Alphabet for blackberry
A subreddit for Nissan 350Z sports coupe enthusiasts!
2011.11.16 08:44 Alphanova1 A subreddit for Nissan 350Z sports coupe enthusiasts!
This is a community for all Nissan 350Z enthusiasts to come together and discuss their love for the most important letter in the alphabet.
2015.08.11 01:25 ataranlen A is for Alphabet
We worship the Alphabet
2012.05.09 23:00 frozenburger keming: mortifying mortising and spasmodic spacing
A subreddit dedicated to the fine art of keming and other examples of bad spacing in typography.
2024.04.27 05:49 gordolme Where do my custom ringtones go?
SOLVED!
The "On this device" section was showing a partial list of my actual music files, some 20k of them. I renamed the ringtone files so they'll show first alphabetically and now they're findable and selectable and work.
------Original post-------------
OnePlus 12, Android 14. Just transferred from a Galaxy s22u.
Where do my custom ringtones go? They are currently in root /Ringtones and are not seen in the "On this device" section either under Music or Recordings. They are all .mp3 files that I have transferred from phone to phone for at least the last 20 years across PalmOS, iPhones, Blackberries and Androids. Side item, the "Music" category is not even finding everything in my music library.
(I may have other questions later as I continue the setup.)
submitted by gordolme to OnePlus12 [link] [comments]
The "On this device" section was showing a partial list of my actual music files, some 20k of them. I renamed the ringtone files so they'll show first alphabetically and now they're findable and selectable and work.
------Original post-------------
OnePlus 12, Android 14. Just transferred from a Galaxy s22u.
Where do my custom ringtones go? They are currently in root /Ringtones and are not seen in the "On this device" section either under Music or Recordings. They are all .mp3 files that I have transferred from phone to phone for at least the last 20 years across PalmOS, iPhones, Blackberries and Androids. Side item, the "Music" category is not even finding everything in my music library.
(I may have other questions later as I continue the setup.)
2024.03.05 01:12 lp1571 Roundup of all of the tea fragrances I've tried
I've quickly found that tea is my favorite note in fragrance and have tried more scents with tea as a note than anything else so I thought I'd pull together thoughts on everything I've tried. Included stuff about me bc I found it helpful when reading similar posts but feel free to skip!
ABOUT ME
About me (general fragrance prefs): I tend to like fragrances that skew feminine, like florals / greens / musk / boozy, / fruit, meh on gourmands / sweet / aquatics, tend to dislike spicy / earthy. Some of my current non-tea favorite fragrances are Initio Paragon, Diptyque Fleur de Peau, Maison Crivelli Hibiscus Majahad, and Replica Coffee Break. I value longevity but projection not as much, fragrances tend not to perform super well on me but I have dry skin, spend most of my time in dry climates, and don't tend to overspray.
About me (non-fragrance): late 20s, female, Asian-American, have lived East Coast & West Coast, work corporate, avid home chef, very outdoorsy in my hobbies but most people wouldn't guess that based on first impressions, feminine, talk very fast, strong personality.
My level of interest in the hobby: relatively new (6-12 months) but I notoriously go all-out on my hobbies. I've worked professionally in adjacent industries (beauty & food), so have kind of transitioned knowledge & skills from both into fragrance. Tea is a passion of mine - I drink every day, only drink loose leaf, careful about my sourcing, use a fancy kettle, etc.
REVIEWS (alphabetized by house, minimum tested on skin)
The Yulong - Armani Prive (own a FB), 10/10
This has a soft citrus / floral opening but settles down into a very realistic green tea. There's a soft smoky quality to it that evokes dried tea leaves, not a brewed cup. To me, this smells like sticking my nose into one of the tins of nice green tea I get from China (which is a huge positive). The Yulong is what I conceptualize when I think of what a 'tea fragrance' is. Performance is strong for an EdT, I get ~4 hours of wear with light projection and then another 1-2 hours of it as a skin scent.
Some notes since I see this get compared to Wulong Cha a lot: I'd say The Yulong is more sophisticated, floral, and more 'tea'; Wulong Cha is brighter, much more citrus, and more green. WC has moderately better performance in both longevity and projection. WC is more of a warm weather / day time scent, the smoky / dried quality makes TY more fitting for more seasons & scenarios. They're both very unisex, TY reads ever so slightly more feminine to me.
Where I'd wear this: to the office, on a date (though I wouldn't say this is a 'sexy' scent), a work or family evening event, at home, but really pretty much anywhere.
Figuier Eden - Armani Prive (tested), 2/10
I almost blind bought this because from the notes (tea, fig, pink pepper, iris) it seemed like my perfect fragrance. Sadly, I got a very distinct dill / pickle note from this that ruined it for me :/. In general though, I do love the Armani Prive line and find them to be well-executed so maybe if you don't get the dill note you would like this.
Where I'd wear this: I wouldn't.
Gris Charnel EDP - BDK (sampled), 6/10
Gris Charnel is very well-blended, and doesn't smell like a tea fragrance to me as I don't really pick out many of the listed notes. I would describe this as a 'cold day' scent, where it feels like wearing a cashmere sweater but there's a sharpness to it that's like walking outside when it's windy and overcast. This is a nice fragrance and I do see why it gets the hype, but it's sharper and more masculine than I typically prefer so not so much for me, though I do see myself getting through the sample. Everything I've tried from BDK has been disappointing in terms of performance, where it's a skin scent after about 30 min. The internet led me to believe this was a more feminine scent, but I'd say it's solidly unisex and very fall/winter.
P.S. I find the extrait very similar, ever so slightly warmer, sweeter, and a tiny bit longer lasting but you definitely don't need both.
Where I'd wear this: a trip to the UK, walking around in an all-black outfit, a dimly lit craft cocktail bar
Rain Tea - Chasing Scents (tested), 7/10
This is a very photorealistic chamomile tea with honey, which I grew up drinking. I don't get any actual tea leaves from this, maaaybe a little bit of white tea. It's cozy, warm, and sweet without the honey being overpowering. This wore close to the skin on me, and I don't remember its longevity. I'd say it skews more feminine, daytime, and is all-season appropriate except maybe summer.
Where I'd wear this: lounging at home, taking a walk with friends on the weekend, dinner at my parents or in-laws
L'Ombre des Merveilles - Hermes (tested), 8/10
This smells very true to its notes (black tea, incense, tonka) and gives me the impression of lapsang souchang. I'd describe it as warm, sheer, smoky, and relaxing. The opening is more incense-y and the dry down more black tea, but I can smell all of the notes throughout the full lifetime of the fragrance. On me, projection is moderate but longevity is quite good (6+ hours before it turns into a skin scent). Very unisex leaning very slightly masculine, and all season / time appropriate except maybe summer daytime. I enjoy this a lot and will probably buy a FB, but am not rushing to.
This reminds me a lot of Dear Polly in the dry down - both are warm, sheer black tea scents, but the fruitiness and musk in DP makes it more uplifting, feminine, and intimate vs. the smokiness in L'OdM reads more masculine and nighttime.
Where I'd wear this: work event, dinner with friends, to feel warm in the winter with my favorite sweater
Unknown Pleasures - Kerosene (tested), 7.5/10
I originally discounted this because it opens with a super strong lemon that's a bit cleaner-y, but sniffed my wrist a few hours later and loved it. To me, this smells like oolong tea leaves after you steep them (somewhere in between leaves and a brewed cup). I associate this with Taiwanese oolongs which can often have a creamy, milky quality to them which I think is from the waffle cone accord. I do not think this is very reminiscent of earl grey, as I do not get either bergamot or black tea. This is probably the safest blind buy of all of the Kerosene fragrances I've tried, and I see why it's their best seller (will probably get my own bottle in the near future). As with many Kerosene fragrances, it's not really possible to ascribe to any gender, and the longevity is quite strong (could smell 6+ hours later).
Where I'd wear this: to a coffee shop, reading a good book, meeting a friend for lunch
The Matcha - Le Labo (sampled), 7/10 overall scent, 2/10 tea scent.
I can't pick out tea at all in this, and definitely not matcha. I get green fig, a creamy coconut / lactonic accord, and some herbaceous notes that I suppose could be slightly tea-like. For me, this feels like a fragrance that tried to capture all of the 'components' of matcha (green, creamy, earthy) but failed to actually make it smell like matcha. It is a nice unisex fig fragrance, more office-y and all-season for me than Philosykos or Debaser, but not a wow for me.
Where I'd wear this: can't think of anywhere this would be particularly appropriate or inappropriate
The Noir - Le Labo (tried), 4/10
Similar to The Matcha, I think Le Labo went for all of the components or facets of black tea but ended up with something that didn't actually smell like black tea. It's very smoky, incense-y, and tobacco-y to me with some woods in the background. I do not get any of the fig / bergamot top notes. Very masculine, and I'd still prefer this as a candle vs. on a man.
Where I'd wear this: not for me
Matcha Meditation - Maison Margiela Replica (tested), 5/10
This is more interesting & non-linear than a lot of the other MMR fragrances, but also IMO not as good. I get a citrus-y and floral opening that's quite pleasant although not very matcha-reminiscent. The problem for me is that for most of the middle of its life, I get very screechy jasmine/white floral + matcha (coming from someone who loves jasmine) that I could definitely see being headache-inducing. The matcha here does smell more realistic & noticeable to me than in most other fragrances I've tried with that accord. The drydown is a simple but nice white chocolate and musk that's sweet but not overly so. Feminine, reminds me of spring, and longevity was better than a lot of MMR EdTs. I won't be sampling or buying this.
Where I'd wear this: a walk outside in the spring, maybe at home alone, not in any enclosed spaces with other people
Indigo - Nest (tested), 8/10
This is a dark, juicy, fruity fragrance that smells like drinking a, cup of black tea with blackberry juice. I get the fruity + some woody components more than I get the tea, but it's a beautiful fragrance nonetheless. The fruit is realistic, with an almost sticky quality but not overly sweet, like the smell of crushed berries. The listed notes say cardamom, which is the one thing I can't really smell as there is no spicy quality to my nose. Some similarities to Dear Polly, but this is juicier, darker, and I smell the tea less. For the price it's excellent - the dark fruit is very addictive, and while it's not extremely complex it doesn't feel generic as I don't see as many designemass market fragrances with this scent profile. Definitely a feminine fragrance, don't recall the performance so probably not great and not terrible, and all-season appropriate except maybe summer day time. I will likely get a FB of this during the next Sephora sale.
Where I'd wear this: going out in the summer or fall, on a date, office-appropriate in colder climates
Wulong Cha - Nishane (own a FB), 9.5/10
This was the first niche bottle I bought, and I absolutely love it. It’s a bright, citrusy, green, herbaceous scent which lasts longer than any other citrus I’ve tried. This definitely reminds me more of a brewed cup of lemon green tea or iced green tea, as opposed to leaves, although I can smell the tea leaves a bit more in the dry down. I find this to be more of a citrus/green fragrance than a tea fragrance, very summery, and very unisex with no lean feminine or masculine. I get around ~2 hours of moderate projection, and about 6 hours total of wear before it turns into a skin scent which is quite good for me for this scent profile.
Where I'd wear this: out on a summer night, vacation, if I needed an energy boost, shopping at a farmer's market, also office-friendly.
Dear Polly - Vilhelm (sampled), 9/10
This is a beautiful creamy sweet black tea scent, reminiscent of my best friend's favorite cup of black tea with milk and sugar. I don't agree with the accords listed on Fragrantica as it's neither citrusy nor green to my nose, but I do smell the green apple in the beginning (part of the sweetness). In the drydown, the sweetness fades and I can smell the musk more clearly. I think this fragrance matches perfectly with the inspiration (love letter to his wife), as it feels very intimate to me. I'd say it's more feminine, but a man could certainly wear it. Vilhelm has generally poor performance (with some outliers) on my skin, but I'd say this is a lightly projecting scent with moderate longevity. I will be buying a FB of this in the near future.
Where I'd wear this: a cute date night, dinner with friends, hanging out at home, appropriate for most situations
Edited: some tea fragrances I haven’t tried yet but are on my list are listed below, would appreciate thoughts on these + relating them to any I have tried above!
submitted by lp1571 to fragrance [link] [comments]
ABOUT ME
About me (general fragrance prefs): I tend to like fragrances that skew feminine, like florals / greens / musk / boozy, / fruit, meh on gourmands / sweet / aquatics, tend to dislike spicy / earthy. Some of my current non-tea favorite fragrances are Initio Paragon, Diptyque Fleur de Peau, Maison Crivelli Hibiscus Majahad, and Replica Coffee Break. I value longevity but projection not as much, fragrances tend not to perform super well on me but I have dry skin, spend most of my time in dry climates, and don't tend to overspray.
About me (non-fragrance): late 20s, female, Asian-American, have lived East Coast & West Coast, work corporate, avid home chef, very outdoorsy in my hobbies but most people wouldn't guess that based on first impressions, feminine, talk very fast, strong personality.
My level of interest in the hobby: relatively new (6-12 months) but I notoriously go all-out on my hobbies. I've worked professionally in adjacent industries (beauty & food), so have kind of transitioned knowledge & skills from both into fragrance. Tea is a passion of mine - I drink every day, only drink loose leaf, careful about my sourcing, use a fancy kettle, etc.
REVIEWS (alphabetized by house, minimum tested on skin)
The Yulong - Armani Prive (own a FB), 10/10
This has a soft citrus / floral opening but settles down into a very realistic green tea. There's a soft smoky quality to it that evokes dried tea leaves, not a brewed cup. To me, this smells like sticking my nose into one of the tins of nice green tea I get from China (which is a huge positive). The Yulong is what I conceptualize when I think of what a 'tea fragrance' is. Performance is strong for an EdT, I get ~4 hours of wear with light projection and then another 1-2 hours of it as a skin scent.
Some notes since I see this get compared to Wulong Cha a lot: I'd say The Yulong is more sophisticated, floral, and more 'tea'; Wulong Cha is brighter, much more citrus, and more green. WC has moderately better performance in both longevity and projection. WC is more of a warm weather / day time scent, the smoky / dried quality makes TY more fitting for more seasons & scenarios. They're both very unisex, TY reads ever so slightly more feminine to me.
Where I'd wear this: to the office, on a date (though I wouldn't say this is a 'sexy' scent), a work or family evening event, at home, but really pretty much anywhere.
Figuier Eden - Armani Prive (tested), 2/10
I almost blind bought this because from the notes (tea, fig, pink pepper, iris) it seemed like my perfect fragrance. Sadly, I got a very distinct dill / pickle note from this that ruined it for me :/. In general though, I do love the Armani Prive line and find them to be well-executed so maybe if you don't get the dill note you would like this.
Where I'd wear this: I wouldn't.
Gris Charnel EDP - BDK (sampled), 6/10
Gris Charnel is very well-blended, and doesn't smell like a tea fragrance to me as I don't really pick out many of the listed notes. I would describe this as a 'cold day' scent, where it feels like wearing a cashmere sweater but there's a sharpness to it that's like walking outside when it's windy and overcast. This is a nice fragrance and I do see why it gets the hype, but it's sharper and more masculine than I typically prefer so not so much for me, though I do see myself getting through the sample. Everything I've tried from BDK has been disappointing in terms of performance, where it's a skin scent after about 30 min. The internet led me to believe this was a more feminine scent, but I'd say it's solidly unisex and very fall/winter.
