Hi - I've recently come across a lot of posts asking if people feel similar symptoms. Ideally, the weekly symptom thread would help, but it doesn't seem like many people use it.
So, I figured it might be helpful to compile an extensive, but not exhaustive, list of symptoms. I tried to create some structure for it, but let me know if it doesn't make sense. I also don't think it makes a ton of sense to segment them by condition (depersonalization, derealization, dissociative amnesia) since people's experience across conditions is usually pretty fluid.
Please let me know if there is anything you'd add or change!
*Potential Trigger Warning*
Emotions:

• Apathy: Lack of interest in your life, causing you to feel like you don’t care about
  • Your future (e.g., budgeting, getting promoted, getting a new job, starting a family)
  • Relationships (e.g., making new friends or forming new romantic relationships)
  • Personal growth (e.g., learning, exercising, eating well)
  • Hobbies or things that used to bring you joy
  • Competition (e.g., sports, doing well on tests)
• Loss of Emotion: Inability to produce emotions associated with people / things that used to promote an emotional response
  • Loss of love toward family (e.g., significant others, children, pets). You might feel like you logically know that you love them, but don’t feel emotions associated with love
  • Inability to feel positive emotions from things that used to bring you joy (e.g., music, tv shows, movies, being with friends, practicing a hobby)
  • Lack of fear from things that used to make you scared (e.g., horror movies, heights, certain situations)
• Low Libido: Intercourse is often still an enjoyable act, but lacks the anticipation or emotion it used to have and is desired less frequently
• Mirror Neurons: Emotional inability to
  • Read other peoples emotions
  • Empathize with other people
  • Understand how your actions will impact other people

Executive Functioning:

• Amnesia: Forget small or significant events that could be benign or difficult (e.g., traumatic)
  • Walk into a room and forget why you’re there
  • Do something (e.g., buy items online, drive somewhere) and forget that you did it
  • Forget simple facts (e.g., date of birth, name)
  • Can’t access memories (e.g., childhood, positive, negative)
  • Disconnection from your life pre-dissociation
• Blank Mind: Spending long periods of time not thinking about anything
• Brain Fog: Confusion, forgetfulness and a lack of focus / mental clarity
  • Limited vocabulary and difficulty articulating thoughts
  • Abstract reasoning and problem solving (e.g., breaking a problem into smaller components) are difficult
  • Concentration issues
  • Struggle with elementary concepts (e.g., alphabet, sentence structure)
  • Things that used to feel easy (e.g., hobbies) now feel very difficult
  • Difficulty extrapolating to the future or considering the consequences of certain actions
  • Struggle with approaching and making large decisions
  • Difficulty processing and understanding what people are saying
  • Feeling like you don’t have intuition or a gut feeling anymore
• Lack of Internal Monologue: Losing your internal monologue (i.e., your stream of consciousness)

Self Perception:

• Body: Your relationship with your body has changed, making you feel as though
  • There is a pane of glass or space between you and your body
  • You can’t recognize yourself in the mirror
  • You’re viewing your body in the third person
  • It’s strange being in your own body
  • Your body and mind are functioning reactively and you’re not controlling them
  • You’re trapped in your mind
• Place in the world: Your perceived place in the world has changed
  • Feel like you’re a character in a movie or simulation that is following a script or being controlled
  • Feel like you exist in the world, but are not a part of it
  • Feel like you’re the same age as when you started dissociating
• Ego Death: Feel as though you no longer have an ego or sense of self

Thoughts:

• Agoraphobia: Fear of places or situations that could cause helplessness or embarrassment - usually develops after a panic attack. This can lead to avoiding otherwise safe environments for fear of
  • Spaces that could lead to embarrassment
  • Triggers that could bring up past trauma
  • Situations that could worsen dissociative symptoms
• Dreaming: Altered dreams during sleep or the daytime
  • Strange dreams about childhood
  • Constant daydreams or recollection of past memories or dreams
  • Regular deja vu
  • Lack of dreams
• Self Deprecation: Thoughts regularly revolve around your personal shortcomings
  • Thinking about what you used to be able to do (e.g., large vocabulary, sociability)
  • Being overly critical about interactions with other people (e.g., I wasn’t able to be myself)
  • Lack of confidence in everything that you do and create
• Interests: Different / new interests
  • Becoming more interested in things that are logic based instead of emotional (because of a decreased emotional capacity)
• Rumination: Repetitive negative thoughts about your current struggles
  • Fear of dissociation getting worse or losing your consciousness
  • Worried that you will become permanently changed and/or never heal from dissociation
  • Being convinced that your dissociation is actually a physical (e.g., brain tumor, early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s, Lyme disease) or mental health condition (e.g., schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, going insane) that it likely isn’t
  • Need to constantly research the condition and your symptoms
  • Feeling like the world lacks depth or meaning
  • Feeling like the world is very large or very small
  • Concern that someone you’re talking to does not understand you / feeling like you’re not making sense
  • Don’t trust what is coming out of your mouth
• Time Perception: Your concept of time is altered
  • Time feels like it is moving faster or slower than it really is
  • The world feels like it is moving faster than you are
  • Lose track of time and can’t remember what you were doing while it passed
• Existential *TRIGGER WARNING*: Increased frequency of thoughts focusing on the nature of reality
  • World (e.g., questioning whether the world is real, thinking the world feels much smaller or larger than it is)
  • Other people (e.g., thinking everyone is a robot and following a script)
  • Solipsism: only sure that your own mind exists
  • Yourself (e.g., not feeling like you’re real)
  • Auditory or visual hallucinations: feel like you’re hearing or seeing things that are not actually there
• Intrusive Thoughts *TRIGGER WARNING*: Aggressive or sexual thoughts that are unwanted and seem to come out of nowhere
  • Self sabotaging (e.g., what if I were to turn the steering wheel hard right and force my car off the road)
  • Reducing people to sexual anatomical components
  • Suicidal thoughts
  • Extreme fear of death or situations that could cause death (e.g., newfound fear of heights)

Physical:

• Anxiety: Experiencing intense stress and concern from the smallest (or no) triggers
  • Panic attacks from seemingly nowhere
• Body:
  • Pressure in your head / sinuses
  • Head is filled with cotton or empty space
  • Alice in Wonderland Syndrome: body parts feel bigger or smaller than they actually are
  • General nausea
  • Body or limbs feel heavy
  • General dizziness
  • Back pain
  • Full body weakness
  • Burning down the neck
  • Gastro-Intestinal issues
  • Facial expressions don’t feel natural
  • Eyes are tense
  • Tingling feeling in the back of the head and spine
  • Sensitivity to brightness
  • Limbs are distorted or shrunken
  • Tingling in fingers or toes
  • Poor balance
  • Tinnitus: ringing in your ears
• Disconnection from Senses: Can no longer feel senses (e.g., taste, touch, smell, see, hear) as intensely
• Fatigue: Some people feel the need to take a nap after particularly intense dissociative episodes
• Inability to express emotions: Can’t express emotions physically
  • Can’t cry or when crying can’t feel the emotions associated with sadness
  • Can’t laugh or feel emotions associated with something being funny
• Increased sensitivity to substances: Substances (e.g., caffeine, nicotine, supplements) affect you much more than pre-dissociation
• Lack of bodily signals: Can’t feel signals from the body that something is needed, meaning you don’t feel
  • Hunger
  • Pain
  • Exhaustion
  • Soreness
  • Headaches
• Sleep: Sleep too little or too much
• Vision: Your eyesight feels different
  • Visual snow - dots (similar to floaters) overlayed on your field of vision
  • Habit of staring into space for long periods of time
  • Seeing the world through a pane of glass or a veil
  • Objects look larger or smaller than they actually are
  • Objects appear very blurry or very clear
  • Everything looks flat or 2D
  • Tunnel vision

Some things you'll find easy to believe. Warm February weather? Me catching cold? Sure. The orange threads? Why not? Black that hurts your eyes? Steam rolling off Lexy?
Those, I don't know.
It starts after Christmas, a bunch of us in the Square Diner having coffee and cheesecake. You wouldn't think the Square would be a zoomer hangout; it's a redneck joint that opens extra-early in fall so hunters can eat breakfast and fill their coffee mugs before hitting the deer woods.
But we always go there instead of driving ten minutes across Grace Mountain to fast-food row in Argenta. The coffee's cheap; the cheesecake's not but tastes good; Aldo never hustles us out, not until it gets to be closing time. And our talks take twists nobody'd think of at McDonald's.
Like this night three or four days after Christmas, everything in Drunken Tree closed but the diner, we got onto the subject of generations, arguing, was Kevin Gen Y or a zoomer. Jacy said, "You're born in '96, that makes you Y."
Lexy said, "All this generation shit is--well, it doesn't mean shit unless there's some difference between generations. Like there's an assload of boomers because everyone had kids after World War II. And none of them understand computers."
"My grandmother writes software, asshole," Kevin said.
"But what's different between X and Y and Z? We're all poor because of boomers. We're all internet-addicted."
"I heard if you can't remember the twentieth century, you're Z," Kevin said. "I sure don't. First thing I remember outside my own family is 9/11, my mom watching TV and crying all day."
Paul said, "I was born in '97, I remember Y2K. My gramma came to our house 'cause she thought her computer was gonna blow up. Meemaw made Dad shut his computer off."
"You weren't even three and you remember that?" Jacy scoffed. She turned to me. "What about you, Nita?"
"I was born in 2000, so for sure I'm Z. I was born exactly between the centuries."
"Say what?"
"You know how some people say 2000 isn't really part of the new millenium, that it really started in 2001?"
"Well, it did," Lexy said. "There's no year zero. Unless you want the first century to have 99 years, then centuries gotta end in hundreds, like 1900, 2000."
"Yeah, that's the math," I agreed. "But see, there's the scientific explanation, and the, the popular one. So people say the twentieth century ended with 1999, but scientists say the twenty-first starts with 2001. So 2000 isn't really either one--or else it's both."
I shrugged. "My granddad says 2000 was, like, a reset year, a grace year between the centuries. And I was born right at the center of it."
"How so?" Jacy asked.
Kevin was quicker. "What, so you were born right at noon on the middle day of the year?"
"Midnight," I said. "Leap year, remember, 366 days. Near as I can tell, I was born exactly between July first and second. Halfway between the centuries, Papa Eddie says."
"Right at twelve."
"Nope." I grinned--caught him again. "At real midnight, halfway between sunset and sunrise. With daylight saving time, it comes out about one-thirteen in the morning. The sun doesn't follow our clocks, you know."
"Yeah, well," Kevin shot back, "the sun didn't make our calendars, either. All the numbers are just made up, the years and the clocks both."
"Look at Chinese New Year," Lexy pointed out, "all over the calendar."
"Even in Europe the new year used to be in the middle of March," Jacy said. She always had these weird historical facts.
At McDonald's or Subway, we would have stopped there. But in the Square Diner, the conversation had another twist waiting.
"It's funny, what your granddad says about 2000 being between the milleniums," Lexy said.
"Millenia," Paul corrected.
"Who cares? Anyway, my pappaw used to say he'd be rich if he could find someone born between years. Something he heard in Vietnam."
"What calendar do they use in Vietnam?" Paul asked.
"Like I know? Anyway, he spent time in a village over there, talking to the old folks. They had this story about how you can, like, reach between days and pull out treasure."
"Yeah?" Jacy scoffed. "How rich were they?"
"They didn't have the right person, dumbass. Like I said, you gotta have someone born between years. Like right exactly at midnight on New Year's Eve."
"Only not exactly at twelve," Paul said, "but halfway between sunset and sunrise."
"Yeah, whatever. So before he can get the whole tale he goes back to his unit, and maybe a week later Viet Cong burn the whole village." Jacy hissed; Lexy shrugged. "He thinks that's the end, then while he's being shipped home he meets some Irish guy in Guam or someplace. Turns out there's an Irish myth about the same thing."
Jacy said, "And the Irish guy drowns in the Pacific before he gets the story."
Lexy glared at her. "No, the Irish guy told him the whole thing. And he told me. Find the magic person, you can get rich."
"You think Nita's magic?"
"Why not? If between years is good, between centuries ought to be a hundred times better."
As the magic person in question, I was feeling a strange mix of fear, greed, and suspicion. Could I really get rich just from when I was born? "What's the catch?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"Where's the monkey-paw part? Are there monsters by the treasure? Is it, what, radioactive? Do you have to cut me open to get it? What?"
Paul said, "Well, plutonium's worth like 5K a gram, but it's radioactive."
"And trying to sell it would prob'ly get you arrested," Kevin added.
"Cut you open?" Jacy cried. "That's horrible."
"Hey," I answered, "Ireland was a goddam bloody place even before the Protestants and Catholics came in."
"No catch!" Lexy said, interrupting. "It's just really tricky to do." He looked slantwise at me. "You were really born right at halfway of 2000?"
"That's what's on my birth certificate. I wasn't watching the clock myself, far as I recall."
That's where that conversation ended. Aldo interrupted to ask if anyone wanted a last refill before he closed; when he'd finished topping everyone up we went off on a different subject.
New Year's Eve it came up again. This time it was just Kevin and Lexy and me, at my house because we all celebrate sober and everyone else (my parents too--yes, I'm 23 and living with them) was at parties with booze.
Kevin brought it up, not Lexy. "You never said," he began, "how do you reach between days? Do you have to do it on New Year's Eve or something, like when your magic person is born?"
"No, you can do it any night, between any two days. But it's gotta be warm, because you gotta do it outside."
It sure wasn't warm that night, and it actually snowed four times over the two weeks after New Year's. It got into the 60s the second Thursday of January, but it snowed again the very next day. My dad made his usual "If you don't like Arkansas weather, wait an hour," joke; my mom said, "Shakespeare probably said that about London"; and Lexy messaged me, Missed our chance this time. Want to try next time its warm? You me and kevin
I didn't pretend I didn't know what he meant. I'd sort of hoped he'd forget about it, but I'd thought about it nearly every day. Sure. I sent back. But if I see monsters or knives imma nope tf out of there.
The last full week of January it warmed into the 60s. What usually happens in winter warm spells happened: We got a bunch of rain, then heavy fog. My folks' house went from skin-cracking dry to sticky damp, and I caught cold. But the rain stopped after two days, and Lexy messaged me, How about Thursday night
We met Tuesday at the diner to make plans, me sniffling into napkins all through pie and coffee.
I'm not giving all the details. Even if I wanted to I can't--Lexy never told me all of them. But it wasn't some weird Bloody Mary ritual, with chanting and stuff; it was more something Lexy and Kevin built.
None of us could wear metal, not even a tiny piece. No jeans with zippers or rivets, no shoes with eyelets, no snaps. Drawstring sweats, knit beanies, sports bra for me. Turns out the strap rivets on my Crocs were plastic, so those were okay. Phones, keys, that stuff had to stay at least ten or twelve feet away.
"What about in your body?" Lexy asked me. "You ever had a broken arm or anything, like with a pin in it?" So I had to google whether my IUD had any metal; I have the hormone kind, so he thought it would be okay. He was bright red when he said it.
Kevin wasn't so shy. "Ugh, microplastics all up in you."
"What about fillings? Teeth?" I asked. That stopped him, because all three of us had metal fillings.
"I guess we'll just have to try it. Metal isn't dangerous; it just might keep things from working."
And we had to rehearse, because the one thing that absolutely had to go right was something I could only try once, right on the dot of midnight. Kevin and Lexy made a square of cotton thread. It had to be hung off the ground; it had to be a certain size, the distance between the tips of my elbows if I touched fingertips in front of me--about three feet square. (They made other stuff, but for me the thread square was the important part.)
I had to jump through it without breaking any threads, like leaping out a window.
It sounded easy at first. The square was wider than most doors, and I'm not fat. Lexy'd used bright orange thread for visibility. But keeping my head down while I tucked my feet up was tricky. I wanted to dive through, but Lexy said I had to cannonball--my head and feet had to go through at the same time, I don't know why. I broke four of those thread windows before I got the hang of it.
My parents have a big back yard with lots of trees, perfect to Lexy. He found a spot out of sight of the house where he could string up a square between trees, threads from all four corners. He took nearly an hour Wednesday afternoon, adjusting the anchoring threads, because the window had to be as square as he could make it.
Then he had to do it again on Thursday, because heavy dew Wednesday night pulled it out of shape. But that evening we were ready.
Lexy and Kevin were, anyway. I was getting scared again. I still craved a treasure; even if somehow we couldn't sell it, even if we had to give it to a museum, who doesn't want to discover hidden treasure? Maybe we'd be famous.
But Lexy said we were opening a hole between days, whatever that meant.
And I was going to be the first one through.
I was afraid of what lay between. I was afraid of monsters. I was afraid of not having my phone--no metal allowed. And I was blowing my nose every five minutes and wanted to go to bed, not stand under trees in the dark and damp, even if it was fifty degrees instead of fifteen like last week.
Lexy'd used a website to calculate sunset and sunrise, with the GPS coordinates for my folks' back yard, then figured true midnight at 23 minutes and some seconds after clock midnight. At 12:23:00 I was crouched and waiting to jump, dressed in sports bra, panties, sweats and knee socks. No Crocs; we'd cleared the ground so I could land without bruising my foot on a rock. Dim light around me, from neighbors' houses, from the guys' phones where they stood ten feet back watching the time.
Lexy started counting down, something else we'd rehearsed. "...And three and two and one and go!" I jumped--and at that exact moment I sneezed, hard.
I must have kicked out or something, just as I went through the thread window. I snagged a thread, snapped the window. I didn't hear it, didn't even feel it, but I fell to my knees and knew I'd blown it. I heard Lexy swearing.
"Did you see that?" Kevin said. "That flash?"
I hadn't seen anything, even against this dim light. But Lexy had seen it, too. They'd stood behind me while I jumped; maybe the flash had faced toward them, away from me.
I apologized over and over, swearing I didn't know I was going to sneeze. Lexy didn't answer, sulky but holding his temper. But when Kevin said we could try again Friday or Saturday, he said, "Saturday night. I'm at a game tomorrow."
"I'll get it right Saturday," I said. "I swear I will."
And I did. This time Lexy strung two windows, a few feet apart. He said if I missed one I could try again; maybe the time didn't have to be that exact. "It's not like Irish peasants could tell time to the second," Kevin pointed out.
"Yeah, but they could use trial and error. And how many Irish peasants found treasure, anyway?" While we were rehearsing, Lexy had wondered whether going between days was what started the story of leprechauns and rainbows and pots of gold.
I was still afraid, but I was more scared of messing up again. Before I got in place I made Kevin shine his phone flashlight in my eyes, so I'd sneeze if I needed to. Then Lexy started counting down, and on "Go!" I jumped.
I knew when I landed I'd done it perfectly.
And just like that, my heart was pounding and I felt dizzy. I thought I'd been scared before. Now I learned better. What I'd felt before was like worrying about an English test. This--this was getting home and seeing ambulances at the curb.
I'd opened a hole between days.
I'd heard Lexy say, "Holy shit!" as I landed. So the loud gasp I'd heard was Kevin. Now I heard Kevin breathing fast behind me. Lexy hadn't made another sound.
I was too terrified to turn around and see. "You--see that?" Lexy said finally.
"Yeah," Kevin choked.
Now I was more afraid of not seeing. I turned around. The thread window hung between me and the guys, still rippling a little from the wind of my jump. It looked just the same. Both of them stared like a flamethrower was pointing through it.
I looked at them, I looked at it. I walked around to their side.
And I had to cover my mouth with both hands to keep from screaming. From this side, the side I'd jumped into, the window was glowing.
Except it was dark. Black. A brilliant, glowing black.
I know that makes no sense. But that's what filled the space between the threads, side to side and bottom to top, a sheet of dazzling bright black. Like someone had caught a lightning bolt in a sheet of obsidian. It was darker than the shadowy bushes behind it, but I still almost had to squint to look at it.
It couldn't be real.
Kevin turned his phone flashlight on again, turned it that way. The orange thread shone in the darkness. But I couldn't see where the light fell on the square in between. The thread was rippling from this side too, but I couldn't see ripples in the black.
I don't understand why, but scared as I was I was the first one to reach toward the window. I stopped my hand a couple of inches from it. The back of my hand glowed from Kevin's light; my palm facing the window stayed dark. My hand didn't cast a shadow.
The longer I stared, the blacker it looked. The brighter it looked.
So I touched it.
It felt firm. I pressed; it gave a little, like an unopened bottle of Coke. Not particularly warm or cold, not slippery.
I pressed harder, leaning to look sideways across the window. I could feel it give, feel my fingers denting it, but I couldn't see a dent; it was all uniform bright black. Leaning far enough to the side, my fingertips disappeared into the dent.
Now Lexy came up; I stepped back. He pressed it like I had. "What the fuck?" He slammed his fist against it, gave a grunt of pain. I expected the window to boom like a drum, but there was just a little slapping noise. He shoved with both hands. "It's supposed to be a door!"
"It's a window," I said, not really thinking.
"Whatever! What good's a window you can't go through?" He punched it again, a third time; tucked his fist into his armpit and hissed. "Shit!"
Kevin picked up a pebble from the little pile we'd cleared from my landing spot, tossed it at the window. I thought it would bounce--but it disappeared. Lexy and I gaped. Kevin poked the black with a stick; the stick bent, the tip snapped off. He tossed the stick underhand, endwise; it slid through the glowing sheet without slowing down. Nothing fell behind the window. "You gotta jump," he said. "You can't be touching the ground."
Lexy stared at that three-foot square, two feet off the ground, and for all I was scared blind I had to laugh. He'd made me practice over and over, but he'd never tried jumping through it himself.
But there a few feet away was the spare window he'd made. He looked at it. "Shit, no time like now." He backed up, tugged his sweatshirt down straight and snug, took a couple of steps, and launched himself headfirst through the window. I was amazed to see him do a nearly perfect dive roll, parkour style, on the other side: land on hands, roll over back, come up on feet. He hadn't even brushed any of the threads.
"What about cannonballs?" I said. "You wouldn't let me dive through. And your phone?"
"That was all to open it. I just have to go through." He pushed Kevin aside, backed up, and ran at the brilliant black square. He leaned forward, thrust out his arms, and jumped just before his hands reached it.
I thought he'd bounce back. He didn't. He disappeared, hands arms head body legs feet gone.
Kevin looked at the black window, at me, at the window. "Now what do we do?"
I thought Lexy would jump back through. I thought he'd toss jewels or gold statues or something back through.
I thought he'd come back. But he didn't.
Kevin tried phoning Lexy; he got rolled to voice mail immediately. I texted him; nothing came back. We couldn't shout, not with my parents asleep in the house and neighbors not far away, but we talked to the window from right beside it. Kevin pressed his ear to it; he couldn't hear anything. He knocked Shave and a haircut on it, but we didn't even hear his knuckle hitting, much less any answer.
We sat in my folks' back yard and waited. It had been in the 60s Friday afternoon, but now it got cold fast. We talked a little bit, but it all came back to, "When's he gonna come back?"
I kept waiting for Kevin to say, "I should go after him." Maybe Kevin was waiting for me to say it. Neither one of us did. It might have been heroic for Kevin to jump after him--but it might have been really stupid, too. What if there wasn't any ground on the other side? What if there was a dragon?
The longer I sat and the colder I got, the stupider I felt. And I was angry with Lexy and Kevin, too. Both these guys were older than me--why hadn't one of them said, "This is a bad idea"? It was like those internet memes, Why women live longer than men.
It was close to 1:30, getting cold as hell, and I was wondering if I could stand waiting here all night, when the window went out. Neither one of us saw it happen. I glanced up, and that dazzling black was gone. Just pale thread, dark bushes, shadows beneath trees.
It had hung there about an hour and ten minutes after I jumped through, about an hour after Lexy jumped through. Now I realized neither one of us had tried taking a picture of it. What would my phone have seen, pointed at that glowing black square?
"I'm going in the house," I said. "He's dead, or he's lost, or something."
Kevin didn't say anything. He followed me back to the house, walked around to the driveway, drove away. It was lucky they'd come in his car, or I'd have to explain why Lexy's car was in our driveway Saturday morning. But Lexy always got people to drive him places.
I spent nearly all day Saturday--a week ago, the last Saturday of January--in bed, telling Mom my cold was worse again. I guess I cried a little. I hadn't really liked Lexy, not the way I liked Jacy or Kevin. Lexy was too selfish, too spiteful. But he could be funny, and my other friends liked him around. I hadn't wanted something to happen to him.
I'm not going to describe this week, all the messages and posts asking, where's Lexy, has anyone seen Lexy, did Lexy tell anybody where he was going, all that. I couldn't call in sick forever, so I went to work Monday like normal, though I still had a cough and runny nose. Kevin told people he and Lexy had hung out at my house Friday night, then he'd taken Lexy home and and hadn't seen him since. I told people we played Exploding Kittens, sat in the yard for a while, then the guys left.
So nobody knew where Lexy was, but nobody called the police, either. A 26-year-old single guy who doesn't get along with his parents, doesn't have a girlfriend, doesn't show up for work--who's going to stir up shit about him?
But February 1st was even warmer, up in the 70s, and Kevin came over to my house. "Are those threads still there?"
"I'on't know."
"Let's look." Back in the trees, the first window, the one I'd opened, was sagging; a bird or something had broken one of the threads. But the spare window still looked square.
"I can't stand wondering," Kevin said. "You think you can jump through again?"
"Don't want to."
"But I've got an idea, a way how I won't get stuck over there. And I'll leave my phone, in case that's what messed Lexy up. I can do it right this time--but not unless you open a window again."
"Find somebody else born between years. There's gotta be somebody else."
"Yeah, maybe six or eight people in the whole state. Even if it doesn't have to be the exact second, even if it just has to be the right minute, you know how many minutes there are in a year?"
"Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred," I said automatically. Mom loves to watch Rent and cry over Angel.
"Which means about one person in half a million is born in that minute between December and January. There aren't half a million in the nearest ten counties. There're barely three million in the whole state. Tag, Nita, you're It."
I argued a while longer, but there really wasn't anybody else. At last I gave in. "But if you get lost, too, I'm not going after you."
It didn't happen that night, though. A family emergency came up--details don't matter to this story--and I had to go to Harrison with my parents. Kevin must have texted me twenty times, frantic something would happen to the threads that night or Friday. I had to mute him to get through the day.
I was back Friday afternoon; Friday midnight we were under the trees. It had hit the 70s again, and the humidity had shot up; now the cooling air was heavy and damp, thick in my lungs and sinuses. He couldn't find the website that let Lexy calculate midnight to the second, but he had the minute, at least. It had barely changed, to 12:24.
He did all the things, and I did my jump, and there was the bright black again.
He'd brought a little folding step stool, the kind my mom uses to reach high cabinets. He'd practiced jumping off it, backward, feet first. His plan was to jump backward through the window; as soon as his feet went through I'd grab his hands. Standing on the ground, my hands wouldn't go through. As long as he could keep his grip, he could pull himself back by me.
He'd look around, come back, tell me what he saw. Maybe Lexy was alive over there but couldn't find the window, and Kevin could lead him back through. Or maybe Kevin could find treasure, pass it back to me.
I thought, maybe he'd get halfway through, fall on the edge of the window, cut himself in half. But I didn't say that. What would my parents do if I ran and told them half of Kevin was lying in their yard?
He set the step stool by the broken thread window to let me practice grabbing his hands as he jumped. They felt clammy in the damp air. He said even if I only caught one it would work. And it would be on him, not me, to make sure he didn't lose his grip. All I had to do was catch his hand and keep my feet on the ground.
So we did it. He put his phone with mine, moved the stool, climbed up with his back to the window, then kicked himself off. I saw his feet disappear, grabbed at his hands, caught just one of them. His hand closed hard around my right wrist. His body disappeared, his head, his loose arm and hand.
I expected my hand to slam into the black window. I hoped it wouldn't hurt.
But I'd stood too far back. As he disappeared, his grip on my wrist yanked me off my feet. For a fraction of a second I was off the ground--and he pulled my hand through the window. I landed falling, trying to get breath to scream because now the window's edge would cut me in half.
But I threw out my left hand, and with my feet back on the ground it thumped into the window and stopped me, the black as solid as before. My right hand felt a weird sort of burning, itching sensation like I'd buried it in hot beach sand. I braced my left hand against the black and shoved as hard as I could, and my right hand pulled back out, Kevin's hand still gripping it.
A few seconds later his head came through, and he started wheezing and coughing. "What's wrong?" I cried.
"No-- No--air. " He had blood on his lips, coughed blood onto my hand. "Pull! I got him!" I pulled, and he pulled, and Lexy's body came through the window. Steam rolled off it in clouds. I jerked back from it, afraid of being burned. I knew he was dead.
This morning--Saturday--the skin of my right hand and half my forearm was deep red, like a really fresh bruise. That's just what it was, I figured out. Kevin managed to explain a bit before he passed out; I worked out the rest myself. He said there was ground, a little light--everything looked like the glowing black--but there was no heat at all.
Over there, without air pressure, blood pressure had ruptured vessels in my skin. It was like a big suck mark, a hickey over my entire hand. It doesn't really hurt; it's a little tender when I type.
But Kevin was entirely in vacuum for a while; he got that red skin over his whole body. His eyeballs didn't explode, none of that movie junk--but they're really bloodshot. Worse, he's got ruptures all through his lungs. He's in intensive care, on pure oxygen. They say even if he doesn't get pneumonia from the blood and fluid in his lungs, he could still die from the damage, or be left crippled.
It took me longer to figure out why he didn't freeze. See, space isn't really freezing cold, not like Guardians of the Galaxy when people's faces crystallize if they don't have a space suit. When there's no air at all, instead of super cold you're kind of insulated.
In those few seconds, Kevin's upper body suffered from vacuum but not cold. But the ground sucked heat from his sock feet--they'd frozen almost instantly. Frostbite had killed flesh on the bottoms of his feet all the way to the bone; his wool socks had crumbled. Holding Lexy's jacket--the nylon didn't get brittle--his hand had frozen too; if he survived, he'd lose the ends of his fingers.
When I pulled Kevin back, he was able to move, able to hold Lexy's jacket collar. Kevin was able to step through, stand up unsteadily, pull Lexy after him. He lifted Lexy with one hand, holding him clear of the window threads.
Lexy's stiff body was bent, partly doubled up, like he'd fallen on his side. Kevin pulled him out of the black, put his feet on the ground, then Kevin's frozen feet and a new coughing fit doubled him over. He lost his grip on Lexy.
The body fell toward me, steaming; I thought I'd be knocked flat, scalded. But it seemed almost weightless as it struck my shoulder and spun away, falling on its face, then onto its side. My shoulder felt burned.
I heard cracking sounds as it hit the ground. I saw that Lexy's nose had shattered, the fingers of his left hand had snapped off. He rolled sideways into a tree trunk, and his entire right arm broke off. I did scream now, but it was breathless and weak.
Kevin had been there for a few seconds; the ground had frozen his feet. But Lexy had been over there for a week, seven solid days of lying on ground without a bit of heat. His flesh had frozen, then vacuum had pulled water from it, like freezer-burned steak you find forgotten behind the microwave lasagna. His corpse only weighed thirty or forty pounds, most of the water gone.
When Kevin pulled him through, he steamed in the humid air--fog condensing around his frozen corpse. I'd felt burning cold, not heat, on my shoulder. He hadn't busted into a billion tiny chunks when he fell over, maybe because he was so dried out, but he was brittle enough his nose and hand had shattered and his arm had snapped off. He turned white with frost as I watched. Each broken finger gleamed white on dead leaves.
Kevin couldn't walk, and I couldn't carry him; I ran back to the house to wake up my dad, calling 911 on the way. Before Dad got there, Kevin came to and dragged himself away from the window and Lexy's frosted body; my parents don't know about them yet. Neither do the police. I'm going to have to explain how in one week Lexy got freeze-dried and broken into pieces.
So I've spent all day typing this. Maybe they'll believe me; probably they won't. But how else will they explain what's caught in what's left of Lexy's left hand? He had three. Two fell on the ground when his fingers broke apart; I've got them here by my keyboard. The third is still caught under his shriveled-up thumb, but I believe it's exactly the same as these.
They're coins, big around as an Oreo cookie, nearly as thick. One side has three tall narrow trees, poplars, I think, growing on a hilltop. The other side has a stone tower with battlements, two spears crossed above it. I've googled the designs and can't find anything like them.
The designs are still sharp; the coins look nearly new. For Lexy to grab three right by the black window, in what the internet says must have been less than a minute before he went unconscious, I'm guessing there were probably a metric assload of them lying around over there. From the weight, from the color, from how they ring, from how there's no tarnish or corrosion, I'd say they're gold. Pure gold.

(35m) was on 40mg of celexa and .5 might of xanax for 10+ years. In July my doctor cut my 40mg mg down to 20mg due to what she thought was A-fib ( did all the heart test everything came back norma). I was living a normal life other then the usual GAD of worry about my health and dying. I didn't feel like I needed to be on the celexa since I felt great. And the end of September it started our feeling like I had a sinus infection. I was dizzy, lightheaded, some head pressure for about 2 weeks. The 3rd week I got hit with terrible confusion, started to feel detached from reality, intrusive thoughts, feeling of hopelessness, insomnia, lost all enjoyment in life, very slow, and the scariest was the thought or feeling of people not being real altho feel spaced out and zoned out, I wouldn't sayl i feel like im in a dream, i also have been having trouble understanding or comprehending things the first time i read it. . I been put back up to 40mg for about 6 weeks now, an altho i think things have improved I still feel like I'll never be my self or go back to normal. Is this a form of derelization? I have a weird head pressure/headache almost all the time. In the morning it's not so bad, it's progressively gets worse throughout the day and just feels heavy. The pain/pressure is either in the back of my head or the top of my head above my ears, sometimes in my forehead. Had anyone experienced these symptoms???? Please help. This is a living nightmare. I want to be myself again. It kills me to know I was "normal" 3 months ago.

“This is no way to live your life you know.” Dr. Nguyen said in an almost pitying tone. Christina was back in the doctor’s office curled up in the chair across from his desk. Even though his office was quite inviting at first glances with its warm lights and cozy plants all around, it may as well have been a nightmarish hellscape to her. The warm lights were unfamiliar to those in her room, like looking at the Sun from an alien planet. The plants were looming ominously over her, casting their oppressive shadows over her, engulfing her…
A wave of heat struck her body as the panic set in. Even though the air conditioner was blowing, the air around her suddenly felt thick as fog. As it got harder to breathe, the panic grew causing her to breathe in faster, causing the air to get harder to breathe, and on it went in a terrifying feedback loop.
Christina knew that she would die here in this unfamiliar place, she longingly thought of her small bedroom. It was filed with dark, warm colors with lamps everywhere instead of overhead lights. A fan in the back corner more for the ambient noise than the air current. Her wax melter that was filled with lavender. Her computer right by her bedside with several playlists of shows she’d watched over and over again. Her one small island of clarity in a sea of entropy.
As the world started to spin into darkness, the doctor hurriedly got up from his chair and knelt down next to her. She was clutching her chest and almost wheezing at the strain. How could he possibly when there was no air in this room? She watched as he took a small white tube from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and rubbed an end on her upper chest. She winced at its cold touch and her eyes watered as the cool vapors invaded her sinuses. She coughed, sputtering, “What the hell was that?”
The doctor gave her an apologetic grin, “Sorry, you were spiraling out of control. It was just a bit of menthol; it’s commonly used as a grounding mechanism for panic attacks. You can breathe now can’t you?” Her indignance disappeared as she realized she was breathing in air conditioned air normally. She was still stranded in a chaotic sea but she now had a life raft to hang onto.
Satisfied, Dr. Nguyen returned to his chair behind the desk. “Now let’s get these nightmares under control. You have a severe bout of agoraphobia. I’m not here to shrink your head and diagnose why and I’m certain you don’t want me to. You just want answers as to what’s going on, am I right?”
She nodded shakily, still tearing up from the menthol. “Are you sure that we all have to face our fears to unlock our abilities?” There was a vague thread of hope that maybe there were exceptions to the rule. The doctor, however, shook his head sadly. “I wish I was wrong but so far everyone else had to face their worst fear before their abilities activated and the nightmares stopped. I think we both know what your worst fear will entail.”
Her heart sank to her stomach as it ripped in two. In one direction of the rip, she desperately wanted to just go back to her safe and familiar room - anything to not face the void. In the other direction, she knew her friends (it was crazy she already thought of them as her friends but anyone who didn’t look at her like a freak was a friend in her books) would be facing untold dangers and she couldn’t leave them.
Her mind wandered to Selena, how she had been able to walk into the same office with her head held up high. Selena was everything she never knew she needed and at the same time everything she wanted to be. Kind and empathetic yet strong and unflinching. There as no way she’d ever be able to reach her level but she could try. And it all began with a single step. “I-I’m ready to begin.” she said in what what she hoped was an unwavering voice.
Dr. Ngyuen nodded, “Ok, no matter what happens remember that you are safe here in this room and that I’m here with you. To begin, I will need you to relax. Breathe in four seconds and breathe out four seconds. Relax your body, let every muscle melt into your chair as you go limp. Clear your mind of every thought, good and bad. Just like going to sleep except imagine all of your consciousness gathering in a single point…”
Christina breathed in and out slowly as she counted each breath. Her lungs and chest expanded almost painfully as she almost always took small, panicked breaths. She let go of every muscle in her body. At once a deep and unraveling soreness overtook her body as her muscles, always on high alert, relaxed for the first time in years. There was an initial wave of pain followed by a soothing heaviness. She cleared her thoughts, sadly letting go of her safe room in the process. Finally, she gathered all of her essence, all of her being, and coalesced them into a single point in the middle of her psyche…
She knew something went wrong the moment the soothing heaviness in her body immediately dissolved. Instead it was replaced with a terrifying sense of weightlessness as if every atom in her body yearned to split away. Her once stable concentration burst and gave way to panic as the comfort of the chair disappeared. An intense tingling spread all throughout her body like an electric shock as she felt her body rise upwards.
She opened her eyes and could only let out a strangled scream as she saw her body still sitting in the chair. She was still rising, about a couple feet above her body in the chair looking at the office from an overhead view. Dr. Nguyen was talking to her but she couldn’t distinguish what he was saying nor did he seem to notice her situation.
She started to call out to the doctor but her words were caught in her throat as her body was whisked upwards violently like she was a fish caught on a line. She flailed her arms, barely able to feel them, in a wild attempt to stop her momentum but there was nothing to grab onto. Even worse, her body went straight through the ceiling as if it weren’t there.
Her vision was obscured by dusty rafters and floorboards as she went through the ceiling this time in a dark abandoned hallway. Still she went up with no amount of ceiling she hit able to stop her. In fact, her momentum was gaining. Every cell in her body felt as if it were exploding as her nerves coursed despair in electric form throughout.
Ceiling after ceiling she went though until she was looking straight at the striking clear blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight as she continued to rise up. There were some people who could appreciate the beauty of such a clear sky. This wasn’t the case for Christina. To her, it was as if the very color itself were searing into her eyes. The absence of clouds only emphasized how small she was in this world, how alone she was on this blue speck surrounded by apathy.
She broke eye contact from the destitute sky to look down. She let out a scream that was immediately swallowed by the constant roar of air in her ears. She was already a mile up from the ground. Where she once saw a room from overhead, she now saw the entire Atlantic coastline. All the people, the sounds, the sights that were home to her were now obfuscated by her dizzying view. Cold trails of tears froze on her face as she watched her home swallowed by the receding coastline. All she could do was turn around and look at what was coming.
She already missed the once terrifying light blue sky as it was replaced with a dark and foreboding navy blue tinge. She figured she was at least a couple miles above the ground now and entering out of the atmosphere. Her heart froze in her chest as her intangible body was taken in by the vacuous depths. The navy blue gave way to black until finally she was out of the atmosphere entirely.
“Christina, you have to ground yourself” a disembodied voice said in her ear. She could’ve sworn she’d heard it before. She turned around to look at the ground to see where it came from. What she saw drove all rational thought from her mind.
The Earth took up the entirety of her view. The oceans gave off an almost ethereal glow in the cosmic radiation. The distant clouds swirled violently in the distance in a brilliant white. The land…she didn’t even know which continent she was looking at right now. It was too much to take in. The illusion of safety she once felt in her bedroom was stripped away. No matter how safe she was or how well she barricade herself, nothing could take away from the fact that this chaotic and empty space was where she lived.
A sob clung in her throat as the Earth pulled away from her field of view. Smaller and smaller it became until the blue speck was lost to the sea of stars before her. She lost all sense of direction as she pulled back faster and faster to the point in which the pinpricks of the star melded into one another in streaks of light. The once constant roar in her ears was replaced by an invading silence at the loss of air pressure. She had a brief and terrifying glimpse of the crimson vastness of Jupiter fill her vision before she left the solar system entirely.
Her body and mind were catatonic as her senses were bombarded with the sights of traveling at lightspeed. The streaks of lights transformed into flat orbs as she bypassed galaxies that transformed into spectacular explosions of light like fireworks in the sky as she passed the echoes of supernovas. Each dizzying sight bombarded her mind into a stupor as each wonder was even more incomprehensible than the last until…
Nothing. There was only the absence of light before her now. She looked back; the entire visible universe that had once engulfed her was now a prick of light that also found itself consumed leaving her well and truly alone now. When Christina could ever bring herself to think of the void she always thought of it as empty but calm. It was not so with this reality. Her body was pushed violently in all directions like multiple riptides at once. She was sure that demons of some kind were fighting each other over the right to rip her asunder…
“Christina!” It was the same disembodied voice. This time she clung to it, her only semblance of sanity in this insanity. “You have to focus. Remember, you are still in this room and I’m here with you.”
Room? She thought to her bedroom, her one safe spot in this calamity. She relaxed her body and went limp as she envisioned herself back in her room able to ignore the reality of it all. Suddenly the concussive forces on her body stopped and she felt herself fall in one direction. Opening her eyes she could see light. At first it was only a point but it soon exploded in depth and size. She realized she was looking at the visible universe from an overhead view the same way an astronaut looks at Earth from space.
She closed her eyes and let it take her where it would take her. The tingling in her body stopped as her body solidified. The pain from her sore muscles shot back into her driving the air from her body as she gasped it back in deeply. She was able to move but she wasn’t in a chair. In fact she was back in the darkness all over again. The hot flash of panic creeped into her as she started to hyperventilate. What was the point of all that if she was just back into the void again?
“This is how I found her” It was the same disembodied voice from before she recognized as the doctor’s instead this time it boomed out sending shockwaves throughout her body. She realized this was different. She could move about and feel her surroundings. This fact didn’t diminish the reality she had no idea where she was.
It wasn’t completely true that she was in total darkness. There were three longs slits of light filtering the fluorescent lighting through a lens of pink. The ground she was standing on was soft yet rough at the same time. Before she could say anything, the ceiling gave away to blinding fluorescent lighting merging the three slits of light into a one bright mass overhead.
Her eyes watered at the blinding light but she sensed figures larger than comprehension looming over her. Her neck hairs stood on end as they reacted to the shifting air. She rubbed her eyes and peered up at the sky. The uncaring hand of fear strangled her throat constricting it to the point she sank to her knees as she saw nothing but the rippling irises of three giant pairs of eyes looking right at her.
With a pang of horror she realized that the flesh colored landscape she was looking at was in fact the doctor’s outstretched palm! She knew that she was looking at three faces but their features were so large that they were incomprehensible. Wheezing, she clutched her chest trying to make sense of the shifting landscapes that were their faces shifting around trying to get a good look at her.

