I'm an alcoholic, I've been sxually assaulted, groomed online at 11, groomed by dad until 13, possibly as r*ped by dad at 3-4, my dad is an angry drunk and my mom has been addicted to xans for 17 yrs of my life. I have fucking cptsd and a possible dissociative disorder. I've had psychotic episodes from 11-15 that have probably fried my brain. I accidentally tried to off myself at 9/10 and tried again at 11/12. I've alr taken pills and I started drinking at 14. I literally cut a hole in my ankle w nail scissors and sawed my nose bridge w a butter knife at 11. I still remember what both of them sounded like. I wish I didn't the sound is horrible.
I had alcohol poisoning which gave me a seizure and landed me in the er 1 month ago, I was s*xually assaulted 3 weeks ago, I have exams, I have 2 infected cysts, my room is a literal biohazard, my skin looks like shit cus I haven't been taking care of it, I haven't texted back any of the ppl I'm trying to date in like a month, AND the thing that rlly shits me is that my mom ordered my fav takeout and I didn't even eat it. It was fucking £18 and I have not had a single bite. I can't even eat it later cus I left it out for hrs and forgot abt it so now I have to throw away my fav food that my mom ordered. I'm literally abt to cry that was my fav food and I was so excited but I forgot abt it and now I can't have it. All I wanted was my fucking chicken, milkshake, and mac n cheese. I rlly wanted that food.
On top of all that me and my mom had a fight last night where I ended up telling her that I don't feel like she cares abt me, that she never wanted me/a child, that she would've been happier if she never had me. I feel like me being born was the start of the downward spiral in her life and I'm scared ill end up like her. If she never had me she wouldn't have stayed w my dad. I'm worried ill end up older, no friends, hating my job, no s/o and crying to my kid abt how I hate my job.
I feel like I was doomed from the start. I come from a line of drug addicts, alcoholics, and depressed ppl. My grandpa was an alcoholic, my dad is an alcoholic, my mom was addicted to xans, my grandma was addicted to xans, and my other grandma had depression. It's also been mentioned that all my grandparents' parents rlly sucked.
I left my childhood hair clip box in a hotel room 2 yrs ago when we moved countries to leave my dad. It's cus we didn't pack properly and we had to take all our stuff in trash bags to a hotel. We couldn't fit everything into our bags. I left it to take some of my mom's stuff. It was a very cute little brown square box w a checkered border on the lid. It had lots of cute stickers and little girl hair clips and it had stickers of little Einsteins and the wonder pets. If ur wondering if im still pissed abt that, the answer is yes. It was a cute little box that was mine that I wasn't ready to let go of but I had to leave it in a dingy hotel so its probably in a landfill rn or it's been incinerated so that's js fucking amazing.
If ur wondering if I want to off myself or if I will try the answer is no. I like movies and my dog and my mom and music and flowers and ppl laughing too much. I also have a lot of ppl I fucking hate and I refuse to die before them out of spite so I'm def not dying.
Edit: the cysts r not from the sa it was groping over my clothes and also js wanted to say that sometimes I feel like being sa'd and stuff was inevitable. Like I feel like it was js my destiny in some twisted way like it was always going to happen to me whether it was now or when I'm 80. A boy also told me that girls like me get r*ped so that might be part of why I think like this.

i think i was a cocsa perpetrator.?
i can’t stop thinking about it to this day. i’m still a minor and this is a throwaway account. when i was around ten i can’t remember what i was doing before hand, i went downstairs and saw my brother who was eight at the time laying on the couch, i asked if i could “hug” him and made him lay on top of me and groped his penis. i constantly feel revolted and this was years ago i don’t know why i did it i really dont i feel like i don’t deserve to live because of what i did to him. i don’t know if he remembers it, but he most likely does, he’s never mentioned it. i don’t know why i did it. i can’t remember anything from before i was 11 if anything little clips and i don’t know if i was assaulted and i don’t remember. i don’t think i was and that makes it even worse. please give me advice and please don’t judge. edit: i do remember in preschool me and this one girl at nap time would should each other our underwear, but im pretty sure it was just cause ours had princesses on them i don’t think its cause anything happened and i don’t think it was too inappropriate