P.S. I find the extrait very similar, ever so slightly warmer, sweeter, and a tiny bit longer lasting but you definitely don't need both.
Where I'd wear this: a trip to the UK, walking around in an all-black outfit, a dimly lit craft cocktail bar
Rain Tea - Chasing Scents (tested), 7/10
This is a very photorealistic chamomile tea with honey, which I grew up drinking. I don't get any actual tea leaves from this, maaaybe a little bit of white tea. It's cozy, warm, and sweet without the honey being overpowering. This wore close to the skin on me, and I don't remember its longevity. I'd say it skews more feminine, daytime, and is all-season appropriate except maybe summer.
Where I'd wear this: lounging at home, taking a walk with friends on the weekend, dinner at my parents or in-laws
L'Ombre des Merveilles - Hermes (tested), 8/10
This smells very true to its notes (black tea, incense, tonka) and gives me the impression of lapsang souchang. I'd describe it as warm, sheer, smoky, and relaxing. The opening is more incense-y and the dry down more black tea, but I can smell all of the notes throughout the full lifetime of the fragrance. On me, projection is moderate but longevity is quite good (6+ hours before it turns into a skin scent). Very unisex leaning very slightly masculine, and all season / time appropriate except maybe summer daytime. I enjoy this a lot and will probably buy a FB, but am not rushing to.
This reminds me a lot of Dear Polly in the dry down - both are warm, sheer black tea scents, but the fruitiness and musk in DP makes it more uplifting, feminine, and intimate vs. the smokiness in L'OdM reads more masculine and nighttime.
Where I'd wear this: work event, dinner with friends, to feel warm in the winter with my favorite sweater
Unknown Pleasures - Kerosene (tested), 7.5/10
I originally discounted this because it opens with a super strong lemon that's a bit cleaner-y, but sniffed my wrist a few hours later and loved it. To me, this smells like oolong tea leaves after you steep them (somewhere in between leaves and a brewed cup). I associate this with Taiwanese oolongs which can often have a creamy, milky quality to them which I think is from the waffle cone accord. I do not think this is very reminiscent of earl grey, as I do not get either bergamot or black tea. This is probably the safest blind buy of all of the Kerosene fragrances I've tried, and I see why it's their best seller (will probably get my own bottle in the near future). As with many Kerosene fragrances, it's not really possible to ascribe to any gender, and the longevity is quite strong (could smell 6+ hours later).
Where I'd wear this: to a coffee shop, reading a good book, meeting a friend for lunch
The Matcha - Le Labo (sampled), 7/10 overall scent, 2/10 tea scent.
I can't pick out tea at all in this, and definitely not matcha. I get green fig, a creamy coconut / lactonic accord, and some herbaceous notes that I suppose could be slightly tea-like. For me, this feels like a fragrance that tried to capture all of the 'components' of matcha (green, creamy, earthy) but failed to actually make it smell like matcha. It is a nice unisex fig fragrance, more office-y and all-season for me than Philosykos or Debaser, but not a wow for me.
Where I'd wear this: can't think of anywhere this would be particularly appropriate or inappropriate
The Noir - Le Labo (tried), 4/10
Similar to The Matcha, I think Le Labo went for all of the components or facets of black tea but ended up with something that didn't actually smell like black tea. It's very smoky, incense-y, and tobacco-y to me with some woods in the background. I do not get any of the fig / bergamot top notes. Very masculine, and I'd still prefer this as a candle vs. on a man.
Where I'd wear this: not for me
Matcha Meditation - Maison Margiela Replica (tested), 5/10
This is more interesting & non-linear than a lot of the other MMR fragrances, but also IMO not as good. I get a citrus-y and floral opening that's quite pleasant although not very matcha-reminiscent. The problem for me is that for most of the middle of its life, I get very screechy jasmine/white floral + matcha (coming from someone who loves jasmine) that I could definitely see being headache-inducing. The matcha here does smell more realistic & noticeable to me than in most other fragrances I've tried with that accord. The drydown is a simple but nice white chocolate and musk that's sweet but not overly so. Feminine, reminds me of spring, and longevity was better than a lot of MMR EdTs. I won't be sampling or buying this.
Where I'd wear this: a walk outside in the spring, maybe at home alone, not in any enclosed spaces with other people
Indigo - Nest (tested), 8/10
This is a dark, juicy, fruity fragrance that smells like drinking a, cup of black tea with blackberry juice. I get the fruity + some woody components more than I get the tea, but it's a beautiful fragrance nonetheless. The fruit is realistic, with an almost sticky quality but not overly sweet, like the smell of crushed berries. The listed notes say cardamom, which is the one thing I can't really smell as there is no spicy quality to my nose. Some similarities to Dear Polly, but this is juicier, darker, and I smell the tea less. For the price it's excellent - the dark fruit is very addictive, and while it's not extremely complex it doesn't feel generic as I don't see as many designemass market fragrances with this scent profile. Definitely a feminine fragrance, don't recall the performance so probably not great and not terrible, and all-season appropriate except maybe summer day time. I will likely get a FB of this during the next Sephora sale.
Where I'd wear this: going out in the summer or fall, on a date, office-appropriate in colder climates
Wulong Cha - Nishane (own a FB), 9.5/10
This was the first niche bottle I bought, and I absolutely love it. It’s a bright, citrusy, green, herbaceous scent which lasts longer than any other citrus I’ve tried. This definitely reminds me more of a brewed cup of lemon green tea or iced green tea, as opposed to leaves, although I can smell the tea leaves a bit more in the dry down. I find this to be more of a citrus/green fragrance than a tea fragrance, very summery, and very unisex with no lean feminine or masculine. I get around ~2 hours of moderate projection, and about 6 hours total of wear before it turns into a skin scent which is quite good for me for this scent profile.
Where I'd wear this: out on a summer night, vacation, if I needed an energy boost, shopping at a farmer's market, also office-friendly.
Dear Polly - Vilhelm (sampled), 9/10
This is a beautiful creamy sweet black tea scent, reminiscent of my best friend's favorite cup of black tea with milk and sugar. I don't agree with the accords listed on Fragrantica as it's neither citrusy nor green to my nose, but I do smell the green apple in the beginning (part of the sweetness). In the drydown, the sweetness fades and I can smell the musk more clearly. I think this fragrance matches perfectly with the inspiration (love letter to his wife), as it feels very intimate to me. I'd say it's more feminine, but a man could certainly wear it. Vilhelm has generally poor performance (with some outliers) on my skin, but I'd say this is a lightly projecting scent with moderate longevity. I will be buying a FB of this in the near future.
Where I'd wear this: a cute date night, dinner with friends, hanging out at home, appropriate for most situations
Edited: some tea fragrances I haven’t tried yet but are on my list are listed below, would appreciate thoughts on these + relating them to any I have tried above!
- Indigo Smoke (Arquiste)
- L’eau 2017 (Carolina Herrera)
- Winter Palace, Inle, and Eau de Memo (Memo)
- Tea Service (Chasing Scents)
- Molecule 01 + Black Tea (Escentric Molecules)
- African Rooibos (Chris Collins)
- Remember Me (Jovoy)
- Bamboo Harmony (Kilian)
- 1900 L’Heure de Proust (Les Bains Guerbois)
- Five O’Clock Au Gingembre (Serge Lutens)
2024.02.21 09:01 ImASlimeBlock My season rankings with descriptions
 | Here is my ranking, the descriptions are pretty long so the seasons that i cant finish will be in the comments. submitted by ImASlimeBlock to survivor [link] [comments] #45. Thailand I actually think this season is actually better than I remember, but I just remember being so bored watching it. Like, it doesn't even sound that on paper with people like Clay and Helen making the final 4, who were both really great characters. I didn't even mind the Ted and Ghandia drama that much despite the ickiness surrounding it. But it's probably just the really boring pagonging that harms this season so much. Though, Robb’s arc of being a douche to a really wholesome person out of nowhere is so much fun. And Shii Ann’s arc of being on the outs of her tribe, flipping, then getting screwed by the fake merge is pretty fun to watch too. But everyone else is quite boring and just not very fun characters. #44. The Australian Outback Jerri kind of just carries this season. Pretty much all of the fun moments are because of her. (Kel and the beef jerky, the Colby/Jerry showmance, Hershey’s bar) Other than that, there’s the Alicia and Kimmi fight, Kimmi in general, Skupin and the pig, and Skupin falling in the fire. But that’s pretty much it. I mean, an Elizabeth and a Varner were pretty fun presences also, but this season just gets really boring towards the end. Like, the stretch of episodes after Jerri’s boot is insanely boring, probably the most boring stretch of episodes in the show’s history. Though, the pre-merge is pretty good, but I think the post-merge matters a lot more than the pre-merge to determine how good the season is and the post-merge of this season sucks. #43. One World I would now consider all seasons from this point a good survivor season. Even this one. I think the pre-merge of this season is actually pretty entertaining. I don’t think people realise how much characters like Colton help the season. Because when he was on screen, the season was genuinely really entertaining. Like, the fact he convinced the entire tribe to give up immunity is so fun to watch. Say what you want about him, but after he leaves, the season gets a lot more boring. But even then, Troyzan is an amazing character, and the season gets a lot more boring after he leaves. And even then, Tarzan is also an incredible character, and Kat is pretty fun to watch also. Jonas was also a really fun presence on this season. So, this season has it’s characters, but watching Kim dominate the entire game is really really boring and really harms the season, plus the rest of the cast is also pretty boring. #42. Redemption Island The first few episodes of this season are incredible. The Francesca, Matt and Russell boots are really fun to watch. And Stephenie is another amazing pre-merge character. But the post-merge is where the season starts to become a slog. It starts off great with the 2nd Matt boot, but then another pagoning happens. Though, I don’t think the characters in the pagoning are that bad. David, Julie, Ralph and Steve all had their moments, and I also kinda like the clear split between the two tribes. It just feels very different from other pagongings. Speaking of the pagonging, watching Boston Rob dominate the game is much more entertaining than Kim. It’s actually kinda fun to watch. And lastly, Phillip is a phenomenal character, he kind of carries this season from an entertainment standpoint. I also didn’t mind rice wars that much, it added some much needed drama for the season. But the season’s still a pagonging, and still pretty boring. #41. Ghost Island Up to the Chris Noble boot episode, this season is amazing. But the problem is, after that, it sucks. But let’s talk about the pre-merge. This season would have been so much better if the pre-merge boots made it further. Gonzalez was a really good first boot. Jacob Derwin was such a fun mess to watch. Morgan’s blindside was incredible. Brenden and James were great. Stephanie was a really fun character. Bradley could have been a fun villain. The boot order of this season is absolutely terrible. And despite how fun the Chris boot was, he probably would have saved the season if he made it further. But I guess Dom and Wendell were a great duo to watch, and the tie final vote was a great ending to this season. And characters like Kellyn and Donathon weren’t bad. And I don’t hate the twist of the season, though it probably should have been a returning season given the theme. #40. 41 I could see the argument for this being the worst season. Because this just isn’t Survivor. The amount of twists in all these new era seasons make it so much worse to watch, plus the 26 days and the overall kumbuya-ness of the seasons. Now onto the actual season. I think that this actually has the best cast out of the new era seasons. I just think the boot order sucked. Like, JD, Brad and Genie were really great characters in the pre-merge. The whole Ua storyline is really fun to watch. Then in the early merge section, we lose Sydney, Tiffany, Naseer, Evvie, Shan and Liana one by one by one who were all great characters. I think Sydney is the best casting in the new era so far. Her boot tribal I think is one of the best ever. And Shan was such a fun presence this season. Her blindside episode is actually really good, and not just for the new era. But this leaves us with a really underwhelming final 6, with only Ricard and Deshawn bringing the entertainment. Erika’s also a quite boring winner. So yeah, that’s this season. #39. 43 Gabler winning is probably the best thing to happen in the new era so far. He was just such a fun, kooky character and I think is much better than the boring Jesse win the fans wanted. But now let’s get to the bad parts. The pre-merge was boring, Cody, Gabler, Elie and Geo stop it from being a total snoozefest, but it’s still pretty bad. Though, I think this season actually has a decent boot order. Jeanine, Sami, Noelle, James, Karla, Cassidy, Owen and Jesse were all good characters. Not great, but good. Though the James and Owen fight was amazing and the new era needs more of that. And as I said before, Gabler and Cody were amazing characters and Jesse’s betrayal is an all time great moment. But it’s still a new era season and has many flaws that I said before. #38. 44 I actually think this season was decently entertaining the whole way through. But it’s mainly just because of the Tika 3. Yam Yam and Carolyn are all time great characters, and not just for the new era either. But aside from the three, the cast is alright. Like, Danny, Jaime, Matt, Frannie and Matthew were fine. And I really liked Josh. But everyone else was pretty boring. This season also just feels very, like, nice and just has good vibes, which I’m not a fan of. Though, the Tika 3 storyline is great and Yam Yam’s a great winner. #37. 42 Yeah, you’ve noticed the pattern now. I don’t like the new era that much. Although, this season probably one of the better casts of the new era. And the boot order is quite good too. But the season doesn’t really have a standout character like a Carolyn or Shan. I actually think Daniel was the best character of the season. If the new era wants to keep casting superfans, I think casting people like Daniel are the best way to do so. He was such a fun mess. He was the reason why the Jenny boot tribal was so good. But in general I think the pre-merge was pretty boring. But the post-merge is better. Chanelle was also a fun mess to watch. Rocksroy was a really fun and unique character, Tori was a really fun presence, Hai and Drea and their boots were great. Omar’s blindside was really fun to watch. Even people like Jonathon and Romeo were alright characters. And Maryanne and Mike were great characters the whole way through. So, this cast has good characters, but it still has the new era-ness feeling of the season which still sucks. #36. 