in a trance-like state. Sara ran to the tree and shook it aggressively. Tara looks at her in disappointment and says
“Yeah, you think that will work?”
“You never know”
Sara replies awkwardly. Tara gains a large energy boost as she climbs onto the tree determined to retrieve thirst-quenching food. Tara reaches her arm grasping the furry brown fruit, She drops the coconuts down into Sara’s hands startling her.
“Woah…”
Sara says in oar, that she envies Tara's brave mentality. Tara grabs a nearby stone in her rough, coarse tanned hands swiftly slices open two fresh coconuts and hands one to Sara. They both raise the coconuts to their dry lips and gulp the coconut milk at the speed of light. Milk pours and gushes into their mouths. Their dry lips turn plump and moist, Their barren throats quenched and their energy is replenished. Their bright smiles glimmered and shined. Tara drops her empty coconut and decides they should set foot towards the horizon. Sara agrees. The girls walk towards the horizon as their tracks are left in the golden sand. After hours of walking their backs are hunched forwards and their mood is dimmed. Their pace is so slow even a snail could beat them in a race.
“What's the point”
Sara says unenthusiastically.
“The point is we are trying to survive right?”
Tara replies trying to stay hopeful.
Tara widens her eyes and sees some weird triangle-shaped thing and alerts Sara.
“Hey what's that weird triangle”
Her eyes were too blurry to see the pyramid in front of her.
“That's a pyramid you know like in those movies!”
Sara says In an upbeat manner
The girls get deja vu from the coconut tree. They run and tread over the sand. They meet at the entrance of the pyramid. The pyramid is Shining with light sand, it is taller than any skyscraper they have seen before. The entrance is encrusted with ancient jewels and medallions made from gold and gems.
“We have to go in”
Tara says in an upbeat manner. Tara runs through the entrance first and Sara follows closely. The wall is covered with candles unlit and held up by gold candle sticks, and the floor is made from marble so clear you can see your reflection. They both walk around the room, jaws dropped as they look at their unbelievable surroundings. Gold artefacts decorate the floor and walls. Their voices echoed in the empty corridor. Suddenly the gate falls behind them restricting their exit. As the Gate fell the candles lit up the dark room miraculously
“What on earth, this is like a horror movie!”
Sara says frantically as she bites her fingers and shivers.
“Cool!”
Tara responds calmly. They decided to walk through the corridor, As they walked their footsteps echoed. They are met with a tall stone staircase that is the size of the room. The sheer size and width of the staircase frighten Sara, but not Tara, Tara is excited for an adventure. She lands her red heels on the staircase but the stair sinks into the ground slowly and a giant metal axe swings from the ceiling and swiftly towards Tara like a deadly yo-yo. Her instincts kick in as she leaps towards another stair centimetres away from the blade of the axe. Sara’s crystal blue eyes widen in fear as she stands there still in horror watching Tara’s near death.
“I am not going on that thing, it's a death trap!”
Sara yells
“Yeah it is a death trap but it's easy to survive it!”
Taras replies in a perky voice.
“I AM NOT GOING UP THERE NO WAY!! JOSE”
Sara screams in a loud demeanour.
“That's my cousin's name! And I guess you will die from starvation if you stay there forever!”
Tara says playfully.
Tara continued walking upwards.
“WAIT!”
Sara yells, her voice travelling across the room.
She runs up the flight of stairs Closing her eyes tightly, she avoids a dozen traps like piercing arrows, scathing knives and even dusky rouge fire. Her fear helped her outrun the traps with ease. She meets Tara at the top of the staircase panting and gushing for air as she turns red. She looks up at Tara and says in disbelief.
“That was a bit of fun!”
Sara says out of breath
“Told you”
Tara replies smirking at Sara
They both smile at each other and giggle like little girls as they both turn bright red, even shedding a tear from laughter. The girls see another long hallway lit up by the blazing fire candles. This time Sara wasn't afraid she was excited, as they walked down the hallway.
“When we get out maybe we could explore the cities of Egypt!”
Sara says cheerfully“Yeah, sure! It will be so much fun!”
Tara replies smiling
“I have always wanted to try Egyptian food!”
Sara says foaming at the mouth
“ well we better get out of here soon and then enjoy a delicious feast”
Tara says determined
The frosty insides cooled down the girls relaxing them. They feel at ease and calm. Tara is walking when she trips on a wire and all of a sudden, A thousand python snakes launch at the girls chasing them down the hallway and hissing at them.
“OH MY GOD RUN”
Tara screams.
Tara gets back up onto her feet, her heels click on the floor and she runs with Sara metres away from death. Sara and Tara don't look back, they just run. Sara knew that being brave wasn't her thing but it had to be today, while Sara was distracted thinking to herself about eating delicious Egyptian cuisine she tripped over while Tara didn't notice. A scream is let out while Sara is filled with poison by a snake. Sara's soft skin has been engraved with the bite of a venomous snake. The sound alerted Tara to notice Sara struggling on the ground. She is tempted to not save her but she decides it's the right thing and she runs back out of breath fends off the snake and lifts Sara into her arms. Sara struggles to keep her eyes open, her vision is blurry. They exit the hallway and the door behind them shuts. Tara drops Sara gently onto the ground and rips part of her dress tying it around Sara's wound.
“You're going to be ok, I just know it, trust me!”
Tara says softly.
Sara just looks at her blankly with no response as if shes frozen in time. The salty smell of blood pollutes the air. Tara can't believe she let her friend get hurt, she gets into a fit of rage and punches the floor leaving a large crack.
“let's just keep going”
Sara says weakly. Tara hugs her tightly and nods on the verge of tears. Tara helps Sara walk through the empty rooms together with hope. The rooms were so tightly protected as if they were holding a secret.
Tara enters a circular room and looks around as she sees 6 doors all surrounding her in a circle. Tara is confused and has lost all hope. She walks away from Sara, crying. Her tears are tainted with anger. Tara just bangs the wall in rage. The room shakes, and Sara stares at her; she is never like this. The walls shook and then the candles fell onto the flammable polished wood floors. The whole room is engulfed with intense burning flames.
“Oh god”
Tara says under her breath. Tara runs towards Sara who is lying on the floor. She notices Sara struggling to get up onto her feet. Flames surround the room. Support beams fall to the ground. Loud thuds echo through the room while the crackling of fire bounces off the walls. The whole pyramid is ablaze. Sara struggles to speak and lets out a weak strained
“I love…y-”
A support beam directly above Sara falls and lands on Sara, the sounds of her bones crunching overlap the flame's song. Limbs fly across the floor leaving a dark trail of blood. Her guts splatter and combust across the floor like mushed jelly, Tara just watches in horror, and her blood turns cold. Sara lets out a blood-curdling scream, blood spews out from Sara's mouth. The blood stains the pristine sparkling floor. Sara’s life had just ended yet Tara was the one who felt more pain on the inside, she couldn't live without her best friend. Sara's pale face was frozen in time, her gorgeous crystal blue eyes remained still staring off blankly while blood poured from every hole in her body. The flames surround the room and grow larger and larger like enclosing walls. Tara knows that she should be there for her friend but she knows her life matters too. She takes one final look at Sara's gorgeous face dripping with blood as she runs, she has always been running from something. She takes her chances and runs through a corridor. Support beams fall making loud thuds. Debris causes a massive cloud of smog. Tara coughs and rubs the sand out of her eyes. She inhales smog and coughs violently while a droplet of blood gracefully drops onto the ground. A large piece of wood covered in flames falls near Tara the beam misses her but the flame hits her eyes. Her eyesight fades into black. She questions if she has reached the end of her life. She crawls into a ball in the corner of a room while the fire slowly engulfs her body. The flames burned her skin, sticky warm blood dripped on the floor like gooey honey while the fire crept up on her. The flames blister her tanned skin. Tara’s vision prevents her from seeing her final sights as she dies. The warmth was comforting yet terrifying at the same time. Tara thinks to herself that maybe if she wasn't so selfish she and Sara could have made it out together. She accepts this is her final ending.
The sound of harsh wind, a propeller winding and a woman's vague voice drowned out by a strange ringing, is this death? The ringing in her ears stops, and the woman's words are clear she says
“Hello?”
But if I'm dead where are these voices coming from? Could it be an angel?
“Miss, are you awake!?”
she opens her eyes but still sees a blank emptiness.
“Miss you are suffering 50-degree burns on most of your body, we are taking you to the closest hospital, The research group nearby contacted us as soon as they saw flames on the pyramid”
“WHERE IS SARA?!”
Tara screams.
“Your friend ‘Sara’ I presume, well her lifeless body…well pieces of her body were found, I'm so sorry we couldn't do anything about it”
Although Tara couldn't see the tears dripping down her charred face she could feel the wet droplets trickling from her eyes. Tara screams in agony and pain from sadness and the burns. The helicopter flies over the fire pit that used to be a pyramid. The pain from grief consumes her with pain more than the actual pain from the burns. The helicopter is silent not a single mutter from anyone. Finally, Tara arrives at a hospital where the wounds are treated. When Tara returns home she starts therapy accepts her best friend's fate and finally appreciates what an amazing life Sara had. Tara shares her story with the world everyone admires her bravery, and although there are so many people who love her and her story she still feels like something in her life is missing. Tara still wonders to this day what Sara was trying to say.
submitted by CoquettePrinces to writers [link] [comments]
“What is going on? Where are we? What did we agree with that strange man?!”
Tara still half asleep replies
“How am I supposed to know”
“Let's just get out of here”
Sara says hopeful
“How do you suppose we get out genius”
Tara said sarcastically. They agreed to just walk forward and see what happens
Their feet grew swollen blisters from the coarse grainy sand. Groans and grunts drowned out the eerie silence. The air was a slow and gentle breeze. Sand piled in Taras's eyes, she wiped her eyes. To see a tall towering tree in the distance holding a bunch of large sweet and milky coconuts. The girl's eyes grew and sparkled as they stared at the tree in a trance-like state. Sara ran to the tree and shook it aggressively. Tara looks at her in disappointment and says
“Yeah, you think that will work?”
“You never know”
Sara replies awkwardly. Tara gains a large energy boost as she climbs onto the tree determined to retrieve thirst-quenching food. Tara reaches her arm grasping the furry brown fruit, She drops the coconuts down into Sara’s hands startling her.
“Woah…”
Sara says in oar, that she envies Tara's brave mentality. Tara grabs a nearby stone in her rough, coarse tanned hands swiftly slices open two fresh coconuts and hands one to Sara. They both raise the coconuts to their dry lips and gulp the coconut milk at the speed of light. Milk pours and gushes into their mouths. Their dry lips turn plump and moist, Their barren throats quenched and their energy is replenished. Their bright smiles glimmered and shined. Tara drops her empty coconut and decides they should set foot towards the horizon. Sara agrees. The girls walk towards the horizon as their tracks are left in the golden sand. After hours of walking their backs are hunched forwards and their mood is dimmed. Their pace is so slow even a snail could beat them in a race.
“What's the point”
Sara says unenthusiastically.
“The point is we are trying to survive right?”
Tara replies trying to stay hopeful.
Tara widens her eyes and sees some weird triangle-shaped thing and alerts Sara.
“Hey what's that weird triangle”
Her eyes were too blurry to see the pyramid in front of her.
“That's a pyramid you know like in those movies!”
Sara says In an upbeat manner
The girls get deja vu from the coconut tree. They run and tread over the sand. They meet at the entrance of the pyramid. The pyramid is Shining with light sand, it is taller than any skyscraper they have seen before. The entrance is encrusted with ancient jewels and medallions made from gold and gems.
“We have to go in”
Tara says in an upbeat manner. Tara runs through the entrance first and Sara follows closely. The wall is covered with candles unlit and held up by gold candle sticks, and the floor is made from marble so clear you can see your reflection. They both walk around the room, jaws dropped as they look at their unbelievable surroundings. Gold artefacts decorate the floor and walls. Their voices echoed in the empty corridor. Suddenly the gate falls behind them restricting their exit. As the Gate fell the candles lit up the dark room miraculously
“What on earth, this is like a horror movie!”
Sara says frantically as she bites her fingers and shivers.
“Cool!”
Tara responds calmly. They decided to walk through the corridor, As they walked their footsteps echoed. They are met with a tall stone staircase that is the size of the room. The sheer size and width of the staircase frighten Sara, but not Tara, Tara is excited for an adventure. She lands her red heels on the staircase but the stair sinks into the ground slowly and a giant metal axe swings from the ceiling and swiftly towards Tara like a deadly yo-yo. Her instincts kick in as she leaps towards another stair centimetres away from the blade of the axe. Sara’s crystal blue eyes widen in fear as she stands there still in horror watching Tara’s near death.
“I am not going on that thing, it's a death trap!”
Sara yells
“Yeah it is a death trap but it's easy to survive it!”
Taras replies in a perky voice.
“I AM NOT GOING UP THERE NO WAY!! JOSE”
Sara screams in a loud demeanour.
“That's my cousin's name! And I guess you will die from starvation if you stay there forever!”
Tara says playfully.
Tara continued walking upwards.
“WAIT!”
Sara yells, her voice travelling across the room.
She runs up the flight of stairs Closing her eyes tightly, she avoids a dozen traps like piercing arrows, scathing knives and even dusky rouge fire. Her fear helped her outrun the traps with ease. She meets Tara at the top of the staircase panting and gushing for air as she turns red. She looks up at Tara and says in disbelief.
“That was a bit of fun!”
Sara says out of breath
“Told you”
Tara replies smirking at Sara
They both smile at each other and giggle like little girls as they both turn bright red, even shedding a tear from laughter. The girls see another long hallway lit up by the blazing fire candles. This time Sara wasn't afraid she was excited, as they walked down the hallway.
“When we get out maybe we could explore the cities of Egypt!”
Sara says cheerfully“Yeah, sure! It will be so much fun!”
Tara replies smiling
“I have always wanted to try Egyptian food!”
Sara says foaming at the mouth
“ well we better get out of here soon and then enjoy a delicious feast”
Tara says determined
The frosty insides cooled down the girls relaxing them. They feel at ease and calm. Tara is walking when she trips on a wire and all of a sudden, A thousand python snakes launch at the girls chasing them down the hallway and hissing at them.
“OH MY GOD RUN”
Tara screams.
Tara gets back up onto her feet, her heels click on the floor and she runs with Sara metres away from death. Sara and Tara don't look back, they just run. Sara knew that being brave wasn't her thing but it had to be today, while Sara was distracted thinking to herself about eating delicious Egyptian cuisine she tripped over while Tara didn't notice. A scream is let out while Sara is filled with poison by a snake. Sara's soft skin has been engraved with the bite of a venomous snake. The sound alerted Tara to notice Sara struggling on the ground. She is tempted to not save her but she decides it's the right thing and she runs back out of breath fends off the snake and lifts Sara into her arms. Sara struggles to keep her eyes open, her vision is blurry. They exit the hallway and the door behind them shuts. Tara drops Sara gently onto the ground and rips part of her dress tying it around Sara's wound.
“You're going to be ok, I just know it, trust me!”
Tara says softly.
Sara just looks at her blankly with no response as if shes frozen in time. The salty smell of blood pollutes the air. Tara can't believe she let her friend get hurt, she gets into a fit of rage and punches the floor leaving a large crack.
“let's just keep going”
Sara says weakly. Tara hugs her tightly and nods on the verge of tears. Tara helps Sara walk through the empty rooms together with hope. The rooms were so tightly protected as if they were holding a secret.
Tara enters a circular room and looks around as she sees 6 doors all surrounding her in a circle. Tara is confused and has lost all hope. She walks away from Sara, crying. Her tears are tainted with anger. Tara just bangs the wall in rage. The room shakes, and Sara stares at her; she is never like this. The walls shook and then the candles fell onto the flammable polished wood floors. The whole room is engulfed with intense burning flames.
“Oh god”
Tara says under her breath. Tara runs towards Sara who is lying on the floor. She notices Sara struggling to get up onto her feet. Flames surround the room. Support beams fall to the ground. Loud thuds echo through the room while the crackling of fire bounces off the walls. The whole pyramid is ablaze. Sara struggles to speak and lets out a weak strained
“I love…y-”
A support beam directly above Sara falls and lands on Sara, the sounds of her bones crunching overlap the flame's song. Limbs fly across the floor leaving a dark trail of blood. Her guts splatter and combust across the floor like mushed jelly, Tara just watches in horror, and her blood turns cold. Sara lets out a blood-curdling scream, blood spews out from Sara's mouth. The blood stains the pristine sparkling floor. Sara’s life had just ended yet Tara was the one who felt more pain on the inside, she couldn't live without her best friend. Sara's pale face was frozen in time, her gorgeous crystal blue eyes remained still staring off blankly while blood poured from every hole in her body. The flames surround the room and grow larger and larger like enclosing walls. Tara knows that she should be there for her friend but she knows her life matters too. She takes one final look at Sara's gorgeous face dripping with blood as she runs, she has always been running from something. She takes her chances and runs through a corridor. Support beams fall making loud thuds. Debris causes a massive cloud of smog. Tara coughs and rubs the sand out of her eyes. She inhales smog and coughs violently while a droplet of blood gracefully drops onto the ground. A large piece of wood covered in flames falls near Tara the beam misses her but the flame hits her eyes. Her eyesight fades into black. She questions if she has reached the end of her life. She crawls into a ball in the corner of a room while the fire slowly engulfs her body. The flames burned her skin, sticky warm blood dripped on the floor like gooey honey while the fire crept up on her. The flames blister her tanned skin. Tara’s vision prevents her from seeing her final sights as she dies. The warmth was comforting yet terrifying at the same time. Tara thinks to herself that maybe if she wasn't so selfish she and Sara could have made it out together. She accepts this is her final ending.
The sound of harsh wind, a propeller winding and a woman's vague voice drowned out by a strange ringing, is this death? The ringing in her ears stops, and the woman's words are clear she says
“Hello?”
But if I'm dead where are these voices coming from? Could it be an angel?
“Miss, are you awake!?”
she opens her eyes but still sees a blank emptiness.
“Miss you are suffering 50-degree burns on most of your body, we are taking you to the closest hospital, The research group nearby contacted us as soon as they saw flames on the pyramid”
“WHERE IS SARA?!”
Tara screams.
“Your friend ‘Sara’ I presume, well her lifeless body…well pieces of her body were found, I'm so sorry we couldn't do anything about it”
Although Tara couldn't see the tears dripping down her charred face she could feel the wet droplets trickling from her eyes. Tara screams in agony and pain from sadness and the burns. The helicopter flies over the fire pit that used to be a pyramid. The pain from grief consumes her with pain more than the actual pain from the burns. The helicopter is silent not a single mutter from anyone. Finally, Tara arrives at a hospital where the wounds are treated. When Tara returns home she starts therapy accepts her best friend's fate and finally appreciates what an amazing life Sara had. Tara shares her story with the world everyone admires her bravery, and although there are so many people who love her and her story she still feels like something in her life is missing. Tara still wonders to this day what Sara was trying to say.
2024.06.07 11:23 DivideStunning4447 Okay, so... Funny (sorta) thing that happened (TW eating disorders)
So, basically, a few months ago I was quite deep in my, as I like to call it, skeleton appreciation era. Managed to leave before it got seriously scary, but it still sucked. And one day during that time, I got up too fast, and (as tends to happen when you're in your skeleton appreciation era) my brain went blank and my vision went blurry for a few seconds.
As they were coming back into focus, I found myself mindlessly humming "I've been feeling lightheaded... Since I've lost enough weight to fit back in my skin", and then froze as I realized my brain just brought up a line that, on two different levels, describes exactly the experience I just had.
And THEN I realized that, considering that that line was written by the guy that WROTE skeleton appreciation day, and that a few verses later there's a line that goes "I've been feeling lighthearted... Since I've gained enough weight back to cover my bones", which feels like a pretty perfect description of the experience of eating disorder recovery, how lighter and less painful everything suddenly feels, and how you look back at how you were when you were in that and all the sudden are able to comprehend what you were doing to your body... It might have ACTUALLY BEEN about that.
So, em... Thoughts? Does that make sense or am I reading into stuff?
submitted by DivideStunning4447 to willwood [link] [comments]
As they were coming back into focus, I found myself mindlessly humming "I've been feeling lightheaded... Since I've lost enough weight to fit back in my skin", and then froze as I realized my brain just brought up a line that, on two different levels, describes exactly the experience I just had.
And THEN I realized that, considering that that line was written by the guy that WROTE skeleton appreciation day, and that a few verses later there's a line that goes "I've been feeling lighthearted... Since I've gained enough weight back to cover my bones", which feels like a pretty perfect description of the experience of eating disorder recovery, how lighter and less painful everything suddenly feels, and how you look back at how you were when you were in that and all the sudden are able to comprehend what you were doing to your body... It might have ACTUALLY BEEN about that.
So, em... Thoughts? Does that make sense or am I reading into stuff?
2024.06.07 11:15 Hefiray Writing prompts
I have a bunch of writing ideas but I lack depth and making the story long Enough for me to feel satisfied. Ideally I hope one of my ideas gets turned into a manga.
here are some of my ideas
title description
god speed* main character was the worlds number one racer Cars, motobikes you name it, one day he is asked to help save a city from a dangerous threat, an alien. He was later blown up alongside the alien which he had lured to the designated area. Traumatised and betrayed and infected with alien blood he fell from racing and took up part time as a stuntman. Things changed when he was challenged to a race by a jealous man. He discovers the vehicle that man raced in could transform and it even had weapons Which begun to fire at him. He was rescued by another pilot of similar function. He was brought in and sworn to secrecy and he discovers that they fight aliens similar to the one he had raced in the past. They use these special vehicles to race on moving alien hives filled with aliens, traps, hazards and changing floors to reach the top and destroy the hive core.
galaxy storm* (I started writing this one but stopped due to being unmotivated, and making the alien enemies diffcult to imagine, I’m hoping to make it either similar to a warhammer universe or halo universe.) Man finds himself and earth removed from dimension by accident, the culprit sends man to a similar dimension where he has to survive the harsh wilderness. He reaches civilisation only to discover it is at war and the aliens are at their doorstep. Due to contempt and jealousy he does not get the needed treatment from the base and slowly deteriorates in health While the enemy marches closer. The base commander is some slack second generation rich kid who isn’t even on base, leaving the army just as slack and ill prepared. Mc rescues the jailed disciplinary officers and gets to be treated, as he is getting treated the enemy attack and it’s aliens. (The aliens I call them cyclomorphs as they can manipulate their shape to an extent but I’m not sure how I describe them. my idea was a thin neck and small head attacked to a collar which they can retract into to protect their heads. Think of a sting ray. With the tail being the neck. They can have their arms change into various weapons with stronger units possessing stronger weapon forms and extra appendages that can turn into melee weapons. Not sure how to go with their vehicles.) anyways Mc gets healed and. Helps assist with the defense in the losing ear turning the war around, ( not too good at that part) the Mc has extremely good vision and an experimental emergency life saving measure where he turns into a highly trained special forces soldier. The battle was barely won but the enemy reinforcements arrives thankfully humanities reinforcements arrive at the Knick of time. the Civilians and Mc are moved to the main city which is the next story arc. Arc 2 would be labelled as a traitor because one of the rich daughters who wasn’t spoilt and was kind fell in love with the Mc, the family didn’t like that and forged documents and made him into a traitor. Instead of being executed he is sent to death camp where all prisoners who receive death sentences go, all prisoners are subjected to 5? Deadly trials that if they come back alive will be pardoned and sent to be a member of the army under different name. Mc passes and helps two others pass as well a semi conscious clone and an engineer.
arc 3 would be Mc rises through ranks by killing enemies earning him Valor points where it is spent on getting weapons better armour, rank and better training, and I ven earning his own base and recruiting soldiers. ( I have trouble trying to make the point system work, if anyones plsyed thresh wars that’s what inspired my idea)
ground wars\* earth invaded and a rogue ai also waged war on humanity, battling on two fronts and skies are off limits. now the only way to travel is by powerful armoured weaponised transports (I don’t know what to call it, ground trains? lol) the Mc has a vision of the aliens burrowing underneath his city and decides to flee with the family after persuasion. Using a friendly uncles truck they flee just in time. Mc goes to learn engineering and then joins a motly crew with a ground train hired to help carry minerals from a nearby mine. Aliens attack and while repairing the ground train Mc arm is lopped off. Although the crew and him escapes he doesn’t get any injury pay and kicked off the team. Mc gets a robotic arm he built himself and dreams of one day owning his own ground train the best and extremely powerful one with amazing weapons. However due to his incident no one would hire him. a small crew does hire him out of pity and his journey starts from the when he inherits the old ground train because the leader is getting old.
mech wars* inspired by the game mech quest. Mc is in school aiming to be a mech pilot, more specifically a soul pilot. This is where a mech is created from resonance between the soul of a pilot and a special crystal. When it was his turn to try to summon one a raid happened and he was captured As well as the rest of the class by rebels. The teacher and other adults killed, he discovers the country he lived in was brainwashing all mech pilots especially soul pilots into unquestioning loyalty. Given the choice between fighting with the rebels or becoming a civilian he chooses to continue as a pilot under the rebels command. He finally summons his mech which cause the base to groan from the weight of his mech. All mechs start off as an embryo and I’d fed metals formed by the bones of giant alien creatures known as blank( I don't know what to call them) buried in the ground and dug out after some time the quality depends on the length of time buried and strength of the alien creature the Mc works hard to earn enough to feed his embryo which required higher than normal materials. The Mc mech is (*spoiler a powerful dragon*) but maintains a weaker human form until Mc is strong enough. Once Mc embryo is transformed into a mech he needs to hunt creatures to earn credits to equip better weapons and armour for his mech. The mech has a super secret ability called decimate if you’ve played mech quest you will know what it entails. 😉
My body for the land toughest extremely scarred warrior fights an undead uprising with a hidden secret. He will make allies and raise a powerful army. Part 2 is where he dies and reanimated as a skeleton. He gets powers of darkness and makes a dungeon full of various monsters to fight back humanity who has taken control. Part 3 demons attack vs army of the dead and monsters.
tri-world crossing Three worlds with different powers: religion, science and magic. various portals Located in various spots in each world lead to a huge world called the triad. Where all three inhabitants of each world meet and co exist. Mc is (big spoiler) the first dark lord of magic world and spend his days sleeepjng but gets dragged into various conflicts when he goes earn money as part time adventurer and mercenary. (Inspired by final fantasy setting.)
submitted by Hefiray to KeepWriting [link] [comments]
here are some of my ideas
title description
god speed* main character was the worlds number one racer Cars, motobikes you name it, one day he is asked to help save a city from a dangerous threat, an alien. He was later blown up alongside the alien which he had lured to the designated area. Traumatised and betrayed and infected with alien blood he fell from racing and took up part time as a stuntman. Things changed when he was challenged to a race by a jealous man. He discovers the vehicle that man raced in could transform and it even had weapons Which begun to fire at him. He was rescued by another pilot of similar function. He was brought in and sworn to secrecy and he discovers that they fight aliens similar to the one he had raced in the past. They use these special vehicles to race on moving alien hives filled with aliens, traps, hazards and changing floors to reach the top and destroy the hive core.
galaxy storm* (I started writing this one but stopped due to being unmotivated, and making the alien enemies diffcult to imagine, I’m hoping to make it either similar to a warhammer universe or halo universe.) Man finds himself and earth removed from dimension by accident, the culprit sends man to a similar dimension where he has to survive the harsh wilderness. He reaches civilisation only to discover it is at war and the aliens are at their doorstep. Due to contempt and jealousy he does not get the needed treatment from the base and slowly deteriorates in health While the enemy marches closer. The base commander is some slack second generation rich kid who isn’t even on base, leaving the army just as slack and ill prepared. Mc rescues the jailed disciplinary officers and gets to be treated, as he is getting treated the enemy attack and it’s aliens. (The aliens I call them cyclomorphs as they can manipulate their shape to an extent but I’m not sure how I describe them. my idea was a thin neck and small head attacked to a collar which they can retract into to protect their heads. Think of a sting ray. With the tail being the neck. They can have their arms change into various weapons with stronger units possessing stronger weapon forms and extra appendages that can turn into melee weapons. Not sure how to go with their vehicles.) anyways Mc gets healed and. Helps assist with the defense in the losing ear turning the war around, ( not too good at that part) the Mc has extremely good vision and an experimental emergency life saving measure where he turns into a highly trained special forces soldier. The battle was barely won but the enemy reinforcements arrives thankfully humanities reinforcements arrive at the Knick of time. the Civilians and Mc are moved to the main city which is the next story arc. Arc 2 would be labelled as a traitor because one of the rich daughters who wasn’t spoilt and was kind fell in love with the Mc, the family didn’t like that and forged documents and made him into a traitor. Instead of being executed he is sent to death camp where all prisoners who receive death sentences go, all prisoners are subjected to 5? Deadly trials that if they come back alive will be pardoned and sent to be a member of the army under different name. Mc passes and helps two others pass as well a semi conscious clone and an engineer.
arc 3 would be Mc rises through ranks by killing enemies earning him Valor points where it is spent on getting weapons better armour, rank and better training, and I ven earning his own base and recruiting soldiers. ( I have trouble trying to make the point system work, if anyones plsyed thresh wars that’s what inspired my idea)
ground wars\* earth invaded and a rogue ai also waged war on humanity, battling on two fronts and skies are off limits. now the only way to travel is by powerful armoured weaponised transports (I don’t know what to call it, ground trains? lol) the Mc has a vision of the aliens burrowing underneath his city and decides to flee with the family after persuasion. Using a friendly uncles truck they flee just in time. Mc goes to learn engineering and then joins a motly crew with a ground train hired to help carry minerals from a nearby mine. Aliens attack and while repairing the ground train Mc arm is lopped off. Although the crew and him escapes he doesn’t get any injury pay and kicked off the team. Mc gets a robotic arm he built himself and dreams of one day owning his own ground train the best and extremely powerful one with amazing weapons. However due to his incident no one would hire him. a small crew does hire him out of pity and his journey starts from the when he inherits the old ground train because the leader is getting old.
mech wars* inspired by the game mech quest. Mc is in school aiming to be a mech pilot, more specifically a soul pilot. This is where a mech is created from resonance between the soul of a pilot and a special crystal. When it was his turn to try to summon one a raid happened and he was captured As well as the rest of the class by rebels. The teacher and other adults killed, he discovers the country he lived in was brainwashing all mech pilots especially soul pilots into unquestioning loyalty. Given the choice between fighting with the rebels or becoming a civilian he chooses to continue as a pilot under the rebels command. He finally summons his mech which cause the base to groan from the weight of his mech. All mechs start off as an embryo and I’d fed metals formed by the bones of giant alien creatures known as blank( I don't know what to call them) buried in the ground and dug out after some time the quality depends on the length of time buried and strength of the alien creature the Mc works hard to earn enough to feed his embryo which required higher than normal materials. The Mc mech is (*spoiler a powerful dragon*) but maintains a weaker human form until Mc is strong enough. Once Mc embryo is transformed into a mech he needs to hunt creatures to earn credits to equip better weapons and armour for his mech. The mech has a super secret ability called decimate if you’ve played mech quest you will know what it entails. 😉
My body for the land toughest extremely scarred warrior fights an undead uprising with a hidden secret. He will make allies and raise a powerful army. Part 2 is where he dies and reanimated as a skeleton. He gets powers of darkness and makes a dungeon full of various monsters to fight back humanity who has taken control. Part 3 demons attack vs army of the dead and monsters.
tri-world crossing Three worlds with different powers: religion, science and magic. various portals Located in various spots in each world lead to a huge world called the triad. Where all three inhabitants of each world meet and co exist. Mc is (big spoiler) the first dark lord of magic world and spend his days sleeepjng but gets dragged into various conflicts when he goes earn money as part time adventurer and mercenary. (Inspired by final fantasy setting.)
2024.06.07 10:19 FuturelyKnownAsCrust The Californian Cupcake Queen
Marsha, lovely Marsha.
Endowed with a passion - a charge - for all things sweet and sugary. High-fructose corn syrup chills on the windowsill.
She assembles cupcakes. Scrumptious, delicate, eat-’em-down-to-the-bone cupcakes. It takes my breath away how wacky these cupcakes are.
Smiley faces on her cupcakes! The gall, the absolute gall! But she does it.
“I’m not one for swirls!” she says and boy do I believe her. I mean, the proof is in the tray. Icing patterns of stars, of roses, of dots, of sunshine.
I love Marsha in her role. I truly do. More than anything, I love that she owns it.
“I am Marsha, the Californian Cupcake Queen!” she screams from the top of a medium-sized hill in her small town in her large country on her pale blue dot in the milky way galaxy, and I’ll stop zooming out here ‘cuz I’m getting a lil’ excited myself–
“Knock ‘em dead!” I want to tell her, but I catch myself before the words escape my lips. “You get those cupcakes!” I say in lieu. Words far more suitable for a queen.
Amidst the stir of this bubbly, positive energy, and the mixing of eggs, milk, and flour, I–
Hear a voice call out from nowhere.
“Will you always love Marsha, no matter what?” the void asks me.
Hah. Wow. Not even gonna dignify that one with a response, my good sir. Who the heck with a clear conscience and a functional soul wouldn’t have some love for the mother-effin CALIFORNIAN CUPCAKE QUEEN? I MEAN, C’MON?
The crowd roars.
“Like, SERIOUSLY?!?! ARE WE LIKE, FIVE OR SOMETHING?”
I have them in the palm of my hands.
“ARE WE FUCKING STUPID OR SOMETHING??? LOW EQ MAYBE?”
The crowd’s on fire - they’re gonna blow the roof off the joint.
“I DIDN’T REALIZE WE WERE DUMB CHOO CHOO TRAIN SMALL BRAINED FUCKING MORONS NOT APPRECIATING THE FUCKING BRILLIANCE OF OUR GODDAMN CALIFORNIAN CUPCAKE QUEEN YOU FUCKING PEASANTS YOU STUPID FUCKING PEASANTS YOU FUCKING IDIOTS YOU FUCKING MORONS YOU FUCKING PIECES OF FUCKING SHIT YOU STUPID FUCKING FUCKS WHO ACTUALLY THINK YOU CAN STOP THIS FUCKING VIBE BUT YOU CAN’T ‘CAUSE THIS IS FUCKING ENERGY AND THERE’S NO - NO SEPARATION BETWEEN MY MIND AND MY MOUTH I AM A FORCE I AM A FUCKING FORCE–”
___________________________
I watch Marsha watch the sunset.
She wants to leave.
She’s always wanted to leave.
My own Truman.
I don’t know when this whole thing started.
I sit with her.
“I just… don’t want to be a caricature anymore,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“I’m born of alliteration, primarily.”
I chuckle a bit. “Yeah.”
“No, it’s not funny. It’s actually not funny. I know it sounds stupid but it actually just really, really sucks. It sucks that who I am is just, a bit. A bit based on… consonants. Fucking consonants. My personality is based on consonants!”
“Well, your personality isn’t. Just your character, yeah?”
“Sure, but I am my character–”
“You’re not your character–”
“I am my character because you made me my character, and you won’t let me be someone else.”
“I… won’t let you be someone else because the world outside of this story is fucking weird and creepy and scary and–”
“That’s for me to learn. That’s for me to understand. You know I won’t become who I actually am unless I cross that bridge myself.”
“What if you break your leg? What if you get eaten by a snake?”
“What if I don’t? What if good things happen? What if I fall in love? What if I find my dream job? My dream apartment. my dream community, my dream… everything?”
And what if you don’t, Marsha?
I watch the sunset. The plastic, manufactured sunset.
I pull the switch in my heart.
It takes a minute to kick in.
“Please,” she continues. “Just… please. I don’t want to be a… cupcake queen anymore.”
Ahead of us, the grass and dirt sink into the ground. They become an elegant staircase leading into the depths.
An exit. From here anyways.
It takes her a moment, in her morose state, to realize what’s been granted her.
An exhale to ground herself, and then she turns to me.
“I can leave?”
“I don’t want you to,” I say, “But yes, you don’t have to be here anymore.”
Her eyes get glossy.
“You don’t have to be a cupcake queen anymore,” I affirm.
She hugs me with all of her wonderful soul. “Thank you,” she says.
She gets up. A soft jog to her freedom. She looks back one more time before gracing the passageway with her steps. She disappears into the mystery of it all.
And then she’s gone. Gone forever. And I’ll never see her again.
I hear the void stir.
“You know where she’s gone to, don’t you?”
“Yes. She’s in hell now. Where she’ll be tortured for eternity.”
“If you stop loving her, it’ll hurt less.”
“Sure.”
“You tried your best to get her to stay.”
I look up at the mirage of dead stars and endless-yet-ending abyss, created for us by the Lord who is always testing us.
What do you do when the creator who birthed you has a more primitive moral compass than the most brutal of your ancestors?
The void hears my thoughts. “You learn to let go. So it won’t hurt as much.”