Preface: "Don't you ever dare to think you can escape me, Dalia. You're mine to love, mine to hate, mine to protect, and mine to destroy. You belong to me, you've always been." His words were nothing but a mere whisper as the man who clutched onto me once again savored my lips as if he'd been famished his whole life for this very moment. His tongue danced with mine in a game neither of us understood. Were they fighting for love or fueled by hate?
One of his hands secured me in my position, as if he was scared I'd escape. And his other hand took its sweet time caressing and teasing my skin as it traveled to its destination. His lips never left mine, even as my lungs burned for air and I wriggled my body to make him stop. But he didn't. It was as if he was intent on making it my last kiss, and is determined to make it worth it. The moment he found my burning core, he cupped it, squeezing it until I withered in pain.
I bit onto my bottom lip, sinking my teeth so deep that drops of blood dripped from it as I tried to hold in the loud, throaty moan daring to escape. There was just a thin wall keeping us apart from the horde of media who were standing outside eagerly waiting to get their hands on something that would tear us to shreds. If there's something better than a scandal, it's a celebrity scandal. And an affair of a newbie actress with Hollywood's heartthrob is definitely news worth telling. It could ruin his career and my life, yet it didn't matter to him. All he wanted in this moment was to claim the woman he's loved all his life and who destroyed his love within a minute.
"Do you know, Dalia, what you mean to me? I love you so damn much that I could write your name all over my life. Yet I hate you just as much that I'd burn down everything I am to wipe you from existence," he breathed against my lips, finally allowing me to breathe. I took a lungful of air, only to have my breath catch in my throat as his fingers ruthlessly slid into my folds.
"Altair, stop! It... it hurts," I barely managed to speak the words when another of his fingers slid into my burning core, stretching me to a point I'd never experienced before.
But my pleas had no effect on him; his three fingers continued to torture me, sliding to the depths of my womanhood and then pulling back, only to fill me to the brim once again. The sensation of his fingers sliding against the sensitive walls of my core set my skin ablaze, yet I couldn't get enough. I've always hated when a man touched me, but why does my body betray me when it comes to him?
What makes him so special? Is it the love he once had for me? Or is it the fact that he's become my only salvation in this godforsaken world? But does it even matter? It's a tale of love, hate, and revenge. Whether love wins or hate does, it doesn't matter, because all I want is my revenge.
Episode 1: If I were to tell the joke that's stood the test of centuries, it'd be the one and only...
Love!!!
Yeah, I'm talking about those jittery butterflies in your belly doing the cha-cha like it's spring break in there, eyes locked on their face like they're the last chocolate chip cookie in the jar, heart pounding like it's trying to escape your chest, and you doing all sorts of wacky things – like ditching that sweet gig in Paris and hauling ass through the airport like your butt's on fire just to win them back. Let me tell you, all these feelings are nothing but a big ol' scam, like pyramid scheme-level scam.
Now, before you happily-ever-after believers start throwing fairy dust at me, hear me out. I might sound like the president of the anti-love club right now, but sweetie, I've been dealing with cheaters practically every damn day for the past 90 days.
When my friend Maeve and I, both broke as jokes, launched 'Siren's Call,' our very own loyalty-testing agency a year ago, we never imagined we'd be drowning in cases. And, now it's my bread and butter, catching those sneaky snakes red-handed, gathering evidence so their poor suspecting partners cash in on a jackpot of karma during divorce settlement.
And, at the moment, I find myself in the company of my client number 47, Julia's husband David, who seems to have mistaken my waist for a decorative armrest. Ah, the joys of being treated like furniture. This man didn't bother to ask for my consent. Ughh, I hate it... I absolutely loathe it when they touch me. And my body isn't holding back from showing him just how much it detests his touch.
Sweat drips down my forehead, my hands tremble with nerves, my knees feel like jelly and I fear I might collapse any second, and my stupid heart twists painfully in my chest. 1... 2... 3... I silently count, reminding myself of the hundred damn reasons why I have to put up with this. But it's not doing much to help. I feel bile rise in my throat, and I have this overwhelming urge to hurl all over this guy. Gross, I know, but so are his words.
"I figured a classy dame like you would have good taste," he slurred, leaning in closer like he thought he was being suave. But all I wanted to do was smack him upside the head.
"Well, my taste buds are alright, but when it comes to men, they've got a history of bad choices" I gritted my teeth, struggling to keep my cool.
"Let me guess, your heart's been shattered, huh? Man, who in their right mind would break the heart of someone as stunning as you? I swear on my mom's lasagna, if you were into me, I'd get my eyes laminated. So that, I wouldn't even think about checking out anyone else but you," He licked his lips, his gaze descending to my breasts, as if he's suddenly forgotten the art of subtlety.
"Aww, you're so loyal, just like my neighbor's dog, Jimmy," I cooed, feeling sick as his hands started wandering. 'It's all for Maeve's sake.' I chanted in my head again and again, praying, hoping my fear just doesn't win.
"Bet Jimmy's a real cutie, just like me," he tilted his head, poking his fingers in his chubby cheeks, trying to look adorable. "Kill him, his wife will thank you later," And now my inner voice was beyond over this guy.
"Mhmm, you two could practically pass for twins. He barks too much, just like you" I quipped, unable to hold back any longer as my patience wore thin.
Alright, maybe that's not the textbook way to flirt, and more likely make any boy run away. But, I'm telling you, I'm a freaking expert at flirting game. Check out my track record – I've charmed 46 men out there. But for some reason, this dude's really getting under my skin.
"Hahaha, a babe with a sense of humor, deadly combo, I swear." And ladies and gentlemen, we have a contender here who clearly left his self-respect at home, all in the hopes of scoring tonight – either that or it never made it into his wardrobe to begin with!
"You know, I've got some tricks up my sleeve too. How about we bounce to my place, and I'll show you what I've got? I bet you'll be impressed..." His spiel got cut off by his wife's ear-splitting voice, which unfortunately blasts painfully loud through my cheap Bluetooth earpiece lodged in my other ear.
"Ha, is this guy seriously trying to flex his skills? What skills does he even have, airing out the same dirty skivvies for a month? This freeloader's been mooching off me for a decade, and now he's out there two-timing me. You know what, Dalia? Just break it..."
"Break what? His eggs?" My bestie Maeve chimed in. This girl just loves violence I swear.
"Eggs... his noggin, break whatever needs breaking. Personally, I vote we send him packing. We'll stash this motherfucker in the backyard cemetery; nobody will bat an eye if one more schmuck vanishes." Mrs. 47's fury practically singed my ears.
"Yeah, but if the cops catch wind, we're toast, right, girl? We're only on the hunt for proof of your heartbreak, not to bust your hubby's skull." Maeve and Mrs. 47 are both lurking outside, tasked with keeping an eye on us, but it seems they missed the memo on stealth.
"Excuse me? What did you think? My place..."The man raised his voice, clearly annoyed by the fact that I've just ignored his proposal. And at this point, to be honest, I just want to get it over with.
"Sure, let's roll." I could still hear Maeve and Mrs. 47 squabbling, but I'm too wiped to care. So I tagged along quietly, praying I get the dirt I need ASAP, so I could crawl back into bed with a wad of cash and maybe hopefully with the last remaining threads of sanity
*****************************
The car ride with this idiot has been nothing but pure torture. He's been trying to grope my legs, hands, waist, hairs – heck, he even made a play for my toes – don't ask me how, trust me, you don't want the gory details.
I swear, I was so close to jumping out of the window – not because of his pervy touching habits, but because of his awful flirting skills. Someone needs to sit this guy down and give him the lowdown: to pull off a "baby girl," you've gotta be either Massimo-level hot daddy or Christian Grey-grade charmer, and sadly, he's rocking neither the Italian stallion vibe nor the billionaire allure. He's more like the guy who brings store-bought cookies to a bake-off – well-meaning, but totally missing the mark. But the good thing is, we've finally made it to his lavish two-story house.
And when I say lavish I so damn mean it, this blue white building is a perfect blend of modern chic and classic. The front yard is so vast, you might need a GPS just to navigate your way to the front door. The façade screams "I've made it" with its grandiose columns and a front porch spacious enough to host a block party. And this... meticulously manicured lawn – damn it's so green! is this even possible? I'm sure as hell it's Photoshopped.
But all those good vibes flew out of my brain the moment we neared the front door and it freaking swung open in our faces... by itself, and there was pitch darkness in the house.
Mrs. 47, aka Julia, made sure that none of the staff was at home when we came here. She's with Maeve a few blocks away, waiting for us to go inside, so how the heck did the door just magically open? Mr. Clueless over here must be as lost as me, by the way he's standing there staring into the abyss.
I had a bad feeling about this dude, an even worse feeling about this house, and the absolute worst feeling about this whole damn night.
"No one... should be home at this hour. So why the heck is this door...?" He gulped nervously. So, now he's sweating bullets about getting busted?
"You sure this place isn't haunted?" My serious tone freaked even myself out.
"N-No... I mean, the only ghost I've seen in this house is my wif... wi... widow sister." His words came out slower than a whisper, as he took a few steps back.
"Why don't we go inside and check? I'm sure your widowed sister won't mind me crashing your crib." With a flick of my finger, I motioned for him to follow as I strutted confidently inside. I've seen this kinda stuff go down in horror flicks a million times. It's very first warning from the demons hiding out in the house. And even though I'm pretty sure I'm way smarter than those clueless teens who bite the dust first in horror movies, because they gotta know what the ghost looks like, when it comes to curiosity, I'm just as dumb as 'em.
☠️⚠️Warning: First things first, do not, I repeat, do not enter a strange house with an unknown strange man, kiddo. He could turn you into tomorrow's newspaper headline. Secondly, when you see a door open by itself, pray to God, Buddha, almighty, and burn that darn house down before the ghost catches up to you.☠️⚠️
Back to the story... the house was painfully silent; the only sounds were the 'tick-tock' of some ancient million-dollar antique grandpa clock and the 'clip-clop' of my borrowed, worn-out dollar store heels. Not a soul, ghost, or even a hint of a breeze in sight... until the silence was shattered by a loud, over-the-top laugh. Whoever's trying to be a monster needs acting lessons ASAP.
"Who- Who are you?" Mr. 47, shaking like a leaf beside me, yelled out with whatever ounce of bravery he had left.
"Me? You're asking who I am? I'm your sweet-sweet death, loser. Hahahaha!" That darn fake laugh again. Whoever they are, they really need to stop now.
"I'm your sweet-sweet death, loser! Hahahaha!" The mystery voice cackled again. I swear, they either forgot their lines or missed the memo about subtlet. Their silhouette is now slightly visible in the darkness; they're standing on the head stairs, descending one step with each passing minute. And guess what they did next? Yep, you guessed it right: that man screamed 'I'm your sweet-sweet death' one freaking time again.
"Alright, Mister Mystery, zip it. If you belt out those cringe-worthy lines one more time, I'm gonna hit you where it hurts – real bad." I shot him a warning glance, trying to keep my cool. And surprisingly, he actually listened.
He didn't repeat those god-awful words, but this time, he screamed at the top of his lungs "You worthless, good-for-nothing Jojo! I trusted you with one simple task and you botched it up royally. Congratulations, asshole, you've single-handedly sabotaged my grand entrance. Didn't I specifically instructed you to flick the switch the moment I dropped my killer line, didn't I?"
And just like that, the lights flooded the house. For a second, I was blinded; it was so darn bright. But once my eyes adjusted, I wish I hadn't seen what was in front of me. In all my 27 years, I've never been scared, but in that moment, I screamed like a banshee.
"Holy shit! whoever's on the clock right now – God, Buddha, or even the intern – I'm officially calling in that favor. Save me!"

“Wake the fuck up, man.”
Haruki Fujita slipped out of a hallucination. The hallucination was mindless. It featured a name moments before something killed him, extraterrestrial and horrible from head to toe. Slimy and predatory. The most of it cybernetic. He was dying, with blood gushing out of his neck, but that wasn’t what killed him, at least not immediately, because his intestines were pulled out of his stomach, and that was what killed him.
He watched the blue solar panel wing curve outward from the steel hull of the International Space Station, and he frowned bitterly. From the sensation of death, Haruki Fujita had a sickening gut feeling.
“Stefan Bossi!” he cried out, alarmed.
The name lingered in his mind. He remembered it from his hallucination. He idly watched one of his gloves floating across the room and stopped in front of his computer screen. No reason was known to him why he remembered that name; he remembered nothing more. There was a brief rush—he had time to think about programming languages and decoding radio frequencies, though none of the government organizations he hacked into proved extraterrestrial in origin, but Haruki was convinced by the bizarre nature of the sounds. He didn’t really care about the scientists at SETI, many doctors, and the best professors in the world who regarded them as a hoax. And those who didn’t view the evolution of Earth from an intergalactic perspective that was terraformed over billions of years by otherworldly entities.
“Stefan Bossi!” he said again, grabbing the floating glove with his cold hand and looked at it, trying to decide the significance of the name from his hallucination. Instantly he felt his fingers were freezing from the cold. As Haruki watched the storage bay where he was hiding, his fingers slipped into the glove and strapped the Velcro. “Stefan Bossi! Stefan Bossi!” It seemed to be all he could remember.
Even trapped in the confusing vise of the illusion, Haruki felt an intense fear—this was what an extraterrestrial predator looked like while it slaughtered him. It was a look that filled him with horror.
Another radio frequency echoed from his computer, this one echoing like the mating call of a dolphin, and that excited him. With another “Stefan Bossi!” he stared out of the window and watched the sun disappear behind the Earth, he lost focus; and although it was only an hour after bedtime—another exciting six hours while everyone was deep asleep—the red glow of the computer screen had so hindered his thoughts that he was distracted while staring. And he slipped back into that mindless hallucination.
When Haruki managed to wake up, he realized it was hours later, in the bosom of the night. He glimpsed over the UPS batteries and saw a loose terminal that looked like a collection of fireflies floating in the antigravity of space.
After a while, he hovered upright and spoke.
“Stefan Bossi!”
Incredibly, he did not know why.
Haruki swallowed and looked at the wall, thinking: I’m going to die.
For a moment his mind seemed to separate from his physical body—it was not fear, or angst; it was terror. He was reminded by the physical sense of nausea as he swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth, and it occurred to him that he had just experienced a completely new level of fear.