45 I used to think this was a lot better than the other new era seasons, but now I rank it around the same. This is the worst cast of the new era to me. But it’s somehow the best season. I actually think the first three boots were three of the better characters this season, even Sean I’d say was a better character than most of the cast. Like, I found Brando really boring, Sifu disappointed me by how little he did, Kellie was extremely boring, (loved her vote out reaction though) Kendra was just annoying, and even Dee and Austin were pretty boring to me. Though I do think the one saving grace of this season is Bruce, not Emily. He was just so fun to watch with everyone straight up hating him. His and Katurah’s feud was also really fun. And also, Jake was really fun towards the end of the season and Kaleb’s SITD was an all time great moment. Though, I want to talk about Emily. I think episode 1 Emily is by far the best thing the new era has ever had. I take big Gabler’s win. Episode 1 Emily was the closest thing we’ve had to a true villain coming back on the show and it was amazing. And I know people like her growth arc, but I found her quite boring after Sabiyah’s boot. That’s all. I think the 60 minute episodes hard carried this season though, and would probably be the worst new era season if not for it. (eh, maybe better than 41.) The Sabiyah and Julie votes were good, and this season does a lot of things right that the other new era seasons didn't have like an intro and an auction. But it's not enough for it to be out of this new era tier. #35. Cook Islands I know people either love or hate this season, and I guess I’m towards the hate side. I just feel like people only love this season because it brought back Parvati, when in fact, she wasn’t even that good in this season. But anyways, this season’s alright. The story of this season is incredible, with the Aitu 4 actually being the final 4. Although, I think from the final 7 onwards, the season becomes pretty boring, with the Aitu 4 already having the majority. The fire making is an all time great moment, though. I also think this cast kinda sucks. Other than Yul, Ozzy, Penner, Nate, Cao Boi and Billy, the rest of the cast is terrible. Like, really bad. Maybe I’m a bit harsh but this season has a lot of duds, like over half the cast. Overall, the season’s fine, pretty boring but at least it’s better than the new era. #34. Caramoan The pre merge is bad, really bad. Especially the fans tribe. Although, I don’t mind Shamar that much, he is a pretty entertaining character. And I also really like the Brandon and Phillip feud, I really like the impromptu meltdown tribal because it felt so unique. Though, one good thing about the season is all the boring characters get out pre-merge, leaving for a pretty entertaining post merge. Corinne was great as always, the 3 amigo tribal is up there for one the best, Phillip was also amazing as always, Malcolm, Eddie and Reynold were all really fun presences on this season. The season definitely falls off after the Malcolm boot. But even then, the Andrea and Brenda boots were great. Erik and Brenda were huge disappointments though. But Cochran’s a good winner and his arc was pretty fun to watch from his last season. And Dawn kind of playing a Russell Hantz type of game is quite fun to watch too, though, she’s a lot less entertaining than him. #33. All-Stars This is just a very underwhelming season. Having all the winners and actual all-stars get booted out early is a disappointment. It’s also just becomes a very dark season towards the end, and also just gets pretty boring with another alliance just dominating. Though, the Romber storyline across the whole season is amazing. Boston Rob is always a great character whenever he’s on screen, so that kind of helps the darkness of the season. His and Lex’s interactions are amazing during Lex’s boot episode. But the pre-merge isn’t much better. Sue’s and Jenna’s exits aren’t very fun to watch. Though there are some fun moments. I really liked the mixer challenge, and character’s like Rob C, Ethan, Colby and Jerri were fun for the short moments they were there. And Rich is hilarious as always. And Shii Ann was the one bright spot of the season, her immunity win is one of the best of all time. And even though I complained about how dark the season gets, I really like the final tribal council. #32. Game Changers This is kind of like all-stars, except that the pre-merge is genuinely amazing. Tony’s 2 episode arc is hilarious to watch. Malcolm’s boot tribal is one of the craziest ever. JT being a mess this season is so fun to watch. The sugar drama is incredible. Debbie’s meltdown is TV gold. And Sandra was still her amazing self. But that’s pretty much where the good ends. The Varner thing sucked. And the post-merge is pretty bad. Having all the actual game changers get out pre-merge leaves for just a boring post-merge. Ozzy was a huge disappointment, Hali did nothing, Debbies and Sierra were fine, Zeke didn’t do much, Andrea didn’t do much, Michaela was a pretty great character, but her boot tribal was more confusing than entertaining. And I actually really like Cirie’s vote out though, I think it’s dumb, but the fact it happened on Cirie I think makes it great. Other than that, Aubry didn’t do much, Sarah, Brad and Troyzan were a quite boring final 3, and Tai was fine. Yeah, this season gets carried hard by the pre-merge. #31. Borneo This season is a million times better than the Outback for me. The merge vote is still one of the best in the show's history. Rich, Sue and Rudy are all top tier characters. I think I might be underrating this season a bit, because I don’t really remember pretty much anything entertaining happening. Like, I remember some good moments like Gervase and the cows, Kelly and Sue’s fight, BB being a great character, Greg and Colleen’s showmance?, Snakes and rats, Alphabet strategy. But I don’t really remember many other entertaining moments that don’t involve Rich, Sue and Rudy. I probably just wasn’t paying much attention when I first watched it. Though I don’t remember the pre-merge being very good, though. Also, the season is very slow paced which I’m not a big fan of. But the overall realistic and simple feel of the season is something I quite enjoy. #30. Africa Pretty much have the same opinion as Borneo with this season. The only good moments I remember are the auction, Lex’s breakdown, Frank/ Brandon reward, Lex/Ethan reward, and the never have I ever segment, but that’s pretty much it. Though, on paper, the merge cast seems amazing. Big Tom is an all time great character here, Ethan, Lex, T-Bird, Kelly, Brandon, Frank, Clarence were all great characters. ‘Never broken the honour of a handshake’ is an all time great quote. And the pre-merge had good characters like Silas and Lindsay. But I just don’t really remember being that entertained by this season, I think some of the very old seasons have this slow feel to them which make it pretty boring to watch. So that’s probably why this is so low. I did really love the rewards, though. #29. Marquesas Kind of the same as Borneo and Africa, I just don’t really remember having that much fun watching this season. Obviously the John Carrol boot is amazing, but after that, I think the season becomes really boring due to the three boring Zoe, Tammy and General boots. Kathy’s arc this season is probably one of the best ever, though. Neleh is great, and Sean is one of the best characters ever as well. The mint scene is amazing. Boston Rob, Hunter, Gina and Sarah were all great characters as well. The morning show is also an all time great character moment. The final 4 rock draw was also an amazing moment. So as the jellyfish scene. So yeah, this season has it’s good moments, but it still has the early season vibe which makes the season a little bit boring at times. #28. Vanuatu This season has the worst pre-merge ever. It’s just really boring. Rory and Eliza probably stop it from being downright unwatchable. But really, the first 4 boots are really boring. The mens tribe in general was really boring besides Rory. His arc is really fun to watch. Although, the season really picks up when Chris becomes the last man standing. It’s actually a really good season from then on. He has one of the best winning stories in the show’s history, and is also an amazing character. But it’s not just him. Twila was a really good character. Eliza was such an entertaining figure the whole season. Ami’s game was really fun to watch. Scout and Julie were pretty good also. So yeah, the end game of this season is incredible but it’s a really boring season until the final 7. #27. Fiji The pre-merge also sucks here. Having the ‘have nots’ lose over and over again is really just not fun to watch. The same thing just repeats for the whole pre-merge. And it doesn’t help that this season has a pretty weak cast. I think it’s in contention for the worst case in the whole series. A lot of the pre-merges have little to no personality. Although I did like Anthony, and I thought Rocky and Lisi brought some quite fun entertainment which the pre-merge really needed. But the post-merge is amazing. It really is. The Edgardo boot is an all time great tribal. The Yau Man and Dreamz deal is such a fun story to watch, and having Dreamz betray him in the end was such a great ending to it. Alex’s underdog run was quite fun to watch. But another problem is, other than those three, no one else provided much entertainment to the show. Earl is a pretty boring character to me. But Dreamz and Yau Man are both phenomenal characters in this season and I know this is unpopular, but I loved the final tribal council. #26. Palau This season’s pre-merge is amazing… On a first watch. The downfall of Ulong is obviously an amazing storyline, but I think rewatchability is a factor in these seasons and it would be really boring on a rewatch. Though, the post-merge is really good, especially from the final 6 onwards. Tom and Ian were both great characters and watching them get all the way to the end is really fun. Although, I don’t think the cast is even that good. Half the Ulong tribe were complete duds. (Everyone besides Stephenie, Bobby Jon, James, Angie and Jolanda.) and I’d say half of Koror were duds too. (Everyone besides Tom, Ian, Caryn, Katie and Coby.) But I don’t think it really affects this season that much, and Ian blowing up his game at the end is an all time great moment. But still, it was pretty entertaining on the first watch, but I don’t really want to watch this again. The theme and challenges were great, though. #25. Guatemala I used to be a lot lower on this season, but now I think it’s really good. The first few boots were obviously really boring, but picked up at the Blake boot where Brian was a great character there, Amy was also a fun pre-merge character. And the Margaret boot which has one of the best tribal councils in the show’s history. Judd is just an amazing character and has so many great moments this season. Though, the season falls off a bit at the early merge. Though, the Jaime/Bobby Jon feud is fantastic TV, and Gary was a fun presence on this season too. Danni’s underdog win is a great story, and characters like Stephenie, Rafe, Judd and Lydia making it far help this season. #24. Island of the Idols This is probably the most controversial opinion on the list. But I do stand by it. First off, I think the pre-merge is amazing. Like, every single boot is a blindside which makes for great TV. I also think Episode 6 (Jason boot) is an all time great episode. I also think this cast is incredible. Noura is an all time great character and her IOI is so much fun to watch. Kellee made for incredible TV, Jamal and Jack had great moments. Tom, Jason and Vince were great characters. Even Aaron, Elizabeth and Missy had some fun moments in the pre-merge. But obviously the Dan episode is terrible, and Dan just sucks in general, but I think the post-merge still has moments. The Missy blindside was really fun. Karishma playing her idol was a great moment, the Karishma boot tribal was insane. Dean was an amazing character and him and Noura making the final 3 was really good. Janet was a great presence on the show. Elaine was a phenomenal character throughout the whole season. This cast is honestly really good. It’s just the Dan stuff that knocks this season down a lot. And Tommy is probably the most boring winner in the show's history. I actually loved this twist as well, all the visits to Rob and Sandra were so fun to watch and I think people don’t realise how much they liked the pre-merge of this season. #23. Panama Post swap Casaya basically carries this season. They just have so many good moments together. Shane's blackberry, Shane smoking, Shane's genitals, Shane's apartment argument, Bruce's medevac, Courtney doing yoga on Bruce's rock thing, Bruce and Bobby drinking. There's probably much more but this would be too long. But i think the problem is the post swap lamina tribe is insanely boring, and the lamina pagonging is also pretty boring. Though Terry’s story in this season is really fun to watch, and the season really picks up from the final 7. The 321 vote is an all time great vote. Although, the season has an underwhelming ending, with Danielle and Aras being the two most boring Casaya members. But still, the seasons great and has some amazing characters. #22. South Pacific Then there were five is one of the best episodes of all time. The season is extremely good after the Edna vote. But let's talk about the rest of the season, which is fine. The pre merge is pretty good. We get some really great characters like Papa Bear, Stacey and Christine leaving which kinda sucks. But other than them, Ozzy is kind of the standout character pre-merge. Watching him be entitled is so fun to me, and then offering to be voted out and giving a terrible speech at the duel is such great TV. Cochran’s overall a great character here, too. As is Jim. The actual merge episode is amazing and Cochran flipping is an all time great moment. Then, the pretty boring stretch of episodes happen all the way to the Edna vote, but then the season takes off again. I know people are put off by the Christianity cult that Coach makes, but I love it. It just feels so unique compared to all other seasons. Speaking of Coach, he is still the incredible character he was in his other two seasons, despite this being his weakest appearance character wise. Ozzy’s arc in this season is one of the best one season arcs in the show's history to me. Brandon’s a great character for this season and his downfall is amazing. Albert had some good moments and Sophie’s bluntness was great to watch this season too. #21. The Amazon I think this is the show’s first really good season. And it’s mainly just because of Rob C. I think the pre-merge is awful, though. Like, nothing really interesting happens other than like the Dave and Jenna interactions for the tribe swap. But all the votes were pretty boring and are mainly carried by Rob and his confessionals. I liked the mixer challenge, though. But the post merge is amazing. And it’s still mainly because of Rob. From the Deena boot, the season is like a top tier season. Rob flipping every round makes for such great TV, and combined with him being an amazing character makes for such an entertaining post-merge. But it’s not only just Rob. Matthew and the machete is a great scene. Heidi and Jenna stripping is an all time great moment. The shelter burning down was great. In summary, really good post-merge, terrible pre-merge. #20. Nicaragua I don't understand people who love Gabon but hate this, because this season is such a fun mess. From an entertainment standpoint, Fabio is one of the best winners ever. But let's talk about the season from start to finishh. I think the season starts off great. Wendy Jo was a great character and first boot. Her tribal is so fun to watch. Holly’s meltdown and throwing Dan’s shoes into the water is an all time great moment. Shannon’s downfall was really satisfying and also fun to watch. Jimmy Johnson is a fantastic pre-merge character and his dynamic with Jimmy T was so fun to watch. Jimmy T’s short arc is one of the best pre-merges storylines ever. Tyrone was also an amazing character who could have been a great villain had he made it further. Marty was an all time great character. He was such a chaotic player who made for such great TV. Naonka is another all-time great character. Her picking fights with literally everyone is so much fun to watch. Jane’s one sided hate towards Marty is also amazing to watch. Brenda was also a fantastic villainous figure for this season. But sadly, Mary, Brenda and Naonka leave one after another at the merge, which harms this season’s endgame. The double quit was really fun to watch, though. Holly’s face turn and Jane’s heel turnt this season are both incredible to watch. Jane putting out the fire is amazing TV. And Dan making it as far as he did and him having some great moments is also great. Though, Chase and Sash aren’t very interesting to watch. But Fabio is a phenomenal character and a perfect winner for this season. #19. Cambodia I used to love this season, like it was in my top 5. But I have realised like a lot of fans that this season just doesn’t have many fun moments. Like, it’s definitely not boring, due to the heavy amount of gameplay that takes place. But I think it lacks what makes a top tier Survivor season, which are the character moments. I think Abi just carries the season whenever she’s on screen, especially pre-merge. And Keith was great too. But losing some of the non-gamebotty people pre-merge like Peih-gee, Varner and Woo I think harms the season. But obviously the Savage blindside is an all time great blindside, Wentworth’s run this season is amazing. Also, the Ciera vote was pretty good and the Fishbach one was great. And the no votes tribal was amazing too. So this season has great gameplay moments, but lacks the character interactions #18. Winners at War I think I might be underrating this season a bit, because I do think it’s a decently entertaining season the whole way. It’s just more disappointing than anything. It just sucks losing all these old-schoolers one after another until they’re all gone. And i also think these old-schoolers are some of the better characters this season, such as an Ethan, Rob, Parvati, Sandra, Tyson, Yul. Like, these would have been great characters had they made it far. Because in the post-merge we’re only left with like Tony, Michele and I guess Ben for entertainment. This probably has the worst boot order in the show’s history. But I do think Tony is one of the best characters of all time, and him winning this season is a great ending to it. The sophie boot episode is still one of the best ever. Adam pretty much carried the season when he was on screen. He was such a fun character. Him and Ben’s feud is underappreciated by how fun it was. And there still are some fun moments in the season. Ethan’s vote off was fun, Sandra’s blindside was amazing, Rob’s downfall was really great to watch, Adam’s tribal was really entertaining, 2nd Tyson vote was really fun, Kim’s blindside was great. So this season does have some great moments. I also think the edge harms this season quite a bit. And it is pretty much a Tony steamroll from the post-merge on which is kinda underwhelming. Fire tokens were kind of fun but would probably be a better season without it. #17. Tocantins I don't really get people who think this is top tier. Because I think the premerge was pretty boring. But Tyson and Coach kind of save it with them being great characters. And the season picks up quite a bit at the merge, well after the Joe medevac. The Brenden blindside is amazing. Coach is the best casting choice in the show's history and probably the best character in the show's history in this season. The martyr approach is the best episode ever. Tyson was also a top tier character in this season and his blindside was so fun to watch. His dynamic with Sierra was really entertaining. JT, Stephen, Errin and Taj and great characters and them making it all the way to the end is a perfect ending to the season. Overall, it’s a decently entertaining season the whole way thanks to Tyson and Coach. #16. China This probably seems low, but I feel like it suffers a bit from Todd’s alliance pretty much dominating the whole game. Like, after the James vote, the vote offs are pretty boring. But, the characters are incredible and make up for the lack of interesting gameplay. This has one of the best newbie casts of all time. Todd is a great character and winner. Courtney is an all time great character here. Peih Gee was a great underdog character here. James is another all time great character and his blindside is up there for one of the best. Jean-Robert is a fantastic villain for this season and his blindside was very satisfying. Even Erik and Jaime had their moments. Character wise, this season is incredible. Even pre-merge the characters are still good. Dave is an all time great pre-merge character. Chicken’s one of the best first boots. Aaron’s vote out was very fun to watch. This season is just consistently really good but I don’t agree with people saying it’s one of the best. I really like the location and China-based challenges though. #15. Edge of Extinction Chris winning was the best outcome of this