“This is no way to live your life you know.” Dr. Nguyen said in an almost pitying tone. Christina was back in the doctor’s office curled up in the chair across from his desk. Even though his office was quite inviting at first glances with its warm lights and cozy plants all around, it may as well have been a nightmarish hellscape to her. The warm lights were unfamiliar to those in her room, like looking at the Sun from an alien planet. The plants were looming ominously over her, casting their oppressive shadows over her, engulfing her…
A wave of heat struck her body as the panic set in. Even though the air conditioner was blowing, the air around her suddenly felt thick as fog. As it got harder to breathe, the panic grew causing her to breathe in faster, causing the air to get harder to breathe, and on it went in a terrifying feedback loop.
Christina knew that she would die here in this unfamiliar place, she longingly thought of her small bedroom. It was filed with dark, warm colors with lamps everywhere instead of overhead lights. A fan in the back corner more for the ambient noise than the air current. Her wax melter that was filled with lavender. Her computer right by her bedside with several playlists of shows she’d watched over and over again. Her one small island of clarity in a sea of entropy.
As the world started to spin into darkness, the doctor hurriedly got up from his chair and knelt down next to her. She was clutching her chest and almost wheezing at the strain. How could he possibly when there was no air in this room? She watched as he took a small white tube from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and rubbed an end on her upper chest. She winced at its cold touch and her eyes watered as the cool vapors invaded her sinuses. She coughed, sputtering, “What the hell was that?”
The doctor gave her an apologetic grin, “Sorry, you were spiraling out of control. It was just a bit of menthol; it’s commonly used as a grounding mechanism for panic attacks. You can breathe now can’t you?” Her indignance disappeared as she realized she was breathing in air conditioned air normally. She was still stranded in a chaotic sea but she now had a life raft to hang onto.
Satisfied, Dr. Nguyen returned to his chair behind the desk. “Now let’s get these nightmares under control. You have a severe bout of agoraphobia. I’m not here to shrink your head and diagnose why and I’m certain you don’t want me to. You just want answers as to what’s going on, am I right?”
She nodded shakily, still tearing up from the menthol. “Are you sure that we all have to face our fears to unlock our abilities?” There was a vague thread of hope that maybe there were exceptions to the rule. The doctor, however, shook his head sadly. “I wish I was wrong but so far everyone else had to face their worst fear before their abilities activated and the nightmares stopped. I think we both know what your worst fear will entail.”
Her heart sank to her stomach as it ripped in two. In one direction of the rip, she desperately wanted to just go back to her safe and familiar room - anything to not face the void. In the other direction, she knew her friends (it was crazy she already thought of them as her friends but anyone who didn’t look at her like a freak was a friend in her books) would be facing untold dangers and she couldn’t leave them.

Her mind wandered to Selena, how she had been able to walk into the same office with her head held up high. Selena was everything she never knew she needed and at the same time everything she wanted to be. Kind and empathetic yet strong and unflinching. There as no way she’d ever be able to reach her level but she could try. And it all began with a single step. “I-I’m ready to begin.” she said in what what she hoped was an unwavering voice. Dr. Ngyuen nodded, “Ok, no matter what happens remember that you are safe here in this room and that I’m here with you. To begin, I will need you to relax. Breathe in four seconds and breathe out four seconds. Relax your body, let every muscle melt into your chair as you go limp. Clear your mind of every thought, good and bad. Just like going to sleep except imagine all of your consciousness gathering in a single point…” Christina breathed in and out slowly as she counted each breath. Her lungs and chest expanded almost painfully as she almost always took small, panicked breaths. She let go of every muscle in her body. At once a deep and unraveling soreness overtook her body as her muscles, always on high alert, relaxed for the first time in years. There was an initial wave of pain followed by a soothing heaviness. She cleared her thoughts, sadly letting go of her safe room in the process. Finally, she gathered all of her essence, all of her being, and coalesced them into a single point in the middle of her psyche… She knew something went wrong the moment the soothing heaviness in her body immediately dissolved. Instead it was replaced with a terrifying sense of weightlessness as if every atom in her body yearned to split away. Her once stable concentration burst and gave way to panic as the comfort of the chair disappeared. An intense tingling spread all throughout her body like an electric shock as she felt her body rise upwards. She opened her eyes and could only let out a strangled scream as she saw her body still sitting in the chair. She was still rising, about a couple feet above her body in the chair looking at the office from an overhead view. Dr. Nguyen was talking to her but she couldn’t distinguish what he was saying nor did he seem to notice her situation. She started to call out to the doctor but her words were caught in her throat as her body was whisked upwards violently like she was a fish caught on a line. She flailed her arms, barely able to feel them, in a wild attempt to stop her momentum but there was nothing to grab onto. Even worse, her body went straight through the ceiling as if it weren’t there. Her vision was obscured by dusty rafters and floorboards as she went through the ceiling this time in a dark abandoned hallway. Still she went up with no amount of ceiling she hit able to stop her. In fact, her momentum was gaining. Every cell in her body felt as if it were exploding as her nerves coursed despair in electric form throughout. Ceiling after ceiling she went though until she was looking straight at the striking clear blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight as she continued to rise up. There were some people who could appreciate the beauty of such a clear sky. This wasn’t the case for Christina. To her, it was as if the very color itself were searing into her eyes. The absence of clouds only emphasized how small she was in this world, how alone she was on this blue speck surrounded by apathy. She broke eye contact from the destitute sky to look down. She let out a scream that was immediately swallowed by the constant roar of air in her ears. She was already a mile up from the ground. Where she once saw a room from overhead, she now saw the entire Atlantic coastline. All the people, the sounds, the sights that were home to her were now obfuscated by her dizzying view. Cold trails of tears froze on her face as she watched her home swallowed by the receding coastline. All she could do was turn around and look at what was coming. She already missed the once terrifying light blue sky as it was replaced with a dark and foreboding navy blue tinge. She figured she was at least a couple miles above the ground now and entering out of the atmosphere. Her heart froze in her chest as her intangible body was taken in by the vacuous depths. The navy blue gave way to black until finally she was out of the atmosphere entirely. “Christina, you have to ground yourself” a disembodied voice said in her ear. She could’ve sworn she’d heard it before. She turned around to look at the ground to see where it came from. What she saw drove all rational thought from her mind. The Earth took up the entirety of her view. The oceans gave off an almost ethereal glow in the cosmic radiation. The distant clouds swirled violently in the distance in a brilliant white. The land…she didn’t even know which continent she was looking at right now. It was too much to take in. The illusion of safety she once felt in her bedroom was stripped away. No matter how safe she was or how well she barricade herself, nothing could take away from the fact that this chaotic and empty space was where she lived. A sob clung in her throat as the Earth pulled away from her field of view. Smaller and smaller it became until the blue speck was lost to the sea of stars before her. She lost all sense of direction as she pulled back faster and faster to the point in which the pinpricks of the star melded into one another in streaks of light. The once constant roar in her ears was replaced by an invading silence at the loss of air pressure. She had a brief and terrifying glimpse of the crimson vastness of Jupiter fill her vision before she left the solar system entirely. Her body and mind were catatonic as her senses were bombarded with the sights of traveling at lightspeed. The streaks of lights transformed into flat orbs as she bypassed galaxies that transformed into spectacular explosions of light like fireworks in the sky as she passed the echoes of supernovas. Each dizzying sight bombarded her mind into a stupor as each wonder was even more incomprehensible than the last until… Nothing. There was only the absence of light before her now. She looked back; the entire visible universe that had once engulfed her was now a prick of light that also found itself consumed leaving her well and truly alone now. When Christina could ever bring herself to think of the void she always thought of it as empty but calm. It was not so with this reality. Her body was pushed violently in all directions like multiple riptides at once. She was sure that demons of some kind were fighting each other over the right to rip her asunder… “Christina!” It was the same disembodied voice. This time she clung to it, her only semblance of sanity in this insanity. “You have to focus. Remember, you are still in this room and I’m here with you.” Room? She thought to her bedroom, her one safe spot in this calamity. She relaxed her body and went limp as she envisioned herself back in her room able to ignore the reality of it all. Suddenly the concussive forces on her body stopped and she felt herself fall in one direction. Opening her eyes she could see light. At first it was only a point but it soon exploded in depth and size. She realized she was looking at the visible universe from an overhead view the same way an astronaut looks at Earth from space. She closed her eyes and let it take her where it would take her. The tingling in her body stopped as her body solidified. The pain from her sore muscles shot back into her driving the air from her body as she gasped it back in deeply. She was able to move but she wasn’t in a chair. In fact she was back in the darkness all over again. The hot flash of panic creeped into her as she started to hyperventilate. What was the point of all that if she was just back into the void again? “This is how I found her” It was the same disembodied voice from before she recognized as the doctor’s instead this time it boomed out sending shockwaves throughout her body. She realized this was different. She could move about and feel her surroundings. This fact didn’t diminish the reality she had no idea where she was. It wasn’t completely true that she was in total darkness. There were three longs slits of light filtering the fluorescent lighting through a lens of pink. The ground she was standing on was soft yet rough at the same time. Before she could say anything, the ceiling gave away to blinding fluorescent lighting merging the three slits of light into a one bright mass overhead. Her eyes watered at the blinding light but she sensed figures larger than comprehension looming over her. Her neck hairs stood on end as they reacted to the shifting air. She rubbed her eyes and peered up at the sky. The uncaring hand of fear strangled her throat constricting it to the point she sank to her knees as she saw nothing but the rippling irises of three giant pairs of eyes looking right at her. 

With a pang of horror she realized that the flesh colored landscape she was looking at was in fact the doctor’s outstretched palm! She knew that she was looking at three faces but their features were so large that they were incomprehensible. Wheezing, she clutched her chest trying to make sense of the shifting landscapes that were their faces shifting around trying to get a good look at her.

18 female super frustrated I need advice!
Frustrated and need some advice (I’m 18, I’m around 80kg and 175cm, I always had back issues. This problem started 5-6 months ago and it’s constant everyday. I take diamox for iih for month now. Tried many things for those symptoms nothing helps. Iih issues I had before meds are better now. The choking spasms, squeezing in sinuses, spasm in face, pressure 300kg feeling on head and putting any pressure on shoulders neck or sum makes issues worse, clicking jaw spasmed jaw dizziness and more, I didn’t had any accident is constant and doesn’t go away with any tries)
I’m kinda hopeless. Some time ago I found out I got iih. But I have huge tmj not diagnosed yet issues as well. I talked with a lot of people with iih but my issues are not only from iih. I feel like my throat neck is spasming closing. I feel weird pressure in sinuses like somebody squeezing it. My jaw cracking, feeling like somebody crushing my skull, not pain. Pressure like 400kg. My neck is stiff, pressing on shoulders or neck makes my sinuses spasm more. Opening jaw hardly opens sinuses pressure and throat but closing it makes it worse. Talking is hard. I feel spaced out. It’s like that everyday for 5 months now. Iih meds help for headaches, pressure feeling but these spasms are something different. I can’t live like that. Walking is hard, laying sitting as well. My arms often pain or tingly also upper back super stiff and cracking. I had head mri mrv everything okay, waiting for neck results and gonna have upper back x ray. Massaging neck and shoulders makes my sinuses head jaw spasm and pressure worse. I can’t help me any ideas. Ill add I also expierence migraine type of headache to all of that couple times a week. For what should I look? What else can I check. I can’t live like that.

18 female super frustrated I need advice!
Frustrated and need some advice (I’m 18, I’m around 80kg and 175cm, I always had back issues. This problem started 5-6 months ago and it’s constant everyday. I take diamox for iih for month now. Tried many things for those symptoms nothing helps. Iih issues I had before meds are better now. The choking spasms, squeezing in sinuses, spasm in face, pressure 300kg feeling on head and putting any pressure on shoulders neck or sum makes issues worse, clicking jaw spasmed jaw dizziness and more, I didn’t had any accident is constant and doesn’t go away with any tries)
I’m kinda hopeless. Some time ago I found out I got iih. But I have huge tmj not diagnosed yet issues as well. I talked with a lot of people with iih but my issues are not only from iih. I feel like my throat neck is spasming closing. I feel weird pressure in sinuses like somebody squeezing it. My jaw cracking, feeling like somebody crushing my skull, not pain. Pressure like 400kg. My neck is stiff, pressing on shoulders or neck makes my sinuses spasm more. Opening jaw hardly opens sinuses pressure and throat but closing it makes it worse. Talking is hard. I feel spaced out. It’s like that everyday for 5 months now. Iih meds help for headaches, pressure feeling but these spasms are something different. I can’t live like that. Walking is hard, laying sitting as well. My arms often pain or tingly also upper back super stiff and cracking. I had head mri mrv everything okay, waiting for neck results and gonna have upper back x ray. Massaging neck and shoulders makes my sinuses head jaw spasm and pressure worse. I can’t help me any ideas. Ill add I also expierence migraine type of headache to all of that couple times a week. For what should I look? What else can I check. I can’t live like that.

Frustrated and need some advice (I’m 18, I’m around 80kg and 175cm, I always had back issues. This problem started 5-6 months ago and it’s constant everyday. I take diamox for iih for month now. Tried many things for those symptoms nothing helps. Iih issues I had before meds are better now. The choking spasms, squeezing in sinuses, spasm in face, pressure 300kg feeling on head and putting any pressure on shoulders neck or sum makes issues worse, clicking jaw spasmed jaw dizziness and more, I didn’t had any accident is constant and doesn’t go away with any tries)
I’m kinda hopeless. Some time ago I found out I got iih. But I have huge tmj not diagnosed yet issues as well. I talked with a lot of people with iih but my issues are not only from iih. I feel like my throat neck is spasming closing. I feel weird pressure in sinuses like somebody squeezing it. My jaw cracking, feeling like somebody crushing my skull, not pain. Pressure like 400kg. My neck is stiff, pressing on shoulders or neck makes my sinuses spasm more. Opening jaw hardly opens sinuses pressure and throat but closing it makes it worse. Talking is hard. I feel spaced out. It’s like that everyday for 5 months now. Iih meds help for headaches, pressure feeling but these spasms are something different. I can’t live like that. Walking is hard, laying sitting as well. My arms often pain or tingly also upper back super stiff and cracking. I had head mri mrv everything okay, waiting for neck results and gonna have upper back x ray. Massaging neck and shoulders makes my sinuses head jaw spasm and pressure worse. I can’t help me any ideas. Ill add I also expierence migraine type of headache to all of that couple times a week. For what should I look? What else can I check. I can’t live like that.

Sometimes I heard them at night.
The sounds they made as they moved between the houses would wake me.
I would lie there, paralyzed, held under the weight of their presence until they were gone.
Then I would go back to sleep and forget about it as if it had never happened.
Sometimes I dreamt of a ringing phone.
*
It's called the Alaskan Triangle, a huge area of wilderness within the 3 points of Barrow, Anchorage and Juneau. The missing person rate is more than double the national average, with 17000 people going missing in the last 30 years.
When I went there I intended to stay less than a week.
I didn't come back for 10 years.
My family reported me missing but it was hopeless. I had been both arrogant and careless in my travel plans. I didn't stay in regular touch with anyone, didn't leave a detailed itinerary. I doubt they would have found me anyway, tucked away in a forest valley miles from any road.
A Canadian journalist is writing a novel about what happened in that place, including my time there. Her name is Lauren Roberts and the book is called "The Black River Cult."
I haven't read any of it yet but I can tell you one thing for certain. It's not the truth. Because I'm the only one who knows that.
*
I don't really want to talk about my life before, or my family. I will do so only if it's relevant. This all started for me in 1991. I was 22 and in college studying cinematography. In truth there was not enough studying and too much partying. Despite my mounting academic failures I did exhibit a genuine talent for photography. It was the one thing I could always find time for.
So, perhaps unsurprisingly, my finest achievement stemmed from it. Whilst taking pictures of birds in an abandoned factory, I had the idea for my first and only publication. It was a collection of photographs of American ghost towns. The shots of each location were accompanied by a brief history of the site and any particularly interesting local tales. It became a surprise hit and was successful enough to buy me time and expenses for a sequel.
I dropped out of college without a second thought to work on it full time. I decided to expand the scope to include both north and south america, featuring less locations with more detail on each. I was ambitious, full of ideas and energy. I was also stupid, selfish and ignorant.
Within a month I had been shot at in Columbia, hospitalized for illness in Brazil and failed to even find my target in Mexico. My fourth location was to be a site in Alaska.
I still lived in Seattle after going to school there, so I thought I'd take the scenic route and drive myself. I spent a beautiful couple of weeks passing through Vancouver and British Columbia on the way to Anchorage. Listening to music and watching those sunsets.
I was as happy as I'd ever been in my life but didn't realize it at the time. We never do, do we? That's when you're truly happy, I think. When you are chasing what you want.
So on I went. I was searching for an abandoned mining town in the south of the Brooks range, a site that should have been untouched by humans for 80 years.
Rather predictably, I got lost. I ended up driving in the dark, which I had promised myself I wouldn't do, trying to read a map by torchlight. What an idiot.
At daybreak, through binoculars, I spotted what I believed was my destination. I could see a gated up tunnel entrance and some old fencing on a distant mountainside. I set off full of relief and promptly managed to get lost again. Thankfully I was in no rush, at that time of year sunset wasn't until after 11pm.
In the end I never even made it there. Because I found something else.
*
There had been no sign of the place until I was almost on top of it. Exploring a sideroad (which was little more than a worn path) in hope of a shortcut I caught sight of something through the trees.
It was a church, surrounded by half a dozen smaller houses. It looked decades old but I couldn't give an age with any degree of certainty. Every building was badly weathered, paint stripped from rotting wood, doors and windows mostly gone. Two of the homes had collapsed completely. The church itself was a simple cross design, I'd estimate only 20 metres or so in length with a 10 metre tower. The entire area was flooded with dark, still water which averaged a foot or so depth around the buildings. Elsewhere it was impossible to tell. Past the town I could see a shallow river, the water strangely black from whatever it was carrying out of the hills. There were no signs of any people, vehicles or animals.
A piece of history, frozen in time, held still in an ink dark pool.
I was delighted. This was even better than what I had planned.
With a smile I exited the car and took a deep breath of the crisp air, marveling at my discovery. I remember thinking as I stood there, how many sites like this were there in the world? Afterimages of life, places that people never even lay eyes on for decades at a time. Who even founded this place? Where did they go?
I had a routine for work and got straight into it. As well as my camera equipment I had, for the first time in my life, a loaded gun. As unlikely as it was that I would encounter wolves, it was still a possibility. Buying and learning to use a gun was about the only sensible thing I actually done before leaving.
If I recall correctly, I began by taking some distance shots, working my way back in from the road. I wanted to record how I had discovered the place. Then several wide shots, taking in the entire site in a single frame.
The silence of the area struck me as much as anything. I was in the wilderness yet it was deathly quiet. I never saw an animal, not so much as a rabbit or a bird. There was barely a breeze and the water was still as black glass.
I photographed the river, then the surrounding valley. It was thickly forested on all sides, which kept the old buildings in almost constant shade. While taking these pictures I realized just how difficult this place would be to find, even from the air. No wonder I had never heard of it.
I worked for a couple of hours, trying to get the best angles with the changing light, even wading through the water for better spots. It was at least knee deep in most places and bitterly cold. On one occasion I actually had to break some ice to plant my feet.
I remember I was at the front of the church, a few feet out into the water, when I heard it.
Something moving. There was a crack like a piece of wood being snapped, then a splash. I saw ripples on the surface come out from behind the church.
I stood there, frozen to the spot. I even held my breath in the silence.
There was nothing more. No sound or sign of movement.
This was stupid, I told myself. It was an old building, things fall apart. Maybe a nesting bird knocking something over, though I hadn't seen any yet.
I waited, quiet and stationary, for another minute or so.
Nothing.
I took a long look around. Not a thing had changed except my car now looked uncomfortably far away. I had considered moving it in closer but was afraid of getting stuck in mud.
I shook myself, irritated by my own reaction. I was being a spineless fool, I thought. A bit of wood falls and suddenly I'm terrified? I had work to do.
More than anything I wanted to shoot inside the church. I could see only a little through the missing front doors which wasn't nearly enough. I couldn't help myself. I knew I would regret it forever if I didn't at least try. The pictures from outside were good but I wanted to capture peoples imaginations, and for that I needed to see inside.
So I moved forward again, one shuffled step at a time. The depth of the water stayed consistent and there were no ripples but the ones I made myself.
It took a few minutes but I reached the doorframe and hauled myself through.
It wasn't what I had expected. The floor of the main hall had been almost completely torn up, leaving only a few feet of floorboard around the edges. Where the floor had been was only black water, as still as it was outside. The remains of a pew floated on the surface. What had been the pulpit leaned broken over the pool, as if ready to tumble in itself.
What had happened here? An earthquake? I looked for a stable piece of flooring, then started to edge my way around against the wall.
The wood beneath me collapsed. It felt instantaneous, the water suddenly all around me, in my mouth, crushing me in its grasp as I sank. My feet never touched the bottom so I'll never know how deep it really was. It couldn't have lasted more than 30 seconds but it still shakes me to recall. The adrenaline, the stinging cold, that rush of panic that shuts out the world. I managed to kick and claw my way back to the surface then, gasping for air, drag myself onto the nearest piece of flooring.
I was soaked through and shaking uncontrollably. I had lost my gun, lost a boot and cut my forearm which was now dripping blood. To top it all the doorway was now out of reach on the other side of the hall, unless I wanted to go back in the water. At least my camera was waterproof.
I was furious with myself. In all honesty it makes me angry even now just writing it down. Stupid stupid stupid. What had I been thinking? What had possessed me to take such an idiotic and pointless risk? Now I only had a few hours till sunset and the temperature was plummeting.
But I was safe, I told myself, in an effort to calm down. No broken bones, no serious wounds, no ongoing danger. I just had to work my way back to the car and I would be fine. It was an accident, nothing more.
Eventually I managed to prise out a loose windowframe and clambered through. My prayers were answered and there was a shallower area leading to drier land, although not in the direction I wanted. Still, I had no choice.
I wanted away from that water and back to my car. The sun was going down. I was shivering with cold and despite my best efforts beginning to panic.
I finally made it out of the water but now I was on the opposite side from my vehicle. I was looking for a route back to it when I saw the path, clearly worn in the grass. It led into the foothills, following the river.
Animals maybe, I told myself. Maybe not.
I had started to cough, a strange taste in my mouth from the water I had swallowed. I went a little up the path, hoping it might fork off around the buildings. The coughing continued, so hard it made me dizzy. I walked further, getting out of sight of my car. I wasn't thinking clearly, I can see that now.
That's when I saw people, further up the hillside. Watching me.
I stumbled, trying to shout for help but I couldn't get the words out.
I was struggling for breath. Despite the cold I could feel myself sweating heavily, my chest burning and head spinning.
I must have passed out because that's the last thing I remember.
*
What followed will be incredibly difficult to explain.
In the 10 years after discovering the church my memories are both vague and sporadic. The order of events and time between is unclear, like trying to recall things from preschool age.
I was living in a village with approximately 30 others, an hours walk from the abandoned church. I have no recollection of travelling there, or agreeing to stay. In my last clear memory I am coughing, retching, desperate. In the next I am a villager in a concealed settlement in the hills. I have a daily routine I follow and I have no intention of ever leaving. I had become a completely different person but seemed unaware of the change.
It is more like remembering a film than my own life. The memories of those years are all surface, no layers or nuance to the thoughts. I was myself but not myself. As if parts of me were ... missing, or sealed away. The closest analogy would be sleepwalking, but in truth it wasn't like that at all.
There were rare clear images.
Occasionally something would upset me but the feelings would be quickly pushed away and I would return to passivity. These moments seemed to stay with me for some reason, as unpleasant as they were.
An example. I remember once watching the pigs we kept as they ate and slept in their pen. One was to be slaughtered that night. Watching them filled me with a sickening dread yet I had no idea why.
*
I should describe life there I think, before I go any further. How I spent the decade.
There were 6 homes in two rows of 3, well concealed in the thick forest. I'm using the term "homes" quite loosely here. I've seen tents that were more complex. Two doors (one front and one rear), two floors with no further segregation of rooms, no windows or running water. They would actually be better described as shelters.
One of them had 6 wooden cots downstairs but otherwise we slept on blankets on the floor.
There were some vehicles there of varying ages and conditions. I never saw any used for any purpose.
We had pigs the first few years I was there but they didn't last. We foraged for food, hunted and fished in the surrounding area. What we caught was cooked over an open fire.
The black river ran past us a few minutes walk away. Once a week, at daybreak, we went together down to the church. In silence we would line up and kneel at the waters edge. Usually this lasted only a minute or so.
I have no idea why we done this and I don't believe I knew then either. I only understood that it had to be done.
I witnessed what appeared to be panic attacks among the others, particularly at the waterside. They would calm quickly of course, as I would, then we all forgot about it as if nothing had happened.
I never thought about my family, or friends, or life before. Or perhaps I did and it was simply pushed down and forgotten before I could grasp it.
I know I still dreamt. I know this because the panic of waking from these dreams was the strongest emotion I felt. And it was always the same dream. A ringing phone.
I never saw anyone touch except at night when we huddled together for warmth.
I have very short memories of intensely painful migraines, always when I strayed too far from the river.
*
I have just received an advance copy of the book, which I wasn't expecting, since I declined to give Miss Roberts an interview. To be fair to her she didn't press the issue.
The first chapter covers what the police found on the site. It's a strange feeling to see these pictures after so many years. I don't quite know how to describe it.
There was no-one there when they first arrived, every house was empty.
After searching them the officers followed the river down to the church.
One of them found a piece of clothing floating on the water. When they pulled it out it was still attached to a broken collarbone.
The situation progressed quite dramatically after that. Teams of forensic specialists and investigators.
After further discoveries they decided to drain the water from the site.
And they found more bones. Thousands of bones.
At least 90 individuals dating back over 100 years.
*
Life in that place changed for me in June 2001, 10 years after I first arrived.
Five of us had been out hunting and, by the time we returned, three of us were vomiting and feverish. I don't know what caused it. Water we shared perhaps, but there could be any number of reasons.
I was one of those affected. The fever nearly killed me, leaving me delirious and hallucinating.
I don't recall it clearly of course, not at all. I would guess I was in and out of consciousness for almost a week.
I thought I could hear that ringing phone, the one from my dream. It was somewhere in the house, I was sure of it. If only I could get up I could find it. Why couldn't someone answer it?
Then I would slip back into unconsciousness.
And so it went.
Eventually the fever broke and I opened my eyes. I lay on one of the cots, my clothing soaked in sweat and blood running from my nose and down my chest. The room was bare other than the beds and a jug of water. I was alone and I could hear no-one else nearby.
Pain, exhaustion, fear. All these things are easy to understand as we have all felt them. But I don't think I can truly convey the confusion I experienced in any relatable way. I hardly knew who I was, never mind where or when.
Despite this there was a freshness to my thoughts, a new clarity. I felt changed, almost like sobering up.
I had to use the toilet so began to struggle to my feet. I knew the toilet was outside, though I couldn't have told you how I knew or when I had last used it. I called for help but there was no answer. Someone had clearly cleaned me and brought me water, so I was certain there were still people nearby. But who and where?
As I exited the rear door a terrible migraine struck me, a pressure like I have never experienced before or since. People use words like "unbearable" far too casually. This was truly unbearable. It is no exaggeration to say I would have chosen death over that pain if it had continued.
I staggered through the trees, almost blind with the pain, shaking, legs buckling under me. I may have cried out but I don't think I would even have known. I fell and lay on my side. A sudden flow of blood from my nose terrified me even through the pain. Something spasmed behind my eyes and I heard a crack. I must have been paralyzed by what was happening because I neither moved or made any sound. More cracks were followed by a fresh explosion of pain and I had the first seizure of my life. Then darkness.
I thought I was going to die, was certain of it in fact. I don't know how long I lay there. When I came fully around there was a foul taste in my mouth and I felt open wounds on my tongue and gums. I could hear breath rasping through my swollen throat. My eyes focused and mind cleared. In the mud beside me there was a bloodied lump of flesh. It was perhaps the size of a walnut, a smooth oval, red and black, with dozens of hair-like tendrils extending from the edges.
It moved.
Just a fraction of an inch, twitching, then stopped.
I tried to stand, to get back to the house, but the pain overwhelmed me again. My head swam and I collapsed within a few metres. This time I was out for several hours.
*
I was examined by a doctor when I escaped this place, several doctors in fact. The skull fracture between my eyes appeared to have been caused by internal pressure. They said they had never seen anything like it in a living patient.
My nose was broken. My sinuses and throat were massively inflamed and lined with deep tears. A CT scan revealed extensive scarring particularly in my frontal and prefrontal lobes.
Brain damage is the simple term. I have never and will never recover from these things. Headaches, tremors, confusion. I still have seizures. These things, among others, will accompany me until I die.
*
When I woke up again I had been carried back to bed and cleaned. I realized this was the extent of the care I could expect. There would be no real medical attention there, no medication. I heard people downstairs this time but I couldn't move, couldn't even open my swollen eyes. Pain. Then sleep.
A night passed. In the morning I could sit up and think clearly again. I examined myself in more detail. My hands were dirty, in fact all of me was. My clothing was a patchwork of poor repairs. I had long hair tied back and a graying beard.
What had happened to me? What had been the thing I had choked up in the grass? After several attempts I made it to the doorway and looked out. Some of the other villagers were gathering firewood.
I watched them in silence for several minutes. They moved slowly, pausing between each action. No-one spoke. There was no eye contact.
Where had these people come from? Had they arrived here like myself? Were they sick? There were both men and women of many ages and ethnicities, all severely underweight. The men had beards and long hair like I did. Many had visible wounds or sores on their skin. Dry lips and dead eyes. There were missing fingers, presumably from frostbite.
Something flickered in the back of my mind and I pulled off one of my battered shoes. I was missing two toes myself. I had no recollection of it happening.
I realized I was seeing things there as they really were, for the first time since I had arrived.
I tried with increasing desperation to recall the last few years. Had I been like them? For all this time? The only memories I could conjure were disconnected snapshots, tiny fragments of the years. Through them all was a vague sensation of being prompted, urged to do things. A feeling of always being watched and guided.
Too weak to walk any further I returned to the cot. I figured whoever had been bringing me water would return eventually, then I could get some answers.
It was a woman who came just before sunset. She walked in with a fresh jug of water, eyes staring blankly. She saw that I was awake, replaced the water, then left without a word.
I called after her but she ignored me. That night others came to sleep in the house but never so much as looked at me and would not respond to any questions.
The next day hunger forced me outside. Some clearer memories had started to return but it was a slow process. I knew I usually helped with fishing and hunting, that was my duty in the village. Food was communally taken once in the afternoon. I got through that day, ate with the others and followed along with them as they went to sleep.
Small parts of my old life were also coming back to me. Flashes of my childhood. Names. Lyrics of songs.
I remembered my parents and cried like a baby. Were they looking for me? I wondered. At that point I didn't know how long I had been away. Did they even know I was still alive? Were they?
I remembered the front door of an apartment in Seattle. It was my home. Or at least, it had been.
Among these memories were flashes of terrible scenes, some half recalled nightmare filtering through. Images of people being torn apart, wide eyed and wide awake, staring into space as they died. As if they didn't feel a thing.
They were real memories, I was sure of it. I had seen these things happen. Over and over I would touch on the truth and my mind would recoil from it. Something I should be afraid of.
Something that came at night.
*
There are photographs of many of the villagers in Lauren Roberts book. Smiling pictures with family members from their lives before. Some faces I recognised.
There were names and backgrounds for each of them. When they went missing. What remains were found of them. Perhaps only a jawbone. Or a wedding ring.
Dozens of photos and not one of them made it back to those lives.
Miss Roberts has quite the theory about it all. She thinks these people went there to escape their own lives. That they were sucked up by just another cult, hidden away from modern life.
She thinks it was a twisted religion which lived and died out of sight in the cold.
She thinks these people killed each other one at a time and put the bodies in the water. Then the last few fled.
She thinks all the evil in the world comes from men and women.
She is wrong about all these things.
*
I had planned to leave the village as soon as I was strong enough. In the meantime I struggled to play along. It was like living and speaking with mute children, everything so basic, so simple. Anything out of the ordinary was pushed away and ignored. They would stare into space for hours on end.
So I planned and prepared, hoarding extra clothing and food. And trying to remember.
*
I had been dreaming again of the ringing phone when I woke. It was pitch black outside, maybe one am if I had to guess. I heard others in the house getting up and going downstairs. They seemed even more oblivious to their surroundings than usual.
I followed, no idea what was happening but wary of being singled out.
We filed out into the moonlit street. Everyone had gathered in front of their houses, shivering in the cold.
There was a sick feeling rising in my stomach, something trying to be remembered.
They all lined up on either side of the street, heads down, silent and waiting. I copied, taking my place with my eyes on the ground at my feet.
A memory was rising from the dark. It comes here from the water at night.
I heard something moving through the trees. No-one else seemed to have noticed.
Remember. It walks down the line between us.
I was too afraid to run at this point or even raise my head. There was movement at the edge of my vision, near the end of the street. Heavy footsteps. Long slow breathing and the smell of stagnant water.
It was coming closer. I could make out two thin legs but the feet had sunk into the wet ground. The skin was dark red and black like the parasite I had choked up onto the grass.
Closer.
The upper body towered over me and I could feel it there. Feel the heat from it.
It had come level with me, only a few feet away.
There was a pain in my chest and I thought, now was the time. Run or die. Now.
It passed by. I nearly bit through my tongue holding in my breath.
Then as relief had begun to wash through me the figure stopped, sniffing the air. It took a step back, leaning in toward me. A long skeletal hand touched my face and a nail scraped slowly down my cheek, leaving a line of red.
Now.
Someone opposite panicked and ran. Their feet splashed in the mud as they raced for the treeline, stumbling and crying out in the dark.
The thing lunged away from me toward the runner. It was frighteningly fast, covering the distance before I even realized what was happening. I didn't dare raise my head so saw only part of what happened. The man who had fled was pinned face down, helpless. It held him there, apparently without effort, as he fought to free himself. And it began to eat him. Beginning with the back of the head, neck and shoulders. A second one rushed forward out of the darkness and snatched at a leg, pulling it free.
The man was screaming, a desperate incoherent howl, begging for anyone to help him. For God to help him. We all stood there as it happened, still and quiet.
Here it was. The truth behind my nightmares.
*
When it was over we faded back into the houses, no sign of what had happened on anyones face but mine.
I recognised the man who had ran, who had saved my life in doing so. He was one of the others who had been hunting and got sick, like me. Had he been through what I had since then? Surviving the fever then playing along as he planned an escape? We had sat together at meal the day before. Side by side in silence.
I could remember all the other times now. All those taken from the line and eaten alive in the dirt. They never cried out, never fought or ran.
They never made a sound.
*
At daybreak I stole a motorcycle and all the gasoline I could. The three other vehicles I had tried didn't even start. The bike was from a more recent addition to the camp but I couldn't remember who. I waited till no-one was nearby then set off, heading the opposite way from the water. I thought my old car might still be there but the thought of going near that church was too much. I didn't look back. I would drive until I ran out of gasoline.
I figured I would rather die alone in the wild than face another night there.
*
It was luck more than anything that saved me. When the gas ran out I walked for two days. Nearly died of cold both nights, despite my preparations. If it had been any other time of the year I wouldn't have made it, not even close.
A trucker found me on the Dalton highway, lying unconscious at the side of a road. I don't even remember it. He took me straight to the nearest town, saved my life. His name is Kyle and he became a grandfather last year (we still message each other from time to time).
When I woke in a hospital bed I asked for the police. Then I called my mom and dad. It wasn't an easy conversation as my memory still had more gaps than pieces. At first I don't think they even believed it was me.
Details came back slowly, over many months. Faces, names, places, feelings. Eventually my parents took me home and I stayed with them until I had recovered, physically at least.
One day in the hospital I heard a phone ringing in the hall. And the memory finally returned. Here it was at last.
I had a girlfriend, Abby.
Her face, her voice. It all came back. A wash of images and emotions. We had been seeing each other for six months, the longest relationship I had ever had. I thought I loved her. I told her I did.
Something else. The last thing I done before leaving for Anchorage, ten years earlier. That day I had called her to say goodbye and tell her I would be back in a few weeks.
She was quiet for a moment, then said she was pregnant. She sounded scared.
And how did I respond? I hung up the phone in a fit of temper. Angry, selfish, young and stupid. I didn't want a baby. I felt like she had done this to try and steal my future. I was an idiot. A 22 year old boy who didn't want to deal with real life, who could look at the world and see only himself.
She tried to phone back but I walked away, leaving it ringing.
So I lost them both. My daughter, who I never met, died in an accident age 4. Her mother left the country after that. I asked my parents and friends about her but she had never told them the truth. Eventually I managed to track down her brother. He was the one who explained what had happened but he didn't know where she was. No-one had heard from her in years, he said. Eventually I stopped trying. All it could do was hurt us both.
*
The police went to the Black River site while I was still in hospital, somehow finding it even with my laughable directions. I never told them the whole truth of what happened, of course. They would have thought I had lost my mind and understandably so. I don't think they even believed my edited version until they found those first bones.
I had lived a lie for 10 years. That time was lost. Stolen from me.
Since I came back I've just lived a different lie, a pieced together impression of the man I was before. I would like to say I've recovered but it would be a lie. I think about that place every day.
It's difficult to be a part of things now, to feel things as I used to. I've never married or had children. Never rebuilt old friendships. Even now, decades later, I'm afraid to have anything. Wondering when another phone will ring and everything will change again.
Truth is I don't know.