Huh. As always, I take his words into consideration.
But ultimately, I resign towards hope. The same hope that destroys and betrays me every time I fall in love.
A blank page falls from the heavens. It seems as if the Lord expects another creation.
I begrudgingly mark the page with ink: Darla, the Delightful Dairy Dreamer.
And she appears.
My Lord, I will never understand you. You, or your wicked ways.
submitted by FuturelyKnownAsCrust to u/FuturelyKnownAsCrust [link] [comments]
Endowed with a passion - a charge - for all things sweet and sugary. High-fructose corn syrup chills on the windowsill.
She assembles cupcakes. Scrumptious, delicate, eat-’em-down-to-the-bone cupcakes. It takes my breath away how wacky these cupcakes are.
Smiley faces on her cupcakes! The gall, the absolute gall! But she does it.
“I’m not one for swirls!” she says and boy do I believe her. I mean, the proof is in the tray. Icing patterns of stars, of roses, of dots, of sunshine.
I love Marsha in her role. I truly do. More than anything, I love that she owns it.
“I am Marsha, the Californian Cupcake Queen!” she screams from the top of a medium-sized hill in her small town in her large country on her pale blue dot in the milky way galaxy, and I’ll stop zooming out here ‘cuz I’m getting a lil’ excited myself–
“Knock ‘em dead!” I want to tell her, but I catch myself before the words escape my lips. “You get those cupcakes!” I say in lieu. Words far more suitable for a queen.
Amidst the stir of this bubbly, positive energy, and the mixing of eggs, milk, and flour, I–
Hear a voice call out from nowhere.
“Will you always love Marsha, no matter what?” the void asks me.
Hah. Wow. Not even gonna dignify that one with a response, my good sir. Who the heck with a clear conscience and a functional soul wouldn’t have some love for the mother-effin CALIFORNIAN CUPCAKE QUEEN? I MEAN, C’MON?
The crowd roars.
“Like, SERIOUSLY?!?! ARE WE LIKE, FIVE OR SOMETHING?”
I have them in the palm of my hands.
“ARE WE FUCKING STUPID OR SOMETHING??? LOW EQ MAYBE?”
The crowd’s on fire - they’re gonna blow the roof off the joint.
“I DIDN’T REALIZE WE WERE DUMB CHOO CHOO TRAIN SMALL BRAINED FUCKING MORONS NOT APPRECIATING THE FUCKING BRILLIANCE OF OUR GODDAMN CALIFORNIAN CUPCAKE QUEEN YOU FUCKING PEASANTS YOU STUPID FUCKING PEASANTS YOU FUCKING IDIOTS YOU FUCKING MORONS YOU FUCKING PIECES OF FUCKING SHIT YOU STUPID FUCKING FUCKS WHO ACTUALLY THINK YOU CAN STOP THIS FUCKING VIBE BUT YOU CAN’T ‘CAUSE THIS IS FUCKING ENERGY AND THERE’S NO - NO SEPARATION BETWEEN MY MIND AND MY MOUTH I AM A FORCE I AM A FUCKING FORCE–”
___________________________
I watch Marsha watch the sunset.
She wants to leave.
She’s always wanted to leave.
My own Truman.
I don’t know when this whole thing started.
I sit with her.
“I just… don’t want to be a caricature anymore,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“I’m born of alliteration, primarily.”
I chuckle a bit. “Yeah.”
“No, it’s not funny. It’s actually not funny. I know it sounds stupid but it actually just really, really sucks. It sucks that who I am is just, a bit. A bit based on… consonants. Fucking consonants. My personality is based on consonants!”
“Well, your personality isn’t. Just your character, yeah?”
“Sure, but I am my character–”
“You’re not your character–”
“I am my character because you made me my character, and you won’t let me be someone else.”
“I… won’t let you be someone else because the world outside of this story is fucking weird and creepy and scary and–”
“That’s for me to learn. That’s for me to understand. You know I won’t become who I actually am unless I cross that bridge myself.”
“What if you break your leg? What if you get eaten by a snake?”
“What if I don’t? What if good things happen? What if I fall in love? What if I find my dream job? My dream apartment. my dream community, my dream… everything?”
And what if you don’t, Marsha?
I watch the sunset. The plastic, manufactured sunset.
I pull the switch in my heart.
It takes a minute to kick in.
“Please,” she continues. “Just… please. I don’t want to be a… cupcake queen anymore.”
Ahead of us, the grass and dirt sink into the ground. They become an elegant staircase leading into the depths.
An exit. From here anyways.
It takes her a moment, in her morose state, to realize what’s been granted her.
An exhale to ground herself, and then she turns to me.
“I can leave?”
“I don’t want you to,” I say, “But yes, you don’t have to be here anymore.”
Her eyes get glossy.
“You don’t have to be a cupcake queen anymore,” I affirm.
She hugs me with all of her wonderful soul. “Thank you,” she says.
She gets up. A soft jog to her freedom. She looks back one more time before gracing the passageway with her steps. She disappears into the mystery of it all.
And then she’s gone. Gone forever. And I’ll never see her again.
I hear the void stir.
“You know where she’s gone to, don’t you?”
“Yes. She’s in hell now. Where she’ll be tortured for eternity.”
“If you stop loving her, it’ll hurt less.”
“Sure.”
“You tried your best to get her to stay.”
I look up at the mirage of dead stars and endless-yet-ending abyss, created for us by the Lord who is always testing us.
What do you do when the creator who birthed you has a more primitive moral compass than the most brutal of your ancestors?
The void hears my thoughts. “You learn to let go. So it won’t hurt as much.”
Huh. As always, I take his words into consideration.
But ultimately, I resign towards hope. The same hope that destroys and betrays me every time I fall in love.
A blank page falls from the heavens. It seems as if the Lord expects another creation.
I begrudgingly mark the page with ink: Darla, the Delightful Dairy Dreamer.
And she appears.
My Lord, I will never understand you. You, or your wicked ways.
2024.06.07 06:56 Street-Abby-2050 From Childhood Illnesses to Family Drama Pt 2
Part 2:
After Uncle A died, his loss was too great for me. The house, once filled with his laughter and stories, felt unbearably empty. I found myself avoiding the living room, where he used to sit in his favorite armchair, sharing tales from his adventurous youth. The silence was oppressive, a constant reminder of the void he left behind. my thoughts were like ships passing in the night, each lost in our own sea of sorrow. School became a distant priority; my grades slipped, and I withdrew from friends who didn’t understand the depth of my pain. I had locked myself up in my own room and refused to eat, blaming myself over and over again for his death. The day I went to the hospital to fetch his body for a proper burial and funeral was the hardest. I had to wait outside the morgue for two hours, and during that time, I silently reminisced about all the memories we had created. I was trying to process the loss of his death, and without knowing it, tears kept rolling down my cheeks.When we finally fetched the body, it was time for the final viewing before he was taken back to our hometown for burial. I saw his pale, lifeless body with a small stitched scar right under his left eye bone and his eyes wide open, fixed on the exit/entrance door. Something deep inside me clicked. I realized that during his last breath, he was hoping that I'd come rushing through the entrance door and hold his hand. This realization hit me hard, and I couldn't help but cry even more. I blamed myself, thinking I was a bad niece, and kept saying to myself, "I'm so sorry I couldn't be the daughter you needed in your crucial time. I'm so sorry for being a disappointment in your last moment of life." Needless to say, after his death, everything inside me changed. For good or worse, I don't know. I just became a social outcast and wasn't as active or energetic as before. During the first few months of coping with his death, my boyfriend tried to comfort me, but it didn't work; I was still grieving for him. I'd often stare at the sky and cry, thinking he's somewhere up there watching over me.
After a year of his death, during my final term examination, I collapsed to the floor and was rushed to the hospital. There, I fought between life and death because the doctors had injected the wrong medicines into my bloodstream, causing me to have a very bad seizure. My pulse was going low, and my heartbeat was going flat. My parents, being there, saw me seizing and giving up on my life in the hospital bed. They didn't do anything at first, but my mom's maternal instinct kicked in. She beat my chest to regain my heartbeat back to normal. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here alive and writing this. During this near-death experience, I didn't remember much. I only remember being in a white, blank place, standing and trying to locate where I was. Due to this horrific near-death experience, the school allowed me to skip my final exams and get auto-promoted to the next grade. After being on complete bed rest for three months, I was finally able to regain my balance and decided to go to a therapist for counseling to get a hold on my mental health. I told everything to my therapist, and not going to lie, I cried every time I talked about Uncle A because maybe I still wasn't over him yet. While still recovering from his loss, I discovered that my boyfriend had been cheating on me. At that moment, I broke up with him because I sought peace, not another obstacle in my life. During counseling, my therapist diagnosed me with PTSD because I was having trauma attacks whenever anything shocking happened to me. This included witnessing my dad physically abusing my mom and enduring numerous conflicts between them. Fast forward to six years after Uncle A's death, which brings us to last year. Uncle A's twin brother got married to the love of his life, whom he met through his office colleagues, in December 2023. Her name is Shazia, and she is really pretty. Even though I look like a 25-year-old despite being a 20-year-old girl, when you compare us side by side, she looks like my younger sister. She is 30 years old and three years younger than Uncle A's twin brother. To be honest, when his brother got married, it reminded me of Uncle A, who had high dreams for his own marriage and creating a family. He always told me how he wanted me to be a sister to his children so that his kids could look up to me. But I guess fate doesn't always play out the way we hope.
Back to my family conflict, on July 21st, 2023, I finally graduated from college, marking a significant milestone in my life. The day was supposed to be a culmination of years of hard work and dedication, and I was looking forward to celebrating it with my parents by my side. I wore my best outfit in my favorite color, lavender, and donned my graduation gown and cap with pride. I made sure to take my parents to my college ceremony and specifically asked them to sit at the front row. I wanted them to witness every moment of my achievement, and I even escorted them to their seats, hoping to share this special occasion with them. But as the ceremony progressed, things didn't unfold as I had envisioned. When it was finally my turn to walk across the stage and receive my diploma, I scanned the audience to find my parents. To my dismay, they were seated at the back row, and I couldn't see any sign of excitement or pride on their faces. My dad was engrossed in watching a cricket match on his phone, completely oblivious to what was happening, while my mom wore an expression that seemed distant and detached. Seeing other parents cheering loudly for their children as they received their diplomas only amplified my sense of disappointment. It was as if my own parents didn't care about this important moment in my life. In that moment, I couldn't help but feel emotional and abandoned.
The whole situation made me long for Uncle A even more intensely. I knew that if he were there instead of my parents, he would have been bursting with pride. He would have cheered the loudest, clapped the hardest, and his eyes would have been filled with genuine happiness for me. Uncle A always believed in me and supported my dreams wholeheartedly. Imagining him in that moment made me realize how much I missed his presence and how different things would have been if he were still here.
As I stood on the stage, waiting to receive my diploma, I tried my best to hold back the tears of dismay that threatened to overwhelm me. Seeing my parents seated at the back row instead of the front, completely disengaged from this momentous occasion, made me feel a profound sense of loneliness. It was supposed to be a day of celebration, a day where my hard work paid off, but instead, I felt like I was standing alone in a sea of faces, unnoticed and unacknowledged. Throughout the ceremony, I struggled to keep my composure. I felt a lump forming in my throat as I fought back the tears, not wanting to break down in front of everyone. But inside, I was hurting deeply. I couldn't understand how my own parents could be so indifferent to such an important moment in my life. As I walked off the stage and returned to my seat among the other graduating students, I couldn't shake off the feeling of disappointment and loneliness. The rest of the program passed by in a blur, and I couldn't wait for it to be over. The cheers and applause from other families only served as a painful reminder of what was missing for me. I couldn't believe they would stoop this low, to disregard something that meant so much to me. It was a betrayal of the support and love that I had always expected from them, leaving me feeling more isolated than ever. After this incident, I spiraled into an existential crisis. The indifference of my parents during such a significant moment made me question my worth and purpose in life. I found myself consumed by dark thoughts, and ending my life seemed like a viable option at every turn. In a desperate attempt to find help, I dragged my dad to take me to a psychiatrist. She diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, and prescribed antidepressants, which I started taking immediately. However, I stopped in the middle because someone special (or at least that's what I thought) came into my life. But that's a story for another time. Part 3 will be released in a bit..
2024.06.07 05:56 Illustrious_Driver89 New skater setup
 | I dont know anyone who skates and just concerned about the trucks, wheels and bearings I chose. I mainly want to use it for cruising around in the streets/ garages. Any help would be greatly appreciated submitted by Illustrious_Driver89 to NewSkaters [link] [comments] |
2024.06.07 03:37 our_sole Reverse shoulder arthoplasty for osteoarthritis only?
Assume that a person's only shoulder issue is severe glenohumeral osteoarthritis. No cartilage, bone on bone. The rotator cuff is in fine shape and there are no other tendon/ligament/soft tissue problems.
Does it make sense that an ortho surgeon would do a reverse shoulder replacement, as opposed to a standard shoulder replacement (with the ball on the end of the humerus)?
I was under the impression that a reverse is done only if there are rotator cuff issues (and there might or might not be osteoarthritis).
Are reverse replacements perhaps now just done sort of by default because the recovery is easier for the patient? Or maybe it's a safeeasier procedure for the surgeon?
Any thoughts appreciated....
submitted by our_sole to Osteoarthritis [link] [comments]
Does it make sense that an ortho surgeon would do a reverse shoulder replacement, as opposed to a standard shoulder replacement (with the ball on the end of the humerus)?
I was under the impression that a reverse is done only if there are rotator cuff issues (and there might or might not be osteoarthritis).
Are reverse replacements perhaps now just done sort of by default because the recovery is easier for the patient? Or maybe it's a safeeasier procedure for the surgeon?
Any thoughts appreciated....
2024.06.07 01:58 KiraWinchester H: trades (list below) W: items off wish list
WISH LIST:
Rare apparel
Bolstering Civil Engineer AP/WWR (left arm)
Overeater's Civil Engineer 1S/WWR (left arm, right arm, right leg)
Overeater's Excavator 1S/WWR (left arm, right leg)
Vanguard's Civil Engineer 1S/WWR (right arm)
Vanguard's Scout 1S/WWR (right arm, right leg)
Vanguard's Excavator 1S/WWR (chest, left arm, right leg)
Please no cap offers since I'm maxed out on all 5 characters!
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COMPLETE TRADE LIST: (Thank you for your time browsing this huge list!!!)
FIXERS: AA/25/15r,,, AA/25/15v,,, AA/50c/15v,,, AA/50vhc/25,,, AA/50L/25,,, AA/AP/25,,, AA/E/Dur,,, Ari/25/15r,,, Ari/E/15r,,, Ari/E/25,,, As/E/25,,, B/25/15v,,, B/50L/25,,, B/E/Dur,,, BeAP/25,,, Exe/AP/25,,, Exe/E/25,,, GouE/25,,, GS/E/25,,, H/50c/25,,, Jug/50c/25,,, Jug/AP/25,,, Junk/25/15r,,, Junk/50c/15v,,, Junk/50L/25,,, Junk/AP/25,,, Junk/E/15v,,, Med/25/25,,, Med/50c/25,,, Med/AP/25,,, Mut/AP/25,,, MS/50c/25,,, MS/AP/25,,, N/AP/25,,, N/E/25,,, Q/25/15r,,, Q/25/15v,,, Q/AP/25,,, Q/E/15r,,, St/50c/25,,, St/AP/25,,, St/E/25,,, Sup/50c/25,,, Sup/AP/25,,, Sup/E/25,,, T/50c/25,,, T/AP/25,,, TS/25/15r,,, TS/25/15v,,, TS/50vhc/25,,, TS/AP/25,,, V/AP/25,,, Z/25/25,,, Z/50c/25,,, Z/E/25
HANDMADES: AA/E/15v,,, I/E/25,,, Junk/25/15r,,, Junk/50c/25,,, MS/E/25,,, Mut/50c/25,,, Mut/E/25,,, Q/50c/25,,, Q/E/15r,,, Q/E/50
HEAVY WEAPONS: AA/25/15r AGL,,, AA/25/90 AGL,,, AA/25/15r Cryolator,,, AA/E/25 Gatling Gun,,, AA/25/90 Harpoon Gun,,, As/25A/90 Fatman,,, As/25/15r Gatling Laser,,, As/25/90 Gatling Plasma,,, B/25/15r 50cal,,, B/E/Gho 50cal,,, B/50L/90 AGL,,, B/25A/90 Cryolator,,, B/50L/90 Cryolator,,, B/25A/90 Missile Launcher,,, B/50vhc/90 Missile Launcher,,, B/25/90 Ultracite Gatling Laser,,, B/25/Dur Ultracite Gatling Laser,,, BeE/90 Gatling Gun,,, Exe/50c/15r Flamer,,, Exe/25A/90 Gatling Plasma,,, Exe/E/25 LMG,,, F/50c/25 Cryolator,,, Jug/25/15r Cryolator,,, N/25/15r 50cal,,, Q/50L/90 Minigun,,, Q/E/Gho Minigun,,, Q/50L/15r Pepper Shaker,,, T/25/15r Cryolator,,, TS/25A/90 Broadsider,,, TS/25/15r Gatling Gun,,, TS/E/90 LMG,,, TS/E/25 Minigun,,, TS/25A/15r Missile Launcher,,, V/25/15r 50cal,,, V/25/25 Broadsider,,, V/25A/90 Cryolator,,, V/AP/15r Flamer,,, V/25/25 Gatling Gun,,, V/50L/90 Harpoon Gun,,, Z/E/90 LMG
LEGACIES: Stalker's SS/1S melee: Bowie Knife,,, Chinese Officer Sword,,, Cultist Dagger,,, Guitar Sword,,, Revolutionary Sword,,, Walking Cane
MELEE: AA/SS/1S Cultist Blade,,, AA/SS/1S Death Tambo,,, AA/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, AA/40P/1S Gulper Smacker,,, AA/SS/1S Meat Hook,,, AA/SS/1S Pole Hook,,, AA/50c/15v Power Fist,,, AA/SS/1S Revolutionary Sword,,, AA/50L/1S Ripper,,, AA/SS/1S Spear,,, AA/SS/1S Super Sledge,,, Ari/40P/1S Drill,,, Ari/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, Ari/SS/1S War Drum,,, As/40P/1S Chainsaw,,, As/40P/1S Drill,,, As/SS/1S Sheepsquatch Staff,,, B/50L/1S Chainsaw,,, B/AP/1S Chainsaw,,, B/SS/1S Chinese Officer Sword,,, B/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, B/50c/1S Drill,,, B/SS/25 Gulper Smacker,,, B/SS/25 Meat Hook,,, B/SS/90 Power Fist,,, B/SS/1S Power Fist,,, B/50c/25 Spear,,, BeSS/1S Combat Knife,,, Exe/40P/25 Drill,,, Exe/SS/1S Fire Axe,,, Exe/SS/1S Pitchfork,,, Exe/50c/1S Power Fist,,, GouSS/1S Hatchet,,, GouSS/1S Super Sledge,,, GS/SS/1S Chainsaw,,, I/SS/1S Death Tambo,,, I/40P/40 Drill,,, I/SS/1S Golf Club,,, I/SS/1S Pitchfork,,, I/SS/1S Shepherd's Crook,,, I/SS/1S Super Sledge,,, Junk/SS/1S Assaultron Blade,,, Junk/SS/1S Rolling Pin,,, Junk/SS/1S Security Baton,,, Mut/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, Mut/SS/1S Gulper Smacker,,, Mut/SS/1S Switchblade,,, MS/SS/1S Baseball Bat,,, MS/SS/1S Shishkebab,,, MS/SS/1S Shovel,,, MS/SS/1S Switchblade,,, Sup/SS/1S Assaultron Blade,,, Sup/SS/1S Cultist Blade,,, Sup/SS/1S Revolutionary Sword,,, Sup/SS/1S Spear,,, Sup/SS/1S Tire Iron,,, T/SS/1S Baseball Bat,,, T/SS/1S Bowie Knife,,, T/SS/1S Golf Club,,, T/SS/1S Machete,,, T/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, V/SS/1S Combat Knife,,, V/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, V/SS/1S Pole Hook,,, V/SS/1S Shishkebab,,, V/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, Z/SS/1S Buzz Blade,,, Z/40P/1S Chainsaw,,, Z/SS/1S Fire Axe,,, Z/SS/1S Knuckles,,, Z/SS/1S Pipe Wrench
RAILWAYS: AA/50c/25,,, AA/50vhc/25,,, AA/E/15v,,, AA/E/25,,, Ari/25/15r,,, B/50vhc/25,,, B/E/15r,,, B/E/90,,, F/50c/25,,, F/E/25,,, GS/50c/25,,, H/50c/25,,, I/25/25,,, I/50c/25,,, Junk/E/25,,, Q/25/15v,,, Q/50L/90,,, Q/E/1P,,, St/50c/25,,, Sup/E/25,,, TS/50L/25,,, TS/50vhc/25,,, TS/50c/15r,,, TS/AP/25,,, TS/E/Dur,,, V/25/25,,, V/50c/25,,, Z/E/90
TESLAS: AA/25/15r,,, AA/AP/25,,, AA/25/25,,, As/25/25,,, B/25/25,,, B/25/90,,, B/25/Dur,,, B/25/Gho,,, Be25/15r,,, Be25/25,,, Exe/25/15r,,, Exe/25/25,,, Exe/25/90,,, Exe/50L/15r,,, Ext/25/15r,,, F/25/15r,,, GS/25/25,,, GS/25/90,,, GS/50c/25,,, H/25/15r,,, I/25/15r,,, Junk/25/15r,,, Junk/50L/15r,,, Med/25/25,,, MS/50c/25,,, Mut/25/15r,,, Mut/25/25,,, N/25/25,,, Q/25**,,, Q/AP/25,,, St/25/25,,, St/25/90,,, Sup/25/90,,, Sup/50c/25,,, T/25/15r,,, TS/25/15r,,, TS/25/25,,, TS/50L/15r,,, V/25/15r,,, V/25/15v,,, V/25/90,,, V/25/250,,, V/25/Dur,,, V/50c/15r,,, V/50L/15r,,, Z/25/15r,,, Z/25/90
AA/25/25 Assaultron Head,,, AA/50c/15v Crossbow,,, AA/50c/25 Crossbow,,, AA/50L/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, AA/25/25 Gamma Gun,,, AA/50c/25 Pipe Bolt Action Pistol/Rifle,,, AA/25/15r Plasma Pistol/Rifle,,, As/50c/25 Crossbow,,, As/25/25 Gauss Rifle,,, As/50c/25 Laser Pistol/Rifle,,, B/AP/25 Compound Bow,,, B/25/25 Gauss Rifle,,, Be50c/25 Bow,,, Be50c/25 Crossbow,,, Be50c/25 SMG,,, Exe/50L/25 Alien Blaster,,, Exe/50c/25 Blunderbuss,,, Exe/50c/25 Combat Rifle,,, Exe/50c/15v Compound Bow,,, Exe/50c/25 Double Barrel,,, Exe/25/25 Gamma Gun,,, Exe/E/25 Hunting Rifle,,, Exe/E/25 Lever Action,,, Exe/50L/25 Plasma Pistol/Rifle,,, F/50c/15v Compound Bow,,, F/E/25 Double Barrel,,, F/50c/15v Thirst Zapper,,, GouE/25 Assault Rifle,,, GouE/25 Double Barrel,,, Gou25/25 Lever Action,,, GS/50c/25 Gamma Gun,,, I/50c/25 Combat Shotgun,,, I/50c/15v Compound Bow,,, I/50c/25 The Dragon,,, Jug/E/25 Combat Rifle,,, Jug/50c/25 Laser Pistol/Rifle,,, Junk/50c/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Junk/25/25 Radium Rifle,,, Mut/E/25 10mm Pistol,,, Mut/50c/25 Crossbow,,, N/25/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, N/50c/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Q/50c/25 Assaultron Head,,, Q/25/15r Combat Shotgun,,, Q/25/1P Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Q/AP/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Q/25/15r Plasma Pistol/Rifle,,, St/50c/25 Crossbow,,, St/E/25 Single Action Revolver,,, Sup/25/25 Radium Rifle,,, TS/25/15r Combat Rifle,,, TS/50c/25 Combat Rifle,,, TS/E/15r Pipe Revolver,,, V/50c/25 Bow,,, V/50L/25 Compound Bow,,, V/AP/25 Crossbow,,, V/50c/25 Gauss Rifle,,, V/25/25 Pipe Pistol/Rifle,,, V/50c/25 Pipe Pistol/Rifle,,, Z/25/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle
ARMOR: Aristocrat's Civil Engineer chest AP/Cavalier
Aristocrat's Civil Engineer chest LED/Cavalier
Aristocrat's Civil Engineer chest LED/HTD
Aristocrat's Heavy Robot left leg LED/Sentinel
Aristocrat's Heavy Robot left leg LED/WWR
Aristocrat's Marine right leg AP/Cavalier
Aristocrat's Marine right arm LED/WWR
Aristocrat's USA left leg LED/WWR
Assassin's Civil Engineer chest Strength/JWR
Assassin's FSA chest LED/FDC
Assassin's FSA left arm AP/FDC (2)
Assassin's FSA left arm AP/Sentinel
Assassin's FSA left arm LED/HTD
Assassin's FSA left leg AP/FDC
Assassin's FSA left leg Strength/HTD
Assassin's Heavy Leather left arm AP/WWR
Assassin's Heavy Robot chest Strength/WWR
Assassin's Marine left arm AP/Cavalier
Assassin's Sturdy Combat chest AP/Sentinel
Assassin's Trapper right arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Assassin's Trapper right leg Strength/Sentinel
Assassin's USA left arm LED/WWR
Assassin's USA left arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Assassin's USA left leg LED/HTD
Assassin's USA left leg Strength/WWR
Auto Stim Civil Engineer chest LED/FDC
Auto Stim FSA right leg LED/WWR
Auto Stim Heavy Metal chest LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim Heavy Raider right leg LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim Heavy Robot chest LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim Heavy Robot right leg Cryo resist/Sentinel
Auto Stim Marine left leg LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim Ultracite left arm LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim USA left arm AP/Cavalier
Auto Stim USA left arm AP/WWR
Auto Stim USA left arm LED/FDC
Auto Stim USA right arm LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim USA right leg LED/WWR
Auto Stim USA right leg Strength/Cavalier
Auto Stim USA right leg Strength/Sentinel
Auto Stim USA right leg Strength/WWR
Bolstering Civil Engineer right arm AP/WWR
Bolstering FSA left arm AP/Sentinel
Bolstering FSA left arm Luck/WWR
Bolstering FSA left arm Strength/WWR
Bolstering FSA left leg AP/Sentinel
Bolstering FSA left leg LED/Cavalier
Bolstering FSA right leg Strength/HTD
Bolstering Heavy Metal left leg AP/Cavalier
Bolstering Heavy Metal right arm AP/Sentinel
Bolstering Heavy Metal right leg LED/HTD
Bolstering Heavy Robot left arm Strength/Cavalier
Bolstering Marine right arm Cryo resist/Sentinel
Bolstering Marine right arm Strength/FDC
Bolstering Raider right arm AP/Sentinel
Bolstering Sturdy Combat left leg LED/Sentinel
Bolstering Sturdy Leather right leg AP/Sentinel
Bolstering Trapper chest AP/Cavalier (2)
Bolstering Trapper right arm LED/Sentinel
Bolstering USA left arm LED/FDC
Bolstering USA left arm LED/Sentinel
Bolstering USA right arm AP/FDC
Bolstering USA right arm Intelligence/Sentinel
Bolstering Wood left leg LED/WWR
Chameleon FSA chest LED/Cavalier
Chameleon FSA left arm Strength/Sentinel
Chameleon FSA left leg AP/Cavalier
Chameleon FSA left leg LED/Sentinel
Chameleon Heavy Combat right arm LED/Cavalier
Chameleon Heavy Raider right leg AP/Sentinel
Chameleon Marine left arm AP/Cavalier
Chameleon Marine right arm AP/Sentinel
Chameleon Marine left leg AP/WWR
Chameleon Robot chest LED/WWR
Chameleon USA chest AP/WWR
Chameleon USA chest LED/Cavalier
Chameleon USA left arm AP/JWR
Chameleon USA left arm LED/Sentinel
Chameleon USA left leg Cryo resist/Sentinel
Chameleon USA right arm LED/WWR
Chameleon USA right leg AP/FDC
Cloaking FSA chest AP/Cavalier
Cloaking FSA right arm AP/WWR
Cloaking USA chest AP/Sentinel
Cloaking USA right leg AP/WWR
Exterminator's Civil Engineer chest AP/Sentinel
Exterminator's FSA right arm AP/Sentinel
Exterminator's FSA right arm LED/Cavalier
Exterminator's FSA right leg LED/Cavalier
Exterminator's USA chest AP/Sentinel
Exterminator's USA chest LED/WWR
Ghoul Slayer's FSA right arm AP/WWR
Ghoul Slayer's FSA right leg AP/Cavalier
Ghoul Slayer's Heavy Metal left arm AP/Sentinel
Ghoul Slayer's USA left arm AP/WWR
Ghoul Slayer's USA left leg AP/WWR
Hunter's Civil Engineer chest AP/Sentinel
Hunter's Heavy Metal right leg AP/Sentinel
Life Saving Civil Engineer chest LED/HTD
Life Saving Combat left leg AP/WWR
Life Saving FSA chest AP/Sentinel
Life Saving FSA left arm LED/WWR
Life Saving FSA left leg LED/Sentinel
Life Saving FSA right leg Strength/Cavalier
Life Saving Heavy Combat AP/HTD
Life Saving Heavy Raider chest LED/WWR
Life Saving Heavy Robot chest AP/WWR
Life Saving Heavy Robot left arm AP/WWR
Life Saving Marine chest LED/Cavalier
Life Saving Marine left leg AP/WWR
Life Saving Trapper left leg AP/Sentinel
Life Saving Trapper right leg LED/Cavalier
Life Saving USA left arm LED/WWR
Life Saving USA left arm AP/Cavalier
Life Saving USA left leg Strength/Cavalier
Life Saving USA right arm AP/Sentinel
Life Saving USA right arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Mutant's Civil Engineer chest AP/WWR
Mutant's FSA left leg LED/WWR
Mutant's Heavy Combat right leg AP/FDC
Mutant Slayer's FSA left arm AP/Cavalier
Mutant Slayer's FSA right leg AP/Sentinel
Mutant Slayer's Heavy Raider right leg AP/Sentinel
Mutant Slayer's Trapper chest AP/Sentinel (2)
Mutant Slayer's USA chest AP/Sentinel
Mutant Slayer's USA left arm AP/Sentinel
Mutant Slayer's USA left leg AP/Cavalier
Nocturnal Heavy Combat right leg Strength/Sentinel
Nocturnal Heavy Robot left leg LED/WWR
Nocturnal Heavy Robot right leg AP/Cavalier
Nocturnal Robot left arm AP/Sentinel
Nocturnal Trapper chest AP/Sentinel
Nocturnal USA left leg LED/WWR
Nocturnal USA right leg AP/HTD
Nocturnal USA right leg LED/Cavalier
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Agility/WWR
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Antiseptic/WWR
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest AP/Toxic
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Charisma/WWR
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Fire resist/Cavalier
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Fire resist/FDC
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Intelligence/Sentinel
Overeater's Civil Engineer left leg AP/AWR
Overeater's Civil Engineer right arm Glutton/Cavalier
Overeater's Combat chest AP/FDC
Overeater's FSA chest Endurance/Sentinel
Overeater's FSA chest Poison resist/Cavalier
Overeater's FSA left arm Charisma/FDC
Overeater's FSA left arm Intelligence/Sentinel
Overeater's FSA left arm Perception/Sentinel
Overeater's FSA left leg AP/HTD
Overeater's FSA right arm AP/JWR
Overeater's FSA right arm Strength/FDC
Overeater's FSA right arm Strength/WWR
Overeater's FSA right leg LED/AWR
Overeater's Heavy Combat chest LED/HTD
Overeater's Heavy Combat left arm LED/JWR
Overeater's Heavy Combat right leg Perception/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Leather right arm Glutton/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Metal left leg Strength/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Metal right leg AP/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Raider left arm LED/Cavalier
Overeater's Heavy Raider left leg Charisma/WWR
Overeater's Heavy Raider right arm Fire resist/FDC
Overeater's Heavy Robot chest Endurance/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Robot chest Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Robot left leg Agility/WWR
Overeater's Marine chest Rad resist/FDC
Overeater's Marine chest Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Marine left arm Strength/FDC
Overeater's Marine right arm Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Marine right leg Fire resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Marine right leg Luck/FDC
Overeater's Marine right leg Perception/WWR
Overeater's Metal left arm AP/FDC
Overeater's Metal left leg Agility/Sentinel
Overeater's Metal left leg Cryo resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Metal right arm AP/Sentinel
Overeater's Metal right leg Poison resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Raider right arm Cryo resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Raider right leg LED/WWR
Overeater's Sturdy Metal chest Strength/FDC
Overeater's Trapper chest Rad resist/FDC
Overeater's Trapper left arm AP/HTD
Overeater's Trapper left arm Cryo resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Trapper left arm Perception/Sentinel
Overeater's Trapper left leg Perception/WWR
Overeater's Trapper right arm Luck/WWR
Overeater's Trapper right arm Rad resist/WWR
Overeater's USA chest Cryo resist/HTD
Overeater's USA chest LED/WWR
Overeater's USA chest Poison resist/FDC
Overeater's USA left arm Antiseptic/Sentinel
Overeater's USA left arm AP/HTD
Overeater's USA left arm Endurance/FDC
Overeater's USA left arm Endurance/WWR
Overeater's USA left arm Fire resist/FDC (2)
Overeater's USA left arm LED/AWR
Overeater's USA left arm LED/FDC
Overeater's USA left arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Overeater's USA left arm Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's USA left leg Fire resist/WWR
Overeater's USA left leg Intelligence/FDC
Overeater's USA left leg Strength/FDC
Overeater's USA right arm Luck/Sentinel
Overeater's USA right leg AP/FDC
Overeater's USA right leg Intelligence/HTD
Overeater's USA right leg Poison resist/Sentinel
Overeater's USA right leg Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Wood left arm LED/Cavalier
Regenerating Civil Engineer chest AP/Sentinel
Troubleshooter's Excavator right arm LED/Cavalier
Troubleshooter's FSA chest AP/WWR
Troubleshooter's Heavy Combat left arm AP/Cavalier
Troubleshooter's Heavy Robot left arm AP/Cavalier
Troubleshooter's T-60 left arm LED/Sentinel
Troubleshooter's T-60 right arm AP/WWR
Troubleshooter's Trapper right leg AP/WWR
Troubleshooter's USA left arm AP/FDC
Troubleshooter's USA left arm Strength/Sentinel
Troubleshooter's USA left leg AP/WWR
Unyielding Civil Engineer left arm Antiseptic/FDC
Unyielding Civil Engineer left leg AP/Electrified
Unyielding Civil Engineer right leg Intelligence/Burning
Unyielding FSA full set AP/Cavalier
Unyielding FSA chest Cryo resist/FDC
Unyielding FSA chest Intelligence/Acrobat
Unyielding FSA chest Intelligence/Dur
Unyielding FSA chest LED/JWR
Unyielding FSA left arm Cryo resist/AWR
Unyielding FSA left arm LED/Sentinel
Unyielding FSA left arm Poison resist/AWR
Unyielding FSA left leg AP/Acrobat
Unyielding FSA left leg Endurance/Sentinel
Unyielding FSA left leg Fire resist/AWR
Unyielding FSA left leg Fire resist/FDC
Unyielding FSA left leg Luck/AWR
Unyielding FSA right arm Cryo resist/Cavalier
Unyielding FSA right arm Poison resist/WWR
Unyielding FSA right leg AP/JWR
Unyielding FSA right leg Intelligence/JWR
Unyielding FSA right leg LED/HTD
Unyielding FSA right leg Luck/JWR
Unyielding FSA right leg Rad resist/AWR (2)
Unyielding Heavy Combat chest Strength/HTD
Unyielding Heavy Combat left leg Cryo resist/Cavalier
Unyielding Heavy Combat right arm Poison resist/JWR
Unyielding Heavy Combat right arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Unyielding Heavy Leather chest Cryo resist/HTD
Unyielding Heavy Leather left arm Rad resist/HTD
Unyielding Heavy Leather left leg Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding Heavy Metal right arm LED/Cavalier
Unyielding Heavy Metal right leg Endurance/Sentinel
Unyielding Heavy Raider chest Agility/Sentinel
Unyielding Heavy Raider left arm Poison resist/FDC
Unyielding Heavy Raider right arm AP/HTD
Unyielding Heavy Raider right arm Charisma/FDC
Unyielding Heavy Robot chest Cryo resist/Cavalier
Unyielding Heavy Robot right arm Endurance/Sentinel
Unyielding Leather left leg LED/WWR
Unyielding Marine chest Perception/Sentinel
Unyielding Marine chest Luck/WWR
Unyielding Marine chest Strength/HTD
Unyielding Marine left arm Cryo resist/HTD
Unyielding Marine left arm Strength/Cavalier (2)
Unyielding Marine left leg AP/FDC
Unyielding Marine right arm AP/Acrobat
Unyielding Marine right arm Rad resist/Cavalier
Unyielding Marine right leg Fire resist/WWR
Unyielding Marine right leg LED/AWR
Unyielding Marine right leg Luck/FDC
Unyielding Marine right leg Rad resist/AWR
Unyielding Metal chest AP/HTD
Unyielding Metal left arm LED/Sentinel
Unyielding Metal right leg AP/Cavalier
Unyielding Raider chest Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding Robot left leg Poison resist/Sentinel
Unyielding Sturdy Combat chest Strength/Sentinel
Unyielding Sturdy Combat right arm AP/AWR
Unyielding Sturdy Leather left leg LED/Sentinel
Unyielding Sturdy Metal chest AP/WWR
Unyielding Sturdy Metal left arm Rad resist/Sentinel
Unyielding Sturdy Raider chest Intelligence/FDC
Unyielding Sturdy Raider right leg Intelligence/FDC
Unyielding Sturdy Robot right arm LED/Sentinel
Unyielding Trapper chest Luck/FDC
Unyielding Trapper left leg Cryo resist/WWR
Unyielding Trapper right arm Cryo resist/Cavalier
Unyielding Trapper right arm LED/HTD
Unyielding Trapper right arm Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding USA chest AP/JWR
Unyielding USA chest Fire resist/AWR
Unyielding USA chest Luck/HTD
Unyielding USA chest Intelligence/Cavalier
Unyielding USA chest Poison resist/Cavalier
Unyielding USA chest Rad resist/JWR
Unyielding USA left arm AP/Sentinel
Unyielding USA left arm Cryo resist/WWR
Unyielding USA left arm LED/Acrobat (2)
Unyielding USA left arm Perception/FDC
Unyielding USA left arm Poison resist/AWR
Unyielding USA left arm Poison resist/HTD
Unyielding USA left arm Rad resist/Cavalier
Unyielding USA left leg Luck/AWR
Unyielding USA right arm Cryo resist/WWR
Unyielding USA right arm Intelligence/JWR
Unyielding USA right arm Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding USA right arm Poison resist/HTD
Unyielding USA right leg AP/Cavalier
Unyielding USA right leg Charisma/WWR
Unyielding USA right leg Fire resist/AWR
Unyielding USA right leg Perception/FDC
Unyielding Wood chest AP/FDC
Unyielding Wood chest Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding Wood chest Luck/Sentinel
Unyielding Wood right arm AP/Sentinel
Unyielding Wood right arm LED/WWR
Unyielding Wood right leg Strength/WWR
Vanguard's Civil Engineer chest LED/Cavalier
Vanguard's Civil Engineer chest LED/HTD
Vanguard's FSA full set Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's FSA right arm Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's FSA right leg Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's Heavy Leather right arm LED/HTD
Vanguard's Heavy Metal chest Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's Heavy Robot right arm LED/HTD
Vanguard's Marine right arm Strength/WWR
Vanguard's Marine right leg Strength/Sentinel
Vanguard's Sturdy Robot left arm AP/Sentinel
Vanguard's Sturdy Robot right leg LED/WWR
Vanguard's Trapper left arm LED/Cavalier
Vanguard's USA full set Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's USA chest Luck/Sentinel
Vanguard's USA left arm AP/FDC
Vanguard's USA left arm Intelligence/Sentinel
Vanguard's USA left arm LED/Sentinel
Vanguard's USA left arm Strength/FDC
Vanguard's USA left arm Strength/Sentinel
Vanguard's USA left leg Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's USA right arm AP/Cavalier
Vanguard's USA right leg Strength/Cavalier (3)
Vanguard's Wood chest Strength/Sentinel
Weightless Civil Engineer chest AP/Sentinel
Weightless Civil Engineer chest LED/Sentinel
Weightless Civil Engineer chest Strength/WWR
Weightless FSA left leg Strength/Sentinel
Weightless Marine right leg AP/Cavalier
Weightless Trapper chest AP/Cavalier
Weightless Trapper left arm AP/Sentinel
Weightless Trapper left leg AP/Sentinel
Weightless USA chest Strength/Sentinel
Weightless USA right leg AP/Cavalier
Weightless USA right leg LED/WWR
Zealot's Trapper left arm LED/Cavalier
Zealot's USA chest AP/Sentinel
Zealot's USA left arm AP/Cavalier
Zealot's USA left arm AP/Sentinel (2)
Zealot's USA right arm AP/WWR
Zealot's USA right leg AP/WWR
PLANS: Alien Blaster,,, Alien Disintegrator,,, Alien head lamp,,, Alien table,,, Alien target practice poster,,, Assault rifle wraith's wrath paint,,, Backpack armor plated mod,,, Backpack high capacity mod,,, Backpack insulated mod,,, Backpack lead lined mod,,, Backpack refrigerated mod,,, mod,,, Bloody curtain door,,, Bloody rug,,, Boxing glove lead lining,,, Camo Backpack,,, Cattle flour billboards,,, Chainsaw ghostly grinder paint,,, Chainsaw septikill paint,,, Cultist adept hood,,, Cultist adept robes,,, Cultist enlightened hood,,, Cultist enlightened robes,,, Cultist eventide hood,,, Cultist eventide robes,,, Cultist incarnate helmet,,, Cultist neophyte hood,,, Cultist neophyte robes,,, Dense marine armor torso,,, Dense trapper armor torso,,, Dr. Bones,,, Dried wildflower bouquet,,, Electro Enforcer,,, Enlightened lantern,,, Executioner mask,,, Flannel shirt & jeans,,, Fluttering moths,,, Fossilized megalonyx (left arm, left leg, right arm, right leg, skull, torso),,, Fuzzy enlightened plushie,,, Fuzzy mothman plushie,,, Giant red dinosaur,,, Glowing flatwoods monster lamp,,, Ground meat plushie,,, Hazmat suit teal,,, Honeycomb paper blue mothman,,, Honeycomb paper brown mothman,,, Honeycomb paper ghost lantern A&B,,, Honeycomb paper green mothman,,, Honeycomb paper holiday tree A&B,,, Honeycomb paper icy snowflake,,, Honeycomb paper jack o'lantern A&B,,, Honeycomb paper jolly target,,, Honeycomb paper mothman globe,,, Honeycomb paper red mothman,,, Honeycomb paper ribbon bell,,, Honeycomb paper snowman,,, Honeycomb paper spider lantern,,, Honeycomb paper standing santa,,, Junkyard fountain,,, Machete sacrificial blade,,, Megalonyx display rack,,, Mutant hound diagram,,, Nuka shank knife,,, Peppino pig plushie,,, Plastiform Candle,,, Plastiform gingerbread,,, Plastiform nutcracker,,, Plastiform santa,,, Plastiform santa sleigh,,, Princess backpack,,, Punty pig plushie,,, Rad skull rider helmet,,, Raw cement barricade,,, Rib plushie,,, Rotted ground meat plushie,,, Rotted rib plushie,,, Rotted steak plushie,,, Sacred mothman tome,,, Scorchbeast queen plushie,,, Scorched tube,,, Shielded lining casual underarmor,,, Snallygaster plushie,,, Star light,,, Steak plushie,,, Straw goat,,, Super mutant diagram,,, Swarm of flies,,, T-60 BOS knight paint,,, Taxidermy mutant hound,,, TV Aquarium,,, Ultracite emergency protocols,,, Undershirt & jeans,,, Vintage water cooler,,, Wasteland hunter backpack,,, Weenie wagon,,, Wilber McPigg plushie,,, WV state bird rug,,, Yao Guai tube,,, Zenith alien blaster paint,,, Fasnacht donut recipe,,, Fasnacht sausage recipe,,, Formula P recipe,,, Healing salve Ash Heap recipe,,, Healing salve Cranberry Bog recipe,,, Healing salve Mire recipe,,, Tato salad recipe (***I have a ton of plans that are not listed here, so just let me know what you're looking for***)
APPAREL: Asylum Uniform Blue,,, Asylum Uniform Forest,,, Asylum Uniform Pink,,, Fasnacht Brahmin mask,,, Fasnacht Buffoon mask,,, Fasnacht Crazy Guy mask,,, Fasnacht Deathclaw mask,,, Fasnacht Demon mask,,, Fasnacht Fiend mask,,, Fasnacht Hag mask,,, Fasnacht Loon mask,,, Fasnacht Raven mask,,, Fasnacht Winter Man mask,,, Emmett Mountain hazmat suit,,, Garrahan Foreman Outfit and Helmet
CHEMS: Addictol: 264,,, Berry Mentats: 3600,,, Buffout: 2074,,, Calmex: 860,,, Daddy-O: 1411,,, Day Tripper: 1153,,, Disease Cure: 541,,, Mentats: 1000,,, Overdrive: 248,,, Psycho: 3890,,, Psychobuff: 1916,,, Psychotats: 1898,,, X-cell: 663
FOOD: Canned meat stew: 75,,, Pepper: 1358,,, Salt: 2973,,, Spices: 1673,,, Sugar Bombs(w/rads): 1256
MODS: Enclave Aligned automatic barrel,,, Enclave Aligned short barrel,,, Enclave Aligned sniper barrel(3),,, Enclave Aligned splitter(3),,, Enclave Bruising grip,,, Enclave Calibrated capacitor,,, Enclave Comfort stock,,, Enclave Precise stock(2),,, Enclave Refined beta wave tuner(3),,, Enclave Severe beta wave tuner(2),,, Enclave Stabilized automatic barrel(3),,, Enclave Stabilized flamer barrel(2),,, Enclave Stabilized Sniper Barrel,,, Enclave True automatic barrel(2),,, Enclave True capacitor(5),,, Enclave True flamer barrel(2),,, Enclave True sniper barrel(3),,, Enclave True splitter(2),,, Enclave Vicious capacitor
submitted by KiraWinchester to Market76 [link] [comments]
Rare apparel
Bolstering Civil Engineer AP/WWR (left arm)
Overeater's Civil Engineer 1S/WWR (left arm, right arm, right leg)
Overeater's Excavator 1S/WWR (left arm, right leg)
Vanguard's Civil Engineer 1S/WWR (right arm)
Vanguard's Scout 1S/WWR (right arm, right leg)
Vanguard's Excavator 1S/WWR (chest, left arm, right leg)
Please no cap offers since I'm maxed out on all 5 characters!