season. I think, unlike WAW, the edge makes this season better. Reem is someone who would have just been a standard first boot, but the edge makes her get much more screen time and turns out to be an incredible character. I also think this cast is fantastic, there are so many fun personalities this season. Wendy was a fun, chaotic player. Keith was fun as well. Chris’s first vote out was really fun. Aubry’s blindside was amazing to watch. Aurora, Ron, Victoria, Lauren, Wentworth and David were great in this season, too. And I don’t really mind how most of these people got underedited because the winner comes back in the final episode and takes down the final boss of the season in Devens, who received most of the screen time and sets up the story of the season very well. And speaking of Devens, he is an all time great character here. Watching him survive round after round is so fun to watch and him getting taken out in the end is a great end to his arc. Wardog was an incredible character here, too. The Julia boot tribal is one of the greatest of all time. The finale episode is one of the best of all time and Chris’s game is so fun to watch there. So, I get why people don't really like this season but from an entertainment standpoint, it's amazing. #14. Millennials VS Gen X I think this season is really strong. But I think it suffers from the same reason as Cambodia, where it’s pretty gamebotty at times. And I don’t think the pre-merge is very strong. We lose a lot of no name characters like Rachel, Paul, CeCe, and Lucy. Though, I think the Lucy tribal is very strong. Figgy and Taylor were a bright spot of this pre-merge, and her blindside was really great. Michaela’s blindside is an all time great pre-merge blindside and has one of the best reactions in the show’s history. The start of David’s arc begins here and is still a great character here. But I think the season really picks up post-merge. A lot of the more entertaining personalities make it quite far like Adam, Jay and David, and we get a lot more character moments such as the Adam and Jay hammock scene and the Bret/Zeke scene. The Taylor tribal was fun. Will flipping was great. And the rock draw is an all time great moment. And the finale is also one of the best in the show’s history. So, the later half of this season is great but the pre-merge drags it down a bit. #13. Blood vs Water I used to like this season a lot more. But it’s kind of like China where it’s pretty much an alliance steamroll in the post-merge. Though, the rock draw tribal is really entertaining and one of the best ever. I also think the pre-merge is pretty good. Brad pretty much carries the entertainment aspect of the pre-merge. It’s so fun to watch everyone’s hate towards him and his tribal is one of the best pre-merge tribals ever. I haven’t really talked about the redemption island twist yet but I do think it made all the seasons better, despite it being a pretty bad twist. And that combined with the blood vs water theme makes it even better to watch. Rupert got out in a very fun way and this is also Candice’s best season character wise, and Tina too. The Aras/Vytas dynamic is pretty fun to watch. Colton was still the same entertaining character. The Caleb vote was really strong. Hayden and Ciera became great characters towards the end. And Tyson is still the same fantastic character and him winning was a great ending to the season. #12. San Juan Del Sur I think the general consensus of this season is that it has a bad pre-merge, but great post-merge. And I kind of disagree. I don’t think the pre-merge is as bad as people say it is. The Drew Christy episode is one of the best pre-merge episodes in the show’s history. The John Rocker blindside is really fun. Val was a great character. The Josh/Keith exile scene was fun. And the blood vs water theme is still good. But the post-merge is amazing, one of the best in the show’s history. The Josh and Jeremy blindsides were both pretty strong, and Natalie’s revenge arc after Jeremy gets voted out is one of the best winning stories ever. Plus most of the entertaining characters make it pretty far which help this season. Baylor and Missy were really fun characters to root against. The ‘stick to the plan’ is an all time great one. Natalie switching her vote from Keith to Alec is really fun to watch. The Jon blindside is incredible. The Baylor blindside was even better. It’s just an overall really good season with an amazing post-merge. #11. Gabon This season is probably the messiest season of Survivor we will ever get and it’s amazing. The Fang tribe is one of the most entertaining tribes ever by how much of a disaster they are. There are just so many incredible character moments in the pre-merge like Fang voting off their strongest member first, the Michele/Kenny scenes, GC being leader than quitting a day later, GC leaving before the challenge, Krystal spilling rice, Eat yo rice, Matty/Charlie/Randy challenge, Sugar shack, Marcus throwing idol into the ocean, and probably much more. And this is all just the pre-merge. Cookie-gate is a hilarious story in the season. Randy is a top tier character, Corinne had really entertaining moments, Krystal failing every challenge was TV gold. Kenny’s arc in this season is amazing. Sugar pretty much controlling the game is crazy. Ace, Gillian and Dan were great pre-merge characters. Corinne’s jury speech is an all time great moment. Bob winning the season is a perfect ending to it. This final 3 was perfect for this season. This doesn’t really affect the season’s ranking but location and challenges are amazing. It’s just a really messy season that is so fun to watch the whole way through. But I think the problem is the fact there isn’t very much gameplay happening makes it so you can’t have these top tier moments like Parvati’s double idol play or the John Morrison blindside which I think are needed to make seasons even better. Top 10 is in comments. overall tier list. |
2024.02.20 17:37 hvmlock BlackBerry wants to be your car’s operating system. Will automakers hand it the keys?
https://financialpost.com/feature/blackberry-wants-be-car-operating-system
BlackBerry Ltd. executive John Wall had an epiphany about two years ago after listening to a colleague in the auto industry complain about the high costs of developing basic software — what he called “the underwear.”
If the automaker wanted out of the business of developing this underwear, then Wall saw a golden opportunity for his company to step in and do it for them.
Today, as BlackBerry’s head of Internet of Things (IoT), he travels the world to sell auto executives on his vision of creating a basic software operating system for vehicles. If his plan takes off, it could provide a lifeline for the Waterloo-based company, which has struggled in the past decade and is now trading near an all-time low. But there are obstacles to overcome.
One kink in Wall’s plan is that many auto executives believe software could open up future revenue streams, so they are reluctant to cede control of it to a third party. To many of them, BlackBerry’s failed smartphone business stands out as a prime example of what can happen to a company that underestimates the importance of controlling its software ecosystem.
“BlackBerry was not able to survive from a handset perspective because they did not have the (software) ecosystem,” said Wall. “I think the car companies are concerned that if they miss the boat on software, and they aren’t able to generate recurring revenue around software, then somebody else will.”
But he said vehicles have become so cluttered with software and controllers that many executives recognize they need a solution, a solution he believes he has.
As a result, BlackBerry has high hopes for its IoT business. Last year, it told investors it expects the addressable market for IoT software to experience a compound annual growth rate of eight to 12 per cent for the next few years, reaching more than US$1.75 billion by 2026.
So far, the company has captured only a fraction of that market. Last quarter, the IoT business posted $55 million in revenue, about 70 per cent of which is derived from auto-related sales.
That figure is tiny by BlackBerry’s historical standards, given that it was once Canada’s most valuable company. In 2011, the company posted $19.9 billion in annual revenue when its smartphone business reached its peak, and in 2008, its market capitalization topped $84.5 billion, according to Bloomberg data. Its revenue last year was about US$650 million, and its market cap has now dwindled to around $2.2 billion.
Nevertheless, Daniel Chan, an analyst at TD Securities who covers BlackBerry, described the IoT auto software business as the company’s “crown jewel” because it already dominates a specific niche: safety-certified, real-time embedded operating system software in vehicles.
“There are few competitors in this space that do what they do,” he said.
Wall said the auto industry has a unique and complex software market: most vehicles use multiple operating systems, whereas smartphones operate just one.
Although he likes to say BlackBerry has relationships with every single automaker except Tesla Inc., his challenge is convincing them that his company is best-suited to unify all those different operating systems into a single system.
Internally, that initiative is known as Project Green, and Wall said he’s pitching the idea that BlackBerry can build a “non-differentiating” operating system for vehicles, one that would function without glitches, so that automakers and their suppliers can focus on building the software applications that matter to their customers.
Under this plan, he said BlackBerry, which already has software in more than 230 million vehicles, would essentially manage the software in any vehicle. It would also make sure it works with any hardware, and it would buy software from outside suppliers, oversee the integration and sell it back to automakers.
“It’s not necessary that we would create all the software in this vehicle (operating system) platform,” Wall said, “but we would be kind of the channel for it.”
Of course, there are many headwinds for BlackBerry to achieve that dream.
In November, its chief executive and executive chairman John Chen retired after a decade at the helm, during which time the company’s revenues slipped as its smartphone business declined, and the company frequently posted losses.
In January 2022, Chen officially decommissioned BlackBerry’s smartphone business, saying that the company had reinvented itself and was now focused on cybersecurity and IoT.
But he repeatedly told analysts last year that the cybersecurity business was losing money and had not achieved the growth he wanted. The company subsequently hired bankers and announced plans to create a separate business for its IoT business via an initial public offering planned for around this June.
Separating IoT from the cybersecurity business would increase shareholder value, Chen said in a call with analysts last year, though he added that BlackBerry intended to keep an ownership stake in the IoT spinoff.
Ultimately, Chen retired, BlackBerry in December hit pause on the IPO idea and appointed John Giamatteo — head of its cybersecurity business — as its new chief executive. Now, the company is separating its two businesses into standalone units, leaving the door open for an IPO down the line.
“A key focus is to return BlackBerry to profitability,” Giamatteo said in one of his earliest comments to analysts.
Prior to his appointment, the company posted a US$21-million loss in its third quarter compared to a US$4-million loss a year earlier. In January, its shares plummeted nearly 20 per cent and have yet to recover after the company announced a US$160-million private-debt offering, which was then increased to US$175 million. And on Feb. 13, the company announced it would close six of its 36 global office locations, and is planning additional layoffs — having cut 200 jobs last quarter — in its cybersecurity division.
If the challenges of the cybersecurity division have cast a shadow on the IoT business, it may be old hat for Wall, who has worked in auto software for 25 years.
He joined BlackBerry in 2010 after it bought Ottawa-based QNX Software Systems, largely to acquire that company’s team of software developers to help build the operating system for its smartphone business.
Wall said he declined to work on smartphones after the acquisition, and continued to focus on auto software, which at the time meant infotainment systems such as stereos inside the vehicle.
“I stayed back and said, ‘No. I want to continue to work on automotive,’ and I rebuilt the team,” he said.
Over time, however, Apple Inc. and Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., the same companies that created smartphone operating systems that destroyed BlackBerry’s handheld business, also moved into auto software. Today, those companies dominate the infotainment software.
BlackBerry QNX, as Wall’s company is known, successfully pivoted to building safety-certified applications for vehicles, and moved away from infotainment.
That was enabled in part by a rapid transformation taking part in the auto sector that has made vehicles less mechanical and more driven by software. Today, everything from suspension and steering to braking and propulsion, among other many things, is controlled by an array of software programs, controllers and sensors.
Phil Amsrud, associate director for the automotive semiconductor research area at S&P Global Inc., a research company, said the rapid growth of software means that a bevy of different software operating systems and controllers function in any given vehicle.
That decentralized software architecture is seen as a possible headwind for advanced software systems such as autonomous driving, he said.
“The endgame that everyone is playing towards is going from 100 to, at some point, one central computer that does everything,” he said.
Amsrud said BlackBerry is already positioning itself to help with that transition. The company sells a hypervisor, which is essentially a virtual machine that he described as “a traffic cop,” to manage all the different operating systems in the vehicle.
Auto companies are also grappling with how much, and to what extent they can add software development to their list of core competencies. For example, General Motors Co. chief executive Mary Barra has said she wants investors to think of her 100-year-old company as a tech company.
“We can be a company that not only innovates and grows, but leads,” she said in 2018.
Alongside such bold proclamations, automakers are also spending billions of dollars. In 2021, Toyota Motors Corp. and Volkswagen AG each invested between US$3 billion and US$4 billion into software research and development, while BMW AG, Mercedes-Benz AG, GM and Ford Motor Co. each invested between US$1 billion and US$1.75 billion that year, according to Luke Junk, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc.
That spending is driven by a desire to find new sources of revenue, said Eric Noble, founder and president of The CarLab, an automotive design consultancy in California. All the new sensors on board modern vehicles are collecting rich troves of data, he noted.
As many North American automakers eye the costs of rebuilding their supply chains for the electric-vehicle transition, they’ve cast their eye on this data as a potentially lucrative asset.
“This is a search for revenue,” Noble said.
He said he had doubts about whether legacy automakers are capable of leveraging data to collect revenue, which would essentially transform them into service providers. For that reason, he said BlackBerry is smart to position itself as a neutral party that would build “non-differentiating” software that wouldn’t necessarily take any data or look to provide services.
“It’s a pretty good strategic idea,” Noble said. “The wildcard is how long does it take the automakers to fail and admit they failed?”
Wall said he thinks some automakers are ready to work with BlackBerry on an operating system. Some automakers, though not all, realize they have wasted too much time and money building levels of software that don’t make a difference to their end customer, he said.
He said BlackBerry’s biggest rival is Linux, an open-source platform that automakers such as Tesla have used to build their safety-certified software.
Wall said BlackBerry is also moving towards making its programs “open source,” though not in the traditional sense. The company plans to show some of its code to the public for transparency purposes, and then it will work with automakers in a more co-operative sense to develop software, he said.
He said BlackBerry failed to establish a dominant operating system for smartphones before its rivals seized the opportunity, but said its timing is right to do so for the automotive market.
“We’re talking about the right thing at the right time,” he said.
He predicted it would be “a gradual” success, with BlackBerry scoring wins with maybe one vehicle model series at first, then expanding to that automaker’s entire fleet, and then to other automakers’ fleets.
Until then, Wall said he keeps travelling the world, with three trips to Germany planned for the next month, and telling auto executives why it makes sense to allow Blackberry to build their operating system.
In turn, they often remind him about BlackBerry’s smartphone business.
“Nobody ever lets me forget it … to be honest,” he said.
submitted by hvmlock to BB_Stock [link] [comments]
BlackBerry Ltd. executive John Wall had an epiphany about two years ago after listening to a colleague in the auto industry complain about the high costs of developing basic software — what he called “the underwear.”
If the automaker wanted out of the business of developing this underwear, then Wall saw a golden opportunity for his company to step in and do it for them.
Today, as BlackBerry’s head of Internet of Things (IoT), he travels the world to sell auto executives on his vision of creating a basic software operating system for vehicles. If his plan takes off, it could provide a lifeline for the Waterloo-based company, which has struggled in the past decade and is now trading near an all-time low. But there are obstacles to overcome.
One kink in Wall’s plan is that many auto executives believe software could open up future revenue streams, so they are reluctant to cede control of it to a third party. To many of them, BlackBerry’s failed smartphone business stands out as a prime example of what can happen to a company that underestimates the importance of controlling its software ecosystem.