The building where I live in Hollywood, it feels close to the sun.
Perched along a hilly length of Gower just east of the 101 Freeway, the Del Rey Apartments seems to jut toward the wide blue heavens. Owing to that, our building manager keeps the door to the roof unlocked most of the time.
That was how I first saw the old man sunbathing up there.
He lay tucked out of view behind a fan box in a far corner of the rooftop, splayed on one of those foldout chaise lounges. I had come up to the roof looking for the neighbor’s cat, Jasper, who often roamed up here to stalk pigeons, and there was the old guy, laid out like a lizard on a rock.
I didn’t even notice him at first, not until that mass of orange skin caught my eye. He was naked except for a small pair of red Speedos, and his skin had a grizzled, chapped, leather quality from all the sunlight it’d drunk up. Noticing him there, I couldn’t help picturing a crisped nugget of orange peel chicken, wok-sizzling in some Hunan kitchen.
He wasn’t overweight for his age, just saggy in that senior-citizen way, his belly a gently rounded hillock. Spotting the cellulite on his thighs was like looking for craters on the moon: It helped if you squinted, but you really didn’t need to.
His face was angled away, but his hair–still abundant for his age–was slicked in a greasy plane across his head. He wore black Wayfarer sunglasses and lay perfectly still. Asleep? Probably.
I won’t lie to you, the whole tableau played like some PSA about the perils of skin cancer. It was a dermatologist’s nightmare vision. How could the old guy lay here snoozing as his epidermis simmered in carcinogenic UV rays?
A couple days later, I saw him again.
Late in the day.
I’d rambled to the roof by myself to throw back a Corona and watch the sun drop. The proximity of the Hollywood sign to our building is so impressive it’s like some postcard cliché. That particular evening, as I savored the sight of that vista, several minutes elapsed before that not-quite-alone feeling tickled at the edge of my awareness.
The suntan man was back, silently arrayed on his chaise.
I thought about walking over and warning the old guy about the dangers of sun exposure. Maybe he wasn’t up-to-date on the latest research? I only wanted to help. And yet this was LA, after all. Wasn’t excessive tanning acceptable? Glorified, even? The city prized vitality and good looks, but never the former in spite of the latter. This was only my second month living here, but already I’d grasped the city’s habits and hypocrisies, its strange allowances.
So I bit my tongue, knocked back my cerveza and fled back to my unit.
My next glimpse of him arrived just the next morning.
If I’m being truthful, I suppose I’d ventured to the roof specifically to see if he might repeat his pattern, and sure enough, there he was–laid out on the chaise, head lolling as he snoozed.
Had he sun-stroked? Was he dead? Better to check, I figured.
So I walked across the rooftop, stepping over piping, picking my way around vents and fan boxes. As I drew close, I saw his nostrils flare–dilating, retracting–as if he could smell me coming. Then his head lifted off his shoulder. I couldn’t see behind those Wayfarer sunglasses, but I figured his eyes had opened and he was studying me.
Weirder: His features had a rubbery look, his lips thin and too pink. Was he wearing makeup? I was sure of it. And his cheeks and chin were smooth and hairless, like he’d recently finished shaving. In fact, his whole body appeared eerily hairless.
I opened with “Warm one today, huh?” and waited for a response. When none came, I plowed ahead. “If you’re not careful, you’re liable to burn.”
The old man’s head sort of bobbed around, as if he’d woken to find himself mysteriously transplanted here. I waited for some response to what I’d said. None came.
“You know,” I continued, “experts say that too much sun hikes the risk of skin cancer by a whole lot.”
Honestly, I didn’t particularly care if I came off sounding like some know-it-all. I had put time into learning up on health and all manner of things, and it was true what I was saying.
Still, the old man sat with his eyes trained straight-ahead.
Then he cleared his throat, mucus rattling deep in his gullet, and said, “You’re right about that.” His voice sounded distant, guttural and ragged, as if he hadn’t spoken in days. He sat up on the chaise, leathery chest and tummy rising, gravity’s hand taking hold, tugging the wattles of son-simmered skin into saggy grins across his chest. He stood slowly, arduously in that old-person way.
Then he reached up and pulled off his Wayfarers. His eyes popped open–had they been closed under the glasses?–and I almost recoiled at the strangeness of their color. They were large and glassy, the whites very pale and clean of even the tiniest bloodshot vessel, the irises a bright, inhuman shade of cyan, like they’d been painted straight onto his eyeballs. I wondered if he’d donned a set of those freaky special effects contact lenses they sell in the makeup shops along Hollywood Boulevard.
He turned his face sunward and breathed in deeply, his large nostrils flaring again in that uncanny animal way. A small grin began to curve the pink lengths of his lips.
Then he nodded and said, “Thank you,” and rounded, toddling away. As he went, I caught the peculiar smell of him–steely, metallic, watery. Like a seafood restaurant or an oceanfront pier.
Or more generally–like fish.
That was it, the old man smelled like fish.
As he disappeared into the stairwell, I realized he had brought nothing with him out here. No towel, no sunblock. Not even a bottle of water.
Bizarre.
Regardless, I felt proud of my intervention. Obviously, he had taken note of my advice. The whole interaction shimmered with the sort of good citizenship that characterized most of my interactions with others.
From then on, my sunbathing neighbor became a subject of intense fascination for me. Would he desist entirely with his dangerous behavior?
There was a reason I had so much time to think about him: I hadn’t found a job since moving to LA. Back home in the middle of the country, I had worked in private security, rising through the ranks to become head of security for a retail outlet mall. Soon after, one of the waitresses at the Applebee’s near there, she told me about a cousin of hers who had nabbed a sweetheart gig doing set security for film and TV shoots in LA. Guy only worked a few days a week, apparently, and spent the rest of his time riding ATVs out in the High Desert or hopping down to Tijuana for the weekend.
Thus I had come rolling out to the sunny Southland to try my hand at the same, registering with a security company that specialized in production work. But the Screen Actors Guild had picked precisely that moment to threaten a strike. Shooting rumbled to a halt. Jobs dried up. The security company promised to call when they needed me. So I’d holed up in my new pad at the Del Rey to wait for a better turn of luck.
I handed out business cards whenever I got the chance. I even gave one to the building manager at the Del Rey, this young mom-type named Elena. I’d seen her one afternoon out by the mailboxes and stopped to introduce myself. She was collecting rent checks from the manager’s slot, standing with her sixteen month-old son braced on her hip, fumbling with the metal door of the rent drop box.
“Can I give ya a hand?” I asked.
“No thanks, I got it,” she wheezed.
But I had already reached in and shut the door of the drop slot. I took the key from her, turning it in the lock and handing it back.
“Sorry, can’t resist. I’m a helper.”
She wiped her hair out of her eyes, tucked the rent envelopes under her arm and took the key from me. She gave a testy smile, too. People often think I’m pushy till they realize I’m only lending a hand.
“Thank you,” she said. “This is an ambitious armload, I guess.” She nodded at her young son, who squirmed in her arms. His mouth yawned open, clamped her shoulder. He gurgled out bubbles of saliva.
“Hey, by the way, does the building have a head of security?”
“We don’t have an anybody of security,” she shrugged.
“No?”
“Not unless you count me.” She laughed at this and smiled, bobbing her son in her arms. She had this huge smile that burned like a hundred-watt bulb, all full of big clean teeth.
“I won’t lie to you,” I said. “That leaves me a little uneasy.”
“Okay, well…” She searched for a response. “We’ve got surveillance cameras all around the premises.”
That was when I hit her with the business card. “If you need any extra assistance, call on me. Okay?”
She smiled and nodded, slipped the card into the back pocket of her shorts.
I returned to my apartment feeling pretty good about the exchange. Even if she didn’t ever find need to hire me, she’d know I was here in the event of an emergency.
She seemed to take my offer to heart, too. Next time I saw her, as I was wrapping up a workout in the weight room a couple days later, she stopped me in the courtyard, calling my name, hurrying over with some kind of flier she thought I should see.
It was a missing persons poster.
The pixelated image featured a little girl’s school photo–the kid grinning at the camera, one of her front teeth missing. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wore a headband with a small bumblebee ornament on it.
The girl’s name was Kaitlin Steiner and she was nine years-old. The description said she had dirty blond hair. She stood four foot ten-inches tall and weighed fifty-nine pounds. She’d last been seen wearing her school uniform, a white blouse with green corduroys, and a yellow knit cap.
“This girl’s family lives in the building across the street, other side of Franklin,” Elena said. “She disappeared Thursday afternoon while she was shopping with her Dad at the Oaks Gourmet on Beachwood.”
I glanced back to the flier. Little Kaitlin grinned her gap-toothed grin at me. The bumblebee on her headband looked plump and alive, as if it might fly off any second.
My body went light and buoyant. I felt energy–adrenalin, I guess it was–tingling through me. Someone had kidnapped a girl in my neighborhood, on my street. How could I let this stand?
Suddenly, I had a new mission.
I had to locate little Kaitlin.
“Anyway,” Elena said, “an LAPD community policing guy came around handing out the fliers. I figured since you worked in security, you’d want to keep your eyes peeled or whatever.”
I felt a swell of pride. “I’ll do that,” I told her. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need from me.”
I took the flier with me back to my apartment, shuffling up the stairs, studying the shoddy ink-jet image of little Kaitlin Steiner’s grinning face. When I swung open the door to the third floor and stepped into the hallway, the neighbor’s cat, Jasper, went skittering by me, chasing motes of allergens on the air. The custodian, a guy everyone called Frankie-Boy, had installed energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs a couple weeks ago. Their glow made everything look sallow and dead, even lively little critters like Jasper.
The feline belonged to Carter, the older gentleman a few doors down. He’d told me his theories about cats–how they should run free, come and go as they pleased. For that reason, he always kept his door cracked about five inches or so, so that Jasper could escape to the hallway as he pleased.
As I reached the entrance to my unit, I heard an apartment door whine open at the end of the hall. Footsteps hushed across carpet. I glanced over to catch the briefest glimpse of the old suntan man tottering into the stairwell, his buttocks jouncing beneath the thin polyester of his Speedos.
I wondered, did the old man live right here on my floor? I’d never seen him in the hallway. Then again, even in six weeks, I still hadn’t set eyes on most of the neighbors. But here he was, secreted in an apartment so close to my own. I peeped his unit number: 321. Then peered toward the stairwell door, ruminating on the old suntan man.
What was he doing up there on the roof all day?
Did he know the Steiner girl was missing? Did he care?
Some strange, begrudging anger fumed and bubbled within me. It came down to this: There was something cruel and macabre about his laying out to sun himself while a prowler snatched kids from our street.
A notion struck. I rushed back down to the lobby and outside the building to the callbox, pulling up the digital directory, thumbing buttons to toggle through the list of residents. Armed with the old man’s apartment number, I could look up his name.
There I found it: Vallow.
Only that. Vallow.
Was it a first name? Or last? Probably last.
But who was this guy? What was his deal?
I strolled along the front of the building, turning the name over in my head. I came flush with the brickwork of the northern wall, and stared down the scraggly dog run that ran behind the building, weed-ridden and filthy. Frankie-Boy was there, standing amidst several unopened bags of concrete mix, digging out the roots of a rotted lemon tree in the center of the run. He’d dug out a bowl around the root structure and now hunched over it, stabbing, tearing with a spade. I walked over to offer advice.
“You should cut down the tree first,” I called to him.
He stopped his work, turned to me. “Huh?”
I had never seen Frankie-Boy this close-up before. He was older than his nickname suggested. His hands were callused and hard, his eyes lined with crow’s feet, as if he’d spent too long squinting with incredulity at the complaints and requests of tenants.
I said, “You should cut down the tree and haul out the pieces, then pull out the roots last. You’ll save yourself a whole lot of toil.”
“Oh yeah?” He balanced on the staff of his spade, wiped sweat from his hairline. “You wanna help so bad, why don’t you grab a shovel and gimme a hand?”
I tried to think of a comeback to that. “Well, I need to get upstairs and–”
“That’s what I thought.” He snuffled, bent back to his work.
I stood there a second surveying the effort, but he had lots of roots and weeds to pull, plenty of cement to mix and pour, so I wandered away, having done what I could to offer a little commonsense guidance.
The two of them, my twin fixations–Vallow and the little Steiner girl–shared custody of my thoughts as I ambled back into the building. Emerging into my hall, I suddenly realized I had mislaid my keys somewhere. I tried my apartment door: locked.
I slumped on the jamb, irritated.
I started back for the stairs and wandered down to the courtyard once more. The door to Elena’s office stood open and I saw a buzz of activity within. Her son was crying, belting out lilting moans and whimpers. I swung my head in the doorway. Elena had him in one arm, propped against her. She was bouncing him, cooing into his ear as she hurried in circles around her desk, collecting papers with her free hand.
“Everything copacetic?”
She jerked her head up. “Oh yeah.” She managed an embarrassed grin in spite of it all. “He gets these recurring earaches is all.” She fumbled one-handed with a manila filing folder. “You need something?”
“I locked myself out of my unit just now. Any chance you could let me in?”
She nodded, bouncing her son against her. She slid open a desk drawer and drew out a small keychain, five or six keys jangling on it. The child’s cries peaked into a scream. Elena’s face pinched into an anxious wince.
“You know,” she said, turning and handing me the keychain, “can you do it yourself? Just run the keys back down to me when you’re done.”
I took the ring from her. “Sure thing.”
“It’s the one with the squarish bow,” she said, turning away and moving behind the desk to seat herself and cradle her pain-addled son.
And just like that, the keys to the castle had landed in my hands.
The realization didn’t even strike till I reached my own apartment and stood at the door, selecting the key Elena had described, the one with the squarish bow, the building’s master key, cut to open every pin tumbler door lock in the Del Rey Apartments.
But then I froze tight.
Glanced down toward Vallow’s door.
I looked around the hallway. Deserted. Three doors down, my neighbor Carter’s door stood open–only a crack–so that Jasper could slink in and out as he pleased; still, there was no sign of activity coming from that way.
Could I do this? Slip into Vallow’s apartment so easily?
Kaitlin Steiner’s smile flickered in my mind. The front tooth that had wiggled between her lips for weeks before falling out. The bumblebee headband. The yellow knit cap. Little Kaitlin Steiner. Yellow was her favorite color, no doubt.
I wandered down to #321, glancing back over my shoulder, stilling myself to listen for any sounds of approach. Nothing.
I stopped outside Vallow’s door. My whole body throbbed with the thrill of it. I slid the key into the knob’s keyway, turned it. I heard tumblers rattle and slide within.
Behind me: a whisper over carpet. I turned back to see Jasper padding out through his keeper’s open door. He took me in, an appraising glance, and scampered the other way down the hall.
I turned the handle and let myself into the suntan man’s apartment, bobbing inside and closing the door. The grimy hinges shrieked as I did, whining for a hit of WD-40.
I locked the door behind me and turned to appraise the place.
The cloud of fish-stink made a wrenching first impression.
I forced myself to breath through my mouth, ignore the odor.
The apartment, as I took it in, was larger and more spacious than mine, a full one-bedroom, the living room white-walled and spare and very bright. I noticed with a perk of curious amusement that he hadn’t hung curtains. The sliding glass door and the windows stood totally exposed, white light pouring in to touch every surface of the room.
The furnishings were antique-looking: lots of dark wood and ornamented chairs. A tall bookshelf held lots of hardcovers. I moved to it. This was a serious-looking book collection, all classics – Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, A Tale of Two Cities. I reached out to touch a leather spine and realized the books weren’t real. I reached up with both hands. It was some kind of plaster display, a false front of books, an illusion of serious literature.
This guy was seriously odd.
I moved to the open kitchen and stood at the threshold. Pretty barren–no appliances, no dishes in the sink. The fish stench was strongest in here. Pungent and steely. I felt it tickle at the mucus membranes of my nose, threatening to overwhelm my senses if my self-control laxed and I drew breath through my nostrils.
I opened the refrigerator and gaped inside. Brown paper-wrapped bundles from a meat counter of some grocery store. I picked up one and sniffed–fish for sure. There were condiment jars, too: ketchup, Dijon mustard, tartar sauce. I closed the door and investigated above. The top of the fridge was covered in vitamin bottles, dozens of them. Mostly fish oil and Vitamin D, several different brands of both. Tablets, capsules, gel caps. A large jar of pure cod liver oil.
Vallow took his vitamins, that was for sure.
I opened the lid of a large blue Rubbermaid trashcan nearby. A volcanic plume of sea-stink erupted from it. The wet contents were littered with tiny bones and slender spines. The intact head of a sea bass sat atop a heap of glop, its pale yellow eye peering up at me. There were empty cans too – sardines, tuna, mackerel, most of them recently consumed, the cans still wet and drippy with oil.
Abruptly my stomach lurched and heaved. I clenched back spew.
They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Standing alone in the brightness of Vallow’s apartment, gagging back a throatful of warm heave, I suspected “they” never visited #321 at the Del Rey Apartments.
I went to take a look at the bedroom. It was huge and shadowless. Rounding in the doorway, I had to stop immediately to take in what I was seeing. A massive industrial tanning bed dominated the room. Its metal feet, the pressure of its weight, had matted and torn the carpet in places. Huge cables stretched out from the bed in three different directions, reaching to outlets around the room, probably connected to different breakers. A smart move: This big bastard probably guzzled epic amounts of power.
The thing was at least seven feet long, probably a few hundred pounds. The orange baked-on powder finish screamed a brand name in flaring red letters: Solar Rayz, a smiley, stoned-looking sun character beside it. I lifted the lid and looked over the smooth acrylic interior, thin 100-watt bulbs stretching up and down the insides. How did he maintain this thing in here? How did he keep from blowing out every damn circuit in the building?
I closed the lid and stood back, surveying the huge coffin shape of it. I glanced around at the rest of the room. No regular bed; no pillows or blankets; no clothes. I moved toward a small hallway that reached into what I thought would be the bathroom, but it opened instead to an old-fashioned dressing room, dominated by a large antique vanity with mirror, makeup strewn about all over it. Not fashion makeup, though–stage makeup, thick pads of flesh-toned base, cups of brushes. A bare Styrofoam mannequin head stood beside the mirror, its face featureless.
Clothes lay strewn on the floor in here. A relief to me. I’d come to fear that perhaps Vallow relentlessly paraded about in that tiny red Speedo.
The cramped dressing room opened to the bathroom. It was the only square footage in the apartment that would accommodate shadows. Moldy air stagnated in the darkness here.
I turned back to the dressing room and started to think about leaving. That was when I heard a key slide into the keyway of the front door, heard it turn in the lock, heard the door whine open.
Vallow had returned home.
The tiny dressing room spun for an instant, a giddy little merry-go-round. My head went dizzy with fear. He was going to find me here in his apartment.
I braced myself for confrontation, but my head whoozed. I had to catch myself on the bathroom doorjamb. Out in the living room, I heard Vallow’s shuffling gait as he entered the apartment, slammed the door, double-locked it behind him.
I recoiled to the shadows of the bathroom. The fogged glass of the shower door stood open. I stepped in, noiselessly, amazed at how quiet I’d kept so far. I slid the shower door closed. If he flipped on the light, he’d see me for sure, or at least the blurry contours of me through the glass, but if he came and went without entering the bathroom, I could wait him out here.
My limbs went numb as I heard him move straight into the dressing room. He busied himself at the vanity, his old bones popping as he lowered himself into the chair. I eased my face to the crack between wall and shower door. Angling my head, my suntanned neighbor came into perfect view. He’d picked up a silk dressing gown and slid into it on his way in. As I watched, he leaned toward the mirror, examining himself. He reached up, gripped his hairline, wrenched at it. With shocking suddenness, that whole slicked mane of hair slid off his head.
Only a wig. Damn convincing one, too.
Gummy adhesive spotted his naked scalp where he’d glued it on. Without the hair piece, his head was greasy and perfectly bald, mottled with dark brown liver spots.
He leaned forward and inspected himself. He reached up and felt the leathered skin of his face. With a delicate thumb and forefinger, he stripped a fleshy adhesive piece from below his eyes, dislodging a prosthetic nose and dropping it into a tray on the table.
It was all happening so immediately, so matter-of-factly. The organic material of him getting pieced off and dropped aside. Each discarded bit revealing more of the picture underneath.
His false nose removed, Vallow’s massive nostrils stood exposed–hairless holes in his head, riddled with bright red burst capillaries. He had no nasal septum, only two nickel-sized orifices opening straight out of the stale pink of his sinus cavity.
He opened his mouth and reached in, plucking out two sets of dentures, splashing them into a glass of soaking liquid.
Then he reached up with both hands, dragging open the fleshy curtain of one eyelid, pinching his eyeball between thumb and forefinger. He popped it right out, those strange, cartoonish blue eyes. They were glass, the sort a blind person might wear. His hand fumbled across the table, finding its way to a small plastic case. He dropped the glass eye into one cup of it and reached up to pull out the other, snapping closed the lid. Then he picked up a cloth, dampened it with rubbing alcohol from an open bottle and wiped his face, scoring off thick swaths of base and blush. Cleaning off layers of makeup.
Abruptly the cloth and his hand went still. He dropped the rag and tipped his face upward. The massive dark holes of his nostrils, red and inflamed, dilated. They expanded and contracted, puckered and constricted.
He was smelling something on the air.
For the first time that afternoon, I turned truly terrified. I know adrenalin, I’ve studied up on it. I understand what’s happening when my brain washes itself in epinephrine, tightening the muscles of my arms and legs. I recognize the feeling of the blood vessels contracting, my air passages dilating, reaching open to draw breath in anticipation of combat or escape. I’ve felt my heart leap awake in my chest and start piston-pumping blood through my body. That was all happening now as I watched Vallow rise, still sniffing the air, and turn into the bathroom.
The moldy bathtub smell was all I detected. But Vallow, he smelled something else entirely. With manhole-scaled nostrils like that, with the sweaty odor of me wafting directly up through the cavities of his nasal passage, he could surely smell me hiding there.
Through the frosted glass of the shower door, I saw him advance. Then the blurred shape of his arm reached out and he slid open the shower door.
We faced each other.
This creature, exposed before me, was hideous. The greasy, hairless skin blotched and discolored, pinkish-red and orange and brown. The eyelids flapping loose over the dewy cavities where his eyes had once been, before the constant sunlight enflamed them with milky cataracts and finally burned them out.
Vallow stood there in his blindness for a long second. His upturned face perked in the air as he sniffed and snorted at the smell of me, trying to place the odor.
Then he said, “Oh, you. From the rooftop.”
When he spoke, his mouth, free of his dentures, was a mass of blood-colored gums and stubby black teeth, tiny sharp triangles that jutted out of all that sickly softness. They were tightly spaced, some cracked, chipped, all of them sharp. Something in that monstrous mouth reminded me of a shark’s, churning out of the deep, lips pulling back, gums and teeth distending to grip into flesh.
I huddled there, my arms so tight and rigid they had started to ache, and stared at him. His face, alight with discovery, went abruptly slack, like he was somehow disappointed.
He turned and shambled away.
I stood alone there in the darkened bathroom, gross with fear. I straightened up, waited. I heard sounds of him shuffling about in the living room, but he didn’t return to check on the intruder in the bathtub.
I had no idea what was happening. My mind leapfrogged back through the bizarre timeline of the last several minutes. Vallow’s horrid face burned into my mind. I didn’t want to face it again, but what else could I do? I couldn’t cower here in this shower all day, praying he would leave again.
I climbed from the tub and hesitated in the bathroom doorway.
At last I padded out to the main room to face him.
Out here the fabled LA sunlight lit up every inch of Vallow’s sun-withered face, those oozing eye-cavities, the black dagger teeth.
He stooped at the bookshelf, where he’d withdrawn the plaster façade of the phony bookcovers, his hands fumbling amongst the heap of knickknacks behind it, emerging with a large leather wallet.
He turned, and his nostrils perked in the air. I was certain now that he couldn’t see me. He was totally blind. He maneuvered the apartment through smell and sense-memory. Still, those nostrils, opening and contracting, they were painting a picture of me now.
We appraised each other, the two of us.
I had no idea what to say or do.
Finally his voice creaked, “Are you going to kill me?”
The question had been plaintive, full of resignation. If he could have seen me blanch at it, he would have had his answer. I flummoxed and stuttered out a “no.” And with that, the old suntan man, this creature laid bare and meek, his face laxed into a mask of humiliation. I understood the violation I’d performed by catching him unadorned like this. This shark-toothed, eyeless creature was a horror, sure, but a weary one. A pensioner-monster.
He wouldn’t hurt me.
He probably couldn’t.
Watching his expression, my mind veered sideways to some long-ago memory. Hiking in the Smokies with my dad. A rattlesnake, an Eastern Diamondback, black and cream in color, coiled on the trail, tongue lapping the air. I had set to panicking immediately, till my dad repeated that old chestnut of the wild, that truism that compassed even poisonous things: “That snake is more scared of you than you are of him.”
In the languorous warmth of the apartment, my guts coiled like that snake, I realized how cruelly I had trespassed in entering here. Vallow knew what he was; that’s why he wanted to keep himself hidden.
His voice rasped and quavered again. “Have you come here to kill me?”
I answered louder now. “No, not at all.”
The moist sockets of his dead eyes went round with relief. He dropped his head, reached up a yellow-nailed hand to rub the withered dome of his scalp.
“Thank God,” he said. “You have no idea how much effort I’ve put into survival.”
I wondered what he meant by that, but wasn’t about to ask. For some reason, overwhelmed by the fully visible contours of his foulness, I could only think to say, “It’s really bright in here.”
He shrugged and shuffled to the counter, knowing the floor’s footage by heart. He picked up the black Wayfarers he’d placed there on his way in, and handed them to me.
“Here, borrow these,” he said. “They’ll protect your eyes.”
I took the monster’s sunglasses and slid them on. The shading helped. It dimmed the sunlight, plus it shadowed the appearance of him as well. I felt so foolish, so vulnerable like this. I was that child again on the hiking trail in the Smokies, unknowing and afraid.
“You’ll have to pardon me,” the old man said, withdrawing a bottle of vitamins from the top of the fridge. “But I have to take my vitamins. I can’t go long without them.”
I nodded vaguely, as if this made sense, as if everything here struck me as perfectly reasonable.
Vallow popped the cap on the vitamin bottle, tapped out a palmful of large 1,000-milligram Vitamin D tablets. He tossed them straight into his gullet, dry-swallowed them. Then he replaced the bottle atop the fridge and opened a cupboard, drawing out a water glass.
“Better have a drink, too, or I might pass out,” he said. “You mind?”
“Not at all.”
He opened the fridge and collected a bottle of Omega-3 fish oil. He moved to the counter and poured himself several ounces of the viscous yellow fluid. He carried the glass back around the counter, nipping at it like some old fat cat with his after-dinner brandy.
“You don’t understand the trouble it would be for me to leave here, to run again, to find another home.” He paused and sipped the oily fish syrup. The smell of it, fatty and briny, hung in the space between us. He picked up the leather cash wallet and brandished it for me. “I would be willing to exchange a fair amount of cash to preserve my secrecy.”
My guilt did the talking. “You’re my neighbor. I won’t say a peep.” Then adding: “And I don’t want your money.”
He ignored that last assertion, setting his glass aside to unsnap the wallet and draw out a small stack of bills. Twenties, mostly. He handed me the cash.
I didn’t accept.
“I know you don’t need it,” he said. “But take it anyway.”
I did need it, though.
Watching the creature proffer that bundle of bills, I ran a mental inventory of my tumbling checking account balance. Did he know I was unemployed? Had he noticed me bumbling around the building and intuited my situation?
Maybe Vallow was wilier then he seemed.
“Take it,” he rasped again.
It was only a few hundred dollars, from the looks of it. Probably nothing to him. I reached out and accepted the grubby bills, buried them in my pocket.
“This wasn’t why I came here,” I said to justify myself. It came out sounding defensive. His response was measured, unaccusing.
“Then why did you come?”
“There’s a girl missing. A little girl.”
Vallow nodded. “I heard about it on the news.” He filled in the blanks in an instant and said, “Oh, you thought I took this girl?”
“No way—no!” The stuttering again. “I was only trying to help, that’s it.”
“I would never hurt a child,” he said, lifting the glass of fish oil to his lips. I heard his jagged black teeth clink the rim as he took a swallow. “My time is entirely devoted to my own survival.”
“How do you mean?”
“With my kind, our bodies can’t retain vitamins like yours can.” He gestured to the fish oil in his hand. “My skin refuses to retain Vitamin D. Without constant quantities of it, my bones will weaken; my organs will rot.” He raised a finger to the light pouring in his wide windows. “You see, if I’m out of the sun for long, I’ll die.”
“And the tanning bed…”
“It’s where I pass my nights. It helps on cloudy days, too.”
I had the sense this was a recitation–calm, eminently reasonable–he’d delivered before. Many times. He finished his glass of fish oil and set it on the counter.
“Now this missing girl,” his shoulders slumping at the thought of her, “I hope they find her. But as you can see, I have no clues to offer.”
He was right, of course: I’d searched his unit myself.
I wobbled on my feet. It was hot in here, and the fish stink was getting to me. I felt an overwhelming urge to depart. I took off his sunglasses, handed them back. He didn’t detect the gesture, so I gently reached out to take his hand and place the Wayfarers into his palm. The feel of his sundried skin, it didn’t repulse me. It felt surprisingly human.“I’m gonna go now,” I told him.
He accompanied me to the door. “Good luck with the girl,” he said, his tone somber. “I hope she turns up safely.”
“I don’t think there’s much chance of that, but thanks for the sentiment anyway.”
I turned the knob and opened the door. Vallow eased back toward the kitchen, out of view to any passerby. I stepped into the relative cool of the hallway and closed the door gently behind me. I thought I’d feel relief at getting away from him; instead I felt only the numbing anonymity of my routines come seeping back in.
My mind went on whirring like an engine belt, circling and circling, as I returned to my apartment. So entirely did Vallow and our encounter occupy my mind that I forgot to return Elena’s key ring. After a few hours, she knocked on my door, visibly annoyed, her son placated now and padding around on the carpet behind her. I handed back the key with apologies. No explanation, though. No mention of the suntan man.
Twilight and then darkness came; still I couldn’t stop thinking about Vallow. I counted the cash he’d given me: $240. Feeling flush, I headed out for a dim sum place in the Gower Gulch. I took the stairs down to the courtyard and wandered out to the street. The air, scented with juniper, had cooled considerably. I stopped on the sidewalk and listened to the whisper of the night breeze.
Lingering there, I found myself glancing down the dog run alongside the building. Frankie-Boy had accomplished a lot today. The lemon tree was gone, the strip of earth plucked clean of weeds. He had mixed and laid much of the concrete, too. Only a few more feet of earthen ground remained to be covered. The wheelbarrow, shovels, cement bags stood clustered against the side of the building, awaiting his return in the morning.
Eyeing this, I detected a rustle in the darkness–some shadowed shape out on the dog run. A possum, maybe? We were close enough to the hills that it could have been a coyote, too.
The shape leapt suddenly, unveiled itself. It was the neighbor’s cat, Jasper, clawing at something that lay just under the pad of today’s fresh-laid cement.
I moved closer to inspect, curious now. Jasper raised his haunches as he probed. I heard an earthy tearing sound. Was he digging out tree roots? The cat wrenched something loose and scampered to me.
Between his jaws: a tattered scrap of yellow knitting.
Yellow.
The nighttime started spinning circles around me.
The flier Elena had handed me...
The description of Kaitlin Steiner’s clothing at the time of her disappearance...
A yellow knit hat.
Jasper leapt away into the shadows, disappeared into the night before I could reach for him to retrieve the scrap of evidence he’d dug from under the cement.
I understood then why Frankie-Boy had wanted to dig up this tree, this section of earth, why he wanted to pave it over so quickly.
He needed to dispose of a body.
Frankie-Boy, you monster…
Vallow wasn’t the only one around here keeping scary secrets.
The thought of Kaitlin buried in the dirt, it fired some rage inside me. Perhaps time had come to pit secrets against secrets.
My legs felt like boiled noodles as I hurried back inside, rushed up the stairs, trembling, wild with vengeful heat. I rushed down the third-floor hall, passing my own door, stopping outside Vallow’s, knuckling it hard.
I saw a shadow cross the peephole. His voice called out. “Who is it?”
“Me. From earlier. I need to come in.”
Locks turned and jangled. The door opened, Vallow obscured behind it. I rushed into the apartment. It was dark but for the lambent hum of the tanning bed in the next room. In the eerie electric half-glow, I faced the old monster, who closed the door and stood before me. He could see I was seething with discovery.
“What is it?”
“Can I ask you something?”
He nodded, wary.
“Skin,” I said, “is the very best source of Vitamin D, isn’t it?”
He nodded again. “Yes. Fish skin, animal skin. It’s rich in Vitamin D.”
“I’m talking about human skin.”
His reaction was virtually imperceptible. In the pale blue shadows, his empty eye sockets thinned to slits. “How do you mean?” he said.
“I’m asking if you’ve ever thought to feed on a human?”
“No,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “I could never hurt anyone.” There was something in the set of his face, the expressionless response. He was lying.
“But what if you could?”
“What did you have in mind?” he asked.
“Someone in particular. Someone who deserves it. What if I could lure him to you?”
Vallow’s head took on a quizzical tilt, curiosity loosening the old joints of his neck. In the darkness I saw his sightless face catch fire with the recognition of what I was positing. He was game.
He needed his vitamins, after all.
And I just wanted to help.