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COMPLETE TRADE LIST: (Thank you for your time browsing this huge list!!!)
FIXERS: AA/25/15r,,, AA/25/15v,,, AA/50c/15v,,, AA/50vhc/25,,, AA/50L/25,,, AA/AP/25,,, AA/E/Dur,,, Ari/25/15r,,, Ari/E/15r,,, Ari/E/25,,, As/E/25,,, B/25/15v,,, B/50L/25,,, B/E/Dur,,, BeAP/25,,, Exe/AP/25,,, Exe/E/25,,, GouE/25,,, GS/E/25,,, H/50c/25,,, Jug/50c/25,,, Jug/AP/25,,, Junk/25/15r,,, Junk/50c/15v,,, Junk/50L/25,,, Junk/AP/25,,, Junk/E/15v,,, Med/25/25,,, Med/50c/25,,, Med/AP/25,,, Mut/AP/25,,, MS/50c/25,,, MS/AP/25,,, N/AP/25,,, N/E/25,,, Q/25/15r,,, Q/25/15v,,, Q/AP/25,,, Q/E/15r,,, St/50c/25,,, St/AP/25,,, St/E/25,,, Sup/50c/25,,, Sup/AP/25,,, Sup/E/25,,, T/50c/25,,, T/AP/25,,, TS/25/15r,,, TS/25/15v,,, TS/50vhc/25,,, TS/AP/25,,, V/AP/25,,, Z/25/25,,, Z/50c/25,,, Z/E/25
HANDMADES: AA/E/15v,,, I/E/25,,, Junk/25/15r,,, Junk/50c/25,,, MS/E/25,,, Mut/50c/25,,, Mut/E/25,,, Q/50c/25,,, Q/E/15r,,, Q/E/50
HEAVY WEAPONS: AA/25/15r AGL,,, AA/25/90 AGL,,, AA/25/15r Cryolator,,, AA/E/25 Gatling Gun,,, AA/25/90 Harpoon Gun,,, As/25A/90 Fatman,,, As/25/15r Gatling Laser,,, As/25/90 Gatling Plasma,,, B/25/15r 50cal,,, B/E/Gho 50cal,,, B/50L/90 AGL,,, B/25A/90 Cryolator,,, B/50L/90 Cryolator,,, B/25A/90 Missile Launcher,,, B/50vhc/90 Missile Launcher,,, B/25/90 Ultracite Gatling Laser,,, B/25/Dur Ultracite Gatling Laser,,, BeE/90 Gatling Gun,,, Exe/50c/15r Flamer,,, Exe/25A/90 Gatling Plasma,,, Exe/E/25 LMG,,, F/50c/25 Cryolator,,, Jug/25/15r Cryolator,,, N/25/15r 50cal,,, Q/50L/90 Minigun,,, Q/E/Gho Minigun,,, Q/50L/15r Pepper Shaker,,, T/25/15r Cryolator,,, TS/25A/90 Broadsider,,, TS/25/15r Gatling Gun,,, TS/E/90 LMG,,, TS/E/25 Minigun,,, TS/25A/15r Missile Launcher,,, V/25/15r 50cal,,, V/25/25 Broadsider,,, V/25A/90 Cryolator,,, V/AP/15r Flamer,,, V/25/25 Gatling Gun,,, V/50L/90 Harpoon Gun,,, Z/E/90 LMG
LEGACIES: Stalker's SS/1S melee: Bowie Knife,,, Chinese Officer Sword,,, Cultist Dagger,,, Guitar Sword,,, Revolutionary Sword,,, Walking Cane
MELEE: AA/SS/1S Cultist Blade,,, AA/SS/1S Death Tambo,,, AA/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, AA/40P/1S Gulper Smacker,,, AA/SS/1S Meat Hook,,, AA/SS/1S Pole Hook,,, AA/50c/15v Power Fist,,, AA/SS/1S Revolutionary Sword,,, AA/50L/1S Ripper,,, AA/SS/1S Spear,,, AA/SS/1S Super Sledge,,, Ari/40P/1S Drill,,, Ari/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, Ari/SS/1S War Drum,,, As/40P/1S Chainsaw,,, As/40P/1S Drill,,, As/SS/1S Sheepsquatch Staff,,, B/50L/1S Chainsaw,,, B/AP/1S Chainsaw,,, B/SS/1S Chinese Officer Sword,,, B/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, B/50c/1S Drill,,, B/SS/25 Gulper Smacker,,, B/SS/25 Meat Hook,,, B/SS/90 Power Fist,,, B/SS/1S Power Fist,,, B/50c/25 Spear,,, BeSS/1S Combat Knife,,, Exe/40P/25 Drill,,, Exe/SS/1S Fire Axe,,, Exe/SS/1S Pitchfork,,, Exe/50c/1S Power Fist,,, GouSS/1S Hatchet,,, GouSS/1S Super Sledge,,, GS/SS/1S Chainsaw,,, I/SS/1S Death Tambo,,, I/40P/40 Drill,,, I/SS/1S Golf Club,,, I/SS/1S Pitchfork,,, I/SS/1S Shepherd's Crook,,, I/SS/1S Super Sledge,,, Junk/SS/1S Assaultron Blade,,, Junk/SS/1S Rolling Pin,,, Junk/SS/1S Security Baton,,, Mut/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, Mut/SS/1S Gulper Smacker,,, Mut/SS/1S Switchblade,,, MS/SS/1S Baseball Bat,,, MS/SS/1S Shishkebab,,, MS/SS/1S Shovel,,, MS/SS/1S Switchblade,,, Sup/SS/1S Assaultron Blade,,, Sup/SS/1S Cultist Blade,,, Sup/SS/1S Revolutionary Sword,,, Sup/SS/1S Spear,,, Sup/SS/1S Tire Iron,,, T/SS/1S Baseball Bat,,, T/SS/1S Bowie Knife,,, T/SS/1S Golf Club,,, T/SS/1S Machete,,, T/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, V/SS/1S Combat Knife,,, V/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, V/SS/1S Pole Hook,,, V/SS/1S Shishkebab,,, V/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, Z/SS/1S Buzz Blade,,, Z/40P/1S Chainsaw,,, Z/SS/1S Fire Axe,,, Z/SS/1S Knuckles,,, Z/SS/1S Pipe Wrench
RAILWAYS: AA/50c/25,,, AA/50vhc/25,,, AA/E/15v,,, AA/E/25,,, Ari/25/15r,,, B/50vhc/25,,, B/E/15r,,, B/E/90,,, F/50c/25,,, F/E/25,,, GS/50c/25,,, H/50c/25,,, I/25/25,,, I/50c/25,,, Junk/E/25,,, Q/25/15v,,, Q/50L/90,,, Q/E/1P,,, St/50c/25,,, Sup/E/25,,, TS/50L/25,,, TS/50vhc/25,,, TS/50c/15r,,, TS/AP/25,,, TS/E/Dur,,, V/25/25,,, V/50c/25,,, Z/E/90
TESLAS: AA/25/15r,,, AA/AP/25,,, AA/25/25,,, As/25/25,,, B/25/25,,, B/25/90,,, B/25/Dur,,, B/25/Gho,,, Be25/15r,,, Be25/25,,, Exe/25/15r,,, Exe/25/25,,, Exe/25/90,,, Exe/50L/15r,,, Ext/25/15r,,, F/25/15r,,, GS/25/25,,, GS/25/90,,, GS/50c/25,,, H/25/15r,,, I/25/15r,,, Junk/25/15r,,, Junk/50L/15r,,, Med/25/25,,, MS/50c/25,,, Mut/25/15r,,, Mut/25/25,,, N/25/25,,, Q/25**,,, Q/AP/25,,, St/25/25,,, St/25/90,,, Sup/25/90,,, Sup/50c/25,,, T/25/15r,,, TS/25/15r,,, TS/25/25,,, TS/50L/15r,,, V/25/15r,,, V/25/15v,,, V/25/90,,, V/25/250,,, V/25/Dur,,, V/50c/15r,,, V/50L/15r,,, Z/25/15r,,, Z/25/90
AA/25/25 Assaultron Head,,, AA/50c/15v Crossbow,,, AA/50c/25 Crossbow,,, AA/50L/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, AA/25/25 Gamma Gun,,, AA/50c/25 Pipe Bolt Action Pistol/Rifle,,, AA/25/15r Plasma Pistol/Rifle,,, As/50c/25 Crossbow,,, As/25/25 Gauss Rifle,,, As/50c/25 Laser Pistol/Rifle,,, B/AP/25 Compound Bow,,, B/25/25 Gauss Rifle,,, Be50c/25 Bow,,, Be50c/25 Crossbow,,, Be50c/25 SMG,,, Exe/50L/25 Alien Blaster,,, Exe/50c/25 Blunderbuss,,, Exe/50c/25 Combat Rifle,,, Exe/50c/15v Compound Bow,,, Exe/50c/25 Double Barrel,,, Exe/25/25 Gamma Gun,,, Exe/E/25 Hunting Rifle,,, Exe/E/25 Lever Action,,, Exe/50L/25 Plasma Pistol/Rifle,,, F/50c/15v Compound Bow,,, F/E/25 Double Barrel,,, F/50c/15v Thirst Zapper,,, GouE/25 Assault Rifle,,, GouE/25 Double Barrel,,, Gou25/25 Lever Action,,, GS/50c/25 Gamma Gun,,, I/50c/25 Combat Shotgun,,, I/50c/15v Compound Bow,,, I/50c/25 The Dragon,,, Jug/E/25 Combat Rifle,,, Jug/50c/25 Laser Pistol/Rifle,,, Junk/50c/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Junk/25/25 Radium Rifle,,, Mut/E/25 10mm Pistol,,, Mut/50c/25 Crossbow,,, N/25/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, N/50c/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Q/50c/25 Assaultron Head,,, Q/25/15r Combat Shotgun,,, Q/25/1P Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Q/AP/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Q/25/15r Plasma Pistol/Rifle,,, St/50c/25 Crossbow,,, St/E/25 Single Action Revolver,,, Sup/25/25 Radium Rifle,,, TS/25/15r Combat Rifle,,, TS/50c/25 Combat Rifle,,, TS/E/15r Pipe Revolver,,, V/50c/25 Bow,,, V/50L/25 Compound Bow,,, V/AP/25 Crossbow,,, V/50c/25 Gauss Rifle,,, V/25/25 Pipe Pistol/Rifle,,, V/50c/25 Pipe Pistol/Rifle,,, Z/25/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle
ARMOR: Aristocrat's Civil Engineer chest AP/Cavalier
Aristocrat's Civil Engineer chest LED/Cavalier
Aristocrat's Civil Engineer chest LED/HTD
Aristocrat's Heavy Robot left leg LED/Sentinel
Aristocrat's Heavy Robot left leg LED/WWR
Aristocrat's Marine right leg AP/Cavalier
Aristocrat's Marine right arm LED/WWR
Aristocrat's USA left leg LED/WWR
Assassin's Civil Engineer chest Strength/JWR
Assassin's FSA chest LED/FDC
Assassin's FSA left arm AP/FDC (2)
Assassin's FSA left arm AP/Sentinel
Assassin's FSA left arm LED/HTD
Assassin's FSA left leg AP/FDC
Assassin's FSA left leg Strength/HTD
Assassin's Heavy Leather left arm AP/WWR
Assassin's Heavy Robot chest Strength/WWR
Assassin's Marine left arm AP/Cavalier
Assassin's Sturdy Combat chest AP/Sentinel
Assassin's Trapper right arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Assassin's Trapper right leg Strength/Sentinel
Assassin's USA left arm LED/WWR
Assassin's USA left arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Assassin's USA left leg LED/HTD
Assassin's USA left leg Strength/WWR
Auto Stim Civil Engineer chest LED/FDC
Auto Stim FSA right leg LED/WWR
Auto Stim Heavy Metal chest LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim Heavy Raider right leg LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim Heavy Robot chest LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim Heavy Robot right leg Cryo resist/Sentinel
Auto Stim Marine left leg LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim Ultracite left arm LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim USA left arm AP/Cavalier
Auto Stim USA left arm AP/WWR
Auto Stim USA left arm LED/FDC
Auto Stim USA right arm LED/Sentinel
Auto Stim USA right leg LED/WWR
Auto Stim USA right leg Strength/Cavalier
Auto Stim USA right leg Strength/Sentinel
Auto Stim USA right leg Strength/WWR
Bolstering Civil Engineer right arm AP/WWR
Bolstering FSA left arm AP/Sentinel
Bolstering FSA left arm Luck/WWR
Bolstering FSA left arm Strength/WWR
Bolstering FSA left leg AP/Sentinel
Bolstering FSA left leg LED/Cavalier
Bolstering FSA right leg Strength/HTD
Bolstering Heavy Metal left leg AP/Cavalier
Bolstering Heavy Metal right arm AP/Sentinel
Bolstering Heavy Metal right leg LED/HTD
Bolstering Heavy Robot left arm Strength/Cavalier
Bolstering Marine right arm Cryo resist/Sentinel
Bolstering Marine right arm Strength/FDC
Bolstering Raider right arm AP/Sentinel
Bolstering Sturdy Combat left leg LED/Sentinel
Bolstering Sturdy Leather right leg AP/Sentinel
Bolstering Trapper chest AP/Cavalier (2)
Bolstering Trapper right arm LED/Sentinel
Bolstering USA left arm LED/FDC
Bolstering USA left arm LED/Sentinel
Bolstering USA right arm AP/FDC
Bolstering USA right arm Intelligence/Sentinel
Bolstering Wood left leg LED/WWR
Chameleon FSA chest LED/Cavalier
Chameleon FSA left arm Strength/Sentinel
Chameleon FSA left leg AP/Cavalier
Chameleon FSA left leg LED/Sentinel
Chameleon Heavy Combat right arm LED/Cavalier
Chameleon Heavy Raider right leg AP/Sentinel
Chameleon Marine left arm AP/Cavalier
Chameleon Marine right arm AP/Sentinel
Chameleon Marine left leg AP/WWR
Chameleon Robot chest LED/WWR
Chameleon USA chest AP/WWR
Chameleon USA chest LED/Cavalier
Chameleon USA left arm AP/JWR
Chameleon USA left arm LED/Sentinel
Chameleon USA left leg Cryo resist/Sentinel
Chameleon USA right arm LED/WWR
Chameleon USA right leg AP/FDC
Cloaking FSA chest AP/Cavalier
Cloaking FSA right arm AP/WWR
Cloaking USA chest AP/Sentinel
Cloaking USA right leg AP/WWR
Exterminator's Civil Engineer chest AP/Sentinel
Exterminator's FSA right arm AP/Sentinel
Exterminator's FSA right arm LED/Cavalier
Exterminator's FSA right leg LED/Cavalier
Exterminator's USA chest AP/Sentinel
Exterminator's USA chest LED/WWR
Ghoul Slayer's FSA right arm AP/WWR
Ghoul Slayer's FSA right leg AP/Cavalier
Ghoul Slayer's Heavy Metal left arm AP/Sentinel
Ghoul Slayer's USA left arm AP/WWR
Ghoul Slayer's USA left leg AP/WWR
Hunter's Civil Engineer chest AP/Sentinel
Hunter's Heavy Metal right leg AP/Sentinel
Life Saving Civil Engineer chest LED/HTD
Life Saving Combat left leg AP/WWR
Life Saving FSA chest AP/Sentinel
Life Saving FSA left arm LED/WWR
Life Saving FSA left leg LED/Sentinel
Life Saving FSA right leg Strength/Cavalier
Life Saving Heavy Combat AP/HTD
Life Saving Heavy Raider chest LED/WWR
Life Saving Heavy Robot chest AP/WWR
Life Saving Heavy Robot left arm AP/WWR
Life Saving Marine chest LED/Cavalier
Life Saving Marine left leg AP/WWR
Life Saving Trapper left leg AP/Sentinel
Life Saving Trapper right leg LED/Cavalier
Life Saving USA left arm LED/WWR
Life Saving USA left arm AP/Cavalier
Life Saving USA left leg Strength/Cavalier
Life Saving USA right arm AP/Sentinel
Life Saving USA right arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Mutant's Civil Engineer chest AP/WWR
Mutant's FSA left leg LED/WWR
Mutant's Heavy Combat right leg AP/FDC
Mutant Slayer's FSA left arm AP/Cavalier
Mutant Slayer's FSA right leg AP/Sentinel
Mutant Slayer's Heavy Raider right leg AP/Sentinel
Mutant Slayer's Trapper chest AP/Sentinel (2)
Mutant Slayer's USA chest AP/Sentinel
Mutant Slayer's USA left arm AP/Sentinel
Mutant Slayer's USA left leg AP/Cavalier
Nocturnal Heavy Combat right leg Strength/Sentinel
Nocturnal Heavy Robot left leg LED/WWR
Nocturnal Heavy Robot right leg AP/Cavalier
Nocturnal Robot left arm AP/Sentinel
Nocturnal Trapper chest AP/Sentinel
Nocturnal USA left leg LED/WWR
Nocturnal USA right leg AP/HTD
Nocturnal USA right leg LED/Cavalier
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Agility/WWR
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Antiseptic/WWR
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest AP/Toxic
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Charisma/WWR
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Fire resist/Cavalier
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Fire resist/FDC
Overeater's Civil Engineer chest Intelligence/Sentinel
Overeater's Civil Engineer left leg AP/AWR
Overeater's Civil Engineer right arm Glutton/Cavalier
Overeater's Combat chest AP/FDC
Overeater's FSA chest Endurance/Sentinel
Overeater's FSA chest Poison resist/Cavalier
Overeater's FSA left arm Charisma/FDC
Overeater's FSA left arm Intelligence/Sentinel
Overeater's FSA left arm Perception/Sentinel
Overeater's FSA left leg AP/HTD
Overeater's FSA right arm AP/JWR
Overeater's FSA right arm Strength/FDC
Overeater's FSA right arm Strength/WWR
Overeater's FSA right leg LED/AWR
Overeater's Heavy Combat chest LED/HTD
Overeater's Heavy Combat left arm LED/JWR
Overeater's Heavy Combat right leg Perception/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Leather right arm Glutton/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Metal left leg Strength/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Metal right leg AP/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Raider left arm LED/Cavalier
Overeater's Heavy Raider left leg Charisma/WWR
Overeater's Heavy Raider right arm Fire resist/FDC
Overeater's Heavy Robot chest Endurance/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Robot chest Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Heavy Robot left leg Agility/WWR
Overeater's Marine chest Rad resist/FDC
Overeater's Marine chest Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Marine left arm Strength/FDC
Overeater's Marine right arm Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Marine right leg Fire resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Marine right leg Luck/FDC
Overeater's Marine right leg Perception/WWR
Overeater's Metal left arm AP/FDC
Overeater's Metal left leg Agility/Sentinel
Overeater's Metal left leg Cryo resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Metal right arm AP/Sentinel
Overeater's Metal right leg Poison resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Raider right arm Cryo resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Raider right leg LED/WWR
Overeater's Sturdy Metal chest Strength/FDC
Overeater's Trapper chest Rad resist/FDC
Overeater's Trapper left arm AP/HTD
Overeater's Trapper left arm Cryo resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Trapper left arm Perception/Sentinel
Overeater's Trapper left leg Perception/WWR
Overeater's Trapper right arm Luck/WWR
Overeater's Trapper right arm Rad resist/WWR
Overeater's USA chest Cryo resist/HTD
Overeater's USA chest LED/WWR
Overeater's USA chest Poison resist/FDC
Overeater's USA left arm Antiseptic/Sentinel
Overeater's USA left arm AP/HTD
Overeater's USA left arm Endurance/FDC
Overeater's USA left arm Endurance/WWR
Overeater's USA left arm Fire resist/FDC (2)
Overeater's USA left arm LED/AWR
Overeater's USA left arm LED/FDC
Overeater's USA left arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Overeater's USA left arm Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's USA left leg Fire resist/WWR
Overeater's USA left leg Intelligence/FDC
Overeater's USA left leg Strength/FDC
Overeater's USA right arm Luck/Sentinel
Overeater's USA right leg AP/FDC
Overeater's USA right leg Intelligence/HTD
Overeater's USA right leg Poison resist/Sentinel
Overeater's USA right leg Rad resist/Sentinel
Overeater's Wood left arm LED/Cavalier
Regenerating Civil Engineer chest AP/Sentinel
Troubleshooter's Excavator right arm LED/Cavalier
Troubleshooter's FSA chest AP/WWR
Troubleshooter's Heavy Combat left arm AP/Cavalier
Troubleshooter's Heavy Robot left arm AP/Cavalier
Troubleshooter's T-60 left arm LED/Sentinel
Troubleshooter's T-60 right arm AP/WWR
Troubleshooter's Trapper right leg AP/WWR
Troubleshooter's USA left arm AP/FDC
Troubleshooter's USA left arm Strength/Sentinel
Troubleshooter's USA left leg AP/WWR
Unyielding Civil Engineer left arm Antiseptic/FDC
Unyielding Civil Engineer left leg AP/Electrified
Unyielding Civil Engineer right leg Intelligence/Burning
Unyielding FSA full set AP/Cavalier
Unyielding FSA chest Cryo resist/FDC
Unyielding FSA chest Intelligence/Acrobat
Unyielding FSA chest Intelligence/Dur
Unyielding FSA chest LED/JWR
Unyielding FSA left arm Cryo resist/AWR
Unyielding FSA left arm LED/Sentinel
Unyielding FSA left arm Poison resist/AWR
Unyielding FSA left leg AP/Acrobat
Unyielding FSA left leg Endurance/Sentinel
Unyielding FSA left leg Fire resist/AWR
Unyielding FSA left leg Fire resist/FDC
Unyielding FSA left leg Luck/AWR
Unyielding FSA right arm Cryo resist/Cavalier
Unyielding FSA right arm Poison resist/WWR
Unyielding FSA right leg AP/JWR
Unyielding FSA right leg Intelligence/JWR
Unyielding FSA right leg LED/HTD
Unyielding FSA right leg Luck/JWR
Unyielding FSA right leg Rad resist/AWR (2)
Unyielding Heavy Combat chest Strength/HTD
Unyielding Heavy Combat left leg Cryo resist/Cavalier
Unyielding Heavy Combat right arm Poison resist/JWR
Unyielding Heavy Combat right arm Poison resist/Sentinel
Unyielding Heavy Leather chest Cryo resist/HTD
Unyielding Heavy Leather left arm Rad resist/HTD
Unyielding Heavy Leather left leg Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding Heavy Metal right arm LED/Cavalier
Unyielding Heavy Metal right leg Endurance/Sentinel
Unyielding Heavy Raider chest Agility/Sentinel
Unyielding Heavy Raider left arm Poison resist/FDC
Unyielding Heavy Raider right arm AP/HTD
Unyielding Heavy Raider right arm Charisma/FDC
Unyielding Heavy Robot chest Cryo resist/Cavalier
Unyielding Heavy Robot right arm Endurance/Sentinel
Unyielding Leather left leg LED/WWR
Unyielding Marine chest Perception/Sentinel
Unyielding Marine chest Luck/WWR
Unyielding Marine chest Strength/HTD
Unyielding Marine left arm Cryo resist/HTD
Unyielding Marine left arm Strength/Cavalier (2)
Unyielding Marine left leg AP/FDC
Unyielding Marine right arm AP/Acrobat
Unyielding Marine right arm Rad resist/Cavalier
Unyielding Marine right leg Fire resist/WWR
Unyielding Marine right leg LED/AWR
Unyielding Marine right leg Luck/FDC
Unyielding Marine right leg Rad resist/AWR
Unyielding Metal chest AP/HTD
Unyielding Metal left arm LED/Sentinel
Unyielding Metal right leg AP/Cavalier
Unyielding Raider chest Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding Robot left leg Poison resist/Sentinel
Unyielding Sturdy Combat chest Strength/Sentinel
Unyielding Sturdy Combat right arm AP/AWR
Unyielding Sturdy Leather left leg LED/Sentinel
Unyielding Sturdy Metal chest AP/WWR
Unyielding Sturdy Metal left arm Rad resist/Sentinel
Unyielding Sturdy Raider chest Intelligence/FDC
Unyielding Sturdy Raider right leg Intelligence/FDC
Unyielding Sturdy Robot right arm LED/Sentinel
Unyielding Trapper chest Luck/FDC
Unyielding Trapper left leg Cryo resist/WWR
Unyielding Trapper right arm Cryo resist/Cavalier
Unyielding Trapper right arm LED/HTD
Unyielding Trapper right arm Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding USA chest AP/JWR
Unyielding USA chest Fire resist/AWR
Unyielding USA chest Luck/HTD
Unyielding USA chest Intelligence/Cavalier
Unyielding USA chest Poison resist/Cavalier
Unyielding USA chest Rad resist/JWR
Unyielding USA left arm AP/Sentinel
Unyielding USA left arm Cryo resist/WWR
Unyielding USA left arm LED/Acrobat (2)
Unyielding USA left arm Perception/FDC
Unyielding USA left arm Poison resist/AWR
Unyielding USA left arm Poison resist/HTD
Unyielding USA left arm Rad resist/Cavalier
Unyielding USA left leg Luck/AWR
Unyielding USA right arm Cryo resist/WWR
Unyielding USA right arm Intelligence/JWR
Unyielding USA right arm Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding USA right arm Poison resist/HTD
Unyielding USA right leg AP/Cavalier
Unyielding USA right leg Charisma/WWR
Unyielding USA right leg Fire resist/AWR
Unyielding USA right leg Perception/FDC
Unyielding Wood chest AP/FDC
Unyielding Wood chest Luck/Cavalier
Unyielding Wood chest Luck/Sentinel
Unyielding Wood right arm AP/Sentinel
Unyielding Wood right arm LED/WWR
Unyielding Wood right leg Strength/WWR
Vanguard's Civil Engineer chest LED/Cavalier
Vanguard's Civil Engineer chest LED/HTD
Vanguard's FSA full set Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's FSA right arm Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's FSA right leg Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's Heavy Leather right arm LED/HTD
Vanguard's Heavy Metal chest Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's Heavy Robot right arm LED/HTD
Vanguard's Marine right arm Strength/WWR
Vanguard's Marine right leg Strength/Sentinel
Vanguard's Sturdy Robot left arm AP/Sentinel
Vanguard's Sturdy Robot right leg LED/WWR
Vanguard's Trapper left arm LED/Cavalier
Vanguard's USA full set Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's USA chest Luck/Sentinel
Vanguard's USA left arm AP/FDC
Vanguard's USA left arm Intelligence/Sentinel
Vanguard's USA left arm LED/Sentinel
Vanguard's USA left arm Strength/FDC
Vanguard's USA left arm Strength/Sentinel
Vanguard's USA left leg Strength/Cavalier
Vanguard's USA right arm AP/Cavalier
Vanguard's USA right leg Strength/Cavalier (3)
Vanguard's Wood chest Strength/Sentinel
Weightless Civil Engineer chest AP/Sentinel
Weightless Civil Engineer chest LED/Sentinel
Weightless Civil Engineer chest Strength/WWR
Weightless FSA left leg Strength/Sentinel
Weightless Marine right leg AP/Cavalier
Weightless Trapper chest AP/Cavalier
Weightless Trapper left arm AP/Sentinel
Weightless Trapper left leg AP/Sentinel
Weightless USA chest Strength/Sentinel
Weightless USA right leg AP/Cavalier
Weightless USA right leg LED/WWR
Zealot's Trapper left arm LED/Cavalier
Zealot's USA chest AP/Sentinel
Zealot's USA left arm AP/Cavalier
Zealot's USA left arm AP/Sentinel (2)
Zealot's USA right arm AP/WWR
Zealot's USA right leg AP/WWR
PLANS: Alien Blaster,,, Alien Disintegrator,,, Alien head lamp,,, Alien table,,, Alien target practice poster,,, Assault rifle wraith's wrath paint,,, Backpack armor plated mod,,, Backpack high capacity mod,,, Backpack insulated mod,,, Backpack lead lined mod,,, Backpack refrigerated mod,,, mod,,, Bloody curtain door,,, Bloody rug,,, Boxing glove lead lining,,, Camo Backpack,,, Cattle flour billboards,,, Chainsaw ghostly grinder paint,,, Chainsaw septikill paint,,, Cultist adept hood,,, Cultist adept robes,,, Cultist enlightened hood,,, Cultist enlightened robes,,, Cultist eventide hood,,, Cultist eventide robes,,, Cultist incarnate helmet,,, Cultist neophyte hood,,, Cultist neophyte robes,,, Dense marine armor torso,,, Dense trapper armor torso,,, Dr. Bones,,, Dried wildflower bouquet,,, Electro Enforcer,,, Enlightened lantern,,, Executioner mask,,, Flannel shirt & jeans,,, Fluttering moths,,, Fossilized megalonyx (left arm, left leg, right arm, right leg, skull, torso),,, Fuzzy enlightened plushie,,, Fuzzy mothman plushie,,, Giant red dinosaur,,, Glowing flatwoods monster lamp,,, Ground meat plushie,,, Hazmat suit teal,,, Honeycomb paper blue mothman,,, Honeycomb paper brown mothman,,, Honeycomb paper ghost lantern A&B,,, Honeycomb paper green mothman,,, Honeycomb paper holiday tree A&B,,, Honeycomb paper icy snowflake,,, Honeycomb paper jack o'lantern A&B,,, Honeycomb paper jolly target,,, Honeycomb paper mothman globe,,, Honeycomb paper red mothman,,, Honeycomb paper ribbon bell,,, Honeycomb paper snowman,,, Honeycomb paper spider lantern,,, Honeycomb paper standing santa,,, Junkyard fountain,,, Machete sacrificial blade,,, Megalonyx display rack,,, Mutant hound diagram,,, Nuka shank knife,,, Peppino pig plushie,,, Plastiform Candle,,, Plastiform gingerbread,,, Plastiform nutcracker,,, Plastiform santa,,, Plastiform santa sleigh,,, Princess backpack,,, Punty pig plushie,,, Rad skull rider helmet,,, Raw cement barricade,,, Rib plushie,,, Rotted ground meat plushie,,, Rotted rib plushie,,, Rotted steak plushie,,, Sacred mothman tome,,, Scorchbeast queen plushie,,, Scorched tube,,, Shielded lining casual underarmor,,, Snallygaster plushie,,, Star light,,, Steak plushie,,, Straw goat,,, Super mutant diagram,,, Swarm of flies,,, T-60 BOS knight paint,,, Taxidermy mutant hound,,, TV Aquarium,,, Ultracite emergency protocols,,, Undershirt & jeans,,, Vintage water cooler,,, Wasteland hunter backpack,,, Weenie wagon,,, Wilber McPigg plushie,,, WV state bird rug,,, Yao Guai tube,,, Zenith alien blaster paint,,, Fasnacht donut recipe,,, Fasnacht sausage recipe,,, Formula P recipe,,, Healing salve Ash Heap recipe,,, Healing salve Cranberry Bog recipe,,, Healing salve Mire recipe,,, Tato salad recipe (***I have a ton of plans that are not listed here, so just let me know what you're looking for***)
APPAREL: Asylum Uniform Blue,,, Asylum Uniform Forest,,, Asylum Uniform Pink,,, Fasnacht Brahmin mask,,, Fasnacht Buffoon mask,,, Fasnacht Crazy Guy mask,,, Fasnacht Deathclaw mask,,, Fasnacht Demon mask,,, Fasnacht Fiend mask,,, Fasnacht Hag mask,,, Fasnacht Loon mask,,, Fasnacht Raven mask,,, Fasnacht Winter Man mask,,, Emmett Mountain hazmat suit,,, Garrahan Foreman Outfit and Helmet
CHEMS: Addictol: 264,,, Berry Mentats: 3600,,, Buffout: 2074,,, Calmex: 860,,, Daddy-O: 1411,,, Day Tripper: 1153,,, Disease Cure: 541,,, Mentats: 1000,,, Overdrive: 248,,, Psycho: 3890,,, Psychobuff: 1916,,, Psychotats: 1898,,, X-cell: 663
FOOD: Canned meat stew: 75,,, Pepper: 1358,,, Salt: 2973,,, Spices: 1673,,, Sugar Bombs(w/rads): 1256
MODS: Enclave Aligned automatic barrel,,, Enclave Aligned short barrel,,, Enclave Aligned sniper barrel(3),,, Enclave Aligned splitter(3),,, Enclave Bruising grip,,, Enclave Calibrated capacitor,,, Enclave Comfort stock,,, Enclave Precise stock(2),,, Enclave Refined beta wave tuner(3),,, Enclave Severe beta wave tuner(2),,, Enclave Stabilized automatic barrel(3),,, Enclave Stabilized flamer barrel(2),,, Enclave Stabilized Sniper Barrel,,, Enclave True automatic barrel(2),,, Enclave True capacitor(5),,, Enclave True flamer barrel(2),,, Enclave True sniper barrel(3),,, Enclave True splitter(2),,, Enclave Vicious capacitor
2024.06.07 01:11 cgstories Yellow Nightmare
At one point in my life, I nearly lost my sanity. The madness started off as a nightmare, then it leaked into my days.