“BlackBerry was not able to survive from a handset perspective because they did not have the (software) ecosystem,” said Wall. “I think the car companies are concerned that if they miss the boat on software, and they aren’t able to generate recurring revenue around software, then somebody else will.”
But he said vehicles have become so cluttered with software and controllers that many executives recognize they need a solution, a solution he believes he has.
As a result, BlackBerry has high hopes for its IoT business. Last year, it told investors it expects the addressable market for IoT software to experience a compound annual growth rate of eight to 12 per cent for the next few years, reaching more than US$1.75 billion by 2026.
So far, the company has captured only a fraction of that market. Last quarter, the IoT business posted $55 million in revenue, about 70 per cent of which is derived from auto-related sales.
That figure is tiny by BlackBerry’s historical standards, given that it was once Canada’s most valuable company. In 2011, the company posted $19.9 billion in annual revenue when its smartphone business reached its peak, and in 2008, its market capitalization topped $84.5 billion, according to Bloomberg data. Its revenue last year was about US$650 million, and its market cap has now dwindled to around $2.2 billion.
Nevertheless, Daniel Chan, an analyst at TD Securities who covers BlackBerry, described the IoT auto software business as the company’s “crown jewel” because it already dominates a specific niche: safety-certified, real-time embedded operating system software in vehicles.
“There are few competitors in this space that do what they do,” he said.
Wall said the auto industry has a unique and complex software market: most vehicles use multiple operating systems, whereas smartphones operate just one.
Although he likes to say BlackBerry has relationships with every single automaker except Tesla Inc., his challenge is convincing them that his company is best-suited to unify all those different operating systems into a single system.
Internally, that initiative is known as Project Green, and Wall said he’s pitching the idea that BlackBerry can build a “non-differentiating” operating system for vehicles, one that would function without glitches, so that automakers and their suppliers can focus on building the software applications that matter to their customers.
Under this plan, he said BlackBerry, which already has software in more than 230 million vehicles, would essentially manage the software in any vehicle. It would also make sure it works with any hardware, and it would buy software from outside suppliers, oversee the integration and sell it back to automakers.
“It’s not necessary that we would create all the software in this vehicle (operating system) platform,” Wall said, “but we would be kind of the channel for it.”
Of course, there are many headwinds for BlackBerry to achieve that dream.
In November, its chief executive and executive chairman John Chen retired after a decade at the helm, during which time the company’s revenues slipped as its smartphone business declined, and the company frequently posted losses.
In January 2022, Chen officially decommissioned BlackBerry’s smartphone business, saying that the company had reinvented itself and was now focused on cybersecurity and IoT.
But he repeatedly told analysts last year that the cybersecurity business was losing money and had not achieved the growth he wanted. The company subsequently hired bankers and announced plans to create a separate business for its IoT business via an initial public offering planned for around this June.
Separating IoT from the cybersecurity business would increase shareholder value, Chen said in a call with analysts last year, though he added that BlackBerry intended to keep an ownership stake in the IoT spinoff.
Ultimately, Chen retired, BlackBerry in December hit pause on the IPO idea and appointed John Giamatteo — head of its cybersecurity business — as its new chief executive. Now, the company is separating its two businesses into standalone units, leaving the door open for an IPO down the line.
“A key focus is to return BlackBerry to profitability,” Giamatteo said in one of his earliest comments to analysts.
Prior to his appointment, the company posted a US$21-million loss in its third quarter compared to a US$4-million loss a year earlier. In January, its shares plummeted nearly 20 per cent and have yet to recover after the company announced a US$160-million private-debt offering, which was then increased to US$175 million. And on Feb. 13, the company announced it would close six of its 36 global office locations, and is planning additional layoffs — having cut 200 jobs last quarter — in its cybersecurity division.
If the challenges of the cybersecurity division have cast a shadow on the IoT business, it may be old hat for Wall, who has worked in auto software for 25 years.
He joined BlackBerry in 2010 after it bought Ottawa-based QNX Software Systems, largely to acquire that company’s team of software developers to help build the operating system for its smartphone business.
Wall said he declined to work on smartphones after the acquisition, and continued to focus on auto software, which at the time meant infotainment systems such as stereos inside the vehicle.
“I stayed back and said, ‘No. I want to continue to work on automotive,’ and I rebuilt the team,” he said.
Over time, however, Apple Inc. and Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., the same companies that created smartphone operating systems that destroyed BlackBerry’s handheld business, also moved into auto software. Today, those companies dominate the infotainment software.
BlackBerry QNX, as Wall’s company is known, successfully pivoted to building safety-certified applications for vehicles, and moved away from infotainment.
That was enabled in part by a rapid transformation taking part in the auto sector that has made vehicles less mechanical and more driven by software. Today, everything from suspension and steering to braking and propulsion, among other many things, is controlled by an array of software programs, controllers and sensors.
Phil Amsrud, associate director for the automotive semiconductor research area at S&P Global Inc., a research company, said the rapid growth of software means that a bevy of different software operating systems and controllers function in any given vehicle.
That decentralized software architecture is seen as a possible headwind for advanced software systems such as autonomous driving, he said.
“The endgame that everyone is playing towards is going from 100 to, at some point, one central computer that does everything,” he said.
Amsrud said BlackBerry is already positioning itself to help with that transition. The company sells a hypervisor, which is essentially a virtual machine that he described as “a traffic cop,” to manage all the different operating systems in the vehicle.
Auto companies are also grappling with how much, and to what extent they can add software development to their list of core competencies. For example, General Motors Co. chief executive Mary Barra has said she wants investors to think of her 100-year-old company as a tech company.
“We can be a company that not only innovates and grows, but leads,” she said in 2018.
Alongside such bold proclamations, automakers are also spending billions of dollars. In 2021, Toyota Motors Corp. and Volkswagen AG each invested between US$3 billion and US$4 billion into software research and development, while BMW AG, Mercedes-Benz AG, GM and Ford Motor Co. each invested between US$1 billion and US$1.75 billion that year, according to Luke Junk, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc.
That spending is driven by a desire to find new sources of revenue, said Eric Noble, founder and president of The CarLab, an automotive design consultancy in California. All the new sensors on board modern vehicles are collecting rich troves of data, he noted.
As many North American automakers eye the costs of rebuilding their supply chains for the electric-vehicle transition, they’ve cast their eye on this data as a potentially lucrative asset.
“This is a search for revenue,” Noble said.
He said he had doubts about whether legacy automakers are capable of leveraging data to collect revenue, which would essentially transform them into service providers. For that reason, he said BlackBerry is smart to position itself as a neutral party that would build “non-differentiating” software that wouldn’t necessarily take any data or look to provide services.
“It’s a pretty good strategic idea,” Noble said. “The wildcard is how long does it take the automakers to fail and admit they failed?”
Wall said he thinks some automakers are ready to work with BlackBerry on an operating system. Some automakers, though not all, realize they have wasted too much time and money building levels of software that don’t make a difference to their end customer, he said.
He said BlackBerry’s biggest rival is Linux, an open-source platform that automakers such as Tesla have used to build their safety-certified software.
Wall said BlackBerry is also moving towards making its programs “open source,” though not in the traditional sense. The company plans to show some of its code to the public for transparency purposes, and then it will work with automakers in a more co-operative sense to develop software, he said.
He said BlackBerry failed to establish a dominant operating system for smartphones before its rivals seized the opportunity, but said its timing is right to do so for the automotive market.
“We’re talking about the right thing at the right time,” he said.
He predicted it would be “a gradual” success, with BlackBerry scoring wins with maybe one vehicle model series at first, then expanding to that automaker’s entire fleet, and then to other automakers’ fleets.
Until then, Wall said he keeps travelling the world, with three trips to Germany planned for the next month, and telling auto executives why it makes sense to allow Blackberry to build their operating system.
In turn, they often remind him about BlackBerry’s smartphone business.
“Nobody ever lets me forget it … to be honest,” he said.
2024.01.01 02:53 fixtheblue [r/bookclub retrospective - 2023] Thank you r/bookclubbers for another amazing year of reading.
Happy New Year booklovers
As 2023 draws to a close it is time to reflect on bookclub's year of reading and growth. So let's gush together over how fantastic bookclub is, and continues to be.BOOKS AND BOOKS AND EVEN MORE BOOKS
Since 2022 it has become bookclub standard to, each month, run;- 2 core reads, of varying topics and specs, nominated and chosen by you, our devoted readers.
- A Discovery Read to motivate y'all to step outside your comfort reading zone.
- A Mod Pick chosen by us, 'cause there's gotta be some bonus for us Mods and RRs putting in all the extra milage dontcha know
- A Runner-up Read, because we know that sometimes the one that didn't win is the one you wanted to read.
- An Evergreen, because the sub may have read it before, but that doesn't mean you have.
- A Monthly Mini, an incredible array of bite-sized stories from a wide variety of genres, compatable with busy schedules, from u/dogobsess
- A Poetry Corner, an amazing study of poems, and poets put together each month by our very dedicated resident poetry expert u/lazylittlelady.
- A Read the World. My own pet project designed to help readers branch out and experience other places and cultures in the pages of novels
- A squillion and one Bonus Books. The option to continue reading your favourite novels, characters and authors by completing any series that we start together. This started in 2022 and exploded in the last year. It is a great chance for members to give Read Running a try as well as spending more time with your favourites.
MEMBERS
We started the year on just under 149k members. Today we are at over 163k members.Participation continues to rise and we see more and more upvotes and comments on discussions, and more and more users become familiar names and frequent readers. It is wonderful to see so many people enjoying the sub.
GOING THE EXTRA MILE
This year we have once again had a successful global book Gift Exchange. We have kept track of our reads each month with the Monthly Book Report. The Ministry of Merriment continues to bring us Off Topic bookish discussion posts each month, we have had year 2 of bookclub Bingo and the 3rd year ready to roll out any time now, the annual Clubbies and much, much more.All of this is possible because of the....
PEOPLE
Special shout out to the moderators for all their extra time and effort, which really is huge, 'cause lets face it they could'a been reading instead!!- u/inclinedtothelie (without whom there would be no bookclub)
- u/nopantstime (keeps us organised with up to date side bar and excel's in behind the scene spreadsheets)
- u/Joinedformyhubs (keeps the Runner-up Reads in order and takes care of goodest boy, bookclub mascot, spotty doggie, Thor)
- u/dogobsess (the queen of the monthly mini)
- u/espiller1 (Archie pup macott handler, Mayor of MoM, and bringer of some serious pizazz to the sub with the monthly graphics)
- u/miriel41 (Queen of Fantasy, our get it done girl and archivist)
- u/bluebelle236 (the gift exchange match-maker and our Read Runner with the most discussions under the belt)
- u/DernhelmLaughed (keeps the Discovery Read fresh and running smoothly, and creative Ministry ideas go to)
- u/lazylittlelady (our resident poetry expert and dedicated Poetry Corner producer)
- u/Superb_Piano9536 (keeping our reading on track with the bookclub calendar )
- u/Tripolie (our nomination and vote post manager)
Finally a special shout out to all the bookclub Boffins who get involved in discussions and help host check-ins. You may not be RRs (yet), but we certainly couldn't do it without you.
I also want to say to those mods/RRs that stepped back in 2023 we thank you for all your efforts, you are appreciated and will be missed. bookclub has become what it is through your time and efforts too.
Finally thank you to all of you bibliophiles, book worms, word addicts, novel hoarders, book collectors, casual readers, active commentors, and quiet lurkers alike.
OTHER
We made it into the Washington Post this year which is pretty awesome.u/Leocanta made some beautiful graphics of bookclub reads over the years.
bookclub now has its own List Challenge for
Finally this corner of reddit is so welcoming, kind, open and healthy and we owe it all to you. Thank you for being so fantastically awesome. For 2024 may your reading time be plentiful, your reading spot be cozy, and spoilers never cross your path.
Happy new year and happy reading fellow bookworms 📚
2023.12.29 06:32 nowhereman136 Finally saw Color Purple and Iron Claw today so i think im ready to list my favorite movies
This isnt a list of who i think will be nominated but a list of who i want to be nominated. As in, if i were a voter, this is who i would vote for for nominees and winners in some of the bigger categories. This is just for fun, me thinking out loud and wanting to start a conversation. Also, aside from the winner, the lists will be in alphabetical order
Also, i still havent seen All of Us Strangers, Origin, Lee, or Ferrari yet as well as many other films. this is limited to films ive seen
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Original Screenplay
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Lead Actor
Best Lead Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Best Animated Feature
and for fun my overrated movies of the year list
submitted by nowhereman136 to oscarrace [link] [comments]
Also, i still havent seen All of Us Strangers, Origin, Lee, or Ferrari yet as well as many other films. this is limited to films ive seen
Best Picture
- Oppenheimer (winner)
- American Fiction
- Barbie
- Color Purple
- Holdovers
- Iron Claw
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- Maestro
- Past Lives
- Poor Things
Best Director
- Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) (winner)
- Greta Gerwig (Barbie)
- Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
- Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)
- Celine Song (Past Lives)
Best Original Screenplay
- Holdovers (winner)
- Barbie
- Maestro
- Past Lives
- Saltburn
Best Adapted Screenplay
- American Fiction (winner)
- Across the Spider-verse
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- Oppenheimer
- Poor Things
Best Lead Actor
- Bradley Cooper (Maestro) (winner)
- Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon)
- Paul Giamatti (Holdovers)
- Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)
- Jeffery Wright (American Fiction)
Best Lead Actress
- Lilly Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) (winner)
- Fantasia Barrino (Color Purple)
- Sandra Huller (Anatomy of a Fall)
- Carey Mulligan (Maestro)
- Emma Stone (Poor Things)
Supporting Actor
- Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer) (winner)
- Willem Dafoe (Poor Things)
- Glenn Howerton (Blackberry)
- Charles Melton (May December)
- Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)
Supporting Actress
- Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Holdovers) (winner)
- Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)
- Danielle Brooks (Color Purple)
- Sandra Huller (Zone of Interest)
- Rachel McAdams (Are You There God, It's Me Margaret)
Best Animated Feature
- Wish (winner)
- Across the Spider-verse
- Boy and the Heron
- Elemental
- Nimona
and for fun my overrated movies of the year list
- May December
- Air
- Priscilla
- The Killer
- Napoleon
2023.12.12 13:55 upbstock morning market updateeeeee
The app store duopoly of Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Apple (AAPL) may be in trouble as a recent legal ruling could force them to open up their app stores’ closed ecosystems. Epic Games, which makes the popular video game Fortnite, has won its high-profile antitrust case against Google after a jury found that the search giant's Play app store is operating as an illegal monopoly.
The verdict: The jury found that Google had monopolized the Android app distribution and payments market by charging app developers high fees of up to 30% and striking side deals with rivals to fend off competition. The court will now decide if Google should allow payment for and distribution of apps outside the Play Store. "The verdict is a win for all app developers and consumers," said Epic, reiterating that regulations are needed to "address Apple and Google strangleholds over smartphones." Google intends to appeal the verdict, saying it would "continue to defend the Android business model."
Bigger picture: Epic's legal victory threatens the billions of dollars of revenue that Google earns through its app store. If the jury's verdict is upheld, developers could have more power over the distribution of and profits from their apps. The win is also important in light of Epic's loss last year against Apple in a similar antitrust case, in which a judge ruled that there was not enough evidence of the iPhone maker having unlawful monopoly power. However, it was determined that Apple should allow apps to provide other payment option links.