First Next
There had always been a debate as to whether psychic ability was real or not. There were psychics who sold their wares on television. There were mediums in places like New Orleans and Vegas. I had always dismissed these things as coincidence because science was my mistress.
On Thursday, the argument was settled once and for all. Frauds were revealed and real psychics were discovered. It started as a dull ache near my temples that slipped down the back of my skull. It felt like a pent-up pressure like when you have blocked sinuses only worse, and it kept getting even worse. By the end of the first day, we were screaming the world over. Every psychic on the planet was being contacted by them. It had to be them. It was like someone was pressing a dull rounded rod into my skull right between my eyes and with it came an image. It was a strange collection of glyphs arranged in row.
They were just shapes, but the pain was real. I screamed like I had never screamed before. It hurt horribly, but those shapes would not go away. They would not stop. Through the pain I managed to wonder why they were doing this. Why were they attacking me? What did the word mean? That was when the pain ended for me. I was into my third day of the psychic attack when it occurred to me. It was not just a string of shapes. It was a word. The pain was less severe now and knowing that it was a word got me to thinking about what that word was. What was the word they wanted us to know? And like that, the shapes changed and became letters. I knew the word. I knew it and understood it. I had even seen it before. They taught that word in school. It was a word American's feared, because it was the only word left behind when the colonists in Roanoke, Virginia disappeared in 1595.
As it turned out, I was not the only one who had been given the word. It was given to all the psychics. Some suffered only a short time, merely hours. Others suffered longer, days like I had. When the pain was linked to the understanding of the word, the call went out, and the word was whispered to the rest of those like me. In the news reports, the psychics all stopped screaming when they heard the word whispered into their ears. Nobody knew why they wanted us to know this word. What did it mean? What was “croatoan”? I did not know. Understanding of the meaning was not required, only that we know the word.
The EMP blast came the moment the last psychic uttered the word. People with pacemakers dropped dead. People on life support died. There were traffic accidents, and a few key industrial facilities suffered explosions and accidents as equipment went offline in a cataclysmic chain of events. Six planes who'd ignored the flying ban—two of them smugglers—crashed as a result of power loss. The power worldwide was off. The planet was dark for the first time in my life. I saw more stars that night than ever before, but that was not a lot. The saucers blocked our view of the universe, but what I saw was beautiful.
When the power returned, so did the televisions. With it came the news of all the deaths. Tens of thousands died. A call to attack the saucers went up. It seemed this was the first volley fired, but then another newscast aired. In the darkness of the power outage, a solitary saucer had descended and come to land. It was not one of the Iowa-sized saucers. This seemed more a shuttle or a skiff. It was a little over two football fields in diameter, and it was sitting in a field outside a small town in southern Kansas. Aliens had landed in Cherryville. The moment they said the little town's name, I rushed outside to see; I lived in Cherryville. I could not see the ship from where I lived, but I knew the field from the newscast. I knew where it was and so did the military. Their trucks started arriving in town about the same time I decided to go see the saucer firsthand.
The military was quickly establishing a perimeter around the craft. Several helicopters could be heard in the distance, coming to survey the situation. The field that the saucer had descended upon was large. Just last year there had been a local fair in this field very field, and I distinctly remembered a Ferris wheel in the exact spot that the saucer now occupied. I am sure I was not the only observer to note that coincidence.
It was not what I expected. The ship was metal like our own. There were dents in the hull and scorch marks on the side but no door that I could see. Though, I did not walk all the way around it to verify the fact. I kind of felt like I was looking at the Millennium Falcon. I expected Han Solo to pop out with Chewy in tow, but no dice. The ship just sat there silent with birds perched on top and cattle grazing beneath it. This was not the ET event I imagined it to be. CDC trucks arrived an hour after the landing. The entire population of the town was gathered off to the side to watch. Homeland Security and the FBI showed up. Politicians arrived by the end of the day. A consortium of scientists came and conferred with the alphabet groups. The worst of all who came were the theists.
The church goers and dooms day cults converged on Cherryville, filling the streets and preaching their contradictory messages. Their followers came with them. For three days, the ship sat there doing nothing. Vendors of various goods descended on the field. Hot dogs, burgers, funnel cakes, beer, and cheesy alien souvenirs were sold by the thousands. Small tents popped up only to be replaced by bigger tents mere hours later.
People picnicked on the grass like it was a Saturday in the park. Half of those in attendance were tense and scared. They alternated between anxiously staring at the saucer and whispering to one another in hushed tones as if the saucer may hear them. The other half were thrilled and exhilarated. I was neither. I was in pain. I was having another psychic episode. Luckily, I realized that the symbols I saw in my head were words and avoided the worst of the pain. The word was a simple one this time: “Meet.” No other word accompanied it, but there was a compulsion to act. I resisted this and instead bought a funnel cake from a vendor.
A murmur went up from the crowd as I spooned blueberry sauce onto my cake. I could not see what was happening, and I climbed up on a truck’s bumper to see. The truck’s driver glared at me for a moment, but his eyes were drawn to the same place mine were: the saucer. A group of five men and two women were striding out into the field between the perimeter of armed soldiers and the ship. The ambassadors of humanity had been selected.
There was no huge ramp that descended or door of white light that opened from the saucer. There was a small port on the bottom of the ship, a long ladder, and a middle-aged white man in peculiar dress. The man climbed down. He caught a brown case that was dropped to him from someone unseen within. The murmuring in the crowd grew louder as people laid eyes on the first alien they had ever seen.
I bought another funnel cake.
I watched the man from the ship take a moment to compose himself before beginning his march to those who awaited him. A gasp of disbelief went up when the pilot suddenly stopped and raised a foot. He had discovered a Kansas landmine. He studied the bottom of his boot for a moment then spent the next few moments trying to wipe the cow poop off on the grass. When he was satisfied that his boot was clean enough, he covered the last little bit to the seven ambassadors of man. He set his brown case down on the ground and pulled from it a tray. He spent a few moments unfolding legs so that a small table stood before them. Then, from the bag, he pulled what looked like an iPad. It was a small handheld tablet which he set before the group. I could see him touching it then looking expectantly at the seven. I felt a pain in my head again. The word “meet” came to me once more followed by that compulsion to walk.
I tried strawberry sauce on my funnel cake this time. It was delicious.
As I continued watching the events unfold, it became clear that whatever the pilot was trying to convey to the seven was not coming across. My head suddenly hurt. A new word formed: “Wait.” I found another truck parked nearby and climbed up to sit on the edge of the bed so I could see and still eat. I did not realize anything was up until I noticed that the people around me were backing away quickly. I looked around for the cause and saw the seven ambassadors walking across the field toward the funnel cake vendor. The pilot of the ship walked beside them. I did not want to be here directly in their path. I tried to find a place to set my cake so I could hop down, but the truck bed had rails and there just was not a good place to set it. I decided to jump for it and slowly slid off. My rotund belly bouncing as I landed. With my hands full of cake, I did not have one to spare to catch myself as I tumbled forward to the ground. My funnel cake flipped off my plate, strawberry sauce and all, and landed on the pilot's boots. A groan went up from the ambassadors. The pilot looked at the mess on his shoes then at me and pointed his finger in my face.
"Him? You want him?" a tall blonde in the middle asked, studying me in disbelief.
"What?" I asked, struggling to rise. One of the male ambassadors, a neatly coiffed man with a red tie offered me a hand. My head suddenly hurt.
Croatoan. The pilot looked at me with raised brows and jerked his head toward the seven.
"What's he want with you?" another ambassador asked. This man had gold rimmed glasses and a cheap dress shirt from Target.
"He . . ." I looked at the faces of the seven, suddenly feeling very exposed. "He says ‘Croatoan.’"
"What's that mean?" the blonde asked, as if I would know. The pilot answered for him. He stepped forward and extended his hand. In my head the word formed again.
"Croatoan," I said, as the blonde nervously took the alien's hand. They shook. The pilot moved to the man in the red tie. The word was there again. "Croatoan." The word appeared every time he extended his hand to shake, and I realized what he was saying. "It means hello."
"He said ‘hello?’" Gold-rims asked.
"I think he's been saying it all along. I think that's what ‘Croatoan’ means. It's them saying hello." I glanced over at the pilot as another word formed. "He says ‘yes.’"
The ambassadors were suddenly very excited. They could finally express themselves. They could get the answers they craved.
"Ask him why he's here," the blonde instructed. I shrugged and turned to the man.
"Why are you here?" I asked out loud, repeating the question. He smirked at the absurdity.
"I could have done that," the blonde declared angrily.
"Then you do it," I said, turning to walk away. "He understands you just fine, but I don't think you have the ability to understand him."
"Why not?" Gold-rims asked.
"They're psychic," I said. That should have been obvious, and I was beginning to question the wisdom of whoever put these people in charge of representing Earth.
Funny, the pilot observed.
"I know," I told the visitor. "That's what this world is like sometimes. People talking above others or talking below them. No one ever talks to them."
Good? It was a question from the pilot.
"Sometimes. No. I don't know these people personally. They're big wigs," he frowned. "Er . . . they are important," I said, sweeping away the euphemism.
Ah, he responded inside my mind, understanding.
"So, why are you here?" I asked again.
Time for the Harvest, he seemed very none threatening, but I took a step away anyway.
"Hey, Gomer," the blonde snapped, "we're the ambassadors. Not you. Just ask the questions and translate."
"Screw you Cactus Kathy," I snapped back. "I don't work for you. I don't know you. This don't concern me."
"Today, it does," the man in the red tie declared, motioning to a couple of soldiers. I turned to walk away, and they stepped before me with rifles in their hands. They did not point them, but I got the message.
"Fuck you," I said, pointing to the first soldier. "Fuck you," I said to the next. "Fuck you and you and you," I told the others, pointing to each in turn. "Fuck all of you. This don't concern me," I declared. I was too pissed to check my privilege. One of the silent four ambassadors, suddenly stepped forward. It was the second woman in the entourage. She wore red-rimmed glasses, and a dress that came just below her knees.
"Hi. I'm Mercy Mangrove. I'm with the State Department. I'm speaking for the president here." She gestured to red tie. "This is Aaron McDonald with Homeland. The man in the gold-rimmed glasses is Peter Sang." I could not help smirking at this. "He's our everything dealing with space attaché. Your adversary there," Mercy told me, gesturing to the blonde, "is Tessa Barnes—NSA. The other three men back there are Richard Weaver, Michael Sommers, and Eric Whitehall. They're FBI, CIA, and my UN counterpart respectfully. We don't really need you to serve as translator. We could find another. There were thousands of psychics contacted, but we're here now. We could obviously make you, but we'd rather you just . . . cooperate. This is a little too important for petty squabbles. Don't you think? We don't want any misunderstandings between us and them." She paused and stuck out her hand. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Albus," I lied. "Albus Dumbledore."
"Well, Albus. Would you help us?" I looked at the seven ambassadors and wondered how they missed a reference like that.
"We need to know why they came," Mercy said. "Could you ask them that?"
"I did already," I grumbled, glancing toward the smirking pilot.
"Has it responded?" the blonde prodded.
"Yes. He has. He said it's time for the Harvest." There was a low moan of fear from the civilians close enough to hear. The pilot looked around, even as the seven ambassadors conferred together. It only took a look from each to the others to relay their thoughts. It was not telepathy. It was a military intuition. I was beginning to fear they had a contingency in place if this all went sideways. I decided to cooperate. I was hoping I was wrong, but I was doubtful. Scared men do stupid things and there was not one ambassador among them with an unclenched sphincter.
"They came here to harvest us?" Aaron from Homeland Security asked in disbelief. I swallowed hard.
"I suppose." I replied. Aaron adjusted his red tie. He studied the pilot more closely, trying to determine the creature's strength and weakness. I did not wait for the question to come. I knew what they wanted to know, because I did too. "What do you mean by Harvest?" I asked of the pilot. He motioned us back toward the little table and the tablet they had left behind.
Explain, the pilot smiled disarmingly. I shrugged.
"He says he'll explain if we follow." It was getting easier to covert the words into English. The pain was lessening each time a new word came. I was realizing that with the word came a sense of connotation with it. Another word formed and I was confused by it. It was their symbols that changed to the letter A. No connotation. Then it happened again with for different shapes and the letter that formed was E. I began to suspect what this was. I relaxed and let the shapes come to my mind. It hurt but only at first. Pretty soon, all the vowels and shapes represented in the alien alphabet streamed into my head like cable television. There was a pause followed by a stream of common things like combs and coffee cups and apples and so on. With each picture came a set of symbols. I was getting a crash course in the alien language.
"Are you okay?" Mercy asked.
"What?" The stream in my head was distracting.
"You look like you're in pain," she said, falling in beside me.
"Yeah. He's . . . teaching me his language, I think." The pilot glanced back and nodded once. Mercy caught this and smiled back politely.
"What do you think he means by Harvest?" she asked.
"Not sure," I grunted. "There's a connotation that accompanies the words he gives me. I-I don't think it’s bad."
"He doesn't think it’s bad or you don't think it’s bad?" she asked, and I realized there was a difference. If the pilot had come to Earth to harvest humanity for food or slavery, then of course, he would not think it bad whereas mankind would. There was much to consider in this. Not everything may be as it seems.
"Good question," I applauded. "Guess we'll find out."
The moment I saw the pad on the little table he had set up, I recognized what was written on the front. It was a formula. The pilot touched the screen. A border of symbols appeared around the edges. He seemed to touch these at random. It took me a moment longer to recognize these. They were numbers. Suddenly, a new screen appeared. In the center of the screen was a rust-colored planet. A moon circled it. In the distance was a sun. The pain in my head flared as the stream of images and symbols sped up. I could feel my heart beating with my eyes. The steady thrum of my heartbeat blurred my vision momentarily, and I staggered. I probably would have fallen if not for Red Tie. Aaron caught me by the elbow and helped prop me up.
"He's still fiddling with your head?" Aaron asked, shooting a glance toward Gold-rims. Peter was studying me, and I could see the wheels turning in his mind. It was like I could see the itch in his brain. That man wanted to dissect me.
"Come on, Albus. Don't give up now. We still need you," Aaron declared playfully. "What is he showing us?"
"Ask him," I gasped. "You ask, I'll translate his answer," I said. I was really regretting dropping that funnel cake. It might be my last.
"What is—" Aaron began, but Mercy put a hand on his arm to quiet him.
"Before we begin, may we know with whom we speak?" The ambassadors had already introduced themselves when first they met, but due to their inability to understand their visitor, they never received a name in reply or a station. They did not know if it was a janitor to whom they spoke or an emperor.
The alien stepped back from the table and smiled, eyes twinkling with mirth and pleasure.
Of course, he thought.
"Of course," I relayed. An image leapt into my mind. It was a strand of DNA. Several of the spots on the strand stood out brightly. I looked at him and accidentally sent my thought back.
That's your name? I asked telepathically.
That is who I am, he replied conversationally.
Do you have a name? Do you have a symbol identifier that translates to our language? He seemed confused then shrugged. It was a very human reaction.
"Well," Mercy asked.
"His name doesn't translate. It's a strand of DNA. Give me a moment," I pleaded, then went back into the alien's mind.
May we give you a name? It is our custom. He smiled plaintively and shrugged again, gesturing for me to proceed. I thought of a name, smirked, and threw it into his brain. He considered it and shrugged again but followed it with a quick nod.
"His name is Luke," I announced.
"That's a very terrestrial name," Tessa observed disapprovingly.
"Yeah. He allowed me to pick a name for him. They don't name like we do," I explained peevishly. I did not like the NSA chick. She was rude and aggressive.
"Does he have a rank or station or are you going to pick one of those for him too?" Tessa fired back. I did not comment. A look from Mercy gave me pause. It was a warning to stay on point.
Do you have a position or rank among your people? I inquired to Luke’s mind. Luke seemed insulted and irritated by this question. I tried to put his mind at rest. It is a peculiarity of custom. They need to know in order to understand what level of respect to afford you. Leaders of the people receive more respect than tradesmen. I sent an image of a chess board into his mind and quickly identified the pieces and their importance overall. He sent back the image of a bishop. I relayed this to them.
Mercy stepped forward then and bowed respectfully. "On behalf of the United States of America and its territories, I welcome Luke to Earth." It was a formal greeting and Luke bowed in return, taking his cue from Mercy.
This is tedious, I whispered into his brain. I saw the corner of his mouth twitch with mirth.
Indeed, he replied. It's like this every time we stop. Go. Stop. Bow. Kowtow. Dance. Eat. Hug. It's the job though. What about you? What's your story? he asked, bowing to each of the ambassadors in turn.
Just a guy. I eat. I sleep. I hunt and fish and drink too much. I sent images of me working at a quarry and driving a front-end loader into his mind. He shook his head sadly as if he was sorry for my plight.
Sorry, he responded. A connotation of great empathy accompanied it.
What are you sorry for? I enjoy my life. No word came back in reply, but a sudden sense of relief flooded my mind. It came from him.
We didn't mean for this. We didn't mean to take this long. The Harvest is harder on the colonists if the population grows too big. We like to come when the colony is smaller and collect you. We were delayed.
"What is this?" Aaron asked unaware of the conversation between me and the alien. He crowded the table so he could see the tablet.
Here, Luke replied, before we arrived. A feeling of countless centuries sifting by flooded my mind, shrinking it.
"It's Earth before they made things grow on it," I explained in awe.
"You mean before they terraformed it?" Gold-rims inquired. Peter adjusted his glasses and shouldered one of the silent ambassadors out of his way. "Are you saying they created Earth?"
Yes. We terraformed it. We populated it. We are you, Luke revealed silently. I felt weak. This was heavy reality. I did not relay what was said immediately. I was too dazed and needed time to process it.
"Albus," Peter called irritably. "Is—"
"Yea-Yes," I blurted. "It's all them. They terra-whatevered the planet. They made everything grow. They populated it. They put it all here. They put us here. He says we're them. Earth was one of their colonies."
"This is astounding," Mercy murmured in disbelief. "How do we know he's telling the tru—"
"How do we know he isn't lying?" Tessa demanded, giving the alien a scathing look. There was sudden wrenching in my mind, like I was being pushed aside.
"You don't," I fired back hotly, "and what does it matter? There's more of us than you. Do you think we care if you don't trust us? You don't get to feel safe. Not now. As far as you're concerned, we're a deity with a fist full of lighting posed and ready to jam it up your ass anytime we feel like it." The pressure eased and I found myself suddenly sliding back into the driver's seat. I looked at Luke for an explanation, and he simply shrugged in apology.
Meet my sister. Another image of DNA popped into my head. I knew it was different than Luke's, but I could not tell how I knew it. Luke turned back to the ship. Oh, sorry in advance.
"Explain yourself, Gomer," Tessa barked, storming over to stand before me. "I can snap my fingers and have your ass on a C130 to black site in Mogadishu getting fuc—"
"Shut up," I snapped at her. "It wasn't me. Evidently, they can use me as a megaphone when it suits them." I followed Luke's gaze—we all did—back to the ladder beneath the ship. "It was her."
All eyes turned to the ship just in time to watch a lithe figure drop the thirty-five feet from the ship to the ground. She did not touch the ladder on the way down but managed to land softly as a cat upon the grass. That was fifty feet away, and I heard no sound as she landed. She was different than her brother. She sported a long ponytail that flowed through loops fastened to her top. The loops followed her spine down the center of her back. She was not dressed like her brother with his bizarre jacket and tunic. She wore a weird form of armor made of small polished grey plates and small twinkling links. She wore some form of holstered weapon on her right hip, and a sheathed blade on her back with a stubby three-inch hilt. I didn't need to ask for her rank among the alien horde, but Luke supplied an image any way of a knight. He planted the chess piece in my head.
This was a warrior. I had seen lots of soldiers growing up. Looking around the perimeter of the clearing, it was easy to see that she belonged among them. I was in love with her and terrified of her at the same time.
All around the perimeter, the sound of soldiers clicking their rifle safeties could be heard. If Luke's sister heard it, she did not show it. She never spared a look for the men in green. Her focus was Tessa. If the sound of her breath catching in her throat was any indication, Tessa realized this.
"Meet Leia everyone," I announced flippantly, using humor to manage my fear, "Luke's sister." It was a reference they all got. Seven sour-faced government officials fixed me with a look of undiluted animosity. They did not find it as funny as I did.
Leia was not her brother. She was no diplomat. She was oil thrown on a spark. She would either cause things to flare or snuff them out. I could see that Tessa was intimidated, but the soft mechanical whine of an Abram's tank turret swiveling in the background bolstered her diminished courage. An Abrams backing you will do that.
I would like to think that as a people, we were above this. Sure, we had a history of conquering less advanced peoples, but this was different. We were on the losing end this time. There were one hundred six Iowa-sized flying saucers flitting around in space like an iron knuckled juggernaut posed to attack. It was my deepest desire that this would temper diplomatic relations. It was not a matter of whose junk was the biggest. We were standing under an alien armada the likes of which no Earthling could conceive. They had clearly won the contest. I just hopped Tessa was not going to be a sore loser about it.
Enough, Luke patiently declared, drawing a malice-filled look from his sister. We're diplomats, sister mine. Act like it.
Diplomats? she sneered. We're here to do our jobs. This isn't a negotiation. We've been here for 371 rotations. We have waited seventy-one rotations longer than that the council demands of us. We need to harvest and move on. You know what's coming. We wait, and they'll catch up and this colony is lost. We'll all be lost. We've lost too many already.
Leia stopped berating her brother and fixed Tessa with a look of challenge. She hinders the process. His sister's hand slid up to the sword on her back, the hilt suddenly elongated in anticipation of being drawn. Luke's calmness broke as he saw the first couple inches of bared steel slip from her scabbard.
Enough! Luke bellowed. It wasn't like the back-and-forth Luke and I had been enjoying. His command was like a fist. His sister was blasted backwards and sprawled on her back.
"Enough!" I roared in concert with him. I was dizzy from my sudden ejection from the driver seat. Everyone was looking at me. I must have been a sight. My eyes were wild with fear. I had not merely been pushed to the side. I had been hurled like a stone into the furthest corners of my mind. I had just shouted down some alien Amazon. Well, I did, but I did not. I looked to Luke, my hands quivering in fear.
I'm sorry, he said simply.
"What's going on?" someone asked. I was not sure who had asked so I ignored them.
Who did that? I asked, feeling naked. I felt like some serial killer had skinned me and walked around in my flesh.
I did, Luke answered. I don't like dominating colonists, but you were too close. If I hadn't taken over, I would have broken you. I looked to Leia, still dazed by what had happened.
I don't wear a weapon because I don't need one, he explained. Again, I'm sorry. Give me a moment to tend to this, and then I will return to talk. Please extend my apologies to the rest. This will only take a moment. He turned to his sister and marched over to tend her.
“A challenge, brother?” she gasped, struggling to rise.
You know better than to— There was suddenly a curtain of white noise blocking out the conversation. Truth be told, it was a relief. I did not want to be privy to an alien sibling rivalry.
"Albus," Tessa barked. "What's going on? Answer me or—"
"Or nothing," I snapped back. "Stop threatening me. You're always threatening me and bullying me. Stop it. I'm here because I'm the only person you have handy who can converse with them. Show me some respect." I rubbed my temples. The white noise was straining on my senses. I would have a migraine later. Tessa was indignant, but a restraining hand from Mercy was a . . . well, it was a mercy. "They're arguing," I explained. "Leia is angry at you. She says you are a hindrance. They don't have time for negotiations. It's a harvest and they should get on with it so they can leave. I think they're being pursued, and they're wanting to finish business and be gone so as not to draw attention to us. They're trying to protect us from someone or something. It's been following them. They were only supposed to give us three hundred rotations—I'm guessing that's a day—to do this meet and greet. They're seventy-one days behind schedule."
"What just happened to her?" Aaron asked, gesturing to Leia.
"Never mind that. What's the Harvest?" Mercy pressed. I shrugged. I honestly did not know.
"I don't know. Luke claims they were delayed and that they should have been here years ago. They say the Harvest is supposed to happen when the colony is smaller because harvesting large colonies terrifies the colonists. We're the colonists. I can see where he's coming from because I'm about to drop a deuce in my pants right about now."
What's a deuce? Luke asked. I sent him a mental image and his eyebrow shot up in surprise.
You asked, I told him dryly, what about your Leia?
Leia? he laughed. He evidently got the reference. Funny. He stepped aside and made room for his sister at the table. She's been managed. Leia gave him a bitingly bitter look but kept silent. Let them ask their questions. She's impulsive, but my sister isn't wrong. We haven't' much time.
What follows you? I asked, deeply interested in the answer. I felt a finger of dread trace my spine and dread had cold fingers.
Luke shrugged and shook his head. There was an apology there, as if he feared to say too much. What follows is what follows us all. His answer was cryptic and unhelpful to say the least. I waited but he would say no more on it. My eyes strayed to the sky and to the pale grey disk beyond the blue. I was afraid. What hovered above was more power than man had ever dreamed of, and with a stray thought, these beings could obliterate us and destroy us all, yet they were running. I couldn't help but wonder what terrible terror was out there that could so completely humble this armada. Then it occurred to me. We have always had our gods, but even our gods had their devils. The free world had the Nazis. The Olympians had the Titans. I looked to Luke. He had whatever followed him. I guess making enemies was a hereditary trait.

I'm a 28 yr old female. I caught Covid (Delta) in Thanksgiving 2021. My symptoms never completely went away, but recently I experienced what felt like COVID (tested 3 times and it wasn't). Physically I did not feel well, and it felt like I was having a life-threatening episode such as a stroke or appendicitis, despite numerous CT scans and blood tests showing that I was totally fine... the pain and agony I was in were worse than catching actual COVID. I do not know if the doctors missed something or I had something and it cleared but I wanted to share with you what the timeline of my symptoms was and what I was experiencing. My theory is that it was a combo of things from the booster (got it 3/1/2022), potentially activated EBV, allergies, extreme stress that was manifesting through my body, POTS, my medications of Klonopin and Lamictal, mold toxicity, and hormone imbalance, pre-arthritis, and GERD.
Timeline
On April 3rd I started to feel off. Figured it was just a hormonal flair-up or something. I went out to the bars with some friends and didn't drink. Ended up going home and was super stressed out and agitated.
On April 5th I find out I have another small gas leak in my apartment. They come to fix it. I'm feeling stressed out and my left eye keeps twitching if I blink too hard.
On April 6th I go to get a scan done on my esophagus and have to drink this disgusting barium swallow stuff which seemed to have irritated my stomach later on. I was on the toilet 2x later that day. The scan showed I had mild GERD.
On April 8th I get a horrible stomach ache/ acid reflux along with trouble swallowing. I was having a postnasal-type drip going down the back of my throat and couldn't swallow water or eat anything. It was absolutely terrifying
On April 9th I start to feel super sleepy and irritated. I'm starting to get a headache that was the same headache feeling I had when I caught Covid. My neck pain started two weeks after COVID comes back full force and I get a stiff neck. My period is due on the 12th so assuming it was PMS. I go over to my neighbor's house to see their new cats and the little girl says she can't smell the coffee her dad just made. My friend comes over later and he has water pouring out of his nose. He says he's not sick and that it is just from surfing. He too seems a little tired and spaced out. That night I start to get progressively worse stomach/swallowing/burning issues. I was laying on the couch with the heating bad on my neck and thought I may have contracted meningitis or something.
On April 10th the pain is still there and nothing has changed. Same symptoms. My friend texted me asking if I wanted to do yoga and I told him my head felt like it was going to explode. He tells me he isn't feeling well either. I go to urgent care and we did 2 rapids and one PCR. All came back negative. I was told to take Tylenol for my headaches and allergy pills. I had tried Tylenol, Aspirin, Zyrtec, Benadryl, Famtodine, DayQuil, Nyquil, and magnesium. Nothing was working and it was only making the burning in my stomach worse.
On April 11th the neck pain and trouble swallowing continued. I couldn't get up off the couch. Stopped drinking coffee.
On April 12th I was able to drive and meet up with a client. My neck was killing me the whole time. I was starting to be able to take slow sips of water and my headache was coming and going every other 30 mins or if I turned my head the wrong way. Started my period and it was super heavy. 3 days of no sleep.
On April 13th I had an eye appointment. The headache was so bad I could barely drive and my neck still really hurt. All the while my eyelids continued to still twitch. The eye doctor didn't find anything wrong with the exam. The good news was I was able to eat and drink water again. Something I hope never happens to me again. So scary....
On April 14th The neck pain and headache still persisted. I was able to gather some strength to go for a walk but still felt like crap. I was blowing out small yellow mucus with small things of blood.
On April 15th I had sinus pressure and it was hard to swallow because of my neck pain again. My period ends.
On April 16th Still had a horrible headache and was super light sensitive. Had all the blinds and windows closed and did barely anything.
On April 17th I had enough of the 24/7 headaches. The neck pain started to die down but the headaches were so bad I seriously thought I was going to have a stroke. Ubered to the ER where they did a CT scan and found nothing. I have previously prescribed antibiotics over the phone before I went to the ER. The ER doctor told me not to take them. They gave me an IV drip (catheter thing was burning my arm) of fluid and Tramadol (forget the name) and a Benadryl. It didn't help the headache and just made me feel drowsy af.
On April 18th I'm still in pain! This time my left hand started hurting and felt numb down the forearm. The Iv really messed with the nerves in my arm. The burning stopped in my stomach and transitioned into full-on stomach pain. I was luckily able to eat and swallow water slowly. I started to notice blood in the stool but the doctor said it was a hemorrhoid.
On April 19th I believe I started drinking coffee again since the burning stopped. The headaches weren't as bad but had a bad one at night and my left eye started to annoy me and the twitching started up. I try to do some yoga.
On April 20th My eyes continue to twitch and my stomach starts to become bloated.
On April 21st I go to the PCP who presses on my stomach and ordered an ultrasound to check for gallstones. She just tells me it's all anxiety and prescribes more pills. My eye continues to have a twitching sensation and it moved to my right eye.
On April 22nd I go for a walk and feel a little bit better but my stomach on the upper right side starts to hurt. I can feel it progressively getting more irritated. The headaches and burning have disappeared and I'm able to eat and drink. I'm very gassy though. I'm super fatigued. I get an apple watch and my heart rate resting is way too high. In the 100s... at one point it was 177 moving around.
On April 24th I do a yoga class. I'm feeling better except my stomach hurts so bad and my heart rate seems concerning. That same weird feeling near my belly button and stomach is getting worse. I'm super fatigued. I go to a party since I was told 'it's all in my head and have a couple of drinks". My stomach pain is still there and I'm not anxious or stressed. Start to become concerned. I get home and the stomach pain disappears and then hits full force.
On April 25th I woke up thinking the stomach pain has gone and I was totally wrong. It's still there. I don't feel hungover and if I was then I'm used to that feeling from having a long covid. I have zero appetite and I start to feel dizzy and almost pass out. I then break out in a cold sweat. The pain is agonizing and I couldn't even sleep it off. I uber to urgent care and was intending to go to the ER but it was cheaper to do urgent care. I wait there for 2 hrs. They take me in and the doctor is concerned about my heart rate which was 134. They run an EKG and nothing abnormal shows up and my heart rate is back down to 84. She's also concerned about appendicitis. So they run a CT scan with w/contrast on my abdomen. Everything is completely normal. They run blood work and everything is normal. No issues with my liver although it said on the CT report that I had mild fatty infiltration of the liver. The abdomen pain was still there and the catheter sitting in my arm for 2 hrs was driving me nuts and causing nerve pain in my arm. I'm sent home and told it's gas and to take gas x and to come back if the pain gets worse.
On April 26th I go back to the eye doctor and we rerun the eye scans. I told him all my symptoms and he told me it sounds like I'm dehydrated and stressed. That eye twitching is normal and I also could be passing a gallstone or kidney stone. Sometimes those don't always show up on CT scans since they're so tiny. He keeps telling me to drink water which I do but pee out every 15 mins. I even have tried electrolyte packets and those don't work. I am starting to feel better. I've been taking Beano and chugging water.
I still get burning in the stomach but whatever those symptoms were I'm still unclear and I hope I never have to deal with that again. If anyone has experienced this please let me know. I'm still getting an MRI on my brain with and without contrast and doing the ultrasound. I feel like I'm going crazy but I have had anxiety my whole life and this didn't feel like that at all.

Hi! Just wanted to start documenting my symptoms to see if anyone is experiencing similar side effects. For reference I am taking metronidazole (which is known for some of its more intense side effects such as nausea and dizziness).
Day 1:
-Definitely felt nauseous after taking the pill, usually only lasted a couple of hours after taking it though but it's still pretty difficult trying to eat food throughout the day
-Felt a little bit of dizziness usually right after taking the pill that went away pretty quickly
-This is a strange symptom but I did experience some twitching/pulsing in my left eye, usually don't get this so not really sure why it's happening
-Experienced some pressure at the temples of my head (mainly right side), not really painful but mostly felt like some added pressure, I have been dealing with some sinus issues lately so it could be because of that
-Forgot to add that I experienced a really sore/hot sensation in my throat from a flare up that happened the night before. Has definitely been improving throughout the day but still feel like there's something in the back of my throat every time I swallow.
-Did experience some more frequent mental/mood changes, feelings of anxiety and depression were more frequent
-Also experiencing more difficulty trying to sleep at night/ waking up and being unable to go back to sleep
-On the bright side, my abdominal pain has improved tremendously along with other GI symptoms, stomach does feel kind of bloated however
I would say that the most difficult symptoms have been the nausea and mood changes! It has been really bothersome being in a semi constant state of nausea but drinking plenty of water has helped with that, along with taking a scoop of Manuka honey for the nausea/ metallic taste in my mouth.
Will try to keep updating this post daily! Hope this helps someone out!
Day 2:
-Today was actually better for me thankfully! I only really experienced slight nausea and dizziness around the first few hours of taking the pills! Definitely recommend taking the pills with something like apple sauce or yogurt, helps tremendously with the bad taste left in my mouth from the pills. Also forgot to add that I did experience some belching throughout the day, but it honestly wasn't as bad as the gas pain I was experiencing before the treatment.
-Update on the eye twitches, it happened less frequently today but I did notice some sensitivity to light especially at night! I looked into this and apparently some medications and antibiotics can have this side effect so I'm going to try spending less time looking at my phone/computer screens tomorrow and see if it improves!
-Discomfort in my throat from a previous flare up I experienced before taking the antibiotics has improved. Only experiencing occasional discomfort throughout the day sometimes after taking the pills or eating food.
-Also, I haven't really had any mood swings today which is great! Hopefully the rest of the week is just as smooth sailing as today was!
-Lastly, I wanted to add some advice that really helped me out. First off drink plenty of water throughout the day, I noticed it helped me a lot during my bowel movements! Secondly, I personally like to eat 5 small meals throughout the day, it helps with the nausea and helps in case you feel like you can't really handle eating a lot. Just make sure to be consistent and space it out throughout the day so that you don't have an empty stomach (I've personally felt that being on an empty stomach in between pills causes me to feel a bit nauseous). Also try to stick to a plain diet! Some things that I've been eating include oatmeal, bread with peanut butter, and manuka honey. Everyone is different though so try to eat foods that you know won't trigger any flare ups! Wishing the best to anyone going through this!
Day 3:
-Still experiencing a bit of nausea and dizziness when taking the pill but nothing too bad!
-In good news, the eye twitches are gone now! Only experiencing a bit of sensitivity to light as I mentioned before but it has improved greatly!
-Still experiencing some GI issues that I had before taking the medication but it's been improving! I did try incorporating some new foods into my diet but they did upset my stomach so I'm going to try playing it safe today!
-Did experience some loose bowel movements today for the first time. I've seen that other people on here have also experienced something similar when taking the treatment so I'm not too concerned about it!
-I plan to start incorporating more foods in my diet as I haven't really been able to eat as well as I used to for the past few days, and I fear that I'm going to start losing weight or end up with a nutrient deficiency! Also not sure if I will update this as frequently unless there's any new changes or symptoms! Wishing the best to anyone else going through this!