At first, it was quiet and slow, like the daddy long-leg spider spinning its web in the corner of the ceiling. Then, with a few seconds between each one, water droplets dripped from the faucet into the sink. Each drop rang the same flat, dead note, echoing throughout the apartment. The wallpaper had turned increasingly yellow with every drop, but not a vibrant yellow. Rather, it was sickly and jaundiced, like a dying canary with its feathers falling off.
There was a tear as well. A loose sliver of wallpaper flapped back and forth as the wind blew in through an opened window. It reminded me of the way fatty, loose, and wrinkled skin jiggles within an old woman's armpit. The flap of wallpaper hid something, resembling a head. It lacked eyes, mouth, or nose—just the veiled impression of a head. But before I could get a good look, I was torn from the mystery by the screech of my alarm clock.
I went into the kitchen to find that yesterday’s delivery of bread had gone bad. The nightmare had eaten it from the inside out, leaving nothing but black crumbs for me to scrounge from the floor. When I opened the fridge door, an odor assaulted my nostrils. All the beverages had gone sour, the eggs were cracked, and the greens had browned and withered. With a sigh of defeat, I closed the fridge door. I would have to buy new groceries. But that would mean leaving this apartment, going outside.
Outside.
Out into the world, with all its chaos.
That was where the nightmare wanted me to go. But I wasn't ready, not yet. I couldn't just walk out my front door. It wasn't that easy. Going outside required preparation, and even thinking about the process of getting ready made my head throb. My chest started to ache, as if all the air had been squeezed out of my lungs. I sat in the kitchen, motionless, only listening to the noise of eight spindly legs as they incessantly worked toward some unknown goal.
The spider had spun its web across the ceiling, and the light danced upon it, its long, pale fingers plucking the strings. In an odd way, I couldn't help but marvel at its beauty as it shimmered. It resonated with the muted buzz of trapped insects, mummified victims awaiting their demise in Saran wrap. I could feel their suffocation as the air was squeezed from their lungs. Their frantic movements came to an abrupt halt as the spider reeled them closer.
A silent panic enveloped the walls, and its deathly yellow tinge cast a darker hue than congealed mustard over everything around it.
Like the fading bathroom light, which glowed in a murky gold that shimmered weakly now and then, my reflection in the mirror appeared as a featureless black shape. Cold drops traced over my closed eyelids, the bridge of my nose, my lips, my chin, and cheeks. One of my molars was loose in my mouth, and I lazily flicked it with the tip of my tongue while the rest remained firm and pearly white. There was no pain, only the dread of unlocking the front door, weighing heavily on my stomach.
How did it all start? How did it come to this? There was a time in my life when I didn't feel this unending sickness, this terrible sense of foreboding. There was a time when nightmares confined themselves to my sleep, and sometimes I didn't dream at all. In those innocent days, I had a job, a dull, dead-end office job with my own cubicle. It was a white, square space, and I was just one of a hundred dull, white-collared office drones in identical cubicles. Faceless, uniformed, synchronized. That's what I remembered from the old days.
I sat there, looking at papers stacked in rows that reached such towering heights they seemed to stretch into infinity. Just gazing up at them would strain my neck, their sheer magnitude bearing an intimidating resemblance to the frieze of Roman columns. It brought to mind arched ceilings adorned with intricately carved animal faces and mythical gods entwined in vines. It served as a reminder of just how small and insignificant one could feel, like an ant that could easily be squished beneath the toe of one of those carved deities.
Yet, in my cubicle, there was no beautiful artwork to behold. Instead, my gaze was met with an endless, nauseating expanse of blinding, bright whiteness. The fluorescent lights overhead forced my irises to shrink to the size of a grain. The towering stack of paperwork loomed over me, trembling with every touch, as if threatening to crumble into a million pieces. As the electric fan above blew in my direction, one lone piece of paper teetered on the edge, inching its way over and descending like a delicate feather, finally landing right in front of me.
The page before me remained blank, serving as a mere surface for my coffee mug. Suddenly, I found myself unable to lift the pen, unable to write. All I could manage was to shift uncomfortably in my chair as my left leg trembled uncontrollably. The fluorescent lights above grew increasingly brighter, their heat intensifying as if licking at the back of my neck.
I felt overwhelmed in the vast expanse of cubicles, lost amidst the faceless crowd where everyone consumed the same sandwich and salad, where our dreams blended together into a monotonous haze. In this world, each one of us bore monosyllabic names and identical haircuts.
In an abrupt act, I dropped the pen and abandoned my desk. In the blink of an eye, I found myself outside, perched on the ledge of the 49th floor of the building. The wind jeered at me with a malicious force, while the city and its inhabitants below appeared smaller than ants. Leaning against the building, most people would tremble at such dizzying heights. However, I calmly observed the birds soaring by, vanishing into the clouds as they drifted across the vast expanse of the blue sky, akin to white caps crashing against rugged rocks on a distant shore. I stood at the precipice, poised to leap into the vast unknown, longing to finally awaken from this torment.
Yet, I did not.
Instead, I found myself returning to my desk once more. My coffee mug, bearing a small crack at the bottom, bled onto the blank page, leaving behind a peculiar mark. It almost resembled the shape of a head, faceless and haunting, with invisible eyes that seemed to follow me relentlessly. Though I crumpled up that sheet of paper and discarded it, its presence lingered. As I sat at the desk, absentmindedly rolling the pen between my fingers, its shadow loomed over me, breathing down my neck, prickling my skin and hair like nettles.
The paperwork continued to mount, growing higher and higher, causing the Roman columns to tremble and sway unsteadily. Under its weight, the desk's joints creaked and shuddered. My shoulders ached, worn down by the relentless gaze of the faceless presence. The once-bright light above me became blinding, making the ink from my pen seemingly vanish from the white page.
As the pen slipped from my trembling hand and fell to the floor, the colonnade collapsed, its destruction drowned out by a cacophony of shuffling papers, ringing phones, and the mocking chatter of the wall clock ticking away. I ran down the hallway, propelled by a surge of desperation, bolted through the emergency door, and descended 49 flights of stairs with reckless abandon.
For eight months, I could not bring myself to return to that suffocating cubicle. I imagined it sitting there, empty and abandoned, with only traces of my work lingering stubbornly, like weathered remnants of ancient Rome's walls and columns. I remained stagnant, caught between the past and the future, unable to move backward or forward. Instead, I remained anchored to this apartment, gripped by an inexplicable fear that constricted my lungs and relentlessly throbbed in my heart.
In this little studio, I believed I was safe, if only for a fleeting moment. But now, I could no longer divert my gaze as the nightmare crept out from within the walls, causing the lights to flicker and devouring my food from the inside out.
But still, I couldn't bring myself to step outside, not today. The sky appeared too yellow, too sickly. Perhaps tomorrow would offer a better opportunity. The outside air seemed tainted, unfit to breathe on this particular day. There was something amiss, something poisonous lingering in the atmosphere. Its taste lingered in my mouth, reminiscent of chewing on cotton balls soaked in stale mustard. No amount of milk or vodka could wash it away. It clung to my tongue, playfully flicking against a dangling nerve of one of my teeth.
I vigorously brushed my tongue with a toothbrush, scrubbing until its pristine white coat turned crimson. I winced as I rinsed it with hot water, hoping to alleviate the sensation. Yet, the taste persisted, stubbornly clinging to the tip of my tongue.
Like a horrible itch.
Burning.
Stinging.
Pinching pain.
A glorious red ring with a yellow gem.
I tried to pinch it between my thumb and forefinger, and tears welled up in my eyes. The stinging pain radiated from the tip of my tongue, spreading through my entire being. Yet, it remained, gleaming at me like an ugly sun smirking behind a shroud of smog. The wind persistently blew through the flap in the wallpaper, seeping in through the window. I could sense the presence lurking behind it, fixating its gaze upon me.
As I locked eyes with it, I stood frozen in place. My mouth hung open as the impossible unfolded before me.
It formed a smile without lips and let out a laugh. The sound was flat and dissonant, akin to the incessant drip of water from that wretched loose faucet, slithering down the sink's throat. That same corroded throat into which I had gagged and expelled blood and bile from my stomach. I felt as though all the blood had drained from my face. With trepidation, I raised my eyes to the dirty mirror above the sink. Reflecting back at me was nothing but a husk, a ghost of my former self.
But upon closer inspection, I noticed a change. It crept along at a sluggish, excruciating pace. It began with the whites of my eyes, now tinged with yellow. Yellow. And my pupils were as pitch-black and vacant as a sinkhole. My teeth, too, were misaligned and yellow-ish brown. I had neglected to brush them for weeks, perhaps months, to the point where a layer of plaque had encrusted their surface and wedged between them.
The tooth at the back could no longer find its place. I tapped it once more with the tip of my tongue, feeling its jagged edge scrape against the tender yellow sore. And then it dislodged, bouncing around in my mouth. In sheer disgust, I spat it out. The blood marked a trail to the sinkhole, dangerously close to its edge. I ran my tongue over the remaining teeth, sensing them shift in their positions. Soon, one after another, they cracked and fell, and the little red dots swirled and twirled along with them in the sink. Only a few teeth stubbornly clung to the front, refusing to let go.
You look so ugly. I remembered those words. A colleague had once said them to me during lunch.
"And you look like smeared shit," I shot back. We sat in the corner of the cafeteria, hunched over our sandwiches and coffee. That lipless, smiling joker told me to calm down, claiming they didn't mean it. Oh, how the others laughed. I couldn't bring myself to look any of them in the face.
Weren't we supposed to be friends? Friends who winked and smiled as they plunged knives into your gut, watching your insides spill onto the floor. Friends who pretended to sympathize as they picked up your organs, attempting to put them back, telling you it was just a joke. All wounds heal, they said. But this scar remained hidden beneath my clothes. I was the punchline of the jokes friends liked to share.
When lunch ended, everyone returned to their cubicles. Everyone except me. I sneaked away for a quick trip to the restroom. It was then that I began to feel the tooth move. I flicked it with my tongue.
Flick. Flick.
As all of this came to me, I couldn't even stand to look my reflection in the eye. At least, not without feeling the urge to destroy it, shattering every remaining shard of glass into the sink. The thing behind the wallpaper smiled wider, revealing a row of straight white teeth held together by browning gums. Its deep chuckle resonated throughout the apartment, grating against my skin and pinching my nerves. With every ounce of my dwindling strength, I clenched my fists.
Don't laugh at me.
Don't.
Laugh.
I pushed away the dangling piece of wallpaper and came face to face with it. Straight white teeth. Wide white eyes. Look how it mocked me. Sneered at me. What did it want from me? Why had it intruded into my world?
"Go back! Look at everything you've taken from me. Please, just let me have this day!" I pleaded.
It said nothing in response. Its smile only widened, stretching across the wall and tearing new lines through the wallpaper. The wood snapped and cracked. The nails and joints creaked from within. The wall heaved in and out like someone dying from laughter, gasping for air in desperate suffocation.
Stop laughing.
I took hold of the fluttering piece and traveled along the wall, crushing it in my clenched fist. It felt strange in my hand, warm and soft, almost like dry human skin. The thing's smile now appeared strained, as if it were attempting to endure some hidden anguish. Despite its pride, it couldn't let me hear its soft squeaks of pain. But the more I ripped away, the deeper I dug my fingers into its soft tissue, the tighter it clenched its teeth. With each tightening grip, it began to bleed, its blood seeping under my fingernails. Tears welled up in its eyes.
Nowhere inside me was there an ounce of pity for it. I felt nothing. Seething contempt was all that remained within me. I tore away at every inch of its skin, dismantling it from one end to the other until there was nothing left but its fragile bones. Its discarded skin littered the floor, staining the carpet with its blood. Cockroaches scurried in and out of its empty sockets, while termites nibbled at the wood in its final dying breaths. Just as I began to turn away, I noticed something at the center. Stuck between its ribs was a dead canary. The bird's color had faded to gray, its lifeless body consumed from the inside out, its remaining insides shriveled to crumbs.
I cooled myself down with a handful of freezing water from the faucet. When I opened my eyes, I no longer saw the featureless black shape staring back at me. My teeth were intact. The bubble on my tongue had burst, oozing its yellow pus. Its taste was sour, like mustard churning in expired milk.
The faucet continued to leak.
I realized I had forgotten to properly wash my hands. My fingernails were caked with blood and grime. I reasoned that I could do it later, perhaps before I went grocery shopping. You see, I could do everything later.
But right now, all I wanted was sleep.
submitted by cgstories to Odd_directions [link] [comments]
At first, it was quiet and slow, like the daddy long-leg spider spinning its web in the corner of the ceiling. Then, with a few seconds between each one, water droplets dripped from the faucet into the sink. Each drop rang the same flat, dead note, echoing throughout the apartment. The wallpaper had turned increasingly yellow with every drop, but not a vibrant yellow. Rather, it was sickly and jaundiced, like a dying canary with its feathers falling off.
There was a tear as well. A loose sliver of wallpaper flapped back and forth as the wind blew in through an opened window. It reminded me of the way fatty, loose, and wrinkled skin jiggles within an old woman's armpit. The flap of wallpaper hid something, resembling a head. It lacked eyes, mouth, or nose—just the veiled impression of a head. But before I could get a good look, I was torn from the mystery by the screech of my alarm clock.
I went into the kitchen to find that yesterday’s delivery of bread had gone bad. The nightmare had eaten it from the inside out, leaving nothing but black crumbs for me to scrounge from the floor. When I opened the fridge door, an odor assaulted my nostrils. All the beverages had gone sour, the eggs were cracked, and the greens had browned and withered. With a sigh of defeat, I closed the fridge door. I would have to buy new groceries. But that would mean leaving this apartment, going outside.
Outside.
Out into the world, with all its chaos.
That was where the nightmare wanted me to go. But I wasn't ready, not yet. I couldn't just walk out my front door. It wasn't that easy. Going outside required preparation, and even thinking about the process of getting ready made my head throb. My chest started to ache, as if all the air had been squeezed out of my lungs. I sat in the kitchen, motionless, only listening to the noise of eight spindly legs as they incessantly worked toward some unknown goal.
The spider had spun its web across the ceiling, and the light danced upon it, its long, pale fingers plucking the strings. In an odd way, I couldn't help but marvel at its beauty as it shimmered. It resonated with the muted buzz of trapped insects, mummified victims awaiting their demise in Saran wrap. I could feel their suffocation as the air was squeezed from their lungs. Their frantic movements came to an abrupt halt as the spider reeled them closer.
A silent panic enveloped the walls, and its deathly yellow tinge cast a darker hue than congealed mustard over everything around it.
Like the fading bathroom light, which glowed in a murky gold that shimmered weakly now and then, my reflection in the mirror appeared as a featureless black shape. Cold drops traced over my closed eyelids, the bridge of my nose, my lips, my chin, and cheeks. One of my molars was loose in my mouth, and I lazily flicked it with the tip of my tongue while the rest remained firm and pearly white. There was no pain, only the dread of unlocking the front door, weighing heavily on my stomach.
How did it all start? How did it come to this? There was a time in my life when I didn't feel this unending sickness, this terrible sense of foreboding. There was a time when nightmares confined themselves to my sleep, and sometimes I didn't dream at all. In those innocent days, I had a job, a dull, dead-end office job with my own cubicle. It was a white, square space, and I was just one of a hundred dull, white-collared office drones in identical cubicles. Faceless, uniformed, synchronized. That's what I remembered from the old days.
I sat there, looking at papers stacked in rows that reached such towering heights they seemed to stretch into infinity. Just gazing up at them would strain my neck, their sheer magnitude bearing an intimidating resemblance to the frieze of Roman columns. It brought to mind arched ceilings adorned with intricately carved animal faces and mythical gods entwined in vines. It served as a reminder of just how small and insignificant one could feel, like an ant that could easily be squished beneath the toe of one of those carved deities.
Yet, in my cubicle, there was no beautiful artwork to behold. Instead, my gaze was met with an endless, nauseating expanse of blinding, bright whiteness. The fluorescent lights overhead forced my irises to shrink to the size of a grain. The towering stack of paperwork loomed over me, trembling with every touch, as if threatening to crumble into a million pieces. As the electric fan above blew in my direction, one lone piece of paper teetered on the edge, inching its way over and descending like a delicate feather, finally landing right in front of me.
The page before me remained blank, serving as a mere surface for my coffee mug. Suddenly, I found myself unable to lift the pen, unable to write. All I could manage was to shift uncomfortably in my chair as my left leg trembled uncontrollably. The fluorescent lights above grew increasingly brighter, their heat intensifying as if licking at the back of my neck.
I felt overwhelmed in the vast expanse of cubicles, lost amidst the faceless crowd where everyone consumed the same sandwich and salad, where our dreams blended together into a monotonous haze. In this world, each one of us bore monosyllabic names and identical haircuts.
In an abrupt act, I dropped the pen and abandoned my desk. In the blink of an eye, I found myself outside, perched on the ledge of the 49th floor of the building. The wind jeered at me with a malicious force, while the city and its inhabitants below appeared smaller than ants. Leaning against the building, most people would tremble at such dizzying heights. However, I calmly observed the birds soaring by, vanishing into the clouds as they drifted across the vast expanse of the blue sky, akin to white caps crashing against rugged rocks on a distant shore. I stood at the precipice, poised to leap into the vast unknown, longing to finally awaken from this torment.
Yet, I did not.
Instead, I found myself returning to my desk once more. My coffee mug, bearing a small crack at the bottom, bled onto the blank page, leaving behind a peculiar mark. It almost resembled the shape of a head, faceless and haunting, with invisible eyes that seemed to follow me relentlessly. Though I crumpled up that sheet of paper and discarded it, its presence lingered. As I sat at the desk, absentmindedly rolling the pen between my fingers, its shadow loomed over me, breathing down my neck, prickling my skin and hair like nettles.
The paperwork continued to mount, growing higher and higher, causing the Roman columns to tremble and sway unsteadily. Under its weight, the desk's joints creaked and shuddered. My shoulders ached, worn down by the relentless gaze of the faceless presence. The once-bright light above me became blinding, making the ink from my pen seemingly vanish from the white page.
As the pen slipped from my trembling hand and fell to the floor, the colonnade collapsed, its destruction drowned out by a cacophony of shuffling papers, ringing phones, and the mocking chatter of the wall clock ticking away. I ran down the hallway, propelled by a surge of desperation, bolted through the emergency door, and descended 49 flights of stairs with reckless abandon.
For eight months, I could not bring myself to return to that suffocating cubicle. I imagined it sitting there, empty and abandoned, with only traces of my work lingering stubbornly, like weathered remnants of ancient Rome's walls and columns. I remained stagnant, caught between the past and the future, unable to move backward or forward. Instead, I remained anchored to this apartment, gripped by an inexplicable fear that constricted my lungs and relentlessly throbbed in my heart.
In this little studio, I believed I was safe, if only for a fleeting moment. But now, I could no longer divert my gaze as the nightmare crept out from within the walls, causing the lights to flicker and devouring my food from the inside out.
But still, I couldn't bring myself to step outside, not today. The sky appeared too yellow, too sickly. Perhaps tomorrow would offer a better opportunity. The outside air seemed tainted, unfit to breathe on this particular day. There was something amiss, something poisonous lingering in the atmosphere. Its taste lingered in my mouth, reminiscent of chewing on cotton balls soaked in stale mustard. No amount of milk or vodka could wash it away. It clung to my tongue, playfully flicking against a dangling nerve of one of my teeth.
I vigorously brushed my tongue with a toothbrush, scrubbing until its pristine white coat turned crimson. I winced as I rinsed it with hot water, hoping to alleviate the sensation. Yet, the taste persisted, stubbornly clinging to the tip of my tongue.
Like a horrible itch.
Burning.
Stinging.
Pinching pain.
A glorious red ring with a yellow gem.
I tried to pinch it between my thumb and forefinger, and tears welled up in my eyes. The stinging pain radiated from the tip of my tongue, spreading through my entire being. Yet, it remained, gleaming at me like an ugly sun smirking behind a shroud of smog. The wind persistently blew through the flap in the wallpaper, seeping in through the window. I could sense the presence lurking behind it, fixating its gaze upon me.
As I locked eyes with it, I stood frozen in place. My mouth hung open as the impossible unfolded before me.
It formed a smile without lips and let out a laugh. The sound was flat and dissonant, akin to the incessant drip of water from that wretched loose faucet, slithering down the sink's throat. That same corroded throat into which I had gagged and expelled blood and bile from my stomach. I felt as though all the blood had drained from my face. With trepidation, I raised my eyes to the dirty mirror above the sink. Reflecting back at me was nothing but a husk, a ghost of my former self.
But upon closer inspection, I noticed a change. It crept along at a sluggish, excruciating pace. It began with the whites of my eyes, now tinged with yellow. Yellow. And my pupils were as pitch-black and vacant as a sinkhole. My teeth, too, were misaligned and yellow-ish brown. I had neglected to brush them for weeks, perhaps months, to the point where a layer of plaque had encrusted their surface and wedged between them.
The tooth at the back could no longer find its place. I tapped it once more with the tip of my tongue, feeling its jagged edge scrape against the tender yellow sore. And then it dislodged, bouncing around in my mouth. In sheer disgust, I spat it out. The blood marked a trail to the sinkhole, dangerously close to its edge. I ran my tongue over the remaining teeth, sensing them shift in their positions. Soon, one after another, they cracked and fell, and the little red dots swirled and twirled along with them in the sink. Only a few teeth stubbornly clung to the front, refusing to let go.
You look so ugly. I remembered those words. A colleague had once said them to me during lunch.
"And you look like smeared shit," I shot back. We sat in the corner of the cafeteria, hunched over our sandwiches and coffee. That lipless, smiling joker told me to calm down, claiming they didn't mean it. Oh, how the others laughed. I couldn't bring myself to look any of them in the face.
Weren't we supposed to be friends? Friends who winked and smiled as they plunged knives into your gut, watching your insides spill onto the floor. Friends who pretended to sympathize as they picked up your organs, attempting to put them back, telling you it was just a joke. All wounds heal, they said. But this scar remained hidden beneath my clothes. I was the punchline of the jokes friends liked to share.
When lunch ended, everyone returned to their cubicles. Everyone except me. I sneaked away for a quick trip to the restroom. It was then that I began to feel the tooth move. I flicked it with my tongue.
Flick. Flick.
As all of this came to me, I couldn't even stand to look my reflection in the eye. At least, not without feeling the urge to destroy it, shattering every remaining shard of glass into the sink. The thing behind the wallpaper smiled wider, revealing a row of straight white teeth held together by browning gums. Its deep chuckle resonated throughout the apartment, grating against my skin and pinching my nerves. With every ounce of my dwindling strength, I clenched my fists.
Don't laugh at me.
Don't.
Laugh.
I pushed away the dangling piece of wallpaper and came face to face with it. Straight white teeth. Wide white eyes. Look how it mocked me. Sneered at me. What did it want from me? Why had it intruded into my world?
"Go back! Look at everything you've taken from me. Please, just let me have this day!" I pleaded.
It said nothing in response. Its smile only widened, stretching across the wall and tearing new lines through the wallpaper. The wood snapped and cracked. The nails and joints creaked from within. The wall heaved in and out like someone dying from laughter, gasping for air in desperate suffocation.
Stop laughing.
I took hold of the fluttering piece and traveled along the wall, crushing it in my clenched fist. It felt strange in my hand, warm and soft, almost like dry human skin. The thing's smile now appeared strained, as if it were attempting to endure some hidden anguish. Despite its pride, it couldn't let me hear its soft squeaks of pain. But the more I ripped away, the deeper I dug my fingers into its soft tissue, the tighter it clenched its teeth. With each tightening grip, it began to bleed, its blood seeping under my fingernails. Tears welled up in its eyes.
Nowhere inside me was there an ounce of pity for it. I felt nothing. Seething contempt was all that remained within me. I tore away at every inch of its skin, dismantling it from one end to the other until there was nothing left but its fragile bones. Its discarded skin littered the floor, staining the carpet with its blood. Cockroaches scurried in and out of its empty sockets, while termites nibbled at the wood in its final dying breaths. Just as I began to turn away, I noticed something at the center. Stuck between its ribs was a dead canary. The bird's color had faded to gray, its lifeless body consumed from the inside out, its remaining insides shriveled to crumbs.
I cooled myself down with a handful of freezing water from the faucet. When I opened my eyes, I no longer saw the featureless black shape staring back at me. My teeth were intact. The bubble on my tongue had burst, oozing its yellow pus. Its taste was sour, like mustard churning in expired milk.
The faucet continued to leak.
I realized I had forgotten to properly wash my hands. My fingernails were caked with blood and grime. I reasoned that I could do it later, perhaps before I went grocery shopping. You see, I could do everything later.
But right now, all I wanted was sleep.
2024.06.07 00:57 Sleepypz123 The Alchemist's Rot (Please feel free to give any and all feed back you may have. Thank you.)
Elias scratched his spiny horn, though it never itched, it purely became a habit, during stressful situations, a sort of comfort, despite hating it. Everyone was disgusted at seeing it, sprouting from his head. How they threw stones at him, some even trying to burn him with torches, like he was a monster. At least that's what his father always told him, because of this curse he couldn't quite remember, which forced his father to have to remind him why he should never leave the forest.
No, no no, He thought, rapidly scratching his horn. Seeing the large monster lumbering towards him. It looked a lot like a chimera, a mixture of wicked and grotesque beasts. It possessed a head of a bear, tentacles sprouting from its massive back and a deadly scorpion tail. Poor Elias's knees were shaking, due to the grave aura the mighty beast was giving off. Should he run? Would it chase him if it did? Perhaps chucking stones at it would cause it to flee, but it also could enrage it.
All of this contemplating didn't help him in the slightest, his mind continued to run wild with what he should do rather than what he should be doing. The dark red fur of the monster was like blood, perhaps it was, coated from its last victim. As soon as the young boy could see the fierceness in the monster’s amber eyes. He finally realized he needed to do something. But what?
On a whim he removed himself from the bark of the tree and ran for his home. Luckily he wasn’t too far in and knew his way. But Elias didn't think about those two things. No, he was more concerned about the loud, and closer encroaching crunching noise coming from his backside, oh how the sticks cracked and broke beneath such a creature. One could mistake it for the sounds of bones snapping. The frightened boy did not turn to see the snarling face that he believed would be there, waiting to pounce and rip him apart as soon as he turned. No he continued to run, faster and faster, as the noise became louder and louder.
His home looked as if there were deserted ruins. Nature overtook the man-made cabin. Vines crawled up the sides, slowly strangling it like it wanted to drag it down into the dirt. It was on its last legs, the window shutters hung askew from its hinges and the roof was concave, like it would collapse in on itself if something heavy would fall on it. But seeing that rundown home of his was a joyous sight to behold. But right before he made it to the door and into sanctuary, his foot caught a root, tripping him in the process. He quickly flipped around, throwing his arms up, somehow thinking that would shield him from the many teeth and claws that were about to leap upon him. But strangely they never came.
After a moment of hesitation, and panicked breaths, Elias removed his hands, placing them down at his sides. With wide eyes he stared ahead, waiting for the monster to appear, but it was gone, like it was a figment of his own imagination. Tears began to swell in his eyes, believing fully that he was about to die a moment ago. Only after his nerves settled and streams of sadness left his face did the young boy stand and hobbled inside his home.
Thanks to that root, each step he took, the feeling of a bitter pain roared up from his ankle. His ankle was red and beginning to swell, but seeing no other option he persisted through the house. He noticed his father wasn’t around, most likely working hard in the basement again. There was a feeling of loneliness that always seemed to infect his heart whenever he entered the house, like his body knew something his mind didn't. His father always spent his time in the lab, at least as far as Ellies could recall. This hollowness, thankfully faded quite quickly after he paid a visit to Poppy. She was clawing at the cage, when Elias entered through the door.
He unlatched the cage and held open the door for her to exit, which she did with stride. Her appearance was strange, and her species unknown. Elias wasn’t sure exactly what kind of species it was. It had long ears like a rabbit, a lizard-like tail and a small pear shaped body. his father only ever mentioned that he created the creature one day, while working on his cure. So it had no use being classified as a specific species. She gurgled and clung to Elias’s leg with her little soft paws.
“You wouldn't believe the day I had.” Elias said, rubbing his hand through the fluffy chestnut fur that covered her skin. She began to tug at his pants leg, and then she ran to the door. “Sorry but you can't go do your business outside today. There's something bad out there.” He said, peering out of the window, looking for the whereabouts of that ghastly beast. “But don't worry.” he looked down to look at Poppy, who was currently clawing at the door, gurgling even more. “I’ll put down some rags or old clothes for you.” He smiled. She did not look pleased.
The alchemist slaved over his table, violently mashing up pits of fungus root with his mortar and pestle, muttering about formulas. It became like white noise within the room, constantly echoing across the many glass bottles and jars of varying sizes. He never ventures away from his work bench. It was important after all, if he could just find the right combination, everyone would know his name. They shall deem him the greatest Alchemist that ever lived, rather than a fester fool that wasted what little time remained.
He did not leave his work long, not even to sleep or eat, he rarely showed himself in sunlight, why would he? He had too much to do. If he didn't do it, someone else would, and he sacrificed too much to allow that to happen. He only left his dank basement for two reasons. One, to resupply his dwindling assets, and the other was to test what he had created.
Elias, who was currently humming to himself while fixing himself and Poppy food. Only when those shrill hinges screamed did his playful humming stop. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to fix you something?” He said looking over to the wild eyed man that he called father.
“No time, no time.” the alchemist stuttered. He then stumbled over towards Elias like a man with two left feet. In his hand was a small bottle with a strange elixir inside. The liquid had a foggy pink tint to it. “ Here boy drink, quickly now, quickly! Before the sediments settle.” his voice was ragged and unhinged, like his own mind unraveled like a piece of string that was unknotted.
This happened a lot, the constant drinking of various medicines his father cooked up. He remembered not having to do it so often when he was younger, but now he did it almost daily and still he was no less cured then when he begin. Elias reached for the drink but paused for a moment, his attention being stolen by poppy. She was tugging at his pants even harder. She was always stubborn, especially when it came to going outside. Eventually, He grabbed the potion and being the good boy he was he began to drink from the small glass bottle until the entirety of the liquid vanished down his throat. It was for his sake after all.