Other legal woes: Google is already facing a landmark antitrust case from the Department of Justice over its alleged monopolistic practices in the search business, which has left Barclays increasingly concerned. SA analyst Paul Franke previously warned that the antitrust lawsuits won't necessarily end the Google/Alphabet saga for bullish investors. "My view is the stock could take a breather at the end of this year and all of next, as investors digest what I believe will be bad news on the legal front," he warned. (8 comments)
Weight regain Eli Lilly (LLY) shares dipped on Monday after a study indicated that patients who were taking the obesity drug tirzepatide regained weight after discontinuing the therapy. The study sponsored by Lilly showed that the drug - marketed as Zepbound - led to a 20.9% mean weight loss over 36 weeks. But those who switched to a placebo immediately afterward saw a 14% weight gain over 52 weeks. A study funded by Lilly's rival Novo Nordisk (NVO) also showed that patients on the weight loss drug semaglutide regained two-thirds of their lost body weight a year after discontinuation. GlobalData recently forecast that Zepbound sales could reach $4.1B by 2031 in the U.S. (75 comments)
Inflation watch The highly-anticipated Consumer Price Inflation report is due today, with economists widely expecting retail inflation in November to remain unchanged from the prior month. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, likely rose 0.3% sequentially. "The upcoming CPI report may show zero inflation or even deflation, influenced by global energy prices and supply glut," said Investing Group Leader Chris Lau. While inflation is steadily declining, the Fed has been wary of declaring victory in its fight to rein in inflation. As the FOMC meeting kicks off today, every bit of data counts. "Unless CPI is much worse than expected, we don't expect financial conditions to change much," said 22V Research's Dennis DeBusschere. (7 comments)
New draft The agreement drafted at the United Nations' COP28 summit hit a roadblock after opposition from some countries as it didn't include strong enough wording on phasing out fossil fuels. A new draft is expected on Tuesday. The draft instead suggested other steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Many countries sought stronger wording instead of just guidelines for reducing fossil fuels' consumption and production, including the U.S., but Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ members have opposed this. The draft's "weak language on fossil fuels is completely insufficient," said the Alliance of Small Island States, a group of countries vulnerable to climate change. (2 comments)
Today's Markets
In Asia, Japan +0.2%. Hong Kong +1.1%. China +0.4%. India -0.5%. In Europe, at midday, London +0.4%. Paris flat. Frankfurt -0.2%. Futures at 7:00, Dow +0.1%. S&P flat. Nasdaq +0.1%. Crude -0.3% to $71.12. Gold +0.5% at $2,002.80. Bitcoin -1.8% to $41,572. Ten-year Treasury Yield -5 bps to 4.19%.
Today's Economic Calendar
FOMC meeting begins 6:00 NFIB Small Business Optimism Index 8:30 Consumer Price Index 10:00 Quarterly Services Report 1:00 PM Results of $21B, 30-Year Bond Auction 2:00 PM Treasury Statement
Companies reporting earnings today »
What else is happening...
WSB survey results: The economy will likely decelerate in 2024.
Walgreens Boots (WBA) slips as Moody’s cuts rating to junk.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire (BRK.B) halves stake in HP (HPQ).
Occidental signs $12B deal to buy Permian producer CrownRock.
Nokia (NOK) trims profit margin target after losing AT&T (T) contract.
Star Bulk (SBLK) to buy Eagle Bulk (EGLE) to create $2.1B shipowner.
BlackBerry (BB) appoints CEO, scraps IPO plans of IoT business.
Raimondo: Nvidia (NVDA) 'can, will and should' sell chips to China.
Oracle (ORCL) stock slides on revenue miss, outlook disappoints.
Hasbro (HAS) to lay off 900 'incremental' roles as it cuts expenses.
VanEck: Bitcoin (BTC-USD) will reach an all-time high in Q4 2024.
submitted by upbstock to Optionmillionaires [link] [comments]
The verdict: The jury found that Google had monopolized the Android app distribution and payments market by charging app developers high fees of up to 30% and striking side deals with rivals to fend off competition. The court will now decide if Google should allow payment for and distribution of apps outside the Play Store. "The verdict is a win for all app developers and consumers," said Epic, reiterating that regulations are needed to "address Apple and Google strangleholds over smartphones." Google intends to appeal the verdict, saying it would "continue to defend the Android business model."
Bigger picture: Epic's legal victory threatens the billions of dollars of revenue that Google earns through its app store. If the jury's verdict is upheld, developers could have more power over the distribution of and profits from their apps. The win is also important in light of Epic's loss last year against Apple in a similar antitrust case, in which a judge ruled that there was not enough evidence of the iPhone maker having unlawful monopoly power. However, it was determined that Apple should allow apps to provide other payment option links.
Other legal woes: Google is already facing a landmark antitrust case from the Department of Justice over its alleged monopolistic practices in the search business, which has left Barclays increasingly concerned. SA analyst Paul Franke previously warned that the antitrust lawsuits won't necessarily end the Google/Alphabet saga for bullish investors. "My view is the stock could take a breather at the end of this year and all of next, as investors digest what I believe will be bad news on the legal front," he warned. (8 comments)
Weight regain Eli Lilly (LLY) shares dipped on Monday after a study indicated that patients who were taking the obesity drug tirzepatide regained weight after discontinuing the therapy. The study sponsored by Lilly showed that the drug - marketed as Zepbound - led to a 20.9% mean weight loss over 36 weeks. But those who switched to a placebo immediately afterward saw a 14% weight gain over 52 weeks. A study funded by Lilly's rival Novo Nordisk (NVO) also showed that patients on the weight loss drug semaglutide regained two-thirds of their lost body weight a year after discontinuation. GlobalData recently forecast that Zepbound sales could reach $4.1B by 2031 in the U.S. (75 comments)
Inflation watch The highly-anticipated Consumer Price Inflation report is due today, with economists widely expecting retail inflation in November to remain unchanged from the prior month. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, likely rose 0.3% sequentially. "The upcoming CPI report may show zero inflation or even deflation, influenced by global energy prices and supply glut," said Investing Group Leader Chris Lau. While inflation is steadily declining, the Fed has been wary of declaring victory in its fight to rein in inflation. As the FOMC meeting kicks off today, every bit of data counts. "Unless CPI is much worse than expected, we don't expect financial conditions to change much," said 22V Research's Dennis DeBusschere. (7 comments)
New draft The agreement drafted at the United Nations' COP28 summit hit a roadblock after opposition from some countries as it didn't include strong enough wording on phasing out fossil fuels. A new draft is expected on Tuesday. The draft instead suggested other steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Many countries sought stronger wording instead of just guidelines for reducing fossil fuels' consumption and production, including the U.S., but Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ members have opposed this. The draft's "weak language on fossil fuels is completely insufficient," said the Alliance of Small Island States, a group of countries vulnerable to climate change. (2 comments)
Today's Markets
In Asia, Japan +0.2%. Hong Kong +1.1%. China +0.4%. India -0.5%. In Europe, at midday, London +0.4%. Paris flat. Frankfurt -0.2%. Futures at 7:00, Dow +0.1%. S&P flat. Nasdaq +0.1%. Crude -0.3% to $71.12. Gold +0.5% at $2,002.80. Bitcoin -1.8% to $41,572. Ten-year Treasury Yield -5 bps to 4.19%.
Today's Economic Calendar
FOMC meeting begins 6:00 NFIB Small Business Optimism Index 8:30 Consumer Price Index 10:00 Quarterly Services Report 1:00 PM Results of $21B, 30-Year Bond Auction 2:00 PM Treasury Statement
Companies reporting earnings today »
What else is happening...
WSB survey results: The economy will likely decelerate in 2024.
Walgreens Boots (WBA) slips as Moody’s cuts rating to junk.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire (BRK.B) halves stake in HP (HPQ).
Occidental signs $12B deal to buy Permian producer CrownRock.
Nokia (NOK) trims profit margin target after losing AT&T (T) contract.
Star Bulk (SBLK) to buy Eagle Bulk (EGLE) to create $2.1B shipowner.
BlackBerry (BB) appoints CEO, scraps IPO plans of IoT business.
Raimondo: Nvidia (NVDA) 'can, will and should' sell chips to China.
Oracle (ORCL) stock slides on revenue miss, outlook disappoints.
Hasbro (HAS) to lay off 900 'incremental' roles as it cuts expenses.
VanEck: Bitcoin (BTC-USD) will reach an all-time high in Q4 2024.
2023.11.30 09:42 Samuel_2005 Kamen Rider Pither (π) [OC] by me. gen 2 of smart brain's gear. hand drawn and digital art.
![Kamen Rider Pither (π) [OC] by me. gen 2 of smart brain's gear. hand drawn and digital art.](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/WNsQzVIUde5RTv2MoOMEqnED-aGdM0V94uNIJMaoh20.jpg "Kamen Rider Pither (π) [OC] by me. gen 2 of smart brain's gear. hand drawn and digital art.") | This is my first ever OC Kamen Rider art ever. Kamen Rider Pither with greek/ Roman alphabet of "π" and entry number "314". In combat, it's quite similar with Delta's fighting style, but also Kaixa's. submitted by Samuel_2005 to KamenRider [link] [comments] The phone is inspired by the old slide action Blackberry phone. During the redrawing of the helmet i realized that the helmet look similar to Kuuga's, i then decide to incoporate a stag beetle motives in it (even tho it looked nothing like an actual stag beetle.) I don't know which colouring would be perfect for it, but i decide to paint it with Kuuga's and G3's colour. |
2023.09.25 10:41 SwoleDaddy92 Hangout Fest 2024 Rumor Thread
Hello everybody! So, the former thread was deleted as my reddit decided to glitch out and not allow me to edit it. In my determination to figure out a solution, I kind of deleted the whole thing. I am trying to resolve the situation and attempting to restore the thread to its former glory.
If you have any information/insider knowledge on artist that will be at Hangout, shoot me a DM or leave a comment. I will definitely want some sort of evidence to support the claim.
Hangout Fest May 17-19, (Confirmed via Hangout Fest)
Lineup release in January (Suspected to be early in month)
NOTE:
-I will not be including most Metal/Hard Rock bands. Hangout has a history of rarely booking those type of artist. Highly Suspect, Mayday Parade, and The Maine were a surprise last year however, so maybe they add some more rock artist for 2024.
-I'm putting this in alphabetical order, but really only by the first letter.
-Bolded means good chance of being there
Confirmed (Will be at Hangout):
Semi-confirmed/Very likely (Very good chance at being at Hangout):
Possible/Speculative (Open tour dates/Active touring/decent chance of being on lineup):
Unlikely (probably won't be there):
Out (No way Hosea):
Lineup Prediction (These artist I think have a great shot at being on the lineup)
submitted by SwoleDaddy92 to HangoutFest [link] [comments]
If you have any information/insider knowledge on artist that will be at Hangout, shoot me a DM or leave a comment. I will definitely want some sort of evidence to support the claim.
Hangout Fest May 17-19, (Confirmed via Hangout Fest)
Lineup release in January (Suspected to be early in month)
NOTE:
-I will not be including most Metal/Hard Rock bands. Hangout has a history of rarely booking those type of artist. Highly Suspect, Mayday Parade, and The Maine were a surprise last year however, so maybe they add some more rock artist for 2024.
-I'm putting this in alphabetical order, but really only by the first letter.