The first argument about faith in the Fujita household—the first one Haruki got a hiding for, at least—happened on an Easter weekend in April. It was a big argument; even the greatest spanking couldn’t change his mind. Only his stepbrother shared his sentiment; Nic Chagall was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and listening to his sulking. This was fortunate because, in those days, there was no way to get ungrounded by a Japanese father.
The circumstances that, slipping out of a deep trance at night onboard the ISS, Haruki had spoken aloud a name that he had no memory of. And it hardly aroused enough curiosity to investigate the phenomenon.
Weird he thought, and got a little shiver; as if to confirm the opinion that the vision was indeed supernatural, he slipped into a trancelike daze. He realized with blank, distant eyes that for the first time the hallucination was no longer mindless.
Now he was walking onboard an abandoned spaceship pondering why the microgravity did not affect his arms and legs; he became aware that he was being watched from the shadows of the spaceship.
Haruki looked around quickly and saw a strange light with a red glow. He would have closed his eyes, but it fascinated him, and now it felt as if he had no idea where to go or why he was there; he did not know. Everything seemed so natural and real, as is the case with hallucinations. The revelation of being onboard an alien ship stopped bothering him, and the questions faded.
He screamed very loudly—the light must have done something to him because he could not remember being able to hear himself, and his lips didn’t twitch.
Soon, he came to a parting of ways; he saw a staircase leading to the lower deck, which had the appearance, in fact, of having long been abandoned. He sensed it led to something evil, yet he went down without hesitation, urged by some unstoppable force. He swallowed and descended the staircase, now convinced that the spaceship was haunted by invisible existences that he could not picture in his mind.
“What?” From behind the giant steel columns on his lefthand side, he heard broken and incoherent echoes of a radio frequency that he somewhat recognized. It sounded to him like fragmentary utterances of an evil conspiracy against his body and mind.
He swallowed again, holding onto the handrailing to steady himself. Haruki pointed at something lurking in the darkness, now believing it was watching him—an apparition so utterly intergalactic that he felt a pause in his breathing and a chill in his bones.
But for a long time, nothing came. He wanted to know why the haunted spaceship through which he journeyed was lit with a red glimmer having no point of origin. It appeared as if the mysterious light didn’t cast a shadow, and he thought about its neon color. Everything seemed a little brighter now, and he stood rooted with that cold feeling squeezing his lungs that reminded him of the alien presence.
A shallow pool in a bent depression met his eyes with a sloppy mess. He tumbled forward and plunged with his gloves into it and then looked at the thick slime of juices and placenta on his fingers with a different kind of horror.
Slime, he then observed, was around him everywhere. The walls towering grimly on either side revealed it in blots and splashes on the big, rusted panels. Bundles of sloppy racks that stretched over the walkways were hoarded with conductor cables and splattered as with placenta—glowing red. Robbing the place of its significance covered in heaps of crimson, slime dangling like slurry with its coagulations.
Sweat ran down his forehead and burned his eyes. He tasted a mixture of salt and minerals in his mouth. The shivering would not stop. Fear was like the ultimate curse. He thought: There is a point where the physical symptom of fear becomes unbearable: I have passed that point already.
It felt as if everything was in compensation for some crime that he could not remember. He believed he was a person of integrity; if he had murdered someone he would have remembered it, and a little introspection would have revealed the person he had supposedly harmed. The discovery of the menaces and mysteries of his surroundings was an added horror, tracing his steps backward in his mind.
And just how vainly could he reproduce the moment of his wrongdoing, here standing knee-deep in the slime? But suddenly the memories flashed tumultuously into his brain, picture after picture, only causing confusion and obscurity, and in no picture could he catch a glimpse of what he had done wrong.
But just because it hadn’t been remembered didn’t mean it didn’t happen. This failure to conceive only heightened his terror; he felt like a failure who had lost something in the dark without knowing what.
He grabbed his knees, shuddering,
(think of a way to kill yourself, think of a way to make it stop)
and sank his gloves into his spacesuit as hard as he could. He looked down, weak and flimsy knees rattling like a dog, tongue stuck into his cheek, and his posture heavily slanted with baleful character. It felt as if everything in sight conspired against his peace; from overhead and all around came the audible and startling echoes: the growl of a creature so obviously from outer space—that he could take it no more, and with a great effort to break the curse that bound his arms and legs to procrastination, he shouted from the depths of his lungs.
“Reveal yourself!”
His voice echoed with a hollow clang, it went stuttering and stammering, but of course he could not know what evils might lurk on the ship. He would only assume that, because his voice broke and echoed into an infinite multitude of unfamiliar sounds, the ship must have been large enough to have traveled from another galaxy or dimension.
I will not go down without a fight. There may be frequencies that are malignant and haunting this accursed ship. I shall decipher them and blot them down. The monster shall forget about my wrongs, the suffering that I endure—I, a worthless astronaut, a medic, and a computer programmer!
Haruki removed a flashbeam from his spacesuit; it felt warm when he switched it on. He pointed the beam at the wall and heard intimidating radio frequencies echoing against the steel.
Why, yes, I shall take off my glove—dip it into a heap of slime and write against the wall.
He had hardly touched the surface of the steel with his finger when a wild, evil reverberation of growling broke out at a considerable distance behind him, and growing ever louder, seemed approaching ever nearer. It was a soulless, heartless, and unpleasant growl, like that of a predator terrorizing its prey. It was a growl which culminated in an unearthly roar close at hand, then died away by slow gradations. Maybe the accursed being that uttered it had retreated over the shimmer back to the dimension where it had come from. But maybe this was not the case—it might still be nearby and ready to attack at any moment. Fuck knows he spent a long time waiting for something to happen.
You should be moving, Fujita.
Maybe walking, maybe running. Either way it was better than just standing there and doing nothing.
A strange sensation began to take possession of his body and his mind. He could not have said which, if any, of his senses were affected; he experienced it as a hunch—an unconscious mental awareness of some extraterrestrial presence—some alien malevolence different in kind from the visible existences that glitched around him, and superior to humans in power. He knew that it had uttered that hideous growl. And now it felt as if it was approaching him; from what direction he had no idea—dared not speculate.
Haruki closed his eyes and stared at the back of his eyelids. All his former fears had combined or amalgamated into a gigantic terror that now held him in thrall. Apart from that, he had but one mission: to convert the frequency stuck in his head into code, echoing the haunted spaceship, before the extraterrestrial monster blessed him with eternal silence. And now he lifted his slimy finger, idly thinking of computer codes such as Java, C++, and R . . .
Should I write it down?
Should I write at all?
A soft, freaky sound escaped his throat. The face of the astronaut was sickly terrified, the pale face now augmented with a plan of action.
His body started to move rapidly, finger oozing slime without renewal, arm waving in the thin air like a graffiti artist. Two minutes later, at the last part of the script, his arm fell to his side, glove to the air. He was powerless and could not move or cry out; he found himself staring at a wall of illegibly written script, the code representative of the ultimate frequency haunting this spaceship. At that moment Haruki almost believed it: that he was earmarked for death.
He had never been so scared in his life.
The symbols were glowing against the reddened wall written at an angle, the slime, and the acrid smell of the place. He clamped his teeth against each other and tried to focus his mind on what he had written; the code was all he could think of.