Elias could taste a slight bitterness to the drink, not overwhelmingly bad, certainly not good either, most of what he foraged for his fathers research were mushrooms, corpse flowers, and certain bugs only native to this region.
After drinking the odd mixture. His father watched with wondrous anticipation. It caused a powerful feeling to run throughout his entire body. From the tips of his toes to the point of his horn it reverberated within him, growing warm, eventually becoming a painful burning sensation. He could no longer escape this turmoil that his creator had given to him. His vision began to warp and spin. In order not to vomit, Elias had to close his eyes and hold his mouth shut, refusing to allow his body to cough the medicine up.
The Alchemist stared widely at his son as his breathing became heavy. His father began to stroke his mighty, tangled beard in delight. Was this it? Was this the right combination? The wrinkles in his face began to tighten as his mouth shifted into a giddy smile. All of his painstaking work, all of his sacrifices. Was this the day that the alchemist finally did it?
Elias’s body began to grow, noticeably like he was growing into an older version of himself. to both his and his son’s dismay. A twisted horn began to protrude from Elias shoulder causing him great pain, causing him to drop to his knees. Slowly it dug its way out from beneath the poor boy's skin. The shrieks he gave off, it was lucky they lived deep within the forest because many people would confuse the screams of Elias for a terrible murder, but in their fairness they sounded very similar.
Only when the new horn stopped growing did Elias become silent and his wet eyes opened. One of them, now jet black, both the iris and sclera were now void of color, completely dark, almost as if it wasn’t even an eyeball anymore. His vision was still slightly blurry , but he could still see his father, examining him still. His smile faded into a more serious look. “It seems I'm still far off from the right formula,” he muttered. From his pocket he pulled out a clean vial and scraped a bit of sweat that now coated his woozy son’s flesh. He returned to his subterranean laboratory to further his research, while his son is forced to figure out what exactly that potion changed within him, as well as out.
Elias sank down further to the floor, not having the strength to stand up any longer. Poppy hopped towards his face. She gurgled dreadfully and rubbed her head against Elias chest. Like she was trying to provide comfort to him. His head slowly swiveled over to the crooked horn that was stabbing out from his shoulder.
He didn't quite understand what had happened. The cloudiness in his mind felt like a dream. Am I sleeping? Thought Elias, but that couldn't be, his eyes were open. But that horn, this strange creature nuzzling him and this place… Where exactly am I? He thought before he faded away into a deep sleep.
All of his memories returned to him after he awoke, at least he thought so. There was still a strange feeling lingering in the air, most likely due to his new found deformities but the young boy paid it no mind, he still had chores to do after all.
Poppy joined him as he journeyed up stairs. The second floor only had three rooms in it, his room, his fathers room ( even if he doesn't use it much) and the third was his older sister’s room, but now it was used for storage. Elias lit the candles and began his dusting. Since his father had to much important work on his plate, it was up to him to keep the cobwebs at bay.
He first started with his father’s room, even though Poppy insisted on the storage. But the young boy never listened to his pet, he wanted to make sure as soon as his father finally completed his work, he would have a nice clean bed to sleep in. Elias hummed as he went around cleaning the shelves and de-webbing the corners of the room, Poppy watched from his bed, looking a bit down since he awoke, perhaps she was frightened by his new form, it was all for the best. His father was trying to save him. Since his mother and sister passed from the same affliction as he. He did nothing but put in every second he had into finding a cure for his son. After the first room was completed, he entered the storage room. Poppy raced in ahead of him and disappeared behind boxes. It was filled with things from their old life. The belongings of his sibling and dear mother were also stashed here, untouched. He sometimes came in here to visit them, to remember things he’s forgotten, they helped him remember them if only slightly, it was more than a feeling he got, then a past vision, a feeling of happiness and safety that they are still with him.
Poppy seemed to have perked up a bit, and began to adventure around the room. She sniffed and crawled around many old relics of the past. Elias was busy wiping clean the old wheat scythe that laid propped up against the wall. When a small chest crashed to the floor, severing the old lock on it and scattering its contents across the floor. “Poppy!” He yelled at the adorable little creature who had undoubtedly knocked it over. He couldn't stay mad at her, with a slight smile on his face , he began to clean up the mess.
As he was stacking the papers in the box, one of the books caught his eye. It was a leather bound one with a strap on the side to keep it closed. But what stole his attention was the name written on it, It was a name so familiar, so, so safe that it brought forth a bloom of the past. The Alchemist didn't mention his wife much, not after she passed, but Elias knew what his mother’s name was, it was the same one written in this journal. It seemed he would never forget that.
Opening it he discovered her hand writing, beautiful and elegant, perhaps she came from nobility, It talked about her life, Marrying his father, having her daughter and son, but after they all moved to this isolated home, her hand writing became much more scratched on then how she began her journal. It read, I don't know what's happening to me, my hair began to grow abnormally, turning scarlet red, when it was before black. I can't seem to remember my past, whenever I try to recall my parents, my mind becomes foggy. What is happening? My dear husband said it is a curse placed upon me, and says he can cure it. I hope he can, Please my beloved save me. I don't want to forget our children’s faces. He continued reading, completely until the last page written on, which read, the medicine, it's always been the medicine. What is he doing to me.
Elias wasn't sure what to make of this. Was she talking about his father? And the same medicine he takes? No it couldn't be? I just remembered. I need to leave this place quickly, with my children and escape this mad man. Her panicked scribbles abruptly ended, as if ripped away from her desk.
A New idea began to form with Elias’s troubled mind. It was true his memory was flawed, but he now could sense danger with in the house, with in his own father. The worried look upon his face grew terribly. Seeing this made Poppy excited, she jumped brightly on his shoulder. All he was concerned with now was getting out of the house.
He crept down the stairs, hoping not to stir up too much trouble. the small creaks in the steps now sounded like loud shockwaves. Before he made it to the bottom steps, His father whipped open his lair door. “Elias! I have a new mixture to try!” he yelled, searching the kitchen. When the mad man’s eyes were set on his son, he was observant enough to know something was different in the boy. He usually jumped towards him at his medicine. His eye fell down towards his hands. Elias was holding something. A book? It was hers!
He yelled again “Elias, give that here!” but that started a fire by the boy’s feet. Dashing for the door as quick as he could but his father was closer grabbed him and through him down on the wooden floor. The alchemist held his son down and pried open his mouth. “Please!” He begged his father, but he wasn't listening. The mad man poured the blue tinted liquid down his throat causing Elias to cough and choke. “That's it” his father said through gritted teeth, not leaving a drop in the vial.
Many weeks went by or maybe it was only just a few days, Elias never could tell anymore, between the constant potion trials and never changing environment surrounding him, as well as his dwindling memory, time no longer was relevant to him. The things his father asked for were becoming more and more obscure. Just last week he requested an albino toad. But that was fine, he’s trying to cure his ailment after all. He forgot all about what had transpired after he read his mother’s words. He never found that journal again.
Nowadays the wind that occasionally drifted through the trees had a strangeness to it. Perhaps the seasons were changing or a storm was encroaching, or maybe the many twisting horns that grew from the poor boy’s body played a part. He looked a lot more like a distorted porcupine, both his eyes were now pitch black and his body grew large he was now over five five feet tall. Ten years old and he was now the same height as his own father.
Ever since that first sighting, the crimson beat never returned, Although Elias could still hear its cries echo through the trees. It sounded bleak and angry, with a hint of sadness with each roar. Elias was glad it was gone, but he wondered why it vanished so suddenly before. Perhaps it was for the best. Before he knew it, somehow the very sky was black. How long was he out here? It couldn't have been an hour since he left, but that was in the morning. This happened a lot recently, how time just slips by. Elias’s mind became much more hazy, like it was filled with a constant stream of static. Sometimes he even woke up outside, unaware of how he got there.
I need to save him. That is easier said than done, everything she tried failed and he was already forgetting himself. All that bile is rotting his brain. He doesn't even remember her anymore. She was at least lucky enough to retain her intellect. Poppy gilded her paw across the bars of her cage. As she did she reminded herself that she already tried to kill that batty man, but this body that she now resided in was no more lethal than a still stone. What could I do? She paced in her cell. When Elias finally found his way home it was nightfall. He’s been coming home later and later recently. Most likely forgetting where he lived. Oh how she wished their mother was here, but she was gone too, lost forever stumbling through this forest.
The mad man barged upstairs, most likely hearing his son’s large feet scraping the floor.“Finally “ he said, ignoring his son’s tortured posture, and swiping his bag that was tangled between the ridged horn like spikes sprouting from his arms. “Give it here!” he barked, ripping it off him. He gazed upon what was inside and smiled a hellish grin. “Finally!” he shouted throughout the wilting house. He rushed back down stairs to get to work on the formula that finally do it.
Elias, sat at the chair, his mind was drifting, he usually let Poppy out of her cage but not today, he completely forgot about Poppy, just like he did when she was once his sister and just like his mother before her. Poppy saw him hanging on by a thread, she began to rush back and force, hoping he could break through the small cage. She tackled the door. It didn't budge. She did it again. It still didn't open, but the cage did move, if only slightly. It was up to her to save her little brother. She no longer had the journal to bring light to her father’s crimes, she saw it herself. He burned it, and then… wept to the sight of it. Perhaps inside he still had some semblance of how he used to be, before he became obsessed. But even so he was a monster that needed to be stopped.
To Poppy he was gone and he did too much to her and her family to ever be forgiving. She rammed against the cage again, harder this time. Beyond the short fur, her body was especially squishy, but with determination alone, she still managed to get her prison closer to the edge. One more should do it, she thought, pressing herself against the back of the cage, before charging against the front.
Her cage crashed to the ground, grabbing her younger brother’s attention. “hmm “ the nothingness of his eyes focused on the cage on the floor with the small creature inside, looking awfully dazed. After a moment, he remembered “Poppy?” he said, his voice now deep and frightening. He walked over and bent down, to open the small door. Poppy quickly regained her wits and crawled her way out.
Now that Poppy was now free, there was only one other option that she could think of at this point, it was dangerous and might not work, but it was either this or watching him slowly become someone else, worst case they all died quickly.
She ran over to the door and began to scratch at it. Elias stumbled over to let her out, as soon as he opened up, Poppy bolted past the tree line and into the forest. She ran as quickly as her small, rabbit like legs could carry her. She was determined though, to saver her brother and end her father tyranny. She needed to find their mother.
The forest that surrounded the haunting the house was vast, filled with flora and fauna a plenty, well more flora and fauna. The ripped apart corpses of deer and wolves made it seem more like a feeding den rather than a forest floor. Despite her many warning signs to turn back the small creature persisted.
A teeth shaking roar lured her closer. She hopped atop a low hanging branch to get a better view and that's where she saw her, the crimson beast. It was over top of a large bear, gorging on its abundance of flesh. Poppy’s heart raced at the sight of her. Of all this time she never caught a glimpse. She remembered he slowly changed into the ravenous monster she now witnessed. She wished she could have realized sooner, cursing herself for being so naive. To think her father wanted only to destroy, rather than heal their mother. Poppy took her small paws and slapped her bouncy cheeks, she couldn't think of that right now. If mother was still inside that beast of gory red, she needed to find her. She hopped down from the branch and approached her.
Poppy’s first words were supposed to be mother, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a purring, gurgling sound. It must have been loud enough because she stopped eating the bloody meat she scooped out from the bear’s remains. Eying the small creature before her, the beast growled as she turned around to face her new prey.
Mother, please! Its Elias, you need to help, she tried desperately to plead with her, but her voice was gone, and her mother didn't even recognize her. Her new body came with new instincts as well, ones to sense danger. These alarms were screaming at her right now to run, but all she wanted to do was cry, to let whatever happen happen, but when she thought of her poor younger brother still being subjected to those horrid experiments…
Poppy turned around and wiggled her rump towards the maddening beast This way mother, she thought before taking off towards their once warm home. Her little butt wag worked a little too well, as the crimson beast that was soaked in blood was right on her heels, the only thing that slowed her down just short of getting her were the abundance of foliage and stone, she swiftly glided through. The sound of small trees breaking and the pounding of her large claws against the soil filled the air, like it was a dust cloud moving across a plain.
When Poppy finally made it into their yard. She was panting heavily and her eyes were focused on her mother who halted her pursuit at the tree line. refusing to step any closer, she remained just beyond the clearing, still growling, no longer at Poppy, but at the house itself. The beady eyes of hers stared at the looming house like it was about to grab her and pull her closer. Her daughter noticed this, this must mean she still had a bit of her former self within her. She at least hoped so. What could she do to get her closer, to remind her of who she really was? That's when an idea struck her like lightning.
The alchemist toiled in his laboratory. Every concoction he mixed turned into was a complete failure. What was he missing? His son’s withering mental state was also costing him valuable and much needed resources. Elias was out there for hours and yet he only procured enough supplies to hold in one palm. He stopped thinking about what to do about his gathering issues. He was too focused on his latest feat. This one for sure! It had to do it. Eternal youth, that's what it will bring, for both his name and mankind.
When his father made his way up those shaky steps. He found his son holding a broom in the other room, staring blankly at the cold fireplace. The same fireplace where they once shared memories together and the same place where he had burned his wife’s journal. “Elias, I believe I have done it this time. Your cure. Try it!” he said, handing over the potion. His son slowly turned his head to face him. The mind was all but absent from this task now, it was merely instinct at this point. He had done this so many times that it had been ingrained into his very muscle. He removed one of his hands from the broom handle, showing off that they had changed too. Instead of five fingers he was born to, he now had three large ones, like the extra two were absorbed by the others.
He slowly brought the potion to his lips, but before it could reach his mouth and fall down his throat, Poppy came bursting through the window and knocked the elixir from Elias's mangle hand. The glass vial smashed into pieces, spilling the bubbling mixture everywhere. “You! What have you done!” He had said to his former daughter, as he clutched his head in frustration. To make matters worse she taunted the grief stricken man. Wagging her dairy air at him, much like she did with her mother. Things were dire and she needed him to follow him and boy did he ever.
He let out another anger-filled growl as he barreled towards Poppy, but thanks to her agility and small frame, she easily maneuvered around him, much like a mouse. She jumped through the same window she entered from. The alchemist raced out the door, after her. But when he did He saw something he preyed on never to see again, his wife’s angry face staring back at him. “M- Mar” he began, but soon went cold. Like Poppy hoped for, the beast removed herself from the safety of the trees, her eyes firmly set on the demented man that cursed her and all her kids. All of the anger she felt, that festered inside of her heart, finally remembered the object of her hatred.
Elias watched his father and his pet chaotically dash around the room. It didn't dawn on him until the two took their chase outside, that he had dropped his medicine. He stared down at the liquid that was now spread across the floor. Perhaps it was still good? His father did seem sure of himself with this one. He slowly fell to his knees and began to drink up as much as he could.
The scorned mother stumped towards The alchemist, growling and roaring. It was like she was trying to yell at him, to curse his name. The old fool tripped backwards as she approached “Ma- Ma- Martha” he said quickly “ I am doing this for everyone’s sack, humanities, imagine how far our kind will expand, if we no longer aged.” he pleaded, hoping she could still understand him. In his eyes he was a saint, a man willing to sacrifice anything to better the world. But to everyone else, he was a twisted mad man bending morality to his design. A foolish man playing god.
Martha seemed to want to hear him out, or perhaps she liked seeing him in this panicked state. She bent her face down and bared her massive teeth inching them ever closer to her husband's pale face. He crawled backwards until he felt something hard behind him. It was the steps of the house. his eyes were large and shaky as he stared down her vengeful eyes. He was so close, so very close, he could feel it. And yet it was gonna end here, his work unfinished, his name forgotten. “No!” He refused to let that happen. He found a nearby branch and pointed at his former wife.
Poppy sat on the side lines, watching the miserable man stumble and crawl away from her mother. She couldn't help but to feel happy, maybe even a little bit satisfied with her action, but in the chaos she forgot to check up with Elias. When she ran back inside she found a horrific scene. Elias was licking the remains of the potion up. Poppy tried to stop him but it was too late, the potion was already taking effect.
The three fingered hands grew more claw-like, much like a mole’s, his jaw began to grow wider, creating a large underbite, revealing sharpened teeth, and his two large blackened eyes became one. When Elias, the cyclops saw Poppy he yelped, frightened at seeing her. His vocal cords seemed to only give off loud aching sounds when he tried to speak. Even he was surprised at this, clutching at his neck. Poppy yelped and gurgled trying to make him calm down. In his new form. She contemplated doing a little dance or rolling over to better soothe him, luckily he seemed to have settled. Until a mighty roar shook the house. Elias, curled up clutching his ears tightly.
The alchemist stormed into the house, only pausing at seeing what became of his son, his face grew more irritated then frightened. It didn't work, he thought for sure it would have worked! Did the roots already? He completely forgot about the monster he was running from, until she made herself known again.
Martha crashed through the wall right behind her husband, barely missing him with her sharp, poisonous tail. He dashed for his beloved basement door but she did not pursue him. She froze just like her husband did at the sight of her son. It wasn't to figure out some god foreskin mixture that would probably never grow fruit of eternal youth. No, it was of a mother gazing upon her son, her once beautiful child that looked so sweet and innocent, now a monster. She saw Poppy trying to comfort the scared little boy she gave birth to. Martha looked back over to the closed basement door, the alchemist’s sanctuary, his room of evil.
She could have easily tore it to pieces and gotten to him, but… should she? Death could be a blessing, for a man that lost his mind, that would be constantly tormented with his desire to achieve greatness. Perhaps a lifetime of obsession and loneliness was a suited punishment for a man that brought rot to their once happy family. So that's where she left him, toiling his days away in his own creation. While she took her kids, and tried to pick up what remains of themselves and start their new lives together.
submitted by Sleepypz123 to AmateurWriting [link] [comments]
No, no no, He thought, rapidly scratching his horn. Seeing the large monster lumbering towards him. It looked a lot like a chimera, a mixture of wicked and grotesque beasts. It possessed a head of a bear, tentacles sprouting from its massive back and a deadly scorpion tail. Poor Elias's knees were shaking, due to the grave aura the mighty beast was giving off. Should he run? Would it chase him if it did? Perhaps chucking stones at it would cause it to flee, but it also could enrage it.
All of this contemplating didn't help him in the slightest, his mind continued to run wild with what he should do rather than what he should be doing. The dark red fur of the monster was like blood, perhaps it was, coated from its last victim. As soon as the young boy could see the fierceness in the monster’s amber eyes. He finally realized he needed to do something. But what?
On a whim he removed himself from the bark of the tree and ran for his home. Luckily he wasn’t too far in and knew his way. But Elias didn't think about those two things. No, he was more concerned about the loud, and closer encroaching crunching noise coming from his backside, oh how the sticks cracked and broke beneath such a creature. One could mistake it for the sounds of bones snapping. The frightened boy did not turn to see the snarling face that he believed would be there, waiting to pounce and rip him apart as soon as he turned. No he continued to run, faster and faster, as the noise became louder and louder.
His home looked as if there were deserted ruins. Nature overtook the man-made cabin. Vines crawled up the sides, slowly strangling it like it wanted to drag it down into the dirt. It was on its last legs, the window shutters hung askew from its hinges and the roof was concave, like it would collapse in on itself if something heavy would fall on it. But seeing that rundown home of his was a joyous sight to behold. But right before he made it to the door and into sanctuary, his foot caught a root, tripping him in the process. He quickly flipped around, throwing his arms up, somehow thinking that would shield him from the many teeth and claws that were about to leap upon him. But strangely they never came.
After a moment of hesitation, and panicked breaths, Elias removed his hands, placing them down at his sides. With wide eyes he stared ahead, waiting for the monster to appear, but it was gone, like it was a figment of his own imagination. Tears began to swell in his eyes, believing fully that he was about to die a moment ago. Only after his nerves settled and streams of sadness left his face did the young boy stand and hobbled inside his home.
Thanks to that root, each step he took, the feeling of a bitter pain roared up from his ankle. His ankle was red and beginning to swell, but seeing no other option he persisted through the house. He noticed his father wasn’t around, most likely working hard in the basement again. There was a feeling of loneliness that always seemed to infect his heart whenever he entered the house, like his body knew something his mind didn't. His father always spent his time in the lab, at least as far as Ellies could recall. This hollowness, thankfully faded quite quickly after he paid a visit to Poppy. She was clawing at the cage, when Elias entered through the door.
He unlatched the cage and held open the door for her to exit, which she did with stride. Her appearance was strange, and her species unknown. Elias wasn’t sure exactly what kind of species it was. It had long ears like a rabbit, a lizard-like tail and a small pear shaped body. his father only ever mentioned that he created the creature one day, while working on his cure. So it had no use being classified as a specific species. She gurgled and clung to Elias’s leg with her little soft paws.
“You wouldn't believe the day I had.” Elias said, rubbing his hand through the fluffy chestnut fur that covered her skin. She began to tug at his pants leg, and then she ran to the door. “Sorry but you can't go do your business outside today. There's something bad out there.” He said, peering out of the window, looking for the whereabouts of that ghastly beast. “But don't worry.” he looked down to look at Poppy, who was currently clawing at the door, gurgling even more. “I’ll put down some rags or old clothes for you.” He smiled. She did not look pleased.
The alchemist slaved over his table, violently mashing up pits of fungus root with his mortar and pestle, muttering about formulas. It became like white noise within the room, constantly echoing across the many glass bottles and jars of varying sizes. He never ventures away from his work bench. It was important after all, if he could just find the right combination, everyone would know his name. They shall deem him the greatest Alchemist that ever lived, rather than a fester fool that wasted what little time remained.
He did not leave his work long, not even to sleep or eat, he rarely showed himself in sunlight, why would he? He had too much to do. If he didn't do it, someone else would, and he sacrificed too much to allow that to happen. He only left his dank basement for two reasons. One, to resupply his dwindling assets, and the other was to test what he had created.
Elias, who was currently humming to himself while fixing himself and Poppy food. Only when those shrill hinges screamed did his playful humming stop. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to fix you something?” He said looking over to the wild eyed man that he called father.
“No time, no time.” the alchemist stuttered. He then stumbled over towards Elias like a man with two left feet. In his hand was a small bottle with a strange elixir inside. The liquid had a foggy pink tint to it. “ Here boy drink, quickly now, quickly! Before the sediments settle.” his voice was ragged and unhinged, like his own mind unraveled like a piece of string that was unknotted.
This happened a lot, the constant drinking of various medicines his father cooked up. He remembered not having to do it so often when he was younger, but now he did it almost daily and still he was no less cured then when he begin. Elias reached for the drink but paused for a moment, his attention being stolen by poppy. She was tugging at his pants even harder. She was always stubborn, especially when it came to going outside. Eventually, He grabbed the potion and being the good boy he was he began to drink from the small glass bottle until the entirety of the liquid vanished down his throat. It was for his sake after all.
Elias could taste a slight bitterness to the drink, not overwhelmingly bad, certainly not good either, most of what he foraged for his fathers research were mushrooms, corpse flowers, and certain bugs only native to this region.
After drinking the odd mixture. His father watched with wondrous anticipation. It caused a powerful feeling to run throughout his entire body. From the tips of his toes to the point of his horn it reverberated within him, growing warm, eventually becoming a painful burning sensation. He could no longer escape this turmoil that his creator had given to him. His vision began to warp and spin. In order not to vomit, Elias had to close his eyes and hold his mouth shut, refusing to allow his body to cough the medicine up.
The Alchemist stared widely at his son as his breathing became heavy. His father began to stroke his mighty, tangled beard in delight. Was this it? Was this the right combination? The wrinkles in his face began to tighten as his mouth shifted into a giddy smile. All of his painstaking work, all of his sacrifices. Was this the day that the alchemist finally did it?
Elias’s body began to grow, noticeably like he was growing into an older version of himself. to both his and his son’s dismay. A twisted horn began to protrude from Elias shoulder causing him great pain, causing him to drop to his knees. Slowly it dug its way out from beneath the poor boy's skin. The shrieks he gave off, it was lucky they lived deep within the forest because many people would confuse the screams of Elias for a terrible murder, but in their fairness they sounded very similar.
Only when the new horn stopped growing did Elias become silent and his wet eyes opened. One of them, now jet black, both the iris and sclera were now void of color, completely dark, almost as if it wasn’t even an eyeball anymore. His vision was still slightly blurry , but he could still see his father, examining him still. His smile faded into a more serious look. “It seems I'm still far off from the right formula,” he muttered. From his pocket he pulled out a clean vial and scraped a bit of sweat that now coated his woozy son’s flesh. He returned to his subterranean laboratory to further his research, while his son is forced to figure out what exactly that potion changed within him, as well as out.
Elias sank down further to the floor, not having the strength to stand up any longer. Poppy hopped towards his face. She gurgled dreadfully and rubbed her head against Elias chest. Like she was trying to provide comfort to him. His head slowly swiveled over to the crooked horn that was stabbing out from his shoulder.
He didn't quite understand what had happened. The cloudiness in his mind felt like a dream. Am I sleeping? Thought Elias, but that couldn't be, his eyes were open. But that horn, this strange creature nuzzling him and this place… Where exactly am I? He thought before he faded away into a deep sleep.
All of his memories returned to him after he awoke, at least he thought so. There was still a strange feeling lingering in the air, most likely due to his new found deformities but the young boy paid it no mind, he still had chores to do after all.
Poppy joined him as he journeyed up stairs. The second floor only had three rooms in it, his room, his fathers room ( even if he doesn't use it much) and the third was his older sister’s room, but now it was used for storage. Elias lit the candles and began his dusting. Since his father had to much important work on his plate, it was up to him to keep the cobwebs at bay.
He first started with his father’s room, even though Poppy insisted on the storage. But the young boy never listened to his pet, he wanted to make sure as soon as his father finally completed his work, he would have a nice clean bed to sleep in. Elias hummed as he went around cleaning the shelves and de-webbing the corners of the room, Poppy watched from his bed, looking a bit down since he awoke, perhaps she was frightened by his new form, it was all for the best. His father was trying to save him. Since his mother and sister passed from the same affliction as he. He did nothing but put in every second he had into finding a cure for his son. After the first room was completed, he entered the storage room. Poppy raced in ahead of him and disappeared behind boxes. It was filled with things from their old life. The belongings of his sibling and dear mother were also stashed here, untouched. He sometimes came in here to visit them, to remember things he’s forgotten, they helped him remember them if only slightly, it was more than a feeling he got, then a past vision, a feeling of happiness and safety that they are still with him.
Poppy seemed to have perked up a bit, and began to adventure around the room. She sniffed and crawled around many old relics of the past. Elias was busy wiping clean the old wheat scythe that laid propped up against the wall. When a small chest crashed to the floor, severing the old lock on it and scattering its contents across the floor. “Poppy!” He yelled at the adorable little creature who had undoubtedly knocked it over. He couldn't stay mad at her, with a slight smile on his face , he began to clean up the mess.
As he was stacking the papers in the box, one of the books caught his eye. It was a leather bound one with a strap on the side to keep it closed. But what stole his attention was the name written on it, It was a name so familiar, so, so safe that it brought forth a bloom of the past. The Alchemist didn't mention his wife much, not after she passed, but Elias knew what his mother’s name was, it was the same one written in this journal. It seemed he would never forget that.
Opening it he discovered her hand writing, beautiful and elegant, perhaps she came from nobility, It talked about her life, Marrying his father, having her daughter and son, but after they all moved to this isolated home, her hand writing became much more scratched on then how she began her journal. It read, I don't know what's happening to me, my hair began to grow abnormally, turning scarlet red, when it was before black. I can't seem to remember my past, whenever I try to recall my parents, my mind becomes foggy. What is happening? My dear husband said it is a curse placed upon me, and says he can cure it. I hope he can, Please my beloved save me. I don't want to forget our children’s faces. He continued reading, completely until the last page written on, which read, the medicine, it's always been the medicine. What is he doing to me.
Elias wasn't sure what to make of this. Was she talking about his father? And the same medicine he takes? No it couldn't be? I just remembered. I need to leave this place quickly, with my children and escape this mad man. Her panicked scribbles abruptly ended, as if ripped away from her desk.
A New idea began to form with Elias’s troubled mind. It was true his memory was flawed, but he now could sense danger with in the house, with in his own father. The worried look upon his face grew terribly. Seeing this made Poppy excited, she jumped brightly on his shoulder. All he was concerned with now was getting out of the house.
He crept down the stairs, hoping not to stir up too much trouble. the small creaks in the steps now sounded like loud shockwaves. Before he made it to the bottom steps, His father whipped open his lair door. “Elias! I have a new mixture to try!” he yelled, searching the kitchen. When the mad man’s eyes were set on his son, he was observant enough to know something was different in the boy. He usually jumped towards him at his medicine. His eye fell down towards his hands. Elias was holding something. A book? It was hers!
He yelled again “Elias, give that here!” but that started a fire by the boy’s feet. Dashing for the door as quick as he could but his father was closer grabbed him and through him down on the wooden floor. The alchemist held his son down and pried open his mouth. “Please!” He begged his father, but he wasn't listening. The mad man poured the blue tinted liquid down his throat causing Elias to cough and choke. “That's it” his father said through gritted teeth, not leaving a drop in the vial.
Many weeks went by or maybe it was only just a few days, Elias never could tell anymore, between the constant potion trials and never changing environment surrounding him, as well as his dwindling memory, time no longer was relevant to him. The things his father asked for were becoming more and more obscure. Just last week he requested an albino toad. But that was fine, he’s trying to cure his ailment after all. He forgot all about what had transpired after he read his mother’s words. He never found that journal again.
Nowadays the wind that occasionally drifted through the trees had a strangeness to it. Perhaps the seasons were changing or a storm was encroaching, or maybe the many twisting horns that grew from the poor boy’s body played a part. He looked a lot more like a distorted porcupine, both his eyes were now pitch black and his body grew large he was now over five five feet tall. Ten years old and he was now the same height as his own father.
Ever since that first sighting, the crimson beat never returned, Although Elias could still hear its cries echo through the trees. It sounded bleak and angry, with a hint of sadness with each roar. Elias was glad it was gone, but he wondered why it vanished so suddenly before. Perhaps it was for the best. Before he knew it, somehow the very sky was black. How long was he out here? It couldn't have been an hour since he left, but that was in the morning. This happened a lot recently, how time just slips by. Elias’s mind became much more hazy, like it was filled with a constant stream of static. Sometimes he even woke up outside, unaware of how he got there.
I need to save him. That is easier said than done, everything she tried failed and he was already forgetting himself. All that bile is rotting his brain. He doesn't even remember her anymore. She was at least lucky enough to retain her intellect. Poppy gilded her paw across the bars of her cage. As she did she reminded herself that she already tried to kill that batty man, but this body that she now resided in was no more lethal than a still stone. What could I do? She paced in her cell. When Elias finally found his way home it was nightfall. He’s been coming home later and later recently. Most likely forgetting where he lived. Oh how she wished their mother was here, but she was gone too, lost forever stumbling through this forest.
The mad man barged upstairs, most likely hearing his son’s large feet scraping the floor.“Finally “ he said, ignoring his son’s tortured posture, and swiping his bag that was tangled between the ridged horn like spikes sprouting from his arms. “Give it here!” he barked, ripping it off him. He gazed upon what was inside and smiled a hellish grin. “Finally!” he shouted throughout the wilting house. He rushed back down stairs to get to work on the formula that finally do it.
Elias, sat at the chair, his mind was drifting, he usually let Poppy out of her cage but not today, he completely forgot about Poppy, just like he did when she was once his sister and just like his mother before her. Poppy saw him hanging on by a thread, she began to rush back and force, hoping he could break through the small cage. She tackled the door. It didn't budge. She did it again. It still didn't open, but the cage did move, if only slightly. It was up to her to save her little brother. She no longer had the journal to bring light to her father’s crimes, she saw it herself. He burned it, and then… wept to the sight of it. Perhaps inside he still had some semblance of how he used to be, before he became obsessed. But even so he was a monster that needed to be stopped.
To Poppy he was gone and he did too much to her and her family to ever be forgiving. She rammed against the cage again, harder this time. Beyond the short fur, her body was especially squishy, but with determination alone, she still managed to get her prison closer to the edge. One more should do it, she thought, pressing herself against the back of the cage, before charging against the front.
Her cage crashed to the ground, grabbing her younger brother’s attention. “hmm “ the nothingness of his eyes focused on the cage on the floor with the small creature inside, looking awfully dazed. After a moment, he remembered “Poppy?” he said, his voice now deep and frightening. He walked over and bent down, to open the small door. Poppy quickly regained her wits and crawled her way out.
Now that Poppy was now free, there was only one other option that she could think of at this point, it was dangerous and might not work, but it was either this or watching him slowly become someone else, worst case they all died quickly.
She ran over to the door and began to scratch at it. Elias stumbled over to let her out, as soon as he opened up, Poppy bolted past the tree line and into the forest. She ran as quickly as her small, rabbit like legs could carry her. She was determined though, to saver her brother and end her father tyranny. She needed to find their mother.
The forest that surrounded the haunting the house was vast, filled with flora and fauna a plenty, well more flora and fauna. The ripped apart corpses of deer and wolves made it seem more like a feeding den rather than a forest floor. Despite her many warning signs to turn back the small creature persisted.
A teeth shaking roar lured her closer. She hopped atop a low hanging branch to get a better view and that's where she saw her, the crimson beast. It was over top of a large bear, gorging on its abundance of flesh. Poppy’s heart raced at the sight of her. Of all this time she never caught a glimpse. She remembered he slowly changed into the ravenous monster she now witnessed. She wished she could have realized sooner, cursing herself for being so naive. To think her father wanted only to destroy, rather than heal their mother. Poppy took her small paws and slapped her bouncy cheeks, she couldn't think of that right now. If mother was still inside that beast of gory red, she needed to find her. She hopped down from the branch and approached her.
Poppy’s first words were supposed to be mother, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a purring, gurgling sound. It must have been loud enough because she stopped eating the bloody meat she scooped out from the bear’s remains. Eying the small creature before her, the beast growled as she turned around to face her new prey.
Mother, please! Its Elias, you need to help, she tried desperately to plead with her, but her voice was gone, and her mother didn't even recognize her. Her new body came with new instincts as well, ones to sense danger. These alarms were screaming at her right now to run, but all she wanted to do was cry, to let whatever happen happen, but when she thought of her poor younger brother still being subjected to those horrid experiments…
Poppy turned around and wiggled her rump towards the maddening beast This way mother, she thought before taking off towards their once warm home. Her little butt wag worked a little too well, as the crimson beast that was soaked in blood was right on her heels, the only thing that slowed her down just short of getting her were the abundance of foliage and stone, she swiftly glided through. The sound of small trees breaking and the pounding of her large claws against the soil filled the air, like it was a dust cloud moving across a plain.
When Poppy finally made it into their yard. She was panting heavily and her eyes were focused on her mother who halted her pursuit at the tree line. refusing to step any closer, she remained just beyond the clearing, still growling, no longer at Poppy, but at the house itself. The beady eyes of hers stared at the looming house like it was about to grab her and pull her closer. Her daughter noticed this, this must mean she still had a bit of her former self within her. She at least hoped so. What could she do to get her closer, to remind her of who she really was? That's when an idea struck her like lightning.
The alchemist toiled in his laboratory. Every concoction he mixed turned into was a complete failure. What was he missing? His son’s withering mental state was also costing him valuable and much needed resources. Elias was out there for hours and yet he only procured enough supplies to hold in one palm. He stopped thinking about what to do about his gathering issues. He was too focused on his latest feat. This one for sure! It had to do it. Eternal youth, that's what it will bring, for both his name and mankind.
When his father made his way up those shaky steps. He found his son holding a broom in the other room, staring blankly at the cold fireplace. The same fireplace where they once shared memories together and the same place where he had burned his wife’s journal. “Elias, I believe I have done it this time. Your cure. Try it!” he said, handing over the potion. His son slowly turned his head to face him. The mind was all but absent from this task now, it was merely instinct at this point. He had done this so many times that it had been ingrained into his very muscle. He removed one of his hands from the broom handle, showing off that they had changed too. Instead of five fingers he was born to, he now had three large ones, like the extra two were absorbed by the others.
He slowly brought the potion to his lips, but before it could reach his mouth and fall down his throat, Poppy came bursting through the window and knocked the elixir from Elias's mangle hand. The glass vial smashed into pieces, spilling the bubbling mixture everywhere. “You! What have you done!” He had said to his former daughter, as he clutched his head in frustration. To make matters worse she taunted the grief stricken man. Wagging her dairy air at him, much like she did with her mother. Things were dire and she needed him to follow him and boy did he ever.