-Bolded means good chance of being there
Confirmed (Will be at Hangout):
| Artist | Source | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| Artist | Source | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| Foo Fighters | Will be playing Welcome to Rockville and Shaky Knees weekends before | Rock |
| Artist | Source | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| 21 Savage | Active touring | Rap |
| Alison Wonderland | Dropped last yeaActive touring | EDM |
| Arcade Fire | Playing Shaky knees 2 weeks before/no other dates announced | Alternative |
| Alanis Morisette | Active touring | PopRock |
| Avril Lavigne | Active touring/playing alot of festivals | Rock |
| Avett Brothers | Active touring | Folk/Bluegrass |
| Beach Fossils | New album/U.S. tour planned | Alternative |
| Big Headed Todd and the Monsters | Active touring/No Alabama date | Alternative |
| Billy Idol | Playing Shaky Knees/Open dates | Rock |
| Bonnie x Clyde | Active touring | EDM |
| Billy Strings | Active touring/No Alabama date | Bluegrass |
| Bad Omens | Active touring/blown up past year | Metal |
| Billie Eilish | Mentioned new album/tour at recent show happening in 24 | Alt Pop |
| Blink-182 | Hitting festival circuit | Poppunk |
| Cannons | Active touring | Indie |
| Carly Rae Jepsen | Playing festivals/Open dates | Pop |
| Cold War Kids | No Alabama dates on tour | Indie |
| Crosses (✝️✝️✝️) | Active touring | Electronic Rock |
| Charolette De Witte | Active touring | EDM |
| Counting Crows | Playing Railbirds Fest | Alternative |
| DJ Shadow | Active touring | EDM |
| Doja Cat | Cancelled in 22/Tour to be announced | Rap/Pop |
| Dua Lipa | Likely tour around this time | Pop |
| Des Rocs | Active touring | Rock |
| Dorian Electra | Active touring/Skips Alabama on tour | Hyperpop |
| Disclosure | Active touring | EDM |
| Dr. Dog | Red Rocks in July/Open dates | Indie |
| Elle King | Active touring | Country |
| Ed Rox | Active touring | Alternative |
| Empire of the Sun | Touring in 2024 | Electronic Pop/Indie |
| Ethel Cain | Active touring/Playing Bonnaroo | Indie |
| Fisher | Active touring | EDM |
| Fred Again... | Hitting festival circuit big | EDM |
| Fidlar | Active touring | Pop-Punk |
| Flogging Molly | Active touring/No Alabama date | Rock |
| Fitz and the Tantrums | Active touring | PopRock |
| Gorgon City | New Album/Open dates | EDM |
| GROUPLOVE | Active touring/No Alabama date | Indie |
| Gwen Stefani | Touring 24/Open dates | Pop |
| Isoxo | New Album/Active touring | EDM |
| Interpol | Active touring/gap in tour | Rock |
| J.Cole | New album/skips tour date with Drake in Birmingham | Rap |
| Kings of Leon | New Album/Open dates | Rock |
| Justice | New album/Open dates/Primavera Sound | EDM |
| Knock2 | New Album/Open dates | EDM |
| Key Glock | Announced for Bonnaroo/Open dates | Rap |
| Lana Del Ray | No tour dates yet/Playing Primavera Sound | Indie |
| Ludacris | Active touring | Hip-Hop |
| Lil Texas | Active touring | EDM |
| LCD Soundsystem | Playing Kilby Block Party/Open dates | EDM |
| Lotus | Active touring/No Alabama date | Jam Band |
| Lukas Nelson | Active touring/No Alabama date/Tour ends few days before Hangout | Country |
| Matt and Kim | Playing Shaky Knees/Open dates | Dance |
| MGMT | New Album on the way/Likely tour | Psychedelic-Rock |
| Morgan Wade | Active touring | Country |
| Mikaela Davis | Active touring/No Alabama date | Alternative |
| MindChatter | Active touring/No Alabama date | EDM |
| Madonna | Active touring | Pop |
| Moon Taxi | Active touring | Alternative |
| Margo Price | Active touring/playing in TN few days after Hangout would be | Alternative/Folk |
| Nelly | Active touring | Rap |
| Nicki Minaj | Touring/Gap in tour | |
| Oar | Active touring | Rock |
| Odesza | Open dates | EDM |
| Phantogram | One show announced/Open dates | Electronic Rock |
| Pink | Open Dates/Active touring | Pop |
| Pitbull | Active touring/Tour skips Alabama | Rap |
| Peach Pit | Active touring | Indie |
| Pretty Lights | Finally doing shows again/Active touring | EDM |
| Queens of the Stone Age | Active touring | Rock |
| Ripe | Active touring | Funk |
| RL Grime | New Album | EDM |
| Remi Wolf | Active touring | Alternative |
| Subtronics | Tour skips Alabama | Dubstep |
| Silversun Pickups | Active touring | Indie |
| Sleep Token | Part 2 Touring in 2024 | Metal |
| Stick Figure | Active touring | Reggae |
| Silversun Pickups | Active touring | Alternative |
| The 1975 | Touring photographer says tour is planned for next year | Indie |
| The Breeders | Active touring | Rock |
| The Wallflowers | Active touring | Poprock |
| The Prodigy | Active touring/Alot of festivals | EDM |
| The Midnight | Active touring | Synthwave |
| Taking Back Sunday | Active touring/Tour starts in NOLA on May 19th | Alternative |
| The Moss | Active touring | Indie |
| Viagra Boys | Active touring | Rock |
| Vampire Weekend | Active touring/Kilby Block Party | Alternative |
| Wooli | Active touring | Dubstep |
| Weezer | Playing Shaky Knees/Active touring | Rock |
| Walker and Royce | Active touring | EDM |
| Widespread Panic | Active touring/Gap in tour | Rock |
| Young the Giant | Active touring/Shaky Knees | Alternative |
| Artist | Source | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| Atliens | Touring with Excision | Dubstep |
| Big Something | Playing show in Birmingham/Unsure of Radius Clause | Alternative |
| Bad Bunny | Playing in Orlando on the 17/18/Could possibly play Sunday | Latin Rap |
| Dead South | Gap in tours/playing out of country though | Folk |
| Deap Vally | Farewell tour ends in March | Rock |
| Excision | Blurred dates on poster, but likely playing EDC Las Vegas | Dubstep |
| Kenny Chesney | In Atlanta on 18th | Country |
| Lord Huron | Tour starts in California on 22nd/still possible however | Indie |
| Limp Bizkit | Playing Rockville weekend before/Probably too heavy for Hangout Fest | Hard Rock |
| Rainbow Kitten Surprise | Hiatus | Indie |
| Ringo Starr | Tour starts few days after in Vegas | Rock |
| Porno for Pyros | Farewell tour ends in March | Rock |
| Sleater Kinney | Active touring/Playing New Orleans | Indie |
| The Rolling Stones | Dates are open/coming from Washington/Playing Jazz Fest | Rock |
| Waterparks | Europe following week | Electro-Pop |
| Zac Brown Band | In Atlanta on 18th | Country |
| Artist | Source | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| Andy Frasco | Tour ends in Pensacola | Indie |
| Alvvays | On tour out west | Alternative |
| Beach Bunny | On tour in Salt Lake City | Indie |
| Blackberry Smoke | On tour in TN | Rock |
| Bleachers | On tour in Utah | PopRock |
| Belle and Sebastian | On tour in California | Alternative |
| Briston Maroney | Playing Birmingham show/Radius Clause | Alternative |
| Carolina Rose | Playing show in California | Alternative |
| Chapell Roan | Playing Birmingham show/Radius Clause | Pop |
| Charles Wesley Godwin | Touring with Luke Combs in California | Country |
| Greta Van Fleet | Touring up North | Rock |
| Hozier | On tour up North | Indie |
| Two Door Cinema Club | On tour in Cali | Indie |
| Tyler Childers | Radius | Country |
| Thirty Seconds to Mars | In Europe | Alternative |
| Zach Bryan | In Oklahoma | Country |
| Drake | Playing Birmingham | Rap |
| Melanie Martinez | Touring with Beach Bunny | Indie |
| Metallica | On tour in Europe | Thrash |
| NF | On tour up North | Rap |
| Fall Out Boy | Radius | Alternative |
| Jimmy Eat World | Radius | Alternative |
| Jelly Roll | Playing Gulf Coast Jam in Panama City/Radius | Country |
| Jon Batiste | Playing in Miramar Beach, FL/Radius | Jazz |
| Jungle | Out of country | Jungle EDM |
| Journey | Playing in Birmingham/Radius | Rock |
| Toto | on tour with Journey | Rock |
| Juanes | On tour in Columbia | Russian Folk |
| Lany | On tour in Mexico | Pop-Rock |
| Maddie Zahm | Playing Birmingham/Radius | Pop |
| Melanie Martinez | On tour in Vegas | Alternative |
| Melt | On tour with Andy Frasco | Alternative |
| Mom Jeans | Playing Birmingham/Radius | Alternative |
| Mount Kimbie | On tour in California | EDM |
| Riley Green | Show in Tuscaloosa | Country |
| Say Anything | Playing in Nashville | Alternative |
| The Weather Station | On tour in California | Indie |
| Petey | On tour in UK | Rock |
| Suki Waterhouse | Pregnant | Pop |
| Artist | Type | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| Foo Fighters | Headliner | Rock |
| Kings of Leon | Headliner | Alternative |
| Billie Eilish | Headliner | Pop |
| Dua Lipa | Headliner | Pop |
| Blink-182 | Headliner | Pop-Punk |
| Doja Cat | Headliner | Rap Pop |
| J.Cole | Headliner | Rap |
| Pink | Headliner | Pop |
| Odesza | Headliner | EDM |
| Nicki Minaj | Headliner | Rap |
| Lana Del Ray | HeadlineCo-Headliner (how Paramore was in 23) | Pop |
| The 1975 | Co-Headliner | Indie |
| Pretty Lights | Co-Headliner | EDM |
| Disclosure | Co-Headliner | EDM |
| MGMT | Co-Headliner | Psychedelic Rock |
| Subtronics | Upper Card | Dubstep |
| Empire of the Sun | Upper Card | Electronic Pop |
| Carly Rae Jepsen | Upper Card | Pop |
| Young the Giant | Upper Card | Alternative |
| Phantogram | Upper Card | Electronic Rock |
| Nelly | Upper Card | Hip Hop |
| Gorgon City | Upper Card | EDM |
| Silversun Pickups | Upper Card | Alternative |
| Cold War Kids | Upper Card | Indie |
| Grouplove | Upper Card | Alternative |
| Knock2 | UppeMiddle Card | EDM |
2023.09.13 21:16 ShellShores Fixing a Horrible Accident: My Fall Exchange Thank-You Post Never Posted
Afternoon, folks. I'm absolutely heartbroken to be making this post. I've been looking forward to this year's Fall Exchange *since last year*, because I had such an incredible experience with my first Fall Exchange last year with my thoughtful partner, u/noragy, who unfortunately looks as though they have deleted their account.
Upon trying to sign up for this year's Exchange, I realized I could not find any thank you post regarding the stellar package I received last December. Growing more and more anxious, I discovered the issue: Human Error. I found my Thank You post saved in my drafts.
The only right thing for me to do here? Post my humongous thank you to Nora along with my sincerest apologies for not realizing my mistake earlier. We both went through some very challenging personal losses during our exchange time last fall, and it really warmed my heart to be able to talk to someone so openly about my struggles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Da Post ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HUGE MEGA SUPER Thank You to u/noragy for the BEST Fall Exchange EVER!!!
Y'all, I am truly unworthy. I am feeling *beyond* spoiled, and am oozing with appreciation and deep sighs over all of my new yummy scents.
A List of Goodies, in no particular order:
Nui Cobalt - Little Brown Rabbit (Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against fluffy marshmallow, cottonflower, pink pepper, and a trace of carrot seed.) FS
Stone & Wit Sampler Set
Haus of Gloi goodies, 2 oz. jars
LuvMilk Body Spray - Timid Kitten (Italian sugar cookies dunked in a lavender latte, made with coconut milk and honey, whilst snuggled up in a freshly laundered sweater.)
Little & Grim samples
I want to pour out my gratitude for this wonderfully heartfelt, thoughtful fall exchange package. I already have some favorites (because of course I smelled everything right out of the mail) and I can't wait to get more familiar with my new products! It's been really lovely getting to know you, and I hope you love your package as much as I love mine! xoxo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Da End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'd like apologize once again, both to my exchange partner, and to the organizers of this awesome event. I had no intention to break the rules. My broken perfume heart is my penance for this error. I'm sorry, Nora.
Additionally, I had to upload my photos again:
THE BOX THE CARD THE SECONDHAND THE GLOIS THE EXTRAS
I genuinely hope that everyone enjoys this year's Fall Exchange.
xoxo Shell
submitted by ShellShores to Indiemakeupandmore [link] [comments]
Upon trying to sign up for this year's Exchange, I realized I could not find any thank you post regarding the stellar package I received last December. Growing more and more anxious, I discovered the issue: Human Error. I found my Thank You post saved in my drafts.
The only right thing for me to do here? Post my humongous thank you to Nora along with my sincerest apologies for not realizing my mistake earlier. We both went through some very challenging personal losses during our exchange time last fall, and it really warmed my heart to be able to talk to someone so openly about my struggles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Da Post ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HUGE MEGA SUPER Thank You to u/noragy for the BEST Fall Exchange EVER!!!
Y'all, I am truly unworthy. I am feeling *beyond* spoiled, and am oozing with appreciation and deep sighs over all of my new yummy scents.
A List of Goodies, in no particular order:
Nui Cobalt - Little Brown Rabbit (Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against fluffy marshmallow, cottonflower, pink pepper, and a trace of carrot seed.) FS
Stone & Wit Sampler Set
- Turyin (Pomegranate, plums, sandalwood, gunpowder.)
- The Red Hare (Fresh ginger, fig preserves, caramel, cherry, almonds, blonde suede.)
- Blame, Etc. (Coriander, pink pepper, saffron, rose, incense, wood.)
- Small Comforts (Black tea, tamarind, clove, anise, cinnamon, white musks.)
- Ordination (Rhubarb, neroli, blonde wood.)
Haus of Gloi goodies, 2 oz. jars
- Ghost Puffs Bubbling Scrub (Orbs of buttery popcorn and marshmallow goo, presented on a wooden stick.)
- Pumpkin Eater Pumpkin Butter (Oat milk, pumpkin pulp, vanilla bean, and a tiny touch of nutmeg butter.)
- Cozy Pumpkin Hair Oil (Fresh pumpkin and our ever popular Cozy Sweater blended together for fall time coziness.)
- Mystical Mint (Peppermint + Eucalyptus Extracts)
- Black Rose (Rose + Patchouli)
- Enchanting Lavender (Lavender + Vanilla)
LuvMilk Body Spray - Timid Kitten (Italian sugar cookies dunked in a lavender latte, made with coconut milk and honey, whilst snuggled up in a freshly laundered sweater.)
Little & Grim samples
- Alphabet Mafia (Black currant, green apple, orange, absinthe accord, black cardamom, amber, saffron, oakmoss, cedar, white patchouli, cashmere, and tonka.)
- Aro-Mantic (Nag Champa incense, myrrh, dusky French vanilla, two musks, cedar, sandalwood, oud wood, pipe tobacco, patchouli, frankincense, and tonka.)
- Chocolate Covered Ennui (Fruity top notes of orange, raspberry, blackberry and bergamot blend with sweet milk chocolate, with a base of musk, patchouli, vanilla, and sandalwood.)
- Dragon Cake (Lemon pound cake, Madagascar vanilla cake, dark chocolate layer cake, and red velvet cupcakes, plus red currant syrup, a warm spice blend of clove, cinnamon, cardamom, and allspice, almond, malted sugar, musk, patchouli, chili pepper, tendrils of smoke, and a whole mess of buttercream.)
- Pine Overcoat (Rosewood, cedar, vanilla, musk, bay rum, nutmeg, juniper.)
- Honeywood
- Sage
- Marshmallow
- Smoked Fig
- a HAND KNIT beanie?!?!?!
- two pairs of fuzzy socks
- Christmas dish towel
- witchy coffee mug
- keychain
- Dum Dum lollipops
- Peach?!?! Kit Kats
- Candy Corn Saltwater Taffy
- Chocolate Nut snacks
I want to pour out my gratitude for this wonderfully heartfelt, thoughtful fall exchange package. I already have some favorites (because of course I smelled everything right out of the mail) and I can't wait to get more familiar with my new products! It's been really lovely getting to know you, and I hope you love your package as much as I love mine! xoxo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Da End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'd like apologize once again, both to my exchange partner, and to the organizers of this awesome event. I had no intention to break the rules. My broken perfume heart is my penance for this error. I'm sorry, Nora.
Additionally, I had to upload my photos again:
THE BOX THE CARD THE SECONDHAND THE GLOIS THE EXTRAS
I genuinely hope that everyone enjoys this year's Fall Exchange.
xoxo Shell
2023.09.13 21:11 ShellShores Fixing a Horrible Accident: My Fall Exchange Thank-You Post Never Posted
Afternoon, folks. I'm absolutely heartbroken to be making this post. I've been looking forward to this year's Fall Exchange *since last year*, because I had such an incredible experience with my first Fall Exchange last year with my thoughtful partner, u/noragy, who unfortunately looks as though they have deleted their account.
Upon trying to sign up for this year's Exchange, I realized I could not find any thank you post regarding the stellar package I received last December. Growing more and more anxious, I discovered the issue: Human Error. I found my Thank You post saved in my drafts.
The only right thing for me to do here? Post my humongous thank you to Nora along with my sincerest apologies for not realizing my mistake earlier. We both went through some very challenging personal losses during our exchange time last fall, and it really warmed my heart to be able to talk to someone so openly about my struggles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Da Post ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HUGE MEGA SUPER Thank You to u/noragy for the BEST Fall Exchange EVER!!!
Y'all, I am truly unworthy. I am feeling *beyond* spoiled, and am oozing with appreciation and deep sighs over all of my new yummy scents.
A List of Goodies, in no particular order:
Nui Cobalt - Little Brown Rabbit (Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against fluffy marshmallow, cottonflower, pink pepper, and a trace of carrot seed.) FS
Stone & Wit Sampler Set
Haus of Gloi goodies, 2 oz. jars
LuvMilk Body Spray - Timid Kitten (Italian sugar cookies dunked in a lavender latte, made with coconut milk and honey, whilst snuggled up in a freshly laundered sweater.)
Little & Grim samples
I want to pour out my gratitude for this wonderfully heartfelt, thoughtful fall exchange package. I already have some favorites (because of course I smelled everything right out of the mail) and I can't wait to get more familiar with my new products! It's been really lovely getting to know you, and I hope you love your package as much as I love mine! xoxo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Da End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'd like apologize once again, both to my exchange partner, and to the organizers of this awesome event. I had no intention to break the rules. My broken perfume heart is my penance for this error. I'm sorry, Nora.