Haruki Fujita heard footsteps in the hall. He grabbed a blanket from the bottom of his bed and used it to cover his stepbrother, who was bundled up and lying naked with his knees pulled up to his chest, shivering.
Their father came out of the dark to switch off their light. His wife followed, passed the room with a bottle of wine, and headed down the hall. Haruki lay silent for a moment, not moving, he was aware that something important and significant was being celebrated of which they were not informed. The door of their room closed softly against the clip as his father pulled it. Then came the sound of shouting.
“You’ve bought another Porsche,” his mother said.
“The hospital pays for it, you know,” Chin Fujita replied.
Haruki heard her footsteps march up and down the room before she went to the bathroom and opened the water to wash her hands.
“You are wasting our time on Haruki.”
“No, honey, he will become a doctor someday.”
“What about my boy?”
“He’s not interested, but I think he will pass his exam next week and become a medic like Haruki. I can tell from his aptitude tests, and his EQI is off the charts.”
“Another Porsche, I can’t believe it?”
“I know. You weren’t supposed to find out. It was a surprise. I got the GT3-RS for you; that explains the black.”
Haruki could have cared less about his father wasting his money on that bitch of stepmother. Not giving a fuck was good, but—
“What did I do to deserve another black beauty? No really—is it mine?”
The sound of broken glass woke Nicklaus up. Now looking at the swimming pool in his room, he said, “They’re fighting again . . . Haruki. It’s going to be a long night if they cannot sort out their shit.”
“Are you awake?”
Nic raised his head, which was tucked under the blanket, and kissed Haruki on the forehead.
“You should tell him about your talent.”
“I have absolutely no talent.”
“But you are good at computer programming. I can see the character of Mister Anderon from the movie in you.”
That was when Haruki grew excited. “I would like to make my hero proud.”
“You have lived in the Matrix for your entire life—by which you have become a prodigy and a part-time hacker.”
Maybe even a carbon copy.
“That is nice of you, Nicky. I’m glad you are proud of me since he is on the point of giving up, calling me the family disgrace, and long since dubbed me a worthless gamer. That bitch thinks I am a black sheep and says that I have a psychological imbalance, whatever that means. She said that I have missed my vocation to become a doctor.”
“But you are smart, like your dad. I like it that you are a devoted cybernetic criminal.”
“A hacker sounds better—”
And another glass broke in the room next to them. Their father opened the balcony door, probably to smoke a cigarette. When Haruki looked up this time, he saw joy and excitement on his stepbrother’s face. He was only two years younger, after all. Nic gave him a playful smile, then went back under the blanket where he could finish what he had started.
“Nicky, for God’s sake—stop it and try to focus—”
Yet it had always bothered Haruki that they were stepbrothers. Although Nic was a devoted fan of the great Keanu Reeves so generally and justly admired for his hair. Nic had always taken care to conceal his weakness from all eyes but those who shared his passion. And their common profession as medics was an added bond between them.
Maybe Nic will understand if I tell him the truth. He cannot come with me to New York.
He toyed for a moment with a lock of Nic’s hair which had escaped from its pins, and said, with an effort of calmness in his voice:
“Would you be okay with me leaving for a few months to look for a job, Nicky?”
It was clearly needful for Nic to put his arm across his eyes without making an instant reply. Evidently he would mind; and the tears sprang into his large brown eyes as corroborative testimony.
“Ah, my brother,” he replied, looking up at his face with tenderness, “I knew this was coming. Did I not lie awake half of the afternoon weeping because, during the other half, Keanu Reeves had come to me in a dream.”
It was the great actor, Haruki Fujita would know if his stepbrother was lying, which he wasn’t.
“Neo?” he whispered. His lips were beginning to shiver again, but in the dim light of the swimming pool Nic barely noticed.
“Yes, and standing next to the computer screen—young, too, and handsome as in the first movie—pointed to your picture on the wall? I could not see your face when I looked since you were uploaded into the Matrix, such as at the end of the flick. You can smile at this, but you and I, dear, know that such things are no joke.”
Haruki’s life would be in trouble not because he was uploaded into the program but because his face was missing (and so he believed it to be an actual dream); why the hero would point to his picture on the wall baffled his mind.
“And I saw within the glowing code the wound of a blade on your throat, Haruki—forgive me, but we do not hide things from each other. Perhaps you have another interpretation. Perhaps it does not mean that you will go away. Or maybe you will take me with you?”
“I think it foreshadowed a simpler, surely less tragic, meaning like a visit to the great robot city in Zion. But please don’t try to stop me from leaving.”
“Are there not enough medics in New York?” Nic Chagall continued before his stepbrother could stop him— “Trinity discovered the truth with a broken heart? Look—my chest is ripped open; and I am almost sure that I will die in your absence.”
No—not like this.
Too sad.
Might break them apart.
The throbbing in his chest was more persistent; the next moment Haruki held out his hands but he was afraid that Nic would reject his request for affection. His hands lingered. There was a brief interval of silence. It sounded like their parents were making out again. It was warming up according to their breathing, but if his suspicions were correct, they would go on for the rest of the night. Nic refused to take his hands.
How long before his cold hands revealed the pain in his heart and his emotional scars manifesting in the form of tears, the hacker was unable to cry. How long before they would see each other again?
Three months? A year?
That would be the length of his pain, Haruki thought, and his lips began to shudder. By the time his lips stopped shaking, and it was not until a considerable time later that he realized he would have to leave his brother behind.
“I suppose I’ll have to go.”
Watching Nic, he felt the warmth of his affection for him that his blank expression denied. The weight pressed heavily on his shoulders as he watched his stepbrother cope with it in his own kind of way.

While job hunting in downtown Brooklyn after three months, Haruki was taking cover under a bridge one thunderstorm night, waiting for his weed to be delivered. The storm was well underway now, and no longer raining but pouring. He believed he understood the economic difficulties brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic—since he hadn’t found a job yet—but as the homeless people kept multiplying (he could see more and more people each week), he began to gain a different perspective in terms of earning an honest paycheck.
To his right, through the maze of squatters and bonfires toward the parking lot, he saw a black Lincoln Continental. Haruki noticed a driver with white hair holding the steering wheel like a woman (shit, he thought, she looked exactly like the driver from The Matrix) with her long nails and black leather jacket.
“What the hell?” he asked, sounding smoked as usual.
The car first drove around and then pulled right up to him. He thought of asking the driver if she had also ordered some weed—her eyes were looking mighty red—and decided he didn’t want to have that conversation now. He turned his attention toward the backseat where another woman with a crying baby had been watching him. At first he thought she looked familiar. Then he looked again and saw she was actually a transvestite, rocking the baby in his arms.
“You need to come with us,” the transvestite said. “We heard you are looking for a job?”
“We don’t have much time, Elon,” the driver added.
He thought of Nic back home and imagined he would make his stepbrother proud when breaking the news. He resisted the urge to question the man about the job . . . or even ask them who they were. His clever plan to look for a job in the big city was pretty screwed up and turned out to be a great mistake.
The crying increased, louder.
“We are subcontracting for NASA,” Elon said. He showed his badge to prove it.
“Really?”
“Come.”
“Now?”
“You know we are the real deal, right?”
“Shit, no. I didn’t expect it to happen like this.” Failing to hide the doubt on his face. Or the glimmering sweat on his forehead. Maybe from the weed or the rain. Maybe both.
“Your father said you’re the best medic in the field, but legislation makes it impossible with your qualifications. Your father has pulled some strings for you to work through us. The danger pay is good. Since you’ll be working in space.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“No, really.”
“Space?”
“You will be working on the International Space Station for three months on and three months off, both of you.”
Haruki didn’t hear it. Till it registered. “Both?”
“Both of the Fujita boys will be going to space!”
Haruki brightened. NASA also recruited his stepbrother to join the crew, and two weeks later, the two brothers were reunited in the microgravity of space.
Though happy to be together, Haruki was no less proud in spirit that he had been onboard the ISS for weeks that felt like an eternity. He gladly enjoyed the company of his stepbrother, and it was while living onboard the ISS, awaiting news and orders from ground control, that he had slipped into a trance.

The hallucination came back to Haruki Fujita, haunting enough, as he stood on board the spaceship with his back against the reddened wall, hands at his side. He had to lift his head upward slightly to confront his enemy. Well . . . actually, he had to lift his head more than slightly. The thing was large. So large that he couldn’t even see the extraterrestrial beast. In case you didn’t notice the predator reminds me of Nicky, but ten times more horrible! A monster that stirred no love nor longing in my heart, but strangely its presence evoked pleasant memories of my happy childhood—with all kinds of sentiment. The tender emotions were swallowed up in fear.
Haruki tried to run away, but his boots were saturated with slime. He was unable to pull his legs out of the mess. His arms drifted uselessly in the air; of his eyes only he remained in control, and these he dared not remove from the glowing ember of his enemy.
He stared at it.
Was it cybernetic?
Shit, it looked like it was.
Anyway, it seemed biological and that most dreadful of all existences—a robot with predatory limbs! In its blank stare, he noticed neither love, pity, nor artificial intelligence—nothing to which he could address an appeal for mercy.
An appeal won’t be a lie, he thought.
The sight of it evoked no happy memories. If he could have reached it he would have grabbed it. If he could have reached it he would have tried to stick his finger into its glowing eye. But his inaction only made the situation more terrifying with the red glow on his forehead.
For a time, which seemed so long that the Earth grew bleak with crime and murder, and the haunted ship, having miscalculated its destination in this monstrous height of its terrors, faded out of his consciousness with all its sights and sounds, the predator invaded his space, regarding him with the brutal malevolence of a cybernetic monster.
Quivering with panic, Haruki lifted his head so he could peer into its mouth, double-edged razor blades, rows and rows of them like a predator with a mouthful of fangs chipped but otherwise deadly.
“I see.”
It sat down. The ship rocked a little. Haruki guessed that the beast might weigh as much as thirty tons. It had come from a universe where there were different alloys, shapeshifting metal . . . also advanced composites were used in its construction, some organic materials like flesh and exoskeleton, the biological part of the organism was infected with a wicked cancer.
The monster roared at him, promising annihilation.
He moved back. The monster came forward. That made Haruki very uncomfortable.
“Shit!” Haruki didn’t take any pleasure in the way this was going if not for the brutal nature of his enemy; as solid as a piece of machinery and ferocious, it transformed itself grinning with its one eye missing, about to deliver him to the universe and convert him into stardust.
The thing’s mouth grew sly, confronting him to admit a dirty, dirty secret. Its grin became a smile. Strangely, the venom oozed out of its tongue. This is what it looks like, he thought, if a species faces its ultimate extinction even worse than those robots from the movie. This is what it looks like just before the end of humanity.
“No . . .”
The beast thrust its limbs forward and sprang upon him with outrageous ferocity! The act released Haruki’s physical energy without affecting his willpower to fight back. And his pain was blocked out by an overdose of hydrofluoric acid at the same time something leeched onto his brainstem, his flimsy body and dangling arms powered with a blind, inanimate mind of their own, became weak and puny.
“Not like this . . . I can’t die like this . . . and what about . . . wait!”
For an instant he seemed to see this supernatural contest between an infected robot and a dying human only as a spectator—such fantasies of hallucinations.
He looked at the wall crying like a girl, leaving the predator and its claws to finish him off. Then he regained his willpower almost as if by a leap forward into his body, and the visionary now had an accurate will as alert and fierce as that of the predator.
“Leame dafuckalone!”
He tried to fight back. The hacker’s return. But how can a human compete with a creature of extraterrestrial origins? He supposed a boy who was being killed by an alien monster might feel something like pain as he lay regarding his gushing main artery with a cold surprise. The programmer’s skill is the programmer’s weakness.
“No!” His neck bled like a slaughtered animal. His worthless hands were clasped at his sides.
Despite his struggles—despite his strength and willpower, which seemed wasted in the void of space, he felt the sharp claws thrust into his throat and brain, many times. Falling backward to the sheet metal, he saw through his cracked visor the grey and dusty surface of the Moon within an arm’s reach of his own, and then everything was black. The sounds of the unearthly radio frequencies in the distance—the dolphin’s cry, a sharp, far growl declaring the end, and Hariki Fujita imagined he was dead.