A few entries in the February 2022 file and the first week of March 2022 file on my computer were deleted by a hacker.
Tuesday, March 1
Engine died after starting car at YMCA. I tried several times. Took the jumper power pack out. Hood fell on jumper. I could not lift the hood. Pep Boys tested the battery, alternator and starter. Said they were fine. Pep Boys suggested problem may be distributor or cam sensor. They refused to replace these parts because they do not have an older car diagnostic computer.
At Walmart, I purchased two small plastic drawers and one wide drawers. Driving from Walmart, car stopped in traffic five times. I could not drive the whole way to a dog park and walked the rest of the way. I made an appointment for tomorrow at a nearby auto repair shop.
Burning of feet while sitting on bench at dog park. I laid down on the grass at the dog park. With my eyes closed, I saw straight lines of white laser light falling down. After I typed this, the military ran a long white laser beam through my head several times. Very invasive. Crotch and anus itched.
I put my fingers on my eye lids. My eyes quickly blinked many times. I could feel pulsing on my eye lids. I placed my hand above my eye lids. Stronger pulsing there. Also pulsing in the middle of my forehead.
Lasering of tooth in lower jaw before eating dinner and while typing this torture report. Cold torture while eating dinner.
I updated Florida storage to do file and Florida inventories files. The military deleted the files immediately afterwards though my computer was not connected to the internet.
Urethra lasered.
At 7:20 pm, being made groggy because I started resurrecting the storage FL to do file. Almost knocked out at 7:57 pm. Around 8 pm, I was knocked out for 45 minutes.
Wednesday, March 2
While updating my torture report and storage to do list, a hacker in real time deleted the Florida torture reports folder which had all the florida reports and the entire storage folder. From a back up microSD card, I copied a back up to my computer. The back up did not contain this week's updates. They could not be retrieved.
After walking my puppy at a park, I got back in the car. I was very strong concussion. From 7 pm to 11 pm. During that time, I regained consciousness but as knocked out again. At 11 pm, I drove to a restaurant that was open 24 hours. Immediately knocked out in the car until 1 am. Six hours of being unconscious. Very bad concussion, swollen eyes, eyes sensitive to light, impaired driving.
Thursday, March 3, 2022
Anal itching while walking my dog.
Car stalled while stopping in heavy traffic six times. I turned on a side street to park my car. I could not restart it. Neither could jumper power pack. I took Lyft to the library.
Headache and increased pressure on top of my brain while working at the library.
While trying to go to sleep, crotch was lasered. Sodomized.
Friday, March 4, 2022
Strong vibrating of my arms and hands from above woke me up.
While continuing to unpack, migraine, stronger pulsing of my brain and eyes, increased pressure on top of my head, pressure on my eyes, swollen eyes, eyes squinting.
While modding, cold torture and almost knocked out. Security guard at library came over to tell me sleeping is not allowed.
Saturday, March 5
Heavy pressure on my bladder woke me up. I got up to urinate. Laser caused me to urinate in my shorts. I went back to bed. Crotch lasered.
While walking my puppy, heavy pressure on my intestines to force defecation.
After modding, knocked out for 40 minutes from 5:40 to 6:20 pm.
Engine was attacked causing it to die while driving to Hollywood beach. I restarted the engine but engine died again. I drove one block and parked at a tow away. Took approximately two hours to start engine.
Pressure on top head and headache all day. While typing this, headache became worse.
Sunday, March 6
While sleeping, pressure and vibrating through the basalt rock head crate. I examined it later that day. The rear tote of my basalt rock head crate had been pushed to the right. I removed all the basalt rocks in the rear tote so I could push it to the left.
I drove to Petco but they closed at 7 pm on Sundays. I was knocked out at Petco's parking lot for six hours until 1: 05 am. Paralyzed. Took the longest time ever to be able to move. 40 minutes. Knocked out for six hours to circumvent me from sleeping with my head inside of the rock crate.
This is the second time this week, I was knocked out for six hours. That is the longest time ever.
My car started every time and did not over heat. Because the library is closed on Sundays?
Monday, March 7
My car over heated on the way to the library. Mind control not to go to the library.
Headache all day from pressure and pulsing of my brain.
Tuesday, March 8th
Retaliation for posting on magnetic nanoparticles and COVID-19. Extreme heavy pressure on top of my head. Strong pulsing of my brain. Migraine. Fatigue.
At the library, strong seizures. Almost knocked out.
My car over heated while I was warning out loud that I would depart Broward county, FL if the torture was not decreased. I had to wait several hours before the engine would stay running.
I noticed my 3 bed pillows were not high enough to shield vibrations from underneath it. The military stole pebbles again. I moved the top bed pillow to try to fluff it up. I should have replaced the stolen pebbles. I sleeping on my side. Just my ear drum was being pulsed. A laser cannot penetrate more than 2.5 inches of basalt. What pulsed was some kind of inaudible sound pressure. Thicker basalt is required to shield sound.
This was not the first time my ear drum was pulsed while sleeping if the height of my bed pillows of basalt were not high enough.
Wednesday, March 9th
I replaced the stolen pebbles from one of my bed pillows.
While sleeping heavy pressure on my basalt rock scarf around my neck. Immediately after arising, extreme heavy pressure on top of my brain. Pressure, migraine, swollen eyes, eyes sensitive to light all day.
Right eye lasered while driving. At library while modding, almost knocked out. A security officer walked over to me to arouse me as "sleeping' is not allowed at the library. Almost knocked out four times after that.
On March 9th, military moved rear tote of basalt head crate to right and top crate to left. To center the rear crate again, I need to remove the fishnet bags of basalt rocks. Basalt is heavy. I haven't had time to purchase sand bags to put them. Fill the sand bags 1/4 full so they will be lighter than the fishnet bags.
While typing this, burning of my legs and lasering of my left ear drum and right ear drum.
Thursday, March 10
My black rock scarf was tampered. This is the third rock scarf the military tampered with. The first two are in California. Hems keeping the rocks in place were unsticked. Rocks fell down leaving gaps between rocks. I resewed the rock scarf.
Friday, March 11
While sleeping, very strong pressure penetrated rear tote to pressure the top of my head. Stronger vibrating.
Strong seizures while using library computer. Extreme heavy pressure on top of head while logging into Reddit. Chrome browser was hacked as I could not log in. Rarely does the military hack library computers. I used Microsoft Edge to log in. While typing torture report, lasering of urethra and seizures.
I took Lyft to an auto tags agency to obtain a replacement title of my toyota that was lost through the mail. I need to get a replacement title of my older toyota that was stolen.
Saturday, March 12
While driving to South Beach Park in Hallandale Beach, car stalled immediately after turning off highway 1 to the parking lot of this beach. Similar to exactly a week ago, immediately after turning off of highway I to go to the beach in Hollywood, FL, car stalled. I coasted into a tow away space. I watched car for over two hours while trying to start the engine several times. Today, I paid for two hours of parking. Engine started after two hours.
While driving from library to storage, engine stalled. I coasted off the road. Engine would not start. I took a bus to storage to get some stuff. I took Lyft back to my car.
Sunday, March 13
More pebbles in bed pillows were stolen again. Replaced with 2 inch rocks in a pillow until I go to storage unit to get more pebbles.
Driving to dog park, headache. At dog park, tooth in lower left jaw was continuous wave lasered. Lasering of tooth and headache all day. Excruciating pain in later afternoon and evening. I held a basalt rock against my check but pressure was at top of tooth. I put a basalt rock on top of my tooth.
Around 7:45 pm, knocked out after eating dinner. At 9 pm, employee at chinese restaurant aroused me to tell me its closing time. I was knocked out again. Employee came back to tell me its closing time. I could barely walk to my car.
Monday, March 14
Lumbar spine lasered while sleeping.
Lower left tooth lasered all day. Power density increased while getting a replacement plastic dresser at Walmart and after eating lunch. Excruciating pain. I held a basalt rock on my tooth.
Mild headache all day. Sinuses dry and swollen from thermal heat drying wet cashmere beanie and two aviator helmets.
Proof of insurance cards that I had downloaded several days ago had been deleted.
Pep Boys removed the undercarriage that was scraping the ground. Five inch crack on top of radiator. $800 to replace radiator. Pep Boys tested head gasket, thermostat and water pump. They are OK.
Car stopped over heating and stalling when feeding gas. No more cranking problem of engine not cranking when I start the car in less than two hours prior to driving.
Burning legs while pushing left tank back into position and tightening chain around left tank and top crate and wrapping a 3 foot black cable around left tank and top crate. Tied cable with a 4 ounch zip tie. Perps had picked the padlock to loosen the chain. Heavy pressure had penetrated the left tank and the left side of the rear tote. Pressure on brainstem above rock scarf and on top of head.
Burning legs while typing this.
Lasering of crotch and sodomized while trying to fall asleep.
Lasering of tooth while sleeping. Surprisingly, bed pillows of basalt pebbles didn't shield lasering.
Tuesday, March 15
While walking my puppy, lasering of my bladder and intestines. Forced to turn back to urinate and defecate.
Yesterday's readjusting left tank of the head rock rate shielded the pressure from rear tote and side tank. Yet my eyes are more sore and sensitive to flickering while driving and using a library's computer.
Third day of continuous wave lasering of my tooth and left side of my tongue. Gum and left jaw were also continuous wave lasered. Gum inflamed. Migraine. Heavy pressure on top of head. Extreme fatigued. I stopped at a red light. I had not realized I had crossed onto the light rail tracks. The arm of the railroad fell down on my car. I reversed.
Clear liquid was still in radiator reservoir. Apparently, mechanic didn't flush the reservoir? I also returned to Pep Boys to ask manager for a written engine diagnostic. I paid for a diagnostic but there was no written diagnostic. Manager interrupted and lied. I called the corporate office to open a case. Corporate office simply referred case back to manager. Manager did not call me.
Exacerbated migraine for driving to a gym.
Torture Reports Florida folder was deleted. Separate Torture Reports March 2022 Florida file was deleted except for March 1st.
I cannot log into my reddit account using chrome even on a library computer. I used Microsoft Edge browser to log in.
Cold torture at the library.
Brain low power vibrated in addition to heavy pressure on top of brain and pulsing of the brain.
After lying down to go to sleep, sodomized. I tested EVA foam in two flip flops by placing the flip flops underneath my jaw. EVA foam didn't shield my jaw and tooth. I wore two flip flops inside of a wrap on my bladder and stomach but EVA did not shield lasering of my bladder. Twice after waking up, my bladder was lasered forcing me to get up to urinate.
I tested pebbles inside of a refrigerator tray canister. Held by my jaw with my hand but after falling asleep, canister fell. Canister is too large, heavy and cannot bend along my jaw. I will try pebbles in an ice bag or a cotton drawstring herb bag.
Again, pebbles were stolen from bed pillows. The thinner depth of basalt pebbles were incapable of shielding my tooth, tongue and jaw and brain. My brain was pulsed and vibrated from below the pillows.
Wednesday, March 16
Fourth day of continuous wave lasering of my tooth, left side of tongue and left lower jaw.
While walking my puppy, increased power density of continuous wave laser of my tooth and tongue.
I asked the Toyota dealer in Hollywood, FL to check the distributor. Diagnostic was oil had seeped into the distributor. Dealer recommended replacing distributor, ignition coil and spark plugs but was something wrong with ignition coil and spark plugs? $1,750 estimate. On Saturday, I asked Pep Boys for an estimate to replace distributor. They do not replace distributors.
Upon driving my car from the dealership, braking was worse. Taking longer to brake. My foot sinks and I press harder. Seizures and lightheadedness at Toyota dealer in Hollywood, FL.
Thursday, March 17
While sleeping, pressure on my shoulders and top of head. I have had pressure on shoulders only in Broward county, Florida. Pressure penetrated the rear tote of the basalt head crate. Sound pressure?
Last night, I replaced a bed pillow of 2 inch rocks with pebbles. Still pulsing and vibrations from below bed pillows. Took me two hours after waking up to get up. Nonrestorative sleep.
Fifth day of continuous wave lasering of my tooth, left side of tongue and left lower jaw. Increased lasering of tooth after taking supplements.
Pressure on my intestines to defecate to force me to leave storage facility. Bathroom is inside office. Office does not open until 9:30 am. I locked up my storage unit but could not wait to drive to a bathroom.
Anal itching while walking my puppy. My puppy fell down several times while walking her. Headache for driving to a dog park. My puppy did not fall down at dog park. Headache lasted all day. Exacerbated headache at library.
At Dollar Tree parking lot, I told my puppy we would go to the beach. Engine was attached. Engine would not crank. Mind control to refrain from going to the beach.
Strong pulsing of brain and flickering of eyes from wifi. I had to use a scanner. The scanner is connected to a library computer using wifi. I had not realized there were no ethernet cables until after suffering. While typing this, seizures.
Friday, March 18
Strong and very fast pulsing of my brain through the rear tote woke me up. Pressure on the back of my head through the tank of my basalt head crate. Continuous wave lasering of my tooth while I slept. The basalt pebbles and EVA foam I had placed over my left jaw fell off while sleeping.
Sixth day of continuous wave lasering of my tooth.
Heavy pressure on top of my head while walking my puppy at a park. We laid down on the grass wet with dew. Lying on my left side, stray voltage pulsed my left ear drum, left temple and left corner of my eye. While I was touching these places on my body to ascertain exactly where the pulsing was, my right ear was briefly lasered. A blast hit my head to make me lightheaded. Surprisingly, the soil wet from dew was not wet enough to shield stray voltage. Dew does not penetrate much past the grass.
While typing this, stronger lasering of my left tooth.
Stronger lasering of tooth in lower left jaw while eating brunch and driving to library and at library. While typing this using a library computer, I was knocked out. Possible for 25 minutes?
Microwaving of four epi orchids. Their leaves had burn marks.
Saturday, March 19
Seventh continuous day of lasering of my tooth in lower left jaw.
Lasering of my back and strong heavy pressure on my brain while walking my puppy at a park.
I said out loud to my puppy this will be the first time I will bring her to a dog beach. Immediate heavy pressure on top of my head.
Pep Boys diagnosed a leak in the brake line, brakes and rotors need to be replaced. Pep Boys does not repair or replace brake line. After driving to an AutoZone parts store to purchase brake fluid, increase of heavy pressure on top of my head. Pressure remained strong throughout the day. Mind control not to repair my car. The brake reservoir was empty. I poured brake fluid.
Sunday, March 20
Vibrating of my head below my bed pillow woke me up. Pebbles had been stolen out of my one of my bed pillows. I refilled the pillow. Took more than two hours to fall back to sleep. Woke up strongly clenching my teeth due to pulsing and vibrating of my head. I was disappointed refilling the bed pillow had not completely shielded vibrations from below.
Next day, there was a substantial improvement in braking. I poured more brake fluid in the reservoir. Was the brake line sabotaged?
Eighth continuous day of lasering of my tooth in lower left jaw.
Lasering of my back and strong heavy pressure on my brain while walking my puppy at a park.
While walking on a sidewalk, my puppy fell head first on to the sidewalk. There was a wall next to the sidewalk. Her torso and back legs were up against the wall. Her back legs were higher than her head. This afternoon we had been at a dog park for almost four hours. She had not fallen down at the dog park. Had she been knocked down while walking her to mind control me not to walk?
At the dog park, I had temporary paralysis and was almost knocked out.
Again, my car was EMPed while entering the gate code at storage. My car stopped idling and engine died. Battery works. I restarted my car to drive through the gate. Likewise, while entering the gate code to exit the storage facility, my car was EMPed. Mind control to refrain from going to my storage unit.
Extreme heavy pressure and stronger pulsing of my brain at storage to circumvent me from finishing organizing my stuff into drawers and packing suitcases. I had temporary paralysis and was almost knocked out
After submitting a study on 5G in electromagnetics, I was knocked out for approximately 25 minutes in my car. Took another 25 minutes to move my body. I was paralyzed.
Monday, March 21
At 2:20 am, pulsing and vibrating of my head and hands and continuous wave lasering of my bladder woke me up. Strongly clenching my teeth. Almost the same time as I have been woken up this past week. Around 2:30 am. I got up to urinate but the power density of the laser increased forcing me to urinate in my shorts. Ninth day of lasering of tooth.
Took over a hour to go back to sleep. I over slept.
Again, my car was EMPed while entering the gate code at storage. My car stopped idling and engine died. Battery works. I restarted my car to drive through the gate. Likewise, while entering the gate code to exit the storage facility, my car was EMPed. Mind control to refrain from going to my storage unit.
Beach Report
The past several years the weather has changed. Much cloudier. Windier. I wait for the sun to come out so I can get a sun tan and make vit a min D. I look at the sky but see clouds. I assume the sunshine won't last. It does not. Cloudy again. Week after week. I wait. Meanwhile, I miss out on a beach vacation. This morning was sunny. Despite the clouds, I decided to go to the beach. The sunshine did not last. Since the weather has not gotten colder in the past several years, I will try to get used to being at the beach in cloudy warm weather.
The South Beach Park in Hallandale Beach, FL has a narrow beach. I laid down on the wet sand. Pressure on top of my head almost gone. Lower power pulsing of my brain. Because the beach is narrow, no change in hearing the hum.
Seizures. Surprisingly, the low power pressure on my navel and tooth in lower left jaw did not seem to be less. Even when laying face down on my stomach with the left side of my face on the beach towel. Perhaps it takes longer for the symptoms to go away?
I was at the beach for 1 hour 20 minutes. Cloudy and windy. No vibration or pulsing from underneath the wet sand. Water shields. While walking back to my car, pressure on my head increased.
After being exposed to fluorescent light at the library for six hours, I feel sunshine deprived. I want to evacuate the library and wear a bathing suit. Wearing shorts and a T shirt is not exposing my body to enough sunshine during the little sunshine south Florida now has.
On the library parking lot, sidewalk and street, my puppy fell down five times. I complained out loud. First time my puppy didn't fall down in the past month during our evening walk. However, my torture escalated. While walking my puppy before bedtime, my tooth in my lower left jaw and my right ankle were lasered.
While typing this, I am being made groggy and hit on the head. Seizure. Almost knocked out.
Tuesday, March 22
My rock scarf fell off my neck while sleeping. I was too concussioned to put it back on. Heavy pressure on brainstem due to not wearing rock scarf. Twice vibrations woke me up. After waking up, sudden headache all day.
Three times today, pressure on intestines forced defecation. After typing this, again pressure on intestines. Seizure.
My puppy fell in the driveway and sidewalk while walking her.
Again, my car was EMPed while entering the gate code at storage. My car stopped idling and engine died. Battery works. I restarted my car to drive through the gate. Likewise, while entering the gate code to exit the storage facility, my car was EMPed. Mind control to refrain from going to my storage unit.
While modding, I was almost knocked out. Difficulty driving
While sleeping, 10th day of lasering of my tooth in my lower left jaw.
Wednesday, March 23
After eating, eleventh day of lasering of my tooth in my lower left jaw.
While driving to a brake specialist to have my brake line replaced, burning of esophagus. Mind control not to repair my car.
While writing a packing list for the auto train to return to the radio quiet zone for the summer, I was paralyzed and almost knocked out for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Again, my car was EMPed while entering the gate code at storage. My car stopped idling and engine died. Battery works. I restarted my car to drive through the gate. Likewise, while entering the gate code to exit the storage facility, my car was EMPed. Mind control to refrain from going to my storage unit.
While walking my puppy, lasering of my right kidney and heavy pressure on top of my head.
While modding, I was almost knocked out. Difficulty driving.
Thursday, March 24
Vibrations of brain and my hands woke me up again around 2:30 am. I went back to sleep. After my alarm rang, lasering of my lower spine forced me to get up.
Engine stalled while entering passcode at storage facility. Engine stalled again while exiting storage facility.
Wearing amber laser goggles at storage resulted in pulsing changing to pulsing of the top of my head.
While modding, cold torture at the library.
Burning of my legs while returning to optician to ask whether my eye glasses were ready.
Beach Report
Network Cell Info Lite displayed a cell site simulator one block away from Hollywood Dog Beach.
No bluetooth. One wifi signal which disappeared shortly thereafter. Average DC magnetic field on legs and on sand. First time my legs were burning at a beach. Continuous wave burning the whole time I was there. Continuous wave lasering of my bladder. No bathroom at the dog beach. Pulsing of my brain. The hum had not decreased as it previously had at beaches.
Parking is very close to the dog beach since there are no ocean front hotels. The perps parked their vehicle a block away.
At 9 pm, made groggy despite having to drive and walk my puppy. Twelfth day of lasering of tooth.
Part of today's entry was deleted by a hacker. I retyped it.
Friday, March 25
Today's entry was deleted immediately after typing it by a hacker. I retyped it.
The day before basalt pebbles were stolen again from my bed pillow. Depth of basalt was no longer adequate to shield vibrations and pulsing from below the bed pillows. Lying on my right side, my right ear drum being pulsed, thirteenth day of lasering of tooth and my hands being strongly vibrated woke me up twice and prevented me from going back to sleep. I put my hand over my ear which stopped the pulsing.
Then my brain was pulsed. I put my hand on the clay blind fold I wear to bed. Pulsing of my brain stopped because placing my hands on the blind fold shielded the flickering laser light. The power density of the laser light is strong to penetrate the wet clay blind fold. My head was titled down which allows laser to go into the rock crate. The rock crate has one side open which I put my head through. I tilted my head up so the side of the crate shielded my eyes. The flickering stopped.
While walking my puppy, heavy pressure on top of my head and anal itching. At least she had not fallen down.
Hacked copying of meter reports on my removable media to a back up.
Engine stalled while entering passcode at storage facility. Engine stalled again while exiting storage facility.
Distributor was adjusted.
Extremely strong concussion for researching Florida Panhandle at the library. Paralyzed me for approximately 20 minutes.
Saturday, March 26
Stolen lantern hook. Dome light and interior rear light do not work in my car. The lantern provided light for my car's interior.
West Palm Beach packing list was stolen.
While sleeping, fourteenth day of lasering of my tooth in my lower left jaw. Lasering of my right hip. Lasering of my bladder all night woke me up twice. Both times after I got up, the power of the laser increased causing me to urinate in my shorts.
For the first time in Florida, cold torture while I slept. After I woke up and laid in bed, the cold torture suddenly increased. Cold torture at storage for the first hour.
Flickering laser light through clay blind fold. I tilted my head up for my head to get more inside of the crate. The pulsing stopped. Test wearing two blind folds.
While entering passcode at storage facility gate, my car no longer stalled.
I walked my puppy at a park. At approximately 9:15 pm, we got into the car. I was immediately knocked out. When I regained consciousness, my head was shaking from being pulsed and vibrated strongly. My right arm was paralyzed. I could not drive. I was knocked out again until 2:30 am. Head, eyes and sinuses swollen and neck stiff from brain zapping.
Escalated torture to attempt to prevent me from leaving Broward county, Florida. The perps are the local military base. It is expensive for the military to change bases each time I move.
I am buying land in the radio quiet zone as my summer home. To prevent me from returning to the radio quiet zone, hacking of my phone's microphone to prevent my friend in the radio quiet zone from hearing me. Intercepting my emails to him. My emails were sent but not received.
Sunday, March 27
Skin on my legs is peeling from being burned at storage and by the emitter in my cart.
Hacking of my files while I made back up copies. Burning of legs.
I purchased small drawers at Wal-Mart to continue organizing my stuff. Pack my car to leave south Florida this week. While organizing and packing, my right big toenail, jaw and tooth were continuous waved. Fifteenth day of lasering of tooth. Flickering laser made my eyes sensitive to light again.
I purchased another replacement nail clippers. Perhaps six nail Clippers have been stolen in the past five years. Mind control to look dirty.
While walking my puppy, heavier pressure on top of my head, left hip joint lasered and anal itching.
Cold torture while modding and while typing this torture report. Anal itching while I walked to get a sweater to wear.
Monday, March 28
Sixteenth day of lasering of tooth.
Stinging of my right big toe while driving.
At 6:10 pm, I returned to storage. I was made groggy. Pulsing of my brain changed to very long waves penetrating my entire head side to side.
I walked my puppy at a park. At approximately 8:40 pm, I was knocked out in my car to 1:12 am. Four and a half hours. My head and eyes were swollen. Imbalance for the first five minutes of walking.
Tuesday, March 29
Took several hours to fall sleep due to being sodomized, burning of my legs, continuous wave lasering of my tooth. Seventeenth day of lasering of tooth. I over slept.
At the dog park, my legs were vibrated. Like being electrocuted. Power lines cross over the dog park.
Headache while driving back to storage to continue packing and shipping. Stronger pulsing of my brain and made groggy at storage.
While walking my puppy at a park, cell site simulators triangulated my phone.
https://www.reddit.com/TargetedEnergyWeapons/comments/tru9b9/meter_reports_cell_site_simulators_i_am_being/
Wednesday, March 30
Very long strong sound waves from my left ear drum through my brain to the opposite side of my brain woke me up. The long waves induces dizziness. Upon arising, imbalance. Imbalance and dizziness are symptoms of vestibular disorder. The diplomats were diagnosed with vestibular disorder.
While I slept, my tooth was lasered. This is the eighteenth day of lasering of tooth. While I type this, my tooth is lasered.
Beach Report
On Tuesday, March 29, 2022, I submitted a post that I thought the peace negotiators were burned by thermal nonionizing radiation.
https://www.reddit.com/TargetedEnergyWeapons/comments/trbudk/dew_russian_experts_who_looked_into_the_incident/
The next morning, on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, the military retaliated by electromagnetic pulsing the large cup of tea to fall from the cup holder onto my right thigh and buttocks. My car was in the intersection. I screamed and got out of my car. I sat back down but tea on the seat made the seat very hot. This may sound far fetched but there have been other incidents of EMP. Numerous EMP attacked to my two cars' battery, several EMP attacks to the on/off switch on two hanging lanterns, many attacks to laptops' batteries and a laptop power adapter.
Hot tea would not have caused such excruciating pain for 45 minutes. After soaking in sea water, the pain decreased but increased when I was no longer on set sand.
I contemplated going to urgent care or emergency room but the military would continue to burn while I waited in the waiting room. Water shields. Sea water shields better than fresh water. Epsom salts heal. Sea water has not only magnesium and sulphur but other minerals. I was approximately two miles from the ocean. I could not drive. I pulled over. I placed a pillow of basalt pebbles on the driver's sea and a pillow next to the thigh. The perps burned my buttocks above where the tea had spilt. I could barely drive.
The South Beach Park parking lot in Hallandale Beach was locked. I drove north and found parking between two hotels on Iris Terrace. I walked to the ocean. Sea water immediately stopped 90% of the pain. I was grateful. I laid down on a beach towel on wet sand. I went back in the ocean. Beach patrol stopped to give me a ticket for my puppy on the beach. I stood up to talk to the patrol. The perps burned my thigh.
Being capable of longer driving now, I drove to the Hollywood Dog Beach in Hollywood, Florida.
I took off my wet cashmere beanie and two wet leather aviator helmets to enable the sun to shine on my head. Several long seizures. From unapproved thoughts. How was remote neural monitoring performed? WiGLE app did not detect wifi. Only one bluetooth from a beach comber walking by. Electrosmart app detected five cell signals but could only identify one as a cell tower.
Can two cell site simulators triangulating perform RNM? There were two cell site simulators within 3 blocks away triangulating my phone. Most of the day and night my phones are off and inside faraday bags. Are the two cell site simulators triangulating magnetic nanoparticles or graphene in my brain?
I uploaded two screenshots. Hackers turned off 4G on my phone to circumvent uploading the third screenshots. Hackers made the microSD cards in my phones read only. I cannot copy screenshots to the microSD cards.
I walked back to my car to retrieve the wet beanie and wet leather aviator helmets. I put them on and walked back to the beach. Seizures stopped.
Other symptoms at the beach:
I ate breakfast on the beach. No burning of esophagus or lasering of stomach. Elsewhere, that would have occurred.
Low power vibration of my whole body. Vibrations from above my body. I was lying on wet sand. No stray voltage from power lines.
I talked to three people at the beach. I was surprised I could hear them distinctly. The hum is so loud 24/7 that it drowns out and muffles voices. The hum has less power density at the beach. I want to invite people to the beach!
Symptoms at parking lot:
Heavy pressure on top of my brain, headache, burning of right thigh,
While typing this torture report and meter reports, cold torture, being made groggy and dizziness at the library.
[Torture Report] [Havens: Beaches] Excruciating burning of thigh and buttocks morning after posting on burning of peace negotiators. Relief at beach.
https://www.reddit.com/TargetedEnergyWeapons/comments/tsi0lu/torture_report_havens_beaches_excruciating/
[Testimonies: Hacking] I am waiting for a call back from the Miami Burn Center to make an appointment. I received a voicemail. My hacked phone does not ring. I cannot listen to the voicemail.
https://www.reddit.com/TargetedEnergyWeapons/comments/tt3iin/testimonies_hacking_i_am_waiting_for_a_call_back/
Torture Report] Hip and upper thigh burn photo. Burns also on the front of my thigh, calf and buttocks. Photo does not show the straight burn line on front of my thigh and on side closer to the front.
https://www.reddit.com/TargetedEnergyWeapons/comments/ttabm8/torture_report_hip_and_upper_thigh_burn_photo/
[Torture Report] Two straight lines burns on front right thigh and 3 1/4 perfectly round burn on back of thigh.
https://www.reddit.com/TargetedEnergyWeapons/comments/tulqji/torture_report_two_straight_lines_burns_on_front/

Okay let me start my introducing myself I’m 22F/ uni student/ and I study abroad. I have PCOS and i’m overweight. My issue started about 2 months ago. I began having headaches all the time. Sometimes they don’t feel like pain but like my head is being weighed down. I feel so much pressure all the time. Sometimes when this pressure goes away I feel head pain. When the head pain goes away this pressure comes back. I also have a crawling sensation in the back of my head ( like water trickling ). I’m so stressed and anxious about this and I’m trying my best to cope but it’s so hard. I went to an ent a few days ago and got a ct scan done and he diagnosed me with chronic sinusitis. I’m still not convinced that it’s the cause for the heavy head feeling. Yesterday I also had another appointment with my endocrinologist regarding my pcos. I just came back from studying abroad for the holidays. My family thinks I’m doing this to myself and that I should simply just “feel better”. They don’t understand how I’m feeling and they say I’m not patient enough. I am, I’m not complaining but when they ask me why I’m not looking happy or why I’m not going out and such they say that I love to complain about this. I don’t I want to feel normal and do the things I like to do. I feel spaced out all the time, I’m dizzy and I just feel irritated. I’m lost, scared, confused and tired. I feel like a burden…

Cold spray frothed over the nose of the ship and speckled the side of Samar’s face, smelling strongly of salt. The ferry had set off just after dawn but both sea and sky were slate grey, to the point it was hard to distinguish where one ended and the other began. Apart from a handful of what Samar assumed were tourists, or maybe clients of the same institution where he was headed, and a captain up in the pilothouse, Samar had the ferry to himself.
Letch Island rose out of the ocean like a fortress. The cliffs reminded Samar of castle ramparts. Dark, windswept pines covered the hills. What there was of the town, probably fifty houses and buildings total, clustered around the cove that the ferry pulled into. A couple dozen fishing boats moored in the cove as well.
Samar went inside and collected his bags. He had one relatively small rolling suitcase and an overstuffed gym bag. Not much but between them, along with a bank account far outweighed by student loans and some cheap, flatpack furniture he’d left in a storage locker on the mainland, they represented the sum total of his worldly possessions. Other passengers piled off the boat first. Samar wrestled his suitcase down the ramp and then along the wharf, taking in his surroundings with genuine interest as he did. About a dozen locals waited to get on the ferry for its return trip. It only made the journey between Letch Island and the mainland twice a day, in the mornings and evenings.
At the foot of the pier was a big man in a white uniform. Although Samar would have been pretty easy to spot, the man held a piece of paper with ‘Samar Varadkar’ printed on it like those drivers waiting for people at the airport.
“You’re from the Wellness Institute?” Samar asked, shouldering his bag.
“That’s right.”
The question was pretty obviously answered. On the breast of his uniform was the name of the institute and a nametag, ‘Shane’. The man didn’t offer anything more.
“Well, I’m-, that’s me.” Samar nodded to the sign. “After you?”
Shane led Samar to a passenger van parked nearby. Only a few vehicles seemed to live on the island as there was little need for them. Samar piled his bags in the back and Shane drove them across the island’s small township.
Most of the island’s inhabitants had a singular look about them Samar realised as he watched from the van’s windows. He’d noticed it among the locals lined up for the ferry but could see now how widespread it was. Grey skinned, with bulbous eyes and wide, fishy mouths. Too little genetic diversity in too small a place for too long. They almost seemed to make a point of ignoring the van as it rolled by.
A poorly paved road led out of Letch Island township and into the hills. The institute sat near some clifftops overlooking the ocean, surrounded by pines. ‘Abolife Wellness Lifestyle Institute’ read the sign over the iron gate, just above the mantra, ‘Living Longer, Living Better’. Built as some kind of hospital in the 1920s, the intimidating building had been abandoned for decades and then bought and renovated by its current owner and Samar’s new boss, Joseph Davis.
Shane parked outside of the institute and gestured Samar out of the van. “This way.”
Samar collected his bags and followed Shane up the steps to the slightly grand stone arch of the front entrance. Inside was much more modern than the outside. White and brightly lit, with lots of steel and glass. The reception desk sat empty for the time being.
“Wait here, Mr Davis will want to meet with you first,” Shane said.
Samar set his bags down and waited as Shane disappeared. The walls of the institute were strangely quiet. Samar had been up for hours in order to catch the ferry but for a lot of people it was still relatively early. He wasn’t waiting long anyway before Joseph Davis, creator of Abolife, appeared.
“Samar! So pleased to see you made it, no problems with the ferry or finding Shane?”
“Mr Davis, no, thanks, everything was fine.”
Davis took Samar’s hand and shook vigorously. “Please, call me Joseph, we’re all informal here. Except in front of the clients, never in front of the clients. But you won’t be having much face time with clientele, will you?”
Samar had met Joseph Davis twice already but only through fairly shaky video calls. In person, he was struck by just how electric Joseph’s presence was. Tall, athletic and with a thick head of dark hair, he was in his late forties but gave off an impression of exceptional health. Samar, in his early twenties, felt like Joseph could have run literal rings around him.
“You’ve arrived not a moment too soon, we really need to get a new website up and running if we’re going to expand,” Joseph said. “And these constant tech issues and outages don’t reflect well on the institute.”
Samar’s main education was in website design, which he could have done for Abolife remotely. But Joseph wanted an all-round IT person to come and live on the island and deal with all of the institute’s technical needs. Samar knew enough to get by and could Google anything he didn’t know how to do off the top of his head. He’d been between apartments, lacking direction, and a job out on an island in the middle of nowhere sounded like an adventure.
“We really need to stop these wifi and communication problems, for the clients,” Joseph said. “You know, we’ve had several major sports people here at the institute. And do you know the rap star, Li’l Loada?”
“Uh, I might have heard the name,” Samar lied. “I don’t really know any of his-,”
Joseph interrupted, holding his thumb and finger only a hair apart. “We are this close to having a Kardashian come visit us.”
“Wow,” Samar said drily, for a lack of anything else to say.
“But for the staff, even senior members of Abolife, it’s the opposite. We need to block out distraction, stop them accessing certain websites.”
“Porn,” Samar blurted automatically.
“Yes, well, yes, but other distractions as well. Social media, I understand it has some uses in spreading our message but it's so pointless, so ephemeral. It's so human in that way, isn’t it? A short, temporary distraction from our short, temporary lives, like a rat pressing a button to light up its pleasure centres.”
“Right, sure.”
“And there have been some websites critical of Abolife itself, I’m sure you’re aware. But people can’t access those, at least not on our time. They’re free to do it on their own time.”
“Of course.”
“We have so much more to discuss, let me give you the nickel tour first.”
Joseph had Samar leave his bags behind the reception desk and took him on a walk around the facilities. Some of the staff, in white uniforms like the ones Shane and Joseph wore, scurried around getting ready for the day. They were quietly deferential to Joseph. The head of Abolife first showed Samar the opulent dining hall used by clients, with huge windows looking out on the pine forest behind the institution. Exercise equipment filled a gym for the clientele and there were several rooms for smaller classes. In a structure fashioned like a greenhouse, attached to the main building, was a heated pool and sauna. Various rooms existed for spa treatments and different forms of meditation.
Joseph led Samar into another long and dimly lit room, sparsely furnished except for several large, metal pods. They looked like refrigerators laid on their backs, or oversized coffins. Their interiors were half-filled with water. Isolation tanks, Joseph explained, for sensory deprivation. Clients would be closed inside where they would float in the water, cut off from external stimuli for meditative purposes.
“Of course, I insist you take advantage of all these facilities at least once so you can properly capture them on our new website!” Joseph said.
“Oh, no, no thank you.”
Samar cringed, realising he’d just blurted out a blunt refusal to his new boss. Joseph looked confused. Just looking at the open chambers of the isolation tanks, however, was giving Samar a heightened anxiety that he struggled to tamp down.
“Sorry, I just mean, I’ve got a bit of claustrophobia. I really don’t like enclosed spaces,” Samar said. “I really don’t think I could handle being inside one of those.”
“Fears like that hold us back, Samar. Here at Abolife we’re all about living longer and living better, there’s a world of possibility out there beyond the veil of your fears.”
“I’ll, keep that in mind, thanks.”
Joseph led Samar back to the reception desk and then showed him to his room in the staff accommodation wing, on the top level toward the back of the institute. Samar’s actual room looked like a converted closet but at least he had it to himself. A single bed, a desk and chair, and a lamp. The bathroom and shower facilities were shared. Samar’s window offered a decent view of the nearby cliffs. Joseph let him unpack, telling him to head to the staff cafeteria and they would talk more after breakfast.
Samar’s first day was uneventful. His office was tucked away along with the server room beneath some stairs on the lower level. It wasn’t glamorous, it didn’t even have a window, but it was private. Samar spent some time getting to learn what systems were already in place and setting things up the way he liked them.
Meals were in the staff cafeteria. It was dingy and nowhere near as nice as the renovated dining hall used by clients. Samar ate his meals alone. The other staff seemed wary about getting to know him, even after Joseph introduced him to the group. Given what Joseph had said about shutting off access to social media and other websites, Samar couldn’t blame them. They must have felt like Samar was there to keep an eye on them and whatever they were looking at online, not that he was about to narc on anyone as long as he could avoid it.
Lights out came at ten pm. Everyone had to be in their rooms, no reading, no electronic devices. Samar figured as the new IT guy though, he was an exception to that rule. Sitting in his darkened room the glow of his phone, connected to the institute’s wifi, reflected back on his face. In the quiet, the old building groaned and whispered from time to time. He opened up a chat with one of his friends and former roommates back on the mainland.
Alvin: How’s the cult?
Samar: It’s not a cult, and it's fine so far. Dude who runs it seems a little intense. Room’s okay, pretty small
Alvin: Aren’t you worried about him seeing your messages talking about him like that?
Samar: I’m the IT Guy. If anyone’s going to check messages it’s me
Too wired to sleep, Samar sat at his desk and kept scrolling on his phone for almost an hour after lights out. The sound of waves crashing against the cliffs outside his window lulled him into an almost meditative state. Glancing toward the view though, he spotted movement.
Someone, actually half a dozen someones, walked toward the cliffs with flashlights. Samar shut off his phone and eased toward the window. The six flashlights headed away from the institution. Looking closer, Samar was pretty sure the person at the front of the line was Joseph Davis.
“Where are they going? It’s the middle of the night,” Samar said.
Samar watched the half a dozen people move along the cliffs. There must have been some kind of stairway that led down the cliffs because eventually the flashlights disappeared over the lip of the clifftop. Samar kept watching until eventually he felt too tired to stay awake but he never saw Joseph and the others come back up.
xXx
Samar’s first couple of weeks creating a new website for Abolife and doing general IT work were uneventful. Joseph Davis was one of the best and worst kinds of bosses a computer tech could have. Despite only being in his forties, Joseph had absolutely no idea how technology and the internet worked. It meant Samar could spend most of his time skimming Reddit or reading stuff online then explain away a whole day of work by throwing out a couple of bits of technical jargon. Joseph considered restarting a router or identifying an IP address in the realm of technical wizardry. And while Joseph wanted certain websites behind a firewall for employees, Samar had no risk of such a thing happening to him.
On the other hand, Joseph had impossible hopes for the new website and for increasing their social media engagement. For one, he insisted Samar place their new website on the front page of ‘The Google’ whenever anybody searched things like ‘wellness’, ‘health’, or similar related terms. He also insisted Samar explain at length why that wasn’t possible then still left the conversation seemingly dissatisfied.
Most of Abolife’s surface level stuff and services were basic healthy living. Exercise classes, meditation, massage, all with some kind of special caveats to justify the high price tags. Samar had to learn a lot more about it in putting the website together, he wasn’t given a lot of copy to work with. He could see why some people, like his friend Alvin, thought it was a cult though. Joseph had that manic energy and a lot of his staff were slavishly devoted to the lifestyle lessons he imparted. Some parts of the old website had a lot of loopy stuff trying to draw a line between the institute’s teachings and the long geological history of the earth. Accepting that human history was a mere speck compared to the long, long lifetime of the earth itself, and infinitesimal against the scale of universal time. To Samar, it just seemed like a clumsy attempt at putting a new spin on a ‘Time is short! Seize the day!’ type of messaging.
Joseph was obsessed, more than anything, with getting celebrity endorsements and media interviews, and taking Abolife mainstream. Whether Samar could control ‘The Google’ or not, Joseph insisted the website meet his vision. And he was exacting about his staff’s professionalism.
Many of the other members of staff were still standoffish with Samar. A lot of the senior staff only ever talked about Joseph’s teachings, and were just as obsessive about the institute’s success. With blocked websites and talk of web traffic being monitored, a certain paranoia ran through the less senior staff. Many were polite but kept Samar at arm’s length. He did become fast friends with a few people though who, like him, had signed on to specialty roles for the pay and sense of adventure. Kym, a masseuse and specialist in sports injuries. Tom, the institute’s accountant, and some of the kitchen staff.
Samar tried to make the most of his free time. He went for hikes around the island’s cliff tops and interior, but there were only so many dense forests of creepy pines or weatherbeaten cliffs that he could take. On one of his first outings, he found the stairs that must have been used by Joseph and the others when he’d seen them vanish on the first night he arrived. Cut into the side of the cliff, they were protected by a gate and a series of warnings not to use them due to the dangers involved. Samar considered ignoring the sign but the stairs were worn smooth as if by generations, uneven, and slick with damp, with no railing and a dizzying fall to jagged rocks beneath them. He couldn’t imagine using them in the middle of the night using only flashlights to navigate. Samar also visited the township of Letch Island but there was little to do there too. There was a general store, a small library and a bar, but Samar got the feeling he was unwelcome in all of them. He didn’t think it was a race thing, maybe they just didn’t like people from the institute or that all outsiders were met with the same dull eyed hostility.
Samar never went far from his windowless office when he was meant to be working though, regardless of what he was actually doing. Joseph was always popping in with little thought bubbles hovering over his head. Some brilliant new suggestion that Samar would either have to implement or try to talk him down from wasting time on. Two weeks after Samar arrived, Joseph turned up holding a notepad covered in drawn symbols.
“Samar, I want you to write some kind of-, translation software,” Joseph said.
“Translation? For what?”
“For this.” Joseph slapped the notepad onto the corner of Samar’s desk.
The notepad, or at least the first few pages, were covered in a variety of strange symbols. They had the order of writing but weren’t in any language that Samar had ever seen. It reminded him of Japanese or Chinese, maybe, but was full of spirals and many more sinuous shapes. Samar flicked through the pages in complete bewilderment then looked back at Joseph.
“You want to, what? Translate this from, whatever it is, into English?”
“That’s right, your computers can do that, can’t they? They scan things, recognise patterns, and translate what they mean?”
Samar was sure this was another example of Joseph’s belief that computers were really nothing more than magic boxes. Possibly it was something he’d seen in a TV show or a movie, or read about, and he’d been hit with a burst of inspiration.
“I don’t really know about that,” Samar said. “Computers actually have a hard time reading symbols or photos and recognising shapes to begin with. And then, to translate anything, I would have to know what this is?”
“It’s a language, a very, very ancient one,” Joseph said.
“Where did you get it from?”
“I copied it down myself.”
“From where?”
Joseph looked annoyed and didn’t answer. “Can your computers do it or not?”
Samar shrugged and gave his standard answer for when he didn’t really know what else to tell his boss. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll be back at the end of the day to see how you’re progressing. Do not show that to anyone, I’m only showing you because I thought your computers might help.”
“It might make it difficult to get any answers if I can’t show anyone.”
“Just, not yet, I don’t think the world is ready for what’s on those pages yet.”
Samar did his best to follow up on Joseph’s request by doing what he always did and Googling it. But while there was plenty of information out there about translation software, nothing worked as Joseph suggested. Samar tried looking for translators of ancient languages, and for characters that matched what was scrawled across the pages. He couldn’t find anything but it wasn’t his area of expertise by a long shot.
As promised, Joseph stopped by at the end of the day to check on Samar’s progress. Samar explained as best he could that he couldn’t do what Joseph expected. That he’d need an expert in ancient languages, not a computer geek. Samar made sure to toss in a few pieces of technical jargon just to make sure Joseph didn’t think he was avoiding the work.
“That’s disappointing,” Joseph said.
“Sir, if you told me what the language is or where you got it from, I could at least try to come up with some recommendations.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.” Joseph’s eyes shone with something almost like mischief. “Samar, you’ve read all the information on the old website regarding Abolife’s philosophies, haven’t you?
“Of course,” Samar said, although he’d mostly skimmed based on what Joseph wanted copied across.
“Human lives are infinitesimally small compared to the life of our planet. And I say our planet, but human history is a blip when weighed against geological ages. The movement of continents.”
“Sure, it’s-, a lot to think about.”
“What if I told you that buried in that timescale, Abolife philosophy believes there may have been other civilisations? Other intelligent beings that built upon this planet before human beings ever existed?”
“Does this have something to do with where you and the other senior staff go at night?”
Samar blurted the question out without thinking. It had been playing on his mind. Joseph said he’d copied the symbols down from somewhere. Maybe below the cliffs was some kind of cave system. Maybe it didn’t necessarily contain evidence of an ancient, pre-human civilisation, but it could have some evidence of early human inhabitation of the island. Joseph looked shocked at the question.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, nothing, sorry. Well, I’ve seen you and some of the other senior staff from my window, heading to the cliffs at night. I wondered if it might be something to do with that.”
“That’s after lights out, you’re not meant to see that.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to-,”
Joseph grabbed the notepad and took a step back. “I like you, Samar, I think you’re a good worker with an open mind. But don’t try to advance too quickly, have a little bit more faith and you’ll learn more when you’re ready.”
“Uh, okay, thank you.”
xXx
Samar sat with Kym and Tom at dinner but didn’t mention his conversation with Joseph. He also held off messaging Alvin or any of his friends on the mainland about it. That night, Samar stayed up and watched the window but he didn’t see anybody heading along the cliffs.
Joseph didn’t bring the topic up again with Samar so the next couple of days were tense but filled with normal tasks. Most of Joseph’s attention was diverted to the arrival of yet another of his ‘celebrity’ guests, a newsreader Samar had never heard of. In the drive to make everything perfect, Joseph seemed to forget Samar entirely as long as the wifi worked smoothly. But Samar kept watching the cliffs after lights out. He hadn’t braved going down there during the daytime but curiosity was eating him alive. And maybe Alvin was right all along, maybe Samar had gotten himself involved in a cult. If it was dangerous, then he’d be better off knowing now rather than too late.
Then, on the fourth night after his conversation with Joseph, Samar saw them. Sitting in his chair and scrolling on his phone, he spotted half a dozen lights making their way to the cliffs. Samar quickly turned his phone off so the glow wouldn’t give him away and moved closer to the window. Just in time, as he saw the flashlight at the front of the line pause and swing around, looking back at the institute. Samar could almost feel Joseph’s eyes scanning the windows, looking to see if they were watched. After a few seconds he seemed satisfied and moved on.
Samar jumped up and rushed to the foot of his bed. He was still wearing the white uniform he and the other staff wore to work but he exchanged the pants for some dark jeans and threw a jacket over his shirt. His feet slipped into some boots he wore when hiking around the island. Hurrying out of the room, Samar only took his staff keycard and his phone.
There was no security to keep people in their rooms at night, only the honour system and the fact a record of whose keycards were used where and when. Samar had access to the spreadsheet that tracked card movements so he could easily delete his record tomorrow. He hurried downstairs uninterrupted, corridors lit only by the dim nighttime cycle, seen by no one. His keycard beeped him through every door in his way and then through the rear exit of the institute.
Cool night air settled damply on Samar’s exposed skin. The rolling waves he heard all night in his room were louder. Joseph and the others must have already disappeared down the path and Samar jogged through the dark to follow them. He couldn’t be sure what they were doing. Uncovering or maybe manufacturing evidence of the island’s ancient inhabitants perhaps. Or maybe holding some kind of cultish ceremony. Samar decided to find out. He reached the gate and looked down. He saw flashlights bobbing along down the bottom of the path where the waves boiled and foamed over jagged rocks. Samar waited until they were fully out of sight before switching on the flashlight on his phone.
As Samar had already seen, the steps were worn and uneven, potentially treacherous with a sheer drop to one side. Samar wasn’t going to let that stop him now though, although he wished he’d given the path a trial run at least once during daylight. Pressing himself close to the rock wall, Samar eased down step by step and made sure to keep the flashlight pointed where he was going. It was a good thing he had a fear of enclosed spaces and not of heights.
The stairway doubled back. The stones were even more weathered and slick with seawater but also flatter and wider. Samar kept his light low as he looked ahead. Glimmers of flashlight beams showed through a cave opening at the end of the path. Once he was sure of his footing, Samar turned off his light. He let his eyes adjust to the moon, which was almost full. The glow turned the rocks into a chiaroscuro and glimmered on the waves. Following the flashlights, Samar crept inside the cave and followed a short, twisty passage. What he saw as he peered over a rock ledge almost caused him to shout in surprise.
Flashlights had been placed at strategic points around the cave to light it. Joseph Davis and five other people knelt at the lip of a pool flowing in from the wide mouth of the cave. Several shapes, three of them, wallowed in the sea pool. Huge, living beings, totally alien.
“What is this?” Samar whispered.
The three creatures were roughly the size of hippos, although it was hard to say as a lot of their bulk must have been hidden beneath the water. One of the three was slightly smaller and a different shade from the other two. Their skin was slick and grey, water running off of it. While thick and heavy, their bodies were almost serpentine. Tentacles grew from where their ‘shoulders’ would be. Small black eyes were buried in the folds of their faces, below the big humps of their heads. And their mouths, they reminded Samar of lampreys or giant leeches. Massive, sucking holes, big enough that someone like Samar could have curled up in a ball inside them, ringed with dozens and dozens, hundreds, of teeth like daggers.
Only Joseph raised his head, all the other cultists pressed their foreheads against the cave’s rocky floor. They were a cult after all, Samar saw now. And this was who or what they worshipped. Joseph said something but spoke too low for Samar to understand, or to even know if he was speaking english. To Samar’s shock, one of the creatures replied. It certainly wasn’t English, a lot of chuffing, rumbling, and shrill inhales, but it had an unmistakable pattern to it. Language, not random animal sounds.
“Holy shit,” Samar said.
Joseph’s talk of ancient, antediluvian civilisations wasn’t just wild imagination. He knew these creatures existed, maybe before humans or maybe not but certainly now alongside them in secret. Samar watched as the lead creature chuffed and lifted a tentacle out of the water. With some kind of natural ink, it sketched something on a nearby rock. A symbol, like the symbols Joseph had shown Samar. In fact, Samar saw Joseph had the yellow notepad in front of him and was hurriedly copying the symbols onto a fresh page as the watery ink blurred and ran.
No one would believe him without proof, Samar thought to himself. He retrieved his phone and raised it over the rocks. Shakily, he opened the camera app and trained it on the gathering so as to get a full picture of the creatures with Joseph and the cultists for scale.
Samar clicked the photo button, and the flash from his phone bounced across the cave. The creatures, their eyes used to the dark of the ocean depths, blinked and recoiled. Their leader made a shrieking wail and huffed. Joseph and the other cultists looked up.
“Shit!” Samar said.
Samar ducked and ran, struggling back through the rock passage. A tumult came from the cultists behind him. Samar couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to turn off the flash, of all the stupid rookie mistakes to make.
Waves crashed against the rocks. Samar sprinted up the stairs as fast as he dared. At the point where the steps doubled back, he had to switch his phone’s flashlight back on. Heart racing, he glanced back down and saw the cultists’ flashlights coming for him.
“Come on, come on,” Samar said.
Once he was on solid ground, Samar tried to use his phone. He had no reception though and had to wait until he was back on the institute’s wifi. As he ran, he opened his messenger app and hit on Alvin as his most recent contact.
Samar: You were right it's a cult found them talking to things don’t know what’s going to happen
Samar uploaded the pic he’d taken in the cave. It was slightly out of focus but he was sure it showed what he needed. Tiny circles spun next to both the message and the photo. Samar shoved the phone back in his pocket and grabbed his keycard. Over his shoulder, the first of the flashlights reappeared at the top of the cliffside path.
Where should he go, Samar wondered. A ferry left the island first thing in the morning. With what he’d just uncovered, Samar felt strongly he should be on it. But there were hours until dawn. He couldn’t just run off into the woods. Nor would he find shelter in town, among the standoffish locals.
“They don’t know it was me, not for sure,” Samar said. “I’ll go back to my room and pack. First thing in the morning, I'll make an excuse and run for it. They don’t know it was me.”
Samar slammed through the back door. He slipped through the corridors again, breathing hard. His keycard beeped his way up through the building, back to his room. Samar crossed to the window. He couldn’t see any more flashlights outside. They didn’t know it was him, not for sure. Samar tried to even out his breathing and thought about his next move. Should he pack? Should he strip and climb into bed, and play innocent if they came to his room?
Collecting himself, Samar stripped off his jacket and kicked off his boots. He retrieved the phone from his pocket and checked it again, thinking of who to call. But the wifi was down, he was offline. He couldn’t tell if his messages to Alvin had gone through. Letch Island only had cell reception down in town, in the institute they relied on wifi. Samar had shown Joseph and the others how to restart the wifi in case he wasn’t around when it went down. He didn’t think they’d paid attention, especially Joseph, but at least one of them knew enough to shut it off now.
Suddenly, the door to Samar’s room jumped. Samar jumped as well. Someone was outside, hammering on it despite the late hour.
“Samar, it’s me, let me in,” Joseph said.
Samar calmed his breathing and wondered about his response, making his voice sound sleepy. “What? What is it? It’s the middle of the night.”
“We know it was you, Samar, come on. Your boots tracked in a whole bunch of dirt.”
Samar hesitated, and looked down at his boots. If he started screaming, Samar figured he could wake up the rest of the staff who slept on that floor. But most of the staff loved, and partially feared, Joseph, or at least respected him, while Samar could only sound crazy.
“All I want to do is talk, Samar, you know me. Just because you found out some new information, do you think that really changes our relationship?
Samar slowly moved toward the door. He couldn’t barricade himself in there all night. So he knew their secret, that didn’t mean it was a secret to kill for.
“Okay, okay, I’m opening the door,” Samar said.
“We just want to talk,” Joseph repeated.
The hallway was dimly lit. Joseph stood outside, giving Samar an almost parental look. Behind him was Shane, the big man who’d fetched Samar from the pier on the day he’d arrived on the island. Shane still carried his flashlight, a big, black, heavy one shaped like a club.
“Oh, Samar,” Joseph said, smiling sadly.
Shane brought his flashlight up and around, connecting with Samar’s temple. A lance of pain went through Samar’s skull. He was vaguely aware of a falling sensation and then nothing.
xXx
When Samar woke up he found himself in total blackness. He was wet, and water sloshed around him as he was thrown from side to side. He felt like a sock in a washing machine. Dazed, Samar’s hands shot out and met hard resistance on both sides and directly above him. His head throbbed with pain like a terrible hangover.
“Hey, hey!” Samar yelled.
Samar realised he was in an enclosed space. Totally black, lightless, and capped at either end. There was a lid but it was sealed shut and only shifted half a centimetre, maybe a little more, maybe less, when Samar hit it. A metal coffin. With the size and the water sloshing around inside it, Samar realised he was inside one of the isolation tanks. One of those Joseph had shown him on the day he arrived and wanted him to try.
“Who’s out there? Let me out!” Samar started to panic.
They were moving. The sensory deprivation tank was being rolled and judging by how violently he was being thrown around they were moving across uneven ground, not through the institute’s long, smooth corridors. Someone banged on the lid.
“I’m sorry, Samar! You were a good worker, a good listener, but you weren’t ready.” Joseph’s voice came from outside, slightly muffled.
“Let me out! Let me out!”
“You’ve probably figured some of it out, based on our chat. They’re ancient, Samar. They’re older than man and all his gods. Their kind ruled this planet’s oceans from end to end during the age of the dinosaurs. War devastated their species before the first creature to even resemble humankind walked upright on the plains of Africa.”
“Let me out!” Samar slammed his fists against the lid, the sound of his own voice making his head hurt.
“They’re biologically immortal, Samar! Apart from violence or accident, they cannot die! And they’ll share the knowledge of how we can be like them but only if we show them absolute loyalty. This island is one of their remaining kingdoms. Below the surface, it’s riddled with caves and tunnels where they live. This island and everything for a hundred miles around it, we have to keep them safe!”
The chamber continued to be pushed across rough ground. Samar searched his pockets and found his phone. Even though it was wet, it still worked. Doing his best to control his terror, he searched the confines of his prison but found no way out.
“Please! Please, I’m sorry! Let me out!” Samar said. “I won’t tell anyone!”
“I’m sorry, Samar, but you’re not ready. The world isn’t ready to live longer, live better, and we must make mankind ready before we reveal them and their secrets!”
The tank was tilted, and Samar fell backward. He listened past Joseph’s muffled voice. He could hear waves slamming against the coast. They’d been getting louder. They were pushing him toward the cliffs.
“Please! I’ll do anything! I won’t say anything!” Samar said.
“You frightened and offended them. I’m sorry, Samar, there’s no other way.”
Samar’s metal coffin tilted violently forward and back. He was being lifted. Begging and pleading, he tried to stop them but no one replied.
Suddenly, Samar was in freefall. The water in the tank rose around him as if in zero gravity. Instinctively, Samar shot his arms and legs out to brace himself. He fell for several seconds before hitting the water with a bone jarring thud. Thrown around the chamber, he barely avoided being knocked out for a second time.
“Oh, fuck! No! No!”
Samar’s metal coffin sank rapidly. He felt pressure on his ears and sinuses, and sobbed for breath. Slamming his hands against the lid, he felt water leaking around the edges. His phone’s light continued to work but seemed dimmer by the second.
“Help me! Someone!”
Something slammed against the tank, but it wasn’t help. Through the skin of the metal chamber, Samar felt powerful limbs wrapping around his coffin. He screamed, but only for a second as the lid was ripped away and the ocean exploded inward. In the dying light of his phone, Samar saw an enormous shape surrounded by tentacles, and rows and rows of teeth.