He let out another anger-filled growl as he barreled towards Poppy, but thanks to her agility and small frame, she easily maneuvered around him, much like a mouse. She jumped through the same window she entered from. The alchemist raced out the door, after her. But when he did He saw something he preyed on never to see again, his wife’s angry face staring back at him. “M- Mar” he began, but soon went cold. Like Poppy hoped for, the beast removed herself from the safety of the trees, her eyes firmly set on the demented man that cursed her and all her kids. All of the anger she felt, that festered inside of her heart, finally remembered the object of her hatred.
Elias watched his father and his pet chaotically dash around the room. It didn't dawn on him until the two took their chase outside, that he had dropped his medicine. He stared down at the liquid that was now spread across the floor. Perhaps it was still good? His father did seem sure of himself with this one. He slowly fell to his knees and began to drink up as much as he could.
The scorned mother stumped towards The alchemist, growling and roaring. It was like she was trying to yell at him, to curse his name. The old fool tripped backwards as she approached “Ma- Ma- Martha” he said quickly “ I am doing this for everyone’s sack, humanities, imagine how far our kind will expand, if we no longer aged.” he pleaded, hoping she could still understand him. In his eyes he was a saint, a man willing to sacrifice anything to better the world. But to everyone else, he was a twisted mad man bending morality to his design. A foolish man playing god.
Martha seemed to want to hear him out, or perhaps she liked seeing him in this panicked state. She bent her face down and bared her massive teeth inching them ever closer to her husband's pale face. He crawled backwards until he felt something hard behind him. It was the steps of the house. his eyes were large and shaky as he stared down her vengeful eyes. He was so close, so very close, he could feel it. And yet it was gonna end here, his work unfinished, his name forgotten. “No!” He refused to let that happen. He found a nearby branch and pointed at his former wife.
Poppy sat on the side lines, watching the miserable man stumble and crawl away from her mother. She couldn't help but to feel happy, maybe even a little bit satisfied with her action, but in the chaos she forgot to check up with Elias. When she ran back inside she found a horrific scene. Elias was licking the remains of the potion up. Poppy tried to stop him but it was too late, the potion was already taking effect.
The three fingered hands grew more claw-like, much like a mole’s, his jaw began to grow wider, creating a large underbite, revealing sharpened teeth, and his two large blackened eyes became one. When Elias, the cyclops saw Poppy he yelped, frightened at seeing her. His vocal cords seemed to only give off loud aching sounds when he tried to speak. Even he was surprised at this, clutching at his neck. Poppy yelped and gurgled trying to make him calm down. In his new form. She contemplated doing a little dance or rolling over to better soothe him, luckily he seemed to have settled. Until a mighty roar shook the house. Elias, curled up clutching his ears tightly.
The alchemist stormed into the house, only pausing at seeing what became of his son, his face grew more irritated then frightened. It didn't work, he thought for sure it would have worked! Did the roots already? He completely forgot about the monster he was running from, until she made herself known again.
Martha crashed through the wall right behind her husband, barely missing him with her sharp, poisonous tail. He dashed for his beloved basement door but she did not pursue him. She froze just like her husband did at the sight of her son. It wasn't to figure out some god foreskin mixture that would probably never grow fruit of eternal youth. No, it was of a mother gazing upon her son, her once beautiful child that looked so sweet and innocent, now a monster. She saw Poppy trying to comfort the scared little boy she gave birth to. Martha looked back over to the closed basement door, the alchemist’s sanctuary, his room of evil.
She could have easily tore it to pieces and gotten to him, but… should she? Death could be a blessing, for a man that lost his mind, that would be constantly tormented with his desire to achieve greatness. Perhaps a lifetime of obsession and loneliness was a suited punishment for a man that brought rot to their once happy family. So that's where she left him, toiling his days away in his own creation. While she took her kids, and tried to pick up what remains of themselves and start their new lives together.
2024.06.06 23:28 SnooPeanuts4336 TRI-CITIES EVENTS FOR 6JUN-12JUN (its music mayhem out there, stay safe)
Weekend Long Events
Manhattan Project B Reactor Tours The B Reactor National Historic Landmark, Richland Daily, 8:30a-12:30p FreeSummer Reading Book Sale New Beginnings Thrift Store, Richland Friday-Saturday 10a-6p
PNW Sports Memorabilia Collector Convention Three Rivers Convention Center, Kennewick 10-5p Free
Tri Town Get Down Festival 2024 John Dam Plaza, Richland Friday-Sunday 2-8p $???
Battle Vest Fest 2024 Rays Golden Lion, Richland Friday-Sunday 5-10p
Sacajawea Bluegrass Festival Sacajawea State Park, Pasco June 6-9 $15 for campers
Thursday Jun 6
EventsYouth Pride Night Boys & Girls Club, Pasco 6:30-8:30p
Kennewick Farmers Market The Public Market, Downtown Kennewick 4-7p
Teen Theater: Pride & Prejudice (2005) Richland Public Library 5:30-7:30p
HAPO Live @ 5 Featuring The Knockdowns John Dam Plaza, Richland 5-9p
Outdoor Summer Movies featuring Migration Howard Amon Park, Richland 7:30-9:30p
Card Recycling Richland Community Center 1-3p
Next Level Basics Class Paws to Play Dog Daycare, Pasco 7:30p
Mothers Together The Arc of Tri-Cities, Richland 9:30-10:30a
Tumbleweeds Food Truck LUNCH Service Bechtel, Richland 10a-1p
Speed Networking Visitor Day BNI, Kennewick 8a
Kennewick National Youth Baseball June Board Meeting Kennewick National Youth Baseball 6p
Cigar Night with The Educated Cigar 3-Eyed Fish, Richland 6-9p
Music
Operation Falko SOI 705, Richland 6:30p
Zac Grooms Trio Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing 7-10p
CBC Jazz Night CBC, Pasco 7p
Games and Comedy
Geeks Who Drink The Emerald of Siam 7p
Tri-Trivia Night Summers Hub, Kennewick 6p
Solar Spirits Trivia and Taco Truck Solar Spirits Distillery & Tasting Room, Richland 6-8p
Game Night Live Round Table Pizza, Kennewick 5-7p
Mah-Jongg & Poker Richland Community Center 1-3:30p
Classes
Park Tool School—Bicycle Mechanic Course CBC-Bld V, Pasco 6-8p
Paint-YOUR-Pet Paint & Sip Market Vineyards, Richland 6p $70
Sport
Tri-City Dust Devils vs. Eugene Emeralds Gesa Stadium, Pasco 6:30p $8-$46
Friday June 7
Events and GamesRed Cross Blood Drive Columbia Connections, Kennewick 10a
Boxed Game Skirmish Night: Warcry Warhammer Underworlds, Kennewick 2-5p
TC Thunder Twilight Meet #2 (Youth,Open,Masters) Southridge High School, Kennewick 5:30-10:30p $7
Richland Farmers Market Richland 9a-1p
Underground Book Club-Writer's of the Future Vol 40. Adventures Underground, Richland 6-7:30p
Classes
Watercolor Wonders: Pretty Poppy Art YOUR Way, Pasco 6-9p $37
Paint Class- Party Line Yellow Dog Art Studio, Richland 6-8p $40
Lymphatic System: Basics of Self Care Therapy Solutions, Richland 12-12:45p
First Friday Swing Dance, East Coast Basic Lesson and Social Dancing The Studio Bespoke, Richland 7-10p
Music and Comedy
Live Music with Ten Cent Lovin’ Blackthorne Neighborhood Pub, Kennewick 7p
Live Music with Joe Copper Top Tap House, Kennewick 7-9p
Music Bingo "Summer Hits" Murte-Gaston Wine Bar, Kennewick 6-8p
Rockin' the Rattlesnake Mountain Brewery Richland 7-10p
A Spoken Space: Open Mic Aub’s Lounge: Gourmet Banana Bread & Poetry, Richland 8-10p
Live Music with Albany Opal Goose Ridge Winery 5-7p
Les Stress and the Testers At Michele's, Richland 7-10p
Open Mic Night Iconic Brewing, Richland 7-10p
Radio Waves Live Music Tumbleweeds West, Richland 7-11p
First Friday with Bourbon and Bellows Avennia Estate Tasting Room, Benton City 5-7p
John Hilder Comedy w/ Bahiyyiih Mudd Jokers Comedy Club, Richland 7:30-9p $12
Sporting
Tri-City Dust Devils vs. Eugene Emeralds Gesa Stadium, Pasco 6:30p $8-$46
Saturday Jun 8
EventsPetting Zoo/Hobby Farm Jostens Petting Zoo 10a $8
Summer Saturdays Night Market Columbia Gardens Wine & Artisan Village, Kennewick 4-8p
Pasco Farmers Market Downtown Pasco, Lewis St 9-1p
U-Rocks Cool & Classic Car Show U Rock Radio, Kennewick 10a-2p
Desert Youth and Teen Center New Location Opening 11a-4p
Pasco Urban Revival Days (PUR-D): Clean-Up & Resource Fair Kurtman Park, Pasco 8-11a Clean Up, 11-1p Resource Fair
Aquatic Fitness Summer Launch Party hosted by Pacific Clinic of Kennewick Tri-City Court Club Splashdown Cove, Kennewick 9-10:30a
World Wide Knit in Public Day Richland Public Library 10-2p
"Songs of the Moon" Folk Tales from Asia by 5th Avenue Theater The REACH Museum, Richland 11-12a
Lincoln Reign Book Signing Barnes & Nobles, Kennewick 12p
CBWNPS Seed Collection+Wildflower Walk with Tapteal Greenway Claybell Park Parking Lot, Richland 10-12p
Free Park Yoga Hansen Park, Kennewick 9:30a
Classes
Gouache Koi Pond Class Bristle Art Gallery, Kennewick 6p
Bee Kind! Sign Kids DiY Honeycomb Studio, Kennewick 12p
Plastered Art Honeycomb Studio, Kennewick 6-8p
Saturday Kids Studio Yellow Dog Art Studio, Richland 10-12p $20
Stay-Treat Yoga Iconic Brewing, Southern Cross Winery 10:30-11:30a
Mommy & Me Sea Turtle Paint Party Art YOUR Way, Pasco 6-8p $50
Macrame Class: Wine Bottle Hanger Barnard Griffin Winery, Richland 5-7p
Music/Comedy
Mia Lenay The HUB, Kennewick 5:30-7:30p
Groove Principal Whiskey River Bar & Grill, Richland 8p-12a
Vaughn Jensen Band Thunder Alley Motorsports, Pasco 12p
Calico Bones Lazy River Taphouse, Richland 7p
Jeff Davis at The Underground Taphouse The Underground Taphouse, Pasco 8-10p
Fallout The Branding Iron, Kennewick 9p-1:30a $5
Live Music with Keith Scott Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing Company, Richland 7-10p
Elaine Eagle The Emerald of Siam, Richland 5-8p
Dr. Rock & The Sturgeons Tumbleweeds West, Richland 7-11p
Sporting
Tri-City Dust Devils vs. Eugene Emeralds Gesa Stadium, Pasco 6:30p $8-$46
Sunday Jun 9
ClassesGoat Yoga The Studio Bespoke, Richland 11a $30
Sunday Morning Yoga ANything Grows, Richland 8-9a
Nutrition 101 Class Natural Grocers, Kennewick Sundays, 1p FREE
Yoga by Gabbi, Pura Vida Barre & Yoga Badger Mountain Organic Winery, Kennewick 11a
Buti + Brews (on the patio) Wheat Head Brewing Co, Kennewick 10a
Events
Pacific Northwest Treasure Hunters June Meeting Kennewick Library 1p
Local Author Drew Huff Author Signing Adventures Underground, Richland 12-2p
Magic the Gathering Pre-Release Event Modern Horizons 3 Adventures Underground, Richland 1-6p
18yo+ LGBTQIA2+ SAFE Social monthly hangout West Richland Library 12-2p
Cat Adoptions Paw's Natural Pet Emporium, Kennewick 11-2p
Grace's Closet Pop-Up Shop Goose Ridge Estate Winery, Richland 11-6p
Sport
Point Blank Riders - Chinook Pass Ride 76 gas station next to Country Mercantile, Richland 10a
Music and Games
West African Kora Concert with Sean Gaskell Richland Public Library 2-3p
Yu-Gi-Oh! Casual Play Caterpillar Cafe, Richland 12-4p
Monday Jun 10
PFLAG BF EBoard Meeting Richland Community Center 6pGrandma Nessie's Storytime Adventures Underground, Richland 11-11:30a
Mobile Market (drive thru) 2nd Harvest Walmart Richland 10a-12p
Magic (the Gathering) Mondays Caterpillar Cafe, Richland 4-7p
Game Night Live Round Table Pizza, Richland 5-7p
Open Mic Night The Emerald of Siam, Richland 7p-12a Free
Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night Moonshot Brewing, Kennewick 6:30-9p
Tuesday Jun 11
Butterfly Release Event Little Lambs Garden, Sunset Gardens Richland 6pCity of Pasco Transportation Improvement Plan Community Meeting Delta High School, Pasco 5-7p
Lecture : The -5 (Dash Five) Part of the Hanford Z Plant by Dennis A. Armstrong Richland Public Library 7-8:30p
Orthopedic Study Group - KNEE Tri-Tech Skills Center, Kennewick 7-9p Free for 2 CEUs
FREE Middle School Football Camp Columbia Point Marina Park, Richland 6-7p
Reiki Healing Workshop Therapy Solutions, Richland 5:30-6:30p
Build It, Fix It: Bird Feeders Richland Public Library 6-8p
Game Master Workshop Caterpillar Cafe, Richland 5-7p
Beers and Bike N' Bikes Summers Hub Tuesdays 5-8p
Game Night Live Trivia Rattlesnake Brewing, Richland 6-8p
Reader's Theater by Richland Seniors Association Richland Community Center 1-3p
AKC STAR Puppy Class Paws to Play Dog Daycare, Pasco 6p $159
Music-Live Solo Guitar Music! Peter Janson Emerald of Siam, Richland 6-8p
Acoustic Night with Dave Cazier Emerald of Siam, Richland 6-8p
Wednesday June 12
EventsOrion High School Groundbreaking Ceremony Salt Lake, near Ochoa Middle School, Pasco 10a
ACT Alumni Meet Up The Academy of Children's Theatre, Richland 5p-7p
Night Market Summer's Hub, Kennewick 5-8p
Sand & Sage Hunting Retriever Club Meeting Roundtable Pizza, Richland 6:30p
CBNA Summer Social Arts Center Task Force, Richland 4:30-6p
Yappy Hour with proceeds to Camp Woods Legacy Wheat Head Brewery 6-7p
Fundraiser Night for Wishing Start Foundation Tumbleweeds West, West Richland 4-7p
Birds 'n Brews by Lower Columbia Basin Audubon Society Start: W. E. Johnson Park, End: Lazy River Taphouse, Richland 7p
Classes
Summer Grilling Series Red Mountain Kitchen, Pasco 6-8:30p $Unk
*Reverse Seared Steak, Herbed Fingerling Potatoes, and Spinach Salad with dried cranberries and candied walnuts, with a house-made dressing*
Big Foot Beach Vacation Paint Class (16+) Crepe Haus + El Compadre, Kennewick 6:30-8:30p
Open Studio Yellow Dog Art Studio. Richland All Day $per canvas size
Dan Dickau Basketball Clinic Shoot 360 Tri-Cities, Richland 5-6:30p
Games and Comedy
Bingo at Summer's Hub, Kennewick 5-7p
Beachball BINGO Richland Community Center 11-2p
Game Night Live at Two Bits and a Bite, Richland 7-9p
Game Night Live at Rattlesnake Mountain, Richland 7-9p
Pokemon League The Caterpillar Cafe, Richland 4-7p
Sporting
TCBRA Race 7 Kennewick Horse Heaven Round Up, BF Fair Grounds 7p
Diva Climb Tri-City Court Club, Kennewick 7-8:30p
Music
White Bluffs' Howling Choir Club Performance for White Bluffs PTO 7p
Jazz Jam hosted by Nathan Fisher The Emerald of Siam, Richland 6-8p
A Spoken Space: Open Mic Aub’s Lounge: Gourmet Banana Bread & Poetry 5:30-7:30p
Thunder on the Island with The Backroads Clover Island Inn, Kennewick 6p
Note: If you live in Pasco and bitch and complain about the roads or city planning or whatnot HERE IS YOUR CHANCE to bitch and complain to the people who a responsible and maaaaaaaaaybe suggest solutions so that something actually gets accomplished. Tuesday- City of Pasco Transportation Improvement Plan Community Meeting Delta High School, Pasco 5-7p
Also, GO GIVE BLOOD!!! Tomorrow-Red Cross Blood Drive Columbia Connections, Kennewick 10a
2024.06.06 22:13 Ben_Elohim_2020 The Nature of Family: Birth of a Fanatic [One-shot]
Thank you to:
u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the Nature of Predators universe.
u/blankxlate, author of Sweet Vengeance, for proofreading.
u/EdibleGojid, author of Dark Cuts, for proofreading.
EmClear, aspiring author, for proofreading
You, the reader, for your support.
Please consider reading the works of my proofreaders as they’re all authors of excellent stories and be sure to check the links below for more of my work and beautiful art from members of the community.
[Nature of Family Master List]
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The Nature of Family: Birth of a Fanatic
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Memory transcription subject: Intalran, Krakotl Civilian (Age 7)
Date [standardised human time]: February 9th, 2124
A loud boom in the distance wakes me from my restless sleep. Somewhere out there in the city another bomb has gone off, another battle fought, another life taken too soon by the monsters from the stars. I don’t know why this is happening, why they’ve come here, or why they want to hurt us so badly… Maybe that's just how they are? A senseless evil that needs no reason besides the simple fact that they can. What I do know is that mom and dad are scared. They’ve been putting up a brave face, trying not to pass along their fears to my big brother and I, but I can tell that something is deeply, deeply wrong.
Just one week ago everything had been right with the world. Everything had been fine, peaceful, boring even. I’d heard stories of the predators of course, I’d been raised on them and taught the lessons that every young chick is taught, warned of the dangers out there in the wider universe that prey upon our kind. Somehow it had always seemed so far off, so distant. The stories were something that wasn't quite real. They were something that happened to someone else, not here, not to my home, not to my family, not to me. That all changed with the day the raid sirens began their call.
It had been an ordinary day before it happened, warm and sunny with hardly a cloud in the sky and the sweet smell of flowers drifting along with the cool breeze. Akrim and I had just gotten back from a visit to the local park. I had been pestering him relentlessly to go out and play with me, to not waste away the entire season cooped up inside, and he had finally relented, pulling himself away from his studies for long enough to take me. Mom was waiting for us back at home when we arrived, tending to her garden and whistling along to the radio as she worked. She wasted no time in enlisting our help once she spotted us, but I didn't mind. Mom made gardening fun, and I like singing along to the music on the station with her. The songs stopped mid-way as I was talon-deep in weeds, ripping up the pesky invaders, to broadcast an elevated risk advisory. Mom listened attentively to the message before changing the channel to a different station. I didn't think anything of it at the time.
The first time I noticed something was off was when Dad came home from work earlier than normal that evening. He made all the usual gestures, an affectionate embrace with Mom as he came through the door, a pat on the back for Akrim, and a ruffle of my head feathers as he passed me by, but something felt wrong. There was a tension in him, a stress that underpinned his every action, something unspoken that gnawed at the back of his mind. Something he didn't wish to burden his children with.
I could hear Mom and Dad discussing their worries later that evening, after they’d sent Akrim and I down to roost so early that the sun hadn’t even set yet. Not long after I’d caught Akrim leaving his room, gliding down the hall on silent wings, and after a brief discussion joined him in his mission. The two of us crept down the stairs like a pair of thieves, listening attentively as we spied on our parents. The two of them huddled around the holovision, fixated on the local news broadcast, and Mom seemed on the verge of tears, shaking with every word as my Dad comforted her. I couldn't understand what the broadcaster was saying, but I could tell it wasn't good. At my brother's insistence we returned to our room, the look on his face filling me with dread.
The sirens themselves came in the dead of night, a shrill, haunting wail that made me shiver and shake. I'd heard them before during the usual tests and drills, everyone had, but this time felt somehow different. More real. The mechanical cry seemed almost like a living thing, some monster in the dead of night that had come to take me for its meal. In truth, that wasn't so far off.
Akrim was out of bed in a moment, shooing me downstairs while Mom and Dad pulled out backpacks loaded with supplies, preparing us and themselves for a long journey away from home. An adventure they called it. Everyone knew the right thing to do was to rush to the local shelter as fast as you could, hoping to beat the crowd and get in before they sealed it shut, hoping not to get crushed in the middle of a stampede.
My Dad felt differently, and perhaps that was a good thing. The monsters breached the shelter doors two days ago now. We could hear the explosion and the screams all the way from our hideout. My brother told me not to expect to see any of my friends or neighbours who went there seeking safety ever again. I hope he’s wrong, but I know he isn’t.
We travelled in the opposite direction of the shelter, avoiding the rest of the herd and the ensuing stampede, running ever onward even as my feet began to ache and my lungs began to burn. At last, when I felt I could run no further, we stopped, taking refuge in an abandoned building in the old historical district. A place to hide away from the crowds and the city centre. A place where we wouldn't be found… hopefully.
Strange ships flew down from the night sky, angular and alien in design, the ships of the monsters. They came like lightning, fast and deadly, destroying everything in sight with casual cruelty, but that was only the beginning. Larger vessels followed soon after, swarming with the giant grey beasts. Cattle ships.
From the elevated vantage point inside our shelter I could see them, spreading out like a plague across the city, ravaging everything and everyone in sight, dragging them back towards those ships, never to be seen again. Mom covered my eyes and dragged me away from the windows, telling me to stay quiet and hide before I could see what they did to the ones they captured, but I remember the stories. I know what happens.
I shudder at the thought and a chill breeze drifts in through the shattered window, cutting right through the thin survival blanket as I pull it even more tightly around my shoulders.
“Can’t sleep?” My brother asks, gently rubbing my back with a wing as he tries to comfort me.
“No.” I answer, looking out at the remains of the ruined city through clouded glass. “Do… Do you think that sound was the Exterminators coming to rescue us?” I ask with trepidation, already knowing the answer.
My brother just sighs and pulls me into a hug.
“I don’t think so.” He says remorsefully. “According to the emergency broadcasts the frontlines are still being fought on the other side of the city. It’ll be days until they reach us… If they reach us…”
“What are we gonna do?” I hold back tears, trying to be brave like Mom and Dad as I look out at the sporadic twinkle of weapons-fire illuminating the night on the horizon, so close and yet so far away.
“I don’t know, Intalran,” he says wistfully, “I don’t know.”
“Akrim!” My Father enters into the room, angrily chastising my brother. “Don’t say that to your brother! Everything will be just fine! There’s no need to make him cry!”
“I’m not crying…” I protest with tears in my eyes, unheard or perhaps simply ignored.
“I’m not going to lie to him, Dad!” Akrim shouts back. “Look around! Nothing is fine. Nothing…”
Mom gets up from the back, waking from her own fitful dreams to comfort her distressed chicks. She wraps her wings around both of us, swaddling us in her embrace.
“Please,” she says softly, “now isn’t the time to argue. All we have to do is wait here and have faith. The Exterminators will come. Intala will deliver us from this evil. She won’t allow the innocent chicks of her flock to come to harm. You just need to believe.”
“Ok…” I go along with my Mom’s words and she gives a small trill in response, squeezing us ever tighter as she nuzzles us, but in my heart… I don’t know if I believe it.
If Intala really cared about us then why would she have let any of this happen to begin with? What about all the other chicks out there in the city? What about the ones that were inside the shelter? Why would Intala allow anyone to suffer? Why would she allow the monsters to exist at all? Is it that Intala can’t help us? Is it that she doesn’t actually care? Or could it be that Intala isn’t even real…?
My stomach rumbles out a tortured groan, more concerned with the needs of the material than the spiritual.
“Do… Do we still have any food left?” I ask aloud, bringing about a look of shame from both my parents' faces.
“I’m sorry, Son,” My father looks away, “but we ran out yesterday. It’s all my fault. I should have packed more into the bags. I should have rationed better. I should have… I… I… ”
Mom gets up and embraces dad in a hug, quieting his regretful ramblings.
“It’s alright, Love.” She soothes his restless spirit with a simple word in the way only she can. “You’ve done the best you could. We’re all still here because of you. We’ll be ok. We’ll make it through this. Intala provides.”
“Actually…” my brother interjects, rising from his seat and walking over towards his bedding, “I still have a little bit of food leftover from my last meal. I knew we were running out, so I wanted to save it, just in case we needed it later,” from under his pillow he pulls a small, ripened juicefruit, “but here. You can have it, Intalran.”
“Really? I ask as he presses the last of our precious food reserves into my open wings. “What about you though? What are you gonna eat?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not even hungry.” His lie is as plain as could be. We’re all hungry and we all need food, but no one calls him out on it. “You need it more than I do.” He insists.
“Maybe we could split it?” I suggest.
I look over to my parents, seeking their guidance to help absolve me of my guilt. Instead they just look on expectantly, happy to watch me eat the entire juicefruit myself.
“Intala provides.” My Mom intones with appreciation. “Make sure you enjoy it. It might be the last thing you get to eat for a little while.”
I look down at the plump and delectable looking fruit, still feeling a smidge guilty for ‘stealing’ the last of our food for myself.
“Thank you, Akrim.” I say before digging my beak into the tart flesh of the fruit, sucking out the sweet juices within that give the tasty treat its name.
While I munch away at the fruit, taking my time to appreciate every sip and bite, Akrim peers out the window down to the streets below.
“Hey, Dad?” He asks, pointing down towards a pack of the monsters roaming below, splitting off into groups to search the nearby buildings. “I think we might have a problem…”
My dad walks over and peers down himself, pulling Akrim back from the window.
“Damn!” He curses under his breath. “They’re searching the buildings again. Everyone away from the windows, we need to get somewhere more secure. Move!”
“Maybe this is a good sign?” My mother suggests as she quickly packs up our meagre belongings, removing any trace of our brief residence. “If they’re doing a final sweep of the city that must mean they’re getting ready to leave soon.”
“Maybe,” Dad answers, “but that won’t matter one bit if they find us before they do.”
Hurrying us along, my Dad begins moving us out of the open space that had become our living quarters in the past few days and back towards the hidden room upstairs. As we mount the stairs I can hear it down below, the loud crunch of a door being ripped off its hinges followed by the weighty footfall of a pack of massive predators.
“They’re in the building!” Akrim whispers. “Hurry!”
Try as I might, my little legs can only run so fast and the sound of the monsters behind us only gets louder and louder with each passing moment as they begin making their way upstairs. Not content with my pace, Dad picks me up and holds me in his wings, carrying me the rest of the way up the stairs to the special room. Inside is nothing more than a small study with old dusty furniture, a sturdy desk, a couple of archaic bookshelves, and a storage closet. Opening up the closet, he presses against the back panel allowing it to swing free, revealing a small, barren room barely big enough to stand in with a single tiny ventilation window to let air in from the outside.
Akrim rushes into the hideaway at once while Dad puts me down.
“Inside!” he urges me. “Quickly and quietly before-”
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhh!
Before he can finish speaking Dad’s words are cut off by a pained scream that makes all our feathers ruffle, that of a woman. With a final, remorseful glance back at us, he discretely shuts the hidden panel once more and turns around to face his destiny, placing himself between us and the invaders. We watch helplessly from just outside, through the slit where the panel fails to make flush with the frame.
The door to the study is open and inside is a terrifying beast out of a nightmare. Its body is huge, towering over Dad at over twice his height, so large that it needs to duck and hunch just to fit inside the room. Dull grey scales cover the entirety of its body, covering a lean and famished physique, taut with tension and decorated by a multitude of pink scar tissue across its arms and chest. Terrible clawed hands and feet grip the doorway and floor respectively, digging in and splitting the wood with the causal weight of their power. Hideous binocular eyes stare down ravenously, savouring the taste of blood and envisioning the sadistic joys to come. In its long, toothy snout it holds aloft the form of my Mom, still alive and squirming in pain as her wing is held trapped in its jaws by the shoulder. It flexes the muscles in its mouth, biting down harder with a crunch of splintering bone that causes Mom to flail anew.
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhh!
Dad stands on shaky feet, barely able to remain upright as he faces down such a horrific monstrosity and watches the love of his life writhe in agony. He unfurls his wings and raises them high overhead in a magnificent threat display, irrevocably weakened by the nervous chattering of his beak and the tears in his eyes.
The great beast almost seems to laugh, a low rumbling chuckle emanating from its massive chest, mocking and taking enjoyment from Dads valiant challenge. It begins shaking its head side to side in a violent, rolling motion, yanking Mom to and from in its jaws like a rag-doll, ripping muscle and displacing bone as she cries.
“Caaaaaaawwwww!” Dad lets out a primal screech of rage, unable to simply stand by and watch any longer.
He leaps into the air, his wings beating powerfully as he throws himself at the Arxur with talons outstretched and thirsting for the blood of vengeance.
The monster bats him aside with hardly a care, striking him in the side with an enormous clawed hand that batters him to the floor and tears open his side at the ribs, leaving his lacerated innards free to slowly spill and ooze out onto the floor. A mixture of shock and pain fills his face as he lays there, slowly bleeding out from his mortal wound, and his unseeing eyes lock with mine as I peer through the slit.
Grief and rage threaten to overwhelm me, forcibly pulling at the strings of my heart so harshly that I fear they may break. Tears flow freely from my eyes and a rising shriek of anger begins to build in my throat. I open my beak to scream… And my brother clamps it shut with a wing. I struggle and flail in his embrace, fighting him at every opportunity, too maddened by my own sorrows to think clearly, but when I look up to face him… I can see the tears flowing from his eyes as well.
I can’t keep doing this. I need to be smart. I need to be brave. Like Akrim. Like Dad…
I stop resisting and allow my body to go limp. Akrim refuses to let go, supporting me as I slump down. Our trials are far from over however as the wet, rending sound of peeling flesh pierces through the door, followed by more screaming and a heavy thud on the floor.
Peering back into the room, Mom lays beside Dad on the ground, her left wing completely ripped off at the shoulder and a ragged gorge running down her chest exposing her ribs.
“Oh Intala, who art in heaven, deliver us from evil and grant us peace.” Mom chokes out her prayers through a blood-filled beak, delirious with pain and almost trance-like as she repeats her memorised verses over and over again. “Rain fire upon the predator so that they may be cleansed, and lead your flock towards salvation. Smite those who would harm your chicks with righteous fury, for they are your blessing and our light. Oh Intala, who art in heaven…”
The Arxur cares not for their pain, their suffering, or their prayers. It reaches down with callous indifference and plants a foot on the small of Dads back, grabbing his ankle with a hand, and pulls.
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhh!
Dad screams as his body is slowly pulled apart by the brute's otherworldly strength, his ligaments and tendons unable to fight against such insurmountable force. His leg dislocates from his hip with an audible pop before the muscle gives way and shears off at the thigh in ragged strands. The beast raises the leg of my father to its mouth and takes a bite, overcome with ecstasy and pleasure as Dad wails in agony and mother continues in her fevered prayers.
I don’t know how much more I can take. My entire body is shaking and I feel as though I’m about to pass out, my head growing light from the sheer horror of it all. This doesn’t feel real, but even in my worst nightmares I could never conceive of something so atrocious. I can’t pass out though. The rage and hatred burning inside is too strong for that. The call for blood, for vengeance, too much to ignore.
The Arxur, not content to simply enjoy what suffering it has already inflicted, casts aside the torn leg and returns for more. Dad’s second leg comes off much as the first, with no less screaming or agony. I feel so helpless and weak, so cowardly for hiding by and simply watching it happen, but there’s nothing I can do. Beside me, Akrim shakes and twitches in empathy, his ragged breathing and hateful eyes a match for my own.
At long last dad goes still, his ravaged body unable to sustain itself with so much blood strewn about the floor, and the predator turns its sights to Mom. Flipping her over to expose her front, it inspects its handiwork, Mom’s chest rises and falls in rapid, shallow rhythm as her body fights to stay alive. Her eyes are blank as she stares sightlessly up towards the ceiling, but her soft yet fervent prayers continue to reverberate. This seems to displease the monster.
With a sudden snap of its jaws it plunges its snout into the hole at my mothers side, digging around inside for delicate morsels to snatch and steal from her chest cavity. Shaking her body about and tugging with all its might, the Arxur rips free its prize, a fresh pair of lungs, and my mothers voice goes silent for the final time.
My stomach finally gives out at the sight of it, half digested bits of juicefruit spilling forth from my mouth as I keel over… and the Arxur takes notice. It stops in the midst of its blood frenzy, its joyful mutilation of my parents' still warm bodies, to look over towards the closet, over at me.
Akrim sees it coming and drags me to my feet.
“We need to get out of here now!” He shouts, stealth no longer an option. “Out the window!”
At the sound of my brothers voice the Arxur charges, crashing through the hidden panel and reducing it to splinters, but it’s too late. Akrim and I are already through the ventilation window and floating down to the streets below on our wings. The beast shoots a clawed hand out the tiny window, but to no avail, snatching only air as it narrowly misses me.
“The cattle are escaping!” It roars in its vile, guttural tongue. “Capture them!”
We land with a start on the streets below, taking off as fast as we can to who-knows-where as reptilian, binocular eyes lean out to peer down on us from the surrounding building and feral roars fill the air. I don’t know where we’re going, I don’t know what we hope to accomplish by it, but all I know is that I need to keep moving, keep running as hard and fast as I can. Away from the hideout, away from the predators, away from my parents, and away from the horrors. Sadly, as much as the mind may be willing, the body may not be able. Especially when that body is half-starved from days of subsistence rations.
I trip and fall, skinning my knee on the pavement and drawing blood. Just one more means for the monsters to track us. Ahead of me Akrim continues to run, further and further away.
“Akrim!” I cry out tearfully. “Don’t leave me!”
Akrim halts at once, realising for the first time that I’ve fallen and rushes back to me.
“I’m not gonna leave you.” He says, picking me up and holding me in his arms as he continues to run. “I’m never going to leave you. I promise. We only have each other now, and I’ll be damned if I let anyone take you away from me!”
Behind us I can see the predators gaining on us, my weight only slowing Akrim down as he gasps and wheezes, his body overheating and struggling to replace the air in his lungs as we continue our harried retreat.
We emerge into an open plaza, strewn with abandoned vehicles and rubble, a once beautiful place now reduced to little more than an open-air graveyard. In the centre stands a statue of a Krakotl, rising in flight and surrounded by flames yet miraculously unburned, a monument to Intala. It is covered in soot and ash, blemished by battlefield scars and cracked in places, yet still shines with the warm glint of bronze.
The Arxur emerge on the other end of the street and we turn to run away only to find our next path blocked, again and again and again. We’ve been trapped, cornered and with nowhere left to run. This is the end for us. Visions of my parents' deaths flash through my mind, slowly torn limb from limb while still alive, still in agony. I don’t want to die like that.
Akrim backs us into a small corner and sets me down, placing himself between me and the ravenous pack bearing down on us.
“Close your eyes, Intalran.” He says, tears running down his face. “Don’t look. It’ll all be over soon. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better brother.”
He takes up a threat display, small and weak compared to the monstrosities that slowly encircle us, yet undaunted. So brave, so much like Dad.
“Caaaaawwwww!” He screams out with defiance, and I know for certain that it is the last I’ll ever hear of my brother.
I gaze up at the shrine of Intala, my mind racing with prayers more desperate than any I’d ever had before, begging for salvation, begging for forgiveness, begging… for a miracle.
Oh Intala, why have you forsaken us? Why did you allow them to take my parents? Why are you going to allow them to take my brother? Why are you going to let them take me? What have I done wrong in your eyes? What did my Mother, my Father, my Brother, what did any of us do to displease you? Whatever it is, I'm sorry! I’m sorry I’ve been a bad son! I’m sorry I’ve been a bad brother! I’m sorry I doubted you! I’m sorry! But please! Please don’t let this happen! Take me if you have to, but don’t let them hurt Akrim! I beg you! Save us! Deliver us! Smite the predator with righteous fire and cleanse us of our sin! I promise, I’ll make it up to you! I’ll never doubt again! Never stray from your path again! Please!
I fall to the ground, sobbing, inconsolable… and my prayers are answered with a roar of thunder that splits the sky.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!
Pavement stones shatter all around us, sending fragments of shrapnel everywhere, and causing the Arxur to break off their hunt to flee for cover. Gazing up I can see them coming over the horizon, silhouetted against the rising light of dawn. Three Federation troop carriers, descending upon us with their mounted shard cannons letting loose a storm of righteous fury against the enemy. The Exterminators had arrived.
The Arxur return fire from their shadowy alcoves and pitiful shelter, but it’s no use against the shining ships of intalas wrath. They halt over the plaza, their propulsion jets rotating for vertical landing as they hover over the ruined streets. Wires drop to dangle free from the shuttles, and out of them emerges Intala’s angels, avatars of her divine will garbed in luminous chrome and wielding the instruments of her vengeance. They rappel one after another down the lines, letting loose with fire and shard as they make their landfall upon the blasphemous heathens that encroach upon Intala’s world.