The International Space Station is that kind of place that when you are there, you must take it all in, but after Peggy grabbed Jameson by the arm and ordered him to come with her, there was no time to take it all in. The airlock closed behind them, and Peggy knew they were getting close.
“How far is it?” Jamason asked, as they hovered along, their feet stirring particles of dust in the microgravity beneath their soles.
Peggy looked at him, suspiciously, recalling that he had agreed to go with her without informing ground control of their whereabouts.
“Only a few feet further,” Peggy answered. She led the way toward the old storage bay with its battery banks and electrical inverters, accumulating backup electricity in case of an emergency.
“What is going on,” he said as they hovered through the west hanger where corrosion and dilapidation gradually increased and passed through the narrow arch into the dark, freezing aerospace shadows.
“You know Haruki Fujita?” she said, feeding her companion’s curiosity with as little information as possible. The name was disturbing, and Peggy felt her neck spasm a little.
“The Jap who plays with his stepbrother’s hair? I know him; he ruined a month of my work after the botanicals died from his intrusion. There is an HR complaint lodged against him for interfering with my plants, but ground control refuses to believe it. You will believe me when—”
“I believe you, okay. Because he has been hacking into the servers for a long time. He works at night in the dilapidated capsule.”
“The asshole! So that’s where the acidic atmosphere that killed my plants came from.”
“You might have imagined that NASA’s security checks would have picked up a cybernetic criminal who could hack their instrumentation.”
“The very last person I would have suspected.”
“Yesterday afternoon I was issued a job card to check the battery terminals. To my surprise I found something else in there, I found ‘a computer of him’ in there.”
“So you caught him red-handed?”
“Damn it! He frightened me. Something growled from behind me—it literally gave me goosebumps. I’m lucky that I wasn’t there ten minutes earlier. Oh shit, he was dying, and I thought the blood floating in space was proof enough that I wouldn’t be able to save him.”
Hovering in the cramped hanger shoulder to shoulder, Peggy glanced at him. The boy’s eyes were so dark they seemed black, only by her flashbeam did they turn indigo blue. She noticed her death-grip on the torch, her gloves couldn’t release their hold even consciously.
“I need to show you the body so that we can devise a plan of action,” the engineer explained. “I thought it was safe for us to check out the corpse during the day.”
“Are you sure the Jap is dead?” said the biologist. “The light in there may have obscured your visibility and conclusion. If he was unconscious he might still be alive.”
“Well, he seemed very dead to me.” She glanced sideways at the boy, and felt a flare of disappointment. She knew deep down in her being that Haruki was gone, one of the first dead bodies she ever encountered. She had to admit that such a bloody, gruesome, and unsettling scene she had never seen in all her years as a first aider or electrical engineer.
“Alright,” Jameson said; “we will go and look at him,” and he added, in the words of a caring person, “we should keep this between us—I mean, if young Nic Chagall ever finds out about his stepbrother it would kill him. By the way, I heard the other day that ‘Nic’ was not his real name.”
“What is?”
“I cannot remember. I had lost interest in the introvert, and it did not grab hold in my memory—something like Nicklaus. The medic who enrolled in the space program joined his stepbrother after he was abandoned. But Haruki, on the other hand, had joined in search of extraterrestrial technology. Can you believe that there are people who still believe in aliens nowadays? Clearly you are not a believer.”
“Obviously.”
“But wandering about your faith, what do you believe in then? Your boyfriend mentioned what the name was called and said it was scientific in nature.”
“We don’t have a name yet.” Peggy was reluctant to argue without facts about something so important as that. Bossi bases his beliefs on the Principia Mathematica. Isaac Newton was the founder of a philosophy that was only recently made public. A few fragments of his work provide scientific evidence based on experimentation. But anyhow, here is the storage bay.”
She looked at him sharply to see if he was prepared. His face, however, was wearing an expression of frozen panic. His lips and nostrils were rimmed with deep purple, and there were shadows in his dark eyes, like the shapes of a reptile streaking into two hard lines.
“Lemme show you where I found the body,” she said, “this is the place.”
As the two astronauts made their way through the blood of hovering crimson, they suddenly stopped and lifted their flashbeams to the height of the wall, uttered a low note of surprise, and stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon something weird. As far as Peggy could see the wall was covered with inscriptions, though she did not yet understand what she was looking at. A moment later she moved cautiously forward, aiming for the inverters.
Behind the inverter of an enormous height hovered the spacesuit of another astronaut. Standing silent beside it, Peggy noted such particulars that immediately took her attention—the suit was empty, the body missing, the clothing still inside; whatever most probably and strangely happened to this astronaut must have been unearthly.
The suit floated upon its back, the nametag—Nic Chagall. One arm was twisted in circles, the other stretched, but the latter was ripped off brutally, with the missing piece stuck to the helmet. The other arm was severely bent. The whole attitude of the suit was that of desperate but weak resistance to something.
Nearby drifted the disemboweled stepbrother with his naked finger stretched out, stained and blotched, and the floor had been scribbled with blood into symbols all over the corroded floorplate; next to his suit was unmistakable the footprint of an alien entity.
A glance at the empty spacesuit’s missing glove and boots made the nature of the struggle even more mysterious. While the suit and helmet were clean, the arms and legs were red—almost black. The oxygen hose stuck against an inverter, and the suit was twisted and turned backward, opposite any natural posture.
From behind Haruki’s cracked helmet his eyes had popped, bloody and gruesome. The throat showed horrible penetrations; not mere fingermarks, but lacerations and stab wounds inflicted by animal claws that must have buried themselves in his bleeding flesh, maintaining their terrible grip long after death. His throat, chin, and face were soggy; the material saturated; drops of blood had gathered like condensate inside his visor, bloodstained hair and cheeks.
All this the two astronauts observed without speaking—almost frozen. Then Jameson said:
“Poor Haruki! He got what he deserved.”
Peggy was vigilantly inspecting the storage bay. Her flashbeam was held in both hands and at full brightness, and her gloves were clenched around the handle.
“The work of a murderer,” she said, without removing her eyes from the surrounding inverters. “It was done by Nic—Chagall.”
Something half-hidden by the cable racks behind the inverters caught Peggy’s attention. It was the wall. She looked at it while lifting her flashbeam. It contained the code of computer and upon the entire wall the name “Stefan Bossi.” Written in blood over and over again—scribbled as if in haste barely legible—were the following lines, which Peggy read silently while her companion started scanning the dark confines of the enclosure and hearing a commotion from inside the bloody spiderwebs dangling from the wall.

public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String originalName = “Stefan Bossi”;
System.out.println(“Original name: “ + originalName);

// Reversing the name
String reversedName = new StringBuilder(originalName).reverse().toString();
System.out.println(“Reversed name: “ + reversedName);

// Converting to uppercase
String upperCaseName = originalName.toUpperCase();
System.out.println(“Uppercase name: “ + upperCaseName);

// Swapping first name with last name
int spaceIndex = originalName.indexOf(‘ ‘);
String firstName

“Bossi Stefan—”
Peggy stopped reading; there was no more to read. The code broke off in the middle of a line.
“What a flawless Java script,” she said, since she was somewhat of a programmer herself. With extraordinary patience she stood looking at the wall.
“Who’s Java?” Jameson asked rather confused.
“Computer code, a script that was written to play around with two words—a very jolly script indeed. Coded in first generation; I know the language. The script repeated my boyfriend’s name, but it must have been by mistake.”
“Your boyfriend?” Jameson said. “Let us go back; we must share this information with ground control.”
Peggy said nothing but nodded in compliance. Staring at the inverter behind the empty spacesuit of the missing astronaut with the oxygen hose entangled, she saw that the absent glove was stuck (or rather glued) to the vertical surface by some slimy substance drooling from the melted plastic. She took her torch to illuminate it into view. It was an oozing mess, and painted on the panel were the hardly decipherable words, “Peggy Lance.”
“Peggy Lance!” exclaimed Jameson, with sudden animation. “Why, that is your name—not Stefan Bossi. And—curse your soul! How it all comes together—the murderer’s name is Peggy Lance!”
“There is something weird going on here,” Peggy said. “I deny anything of the kind.”
There came to them from inside the wall—seemingly from a great distance—the sound of a growl, a high-pitched, frequency, cybernetic echo, which had no more joy than that of a predator prowling at its prey; a growl that originated from far away, closer and closer, distinct, more explicit but brutal, until it faded away outside the audible distance of their hearing; a growl so unnatural, so extraterrestrial, so morbid, that it filled those freaked out astronauts with a sense of dread unspeakable! They did not move their torches nor think of them; the menace of that horrible sound was the kind not to be disturbed by light. As it had originated out of solid metal, to die away grimly; from a culminating frequency that had seemed almost in their head, it retreated into the distance until its soft echoes, cybernetic and mechanical to the last frequency, faded into silence at an immeasurable distance.