For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that. This week’s inspiration was 'Aboleth'.
More in this series is on my website, accessible through my profile if you're interested.

Cold spray frothed over the nose of the ship and speckled the side of Samar’s face, smelling strongly of salt. The ferry had set off just after dawn but both sea and sky were slate grey, to the point it was hard to distinguish where one ended and the other began. Apart from a handful of what Samar assumed were tourists, or maybe clients of the same institution where he was headed, and a captain up in the pilothouse, Samar had the ferry to himself.
Letch Island rose out of the ocean like a fortress. The cliffs reminded Samar of castle ramparts. Dark, windswept pines covered the hills. What there was of the town, probably fifty houses and buildings total, clustered around the cove that the ferry pulled into. A couple dozen fishing boats moored in the cove as well.
Samar went inside and collected his bags. He had one relatively small rolling suitcase and an overstuffed gym bag. Not much but between them, along with a bank account far outweighed by student loans and some cheap, flatpack furniture he’d left in a storage locker on the mainland, they represented the sum total of his worldly possessions. Other passengers piled off the boat first. Samar wrestled his suitcase down the ramp and then along the wharf, taking in his surroundings with genuine interest as he did. About a dozen locals waited to get on the ferry for its return trip. It only made the journey between Letch Island and the mainland twice a day, in the mornings and evenings.
At the foot of the pier was a big man in a white uniform. Although Samar would have been pretty easy to spot, the man held a piece of paper with ‘Samar Varadkar’ printed on it like those drivers waiting for people at the airport.
“You’re from the Wellness Institute?” Samar asked, shouldering his bag.
“That’s right.”
The question was pretty obviously answered. On the breast of his uniform was the name of the institute and a nametag, ‘Shane’. The man didn’t offer anything more.
“Well, I’m-, that’s me.” Samar nodded to the sign. “After you?”
Shane led Samar to a passenger van parked nearby. Only a few vehicles seemed to live on the island as there was little need for them. Samar piled his bags in the back and Shane drove them across the island’s small township.
Most of the island’s inhabitants had a singular look about them Samar realised as he watched from the van’s windows. He’d noticed it among the locals lined up for the ferry but could see now how widespread it was. Grey skinned, with bulbous eyes and wide, fishy mouths. Too little genetic diversity in too small a place for too long. They almost seemed to make a point of ignoring the van as it rolled by.
A poorly paved road led out of Letch Island township and into the hills. The institute sat near some clifftops overlooking the ocean, surrounded by pines. ‘Abolife Wellness Lifestyle Institute’ read the sign over the iron gate, just above the mantra, ‘Living Longer, Living Better’. Built as some kind of hospital in the 1920s, the intimidating building had been abandoned for decades and then bought and renovated by its current owner and Samar’s new boss, Joseph Davis.
Shane parked outside of the institute and gestured Samar out of the van. “This way.”
Samar collected his bags and followed Shane up the steps to the slightly grand stone arch of the front entrance. Inside was much more modern than the outside. White and brightly lit, with lots of steel and glass. The reception desk sat empty for the time being.
“Wait here, Mr Davis will want to meet with you first,” Shane said.
Samar set his bags down and waited as Shane disappeared. The walls of the institute were strangely quiet. Samar had been up for hours in order to catch the ferry but for a lot of people it was still relatively early. He wasn’t waiting long anyway before Joseph Davis, creator of Abolife, appeared.
“Samar! So pleased to see you made it, no problems with the ferry or finding Shane?”
“Mr Davis, no, thanks, everything was fine.”
Davis took Samar’s hand and shook vigorously. “Please, call me Joseph, we’re all informal here. Except in front of the clients, never in front of the clients. But you won’t be having much face time with clientele, will you?”
Samar had met Joseph Davis twice already but only through fairly shaky video calls. In person, he was struck by just how electric Joseph’s presence was. Tall, athletic and with a thick head of dark hair, he was in his late forties but gave off an impression of exceptional health. Samar, in his early twenties, felt like Joseph could have run literal rings around him.
“You’ve arrived not a moment too soon, we really need to get a new website up and running if we’re going to expand,” Joseph said. “And these constant tech issues and outages don’t reflect well on the institute.”
Samar’s main education was in website design, which he could have done for Abolife remotely. But Joseph wanted an all-round IT person to come and live on the island and deal with all of the institute’s technical needs. Samar knew enough to get by and could Google anything he didn’t know how to do off the top of his head. He’d been between apartments, lacking direction, and a job out on an island in the middle of nowhere sounded like an adventure.
“We really need to stop these wifi and communication problems, for the clients,” Joseph said. “You know, we’ve had several major sports people here at the institute. And do you know the rap star, Li’l Loada?”
“Uh, I might have heard the name,” Samar lied. “I don’t really know any of his-,”
Joseph interrupted, holding his thumb and finger only a hair apart. “We are this close to having a Kardashian come visit us.”
“Wow,” Samar said drily, for a lack of anything else to say.
“But for the staff, even senior members of Abolife, it’s the opposite. We need to block out distraction, stop them accessing certain websites.”
“Porn,” Samar blurted automatically.
“Yes, well, yes, but other distractions as well. Social media, I understand it has some uses in spreading our message but it's so pointless, so ephemeral. It's so human in that way, isn’t it? A short, temporary distraction from our short, temporary lives, like a rat pressing a button to light up its pleasure centres.”
“Right, sure.”
“And there have been some websites critical of Abolife itself, I’m sure you’re aware. But people can’t access those, at least not on our time. They’re free to do it on their own time.”
“Of course.”
“We have so much more to discuss, let me give you the nickel tour first.”
Joseph had Samar leave his bags behind the reception desk and took him on a walk around the facilities. Some of the staff, in white uniforms like the ones Shane and Joseph wore, scurried around getting ready for the day. They were quietly deferential to Joseph. The head of Abolife first showed Samar the opulent dining hall used by clients, with huge windows looking out on the pine forest behind the institution. Exercise equipment filled a gym for the clientele and there were several rooms for smaller classes. In a structure fashioned like a greenhouse, attached to the main building, was a heated pool and sauna. Various rooms existed for spa treatments and different forms of meditation.
Joseph led Samar into another long and dimly lit room, sparsely furnished except for several large, metal pods. They looked like refrigerators laid on their backs, or oversized coffins. Their interiors were half-filled with water. Isolation tanks, Joseph explained, for sensory deprivation. Clients would be closed inside where they would float in the water, cut off from external stimuli for meditative purposes.
“Of course, I insist you take advantage of all these facilities at least once so you can properly capture them on our new website!” Joseph said.
“Oh, no, no thank you.”
Samar cringed, realising he’d just blurted out a blunt refusal to his new boss. Joseph looked confused. Just looking at the open chambers of the isolation tanks, however, was giving Samar a heightened anxiety that he struggled to tamp down.
“Sorry, I just mean, I’ve got a bit of claustrophobia. I really don’t like enclosed spaces,” Samar said. “I really don’t think I could handle being inside one of those.”
“Fears like that hold us back, Samar. Here at Abolife we’re all about living longer and living better, there’s a world of possibility out there beyond the veil of your fears.”
“I’ll, keep that in mind, thanks.”
Joseph led Samar back to the reception desk and then showed him to his room in the staff accommodation wing, on the top level toward the back of the institute. Samar’s actual room looked like a converted closet but at least he had it to himself. A single bed, a desk and chair, and a lamp. The bathroom and shower facilities were shared. Samar’s window offered a decent view of the nearby cliffs. Joseph let him unpack, telling him to head to the staff cafeteria and they would talk more after breakfast.
Samar’s first day was uneventful. His office was tucked away along with the server room beneath some stairs on the lower level. It wasn’t glamorous, it didn’t even have a window, but it was private. Samar spent some time getting to learn what systems were already in place and setting things up the way he liked them.
Meals were in the staff cafeteria. It was dingy and nowhere near as nice as the renovated dining hall used by clients. Samar ate his meals alone. The other staff seemed wary about getting to know him, even after Joseph introduced him to the group. Given what Joseph had said about shutting off access to social media and other websites, Samar couldn’t blame them. They must have felt like Samar was there to keep an eye on them and whatever they were looking at online, not that he was about to narc on anyone as long as he could avoid it.
Lights out came at ten pm. Everyone had to be in their rooms, no reading, no electronic devices. Samar figured as the new IT guy though, he was an exception to that rule. Sitting in his darkened room the glow of his phone, connected to the institute’s wifi, reflected back on his face. In the quiet, the old building groaned and whispered from time to time. He opened up a chat with one of his friends and former roommates back on the mainland.
Alvin: How’s the cult?
Samar: It’s not a cult, and it's fine so far. Dude who runs it seems a little intense. Room’s okay, pretty small
Alvin: Aren’t you worried about him seeing your messages talking about him like that?
Samar: I’m the IT Guy. If anyone’s going to check messages it’s me
Too wired to sleep, Samar sat at his desk and kept scrolling on his phone for almost an hour after lights out. The sound of waves crashing against the cliffs outside his window lulled him into an almost meditative state. Glancing toward the view though, he spotted movement.
Someone, actually half a dozen someones, walked toward the cliffs with flashlights. Samar shut off his phone and eased toward the window. The six flashlights headed away from the institution. Looking closer, Samar was pretty sure the person at the front of the line was Joseph Davis.
“Where are they going? It’s the middle of the night,” Samar said.
Samar watched the half a dozen people move along the cliffs. There must have been some kind of stairway that led down the cliffs because eventually the flashlights disappeared over the lip of the clifftop. Samar kept watching until eventually he felt too tired to stay awake but he never saw Joseph and the others come back up.
xXx
Samar’s first couple of weeks creating a new website for Abolife and doing general IT work were uneventful. Joseph Davis was one of the best and worst kinds of bosses a computer tech could have. Despite only being in his forties, Joseph had absolutely no idea how technology and the internet worked. It meant Samar could spend most of his time skimming Reddit or reading stuff online then explain away a whole day of work by throwing out a couple of bits of technical jargon. Joseph considered restarting a router or identifying an IP address in the realm of technical wizardry. And while Joseph wanted certain websites behind a firewall for employees, Samar had no risk of such a thing happening to him.
On the other hand, Joseph had impossible hopes for the new website and for increasing their social media engagement. For one, he insisted Samar place their new website on the front page of ‘The Google’ whenever anybody searched things like ‘wellness’, ‘health’, or similar related terms. He also insisted Samar explain at length why that wasn’t possible then still left the conversation seemingly dissatisfied.
Most of Abolife’s surface level stuff and services were basic healthy living. Exercise classes, meditation, massage, all with some kind of special caveats to justify the high price tags. Samar had to learn a lot more about it in putting the website together, he wasn’t given a lot of copy to work with. He could see why some people, like his friend Alvin, thought it was a cult though. Joseph had that manic energy and a lot of his staff were slavishly devoted to the lifestyle lessons he imparted. Some parts of the old website had a lot of loopy stuff trying to draw a line between the institute’s teachings and the long geological history of the earth. Accepting that human history was a mere speck compared to the long, long lifetime of the earth itself, and infinitesimal against the scale of universal time. To Samar, it just seemed like a clumsy attempt at putting a new spin on a ‘Time is short! Seize the day!’ type of messaging.
Joseph was obsessed, more than anything, with getting celebrity endorsements and media interviews, and taking Abolife mainstream. Whether Samar could control ‘The Google’ or not, Joseph insisted the website meet his vision. And he was exacting about his staff’s professionalism.
Many of the other members of staff were still standoffish with Samar. A lot of the senior staff only ever talked about Joseph’s teachings, and were just as obsessive about the institute’s success. With blocked websites and talk of web traffic being monitored, a certain paranoia ran through the less senior staff. Many were polite but kept Samar at arm’s length. He did become fast friends with a few people though who, like him, had signed on to specialty roles for the pay and sense of adventure. Kym, a masseuse and specialist in sports injuries. Tom, the institute’s accountant, and some of the kitchen staff.
Samar tried to make the most of his free time. He went for hikes around the island’s cliff tops and interior, but there were only so many dense forests of creepy pines or weatherbeaten cliffs that he could take. On one of his first outings, he found the stairs that must have been used by Joseph and the others when he’d seen them vanish on the first night he arrived. Cut into the side of the cliff, they were protected by a gate and a series of warnings not to use them due to the dangers involved. Samar considered ignoring the sign but the stairs were worn smooth as if by generations, uneven, and slick with damp, with no railing and a dizzying fall to jagged rocks beneath them. He couldn’t imagine using them in the middle of the night using only flashlights to navigate. Samar also visited the township of Letch Island but there was little to do there too. There was a general store, a small library and a bar, but Samar got the feeling he was unwelcome in all of them. He didn’t think it was a race thing, maybe they just didn’t like people from the institute or that all outsiders were met with the same dull eyed hostility.
Samar never went far from his windowless office when he was meant to be working though, regardless of what he was actually doing. Joseph was always popping in with little thought bubbles hovering over his head. Some brilliant new suggestion that Samar would either have to implement or try to talk him down from wasting time on. Two weeks after Samar arrived, Joseph turned up holding a notepad covered in drawn symbols.
“Samar, I want you to write some kind of-, translation software,” Joseph said.
“Translation? For what?”
“For this.” Joseph slapped the notepad onto the corner of Samar’s desk.
The notepad, or at least the first few pages, were covered in a variety of strange symbols. They had the order of writing but weren’t in any language that Samar had ever seen. It reminded him of Japanese or Chinese, maybe, but was full of spirals and many more sinuous shapes. Samar flicked through the pages in complete bewilderment then looked back at Joseph.
“You want to, what? Translate this from, whatever it is, into English?”
“That’s right, your computers can do that, can’t they? They scan things, recognise patterns, and translate what they mean?”
Samar was sure this was another example of Joseph’s belief that computers were really nothing more than magic boxes. Possibly it was something he’d seen in a TV show or a movie, or read about, and he’d been hit with a burst of inspiration.
“I don’t really know about that,” Samar said. “Computers actually have a hard time reading symbols or photos and recognising shapes to begin with. And then, to translate anything, I would have to know what this is?”
“It’s a language, a very, very ancient one,” Joseph said.
“Where did you get it from?”
“I copied it down myself.”
“From where?”
Joseph looked annoyed and didn’t answer. “Can your computers do it or not?”
Samar shrugged and gave his standard answer for when he didn’t really know what else to tell his boss. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll be back at the end of the day to see how you’re progressing. Do not show that to anyone, I’m only showing you because I thought your computers might help.”
“It might make it difficult to get any answers if I can’t show anyone.”
“Just, not yet, I don’t think the world is ready for what’s on those pages yet.”
Samar did his best to follow up on Joseph’s request by doing what he always did and Googling it. But while there was plenty of information out there about translation software, nothing worked as Joseph suggested. Samar tried looking for translators of ancient languages, and for characters that matched what was scrawled across the pages. He couldn’t find anything but it wasn’t his area of expertise by a long shot.
As promised, Joseph stopped by at the end of the day to check on Samar’s progress. Samar explained as best he could that he couldn’t do what Joseph expected. That he’d need an expert in ancient languages, not a computer geek. Samar made sure to toss in a few pieces of technical jargon just to make sure Joseph didn’t think he was avoiding the work.
“That’s disappointing,” Joseph said.
“Sir, if you told me what the language is or where you got it from, I could at least try to come up with some recommendations.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.” Joseph’s eyes shone with something almost like mischief. “Samar, you’ve read all the information on the old website regarding Abolife’s philosophies, haven’t you?
“Of course,” Samar said, although he’d mostly skimmed based on what Joseph wanted copied across.
“Human lives are infinitesimally small compared to the life of our planet. And I say our planet, but human history is a blip when weighed against geological ages. The movement of continents.”
“Sure, it’s-, a lot to think about.”
“What if I told you that buried in that timescale, Abolife philosophy believes there may have been other civilisations? Other intelligent beings that built upon this planet before human beings ever existed?”
“Does this have something to do with where you and the other senior staff go at night?”
Samar blurted the question out without thinking. It had been playing on his mind. Joseph said he’d copied the symbols down from somewhere. Maybe below the cliffs was some kind of cave system. Maybe it didn’t necessarily contain evidence of an ancient, pre-human civilisation, but it could have some evidence of early human inhabitation of the island. Joseph looked shocked at the question.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, nothing, sorry. Well, I’ve seen you and some of the other senior staff from my window, heading to the cliffs at night. I wondered if it might be something to do with that.”
“That’s after lights out, you’re not meant to see that.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to-,”
Joseph grabbed the notepad and took a step back. “I like you, Samar, I think you’re a good worker with an open mind. But don’t try to advance too quickly, have a little bit more faith and you’ll learn more when you’re ready.”
“Uh, okay, thank you.”
xXx
Samar sat with Kym and Tom at dinner but didn’t mention his conversation with Joseph. He also held off messaging Alvin or any of his friends on the mainland about it. That night, Samar stayed up and watched the window but he didn’t see anybody heading along the cliffs.
Joseph didn’t bring the topic up again with Samar so the next couple of days were tense but filled with normal tasks. Most of Joseph’s attention was diverted to the arrival of yet another of his ‘celebrity’ guests, a newsreader Samar had never heard of. In the drive to make everything perfect, Joseph seemed to forget Samar entirely as long as the wifi worked smoothly. But Samar kept watching the cliffs after lights out. He hadn’t braved going down there during the daytime but curiosity was eating him alive. And maybe Alvin was right all along, maybe Samar had gotten himself involved in a cult. If it was dangerous, then he’d be better off knowing now rather than too late.
Then, on the fourth night after his conversation with Joseph, Samar saw them. Sitting in his chair and scrolling on his phone, he spotted half a dozen lights making their way to the cliffs. Samar quickly turned his phone off so the glow wouldn’t give him away and moved closer to the window. Just in time, as he saw the flashlight at the front of the line pause and swing around, looking back at the institute. Samar could almost feel Joseph’s eyes scanning the windows, looking to see if they were watched. After a few seconds he seemed satisfied and moved on.
Samar jumped up and rushed to the foot of his bed. He was still wearing the white uniform he and the other staff wore to work but he exchanged the pants for some dark jeans and threw a jacket over his shirt. His feet slipped into some boots he wore when hiking around the island. Hurrying out of the room, Samar only took his staff keycard and his phone.
There was no security to keep people in their rooms at night, only the honour system and the fact a record of whose keycards were used where and when. Samar had access to the spreadsheet that tracked card movements so he could easily delete his record tomorrow. He hurried downstairs uninterrupted, corridors lit only by the dim nighttime cycle, seen by no one. His keycard beeped him through every door in his way and then through the rear exit of the institute.
Cool night air settled damply on Samar’s exposed skin. The rolling waves he heard all night in his room were louder. Joseph and the others must have already disappeared down the path and Samar jogged through the dark to follow them. He couldn’t be sure what they were doing. Uncovering or maybe manufacturing evidence of the island’s ancient inhabitants perhaps. Or maybe holding some kind of cultish ceremony. Samar decided to find out. He reached the gate and looked down. He saw flashlights bobbing along down the bottom of the path where the waves boiled and foamed over jagged rocks. Samar waited until they were fully out of sight before switching on the flashlight on his phone.
As Samar had already seen, the steps were worn and uneven, potentially treacherous with a sheer drop to one side. Samar wasn’t going to let that stop him now though, although he wished he’d given the path a trial run at least once during daylight. Pressing himself close to the rock wall, Samar eased down step by step and made sure to keep the flashlight pointed where he was going. It was a good thing he had a fear of enclosed spaces and not of heights.
The stairway doubled back. The stones were even more weathered and slick with seawater but also flatter and wider. Samar kept his light low as he looked ahead. Glimmers of flashlight beams showed through a cave opening at the end of the path. Once he was sure of his footing, Samar turned off his light. He let his eyes adjust to the moon, which was almost full. The glow turned the rocks into a chiaroscuro and glimmered on the waves. Following the flashlights, Samar crept inside the cave and followed a short, twisty passage. What he saw as he peered over a rock ledge almost caused him to shout in surprise.
Flashlights had been placed at strategic points around the cave to light it. Joseph Davis and five other people knelt at the lip of a pool flowing in from the wide mouth of the cave. Several shapes, three of them, wallowed in the sea pool. Huge, living beings, totally alien.
“What is this?” Samar whispered.
The three creatures were roughly the size of hippos, although it was hard to say as a lot of their bulk must have been hidden beneath the water. One of the three was slightly smaller and a different shade from the other two. Their skin was slick and grey, water running off of it. While thick and heavy, their bodies were almost serpentine. Tentacles grew from where their ‘shoulders’ would be. Small black eyes were buried in the folds of their faces, below the big humps of their heads. And their mouths, they reminded Samar of lampreys or giant leeches. Massive, sucking holes, big enough that someone like Samar could have curled up in a ball inside them, ringed with dozens and dozens, hundreds, of teeth like daggers.
Only Joseph raised his head, all the other cultists pressed their foreheads against the cave’s rocky floor. They were a cult after all, Samar saw now. And this was who or what they worshipped. Joseph said something but spoke too low for Samar to understand, or to even know if he was speaking english. To Samar’s shock, one of the creatures replied. It certainly wasn’t English, a lot of chuffing, rumbling, and shrill inhales, but it had an unmistakable pattern to it. Language, not random animal sounds.
“Holy shit,” Samar said.
Joseph’s talk of ancient, antediluvian civilisations wasn’t just wild imagination. He knew these creatures existed, maybe before humans or maybe not but certainly now alongside them in secret. Samar watched as the lead creature chuffed and lifted a tentacle out of the water. With some kind of natural ink, it sketched something on a nearby rock. A symbol, like the symbols Joseph had shown Samar. In fact, Samar saw Joseph had the yellow notepad in front of him and was hurriedly copying the symbols onto a fresh page as the watery ink blurred and ran.
No one would believe him without proof, Samar thought to himself. He retrieved his phone and raised it over the rocks. Shakily, he opened the camera app and trained it on the gathering so as to get a full picture of the creatures with Joseph and the cultists for scale.
Samar clicked the photo button, and the flash from his phone bounced across the cave. The creatures, their eyes used to the dark of the ocean depths, blinked and recoiled. Their leader made a shrieking wail and huffed. Joseph and the other cultists looked up.
“Shit!” Samar said.
Samar ducked and ran, struggling back through the rock passage. A tumult came from the cultists behind him. Samar couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to turn off the flash, of all the stupid rookie mistakes to make.
Waves crashed against the rocks. Samar sprinted up the stairs as fast as he dared. At the point where the steps doubled back, he had to switch his phone’s flashlight back on. Heart racing, he glanced back down and saw the cultists’ flashlights coming for him.
“Come on, come on,” Samar said.
Once he was on solid ground, Samar tried to use his phone. He had no reception though and had to wait until he was back on the institute’s wifi. As he ran, he opened his messenger app and hit on Alvin as his most recent contact.
Samar: You were right it's a cult found them talking to things don’t know what’s going to happen
Samar uploaded the pic he’d taken in the cave. It was slightly out of focus but he was sure it showed what he needed. Tiny circles spun next to both the message and the photo. Samar shoved the phone back in his pocket and grabbed his keycard. Over his shoulder, the first of the flashlights reappeared at the top of the cliffside path.
Where should he go, Samar wondered. A ferry left the island first thing in the morning. With what he’d just uncovered, Samar felt strongly he should be on it. But there were hours until dawn. He couldn’t just run off into the woods. Nor would he find shelter in town, among the standoffish locals.
“They don’t know it was me, not for sure,” Samar said. “I’ll go back to my room and pack. First thing in the morning, I'll make an excuse and run for it. They don’t know it was me.”
Samar slammed through the back door. He slipped through the corridors again, breathing hard. His keycard beeped his way up through the building, back to his room. Samar crossed to the window. He couldn’t see any more flashlights outside. They didn’t know it was him, not for sure. Samar tried to even out his breathing and thought about his next move. Should he pack? Should he strip and climb into bed, and play innocent if they came to his room?
Collecting himself, Samar stripped off his jacket and kicked off his boots. He retrieved the phone from his pocket and checked it again, thinking of who to call. But the wifi was down, he was offline. He couldn’t tell if his messages to Alvin had gone through. Letch Island only had cell reception down in town, in the institute they relied on wifi. Samar had shown Joseph and the others how to restart the wifi in case he wasn’t around when it went down. He didn’t think they’d paid attention, especially Joseph, but at least one of them knew enough to shut it off now.
Suddenly, the door to Samar’s room jumped. Samar jumped as well. Someone was outside, hammering on it despite the late hour.
“Samar, it’s me, let me in,” Joseph said.
Samar calmed his breathing and wondered about his response, making his voice sound sleepy. “What? What is it? It’s the middle of the night.”
“We know it was you, Samar, come on. Your boots tracked in a whole bunch of dirt.”
Samar hesitated, and looked down at his boots. If he started screaming, Samar figured he could wake up the rest of the staff who slept on that floor. But most of the staff loved, and partially feared, Joseph, or at least respected him, while Samar could only sound crazy.
“All I want to do is talk, Samar, you know me. Just because you found out some new information, do you think that really changes our relationship?
Samar slowly moved toward the door. He couldn’t barricade himself in there all night. So he knew their secret, that didn’t mean it was a secret to kill for.
“Okay, okay, I’m opening the door,” Samar said.
“We just want to talk,” Joseph repeated.
The hallway was dimly lit. Joseph stood outside, giving Samar an almost parental look. Behind him was Shane, the big man who’d fetched Samar from the pier on the day he’d arrived on the island. Shane still carried his flashlight, a big, black, heavy one shaped like a club.
“Oh, Samar,” Joseph said, smiling sadly.
Shane brought his flashlight up and around, connecting with Samar’s temple. A lance of pain went through Samar’s skull. He was vaguely aware of a falling sensation and then nothing.
xXx
When Samar woke up he found himself in total blackness. He was wet, and water sloshed around him as he was thrown from side to side. He felt like a sock in a washing machine. Dazed, Samar’s hands shot out and met hard resistance on both sides and directly above him. His head throbbed with pain like a terrible hangover.
“Hey, hey!” Samar yelled.
Samar realised he was in an enclosed space. Totally black, lightless, and capped at either end. There was a lid but it was sealed shut and only shifted half a centimetre, maybe a little more, maybe less, when Samar hit it. A metal coffin. With the size and the water sloshing around inside it, Samar realised he was inside one of the isolation tanks. One of those Joseph had shown him on the day he arrived and wanted him to try.
“Who’s out there? Let me out!” Samar started to panic.
They were moving. The sensory deprivation tank was being rolled and judging by how violently he was being thrown around they were moving across uneven ground, not through the institute’s long, smooth corridors. Someone banged on the lid.
“I’m sorry, Samar! You were a good worker, a good listener, but you weren’t ready.” Joseph’s voice came from outside, slightly muffled.
“Let me out! Let me out!”
“You’ve probably figured some of it out, based on our chat. They’re ancient, Samar. They’re older than man and all his gods. Their kind ruled this planet’s oceans from end to end during the age of the dinosaurs. War devastated their species before the first creature to even resemble humankind walked upright on the plains of Africa.”
“Let me out!” Samar slammed his fists against the lid, the sound of his own voice making his head hurt.
“They’re biologically immortal, Samar! Apart from violence or accident, they cannot die! And they’ll share the knowledge of how we can be like them but only if we show them absolute loyalty. This island is one of their remaining kingdoms. Below the surface, it’s riddled with caves and tunnels where they live. This island and everything for a hundred miles around it, we have to keep them safe!”
The chamber continued to be pushed across rough ground. Samar searched his pockets and found his phone. Even though it was wet, it still worked. Doing his best to control his terror, he searched the confines of his prison but found no way out.
“Please! Please, I’m sorry! Let me out!” Samar said. “I won’t tell anyone!”
“I’m sorry, Samar, but you’re not ready. The world isn’t ready to live longer, live better, and we must make mankind ready before we reveal them and their secrets!”
The tank was tilted, and Samar fell backward. He listened past Joseph’s muffled voice. He could hear waves slamming against the coast. They’d been getting louder. They were pushing him toward the cliffs.
“Please! I’ll do anything! I won’t say anything!” Samar said.
“You frightened and offended them. I’m sorry, Samar, there’s no other way.”
Samar’s metal coffin tilted violently forward and back. He was being lifted. Begging and pleading, he tried to stop them but no one replied.
Suddenly, Samar was in freefall. The water in the tank rose around him as if in zero gravity. Instinctively, Samar shot his arms and legs out to brace himself. He fell for several seconds before hitting the water with a bone jarring thud. Thrown around the chamber, he barely avoided being knocked out for a second time.
“Oh, fuck! No! No!”
Samar’s metal coffin sank rapidly. He felt pressure on his ears and sinuses, and sobbed for breath. Slamming his hands against the lid, he felt water leaking around the edges. His phone’s light continued to work but seemed dimmer by the second.
“Help me! Someone!”
Something slammed against the tank, but it wasn’t help. Through the skin of the metal chamber, Samar felt powerful limbs wrapping around his coffin. He screamed, but only for a second as the lid was ripped away and the ocean exploded inward. In the dying light of his phone, Samar saw an enormous shape surrounded by tentacles, and rows and rows of teeth.