Additionally, I had to upload my photos again:
THE BOX THE CARD THE SECONDHAND THE GLOIS THE EXTRAS
I genuinely hope that everyone enjoys this year's Fall Exchange.
xoxo Shell
submitted by ShellShores to u/ShellShores [link] [comments]
Upon trying to sign up for this year's Exchange, I realized I could not find any thank you post regarding the stellar package I received last December. Growing more and more anxious, I discovered the issue: Human Error. I found my Thank You post saved in my drafts.
The only right thing for me to do here? Post my humongous thank you to Nora along with my sincerest apologies for not realizing my mistake earlier. We both went through some very challenging personal losses during our exchange time last fall, and it really warmed my heart to be able to talk to someone so openly about my struggles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Da Post ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HUGE MEGA SUPER Thank You to u/noragy for the BEST Fall Exchange EVER!!!
Y'all, I am truly unworthy. I am feeling *beyond* spoiled, and am oozing with appreciation and deep sighs over all of my new yummy scents.
A List of Goodies, in no particular order:
Nui Cobalt - Little Brown Rabbit (Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against fluffy marshmallow, cottonflower, pink pepper, and a trace of carrot seed.) FS
Stone & Wit Sampler Set
- Turyin (Pomegranate, plums, sandalwood, gunpowder.)
- The Red Hare (Fresh ginger, fig preserves, caramel, cherry, almonds, blonde suede.)
- Blame, Etc. (Coriander, pink pepper, saffron, rose, incense, wood.)
- Small Comforts (Black tea, tamarind, clove, anise, cinnamon, white musks.)
- Ordination (Rhubarb, neroli, blonde wood.)
Haus of Gloi goodies, 2 oz. jars
- Ghost Puffs Bubbling Scrub (Orbs of buttery popcorn and marshmallow goo, presented on a wooden stick.)
- Pumpkin Eater Pumpkin Butter (Oat milk, pumpkin pulp, vanilla bean, and a tiny touch of nutmeg butter.)
- Cozy Pumpkin Hair Oil (Fresh pumpkin and our ever popular Cozy Sweater blended together for fall time coziness.)
- Mystical Mint (Peppermint + Eucalyptus Extracts)
- Black Rose (Rose + Patchouli)
- Enchanting Lavender (Lavender + Vanilla)
LuvMilk Body Spray - Timid Kitten (Italian sugar cookies dunked in a lavender latte, made with coconut milk and honey, whilst snuggled up in a freshly laundered sweater.)
Little & Grim samples
- Alphabet Mafia (Black currant, green apple, orange, absinthe accord, black cardamom, amber, saffron, oakmoss, cedar, white patchouli, cashmere, and tonka.)
- Aro-Mantic (Nag Champa incense, myrrh, dusky French vanilla, two musks, cedar, sandalwood, oud wood, pipe tobacco, patchouli, frankincense, and tonka.)
- Chocolate Covered Ennui (Fruity top notes of orange, raspberry, blackberry and bergamot blend with sweet milk chocolate, with a base of musk, patchouli, vanilla, and sandalwood.)
- Dragon Cake (Lemon pound cake, Madagascar vanilla cake, dark chocolate layer cake, and red velvet cupcakes, plus red currant syrup, a warm spice blend of clove, cinnamon, cardamom, and allspice, almond, malted sugar, musk, patchouli, chili pepper, tendrils of smoke, and a whole mess of buttercream.)
- Pine Overcoat (Rosewood, cedar, vanilla, musk, bay rum, nutmeg, juniper.)
- Honeywood
- Sage
- Marshmallow
- Smoked Fig
- a HAND KNIT beanie?!?!?!
- two pairs of fuzzy socks
- Christmas dish towel
- witchy coffee mug
- keychain
- Dum Dum lollipops
- Peach?!?! Kit Kats
- Candy Corn Saltwater Taffy
- Chocolate Nut snacks
I want to pour out my gratitude for this wonderfully heartfelt, thoughtful fall exchange package. I already have some favorites (because of course I smelled everything right out of the mail) and I can't wait to get more familiar with my new products! It's been really lovely getting to know you, and I hope you love your package as much as I love mine! xoxo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Da End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'd like apologize once again, both to my exchange partner, and to the organizers of this awesome event. I had no intention to break the rules. My broken perfume heart is my penance for this error. I'm sorry, Nora.
Additionally, I had to upload my photos again:
THE BOX THE CARD THE SECONDHAND THE GLOIS THE EXTRAS
I genuinely hope that everyone enjoys this year's Fall Exchange.
xoxo Shell
2023.09.09 02:37 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D Designation- Low Danger People- 0 Food- Plentiful but weird Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E Designation- Moderate to High Danger People- 0 Food- Limited but present Theme- The floor is lava store E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F Designation- Low to moderate Danger People- 4 to 5 creatures Theme- The TV store F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient. That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to TalesOfDarkness [link] [comments]
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D Designation- Low Danger People- 0 Food- Plentiful but weird Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E Designation- Moderate to High Danger People- 0 Food- Limited but present Theme- The floor is lava store E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F Designation- Low to moderate Danger People- 4 to 5 creatures Theme- The TV store F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient. That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:37 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3 I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to stayawake [link] [comments]
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:35 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10 Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to spooky_stories [link] [comments]
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:34 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3 I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to SignalHorrorFiction [link] [comments]
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:33 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to RedditHorrorStories [link] [comments]
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:26 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
Pt 11-https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16j18u1/trapped\_int\_he\_dollar\_general\_beyond\_pt\_11\_in\_the/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
submitted by Erutious to nosleep [link] [comments]
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
Pt 11-https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16j18u1/trapped\_int\_he\_dollar\_general\_beyond\_pt\_11\_in\_the/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
2023.09.09 02:25 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to MecThology [link] [comments]
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:25 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to joinmeatthecampfire [link] [comments]
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:24 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to Erutious [link] [comments]
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:23 Erutious Trapped in the Dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
submitted by Erutious to Creepystories [link] [comments]
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
2023.09.09 02:23 Erutious Trapped in the dollar General Beyond pt 10- Drifting
Pt 9- https://www.reddit.com/TalesOfDarkness/comments/167mvuw/comment/jzkr5bt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.
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I woke up to find Gale still hadn’t come back.
Well, I guess that's not entirely true.
He came back, but he left me a note.
I woke up to a rumbling belly and a full bladder. After taking care of my various needs, I came back to the sleeping area with a waffle sandwich and a cup of OJ. If you’ve never made one before, they’re pretty easy to make. Take two waffles (mine are plain but you do you), and cook eggs, bacon , cheese, and whatever spices you’re going to use, and then put it on the waffles. Add syrup or whatever (I added blackberry jam) and consume. It’s pretty tasty.
I sat the orange juice down before I noticed the note.
I slid it out from under the juice and saw that it was from Gale. His handwriting is pretty distinct, and as I munched the sandwich and read the note, I found my appetite leaving me. I had expected him to say that he needed some time, that he was sorry for what he had done, and how he was ashamed of killing the man. I didn’t think he really had anything to be sorry for, personally, but people accept things in different ways. If Gale needed some time then I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in his way. I would sit here and wait for him and, when he came back, I would show him the journal from Celene and everything would be good again. He’d be excited and we’d strike out to find her and then we’d find a way out of these stores and back to reality.
What I read, however, was closer to a Dear John letter.
Gale was leaving, and might not come back.
This is hard for me, but I need some space. I’ve been intending to leave for a little while now, but I feel you need to know why. I know you’ve recognized the slips when I talk to you, and as much as I’d like to use you as a replacement for my son, that's not fair to either of us. You just remind me so much of him, and it hurts me sometimes to be around you. It makes me miss him, it makes my soul hurt, and it makes me realize that I’ve been scared to really go looking for him. So, that's what I’m doing. I’m going to look for Rudy, or what's left of him. I’m going into the ceiling. I’m going back to where it all began for me, and I’m going to find him. Don’t come in after me and please don’t blame yourself. This is something I should have done the day after he went into the ceiling, and I’m a coward for waiting so long.
Now, I don’t want to gloss over what happened with the old man, because that was a big part of this decision. When he jumped on me, I was squished and lost my breath. As I lay there trying to get my bearings, I looked up and, for a half a second, it looked like he was choking Rudy. I could see his face turning purple, his eyes bulging out, and I acted in a blind rage. I’ve never killed another living person, never even really been in a real fight, but killing that old man makes me feel bad. He was protecting himself as much as I was protecting you, and I just can’t get over what I did. I went back after I’d calmed down and wrapped him in his filthy blankets before setting it on fire and giving him a proper send off. I tried dragging him through the door, but he was still dead. You can add that to your rules, I guess. Dead stays Dead, and there's no changing that. I laid him to rest though and doused him in enough lighter fluid to set half the store on fire. His trash burned with him, so maybe give FF a little while before you go back, though I can’t think of any reason why you would.
Keep traveling, keep learning, keep searching, and find a way out of here. If I can come back, I will.
For better or worse, I’m going to see my son.
Good luck to you, Alphabet Man.
Good Luck to you, my friend.
Gale
I read it until the tears falling out of my eyes smeared the words.
I threw the remains of my sandwich towards the back of the store.
It had turned to ash in my mouth.
Gale was gone. For better or for worse, he was gone, and I was alone again. I reached for the journal, wanting to throw it into the store as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was precious knowledge, and it might help me find someone else who was trapped here. If Celene was still here somewhere then I owed it to Gale to find her and try to help her out.
It’s what he would have wanted, after all.
So, I packed up some things, the journal being among them, but when I picked up the bag that the journal had been in, I felt something else in the front pocket. It turned out to be a second journal, this one older and held together with rubber bands. The spine had disintegrated and it was just paper held between a cover at this point. It smelled foul and I supposed it had belonged to the old hermit. He had likely stuck it in here for safe keeping and I wondered if Celene’s journal had been how he learned to travel through the stores. I didn’t really want to sit down for another long read right then, so I tucked it away and decided I’d come back to it later.
I went back to KK first, hoping he might have lost his nerve, but not expecting he would have.
I saw the familiar store, the chaos of the moved items and tossed aside merchandise, and it was hard to miss the open ladder in the middle of the floor. Gale had made good on his promise, it seemed, and now he had gone into whatever lay above. Whether or not I’d ever see him again, I didn’t know, but I left a message on the door just in case. If he came back, I wanted him to know where to find me.
Gale- Meet me at the Hub if you get this.
Celene- You don’t know me, but I’m friends with Gale. If you see this, stay here and I’ll come back sometimes to check. I have your journal, so if you see me, I’m a friend.
Not sure what else to do, I started traveling again.
I had no clue where I was going, but I knew that I wanted to make notes on all the places I could see. I wanted to make a complete folio of the stores, a guide to finding particular places, and I knew that I’d have to explore to make that happen. It made me feel like a pioneer, charting a map for those who might come after me, though I wondered how they would ever get it? Would someone find it on my corpse one day? Stuffed in a tattered old bag that had laid somewhere for a long time? Who knew, but it was something to do and I was up to the task.
I went back to the start, the destroyed remains of my first store, and made my way back from there. I had kind of flown through them on my first trip, taking in little and just plunging in for the sake of moving. I wrote down everything, made notes on all the stores I visited, and committed as much of it as I could to my phone for backup. I’m probably going to post a more complete document at some point, but for now I’ll probably leave it to little snippets. The stores are pretty creative and not all of them are uninhabited, as I’ve mentioned. Not by people, though I have noticed things or spirits or something in some of the places.
Here, I’ll tell you about a few more of the stores I’ve seen in my travels since otherwise this might be a little dull for an update.
D
Designation- Low Danger
People- 0
Food- Plentiful but weird
Theme- A normal Dollar General where pets are people and people are pets
D is a perfectly normal store, but the roles of humans and pets seem to be reversed. The tags on the clothes, the models on the products, the advertisements, they all feature anthropomorphic animals. The pet food cans feature naked people looking at the camera in a lost and confused way. I’ve never seen any of the residents of this place and I hope not to. The food here is edible but it tastes like pet food. There's a lot of chicken and fish on the shelf and all the cereal appears to be kibble.
E
Designation- Moderate to High Danger
People- 0
Food- Limited but present
Theme- The floor is lava store
E has a floor that is made partially of lava. Some of it is normal floor, but you’ll turn a corner and suddenly there's a river of lava. The music here is just the sound of a lava flow, and its stiflingly hot. The shelves contain food, but the lava flow will change direction sometimes and it's dangerous to stay here for too long. The floor seems immune to the lava flow and is fine once it leaves. The food here is mostly spicy stuff, but it is edible. The walls of the store are made of rock and it's like being in an active volcano. I haven’t been brave enough to touch the lava to make sure it’s hot, but it will burn other things. When I tossed a journal into the flow, it devoured it and it wasn’t on the floor when it left.
F
Designation- Low to moderate Danger
People- 4 to 5 creatures
Theme- The TV store
F is one of the stores with inhabitants. The beings who live here are dressed as normal Dollar General employees, but their heads are TV’s. They mostly ignore you, but if you tap on them, they turn and “look” at you. Their faces are all staticy so its hard to tell if they’re looking at you or not, but its like you can feel their eyes on you sometimes. The weirder thing is that all the food is in the TV’s. The shelves are full of old fashioned TV’s and the food comes in the form of commercials. When you see the food you want, you reach into the tv set and take it. Sometimes it's fully cooked, sometimes it's frozen, but it's always real food. It’s like that in every department too. I pulled an entire futon out of one the other day and I suspect that Gale had been using this one to stock his safe house. Unlike the other stores, the TV’s always seem to have product on hand so they don’t run out if you don’t mind being patient.
That's just a few of the stores I explored today, but they really do seem to be infinite.
It’s lonely now, traveling by myself, but I’ve been trying to leave signs behind in case Celene is still wandering around. I’ve been using the break rooms, like Gale did, and letting her know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. I make trips back to KK a lot to look for Gale, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I climbed the ladder the other day, just climbed it to the top and stood there staring into the darkness. If I was braver, I would have gone in after him.
If I was braver, the last message might have been my last update.
I stayed for a while, just thinking about what I was going to do. I had the infinite to explore, a huge number of stores to see and catalog, but it all seemed so pointless to me. It’s like the cellphones we carry, they can access a nearly infinite amount of knowledge, but thinking about it is kind of a lot. We use it to watch videos of cats or argue with each other, because the idea of accessing the infinite knowledge there is outside our understanding. We don’t like to think about the infinite, it's too big. It defies our understanding, so we scrape away at it rather than dive in.
I could go anywhere, do anything, but my brain was telling me to sit and to wait while it tried to understand all my options.
That's why I was sitting in KK, laying on the front counter, actually, when the last thing I expected to happen happened.
The front doors slid open.
It was sudden and nearly silent. I almost missed it, honestly, but it was the slight squeal of hinges at the end that turned my head. The door was open, the outside nothing but grainy darkness that seemed to move as I watched it. There was a lamppost out there, the only light to be seen, and the longer I looked at it, the more I knew why the moths circled them. It was beautiful, almost too much to resist, and as I lay there looking at it I wondered why I was resisting? What did I have to stay here for? This place was just more of the same, but the outside was something new.
What wonders might I find out there?
Its still open, inviting me outside, while I write this. I put some food in my bag, some water and a few other things, and prepared to step outside. I don’t know if I’ll be back again. I don’t know if my phone will work out there, but if I can, I will. Maybe I’ll find Gale out there. Maybe I’ll even find Kenneth, who knows.
Till next time.