“Wake the fuck up, man.”
Haruki Fujita slipped out of a hallucination. The hallucination was mindless. It featured a name moments before something killed him, extraterrestrial and horrible from head to toe. Slimy and predatory. The most of it cybernetic. He was dying, with blood gushing out of his neck, but that wasn’t what killed him, at least not immediately, because his intestines were pulled out of his stomach, and that was what killed him.
He watched the blue solar panel wing curve outward from the steel hull of the International Space Station, and he frowned bitterly. From the sensation of death, Haruki Fujita had a sickening gut feeling.
“Stefan Bossi!” he cried out, alarmed.
The name lingered in his mind. He remembered it from his hallucination. He idly watched one of his gloves floating across the room and stopped in front of his computer screen. No reason was known to him why he remembered that name; he remembered nothing more. There was a brief rush—he had time to think about programming languages and decoding radio frequencies, though none of the government organizations he hacked into proved extraterrestrial in origin, but Haruki was convinced by the bizarre nature of the sounds. He didn’t really care about the scientists at SETI, many doctors, and the best professors in the world who regarded them as a hoax. And those who didn’t view the evolution of Earth from an intergalactic perspective that was terraformed over billions of years by otherworldly entities.
“Stefan Bossi!” he said again, grabbing the floating glove with his cold hand and looked at it, trying to decide the significance of the name from his hallucination. Instantly he felt his fingers were freezing from the cold. As Haruki watched the storage bay where he was hiding, his fingers slipped into the glove and strapped the Velcro. “Stefan Bossi! Stefan Bossi!” It seemed to be all he could remember.
Even trapped in the confusing vise of the illusion, Haruki felt an intense fear—this was what an extraterrestrial predator looked like while it slaughtered him. It was a look that filled him with horror.
Another radio frequency echoed from his computer, this one echoing like the mating call of a dolphin, and that excited him. With another “Stefan Bossi!” he stared out of the window and watched the sun disappear behind the Earth, he lost focus; and although it was only an hour after bedtime—another exciting six hours while everyone was deep asleep—the red glow of the computer screen had so hindered his thoughts that he was distracted while staring. And he slipped back into that mindless hallucination.
When Haruki managed to wake up, he realized it was hours later, in the bosom of the night. He glimpsed over the UPS batteries and saw a loose terminal that looked like a collection of fireflies floating in the antigravity of space.
After a while, he hovered upright and spoke.
“Stefan Bossi!”
Incredibly, he did not know why.
Haruki swallowed and looked at the wall, thinking: I’m going to die.
For a moment his mind seemed to separate from his physical body—it was not fear, or angst; it was terror. He was reminded by the physical sense of nausea as he swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth, and it occurred to him that he had just experienced a completely new level of fear.

The first argument about faith in the Fujita household—the first one Haruki got a hiding for, at least—happened on an Easter weekend in April. It was a big argument; even the greatest spanking couldn’t change his mind. Only his stepbrother shared his sentiment; Nic Chagall was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and listening to his sulking. This was fortunate because, in those days, there was no way to get ungrounded by a Japanese father.
The circumstances that, slipping out of a deep trance at night onboard the ISS, Haruki had spoken aloud a name that he had no memory of. And it hardly aroused enough curiosity to investigate the phenomenon.
Weird he thought, and got a little shiver; as if to confirm the opinion that the vision was indeed supernatural, he slipped into a trancelike daze. He realized with blank, distant eyes that for the first time the hallucination was no longer mindless.
Now he was walking onboard an abandoned spaceship pondering why the microgravity did not affect his arms and legs; he became aware that he was being watched from the shadows of the spaceship.
Haruki looked around quickly and saw a strange light with a red glow. He would have closed his eyes, but it fascinated him, and now it felt as if he had no idea where to go or why he was there; he did not know. Everything seemed so natural and real, as is the case with hallucinations. The revelation of being onboard an alien ship stopped bothering him, and the questions faded.
He screamed very loudly—the light must have done something to him because he could not remember being able to hear himself, and his lips didn’t twitch.
Soon, he came to a parting of ways; he saw a staircase leading to the lower deck, which had the appearance, in fact, of having long been abandoned. He sensed it led to something evil, yet he went down without hesitation, urged by some unstoppable force. He swallowed and descended the staircase, now convinced that the spaceship was haunted by invisible existences that he could not picture in his mind.
“What?” From behind the giant steel columns on his lefthand side, he heard broken and incoherent echoes of a radio frequency that he somewhat recognized. It sounded to him like fragmentary utterances of an evil conspiracy against his body and mind.
He swallowed again, holding onto the handrailing to steady himself. Haruki pointed at something lurking in the darkness, now believing it was watching him—an apparition so utterly intergalactic that he felt a pause in his breathing and a chill in his bones.
But for a long time, nothing came. He wanted to know why the haunted spaceship through which he journeyed was lit with a red glimmer having no point of origin. It appeared as if the mysterious light didn’t cast a shadow, and he thought about its neon color. Everything seemed a little brighter now, and he stood rooted with that cold feeling squeezing his lungs that reminded him of the alien presence.
A shallow pool in a bent depression met his eyes with a sloppy mess. He tumbled forward and plunged with his gloves into it and then looked at the thick slime of juices and placenta on his fingers with a different kind of horror.
Slime, he then observed, was around him everywhere. The walls towering grimly on either side revealed it in blots and splashes on the big, rusted panels. Bundles of sloppy racks that stretched over the walkways were hoarded with conductor cables and splattered as with placenta—glowing red. Robbing the place of its significance covered in heaps of crimson, slime dangling like slurry with its coagulations.
Sweat ran down his forehead and burned his eyes. He tasted a mixture of salt and minerals in his mouth. The shivering would not stop. Fear was like the ultimate curse. He thought: There is a point where the physical symptom of fear becomes unbearable: I have passed that point already.
It felt as if everything was in compensation for some crime that he could not remember. He believed he was a person of integrity; if he had murdered someone he would have remembered it, and a little introspection would have revealed the person he had supposedly harmed. The discovery of the menaces and mysteries of his surroundings was an added horror, tracing his steps backward in his mind.
And just how vainly could he reproduce the moment of his wrongdoing, here standing knee-deep in the slime? But suddenly the memories flashed tumultuously into his brain, picture after picture, only causing confusion and obscurity, and in no picture could he catch a glimpse of what he had done wrong.
But just because it hadn’t been remembered didn’t mean it didn’t happen. This failure to conceive only heightened his terror; he felt like a failure who had lost something in the dark without knowing what.
He grabbed his knees, shuddering,
(think of a way to kill yourself, think of a way to make it stop)
and sank his gloves into his spacesuit as hard as he could. He looked down, weak and flimsy knees rattling like a dog, tongue stuck into his cheek, and his posture heavily slanted with baleful character. It felt as if everything in sight conspired against his peace; from overhead and all around came the audible and startling echoes: the growl of a creature so obviously from outer space—that he could take it no more, and with a great effort to break the curse that bound his arms and legs to procrastination, he shouted from the depths of his lungs.
“Reveal yourself!”
His voice echoed with a hollow clang, it went stuttering and stammering, but of course he could not know what evils might lurk on the ship. He would only assume that, because his voice broke and echoed into an infinite multitude of unfamiliar sounds, the ship must have been large enough to have traveled from another galaxy or dimension.
I will not go down without a fight. There may be frequencies that are malignant and haunting this accursed ship. I shall decipher them and blot them down. The monster shall forget about my wrongs, the suffering that I endure—I, a worthless astronaut, a medic, and a computer programmer!
Haruki removed a flashbeam from his spacesuit; it felt warm when he switched it on. He pointed the beam at the wall and heard intimidating radio frequencies echoing against the steel.
Why, yes, I shall take off my glove—dip it into a heap of slime and write against the wall.
He had hardly touched the surface of the steel with his finger when a wild, evil reverberation of growling broke out at a considerable distance behind him, and growing ever louder, seemed approaching ever nearer. It was a soulless, heartless, and unpleasant growl, like that of a predator terrorizing its prey. It was a growl which culminated in an unearthly roar close at hand, then died away by slow gradations. Maybe the accursed being that uttered it had retreated over the shimmer back to the dimension where it had come from. But maybe this was not the case—it might still be nearby and ready to attack at any moment. Fuck knows he spent a long time waiting for something to happen.
You should be moving, Fujita.
Maybe walking, maybe running. Either way it was better than just standing there and doing nothing.
A strange sensation began to take possession of his body and his mind. He could not have said which, if any, of his senses were affected; he experienced it as a hunch—an unconscious mental awareness of some extraterrestrial presence—some alien malevolence different in kind from the visible existences that glitched around him, and superior to humans in power. He knew that it had uttered that hideous growl. And now it felt as if it was approaching him; from what direction he had no idea—dared not speculate.
Haruki closed his eyes and stared at the back of his eyelids. All his former fears had combined or amalgamated into a gigantic terror that now held him in thrall. Apart from that, he had but one mission: to convert the frequency stuck in his head into code, echoing the haunted spaceship, before the extraterrestrial monster blessed him with eternal silence. And now he lifted his slimy finger, idly thinking of computer codes such as Java, C++, and R . . .
Should I write it down?
Should I write at all?
A soft, freaky sound escaped his throat. The face of the astronaut was sickly terrified, the pale face now augmented with a plan of action.
His body started to move rapidly, finger oozing slime without renewal, arm waving in the thin air like a graffiti artist. Two minutes later, at the last part of the script, his arm fell to his side, glove to the air. He was powerless and could not move or cry out; he found himself staring at a wall of illegibly written script, the code representative of the ultimate frequency haunting this spaceship. At that moment Haruki almost believed it: that he was earmarked for death.
He had never been so scared in his life.
The symbols were glowing against the reddened wall written at an angle, the slime, and the acrid smell of the place. He clamped his teeth against each other and tried to focus his mind on what he had written; the code was all he could think of.