For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that. This week’s inspiration was 'Aboleth'.
More in this series is on my website, accessible through my profile if you're interested.

Thunder rumbled in the distance as the last of the storm pelted rain down on the roof of my apartment. My dog, Dux, an incredibly dopey but lovable German Shepard, was desperate to go outside to attend to his business. He'd been afraid of the thunder and didn't like getting wet, so coaxing him out of his hiding spot in the closet took several treats and the gentle promise of a nice walk in the cool, dark night. With a look that said he didn't quite believe the storm was done, he came out of the closet and let me put the leash on him. A moment later, we walked down the apartment steps and headed toward the woods where Dux loved to walk.
As Dux sniffed at everything in sight, I stared down into my phone, checking Twitter for the latest nonsense and controversy. I wasn't paying much attention to Dux as he typically led to where he wanted to go. I'd occasionally look up to get a handle on where we were. However, this time, it was this low, guttural growl coming from him which got my attention.
Hearing him growl while playing around with a tennis ball, I knew the difference between his playful, in-the-moment growl, and this one certainly wasn't it. This one came from the primal, undomesticated DNA of the wolf still deep in his genes. Before I could say a word, Dux took off running into the woods. The sudden pull knocked my phone out of my hand, and I had no choice but to allow him to drag me where he wanted, even as I protested and yelled. Dux was undoubtedly onto a scent, and he wasn't going to let it go until he found what he was looking for.
As he pulled me deeper into the wet and cold woods, I tried to assert myself as the dominant one, but Dux didn't care. He was like trying to hold back a force of nature like the storm which had only just passed. Dux paused a moment to put his head to the ground and then was off again. His tail went stiff and stood straight in the air. He led me to the middle of a small patch of open space surrounded by trees and raised his head up to the top of a particular tree. He growled and barked and jumped against the trunk of the tree as if he was trying to knock it over in a fury.
I took hold of his collar extra tight and pulled him away from the tree, scolding him for his bad behavior. It was a sad attempt to rein him in. For the first time since he was a puppy, he bared his teeth at me in defiance and uttered a guttural rumble of a growl as if to warn me to back off. And also, for the first time since owning Dux, I felt afraid of him. I didn't know what was up with him. Did the storm drive him crazy or something? What the hell was going on?
Once he realized I wouldn't be pulling on the leash anymore, he went back to barking and attacking the tree trunk. I stood there like an idiot, defeated, and feeling scared of my dog, who cowered away from bicycles, baby strollers, and balloons. Here he was snarling and battling with a random tree in the woods.
To this day, I cannot describe the sound I heard that came from the tree branches. It was something between a screech and a chitter. Just as quickly as Dux was this brave and unstoppable Cujo-like mad dog, all the aggression left him. He turned back into the closet, cowering dope he was, except this time, his ears were down, and his tail was tucked between his legs. He cried out pathetically and urinated before running back to me and getting as close as he could to me for protection.
When I looked into the tree, all I saw were dozens upon dozens of little red glowing orbs, and then they started to buzz like cicadas in the deep summer heat. Those red orbs shook, and I realized they were coming down the tree.
Fleeing in a panic, Dux sprinted ahead of me, showing me the quickest and safest way out of the woods. I only had the dim light of the overhead lights near the apartments to guide me. Dux used those animal instincts to get us out of there fast.
The sound of those creatures followed close behind with an ever-increasingly loud hum. I reached the edge of the forest, having to dodge Dux constantly as I walked, as he kept weaving between my legs again.
As we reached the parking lot of the apartments, I gave on peak back into the woods to see the red orbs had conglomerated into a large mass, fluid in its movement as it hovered over the houses ahead. From where I stood, it looked like an opening in the clouds, revealing a patch of obscure space sprayed with thousands of pulsating red stars. Then I noticed other similar patches forming mid-air in the distance.
The overwhelming humming, combined with the roaring sky, stripped Dux of all his will to move further. I pulled on the leash to no avail. He glued himself to the ground, his claws stabbing deep into the muddy surface. I had no other choice than pick him up in my arms, carrying him like a baby down the path to my apartment building.
As the noise emitted by the strange floating body continued, it soon got the attention of the people living in the apartment block near the woods. The street began to fill with people. I shouted for them to get back into their homes, but it was futile. They stared in awe at the manifestation above, and then the buzzing cloud came down, collapsing over the gawking people. Their gaping mouths ingested the soup of dark matter and red dots while their bodies entered in a state of a violent convulsion.
Men, women, and even children in pajamas kicked their legs in agonized pain. The heads crashed into the ground roughly, over and over again, as if shattering their skulls would ease their suffering. The sound of the torment joined in with the abysmal hum of those red-eyed creatures.
There was nothing I could do for them, and with Dux in my arms, I had no other choice but to escape from the madness into my own apartment. I ran between many cars, checking behind me to see that nothing was coming for us.
My limbs were aching by the time I got to the back door of my building. Dux was not a puppy anymore, and I was not in my best shape. The second his paws touched the floor inside the apartment, Dux launched towards the sofa, sinking deep between it and the wall. I crashed onto the couch to catch my breath. It felt as if I had run a marathon. My lungs burned. My throat felt dry. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about what happened to those people. Whatever was happening, I imagined it expanding beyond the confines of my apartment complex. I needed to call the police.
I reached into my pocket and felt nothing but empty pockets. I'd forgotten I'd dropped my phone. There wasn't a landline in my apartment either. Who uses landlines these days?
There wasn't anything else I could do except approach the window with caution. I didn't expect to see my neighbors across the street returning to their houses while the orbs hummed away towards the forest. They walked to their doors as if nothing happened. My next thought was to call my friend who lived in one of those houses. Again, I reached inside my pocket and shouted in anger that my phone was gone.
At that moment, someone knocked at my door, and Dux growled from behind the sofa.
My first instinct was to follow my dog's lead and hideaway behind the sofa.
Another knock.
Dux whined and slid deeper into the shadow. Sweat gathered on my brow.
Knock - knock - knock
It wasn't a particularly aggressive sound, but I had just witnessed the entire neighborhood feasting on a swarm of glowing insects. Some paranoia seemed to be an appropriate reaction. Hiding behind the couch wouldn't solve any problems, though.
Another knock.
I stepped toward the door and squeezed one eye against the peephole.
On my front porch stood Sally, my next-door neighbor. Just a few moments ago, she had been out there in the street next to the others, her face covered in tiny crawling bodies that squeezed into her open mouth, her nostrils, her ears. Now she looked like nothing had happened at all. Just a friendly old woman with dark grey hair and a bright smile. She raised her hand and knocked again.
"Yes?" I managed to say.
"It's just me," she answered. "Just wanted to check in on you. Didn't see you with the others. Everything alright? I kept you some if you need them."
"What?" I said my mind racing.
"I said I'm worried. Can you just open the door?"
I took a step back and froze. My eyes flicked toward the cowering form of the German shepherd peeking out from beyond the sofa. The thought of Dux charging at Sally quickly left my brain. Hiding wasn't an option either. The blood was rushing to my brain. My heart was pumping so damned hard I heard it in my ears.
Knock - knock - knock
"Stop with the fucking knocking!*, I thought in my panic.
I gazed through the peephole again. Just Sally. Just my old neighbor, thin, with a bend back and ahead smaller than me. Was there really anything to be afraid of? I fumbled for the knob, latched the chain on the door, and cracked it open slightly.
"Sorry, just a bit under the weather," I said.
I didn't know what to do. Should I have told her what I saw? Should I have played dumb? - I stumbled over my words as I searched for the appropriate response. "I - Uhm - I just fell asleep, so I'm just a little - I'm okay though. I'm fine."
"Oh," her eyes widened. "Oh, you were sleeping? But tonight was...You missed the… Don't worry," She rummaged through her bulky hand-knitted jacket. "Don't worry. I didn't see you, so I kept some. You're fine. You're gonna be fine."
Her shaking fingers pulled out a tiny jam jar, and she wanted to hand it to me. Not wishing to stir up any trouble, I unlatched the chain, and my hands reflexively accepted the little container.
I lifted the glass up to my eyes. It vibrated in my hands. There was that sound again. That sound from earlier. Fingernails scratching against the inside of a coffin. The screeching tires of a distant truck as the driver loses control. A giant buzzing fly being slowly squeezed until its chitinous shell cracks. Red squirming lights danced within the see-through prison. Their bodies angrily bounced back and forth as they tried to escape. In shock, I let loose and the jar shattered on the floor underneath.
"What the hell!" I threw myself backward as the lights rose up into the air, swarming in the form of a tiny tornado. "What the hell is going on!"
The insects slowly dispersed, and one by one, they vanished toward the forest. Sally looked at me with wide eyes, her hand squeezed against her mouth.
"Oh god," she took in a deep breath. "Oh god. How- how many did you have last time? H-how much did you forget?"
She tried to take a step towards me, but before she could get anywhere close, I slammed the door shut in her face. Behind me, Dux was going crazy. One second he was racing towards the door with his teeth bared. The next, he was cowering in the corner, shaking and whimpering.
"Wait! Wait!" Sally kept hammered against the door. "It's not too late! Maybe we can find some if we go to the woods right now. Please! They'll be back next month. You'll be okay. I promise!"
My legs turned to jelly beneath me. I stumbled back to the couch and sat down in a daze. Sally continued beating against my front door, but the sound faded into my periphery as the world washed away into a quiet whistling sound flying past my ears. My stomach twisted violently. A moment of clarity sent me struggling to the bathroom as the contents of my stomach spilled violently from my mouth.
Dux's wet nose pressed behind my ear, followed by sloppy wet kisses against the side of the neck. He whined next to me. His claw tips taped against the tile as he tried to get my attention. I imagined he was trying to encourage me to hide, telling me there was still time to pretend this was all in our heads. How was my dog the only thing making sense at the moment?
I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet and dug in my cabinet for something to settle my stomach. I needed to have my wits about me. Thankfully there was a bottle of Pepto sitting front and center. I've been getting sick a lot lately—headaches, stomachaches, fatigue. At one point, I thought I'd contracted Covid. My tests came back negative, so I assumed it was just the regular flu or sinuses. Just wait it out, get some exercise, you'll bounce back in no time. That's what the doctor told me, at least.
The bottle tumbled from my hand before I could wrap my fingers around the child safety lid. It'd been months now since I'd been getting sick, hadn't it? It always seemed to happen on nights like these where rain and lightning battered the earth and when Dux cowered in fear inside the closet. Usually, I'd tuck away into my bed with the covers pulled tightly over my head as I tried to fight nausea. This happened monthly. Sally had mentioned something about it returning monthly. I should have asked her more questions. I needed to know what was happening.
Before I could give it more thought, the assault on my front door had abruptly stopped, and the sound of a shattering window in my house made me jump to my feet. I made my way back into the living room and glanced down at the shattered glass on the floor. Ice-cold fear ran like water through my veins.
Dux growled from behind me as the front door opened, and a shaking hand reached up to fiddle with the chain on my door. I sucked in a trembling breath and tugged the door inward against the arm. Someone on the other side cried out in pain.
Behind me, Dux let out a furious bark, and I heard his nails clicking against the ground as he ran into the kitchen behind me. A person screamed in terror and pain. It was at this moment I realized I was under siege. The enemy, my neighbors, under the influence of an alien bug, were coming at me from all sides. All I had against them was a set of kitchen knives and my normally docile dog, whose survival instincts kicked in under pressure. I was thankful for Dux at that moment. Everyone warned me against having such a large dog in my apartment, but there was a special bond between Dux and me as soon as we laid eyes upon each other. I chose him as much as he chose me.
My neighbors wanted me. Dux was caught up in something that wasn't his fault. At least, he'd survive. Before I could doubt my decision, I let go of the door and charged back into the kitchen to find Dux was his teeth sunk deep into the arm of a neighbor I'd seen a couple of times from down the block. He was a shirtless tall, bald man. He wore pajama bottoms as if he'd been relaxing at home before all this craziness started.
Dux shook his head in a savage fury mauling the man's arm and forcing him to cry out in sheer anguish. Behind the man, I saw the top of a ladder leading into the window of the apartment. Stepping around Dux and the man, I reached the window in time to see someone else climbing up to the window. Below, the whole neighborhood seemed to be out in force in this siege. More people gathered around the bottom of the ladder, waiting their turn to climb in. A brief peek at the front door showed many people were waiting to make the climb up the stairs through the front door. My only saving grace was the bottleneck the stairs and entrance caused for them. Only one or two people could get into the stairwell at the same time.
Running on pure adrenaline and survival instinct, I shoved the ladder away from the window. The man on the ladder shouted as he fell backward along with the ladder back to the ground. With that taken care of for the moment, I had to deal with the man inside the house. The closest item to me that I could use as a weapon was my microwave. I unplugged it from the outlet and picked it up over my head. The bald man was on the floor and pleading for Dux to release him to no success.
I dropped the microwave down on his skull and heard the plate inside shatter. The bald man cried out once more. The part of me that still had some sort of attachment to humanity felt terrible about my actions. However, the instinctual part of me, which wanted me to survive at all cost, didn't give a single fuck about this man's life. I picked up the microwave again and slammed it on his skull harder than I did before. This time, his cry was cut off, and he didn't stir anymore. Dux seemed satisfied and released the man's mangled, bloodied arm from his mouth. He licked the blood from his face. We were no longer a man and dog. We were primitives battling against an invading force. Whether they were aliens, monsters, or men, we weren't about to go down without a fight.
The sound of the front door splintering caught our attention, and we ran back to find it shaking in its frame. With the blood and adrenaline running through my brain, I realized I needed to barricade the front door. The heaviest items I had in my house were my couches, my television stand, and the refrigerator. As I got to work shoving those toward the front door, Dux stayed near the door, barking aggressively and snarling. I pushed the love seat to the door and yelled for Dux to get out of the way. That pause doomed me.
I felt something crash against the back of my head, and I immediately saw stars. A stinging pain ripped at the top of my skull and a spattering of fireworks exploding behind my eyes. I immediately dropped to the floor. The echoes of Dux's barks were the last thing I heard before I blacked out.
When consciousness returned to me, by the time my vision cleared, something was being tugged over my head and tightened around my neck. Several sets of hands gripped each arm and wrenched me up from the floor. Someone shoved me forward and told me to watch my step. Behind me, I heard someone crying out in agony again and the sound of Dux mauling someone new. The thought of it brought a smile to my lips, but it was immediately shot down as a surge of pain ripped across my head.
I heard the door shut behind me and paws bashing wildly against the other side. As they pushed me down the stairs, I fought and struggled as well as I could against the group holding me tight. The strength seeped out of me as exhaustion overcame me. I'd lost. Dux was gone now, trapped inside the apartment.
I should have realized they'd have more ladders. They'd probably come inside the house through the bedroom while I was handling the bald man in the kitchen. With the chaos going on outside, the banging on the door, and Dux mauling the screaming bald man, I probably didn't hear the window shattering. When I pushed the couch to the door, they snuck up behind me and knocked me out. At least, that's what I think happened. They could have easily climbed in through the balcony. Either way, I was their prisoner now.
Lost in those thoughts, I came back to reality when a hand reached up to brush my cheek through whatever they'd put over me.
"Don't worry." It was Sally's voice, sweet and matronly. "We're just trying to help."
After that, I felt the prick of a needle going into my skin, and a moment or two later, I was dizzy. Blackness swirled behind my eyes like the legions of those red insect drones. I gave in to the darkness once more.
Foggy consciousness broke through periodically. I was vaguely aware of a bumpy ride and a cold metal floor underneath me. I woke now and again and had dreams of swarming red orbs, impossibly tall trees, and rents in the clouds allowing me glimpses of terrible, unspeakable things. Wretched, half-glimpsed creatures who shrieked and buzzed, Dux was barking furiously at them. I have no idea how long it went on.
The shot wore off as we neared the end of the ride. I heard the road turn to gravel for a bit, then something quieter, softer. We ground to a halt, and I smelled damp earth and pine sap.
"Can you take this hood off, Sally? What the hell is going on? Where are we? What about Dux?" I said with alarm. I was still groggy and felt there was no way in hell I could get to my feet. I couldn't see, but if I could, I was sure things would be swirlier than a kid's giant lollipop.
I heard Sal's soft voice whisper in my ear, "All in good time. We are here to help. All will be revealed."
"Help?" I half-barked, half-coughed. The chemical, or whatever the fuck they used on me, was still making my mind feeling like it was buzzing. "Who the hell are you 'helping' here, Sally?"
I felt that stroke again on the hood, gentle and reassuring like a mother's touch before she drowns her child in the bathtub.
"I'm going to give you a minute or two to get your bearings, and then I will show you where we are. I have a little water to soothe your throat, as well. The chemicals they give us can be a tad harsh on delicate tissues," Sal said.
"That…they give you?"
"Yes."
"And just who -" I broke into a coughing fit and felt a cold bottle of water pressed into my hand. "And just who…the fuck…are they?"
"We don't have a name for them. They are…innominate. But we do know they are here to help. Help make a new home for their kind. Our kind. In this world. We are now them, and we are the second wave that has arrived here. We have combined, through the phenomenon you observed in the forest and on our street."
"You said second wave…what was the first?" I asked.
Sally gently removed the hood, static crackling in my hair. My vision swam for a bit, then calmed. Sally's face came slowly into focus.
Her eyes were glowing that exact shade of red as the insect's Dux, and I encountered in the forest. The wrinkled skin around her eyes was a bruised variant of the same color. I felt a wave of nausea rise and subside. Sally was between me and the van doors and was backed by two large men.
There's no way out, but through, I recalled someone saying at some point about doing something unpleasant.
I thought of Dux, terrified and alone in my apartment. My best friend, Dux.
I screamed and charged at her and the men, but they quickly picked me up and threw me deeper into the van the way a kid would toss a doll. I landed on my ass on the hard metal floor of the truck, denting the aluminum.
"Let's not have any more of that," she said. "It's…unseemly."
"Piss off, Sally," I spat.
It was the best I could muster at the time.
Sally tilted her head a bit. Her red eyes blinked.
"In any case, as I said, we are the second wave. Those who undergo the transformation needed a little…softening up, so to speak. We needed to make sure our new vessels were able to receive our gift."
I shifted to a more comfortable/less agonizing position on the cold and dented metal floor.
"Gift – that's rich, Sally. You're talking about colonizing Earth!"
"You'll see. All will be revealed. We are here to help."
"Yeah – help yourself, bitch."
"More or less, yes."
"So, what was the first wave? Just how did you 'soften us up'?" I asked.
"The nuclear arms race," she said. I felt a shiver course through me.
"You were going to destroy us all to "prepare" us?"
"Not exactly. We needed certain conditions to be met upon the planet before colonization. The nuclear fallout spread across the planet from all the tests and detonations was needed to prepare your genes and immune systems for the entry of the larval instars – those red orbs that you observed. If you'd gotten your dosage as intended, you'd have known all this. You'd have remembered. You'd have been part of us. Of course, we shall remedy this immediately. We've caught up to the swarm again. We shall make you whole."
Sally stepped out of the van. Two men entered the inside of the truck and dragged me out into the night. We were near the woods again, just like how the apartment buildings were near the woods. There was dampness floating in the air, giving me the impression that it had recently rained here. I thought I'd heard thunder in the distance earlier, but I wasn't sure if it was real or if I'd taken too many hits to the head in such a short time.
The men marched me forward deeper into the woods. Sally marched ahead of us, leading the way. Sadly, I was done and resigned to whatever fate awaited me and the rest of humanity at this point. I'd fought them as much as I could already. I'd been hit in the head, drugged, and exhaustion had taken hold. There was nothing I could do anymore. I could have tried to run, but I wouldn't have gotten far from them. I allowed them to lead me to my fate.
"Stop," Sally commanded. She stood beneath a tree and stared upward into it. The red orbs lit the tree like Christmas lights. They chittered and hummed their song of violation. Their battle hymn of conquest. Sally relished in it. I wanted nothing more than to throw a rock at her head or something to ruin the moment. Unfortunately, there weren't any sizable stones to throw near us.
Sally raised her arms and opened her mouth toward the sky like she was trying to catch a snowflake. From her throat, the same chittering hum came. It was a sound no human could have made on purpose. Her mouth opened wider than what was possible for a person until I heard her jaw pop as it dislocated. The sound was sickening enough to make me want to vomit again if I hadn't already puked back home.
Dozens of the red orbs seemed to respond to Sally's chittering command and floated down from the tree's leaves. Sally held out her palm, and the creatures swarmed Sally's hand like bees on a hive. She turned back to me with glowing red eyes lighting up her long grey hair. The two men kicked out the backs of my knees, forcing me to kneel on the ground. Sally came over me, mouth still opened wide like an eternal scream. She extended her hand out before me and chittered once more before I heard the sound of a gunshot tear through the chitters.
Lit by the red glow of the swarming alien insects, a dark black hole appeared in the middle of Sally's forehead. A stream of blood flowed down the middle of her face and dropped off the top of her lip to the forest floor, and she then collapsed before a heap in front of me. Two more gunshots rang out, and the two men holding me fell over as well.
A moment later, humanoid figures emerged from the woods carrying rifles, dressed in all black to blend in with the night. They moved forward with trained precision aiming their weapons in my direction. While this happened, I saw other people emerge from the woods, and torrents of fire lit the night along with the forest. Men with flamethrowers obliterated the alien swarm in the trees. Their chitters and hums were replaced with what must have been the sound of their collective screams.
The men with the rifles approached with caution. I didn't know what else to do except put my hands into the air to show that I wasn't armed.
"Did any of those creatures get into you?" one of the men pointing their rifles at me asked. I had trouble finding my words as I never had a gun pointed directly into my face.
I stuttered a no and the men helped me to my feet.
"Didn't think so," said the soldier who'd asked me the question and led me away. As he did, his companions fired another round into the heads of Sally and the two men who'd been assisting her.
"Who the hell are you guys?" I asked the man as he escorted me through the woods.
"You ever watch the movie Men in Black?" he asked. I nodded to the affirmative. "That's us minus the suits and ties."
I shook my head from side to side and just accepted this as truth. I allowed him to drag me out of the warzone the area had become. As we walked through those woods, I saw more and more soldiers with flamethrowers incinerating the woods. The swarm cried out, filling my ears with their terrible sound. It wasn't until the soldier delivered me to a van on the outskirts of the woods that the sound stopped once I got inside.
"This is where I leave you. They're going to make sure you aren't infected and give you a ride home to your dog. Safe travels. You gave those fuckers hell, kid," the soldier said and marched back toward the woods. I had so many questions, but I couldn't handle much more.
Inside the van, a doctor in a hazmat suit ran some sort of scanner over my body and deemed me alien parasite-free. Once they finished, they removed their gear, and it was a woman who introduced herself to me as Dr. Orchard.
"You feeling alright besides the craziness that happened to you tonight?" she asked.
"I'm just tired, and I want to get back home to my dog," I answered.
With a chuckle, she said, "Your apartment complex is on lockdown right now. We've got a cleanup crew vaccinating your neighbors, so they'll be okay. For tonight, we're going to put you up in a pet-friendly hotel," Dr. Orchard replied.
"Dux is okay?" I asked immediately, sitting up with second wind.
"Yes, he is. He's at the hotel already waiting for you," Dr. Orchard answered.
We left the woods almost immediately and drove back toward my town. Dr. Orchard filled the time talking about the Marvel superhero movies she's watched, and she thinks Star Wars needs to let go of the past so they can move on with the franchise. I sat there staring at her and wondering how this woman who has knowledge of parasitic alien swarms talked about such mundane subjects. I thought about asking for more information about what was happening but then decided against it. She acted as if nothing happened, so I assumed it was best to pretend I was getting an Uber ride home from a very talkative driver.
When we arrived at the hotel, I could see Dux inside the lobby. He'd made his bed on one of the sofas.
"Get some rest tonight. We'll see you tomorrow morning. And please, don't try to leave in the middle of the night or something like that. We've got the place on watch," Dr. Orchard said, putting back on her professional voice. I told her I'd probably need a wake-up call after tonight and went into the hotel.
Dux jumped out of the couch and ran toward me. He howled with excitement and happiness. Whoever had gotten him had washed off all the blood and given him a proper grooming. I dropped to my knees, and Dux showered me with kisses. I cried with happiness as well, knowing that everything with him was okay.
"Excuse me, sir," said the hotel clerk as he hovered over me.
"I'm sorry," I said and stood from the floor.
"You're in room 1002 tonight. It's right down the end of the hallway. If you're feeling hungry, please help yourself to anything in the cafeteria down the other end of the hall that way, or if your companion needs to use the facilities, you can take him outside the side door near your room," the clerk explained and handed me the room key. Dux and I immediately went into the room and shut the door behind us. I locked the deadbolt in, yanked off my clothes, and fell into a dead sleep with Dux cuddled up next to me.
I have no recollection of these events at all. The last thing I can recall from my own memory is the thunderstorm mentioned in the opening paragraph above. Otherwise, I feel as if I returned to consciousness only minutes ago. All of the information above, I found on handwritten pieces of paper with a hotel's logo on top. The handwriting was mine. I read over what happened above and didn't know what to make of it. It seems as if I decided to write a movie or something. I took the pages to read them over clearer when I had the time and wasn't feeling as if my brain was made of bread pudding and applesauce.
When I went to the hotel clerk, he told me I'd been in the hotel for several days after some people from my apartment complex had helped check me into the hotel. I asked him why they did that, and he had no answer as he hadn't been the person to check me into the hotel at the time. From his expression, I could tell that it was probably a weird question to ask someone why I was there. They don't care why you're there. They only care that you pay and get out on time.
Dux and I took an Uber home with a driver who didn't mind a dog in the car. While the driver drove us and pet Dux as much as he could, I checked on my phone and noticed that all my apps and log-ins weren't saved. I spent a bunch of time logging back into my social media and spent the whole ride checking in on what I missed in the world. I hadn't missed much, apparently.
When I arrived home, the door was open, and everything was in place like I'd left it. There was a note on the table from the apartment complex manager saying that the gas leak was taken care of, and they appreciated the time I gave them to fix it. They said they hoped I enjoyed my stay at the hotel they'd booked me.
Feeling sore from sleeping in a random hotel bed for days, I decided I needed to get a good nap in before I went about my day again. Dux seemed a little nervous. He sniffed around a lot and appeared on edge. He sniffed around the closets and doors until he seemed to calm down again. He jumped into bed with me and soon fell into sleep. Finding that I couldn't fall asleep in the middle of the day, I pulled out the papers I'd skimmed earlier and read through what I'd written. I'm not the kind of person who writes for fun or makes up stories. But nothing else explains how I ended up in that hotel room aside from the note left to me by the apartment management.
Has anyone else encountered these red orbs in the night?

Intro 28M. Here to talk about my journey/struggle with anxiety. Please note i've never officially been diagnosed, but given the symptoms i'll discuss below, i'd be willing to bet all the money I have that I have an anxiety disorder.
Why I'm Posting This I wanted to make this post for a couple reasons. First, I wanted to write out a timeline of my symptoms and their progression. second, I wanted to write and post this here in hopes it keeps someone from suffering as much as I did about the physical symptoms that come with anxiety. As a hypochondriac, it can be a mine field when you don't realize how much shit anxiety can actually affect.
Family History I think it's important to address the fact that my father suffers from notable bouts of anxiety and so does my aunt (related by blood). So, I think it's safe to say I already had a genetic pre-disposition for it regardless of experiences/environment.
Before Major Symptoms/Childhood thru Early Adulthood
From what I can pin point in my bank of memories, I've always had social anxiety. That goes all the way back to age 10 or 11. I've never had trouble making friends or keeping them, but I've never been outgoing in the least. I feel terribly uncomfortable in crowds and public places. I can hold conversations with strangers, but it always feels a bit forced/awkward and I prefer to avoid them most of the time. It's even this way with co-workers or people I encounter in my day to day routines that i'm not personally involved with. I.E. co-workers, store workers I see a lot, familiar faces at the gym, etc. Up until my early 20's this was probably the only notable sign of anxiety I had. Social anxiety, of course, is pretty damn common. I'm sure many of you can relate. Also always had performance anxiety in bed the first time or two, but that's also pretty common.
More Symptoms - Foreshadowing of Something Worse
Around 2013, when I was 21, I began to notice agoraphobia. I was out driving and I remember getting this really off feeling of dread/fear while driving in an open space. I'd had a really shit acid trip a few weeks prior where I felt like I was going insane. That goofy shit you see in the movies where a kid takes too much acid and acts like they lost their mind? Yep, that was totally me. Until I started to come down, I thought I was going to end up in an asylum. For reference, I'd taken 6 tabs with the vocalist in my band at the time and I just got unlucky and had a really shit trip. Since then, i've tried acid again once and it was way better than that, but still not fun. Kicked up my anxiety bad. Anyway, I bring up the acid trip because I think it contributed to the emergence of my anxiety disorder. I'm under the firm belief i'd of developed it either way, but I think it set it into motion a lot sooner. I could be wrong here, i'm just speculating, but i've read cases where single events can set it off, or at the least accelerate onset of more severe symptoms. Within a few months of that, or around a year later (apologies. it all runs together now) I remember getting the same feeling a few times while out running. Out in an open space again, felt like I was going to fall off the earth/get sucked into space. At this point, we're up to mild agoraphobia (didn't realize at the time it was agoraphobia), social anxiety, mild performance anxiety, and a family history. Nothing too weird other than the agoraphobia really.
More Warning Signs
For the next few years, I wasn't noticing any new symptoms. The agoraphobia had dissapated at this point and the other issues were pretty tame/non-existent. Still wasn't aware I had an anxiety problem. It was probably around 2015/2016 that I noticed things getting worse. In the summer of 2016 two things happened. The first was a cross country road trip I took with friends. Great time, but on the way back I had to drive a bit and I remember being nervous as all hell about it. I managed fine, but it definitely got to me. This was a pretty new development because i'd never had anxiety issues related to driving in the past. It wasn't unbearable, but it definitely was out of character. Later that summer, I was going thru a lot of stress at work. I was still in college ( I went back after quitting previously) and I was working at a movie theater. The first couple years I was there I almost exlcusively ushed (cleaned theaters, took out trash, minor maitenance shit). I enjoyed it for the most part. The pay was shit and the hours were bad, but my co-workers were awesome and I had a lot of freedom on the job. Eventually they moved me over to concession and unfortunately for me, I was damn good at it. So, because everyone hated concession, they started putting me over there more and more. It was around this time two things started to happen. The first was I started getting pain in my left hand, hallmark signs of cubital tunnel syndrome. I'd get horrible pain in my pinky and ring finger on my left hand. They'd just start radiating pain out of nowhere and eventually fade. I think, now, it had to do with me leaning against the counter with my hands bent too often. It's been a non-issue since I quit working their and that was 6 years ago almost. This probably wasn't really anxiety related. The next issue, which I think was anxiety related was where my hands, and feet to a lesser extent, felt really swollen and itched. My whole body would itch too. Now my hands and feet didn't look swollen, but they damn sure felt that way. This was accompanied by an inability to get a good breath in. Not shortness of breath, more like labored breathing. At one point it bugged me out so bad I went to urgent care. I thought it was really serious. Little did I know this was only the beginning of my hypochondria. When I got to urgent care they initially rushed me to the back thinking I was displaying severe cardiac issues (unusual feeling in arms, especially my left, trouble breathing, and chest tightness). After they checked my BP and heart rate, they realized it wasn't that serious. They had no idea what the issue was so they went ahead and prescribed a corticosteroid and sent me on my way. I didn't take the steroid and the symptoms went away after a few days. I'd had the breathing problems for years on end prior to, but the tingling/swelling issue though had only happened maybe once or twice before and had never been that bad. The breathing issue seems to be seasonal. I got it a few years back too. Thought I had lung problems (hypochondria) until I went the ER (couldn't breath well at all). They scanned my lungs. Lungs were good, but they noted I wasn't passing air well. Anxiety, of course. Anyway, the ER visit was like 2019 so i'm getting a bit ahead of myself here.
Hyperacusis, Am I going Deaf? and the Prednisone Disaster
Moving back in time here, we'll visit 2018. The wonderous spring of 2018 to be specific. It was around February/March and I'd been battling a pretty shit bout sinus issues. I'd been living in my new place (where I live now) for about 6 months and the sinus problems just wouldn't go away. I had a co-worker with similar problems and figured I might as well go to the clinic and get it looked at since it'd been weeks. The nurse that looked at me said I had a good amount of fluid in my ears and stupidly (imo) prescribed/reccomended everything she could think of. Antibiotics, prednisone (2 days of 60mg followed by 2 days of 50mg, 2 days of 4mg, etc. till I tapered off) for swelling, flonase, mucinex, and even a fucking netti pot. So, to say the least, this was a bit much. When you couple it with the fact i'd just quit vaping and I was super paranoid about losing my hearing (hypochondriac and a musician) you get a recipe for disaster. Prednisone jacks with your cortisol levels which help regulate stress. Common symptoms include brain fog, anxiety, confusion, and restlessness. I had them all by day 2. The antibiotics destroyed my stomach. The side effects were so bad I took time off from work. 4 days plus the weekend to be specific. Fortunately I had time off to use. I couldn't focus on anything. I had to focus extremely hard when people talked to me (couldn't remember what they were saying -not hearing related, literal confusion), my paranoia was the worst it'd ever been, my anxiety was thru the roof, I couldn't sleep, I hardly ate, I thought I was actually going crazy. I was only able to sleep maybe 1-3 hours at a time. Everytime i'd fall asleep i'd wake up with my heart racing 100mph. I was terrified of sleep because of this, but I hated being awake too because the fluid in my ears made everything way louder, and painful sometimes, and the confusion/paranoia was unbearable. To boot, I felt like I was plugged into a light socket in the worst way possible and I had constant stomach pain from gas. Also was constantly dizzy. After day 3 I had a friend drive me back to the clinic. I told them my symptoms. They advised I quit the prednisone immediately which I did. Even so, I didn't get back to normal for weeks. I cried a bunch, thought I was going to die, didn't think I'd ever be okay, just the worst time of my life. The first week after I had hyperacusis. I was so paranoid about hearing damage, that my brain literally gave me hyperacusis, temporarily. You may think that's bullshit, but let me explain. The week following my medication disaster I realized I was able to hear sounds that were practically inaudible to everyone else. I remember walking by a copy machine and hearing this unbearable buzzing. When my hearing returned to normal later, I realized this buzzing was almost inaudible unless you leaned down next to the copy machine. When I had hyperacusis, it literally hurt my ears when i'd get within 5 feet of the machine. deafening loud too. Other sounds weren't as bad. It seemed to be certain high frequency ones. The microwave in my kitchen made a similar sound. I remember standing by my couch in the living room, near the kitchen in my apartment, and hearing it. I asked my roommate if he could hear it. He seemed puzzled and said "yeah, I can hear the microwave out here man". It wasn't till i described the buzzing noise that he realized I didn't mean when the microwave was cooking, but rather the high pitched buzzing. He had to lean down next to it to hear the noise and he thought I was bullshitting him. This carried on for about a week or so. The fluid had cleared my ears per the docs, by my hearing felt fucked. I began obsessing like any hypochondriac worth their salt would. I did the deep dive on Google and found a similar case. Musician, ear issues, developed hyperacusis. He had gone to multiple docs, ended up thinking he had permanent damage until he saw a therapist who told him it was psychological. Shortly after that he got better. He basically had to tell himself the sound weren't actually that loud until his brain chill tf out. After I read that, I began to realize the anxiety I felt while on prednisone may not of just been the drug. Putting two and two together I quickly found the hyperacusis was legit in my head. A day after reading that article it subsided notably. A week later it was gone nearly gone. a month later, nothing. At this point I realized I had developed a serious fucking problem with anxiety. More accurately hypochondriasis.
Agoraphobia Explodes - First Panick Attack - Houston We Have a Serious Fucking Problem
It was about 3 months post the prednisone disaster. My roommate, myself, and his brother headed out west on another road trip. On the way out I had my first legit panic attack. Couldn't breath well, thought I was going to swallow my tongue, horrible fucking fear, just awful. I couldn't get comfortable in the car for the life of me. We eventually stopped at a rest stop (it was super early. like 2 am). I remember getting out of the car and being petrified with fear. I struggled to even let go of the car door. Once I did, I felt horrendous dread the entire time it took me to walk to the bathrooms and back. When we got to where we were going I had a lesser version of that same dread and panic anytime we were outside for the first 2 days we were there. It subsided notably after a couple days. After that, I didn't have anymore panic attacks, but I did have pretty noticeable pelvic floor pain prior to the trip and post. light tinges of pain in my man part, lower back pain,and the dreaded "hard flaccid" for anyone familiar with that. Basically it's just your pelvic floor tightening up like a mofo, in my case due to stress, and it compresses your nerves enough to irritate them. For anyone with this particular issue, please know it doesn't cause any permanent damage. If you're a guy and it happens to you, don't freak out too much. Sensitivty and all that good shit comes back. You just have to refrain from stress when possible, stretch, exercise, and avoid execessive jerking off (apologies for TMI, but it will help). Not a fun time. Anyway, I began addressing this, and my mental health in general on my own, and started seeing someone. Within a few months I started to feel like a normal human being again. Just a regular guy in love. No panic attacks, no back/gential pain due to pelvic cramping, no agoraphobia, hypochondriasis, etc. Smooth sailing.
The break up to Present Day
The big break up hit in 2019 right after my birthday and with it came severe stress. I drove to a friends house right after. Got slaughtered by panic attacks while driving the interestate. Pelvic pain issues? Yep, they came back along with the agoraphobia and some more hypochondria. Since then I've fluctuated with my anxiety issues on and off. I've been to the doctor way more than I care to admit over health issues only to find out i'm perfectly fine and it's all in my head again. The latest issue, which promted me to write this, occurred this week. I'd started to develop a serious concern about neuropathy. In short, I'd had sex, bad performance anxiety, notable lack of sensitivity downstairs (we were baked at the time too which I now realize made it way worse. Yes, weed dick is a thing), which was followed by a nuclear fallout with that girl (not about my performance). The stress from the whole situation was some of the worst i'd been thru minus the prednisone issue. Instead of focusing on moving forward, I obsessed over the sensitivity issue. We hypos love our health problems. Instead of acknowledging it was probably a bad combo of drugs, severe anxiety, and low libido at the time (was cutting weight so my diet was pretty restricted which = low libido and energy), I was convinced it might be neuropathy due to MS or diabetes. Well, after starting to worry about this, the weird tingling/swelling feeling returned to my arms/legs out of the blue which only reinforced this concern. After a lot of time rationalizing with my irrational brain, I've settled down and realized it's my anxiety. Funny enough, my symptoms, once again, subsided, smh.
Conclusion Anxiety is an awful thing to go thru. It'll make you think you're going to die, that your worst fears will come to life. It may take you on multiple hospital trips, it may make you scour the internet for hours looking for reassurance. It makes otherwise sane people feel totally insane. I wanted to share my experiences here because while i've always been aware of panic attacks, I never knew of the plethora of other physical symptoms you may get from anxiety. See my list of mental/physical anxiety related issues below. Here's a list of mine.
Please note i'm not a medical professional and this post is not meant to serve in place of medical advice.
My Anxiety Symptoms

1. Panic Attacks (Hard to breath, feel like i'm having a heart attack, choking, dry mouth, extreme fear)
2. Hypochondria (excess worry about my health. From cosmetic to serious)
3. Social Anxiety ( Don't think I need to explain too much here)
4. Pelvic floor pain (pelvic muscle crampling, lower back soreness, discomfort near my man parts, though the discomfort is rare)
5. Parathesia - light numbness (less senstive or feels like it's going numb), tingling, itching. rarely I'll get a burning feeling but never serious pain or serious numbness (no feeling at all). These symptoms always subside after my anxiety begins to go away. Usually they'll hit my hands, legs, arms. Whole body will itch though. Unlikely to be MS or diabetes. Blood tests have always been good (rules out diabetes. Plus no diabetic symptoms other than this) and no history of MS in my family. These are also not persistant (continuing for days on end continuously without subsiding) issues for me and never have been. from what I've read, MS parathesia is persistent and progressively worse. It doesn't just come and go in short bursts of time like a few hours like this. I also have no other MS symptoms. So for now i'm not worried about it. It's also very damn rare.
6. Hyperacusis and tinnitus - I have nearly inaudible tinnitus in my right ear from loud music ( i can hear it if it's dead silent and i plug my ears), concerts, and playing in bands. When i'm stressed it can become more pronounced. Hyperacusis happened once.
7. Depression - I'll get stressed and upset. This typically will lead to depression.
8. Fatigue - Nothing wears your ass out like anxiety. It can be Mentally and physically draining.
9. Pain in my left arm - Sometimes i'll get pain in my left arm. Feels there's too much blood pumping thru it. Likely due to constriction of blood vessels or muscles tensing.
10. High BP - My blood pressure is usually great, but when I get bouts of anxiety it will sky rocket.
11. Insomnia - Nothing makes you stay up all night like panicking non-stop
12. Driving anxiety - Mostly just on highways or anywhere with really heavy traffic+high speeds. Typically will trigger panic attacks
13. Agoraphobia - this comes and goes. Typically will hit me when driving in wide open spaces at night or just being out in an open space. Usually gets me when i'm either stressed, tired, or both. Has been under control lately.