A lone figure rises above all others, a strong and heroic champion whose uniform is sanctified with the purest of gold. In his hands he holds aloft a massive, rotary shardgun with twin-linked barrels, a marvel of engineering and a sacred armament whose weight and power could be borne by no lesser man. It sings out a chorus of destruction, planting seeds of death in all those who meet its gaze as the Champion mounts the steps to the shrine, placing himself at the head of the assault.
Shards fly and fire reigns as the monsters are pushed back. The Champion’s helmet is struck free from his face, leaving him unharmed but revealing a most surprising sight, a figure I’d never have expected to see.
He is a Venlil, the weakest and most cowardly of all the races, but this man is the exception that proves the rule. His wool is as black as night, as black as the void of space itself, and upon his face rests the unwavering eyes of a ruthless and righteously ordained killer, unerring in his focus and possessed of a divine will. He sweeps the battlements with his weapon, letting forth a whirlwind of death and dropping predatory bodies by the dozens as his shots unerringly find their mark, spilling free pools of crimson blood.
He remains steady and unwavering, the chaos of the battlefield engulfing him fully as he reaps the souls of the sinners, but not a single shot can find him as he stands before Intala, the light of the morning sun a halo surrounding his head. This man was no mere champion, but a Herald of divine justice, an avatar of death itself summoned forth by Intala herself to enact her will upon the blasphemous and the unworthy. All those who would sow terror in the heart of her flock would soon find that terror returned to them tenfold.
“Drive them to the sea and drown them in their own blood!” The Herald orders his men with unbridled conviction, rousing them to further glory. “For your homes! For your people! For the Federation!”
He raises a fist with infectious zeal, firing his machine gun one-handed and heralding the dawn of hope, the end to the ceaseless nightmare. His cries are echoed on the wind by his followers, a roar of fury and vengeance that will not go unheard.
“For the Federation!”
“For The Protector!”
“For Nishtal!”
“For Intala!”
One of the angels approaches my brother and I, an elaborate emblem upon his shoulder of an Arxur skull, pierced clean through with an elongated dagger and wreathed in purifying flame.
“Civilians located and secure,” he transmits over his headset, “proceeding with extermination of hostile force, over.”
I get up on shaking feet and approach the angel in chrome, shivering and shaking in the bask of their glory, unworthy to even look upon them yet compelled to do nothing else.
“Who… Who is that?” I dare to ask, casting single wing towards the Herald as he slowly walks away, chasing the monsters out of sight, out of our city, back down to the depths of damnation where they may fester and rot, burning for all time yet to come in the radiance of Intalas majesty.
“Prestige Officer Glagrig.” The angel deigns to answer my question. “It was his damn idea to lead a deep-strike operation behind enemy lines in the first place.”
His tone is gruff and unfriendly, but how could I expect anything else? I am bothering him during his work, distracting him from his sacred task, given to him by Intala herself, though he may not realise it. I’m honoured that he chooses to speak with me at all.
I look out, watching with rapt attention as the figure of Intala’s Herald, my saviour, Prestige Officer Glagrig, vanishes from sight. I will remember that name, and I will fulfil my promise to Intala. Someday… Someday I’ll be just like him.
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A/N - I hope you’ve all enjoyed this thrilling look into the origins of Intalran and I hope it helps shed a bit more light on his character. If you haven’t done so in a while I would highly recommend you check out the Master List linked at the top of the page for everything Nature of Family. The list is regularly updated so even if you’ve checked it before there might be something new that you’ve missed. Recent additions include Children of the Grave, an Empty Eyes story about Trilvri’s time as a Cadet in the Penitents, and The Duskwall Shadestalker, a wonderful (and now cannon) Ficnapping by VeryUnluckyDice himself.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with these one-shots lately and I haven’t quite decided what I want to work on next. Chapter 19 of NoF is of course a priority, but I’ve also got some other great ideas floating around including a new multi-part Empty Eyes adventure, an Alfonse origin story (among other origin stories), a ‘Playing By Ear’ style music-focused Empty Eyes one-shot which Dice has been kind enough to offer assistance with, a sequel to The Duskwall Shadestalker, and even a barely fleshed-out concept for a bit of a Rom-Com. If any of that sounds particularly interesting to you or if there’s anything you really want to see or learn more about in the future please let me know in the comments. I won’t promise anything, and at the end of the day I’ll write whatever I’m inspired to write, but if there’s enough demand I may be swayed in one direction or another.
If you like the story then please remember to upvote, comment, and use the “!Subscribeme” function to be alerted to all new posts. I post as often as I can but real life has a tendency of getting in the way and my job makes it almost impossible to keep to any kind of schedule. Your engagement and support go a long way towards helping to keep me on track and motivated, so thank you very much for reading and I hope you'll stay tuned for next chapter!
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u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the Nature of Predators universe.
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[Nature of Family Master List]
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The Nature of Family: Birth of a Fanatic
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Memory transcription subject: Intalran, Krakotl Civilian (Age 7)
Date [standardised human time]: February 9th, 2124
A loud boom in the distance wakes me from my restless sleep. Somewhere out there in the city another bomb has gone off, another battle fought, another life taken too soon by the monsters from the stars. I don’t know why this is happening, why they’ve come here, or why they want to hurt us so badly… Maybe that's just how they are? A senseless evil that needs no reason besides the simple fact that they can. What I do know is that mom and dad are scared. They’ve been putting up a brave face, trying not to pass along their fears to my big brother and I, but I can tell that something is deeply, deeply wrong.
Just one week ago everything had been right with the world. Everything had been fine, peaceful, boring even. I’d heard stories of the predators of course, I’d been raised on them and taught the lessons that every young chick is taught, warned of the dangers out there in the wider universe that prey upon our kind. Somehow it had always seemed so far off, so distant. The stories were something that wasn't quite real. They were something that happened to someone else, not here, not to my home, not to my family, not to me. That all changed with the day the raid sirens began their call.
It had been an ordinary day before it happened, warm and sunny with hardly a cloud in the sky and the sweet smell of flowers drifting along with the cool breeze. Akrim and I had just gotten back from a visit to the local park. I had been pestering him relentlessly to go out and play with me, to not waste away the entire season cooped up inside, and he had finally relented, pulling himself away from his studies for long enough to take me. Mom was waiting for us back at home when we arrived, tending to her garden and whistling along to the radio as she worked. She wasted no time in enlisting our help once she spotted us, but I didn't mind. Mom made gardening fun, and I like singing along to the music on the station with her. The songs stopped mid-way as I was talon-deep in weeds, ripping up the pesky invaders, to broadcast an elevated risk advisory. Mom listened attentively to the message before changing the channel to a different station. I didn't think anything of it at the time.
The first time I noticed something was off was when Dad came home from work earlier than normal that evening. He made all the usual gestures, an affectionate embrace with Mom as he came through the door, a pat on the back for Akrim, and a ruffle of my head feathers as he passed me by, but something felt wrong. There was a tension in him, a stress that underpinned his every action, something unspoken that gnawed at the back of his mind. Something he didn't wish to burden his children with.
I could hear Mom and Dad discussing their worries later that evening, after they’d sent Akrim and I down to roost so early that the sun hadn’t even set yet. Not long after I’d caught Akrim leaving his room, gliding down the hall on silent wings, and after a brief discussion joined him in his mission. The two of us crept down the stairs like a pair of thieves, listening attentively as we spied on our parents. The two of them huddled around the holovision, fixated on the local news broadcast, and Mom seemed on the verge of tears, shaking with every word as my Dad comforted her. I couldn't understand what the broadcaster was saying, but I could tell it wasn't good. At my brother's insistence we returned to our room, the look on his face filling me with dread.
The sirens themselves came in the dead of night, a shrill, haunting wail that made me shiver and shake. I'd heard them before during the usual tests and drills, everyone had, but this time felt somehow different. More real. The mechanical cry seemed almost like a living thing, some monster in the dead of night that had come to take me for its meal. In truth, that wasn't so far off.
Akrim was out of bed in a moment, shooing me downstairs while Mom and Dad pulled out backpacks loaded with supplies, preparing us and themselves for a long journey away from home. An adventure they called it. Everyone knew the right thing to do was to rush to the local shelter as fast as you could, hoping to beat the crowd and get in before they sealed it shut, hoping not to get crushed in the middle of a stampede.
My Dad felt differently, and perhaps that was a good thing. The monsters breached the shelter doors two days ago now. We could hear the explosion and the screams all the way from our hideout. My brother told me not to expect to see any of my friends or neighbours who went there seeking safety ever again. I hope he’s wrong, but I know he isn’t.
We travelled in the opposite direction of the shelter, avoiding the rest of the herd and the ensuing stampede, running ever onward even as my feet began to ache and my lungs began to burn. At last, when I felt I could run no further, we stopped, taking refuge in an abandoned building in the old historical district. A place to hide away from the crowds and the city centre. A place where we wouldn't be found… hopefully.
Strange ships flew down from the night sky, angular and alien in design, the ships of the monsters. They came like lightning, fast and deadly, destroying everything in sight with casual cruelty, but that was only the beginning. Larger vessels followed soon after, swarming with the giant grey beasts. Cattle ships.
From the elevated vantage point inside our shelter I could see them, spreading out like a plague across the city, ravaging everything and everyone in sight, dragging them back towards those ships, never to be seen again. Mom covered my eyes and dragged me away from the windows, telling me to stay quiet and hide before I could see what they did to the ones they captured, but I remember the stories. I know what happens.
I shudder at the thought and a chill breeze drifts in through the shattered window, cutting right through the thin survival blanket as I pull it even more tightly around my shoulders.
“Can’t sleep?” My brother asks, gently rubbing my back with a wing as he tries to comfort me.
“No.” I answer, looking out at the remains of the ruined city through clouded glass. “Do… Do you think that sound was the Exterminators coming to rescue us?” I ask with trepidation, already knowing the answer.
My brother just sighs and pulls me into a hug.
“I don’t think so.” He says remorsefully. “According to the emergency broadcasts the frontlines are still being fought on the other side of the city. It’ll be days until they reach us… If they reach us…”
“What are we gonna do?” I hold back tears, trying to be brave like Mom and Dad as I look out at the sporadic twinkle of weapons-fire illuminating the night on the horizon, so close and yet so far away.
“I don’t know, Intalran,” he says wistfully, “I don’t know.”
“Akrim!” My Father enters into the room, angrily chastising my brother. “Don’t say that to your brother! Everything will be just fine! There’s no need to make him cry!”
“I’m not crying…” I protest with tears in my eyes, unheard or perhaps simply ignored.
“I’m not going to lie to him, Dad!” Akrim shouts back. “Look around! Nothing is fine. Nothing…”
Mom gets up from the back, waking from her own fitful dreams to comfort her distressed chicks. She wraps her wings around both of us, swaddling us in her embrace.
“Please,” she says softly, “now isn’t the time to argue. All we have to do is wait here and have faith. The Exterminators will come. Intala will deliver us from this evil. She won’t allow the innocent chicks of her flock to come to harm. You just need to believe.”
“Ok…” I go along with my Mom’s words and she gives a small trill in response, squeezing us ever tighter as she nuzzles us, but in my heart… I don’t know if I believe it.
If Intala really cared about us then why would she have let any of this happen to begin with? What about all the other chicks out there in the city? What about the ones that were inside the shelter? Why would Intala allow anyone to suffer? Why would she allow the monsters to exist at all? Is it that Intala can’t help us? Is it that she doesn’t actually care? Or could it be that Intala isn’t even real…?
My stomach rumbles out a tortured groan, more concerned with the needs of the material than the spiritual.
“Do… Do we still have any food left?” I ask aloud, bringing about a look of shame from both my parents' faces.
“I’m sorry, Son,” My father looks away, “but we ran out yesterday. It’s all my fault. I should have packed more into the bags. I should have rationed better. I should have… I… I… ”
Mom gets up and embraces dad in a hug, quieting his regretful ramblings.
“It’s alright, Love.” She soothes his restless spirit with a simple word in the way only she can. “You’ve done the best you could. We’re all still here because of you. We’ll be ok. We’ll make it through this. Intala provides.”
“Actually…” my brother interjects, rising from his seat and walking over towards his bedding, “I still have a little bit of food leftover from my last meal. I knew we were running out, so I wanted to save it, just in case we needed it later,” from under his pillow he pulls a small, ripened juicefruit, “but here. You can have it, Intalran.”
“Really? I ask as he presses the last of our precious food reserves into my open wings. “What about you though? What are you gonna eat?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not even hungry.” His lie is as plain as could be. We’re all hungry and we all need food, but no one calls him out on it. “You need it more than I do.” He insists.
“Maybe we could split it?” I suggest.
I look over to my parents, seeking their guidance to help absolve me of my guilt. Instead they just look on expectantly, happy to watch me eat the entire juicefruit myself.
“Intala provides.” My Mom intones with appreciation. “Make sure you enjoy it. It might be the last thing you get to eat for a little while.”
I look down at the plump and delectable looking fruit, still feeling a smidge guilty for ‘stealing’ the last of our food for myself.
“Thank you, Akrim.” I say before digging my beak into the tart flesh of the fruit, sucking out the sweet juices within that give the tasty treat its name.
While I munch away at the fruit, taking my time to appreciate every sip and bite, Akrim peers out the window down to the streets below.
“Hey, Dad?” He asks, pointing down towards a pack of the monsters roaming below, splitting off into groups to search the nearby buildings. “I think we might have a problem…”
My dad walks over and peers down himself, pulling Akrim back from the window.
“Damn!” He curses under his breath. “They’re searching the buildings again. Everyone away from the windows, we need to get somewhere more secure. Move!”
“Maybe this is a good sign?” My mother suggests as she quickly packs up our meagre belongings, removing any trace of our brief residence. “If they’re doing a final sweep of the city that must mean they’re getting ready to leave soon.”
“Maybe,” Dad answers, “but that won’t matter one bit if they find us before they do.”
Hurrying us along, my Dad begins moving us out of the open space that had become our living quarters in the past few days and back towards the hidden room upstairs. As we mount the stairs I can hear it down below, the loud crunch of a door being ripped off its hinges followed by the weighty footfall of a pack of massive predators.
“They’re in the building!” Akrim whispers. “Hurry!”
Try as I might, my little legs can only run so fast and the sound of the monsters behind us only gets louder and louder with each passing moment as they begin making their way upstairs. Not content with my pace, Dad picks me up and holds me in his wings, carrying me the rest of the way up the stairs to the special room. Inside is nothing more than a small study with old dusty furniture, a sturdy desk, a couple of archaic bookshelves, and a storage closet. Opening up the closet, he presses against the back panel allowing it to swing free, revealing a small, barren room barely big enough to stand in with a single tiny ventilation window to let air in from the outside.
Akrim rushes into the hideaway at once while Dad puts me down.
“Inside!” he urges me. “Quickly and quietly before-”
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhh!
Before he can finish speaking Dad’s words are cut off by a pained scream that makes all our feathers ruffle, that of a woman. With a final, remorseful glance back at us, he discretely shuts the hidden panel once more and turns around to face his destiny, placing himself between us and the invaders. We watch helplessly from just outside, through the slit where the panel fails to make flush with the frame.
The door to the study is open and inside is a terrifying beast out of a nightmare. Its body is huge, towering over Dad at over twice his height, so large that it needs to duck and hunch just to fit inside the room. Dull grey scales cover the entirety of its body, covering a lean and famished physique, taut with tension and decorated by a multitude of pink scar tissue across its arms and chest. Terrible clawed hands and feet grip the doorway and floor respectively, digging in and splitting the wood with the causal weight of their power. Hideous binocular eyes stare down ravenously, savouring the taste of blood and envisioning the sadistic joys to come. In its long, toothy snout it holds aloft the form of my Mom, still alive and squirming in pain as her wing is held trapped in its jaws by the shoulder. It flexes the muscles in its mouth, biting down harder with a crunch of splintering bone that causes Mom to flail anew.
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhh!
Dad stands on shaky feet, barely able to remain upright as he faces down such a horrific monstrosity and watches the love of his life writhe in agony. He unfurls his wings and raises them high overhead in a magnificent threat display, irrevocably weakened by the nervous chattering of his beak and the tears in his eyes.
The great beast almost seems to laugh, a low rumbling chuckle emanating from its massive chest, mocking and taking enjoyment from Dads valiant challenge. It begins shaking its head side to side in a violent, rolling motion, yanking Mom to and from in its jaws like a rag-doll, ripping muscle and displacing bone as she cries.
“Caaaaaaawwwww!” Dad lets out a primal screech of rage, unable to simply stand by and watch any longer.
He leaps into the air, his wings beating powerfully as he throws himself at the Arxur with talons outstretched and thirsting for the blood of vengeance.
The monster bats him aside with hardly a care, striking him in the side with an enormous clawed hand that batters him to the floor and tears open his side at the ribs, leaving his lacerated innards free to slowly spill and ooze out onto the floor. A mixture of shock and pain fills his face as he lays there, slowly bleeding out from his mortal wound, and his unseeing eyes lock with mine as I peer through the slit.
Grief and rage threaten to overwhelm me, forcibly pulling at the strings of my heart so harshly that I fear they may break. Tears flow freely from my eyes and a rising shriek of anger begins to build in my throat. I open my beak to scream… And my brother clamps it shut with a wing. I struggle and flail in his embrace, fighting him at every opportunity, too maddened by my own sorrows to think clearly, but when I look up to face him… I can see the tears flowing from his eyes as well.
I can’t keep doing this. I need to be smart. I need to be brave. Like Akrim. Like Dad…
I stop resisting and allow my body to go limp. Akrim refuses to let go, supporting me as I slump down. Our trials are far from over however as the wet, rending sound of peeling flesh pierces through the door, followed by more screaming and a heavy thud on the floor.
Peering back into the room, Mom lays beside Dad on the ground, her left wing completely ripped off at the shoulder and a ragged gorge running down her chest exposing her ribs.
“Oh Intala, who art in heaven, deliver us from evil and grant us peace.” Mom chokes out her prayers through a blood-filled beak, delirious with pain and almost trance-like as she repeats her memorised verses over and over again. “Rain fire upon the predator so that they may be cleansed, and lead your flock towards salvation. Smite those who would harm your chicks with righteous fury, for they are your blessing and our light. Oh Intala, who art in heaven…”
The Arxur cares not for their pain, their suffering, or their prayers. It reaches down with callous indifference and plants a foot on the small of Dads back, grabbing his ankle with a hand, and pulls.
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhh!
Dad screams as his body is slowly pulled apart by the brute's otherworldly strength, his ligaments and tendons unable to fight against such insurmountable force. His leg dislocates from his hip with an audible pop before the muscle gives way and shears off at the thigh in ragged strands. The beast raises the leg of my father to its mouth and takes a bite, overcome with ecstasy and pleasure as Dad wails in agony and mother continues in her fevered prayers.
I don’t know how much more I can take. My entire body is shaking and I feel as though I’m about to pass out, my head growing light from the sheer horror of it all. This doesn’t feel real, but even in my worst nightmares I could never conceive of something so atrocious. I can’t pass out though. The rage and hatred burning inside is too strong for that. The call for blood, for vengeance, too much to ignore.
The Arxur, not content to simply enjoy what suffering it has already inflicted, casts aside the torn leg and returns for more. Dad’s second leg comes off much as the first, with no less screaming or agony. I feel so helpless and weak, so cowardly for hiding by and simply watching it happen, but there’s nothing I can do. Beside me, Akrim shakes and twitches in empathy, his ragged breathing and hateful eyes a match for my own.
At long last dad goes still, his ravaged body unable to sustain itself with so much blood strewn about the floor, and the predator turns its sights to Mom. Flipping her over to expose her front, it inspects its handiwork, Mom’s chest rises and falls in rapid, shallow rhythm as her body fights to stay alive. Her eyes are blank as she stares sightlessly up towards the ceiling, but her soft yet fervent prayers continue to reverberate. This seems to displease the monster.
With a sudden snap of its jaws it plunges its snout into the hole at my mothers side, digging around inside for delicate morsels to snatch and steal from her chest cavity. Shaking her body about and tugging with all its might, the Arxur rips free its prize, a fresh pair of lungs, and my mothers voice goes silent for the final time.
My stomach finally gives out at the sight of it, half digested bits of juicefruit spilling forth from my mouth as I keel over… and the Arxur takes notice. It stops in the midst of its blood frenzy, its joyful mutilation of my parents' still warm bodies, to look over towards the closet, over at me.
Akrim sees it coming and drags me to my feet.
“We need to get out of here now!” He shouts, stealth no longer an option. “Out the window!”
At the sound of my brothers voice the Arxur charges, crashing through the hidden panel and reducing it to splinters, but it’s too late. Akrim and I are already through the ventilation window and floating down to the streets below on our wings. The beast shoots a clawed hand out the tiny window, but to no avail, snatching only air as it narrowly misses me.
“The cattle are escaping!” It roars in its vile, guttural tongue. “Capture them!”
We land with a start on the streets below, taking off as fast as we can to who-knows-where as reptilian, binocular eyes lean out to peer down on us from the surrounding building and feral roars fill the air. I don’t know where we’re going, I don’t know what we hope to accomplish by it, but all I know is that I need to keep moving, keep running as hard and fast as I can. Away from the hideout, away from the predators, away from my parents, and away from the horrors. Sadly, as much as the mind may be willing, the body may not be able. Especially when that body is half-starved from days of subsistence rations.
I trip and fall, skinning my knee on the pavement and drawing blood. Just one more means for the monsters to track us. Ahead of me Akrim continues to run, further and further away.
“Akrim!” I cry out tearfully. “Don’t leave me!”
Akrim halts at once, realising for the first time that I’ve fallen and rushes back to me.
“I’m not gonna leave you.” He says, picking me up and holding me in his arms as he continues to run. “I’m never going to leave you. I promise. We only have each other now, and I’ll be damned if I let anyone take you away from me!”
Behind us I can see the predators gaining on us, my weight only slowing Akrim down as he gasps and wheezes, his body overheating and struggling to replace the air in his lungs as we continue our harried retreat.
We emerge into an open plaza, strewn with abandoned vehicles and rubble, a once beautiful place now reduced to little more than an open-air graveyard. In the centre stands a statue of a Krakotl, rising in flight and surrounded by flames yet miraculously unburned, a monument to Intala. It is covered in soot and ash, blemished by battlefield scars and cracked in places, yet still shines with the warm glint of bronze.
The Arxur emerge on the other end of the street and we turn to run away only to find our next path blocked, again and again and again. We’ve been trapped, cornered and with nowhere left to run. This is the end for us. Visions of my parents' deaths flash through my mind, slowly torn limb from limb while still alive, still in agony. I don’t want to die like that.
Akrim backs us into a small corner and sets me down, placing himself between me and the ravenous pack bearing down on us.
“Close your eyes, Intalran.” He says, tears running down his face. “Don’t look. It’ll all be over soon. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better brother.”
He takes up a threat display, small and weak compared to the monstrosities that slowly encircle us, yet undaunted. So brave, so much like Dad.
“Caaaaawwwww!” He screams out with defiance, and I know for certain that it is the last I’ll ever hear of my brother.
I gaze up at the shrine of Intala, my mind racing with prayers more desperate than any I’d ever had before, begging for salvation, begging for forgiveness, begging… for a miracle.
Oh Intala, why have you forsaken us? Why did you allow them to take my parents? Why are you going to allow them to take my brother? Why are you going to let them take me? What have I done wrong in your eyes? What did my Mother, my Father, my Brother, what did any of us do to displease you? Whatever it is, I'm sorry! I’m sorry I’ve been a bad son! I’m sorry I’ve been a bad brother! I’m sorry I doubted you! I’m sorry! But please! Please don’t let this happen! Take me if you have to, but don’t let them hurt Akrim! I beg you! Save us! Deliver us! Smite the predator with righteous fire and cleanse us of our sin! I promise, I’ll make it up to you! I’ll never doubt again! Never stray from your path again! Please!
I fall to the ground, sobbing, inconsolable… and my prayers are answered with a roar of thunder that splits the sky.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!
Pavement stones shatter all around us, sending fragments of shrapnel everywhere, and causing the Arxur to break off their hunt to flee for cover. Gazing up I can see them coming over the horizon, silhouetted against the rising light of dawn. Three Federation troop carriers, descending upon us with their mounted shard cannons letting loose a storm of righteous fury against the enemy. The Exterminators had arrived.
The Arxur return fire from their shadowy alcoves and pitiful shelter, but it’s no use against the shining ships of intalas wrath. They halt over the plaza, their propulsion jets rotating for vertical landing as they hover over the ruined streets. Wires drop to dangle free from the shuttles, and out of them emerges Intala’s angels, avatars of her divine will garbed in luminous chrome and wielding the instruments of her vengeance. They rappel one after another down the lines, letting loose with fire and shard as they make their landfall upon the blasphemous heathens that encroach upon Intala’s world.
A lone figure rises above all others, a strong and heroic champion whose uniform is sanctified with the purest of gold. In his hands he holds aloft a massive, rotary shardgun with twin-linked barrels, a marvel of engineering and a sacred armament whose weight and power could be borne by no lesser man. It sings out a chorus of destruction, planting seeds of death in all those who meet its gaze as the Champion mounts the steps to the shrine, placing himself at the head of the assault.
Shards fly and fire reigns as the monsters are pushed back. The Champion’s helmet is struck free from his face, leaving him unharmed but revealing a most surprising sight, a figure I’d never have expected to see.
He is a Venlil, the weakest and most cowardly of all the races, but this man is the exception that proves the rule. His wool is as black as night, as black as the void of space itself, and upon his face rests the unwavering eyes of a ruthless and righteously ordained killer, unerring in his focus and possessed of a divine will. He sweeps the battlements with his weapon, letting forth a whirlwind of death and dropping predatory bodies by the dozens as his shots unerringly find their mark, spilling free pools of crimson blood.
He remains steady and unwavering, the chaos of the battlefield engulfing him fully as he reaps the souls of the sinners, but not a single shot can find him as he stands before Intala, the light of the morning sun a halo surrounding his head. This man was no mere champion, but a Herald of divine justice, an avatar of death itself summoned forth by Intala herself to enact her will upon the blasphemous and the unworthy. All those who would sow terror in the heart of her flock would soon find that terror returned to them tenfold.
“Drive them to the sea and drown them in their own blood!” The Herald orders his men with unbridled conviction, rousing them to further glory. “For your homes! For your people! For the Federation!”
He raises a fist with infectious zeal, firing his machine gun one-handed and heralding the dawn of hope, the end to the ceaseless nightmare. His cries are echoed on the wind by his followers, a roar of fury and vengeance that will not go unheard.
“For the Federation!”
“For The Protector!”
“For Nishtal!”
“For Intala!”
One of the angels approaches my brother and I, an elaborate emblem upon his shoulder of an Arxur skull, pierced clean through with an elongated dagger and wreathed in purifying flame.
“Civilians located and secure,” he transmits over his headset, “proceeding with extermination of hostile force, over.”
I get up on shaking feet and approach the angel in chrome, shivering and shaking in the bask of their glory, unworthy to even look upon them yet compelled to do nothing else.
“Who… Who is that?” I dare to ask, casting single wing towards the Herald as he slowly walks away, chasing the monsters out of sight, out of our city, back down to the depths of damnation where they may fester and rot, burning for all time yet to come in the radiance of Intalas majesty.
“Prestige Officer Glagrig.” The angel deigns to answer my question. “It was his damn idea to lead a deep-strike operation behind enemy lines in the first place.”
His tone is gruff and unfriendly, but how could I expect anything else? I am bothering him during his work, distracting him from his sacred task, given to him by Intala herself, though he may not realise it. I’m honoured that he chooses to speak with me at all.
I look out, watching with rapt attention as the figure of Intala’s Herald, my saviour, Prestige Officer Glagrig, vanishes from sight. I will remember that name, and I will fulfil my promise to Intala. Someday… Someday I’ll be just like him.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N - I hope you’ve all enjoyed this thrilling look into the origins of Intalran and I hope it helps shed a bit more light on his character. If you haven’t done so in a while I would highly recommend you check out the Master List linked at the top of the page for everything Nature of Family. The list is regularly updated so even if you’ve checked it before there might be something new that you’ve missed. Recent additions include Children of the Grave, an Empty Eyes story about Trilvri’s time as a Cadet in the Penitents, and The Duskwall Shadestalker, a wonderful (and now cannon) Ficnapping by VeryUnluckyDice himself.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with these one-shots lately and I haven’t quite decided what I want to work on next. Chapter 19 of NoF is of course a priority, but I’ve also got some other great ideas floating around including a new multi-part Empty Eyes adventure, an Alfonse origin story (among other origin stories), a ‘Playing By Ear’ style music-focused Empty Eyes one-shot which Dice has been kind enough to offer assistance with, a sequel to The Duskwall Shadestalker, and even a barely fleshed-out concept for a bit of a Rom-Com. If any of that sounds particularly interesting to you or if there’s anything you really want to see or learn more about in the future please let me know in the comments. I won’t promise anything, and at the end of the day I’ll write whatever I’m inspired to write, but if there’s enough demand I may be swayed in one direction or another.
If you like the story then please remember to upvote, comment, and use the “!Subscribeme” function to be alerted to all new posts. I post as often as I can but real life has a tendency of getting in the way and my job makes it almost impossible to keep to any kind of schedule. Your engagement and support go a long way towards helping to keep me on track and motivated, so thank you very much for reading and I hope you'll stay tuned for next chapter!
2024.06.06 20:57 cropcomb2 quotes from New Studies I've been reviewing (Part 3)
(a mere abstract likely has 1-3 pages), plus my own remarks and bolding especially interesting bits. I use free pdfcreator to create a pdf file for myself when 'printing'/saving studies that do not provide .pdf file downloading.
201101 Exercise on Bone Structure jcem0955
Exercise program ((fully details were included)) Supervised exercise training was performed on three nonconsecutive days per week for 18 months in one of four community leisure facilities under the supervision of qualified exercise trainers. After 18 months, exercise resulted in significant net gains in femoral neck aBMD [1.9% (95% CI, 1.2, 2.5)], cross-sectional area (CSA) [1.8% (95% CI, 0.8, 2.7)], and section modulus [2.1% (95% CI, 0.5, 3.6)] as well as lumbar spine trabecular vBMD [2.2% (95% CI, 0.2, 4.1)] relative to no-exercise.
201107 prescribing exercise QQ_PS_MSSE_July_2011
((extremely detailed study, eg.*)) Holding a stretch for 10–30 s at the point of tightness or slight discomfort enhances joint range of motion, with little apparent benefit resulting from longer durations Older persons may realize greater improvements in range of motion with longer durations (30–60 s) of stretching Reducing total time spent in sedentary pursuits and interspersing short bouts of physical activity and standing between periods of sedentary activity should be a goal for all adults, irrespective of their exercise habits.
201206 effects of aging, physical training, nihms547430
201208 Effects of Yoga on Older Adults Patel2012
201212 Yoga Program Improved Balance glt087
The balance challenge increased over time by gradually increasing the difficulty of the postures performed, commencing with low levels of challenge such as performing a half knee squat with feet side by side and arms extended above the head (known as “mountain pose”) and progressing the challenge over time to postures such as one-legged standing with arms extended above the head and the nonsupport foot placed on the thigh of the support leg (known as “tree pose”). Poses were modified to suit individual ability, with some participants initially requiring upper limb support (eg, leaning on a wall) to perform the most challenging postures. The ultimate goal, however, was that toward the end of the 12-week program, all participants would be performing the poses with minimal upper limb support.
((includes diagrams of poses)) Table 1. The Yoga Protocol and Modifications to Poses to Account for Varying Physical Abilities
Twenty-two (81%) people reported enjoying the program and 19 people (70%) felt confident they would continue to take part in yoga classes after study conclusion. the sit-to-stand test and walking speed timed for 6 m are valid predictors of falls in older people (2,26). Adherence was promoted by cohesive group dynamics, gradual increases in program intensity, and strong instructor leadership. The feasibility and enjoyment of yoga among older people should not be underestimated. Poor rates of uptake and adherence to exercise for fall prevention among older people clearly demonstrate the need for evidence-based programs that are also popular choices among older people. Much greater participation is required to have a substantial public health impact.
201300 exercise on bone density in middle-aged and older men
201300 strengthening and high-impact exercises on bone metabolism and quality of life in postmenopausal women
201400 Rest Intervals Reduce the Number of Loading Bouts Required nihms626489
201400 Strontium -- Bone quality and bone strength 20-24
Strontium ranelate is an orally active agent consisting of two atoms of stable strontium and an organic moiety (ranelic acid), now considered effective in managing osteoporosis and reducing fracture risk in postmenopausal women. In numerous studies this drug has demonstrated to improve all parameters linked to bone quality and bone strength The 3-year changes in femoral neck BMD explained 74% of the reduction in vertebral fractures observed during treatment with strontium ranelate A post-hoc analysis was performed on DXAs from 79 women out of 189 included in a double blind, double dummy study and randomized to strontium ranelate 2g/day or alendronate 70mg/week during 2 years. The study shows that there is an increase of Spine BMD and TBS on both treatments but a differential effect of alen-dronate and strontium ranelate on bone microarchitecture in particular SrRan has greater effects on bone architecture; in dex at the spine compared to ALN as already described in pQCT and HR-pQCT studies
strontium ranelate represents a unique approach in the management of osteoporosis by its ability to restore the imbalance between bone resorption and formation in favor of bone formation. Its beneficial effects on bone microarchitecture improve the biomechanical properties of bone to resist to fragility fractures.
201405 Effects of Different Types of Jump Impact pone.0107953
201407 sedentary behaviour and physical activity with BMD in adults and older adults
Time spent in sedentary behaviour (SB), or time spent in non-exercising seated and reclining postures, has recently emerged as a new public health risk, independent of the amount of time someone spends being active
the duration of SB bouts, rather than their frequency, appears to be deleteriously associated with BMD of the total femur and of all hip sub-regions. In a study of white older women aged 65 and over, the risk of fracture was found to double where those individuals spent 4 h or less standing per day, while the fracture risk was only 30% lower for those who walked regularly [29].
201409 Different Types of Jump Impact
Our results showed that GRF alone cannot account for the impact of jumps on limb bone and suggest that local impact by muscle contraction serves an important role in increasing bone mass. in vivo the results of a human study by Lu et al. [30] .70% showed that of bending moments on a bone during gait are transmitted by force generated from muscle than from external reaction.
201509 Resistance Training 40279_2015_Article_385
With the onset of the sixth decade in life, degenerative processes affect the neuromuscular system in terms of losses in muscle strength (dynapenia) and muscle mass (sarcopenia) [1–3]. Neural (e.g., numerical loss of alpha motoneurons) and morphological factors (e.g., reduced number and size of particularly type-II muscle fibers) as well as their interaction are responsible for age-related declines in muscle strength and mass [4]. There is evidence that muscular weakness is highly associated with impaired mobility and an increased risk for falls [5]. Moreover, lower extremity muscle weakness was identified as the dominant intrinsic fall-risk factor with a five-fold increase in risk of falling [5]. using 60 s produced the largest mean SMDbs short rest intervals between sets resulted in significantly greater increases in leg press 1RM less rest times produced greater levels of fatigue, providing a stimulus which resulted in increases in muscle strength Based on different metabolic and hormonal loads, a narrative review suggested that rest in between sets of 180–300 s is suitable for improvements in maximal strength, 1–2 min for gains in hypertrophy and 30–60 s for improvements in muscle endurance
201511 step_aerobics_on_bone_metabolism_and_functional_fitness
Chien et al. discovered that the femoral neck BMD of PMW increased by 6.8 % after the participants performed a 30-min treadmill walking exercise at 70 % VO2max followed by a 10-min stepping exercise (bench height of 20 cm) for 24 weeks, while the BMD of the control group decreased by 1.5 % [10]. the benefits of exercise intervention on bone health can be alternatively indicated by a number of methods other than densitometry. During all the sessions, exercises were accompanied by appropriate music set at a tempo of 120–126 beats per min. Participants were instructed to set the training target zone at the range of 75–85 % of their heart rate reserve and to monitor their HR to determine whether they had reached their target HR zone during the GBSA exercise. When the HR dropped below the target HR zone, participants expanded their movement or increased their step height to ensure that they reached their target HR. The height of the step was initially set at 10 cm and subsequently elevated when the trainng HR was no longer in the target zone. By the end of the training programs, the step height was elevated to 20–25 cm, at which the mean vertical impact force was reported to range from 1.54 to 1.87 × body weight [22, 23]. The average up- and down-step routine during each SA exercise (40–45 min) was 1280–1440 cycles. The training protocol was designed in accordance with the guidelines recommended by ACSM [24].