Haruki Fujita heard footsteps in the hall. He grabbed a blanket from the bottom of his bed and used it to cover his stepbrother, who was bundled up and lying naked with his knees pulled up to his chest, shivering.
Their father came out of the dark to switch off their light. His wife followed, passed the room with a bottle of wine, and headed down the hall. Haruki lay silent for a moment, not moving, he was aware that something important and significant was being celebrated of which they were not informed. The door of their room closed softly against the clip as his father pulled it. Then came the sound of shouting.
“You’ve bought another Porsche,” his mother said.
“The hospital pays for it, you know,” Chin Fujita replied.
Haruki heard her footsteps march up and down the room before she went to the bathroom and opened the water to wash her hands.
“You are wasting our time on Haruki.”
“No, honey, he will become a doctor someday.”
“What about my boy?”
“He’s not interested, but I think he will pass his exam next week and become a medic like Haruki. I can tell from his aptitude tests, and his EQI is off the charts.”
“Another Porsche, I can’t believe it?”
“I know. You weren’t supposed to find out. It was a surprise. I got the GT3-RS for you; that explains the black.”
Haruki could have cared less about his father wasting his money on that bitch of stepmother. Not giving a fuck was good, but—
“What did I do to deserve another black beauty? No really—is it mine?”
The sound of broken glass woke Nicklaus up. Now looking at the swimming pool in his room, he said, “They’re fighting again . . . Haruki. It’s going to be a long night if they cannot sort out their shit.”
“Are you awake?”
Nic raised his head, which was tucked under the blanket, and kissed Haruki on the forehead.
“You should tell him about your talent.”
“I have absolutely no talent.”
“But you are good at computer programming. I can see the character of Mister Anderon from the movie in you.”
That was when Haruki grew excited. “I would like to make my hero proud.”
“You have lived in the Matrix for your entire life—by which you have become a prodigy and a part-time hacker.”
Maybe even a carbon copy.
“That is nice of you, Nicky. I’m glad you are proud of me since he is on the point of giving up, calling me the family disgrace, and long since dubbed me a worthless gamer. That bitch thinks I am a black sheep and says that I have a psychological imbalance, whatever that means. She said that I have missed my vocation to become a doctor.”
“But you are smart, like your dad. I like it that you are a devoted cybernetic criminal.”
“A hacker sounds better—”
And another glass broke in the room next to them. Their father opened the balcony door, probably to smoke a cigarette. When Haruki looked up this time, he saw joy and excitement on his stepbrother’s face. He was only two years younger, after all. Nic gave him a playful smile, then went back under the blanket where he could finish what he had started.
“Nicky, for God’s sake—stop it and try to focus—”
Yet it had always bothered Haruki that they were stepbrothers. Although Nic was a devoted fan of the great Keanu Reeves so generally and justly admired for his hair. Nic had always taken care to conceal his weakness from all eyes but those who shared his passion. And their common profession as medics was an added bond between them.
Maybe Nic will understand if I tell him the truth. He cannot come with me to New York.
He toyed for a moment with a lock of Nic’s hair which had escaped from its pins, and said, with an effort of calmness in his voice:
“Would you be okay with me leaving for a few months to look for a job, Nicky?”
It was clearly needful for Nic to put his arm across his eyes without making an instant reply. Evidently he would mind; and the tears sprang into his large brown eyes as corroborative testimony.
“Ah, my brother,” he replied, looking up at his face with tenderness, “I knew this was coming. Did I not lie awake half of the afternoon weeping because, during the other half, Keanu Reeves had come to me in a dream.”
It was the great actor, Haruki Fujita would know if his stepbrother was lying, which he wasn’t.
“Neo?” he whispered. His lips were beginning to shiver again, but in the dim light of the swimming pool Nic barely noticed.
“Yes, and standing next to the computer screen—young, too, and handsome as in the first movie—pointed to your picture on the wall? I could not see your face when I looked since you were uploaded into the Matrix, such as at the end of the flick. You can smile at this, but you and I, dear, know that such things are no joke.”
Haruki’s life would be in trouble not because he was uploaded into the program but because his face was missing (and so he believed it to be an actual dream); why the hero would point to his picture on the wall baffled his mind.
“And I saw within the glowing code the wound of a blade on your throat, Haruki—forgive me, but we do not hide things from each other. Perhaps you have another interpretation. Perhaps it does not mean that you will go away. Or maybe you will take me with you?”
“I think it foreshadowed a simpler, surely less tragic, meaning like a visit to the great robot city in Zion. But please don’t try to stop me from leaving.”
“Are there not enough medics in New York?” Nic Chagall continued before his stepbrother could stop him— “Trinity discovered the truth with a broken heart? Look—my chest is ripped open; and I am almost sure that I will die in your absence.”
No—not like this.
Too sad.
Might break them apart.
The throbbing in his chest was more persistent; the next moment Haruki held out his hands but he was afraid that Nic would reject his request for affection. His hands lingered. There was a brief interval of silence. It sounded like their parents were making out again. It was warming up according to their breathing, but if his suspicions were correct, they would go on for the rest of the night. Nic refused to take his hands.
How long before his cold hands revealed the pain in his heart and his emotional scars manifesting in the form of tears, the hacker was unable to cry. How long before they would see each other again?
Three months? A year?
That would be the length of his pain, Haruki thought, and his lips began to shudder. By the time his lips stopped shaking, and it was not until a considerable time later that he realized he would have to leave his brother behind.
“I suppose I’ll have to go.”
Watching Nic, he felt the warmth of his affection for him that his blank expression denied. The weight pressed heavily on his shoulders as he watched his stepbrother cope with it in his own kind of way.

While job hunting in downtown Brooklyn after three months, Haruki was taking cover under a bridge one thunderstorm night, waiting for his weed to be delivered. The storm was well underway now, and no longer raining but pouring. He believed he understood the economic difficulties brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic—since he hadn’t found a job yet—but as the homeless people kept multiplying (he could see more and more people each week), he began to gain a different perspective in terms of earning an honest paycheck.
To his right, through the maze of squatters and bonfires toward the parking lot, he saw a black Lincoln Continental. Haruki noticed a driver with white hair holding the steering wheel like a woman (shit, he thought, she looked exactly like the driver from The Matrix) with her long nails and black leather jacket.
“What the hell?” he asked, sounding smoked as usual.
The car first drove around and then pulled right up to him. He thought of asking the driver if she had also ordered some weed—her eyes were looking mighty red—and decided he didn’t want to have that conversation now. He turned his attention toward the backseat where another woman with a crying baby had been watching him. At first he thought she looked familiar. Then he looked again and saw she was actually a transvestite, rocking the baby in his arms.
“You need to come with us,” the transvestite said. “We heard you are looking for a job?”
“We don’t have much time, Elon,” the driver added.
He thought of Nic back home and imagined he would make his stepbrother proud when breaking the news. He resisted the urge to question the man about the job . . . or even ask them who they were. His clever plan to look for a job in the big city was pretty screwed up and turned out to be a great mistake.
The crying increased, louder.
“We are subcontracting for NASA,” Elon said. He showed his badge to prove it.
“Really?”
“Come.”
“Now?”
“You know we are the real deal, right?”
“Shit, no. I didn’t expect it to happen like this.” Failing to hide the doubt on his face. Or the glimmering sweat on his forehead. Maybe from the weed or the rain. Maybe both.
“Your father said you’re the best medic in the field, but legislation makes it impossible with your qualifications. Your father has pulled some strings for you to work through us. The danger pay is good. Since you’ll be working in space.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“No, really.”
“Space?”
“You will be working on the International Space Station for three months on and three months off, both of you.”
Haruki didn’t hear it. Till it registered. “Both?”
“Both of the Fujita boys will be going to space!”
Haruki brightened. NASA also recruited his stepbrother to join the crew, and two weeks later, the two brothers were reunited in the microgravity of space.
Though happy to be together, Haruki was no less proud in spirit that he had been onboard the ISS for weeks that felt like an eternity. He gladly enjoyed the company of his stepbrother, and it was while living onboard the ISS, awaiting news and orders from ground control, that he had slipped into a trance.