Continued from March 2021 Torture Report:
https://www.reddit.com/TargetedEnergyWeapons/comments/lwgm22/torture_reports_my_march_2021_torture_report/
Thurday, April 1, 2021
Less extreme torture. Headache. Brain pulsed all day and night. Eyes pulsed while helping installing plastic on window in bunk house. Lights were not on.
Car mode in CellMapper app detected hovering satellite.
American padlock too thick for storage hasp. Feet stung at storage. Kidneys lasered while taking trash to dumpster at county dump.
Discovered ears and brain emit ultrasound. Ultrasound Detector app beeped when I held up uniHertz phone to ears and brain. UniHertz was not activated. No SIM card. Not connected to wifi. Nonetheless, ultrasound detector app and infrasound detector apps were hacked. Logging stopped. Graph stopped. I should have turned on airplane mode.
Urethra lasered.
Knocked out. Brain vibrated and pulsed while sleeping.
Friday, April 2
I woke up around 3:40 am. Knocked out til 6:45 am.
Turned on fluorescent or LED over head light. Eyes burned. Turning off light ceased the burning. Turned on lamps. legs burned despite having disconnected car battery. Loud hum. Brain pulsed all day and night. Headache. Dry air and positive ions from electric heaters. I miss the negative ions and humidity in ocean breeze.
During the afternoon, I wore a wet pale yellow cashmere beanie and olive beanie. No RNM. No laser attacks to brain.
I again wet pale yellow cashmere beanie and wet olive beanie to bed. No RNM.
Saturday, April 3
Headache from brain zapping woke me up.
Eyes and brain pulsed. I put on clay eye mask. Stopped pulsing. I removed clay eye mask. Pulsing resumed. I put on the mask again. Pulsing continued. Knocked out. Initially laser pulsed eyes and brain. After wearing mask, DC magnetic field or infrasound pulsed brain. Which one?
Knocked out till 6:40 am.
I miss hearing ocean waves.
Sunday, April 4, 2021
Driving from Green Bank to Minnehaha Springs, pulsing of eyes and brain. Wore orange goggles. Eyes still strobed. No RNM as wearing two wet cashmere beanies.
Off grid in zone 5 of RQZ. Looked at survey one mile from power lines. Radio Shack radio played static. Drove to USFS gate 2.3 miles from power lines. Disconnected car battery. Radio Shack radio still played static.
No laser. No brain pulsing. Laser strobed eyes. No seizures. Legs were slightly burned despite disconnecting car battery. Satstat app measured less DC magnetic field from satellites but more light.
On the way to WSS, sudden extreme physical and mental fatigue after passing Pocahontas county/Greenbrier county line. I stopped car north of Alvon. I turned on phone to verify no cell tower reception. None. My car was parked underneath power lines. Several seizures. This is not the first time, power lines have induced seizures. Is fatigue from power lines or satellites? Pocahontas county has power lines and satellites but fatigue is less. Lower power density from power lines and/or satellites? Use satstat app in both counties.
While driving, continuous wave lasering brainstem, jaw and head. Strobing of eyes through orange goggles.
Almost knocked out at Wendy's. Slept with head inside rock crate. Heavy pressure and stronger pulsing. No vibrations. Right hip joint lasered.
Monday, April 5
Extreme physical fatigue persisted since yesterday after entering Greenbrier county. While driving, continuous wave lasering brainstem, jaw and head. Strobing of eyes through orange goggles. Almost knocked out several times at WSS library while writing post on why I do not recommend tri meters.
Heavy pressure and strong pulsing of brain while printing out hostel receipts to email to Andrew Cummings.
Heavy pressure and pulsing continued despite returning to Green Bank. Knocked out before dark. I regained consciousness and was knocked out again. I got up and slept in rock crate in my car.
Tuesday, April 6
While sleeping, heavy pressure and strong pulsing. No vibrating. Right hip joint was continuous wave lasered. Knocked out for 9 hours. Migraine. Swollen sinuses. Less fatigued than in Greenbrier county.
While studying for an exam, I was almost knocked out. I got off the couch and slept in my basalt crate. I haven't been wearing my clay eye mask. First time my eyes were deeply lasered. Laser penetrated eyes and woke me up. I walked outside to look for a satellite. Low earth satellite. After I looked to the east, a low earth satellite moved. Its light flickered on and off. A bright low earth satellite to the south was flickering extremely fast.
Wednesday, April 7
I am using two bed pillows. Not thick enough to shield vibrations. I replaced one bed pillow with a larger bed pillow.
While studying for an exam, I was made groggy throughout the day and almost knocked out. I sent two efaxes. Hackers delayed the transmission of the faxes. One confirmation was delayed to 11:30 pm. The second confirmation came the next day at 5:30 pm.
While using a meter app, I was knocked out for approximately 3 1/2 hours. I went outside. Four low earth satellites. Two were stationary and started to move after I looked at their direction to the west. Their lights flickered on and off. They did not move far and remained near by. One satellite to the east flickered but did not move. The satellite to the south was brighter. Its rays spread out. Its light flickered very fast. Had it been lasering my eyes during the day and early evening?
I put clay eye mask by basalt crate to wear while sleeping to protect eyes from laser. Clay mask fell off. I tightened it.
Thursday, April 8
I resent efaxes. Confirmation delayed. Paid $1 to library to fax using library's fax machine.
I retrieved a bag of basalt rocks from storage for the rear tote. Stolen before evening. In Florida, pebbles were stolen from my driver's seat pillow. Urethra lasered.
While copying apps and files to a microSD card for phone knocked out for 2 1/2 hours. I woke up and moved to my rock crate. Cloudy sky. Stars and fake stars were not visible.
No pulsing of eyes except for commuting to Marlinton. Lower power pulsing. Clay eye mask fell down face while sleeping. I tigthened again.
Friday, April 9
Laser from underground penetrated two bed pillows. I discovered pebbles were stolen from the second bed pillow. While sleeping, hands vibrated and bladder and right hip joint continuous wave lasered. For the first time, left hip joint lasered too. Simulatenously lasered with right hip joint.
After waking up but haven't arisen yet, sodomized. Tooth in lower left jaw lasered.
While typing this torture report, legs burned and vibration from keyboard on my laptop on battery power are going up my hands to my arms. The infrared space heater was plugged in but off. Red indicator light was on so not truly off. Felt like the vibrations were coming from the infrared heater.
My personal files were deleted from the microSD card in my phone. The screenshots were infected. There was an over 600 MB strange file I could not delete.
Roaming was ticked. Verizon unactivated SIM card was roaming. Or wifi connected to a wifi hotspot? ElectroSmart account on my Unihertz phone was synching files. I could not delete as I did not have admin rights. A factory reset deleted the ElectroSmart account. I deleted the ElectroSmart app I downloaded from downloadapk.net. I am using an older app.
Headache and brain pulsing all day but not pulsing of eyes. Continuous wave laser of kidneys while washing dishes.
Bladder continuous wave lasered at Green Bank library and storage facility. Neither have a bathroom. Physically fatigued at storage and after storage. Brain strongly pulsed and lightheaded at storage.
After 6 pm, power density of brain pulsing increased. The military was trying to knock me out but it is not dark until 8 pm. I copied music apps, file manager and another satstat satellite app to microSD cards of my phones. While taking magnetic frequency measurements, I was knocked out. I regained consciousness at 9:50 pm. I was quickly knocked out again while taking light measurements. Back of head was strongly pulsed. When I regained consciousness, immediate headache. Eyes and neck have difficulty moving side to side and up and down.
Saturday, April 10
At 5:50 am, I went outdoors. Immediately a military plane or a fake star moved from west to east strobing. Quiet.
Burning bones in legs. I covered hand over my right ear. Static like a radio and also tick tock like a metromone? Hum seems more on left side of head but when I cover left ear, I feel pulsing from my inner ear with my hands.
Vice is pressure on top of head, brainstem and jaws.
Pebbles had been removed from second bed pillow. Enabling vibrations from underneath the bed pillows. I placed a third bed pillow on top of the first two pillows. Rear tote had been moved to the left which caused very little shielding on left. I removed flip flops on the left of rear tote. I replaced the flip flops with basalt rocks but need more rocks in rear crate.
Sunday, April 11
Number of times knocked out: 2
I woke up at 2:45 am. For 1 1/2 hours, I tried to go to sleep but right hip was lasered. Sodomized. Urethra lasered. Vibrations. I got up. Half a hour later, I was knocked out twice. Arose at 7:45 am. Late to meet Richard at 9 am. Richard and I inspected logging road and 2 possible homesites. Torture report and meter report are at ?
Only symptoms I did not have at Kincaid's property is fatigue and insatiable thirst which cell towers cause. However, Marlinton in Pochahontas county has AT&T and T mobile and I do not have fatigue and insatiable thirst. Last week while driving on Highway 92, fatigue though haven't reached cell towers yet in Mapledale. Did I have fatigue and insatiable thirst on the grid in Apache and Navajo counties in AZ? I was sick from power plants. Fatigue could be from both cell towers, cell site simulators and power plants. Fatigue caused by stronger power density DC magnetic field from cell site simulators and cell satellites but not cell towers.
Sunshine and wet sand energizes. Sunshine and wet sand mitigate fatigue from cell towers. Is sunshine without wet sand enough to mitigate fatigue from cell towers? I have so much to do. How to spend more time outdoors in the sun? Live where it is warm enough to be outdoors. Use a beach umbrella to cover computer screen so legs and arms can get tanned.
Hum louder and greater sound pressure in RQZ than elsewhere. So loud difficulty hearing people. Hear better with a land line phone against my ear.
In Green Bank, the only commercial business that offers free wifi is the restaurant inside of Sunoco gas station. The Green Bank library is closed Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. Therefore, I turned on my phone with a SIM card in it. Airplane mode was off. I turned on wifi. After a few minutes, I started getting depressed and craving sunshine. Wifi does not make me feel this way. I checked the phone. Hackers had turned airplane mode off. Hackers frequently do this. The phone was pulsing. The phone was emitting radiation from cell satellites. I turned airplane on. Several weeks ago, I had removed the SIM card to prevent radiation from cell towers. I lost the SIM card and replaced it. I will remove the SIM card and store it in the steel box I store my phone in.
Kidneys continuous wave lasered while taking down laundry from clothes line and while putting clothes away.
while typing this, I was knocked out at 9 pm for 1 1/2 hours. Brainstem and upper torso vibrated. Sleep paralysis. Difficulty typing. I rocked my legs back and forth but could not get up.
Monday, April 12
Number of times knocked out: 2
I was knocked out again until 2 am. I walked to my rock crate. Insomnia due to brain pulsing and pressure on top of my head. Urethra and face lasered. Right hip joint lasered.
While typing, burning of eyes and swollen sinuses.
Hacking of my Wells Fargo checking account.
St Johns wort plant was murdered.
Knocked out. I regained consciousness. Knocked out again. I walked to my basalt rock crate. Lower power density heavy pressure in rock crate. No vibrations.
Tuesday, April 13
Urethra lasered. Pulsing on top of my brain. At 10:24 am pulsing left ear. I placed phone next to left ear. Magnetometer in PhyPhox app did not detect pulsing. Straight lines. However, magnetic frequency always pulses. test for magnetic frequency.
Typing on laptop at table next to window, eyes pulsed. Headache.
Brain infrasounded while planning to check basalt in tanks on sodies of rock crate. Basalt pebbles in tanks had been stolen. I refilled the tanks.
From cabin in zone 3 of the radio quiet zone, I walked east towards the mountains. Could not walk far as short of breath. No power lines. Earthed on the grass. Pulsing of both ears and top of brain. Loud hum. Is pulsing from infrasound?
Lots of seizures. I did not have seizures earlier today. Why seizures outdoors? No burning of legs. No strobing of eyes. No continuous wave laser. Chemtrails covered the sun.
Test sitting in camp chair vs. laying on grass.
Different symptoms being outdoors in zone 3 vs. inside car with disconnected battery.
While working on my computer, legs were burned and vibrated. I tried clear blue blocking lenses while working on computer. After I stopped working on the computer and took off the glasses, my eyes started hurting. Eyes want to shut. Pulsing of brain is stronger.
Burning of legs increased. I placed a wet towel on my legs.
Three strobing satellites. Two satellites from the north moved. One of them disappeared after it turned its light off. One too bright satellite to the south that does not strobe or move.
Meter reports inside rock crate April 13, 2021 are at ?
Wednesday, April 14
Yesterday, I replaced stolen basalt rocks in tanks on sides of rock crate. No lasering of head. No heavy pressure on top of head. Lower power density pulsing of top of head and ears. Why in zone 3? There was heavy pressure and strong power density pulsing off grid in zone 5. No vibrations from underneath bed pillow. Vibrations of hands. Woke up with aching eyes. I should have worn my clay eye mask after taking meter measurements of the rock crate.
Difficulty concentrating on work.
Wednesday evening, pressure and pulsing of brain inside rock crate. Coming from above? I will add more basalt rocks to top crate. I took meter measurements inside the crate.
While sleeping, sodomized and bladder continuous wave lasered. Urinated in my pants.
Thursday, April 15
Sodomy and extremely strong continuous wave lasering of my right hip joint woke me up several times.
Seizures and infrasounding of brain probably over 20 times this morning.
Burning of legs and electric space heater causes me to become thirsty. I drink tea or water. A little while later, thirsty again. Another cloudy and cold day. I miss sunny beach.
Brain infrasounded numerous times and almost knocked out several times while working. Lightheaded, dizzy and headache. Migraine.
Friday, April 16
Number of times knocked out: 1
Number of seizures: 1
I regained consciousness. Very strong brain pulsing. I was knocked out again. Nine hours of unconsciousness. swollen head, sinuses and eyes. Headache. I took two pain killers. While typing this, vibrations throughout body like chills but without being cold.
Yesterday, I moved my plants inside the cabin because colder weather was forecasted. The lotus I placed on the floor next to the 3 prong power cord of the electric portable radiator. The other plants are on top of furniture. This morning, lotus was ill. The stems moved from aiming towards the sky to below water. Did dirty electricity or stray voltage from the power cord or underground stray voltage injure lotus? Or did the electric space heater emit stray voltage and static electricity?
While working, burning legs, worse headache and stronger power density of brain pulsing.
While thinking about my dentist in the radio quiet zone, seizure. A little later, vice grip. Pressure on top of brain, jaws and brainstem.
Power surges make the light from two incandescent light bulbs stronger then dimmer.
To heal, my brain and eyes need sunlight. Weather in the radio quiet zone is cloudy almost year round except for August through October.
After laying down to sleep, sodomized. Lasering of bladder, urethra and right hip. I placed basalt pebbles over right hip. Pebbles shielded lasering but the military lasered my left hip.
Saturday, April 17
Sounds of footsteps woke me up twice but I could not see any one. Strange a bright light near the road that seemed like a solar motion sensor went on and turned off. There are no motion sensors near the road. There are no street lights. Vibrations and lasering of bladder and right hip joint woke me up. Sleep deprivation. Immediately after arising, stronger lasering of bladder to cause me to urinate in my pants.
I drank tea. Stomach attacked. Nausea.
Almost knocked out several times while taking light measurements of LED ceiling light fixture.
Burning of legs. Tingling of jaws, face. Headache. Pressure on top of brain.
Dry sinuses, dry mouth and dry eyes from electric radiator? Bowl of water in room does not alleviate dryness.
Hacking of library printer. Not all of what I printed was printed. This is a persistent problem. Before leaving the library, I have to check what was not printed. Since library time is restricted to one hour, reprinting occurs at next trip to library.
I tried to copy and paste update to my April 2021 torture report on Reddit. Knocked out after logging into reddit. After regaining consciousness, I was knocked out again till 8:35 pm. Knocked out over two hours.
Took over two hours to fall asleep because of heavy pressure on head through crate, seizures, sodomy, lasering right hip joint and RNM. I got up to disconnect the car battery. Pressure and RNM ceased.
Sunday, April 18
Vibrations and lasering of bladder and right hip joint woke me up. Sleep deprivation. Immediately after arising, stronger lasering of bladder to cause me to urinate in my pants. I complained out loud. My lower spine on the right side was continuous waved lasered. I placed my rock scarf underneath my spine. I replaced rock scarf with a pillow of basalt pebbles. Lasering moved to my right kidney. I moved pillow to my right kidney. While typing this, almost knocked out.
I drank tea. Nausea. EVA foam in several flip flops did not shield nausea because infrasound caused nausea. Stomach continuous wave lasered since drinking tea. I placed a pillow of basalt pebbles on stomach. Continuous wave lasering moved to right side of stomach. I moved pillow to right side. Lasering of both right side of stomach and stomach. A half hour later, lasering of bladder.
I turned on the LED ceiling light. LED increased the power density of brain pulsing and lengthened the waves. LED deployed RNM. I turned off the LED light. I turned the incandescent light bulbs back on in two lamps. Almost knocked out after typing this.
After sunrise, RNM started. How does sun light or LED light enable RNM inside buildings with electricity? No RNM outdoors day or night. RQZ is too cold to go outdoors November through May.
Seizure inside cabin while thinking of doing laundry. Mind control to wear dirty smelly urine soaked clothes. Immediately before seizure, strobing of eyes. Did laser strobing cause seizure? I wet my two ply cashmere beanie to shield RNM. Immediate pressure on top of my head. Headache. Sodomized several times.
Lasering of right side of spine continues and now also right kidney. I wish I was at the beach. No strobing and continuous wave lasering at the beach and in the ocean. I cannot immerse my body in a swimming pool until tomorrow when the park & rec opens on Monday.
Ran out of hot water while taking an epsom salt bath. Bath alleviated pain but after bath lasering persisted exacerbating pain. In addition to right side of lumbar spine, right kidney and stomach continuous wave lasered, the left side of lumbar spine is continuous wave lasered too. Lasering all day.
Drier sinuses, mouth and eyes from electric radiator. Vice grip: pressure on top of head, jaws and brainstem. Headache. After logging into Reddit, almost knock out. Very cruel torture.
Monday, April 19
Lower power density torture throughout the day and night.
Tuesday, April 20
Salt cave in Alvon, West Virginia. At salt cave, lasered but not continuous wave. Hum was lower volume and was more white noise and less like a diesel engine. Pulsing of brain was unchanged. No RNM. Chills. Towards end of the 45 minutes in the salt cave, low power density vibrations in feet. No burning of legs.
A week ago, inner cheeks were lasered while lozenges were in my mouth. Cheeks still sore.
Walking on logging road off grid my feet stung.
First time played ocean waves and new age music using Sony Walkman.
Low 27 degrees and snow so slept inside cabin. Strong brain pulsing.
Wednesday, April 21
Slept in White Sulphur Springs. Vibrations from below woke me up. Third bed pillow had been stolen. Pebbles in tanks were stolen. Headache starting at library until after I returned to GB. Spine still hurts from lasering several days ago.
Kidneys lasered while grocery shopping. Kidneys lasered while taking groceries out of car.
Played new age music using Sony Walkman while driving back to GB. Hum became louder. I increased the volume but still could not hear the music that well. I stopped car. Parked and measured sound pressure. Approximately 68 dBSP.
After returning to the cabin, I discovered half of the music CD had been stolen. Also stolen were LED lantern, one soup spoon, tablespoons, teaspoons and pants. SIM card was taken out of a device and placed on top of the passenger seat of my car.
First time listened to CDs using Sony Walkman and ear clips inside cabin. Hum became louder to drown out the w age music. I had to make the music louder. Can cause hearing loss.
Thursday, April 22
Vibrations of head and upper body woke me up. Imbalance. Swollen head, sinuses and eyes. Stiff neck and jaws.
Left inner cheek worse. Painful to open mouth wide. Painful to enuciate words. While typing torture report, hum became louder and more vibrational.
While playing new age music using a mini speaker connected to my Sony Walkman, I barely can hear the sound though volume is at the highest. The hum drowns out the music. The hum drowns out music at a distance from my ear more than from using ear clips. Though I have a Case Logic Sony Walkman case with shoulder strap to walk around with the Sony Walkman and ear clips, the case is bulky. The case has a pouch for CDs, the walkman and ear phones. Sony Walkman barely fits inside of the pocket of my hoodie.
Slight headache all day. Right ear drum lasered while typing this. Almost knocked out.
Stronger flickering emitted from laptop's screen while using power adapter. PhyPhox app measured light. Very fast flickering but is phone measuring both laptop and outdoor laser or emitters in cabin or emitters in car?
I place phone on the earth. Little flickering.
My car was parked next to the cabin. Usually I disconnect the car battery after driving home. Due to snow, I had not disconnected the car battery. I placed phone on hood of car. Little flickering. Phone on dashboard inside my car. Substantial flickering. While driving, my eyes are flickered. I had wondered if it was the emitters in the car or a laser outdoors. Now I know. Emitters in car flicker light even when the engine is off and I am not in the car. I disconnected the car battery. Phone still on dashboard inside car. Hardly any flickering.
Disconnecting the car battery initially seemed to mitigate the flickering. By twilight, there were more flickering as light sensor in PhyPhox app detected. Lights were off. Flickering was from lasers outdoors. It interferred with measuring LED light bulb powered by a power bank.
I put on orange laser goggles to mitigate flickering. Room became less dark than I thought as the laser goggles are a dark orange. Though my handwritten notes to type are not legible. I will use an USB night light connected to USB port of my laptop.
Last autumn while living off grid in zone 5 of the radio quiet zone, I purchased 5 volt LED bulb, USB on/off switches and USB cable extension and power banks and a car jumper power bank. The power banks were hacked. Several minutes after being connected to a LED light bulb, the power bank turned off.
I took out LED light bulb from storage and brought it to my cabin. This time the car jumper power bank did not turn off. Light sensor in PhyPhox app showed the LED bulb did not flicker. Then I connected the LED bulb to a wall outlet at the front of bed. LED bulb did not flicker.
I moved a lamp with an incandescent light bulb and plugged it into the wall outlet at the front of the bed. It was not a straight line like the LED light bulb but flickering was substantially reduced. While retesting the LED bulb connected to wall charger, I was knocked out. I was wearing a rock scarf on but not the clay eye mask. Thus, laser at eyes while sleeping.
While sleeping, pressure on brainstem through rock scarf. Heavy pressure on top of brain during abrasion inside brain near top of brain. Extremely fast vibrating. Feels like nanoparticles in my brain are spinning.
Friday, April 23
Retested incandescent bulb but it was dawn. Dawn brought flickering from laser which interferred with measuring incandescent bulb. I will test at night.
Tested wall outlets in cabin. All are grounded. However, wall outlet next to front of bed does not flicker light bulbs like the other two outlets do. Does dirty electricity or stray voltage cause flickering? The two AAA batteries in my stray voltage tester were dead though I barely used the tester last year.
Headache all day. Wore orange laser goggles while using computer partially mitigated flickering. My eyes feel fatigued and weak.
Second day playing new age music using a mini speaker connected to my Sony Walkman. Seizure as mind control to suppress unapproved thought. Apparently, speaker does not mitigate RNM like ear clips do. Another seizure to suppress unapproved thoughts.
New age music was irritating. Probably due to the hum and the music.
While eating, my left cheek was lasered. After eating, stomach was continuous wave lasered.
I waited till dark at 8:45 pm to measure light emitted by LED bulb connected to USB wall charger. Knocked out. I regained consciousness but was paralyzed. Knocked out again.
Took voltage measurements of outlets in cabin.
Saturday, April 24
I regained consciousness around 12:30 am but was knocked out. I sat up to take another measurement. Knocked out till 4:30 am. While I was briefly conscious, I heard a door open or close. Most likely the shed which is part of the building where the cabin is. Other nights, I have heard a door open like a car door and footsteps. Are the perps breaking in to remove depleted batteries to their emitters? Wouldn't their emitters be connected to electric wiring as I have not turned off the breakers. While typing this, my left ear was itched.
Extreme heavy pressure on top of my brain while I slept. Strongest I have consciously felt. Swollen head, eyes and sinuses. Headache. While still in bed, I took measurements of my head, etc.
At approximately 6:10 am, my legs were burned though I have been up since 4:30 am. This is not the first time, leg burning started shortly after 6 am. On the grid outside of the radio quiet zone, duration of leg burning is all day until bedtime. In zone 3 of the radio quiet zone, strong burning of legs is from dawn to dusk. To 8:30 pm. At 9 pm, lower power density burning of legs. Is the weapon solar charged?
Strong burning of legs all day. Burning made me thirsty all day despite drinking jun tea. I took meter measurements of my legs. ELF magnetic field, ELF acceleration, ELF sound pressure?, ELF acoustic spectrum, strong magnetic field, The perps lowered the laser flickering which did not relieve my legs. Laser does not burn legs.
I typed instructions for magnetic power density. While copying screenshots, my legs were burned. 100 ut. I am sitting on the bed which is at north side. Stronger magnetic field at table. Table is at the south side.
Despite burning of legs, legs are less swollen and much less paralyzed since returning to the RQZ. While in Florida, I assumed leg swelling was due to burning. I am drinking jun tea and shungite water in well water. I need to make a third jar of shungite water each day and feet jun shungite water.
While sitting in chair, pressure on top of brain and headache the last several days and today. I placed phone on top of my head. My left ear drum started to pulse. The pulsing extended to the entire left side of my head. Stronger magnetic field at crown than pulsing left ear. Is pulsing from sound and not magnetic field?
Migraine and aching eyes. I took two pain killers. Left eye, left temple and left ear drum pulsed. The strongest pulsing is my left eye. Does pulsing originate from eye, temple or ear drum? I took measurements. Left and right ear drum had different laser light results. Both ears had similar ?
Seizure while thinking about measurements I took of my two laptops. Two more seizures while thinking of keeping phone on to measure next to my body.
Wet 2 ply beanie. Seizures to suppress thoughts. Is wet beanie still shielding RNM?
While tping this in the dark other than an alcohol burner torch, flickering of eyes. Lightheaded. While typing, power density of brain pulsing increased. Rubbing alcohol in the torch dries my eyes.
Sunday, April 25 Approximately at 6 am, legs burning started through out the day. At 6:15 am, left eye, left temple and left ear pulsed. My eyes shut and do not want to open Eyes blinking.
Inside landlord's house, legs burned while making phone calls on landline phone.
While writing a list of items to donate or discard at my storage unit, I was knocked at 8 pm. My landlord came to the cabin to speak to me. His talking woke me up but I could neither move nor talk. I was paralyzed. After he left, I was knocked out again. I regained consciousness. I could move my right leg and talk but could not get up. I could not move to my rock crate.
I was knocked out again.
Monday, April 26
Vibrating of the back of my head woke me up. I was knocked out again until 4 am. Knocked out a total of 8 hours.
I woke up at 4 am. After drinking black tea, stomach lasered through out the day.
Incandescent lamp at table is on. At 5:30 am, while writing in a notebook, left eye, left temple and left ear pulsed. My eyes shut and do not want to open Eyes blinking.
While listening to Dave Case's anti tinnitus CD, seizures. Head shook to left side. Left eye, left temple and left ear were still pulsing. I turned on my unactivated phone I use for meter apps, camera, etc. Cluster seizures. Head shook side to side several times.
Last year, laser stabbing head ceased. Replaced by seizures and itching head or ear to make me scratch my head or ear.
While typing this, tooth in left lower jaw continuous wave lasered.
At dentist office, side of head hit hard several times. Infrasounded. Very dizzy.
During my birthday party outdoors, vibrations of my legs and feet, vice grip of brainstem, jaws and top of head, dizziness, headache. No RNM. No flickering that I could notice. While washing dishes, tortured. While putting chairs away, lasering of spine.
Three MP3 players in storage were bricked. Now they only play the radio.
While typing this at 8 pm, I sensed the LED bulb charged by car jumper charger was flickering. How? Eyes suddenly shut. Pulsing of left eye. I was being knocked out so I walked to basalt crate. While taking measurements inside of and outside of crate, very strong burning of legs for several hours.
Tuesday, April 27
2:30 am vibrating of head from underneath woke me up. I got up. Took measurements of torch with and without radiator on. Retook measurements of LED bulb charged by car jumper bank.
Around 5 am, light from small satellite low to earth turned off. Brighter satellite next to it hovered. Brain attacked for looking at satellites. Dizzy.
While listening to an ocean waves CD, right ear continuous wave stung and left ear pulsed. At 6:20 am, while metering my left pulsing ear, knocked out. I regained consciousness. Knocked out till 8 am. Vibrating of my brain while knocked out. High sound pressure.
Navel continuous wave lasered. High sound pressure.
Despite chemtrails, rare sunny day. I gardened. I sat outside of my car to produce vitamin D. Seizures for unapproved thoughts. Yet, car battery was disconnected.
Replaced stolen pebbles in third bed pillow.
After returning to the radio quiet zone March 30, 2021, the MP3 player in my car was stolen. The back had been broken but it played fine. Today, I took another MP3 player out of storage to replace it. Three out of five MP3 players in storage had been bricked. They were stuck on the radio setting. They could not be reset.
At 9:10 pm, getting knocked out. I laid down in the rock crate. Took sound pressure measurements. Brain pulsing started. I put on my clay eye mask. Brain pulsing immediately stopped. Is laser light through eyes pulsating pineal gland? Last year, brain pulsing stopped a half a mile from telephone line. This year, different type of pulsing. Pulsing is not from top of head. Pulsing is internal. Is laser light pulsing eyes and pineal gland? Is the pineal gland pulsing but feels like the brain is pulsing?
After putting on clay eye mask, my brain was infrasounded.
I was given a small alarm clock as a gift. While sleeping, the hum is changed. Part of the hum now sounds like an alarm of an alarm clock.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
On April 28, 2021, Torture Reports April 2021 was hacked. Input/output error.
Around 2 am, continuous wave lasering of both hip joints and vibrations from below woke me up. Less vibrations since the day before I replaced stolen pebbles from my third bed pillow. For some reason, crate was not shielding RNM. Seizures and infrasound as mind control for unapproved thoughts. After 1 hour 15 minutes of trying to fall back to sleep, I got up.
I took infrasound measurements. Knocked out before 4 am. Alarm clock rang at 5 am. In the afternoon, I resumed taking infrasound measurements. Outlets are emitting infrasound and ultrasound. Especially outlet on north wall at head of bed.
Bladder lasered twice while gardening. Burning of legs inside cabin and in landlord's house.
While placed on hold, music played through the landline phone next to my ear. My brain was strongly infrasounded as mind control not to think what I had just thought. Dizzy. One head phone next to ear does not suffice to mitigate RNM. Headphones on both ears mitigates RNM.
While on the internet in the living room, several lower power infrasounding of brain.
After turning on lamp in the evening, eyes were flickered.
At 9:30 pm, I placed phone inside rock crate. Infrasound Detector app measured low frequency sound while I slept to 4:25 pm.
While sleeping, part of the hum sounds like an alarm of an alarm clock. Shortness of breath from Rpod rv my landlord parked next to my cabin on April 27th.
Thursday, April 29
After arising, brain infrasounded several times. Seizure. I should have wet my beanie to shield RNM. Brain pulsing.
I turned on LED ceiling light. Almost immediately eyes became scratchy, dry and irritated. I turned off light. A hour later, I turned LED light back on. Eyes irritated. I turned off the light. Strange incandescent lamp now seemed too bright. Light surged stronger and lower.
Played ocean waves on Sony Walkman using headphones. Brain infrasounded for thinking about eating nuts. Ear drum lasered for listening to music with headphones.
More shortness of breath from rpod RV. I asked my landlord to move the RV back to the barn. He insisted the Rpod is nontoxic.
Mon Power scheduled an outage today in Green Bank to perform repairs. See symptoms list and meter reports.
While washing dishes at landlord's house, legs burned. Headache all day.
Friday, April 30
Approximately 2:30 am, lasering of my right hip joint and bladder and vibrating of my hands woke me up. The hum was changed to sound like an alarm clock. To mask the ringing of two actual alarm clocks. I could not fall back to sleep because of the lasering. The hum was changed to sound like an alarm clock. To mask the ringing of two actual alarm clocks.
I reset the two alarm clocks to wake me up if I were knocked out. I turned on a lamp and took light measurements of light at the night stand, my hand, leg and brain. Light from lamp surged several times. Brain hit by surging.
While taking magnetic measurements of my brain, I was knocked out. When I regained consciousness, I heard the hum imitating ringing of one of my alarm clocks. Vibrations of my hands, brainstem and head. Vice grip: pressure on my brainstem, jaws and top of head. My body was completely paralyzed. I was clasping my hands together. I could not move my hands. One of my alarm clocks rang. The ringing enabled me to move my hands and arise. Paralyzed for perhaps 15 minutes?
Due to coronavirus, computer time at the library is limited to one hour. After going to the Green Bank library, I drove to Marlinton to use a library computer for a second hour. Not enough time, so I went to an internet cafe. I felt vibrations, anxious and more stressed. From 2.5 hours of wifi or from T mobile cell tower? ElectroSmart app no longer detected an AT&T tower. I think anxiety is from wifi.
Emerson Ecologics account log in was hacked. I reported I could not log in to them. Mind control not to order herbs and supplements.
Returned to Green Bank. A low earth satellite to the east, north and west strobing its light and moving very slowly.
While sleeping, I wore clay eye mask. No heavy pressure on top of brain. No pulsing on top of brain. Coincidence?
**May 2021 Torture Report is at:
https://www.reddit.com/TargetedEnergyWeapons/comments/n5mm5u/torture_reports_may_2021_torture_report_in_zone_3/

Hi everyone, my story starts about 8-9 months ago in May when I woke up one day in May with the worst headache of my life while i’ve been dealing with some pretty bad depersonalization. I’m not sure if that ties in with whats been going on in my head. I’ve had migraines before, maybe a few a year, but this one felt like someone crushing my skull with a hammer, and it lasted just about all day. I wake up the next day, and oddly enough, my head had still kinda hurt a little bit, and i had this pressure in my sinuses almost like a cold. I also felt extremely spaced out. This lasts for about a month, where this nonstop headache and pressure never goes away. Not for longer than 10 minutes. Around this time is where I started to have extreme anxiety, I was 100% sure there was something very wrong with me. 1st stop at urgent care- they say I have a sinus infection and send me home with prednisone. Wtf? Doesn’t work at all. I go to a primary doctor, who takes blood tests, says I have mono, which I can understand, because brain fog and fatigue were huge symptoms for me and are common with mono. After waiting another 4 months, I started to panic again, because mono typically doesn’t last that long so i go back. I then get referred to a neurologist, who says I have migraines and very low vitamin d. I was skeptical when he said migraines, because at this point in time i don’t really have a pain in my head, just pressure and dizziness and feel very spaced out. He agrees, and says to only use the vitamin d instead of the topirimate he previously gave me. That was a few months ago. The vitamin d did absolutely nothing, I started the topirimate a week ago because I’m lost and have no idea what to do next. I’ve never been so depressed. Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong?? Should I just keep waiting?