For the details of the functional fitness testing, please refer to the Senior Fitness Test Manual [27]. The estimated energy expenditure of the EG was increased about 41 % during the intervention period. the 10- week GBSA elicited a trend of downregulating bone resorption activity; this may benefit for bone formation and bone health. Theoretically, the duration of the human bone-remodeling cycle takes about 4–6 months, and the durations of resorption and formation are not evenly divided. Especially for senior participants, factors such as step height and step cadence can be easily adjusted to suit the individual’s ability.
201512 protection of high peak bone mass s00198-015-3467-5
201602 Influence_of_Adolescents_Physical_Activity_on_Bon
About 26% of adult peak total body bones mineral were accrued during this key time (14-16). Thus, adolescent years could be the final opportunity to maximize PBM. High PBM is an important determinant in preventing osteoporosis and risk of osteoporotic fracture Loaded PA above a physiological threshold or higher than usual forces would elicit osteogenesis response the lack of association at the vertebrae could be explained by the influence of endocrine factors boys have greater bone area while girls have higher bone density. bone responsiveness to mechanical load is limited to load bearing regions. regular PA started at early life particularly during adolescence is the key towards achieving healthy bone and a practical way to overcome the increasing incidence of osteoporosis and future risk of fracture
201608 Exercise to prevent falls in older adults 1750.full
201609 BMD is increased after a 16-week resistance training intervention in elderly women
201700 falls elderly drugs and exercise igx004.982
201707 Calcium reduces Disruptions in Calcium homeostasis during exercise nihms853171
201709 Aging, Osteocytes, and Mechanotransduction 11914_2017_Article_402
201800 Effects of Exercise and Aging on Skeletal Muscle cshperspectmed-BEX-a029785
201802 inflammatory markers and fractures nihms935867
Soluble inflammatory markers and risk of incident fractures in older adults: the Cardiovascular Health Study Danijela Stojanovic, 17pp
chronic inflammatory and immune processes may be related to higher rates of incident hip fractures Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) In the hip fracture analysis cohort, doubling of IL-6 was associated with a significantly higher risk of incident hip fractures (unadjusted model HR 1.13, in men the HR was not significantly different from 1. a unit increase in WBC was associated with a significantly higher risk of incident hip fracture overall (HR 1.04, 95%CI 1.01–1.06), and, in models stratified by sex, in women (HR 1.08, 95%CI 1.03–1.14) but not men. baseline levels of IL-6 and WBC were associated with higher incidence of hip fractures among women and the overall cohort during an 11.2-year follow-up period.
201810 Effects of Resistance Exercise on Bone Health enm-33-435
The greatest skeletal benefits from RE have been achieved when the resistance was progressively increased over time, the magnitude of mechanical load was high (around 80% to 85% one RM) [34], exercise was performed at least twice a week, and large muscles crossing the hip and spine were targeted [35,36]. The spine may be more responsive to RE than the hip [37]. Osteocytes play a key role in the remodeling process by sensing the mechanical loads, and transmitting the information to the osteoblasts and osteoclasts, which then maintain the skeletal homeostasis [74]. mechanical loading can lead to increase in the cross-sectional area and tissue density of bones. positive skeletal effects on hip regions have been reported in previous studies and literature reviews [76,77]. Many animal studies showed that loading must be dynamic not static [83], induce high frequency strains [84,85], and be applied rapidly [86].
Because osteocytes are desensitized due to repetitive loading, short bouts with interval foor rest are more beneficial than the same number of loads performed all at once [88]. Furthermore, because bone adapts to customary patterns of loading such as one-directional movement, diversification of loading such as multi-directional training is required to stimulate an adaptive skeletal response [89]. Bones become less sensitive to mechanical loading after skeletal maturity is reached at 18 to 25 years of age. Consequently, the skeleton is more responsive to exercise in childhood than in adulthood and old age [91].
RE has resulted in a significant improvement of BMD in the lumbar spine and femur neck in postmenopausal women [17,92,93]. A combination of RE and weight-bearing aerobic exercise (e.g., running, skipping, jumping, or high-impact aerobics) is recommended as RE training provides muscular loading while weight-bearing aerobic exercise provides additional mechanical loading to the bone above gravity. DXA-based exercise studies could underestimate the actual effects of mechanical loading on bone [99]. Considering that most of the beneficial effects of exercise in adult bones are characterized by changes in geometry, there is a growing interest in using other bone imaging modalities such as quantitative computed tomography (QCT) to assess bone strength.
201900 High-Impact Exercise Increased Femoral Neck Bone Density With No Adverse Effects
201904 osteocytes and aging nihms-1521190
201906 Aerobic exercise modulates cytokine profile and sleep quality in elderly AFHS1902-2198
Lower physical activity level was found to be a significant risk factor for insomnia20. and a total sleep time of less than 6.5 hours exercise intervention conducted 3 times per week for 6 months The program began with 10 min of stretching and was conducted using the maximal heart rate index (HRmax) estimated by: 220-age. First 2 months = 60–70% of HR max, second 4 months = 70–80% of HRmax34. Conclusion Exercise training can be considered as a non-pharmacological modality for modifying sleep quality and inflammation among elderly.
201907 isometric back extensor strength testing 10.1177_0300060519885268
201907 protect hips from fall-related fracture PMRR-4-205
(ah ha! post sizes must be <40,000 characters), so the balance up to date will become Part 4
submitted by cropcomb2 to osteoporosis [link] [comments]
201101 Exercise on Bone Structure jcem0955
Independent and Combined Effects of Calcium-Vitamin D3 and Exercise on Bone Structure and Strength in Older Men: An 18-Month Factorial Design Randomized Controlled Trial by Sonja Kukuljan, 9ppMen assigned to fortified milk consumed 400 ml/d of 1% fat milk containing 1000 mg/d calcium and 800 IU/d vitamin D3 Conclusion: A community-based multi-component exercise program successfully improved LS and femoral neckBMDand strength in healthy older men, but providing additional calcium -vitamin D3 to these replete men did not enhance the osteogenic response. there is no reason to suggest that calcium in excess of requirements or circulating 25(OH)D levels higher than a particular thresh old will enhance BMD, bone structure, or strength in response to a given dose of loading. a 10-month trial in Chinese postmenopausal women who had habitually low calcium intakes (275 mg/d) reported that supplementation with 800 mg/d of calcium for 10 months enhanced the effects of load bearing exercise on femoral neck aBMD (19).
Exercise program ((fully details were included)) Supervised exercise training was performed on three nonconsecutive days per week for 18 months in one of four community leisure facilities under the supervision of qualified exercise trainers. After 18 months, exercise resulted in significant net gains in femoral neck aBMD [1.9% (95% CI, 1.2, 2.5)], cross-sectional area (CSA) [1.8% (95% CI, 0.8, 2.7)], and section modulus [2.1% (95% CI, 0.5, 3.6)] as well as lumbar spine trabecular vBMD [2.2% (95% CI, 0.2, 4.1)] relative to no-exercise.
201107 prescribing exercise QQ_PS_MSSE_July_2011
Quantity and Quality of Exercise for Developing and Maintaining Cardiorespiratory, Musculoskeletal, and Neuromotor Fitness in Apparently Healthy Adults: Guidance for Prescribing Ex... by Carol Ewing Garber 27ppTABLE 1. Summary of the general evidence relevant to the exercise prescription.
((extremely detailed study, eg.*)) Holding a stretch for 10–30 s at the point of tightness or slight discomfort enhances joint range of motion, with little apparent benefit resulting from longer durations Older persons may realize greater improvements in range of motion with longer durations (30–60 s) of stretching Reducing total time spent in sedentary pursuits and interspersing short bouts of physical activity and standing between periods of sedentary activity should be a goal for all adults, irrespective of their exercise habits.
201206 effects of aging, physical training, nihms547430
The effects of aging, physical training, and a single bout of exercise on mitochondrial protein expression in human skeletal muscle by Zoltan Boria 22ppMitochondrial fission is impaired by aging and could be one of the most sensitive markers of the age-associated decline in the adaptive response to physical activity. regular physical activity could attenuate the age-associated decline in important physiological functions Mitochondrial fission appears to be impaired by aging, at least at the level of gene expression, and to be one of the most sensitive markers of the age-associated decline in adaptive responses to physical activity.
201208 Effects of Yoga on Older Adults Patel2012
The Effects of Yoga on Physical Functioning and Health Related Quality of Life in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis by Neela K Patel 18ppConclusions: Small studies with mixed methodological quality suggested that yoga may be superior to conventional physical-activity interventions in elderly people. The precision of the estimates remains low.
201212 Yoga Program Improved Balance glt087
A 12-Week Iyengar Yoga Program Improved Balance and Mobility in Older Community-Dwelling People: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial by Anne Tiedemann, 8pp12-week, twice-weekly yoga program focused on standing postures Primary outcome was standing balance component of the short physical performance battery with addition of one-legged stance time (standing balance). Secondary outcomes were the timed sit-to-stand test, timed 4-m walk, one-legged stand with eyes closed, and Short Falls Efficacy Scale-International. Feasibility was measured by recording class attendance and adverse events. Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire) (12),
The balance challenge increased over time by gradually increasing the difficulty of the postures performed, commencing with low levels of challenge such as performing a half knee squat with feet side by side and arms extended above the head (known as “mountain pose”) and progressing the challenge over time to postures such as one-legged standing with arms extended above the head and the nonsupport foot placed on the thigh of the support leg (known as “tree pose”). Poses were modified to suit individual ability, with some participants initially requiring upper limb support (eg, leaning on a wall) to perform the most challenging postures. The ultimate goal, however, was that toward the end of the 12-week program, all participants would be performing the poses with minimal upper limb support.
((includes diagrams of poses)) Table 1. The Yoga Protocol and Modifications to Poses to Account for Varying Physical Abilities
Twenty-two (81%) people reported enjoying the program and 19 people (70%) felt confident they would continue to take part in yoga classes after study conclusion. the sit-to-stand test and walking speed timed for 6 m are valid predictors of falls in older people (2,26). Adherence was promoted by cohesive group dynamics, gradual increases in program intensity, and strong instructor leadership. The feasibility and enjoyment of yoga among older people should not be underestimated. Poor rates of uptake and adherence to exercise for fall prevention among older people clearly demonstrate the need for evidence-based programs that are also popular choices among older people. Much greater participation is required to have a substantial public health impact.
201300 exercise on bone density in middle-aged and older men
The effect of physical exercise on bone density in middle-aged and older men: a systematic review by KA Bolam 3ppBone mass density was significantly increased in most of the resistance-training interventions. Only one trial (90 participants) reported a significant difference in favour of exercise compared with the control for bone mass density of the femoral neck.
201300 strengthening and high-impact exercises on bone metabolism and quality of life in postmenopausal women
The effects of strengthening and high-impact exercises on bone metabolism and quality of life in postmenopausal women: a randomized controlled trial Hande Basat 2ppOur data suggest that 6-month supervised high-impact exercise training can be effective in prevention of bone loss at lumbar spine and femoral neck. These data also indicate that both supervised training programs improve HRQoL in postmenopausal women.
201400 Rest Intervals Reduce the Number of Loading Bouts Required nihms626489
Rest Intervals Reduce the Number of Loading Bouts Required to Enhance Bone Formation by Sundar Srinivasan, 17pprest-inserted loading holds potential to retain the osteogenic benefits of mechanical loading with significantly reduced frequency of bouts of activity while also enabling greater flexibility in the timing of the activity. it may be possible to design rest-inserted exercise interventions in humans that require substantially reduced time and effort compared with repetitive cyclic exercise while maintaining, or potentially augmenting, the osteogenic benefit derived from the intervention.
201400 Strontium -- Bone quality and bone strength 20-24
Bone quality and bone strength: benefits of the bone-forming approach by Giovanni Iolascon 5pptherapeutic strategies to increase bone strength consist in improving both bone quantity and quality through physiatric interventions (e.g. physical exercises), nutritional approach, vitamin D and calcium supplementation, micronutrients supplementation, biophysics stimulation and drug therapy. since the late 90’s when it was clear from the results of clinical trials upon efficacy of several anti-osteoporotic drugs that BMD increase did not reflect a proportional reduction of relative risk of fracture
Strontium ranelate is an orally active agent consisting of two atoms of stable strontium and an organic moiety (ranelic acid), now considered effective in managing osteoporosis and reducing fracture risk in postmenopausal women. In numerous studies this drug has demonstrated to improve all parameters linked to bone quality and bone strength The 3-year changes in femoral neck BMD explained 74% of the reduction in vertebral fractures observed during treatment with strontium ranelate A post-hoc analysis was performed on DXAs from 79 women out of 189 included in a double blind, double dummy study and randomized to strontium ranelate 2g/day or alendronate 70mg/week during 2 years. The study shows that there is an increase of Spine BMD and TBS on both treatments but a differential effect of alen-dronate and strontium ranelate on bone microarchitecture in particular SrRan has greater effects on bone architecture; in dex at the spine compared to ALN as already described in pQCT and HR-pQCT studies
strontium ranelate represents a unique approach in the management of osteoporosis by its ability to restore the imbalance between bone resorption and formation in favor of bone formation. Its beneficial effects on bone microarchitecture improve the biomechanical properties of bone to resist to fragility fractures.
201405 Effects of Different Types of Jump Impact pone.0107953
Effects of Different Types of Jump Impact on Trabecular Bone Mass and Microarchitecture in Growing Rats by Yong-In Ju 8ppmost studies have focused on the take-off, rather than the landing phase of jumps. Thus, we compared the effects of landing and upward jump impact on trabecular bone mass and microarchitecture. Bone mass ( + was significantly higher in the 40UJ group compared with the J groups +49.1% and 28.3%, respectively), although peak GRF (257.8% and 2122.7%, respectively) and unit time force (221.6% and 236.2%, respectively) were significantly lower in the 40UJ group These results showed that trabecular bone mass in growing rats is increased more effectively by the take off than by the landing phases of jumps The results suggest that local impact accompanied by muscle contraction during jumps plays an important role in enhancing trabecular bone mass compared with impact expressed as GRF.
201407 sedentary behaviour and physical activity with BMD in adults and older adults
Associations between objectively-measured sedentary behaviour and physical activity with bone mineral density in adults and older adults, the NHANES study by S.F.M. Chastin 3pp• Repeated exposure to sitting in daily life (objectively measured) is negatively associated with femoral bone mineral density in women. • In women, this negative association is seen with longer duration of sitting bouts, as opposed to sitting bout frequency. • This negative association with bone mineral density is independent of level of moderate and vigorous physical activity in women. • In men, however, time spent in moderate and vigorous activity is positively associated with femoral bone mineral density.
Time spent in sedentary behaviour (SB), or time spent in non-exercising seated and reclining postures, has recently emerged as a new public health risk, independent of the amount of time someone spends being active
the duration of SB bouts, rather than their frequency, appears to be deleteriously associated with BMD of the total femur and of all hip sub-regions. In a study of white older women aged 65 and over, the risk of fracture was found to double where those individuals spent 4 h or less standing per day, while the fracture risk was only 30% lower for those who walked regularly [29].
201409 Different Types of Jump Impact
Effects of Different Types of Jump Impact on Trabecular Bone Mass and Microarchitecture in Growing Rats Yong-In Ju 8ppHigh-impact and weight bearing activity are generally accepted as being beneficial for strengthening skeletal bone. Among various types of exercise in rats, high-impact loading such as jumping seems to be most beneficial for increasing bone mass and strength rather than low impact loading such as running landing impact is considered more beneficial for building bone mass and increasing strength than take-off impact. (incorrect)
Our results showed that GRF alone cannot account for the impact of jumps on limb bone and suggest that local impact by muscle contraction serves an important role in increasing bone mass. in vivo the results of a human study by Lu et al. [30] .70% showed that of bending moments on a bone during gait are transmitted by force generated from muscle than from external reaction.
201509 Resistance Training 40279_2015_Article_385
Dose–Response Relationships of Resistance Training in Healthy Old Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Ron Borde 28ppwith the largest effect sizes for the longest training periods (mean SMDbs = 2.34; 50–53 weeks), intensities of 70–79 % of the 1RM (mean SMDbs = 1.89), and total time under tension of 6.0 s (mean SMDbs = 3.61). A tendency towards significance was found for rest in between sets (p = 0.06), with 60 s showing the largest effect on muscle strength (mean SMDbs = 4.68; two studies). resistance training (RT) program with the goal to increase healthy old adults’ muscle strength is characterized by a training period of 50–53 weeks, a training intensity of 70–79 % of the one-repetition maximum (1RM), a time under tension of 6 s per repetition, and a rest in between sets of 60 s. Selecting a training frequency of two sessions per week, a training volume of two to three sets per exercise, seven to nine repetitions per set, and a rest of 4.0 s between repetitions could also improve efficacy of training. RT to improve muscle morphology seems to be effective using the following independently computed training variables: a training period of 50–53 weeks, a training frequency of three sessions per week, a training volume of two to three sets per exercise, seven to nine repetitions per set, a training intensity from 51 to 69 % of the 1RM, a total time under tension of 6.0 s, a rest of 120 s between sets, and a 2.5-s rest between repetitions.
With the onset of the sixth decade in life, degenerative processes affect the neuromuscular system in terms of losses in muscle strength (dynapenia) and muscle mass (sarcopenia) [1–3]. Neural (e.g., numerical loss of alpha motoneurons) and morphological factors (e.g., reduced number and size of particularly type-II muscle fibers) as well as their interaction are responsible for age-related declines in muscle strength and mass [4]. There is evidence that muscular weakness is highly associated with impaired mobility and an increased risk for falls [5]. Moreover, lower extremity muscle weakness was identified as the dominant intrinsic fall-risk factor with a five-fold increase in risk of falling [5]. using 60 s produced the largest mean SMDbs short rest intervals between sets resulted in significantly greater increases in leg press 1RM less rest times produced greater levels of fatigue, providing a stimulus which resulted in increases in muscle strength Based on different metabolic and hormonal loads, a narrative review suggested that rest in between sets of 180–300 s is suitable for improvements in maximal strength, 1–2 min for gains in hypertrophy and 30–60 s for improvements in muscle endurance
201511 step_aerobics_on_bone_metabolism_and_functional_fitness
Effects of short-term step aerobics exercise on bone metabolism and functional fitness in postmenopausal women with low bone mass H. J. Wen 9ppA 10-week group-based step aerobics exercise significantly improved functional fitness in postmenopausal women with low bone mass, and showed a positive trend in reducing resorption activity via bone turnover markers. group-based step aerobics (GBSA) exercise group (EG) Serum bone metabolic markers (C-terminal telopeptide of type 1 collagen [CTX] the percent change for CTX was significantly different between the groups significantly reduced bone resorption activity
Chien et al. discovered that the femoral neck BMD of PMW increased by 6.8 % after the participants performed a 30-min treadmill walking exercise at 70 % VO2max followed by a 10-min stepping exercise (bench height of 20 cm) for 24 weeks, while the BMD of the control group decreased by 1.5 % [10]. the benefits of exercise intervention on bone health can be alternatively indicated by a number of methods other than densitometry. During all the sessions, exercises were accompanied by appropriate music set at a tempo of 120–126 beats per min. Participants were instructed to set the training target zone at the range of 75–85 % of their heart rate reserve and to monitor their HR to determine whether they had reached their target HR zone during the GBSA exercise. When the HR dropped below the target HR zone, participants expanded their movement or increased their step height to ensure that they reached their target HR. The height of the step was initially set at 10 cm and subsequently elevated when the trainng HR was no longer in the target zone. By the end of the training programs, the step height was elevated to 20–25 cm, at which the mean vertical impact force was reported to range from 1.54 to 1.87 × body weight [22, 23]. The average up- and down-step routine during each SA exercise (40–45 min) was 1280–1440 cycles. The training protocol was designed in accordance with the guidelines recommended by ACSM [24].
For the details of the functional fitness testing, please refer to the Senior Fitness Test Manual [27]. The estimated energy expenditure of the EG was increased about 41 % during the intervention period. the 10- week GBSA elicited a trend of downregulating bone resorption activity; this may benefit for bone formation and bone health. Theoretically, the duration of the human bone-remodeling cycle takes about 4–6 months, and the durations of resorption and formation are not evenly divided. Especially for senior participants, factors such as step height and step cadence can be easily adjusted to suit the individual’s ability.
201512 protection of high peak bone mass s00198-015-3467-5
Achieving the protection of high peak bone mass by R. P. Heaney 2ppA recommendation supporting accumulation of high peak bone mass must confront school budgets that eliminate physical education, plus the endless tweaking of federal school meal programs which, in their dairy component, provide virtually the only bone-building nutrients in the daily diet of many schoolchildren.
201602 Influence_of_Adolescents_Physical_Activity_on_Bon
Influence of Adolescents’ Physical Activity on Bone Mineral Acquisition: A Systematic Review Article Mohamed S. ZULFARINA 13ppphysical activity (PA) peak bone mass (PBM). Conclusion: This study supported the importance of increase adolescents’ regular PA in optimizing PBM thus preventing osteoporosis at later life.
About 26% of adult peak total body bones mineral were accrued during this key time (14-16). Thus, adolescent years could be the final opportunity to maximize PBM. High PBM is an important determinant in preventing osteoporosis and risk of osteoporotic fracture Loaded PA above a physiological threshold or higher than usual forces would elicit osteogenesis response the lack of association at the vertebrae could be explained by the influence of endocrine factors boys have greater bone area while girls have higher bone density. bone responsiveness to mechanical load is limited to load bearing regions. regular PA started at early life particularly during adolescence is the key towards achieving healthy bone and a practical way to overcome the increasing incidence of osteoporosis and future risk of fracture
201608 Exercise to prevent falls in older adults 1750.full
Exercise to prevent falls in older adults: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis Catherine Sherrington, 10ppexercise reduced the rate of falls in community-dwelling older people by 21% 2.At least 3 hours of exercise should be undertaken each week 3. Ongoing participation in exercise is necessary or benefits will be lost 7. Strength training may be included in addition to balance training high-risk older people should not be told to walk briskly.
201609 BMD is increased after a 16-week resistance training intervention in elderly women
Bone mineral density is increased after a 16-week resistance training intervention in elderly women with decreased muscle strength Ville Huovinen 2ppResults: Resistance training seemed to increase total hip BMD by 6% Our findings suggest an important role of continuous supervised resistance training for the prevention of osteoporotic fractures in elderly women with decreased muscle strength.
201700 falls elderly drugs and exercise igx004.982
EXERCISE TO PREVENT FALLS IN OLDER ADULTS: AN UPDATED SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS C. Sherrington 1pexercise reduced the rate of falls in community dwelling older people by 21% (pooled rate ratio 0.79, with greater effects seen from exercise programs that challenged balance and involved more than three hours per week of exercise
FALLS AND THE SOCIAL ISOLATION OF OLDER ADULTS IN THE NATIONAL HEALTH AND AGING TRENDS STUDY J. Pohl 1ppThe probability of falling increased with each increase in social isolation construct score. Even after adjusting for age, gender, and education, social isolation significantly predicted falling (OR=1.08; CI=1.02–1.14).
DOES DEPRESCRIBING FALL-ASSOCIATED DRUGS REDUCE FALLS AND ITS COMPLICATIONS?: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW J. Lee2,4,6, 1pp“fall-risk increasing drugs” (FRIDs) There is insufficient evidence that a FRID withdrawal strategy is effective for preventing falls.
201707 Calcium reduces Disruptions in Calcium homeostasis during exercise nihms853171
Calcium Supplementation Attenuates Disruptions in Calcium Homeostasis during Exercise Vanessa D Sherk1,*, 12ppPurpose —The purpose of this study was to determine whether taking a chewable calcium (Ca) supplement 30 minutes before exercise mitigates disruptions in Ca homeostasis and bone resorption in competitive male cyclists. It is possible that ingesting Ca only 30 minutes before exercise was not a sufficient time interval to optimize gut Ca availability during exercise. (so 60-90 minutes ought to be tried imo)
201709 Aging, Osteocytes, and Mechanotransduction 11914_2017_Article_402
Aging, Osteocytes, and Mechanotransduction by Haniyeh Hemmatian1, 11ppThe bone is able to adapt its structure to mechanical signals via the bone remodeling process governed by mechanosensitive osteocytes. the load-adaptive response of osteocytes may change with aging, even when mechanical loading would remain unchanged. The osteocytes are considered to be the cells responsible for sensing mechanical signals on the bones and consequently orchestrating the activity of osteoblasts and osteoclasts bone matrix deformations resulting from mechanical loads placed on the bone cause interstitial fluid flow through the canaliculi along the osteocyte cell processes. the hydraulic pressure induced by loading could be another mechanism to activate osteocytes. It has been shown that a cyclic hydraulic pressure of 68 kPa results in the production of signaling molecules in murine MLO-Y4 osteocyte like cells, and a pressure as low as 13 kPa induces prostaglandin production by primary osteocytes in chicken calvariae
201800 Effects of Exercise and Aging on Skeletal Muscle cshperspectmed-BEX-a029785
Effects of Exercise and Aging on Skeletal Muscle Giovanna Distefano1 15ppWe posit that exercise and physical activity can influence many of the changes in muscle during aging, and thus should be emphasized as part of a lifestyle essential to healthy aging. exercise can profoundly improve muscle me tabolism, strength, and function, which can attenuate or prevent some of the negative age-associated changes and will translate to a “healthy” aging. The combination of good nutrition and an active lifestyle can minimize the declines in muscle mass, strength, and physical performance that are observed in older people, all of which likely prevent or delay mobility limitations, disability, institutionalization, and morbidity, translating into healthy aging.
201802 inflammatory markers and fractures nihms935867
Soluble inflammatory markers and risk of incident fractures in older adults: the Cardiovascular Health Study Danijela Stojanovic, 17pp
chronic inflammatory and immune processes may be related to higher rates of incident hip fractures Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) In the hip fracture analysis cohort, doubling of IL-6 was associated with a significantly higher risk of incident hip fractures (unadjusted model HR 1.13, in men the HR was not significantly different from 1. a unit increase in WBC was associated with a significantly higher risk of incident hip fracture overall (HR 1.04, 95%CI 1.01–1.06), and, in models stratified by sex, in women (HR 1.08, 95%CI 1.03–1.14) but not men. baseline levels of IL-6 and WBC were associated with higher incidence of hip fractures among women and the overall cohort during an 11.2-year follow-up period.
201810 Effects of Resistance Exercise on Bone Health enm-33-435
Effects of Resistance Exercise on Bone Health A Ram Hong1, 10ppa diagnosis should be considered for both sarcopenia and osteoporosis, which may be treated with optimal therapeutic interventions eliciting pleiotropic effects on both bones and muscles To stimulate the osteogenic effects for bone mass accretion, bone tissues must be exposed to mechanical load exceeding those experienced during daily living activities. resistance exercise (RE) the term ‘osteosarcopenia’ has been proposed for patients with both sarcopenia and osteoporosis a variety of muscular loads are applied on the bone during RE, which generate stimuli and promote an osteogenic response of the bone [16]. Regular walking, which is frequently prescribed to prevent osteoporosis, also has little or no effect on prevention of bone loss [23]. hip and spine areal BMD (aBMD) The RE interventions including weighted lunges, hip abduction/ adduction, knee extension/flexion, plantar-/dorsi-flexion, back extension, reverse chest fly, and abdominal exercises or a smaller number of compound movements oof squats and deadlifts, target the major muscle groups attached to the hip and spine.
The greatest skeletal benefits from RE have been achieved when the resistance was progressively increased over time, the magnitude of mechanical load was high (around 80% to 85% one RM) [34], exercise was performed at least twice a week, and large muscles crossing the hip and spine were targeted [35,36]. The spine may be more responsive to RE than the hip [37]. Osteocytes play a key role in the remodeling process by sensing the mechanical loads, and transmitting the information to the osteoblasts and osteoclasts, which then maintain the skeletal homeostasis [74]. mechanical loading can lead to increase in the cross-sectional area and tissue density of bones. positive skeletal effects on hip regions have been reported in previous studies and literature reviews [76,77]. Many animal studies showed that loading must be dynamic not static [83], induce high frequency strains [84,85], and be applied rapidly [86].
Because osteocytes are desensitized due to repetitive loading, short bouts with interval foor rest are more beneficial than the same number of loads performed all at once [88]. Furthermore, because bone adapts to customary patterns of loading such as one-directional movement, diversification of loading such as multi-directional training is required to stimulate an adaptive skeletal response [89]. Bones become less sensitive to mechanical loading after skeletal maturity is reached at 18 to 25 years of age. Consequently, the skeleton is more responsive to exercise in childhood than in adulthood and old age [91].
RE has resulted in a significant improvement of BMD in the lumbar spine and femur neck in postmenopausal women [17,92,93]. A combination of RE and weight-bearing aerobic exercise (e.g., running, skipping, jumping, or high-impact aerobics) is recommended as RE training provides muscular loading while weight-bearing aerobic exercise provides additional mechanical loading to the bone above gravity. DXA-based exercise studies could underestimate the actual effects of mechanical loading on bone [99]. Considering that most of the beneficial effects of exercise in adult bones are characterized by changes in geometry, there is a growing interest in using other bone imaging modalities such as quantitative computed tomography (QCT) to assess bone strength.
201900 High-Impact Exercise Increased Femoral Neck Bone Density With No Adverse Effects
High-Impact Exercise Increased Femoral Neck Bone Density With No Adverse Effects on Imaging Markers of Knee Osteoarthritis in Postmenopausal Women by Chris Hartley 11p (thanks to hungryim/ )bone mineral density (BMD), bone mineral content (BMC), and section modulus (Z Forty-two women aged 55 to 70 years who were at least 12 months postmenopausal were recruited. The 6-month intervention consisted of progressive, unilateral, high-impact exercise incorporating multidirectional hops on one randomly assigned exercise leg (EL) for comparison with the contralateral control leg (CL). Femoral neck BMD, BMC, and Z all increased in the EL (+0.81%, +0.69%, and +3.18%, respectively) compared to decreases in the CL -0.57%,0.71%, and 0.75%: all interaction effects In conclusion, a high-impact exercise intervention that requires little time, cost, or specialist equipment improved femoral neck BMD with no negative effects on knee OA imaging biomarkers. Unilateral high-impact exercise is a feasible intervention to reduce hip fracture risk in healthy postmenopausal women.
201904 osteocytes and aging nihms-1521190
Senescent and apoptotic osteocytes and aging: Exercise to the rescue? Vanessa D Sherk 11ppexercise can prevent senescence in skeletal muscle, we provide a novel hypothesis by which exercise can prolong skeletal health. Exercise is often recommended for maintaining and improving bone health, in part, because of the demonstrated increases in bone formation rate and bone strength in response to mechanical loading, although gain in bone mass is less apparent Endurance or aerobic exercise typically provides a smaller-magnitude and rate of loading, and acutely stimulates bone resorption [34] There is less oxidative damage to muscle mitochondrial membranes in response to acute exercise and improved antioxidant capacity with aging in those who chronically exercise [48–50].
201906 Aerobic exercise modulates cytokine profile and sleep quality in elderly AFHS1902-2198
Aerobic exercise modulates cytokine profile and sleep quality in elderly by Shehab M Abd El-Kader 10ppObjective: To investigate the effects of aerobic exercise training on the sleep quality and inflammatory cytokines in elderly subjects. Results: There was a significant increase in total sleep duration, sleep efficiency and sleep onset latency in group(A) after 6 months of aerobic exercise training, while, wake time after sleep onset and rapid eye movement (REM) latency significantly reduced after 6 months of aerobic training compared with values obtained prior to aerobic exercise training. Also, the mean values of TNF- a and IL-6 decreased significantly and the mean value of IL-10 significantly increased in group (A) after the aerobic exercise training,
Lower physical activity level was found to be a significant risk factor for insomnia20. and a total sleep time of less than 6.5 hours exercise intervention conducted 3 times per week for 6 months The program began with 10 min of stretching and was conducted using the maximal heart rate index (HRmax) estimated by: 220-age. First 2 months = 60–70% of HR max, second 4 months = 70–80% of HRmax34. Conclusion Exercise training can be considered as a non-pharmacological modality for modifying sleep quality and inflammation among elderly.
201907 isometric back extensor strength testing 10.1177_0300060519885268
Reliability and validity of three isometric back extensor strength assessments with different test postures by Sen Yang, 12ppback extensor strength (BES) standing, prone and sitting positions, tests conducted in the sitting position showed a relatively low validity ( 0.32) measurement error was lowest in the prone position. A hand-held dynamometer (HHD) is a relatively time-saving and inexpensive apparatus now commonly used in clinical practice. (b) prone BES with tripod fixation of the handheld dynamometer; Prone position BES was measured with a microFET3 isometric dynamometer (Hoggan Scientific, Salt Lake City, UT, USA) the participant was asked to raise their hands, lift their head, and push back against the tripod with maximal force (N) for 5 s (Figure 1b). All three test procedures showed higher peak back extensor strength in session 2 compared with session 1, suggesting a mild learning effect. fixation of the HHD with a tripod to assess BES, with the participant in a prone position, allows accurate evaluation of BES without discomfort, and poses minimal risk of injury to even the severely disfigured spine. maximal isometric back extensor strength assessment, with the subject in a prone posture, can be applied to individuals with different back strength levels and may be the most useful for ranking back extensor strength in clinical and epidemiological studies.
201907 protect hips from fall-related fracture PMRR-4-205
Technology innovation to protect hips from fall-related fracture Patricia A Quigley 4pp(informercial imo) One such promising innovation recently emerged onto the commercial market is a hip protection “smart belt” (Tango Belt, Active Protective Technologies). Motion-sensing and companion mobile application technologies combine to measure efficiency and effectiveness of this innovation, articulated through a case-study. the elderly infrequently wear hip protector products - pants, undergarments, or outer wear. In studies concluding that hip protectors had no significant effect on hip fracture risk [17- 20], patient adherence was generally poor
(ah ha! post sizes must be <40,000 characters), so the balance up to date will become Part 4
2024.06.06 20:24 CIAHerpes An anomaly has spread through the town of Frost Hollow. Soon after, I heard the radio screech out a list of rules.
Life in Frost Hollow had always been fairly normal, up until a few days ago. My husband and I had small issues and arguments, like any couple, but there was no sign of the severe transformation that would escalate into such gruesome, nightmarish scenes.
I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
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I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
2024.06.06 20:23 CIAHerpes An anomaly has spread through the town of Frost Hollow. Soon after, I heard the radio screech out a list of rules.
Life in Frost Hollow had always been fairly normal, up until a few days ago. My husband and I had small issues and arguments, like any couple, but there was no sign of the severe transformation that would escalate into such gruesome, nightmarish scenes.
I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
submitted by CIAHerpes to creepypasta [link] [comments]
I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
2024.06.06 20:22 CIAHerpes An anomaly has spread through the town of Frost Hollow. Soon after, I heard the radio screech out a list of rules.
Life in Frost Hollow had always been fairly normal, up until a few days ago. My husband and I had small issues and arguments, like any couple, but there was no sign of the severe transformation that would escalate into such gruesome, nightmarish scenes.
I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
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I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
2024.06.06 20:22 CIAHerpes An anomaly has spread through the town of Frost Hollow. Soon after, I heard the radio screech out a list of rules.
Life in Frost Hollow had always been fairly normal, up until a few days ago. My husband and I had small issues and arguments, like any couple, but there was no sign of the severe transformation that would escalate into such gruesome, nightmarish scenes.
I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
submitted by CIAHerpes to Horror_stories [link] [comments]
I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
2024.06.06 20:22 CIAHerpes An anomaly has spread through the town of Frost Hollow. Soon after, I heard the radio screech out a list of rules.
Life in Frost Hollow had always been fairly normal, up until a few days ago. My husband and I had small issues and arguments, like any couple, but there was no sign of the severe transformation that would escalate into such gruesome, nightmarish scenes.
I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.
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I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM.
But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there.
As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.
Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.
After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.
The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position.
Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.
The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.
The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.
Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?
I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.
“Dear Laura,
“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.
“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it.
“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.
“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.
“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.
“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.
“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.
“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think?
“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.
“I’ll see you very soon.”
I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.
Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.
“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.
“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.
“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me.
This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.
“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.
I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face.
A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.
Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.
I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.
“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up.
“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.
The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high.
Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.
“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.
“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.
“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.
“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”
“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”
“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”
“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.
“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.
I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.
“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked.
I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.
“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”
“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.
***
We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.
“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?
I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.
The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.
I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.
The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.
“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”
“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.
When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.
When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.
Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.
Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.
***
I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.
I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.
The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.
“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.
“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.
“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.
“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.
“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”
“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother.
“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking.
“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.
***
My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.
The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.
“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.
The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.
I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.
The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Mirian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.
“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.
As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.
***
The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.
We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.
“Are you OK?” I asked Mirian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Mirian grabbed my hand tightly.
“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.
***
Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.
“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.
“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”
“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.
“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.
“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.
“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.
The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.
Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.
***
I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.
Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.