The hallucination came back to Haruki Fujita, haunting enough, as he stood on board the spaceship with his back against the reddened wall, hands at his side. He had to lift his head upward slightly to confront his enemy. Well . . . actually, he had to lift his head more than slightly. The thing was large. So large that he couldn’t even see the extraterrestrial beast. In case you didn’t notice the predator reminds me of Nicky, but ten times more horrible! A monster that stirred no love nor longing in my heart, but strangely its presence evoked pleasant memories of my happy childhood—with all kinds of sentiment. The tender emotions were swallowed up in fear.
Haruki tried to run away, but his boots were saturated with slime. He was unable to pull his legs out of the mess. His arms drifted uselessly in the air; of his eyes only he remained in control, and these he dared not remove from the glowing ember of his enemy.
He stared at it.
Was it cybernetic?
Shit, it looked like it was.
Anyway, it seemed biological and that most dreadful of all existences—a robot with predatory limbs! In its blank stare, he noticed neither love, pity, nor artificial intelligence—nothing to which he could address an appeal for mercy.
An appeal won’t be a lie, he thought.
The sight of it evoked no happy memories. If he could have reached it he would have grabbed it. If he could have reached it he would have tried to stick his finger into its glowing eye. But his inaction only made the situation more terrifying with the red glow on his forehead.
For a time, which seemed so long that the Earth grew bleak with crime and murder, and the haunted ship, having miscalculated its destination in this monstrous height of its terrors, faded out of his consciousness with all its sights and sounds, the predator invaded his space, regarding him with the brutal malevolence of a cybernetic monster.
Quivering with panic, Haruki lifted his head so he could peer into its mouth, double-edged razor blades, rows and rows of them like a predator with a mouthful of fangs chipped but otherwise deadly.
“I see.”
It sat down. The ship rocked a little. Haruki guessed that the beast might weigh as much as thirty tons. It had come from a universe where there were different alloys, shapeshifting metal . . . also advanced composites were used in its construction, some organic materials like flesh and exoskeleton, the biological part of the organism was infected with a wicked cancer.
The monster roared at him, promising annihilation.
He moved back. The monster came forward. That made Haruki very uncomfortable.
“Shit!” Haruki didn’t take any pleasure in the way this was going if not for the brutal nature of his enemy; as solid as a piece of machinery and ferocious, it transformed itself grinning with its one eye missing, about to deliver him to the universe and convert him into stardust.
The thing’s mouth grew sly, confronting him to admit a dirty, dirty secret. Its grin became a smile. Strangely, the venom oozed out of its tongue. This is what it looks like, he thought, if a species faces its ultimate extinction even worse than those robots from the movie. This is what it looks like just before the end of humanity.
“No . . .”
The beast thrust its limbs forward and sprang upon him with outrageous ferocity! The act released Haruki’s physical energy without affecting his willpower to fight back. And his pain was blocked out by an overdose of hydrofluoric acid at the same time something leeched onto his brainstem, his flimsy body and dangling arms powered with a blind, inanimate mind of their own, became weak and puny.
“Not like this . . . I can’t die like this . . . and what about . . . wait!”
For an instant he seemed to see this supernatural contest between an infected robot and a dying human only as a spectator—such fantasies of hallucinations.
He looked at the wall crying like a girl, leaving the predator and its claws to finish him off. Then he regained his willpower almost as if by a leap forward into his body, and the visionary now had an accurate will as alert and fierce as that of the predator.
“Leame dafuckalone!”
He tried to fight back. The hacker’s return. But how can a human compete with a creature of extraterrestrial origins? He supposed a boy who was being killed by an alien monster might feel something like pain as he lay regarding his gushing main artery with a cold surprise. The programmer’s skill is the programmer’s weakness.
“No!” His neck bled like a slaughtered animal. His worthless hands were clasped at his sides.
Despite his struggles—despite his strength and willpower, which seemed wasted in the void of space, he felt the sharp claws thrust into his throat and brain, many times. Falling backward to the sheet metal, he saw through his cracked visor the grey and dusty surface of the Moon within an arm’s reach of his own, and then everything was black. The sounds of the unearthly radio frequencies in the distance—the dolphin’s cry, a sharp, far growl declaring the end, and Hariki Fujita imagined he was dead.

The International Space Station is that kind of place that when you are there, you must take it all in, but after Peggy grabbed Jameson by the arm and ordered him to come with her, there was no time to take it all in. The airlock closed behind them, and Peggy knew they were getting close.
“How far is it?” Jamason asked, as they hovered along, their feet stirring particles of dust in the microgravity beneath their soles.
Peggy looked at him, suspiciously, recalling that he had agreed to go with her without informing ground control of their whereabouts.
“Only a few feet further,” Peggy answered. She led the way toward the old storage bay with its battery banks and electrical inverters, accumulating backup electricity in case of an emergency.
“What is going on,” he said as they hovered through the west hanger where corrosion and dilapidation gradually increased and passed through the narrow arch into the dark, freezing aerospace shadows.
“You know Haruki Fujita?” she said, feeding her companion’s curiosity with as little information as possible. The name was disturbing, and Peggy felt her neck spasm a little.
“The Jap who plays with his stepbrother’s hair? I know him; he ruined a month of my work after the botanicals died from his intrusion. There is an HR complaint lodged against him for interfering with my plants, but ground control refuses to believe it. You will believe me when—”
“I believe you, okay. Because he has been hacking into the servers for a long time. He works at night in the dilapidated capsule.”
“The asshole! So that’s where the acidic atmosphere that killed my plants came from.”
“You might have imagined that NASA’s security checks would have picked up a cybernetic criminal who could hack their instrumentation.”
“The very last person I would have suspected.”
“Yesterday afternoon I was issued a job card to check the battery terminals. To my surprise I found something else in there, I found ‘a computer of him’ in there.”
“So you caught him red-handed?”
“Damn it! He frightened me. Something growled from behind me—it literally gave me goosebumps. I’m lucky that I wasn’t there ten minutes earlier. Oh shit, he was dying, and I thought the blood floating in space was proof enough that I wouldn’t be able to save him.”
Hovering in the cramped hanger shoulder to shoulder, Peggy glanced at him. The boy’s eyes were so dark they seemed black, only by her flashbeam did they turn indigo blue. She noticed her death-grip on the torch, her gloves couldn’t release their hold even consciously.
“I need to show you the body so that we can devise a plan of action,” the engineer explained. “I thought it was safe for us to check out the corpse during the day.”
“Are you sure the Jap is dead?” said the biologist. “The light in there may have obscured your visibility and conclusion. If he was unconscious he might still be alive.”
“Well, he seemed very dead to me.” She glanced sideways at the boy, and felt a flare of disappointment. She knew deep down in her being that Haruki was gone, one of the first dead bodies she ever encountered. She had to admit that such a bloody, gruesome, and unsettling scene she had never seen in all her years as a first aider or electrical engineer.
“Alright,” Jameson said; “we will go and look at him,” and he added, in the words of a caring person, “we should keep this between us—I mean, if young Nic Chagall ever finds out about his stepbrother it would kill him. By the way, I heard the other day that ‘Nic’ was not his real name.”
“What is?”
“I cannot remember. I had lost interest in the introvert, and it did not grab hold in my memory—something like Nicklaus. The medic who enrolled in the space program joined his stepbrother after he was abandoned. But Haruki, on the other hand, had joined in search of extraterrestrial technology. Can you believe that there are people who still believe in aliens nowadays? Clearly you are not a believer.”
“Obviously.”
“But wandering about your faith, what do you believe in then? Your boyfriend mentioned what the name was called and said it was scientific in nature.”
“We don’t have a name yet.” Peggy was reluctant to argue without facts about something so important as that. Bossi bases his beliefs on the Principia Mathematica. Isaac Newton was the founder of a philosophy that was only recently made public. A few fragments of his work provide scientific evidence based on experimentation. But anyhow, here is the storage bay.”
She looked at him sharply to see if he was prepared. His face, however, was wearing an expression of frozen panic. His lips and nostrils were rimmed with deep purple, and there were shadows in his dark eyes, like the shapes of a reptile streaking into two hard lines.
“Lemme show you where I found the body,” she said, “this is the place.”
As the two astronauts made their way through the blood of hovering crimson, they suddenly stopped and lifted their flashbeams to the height of the wall, uttered a low note of surprise, and stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon something weird. As far as Peggy could see the wall was covered with inscriptions, though she did not yet understand what she was looking at. A moment later she moved cautiously forward, aiming for the inverters.
Behind the inverter of an enormous height hovered the spacesuit of another astronaut. Standing silent beside it, Peggy noted such particulars that immediately took her attention—the suit was empty, the body missing, the clothing still inside; whatever most probably and strangely happened to this astronaut must have been unearthly.
The suit floated upon its back, the nametag—Nic Chagall. One arm was twisted in circles, the other stretched, but the latter was ripped off brutally, with the missing piece stuck to the helmet. The other arm was severely bent. The whole attitude of the suit was that of desperate but weak resistance to something.
Nearby drifted the disemboweled stepbrother with his naked finger stretched out, stained and blotched, and the floor had been scribbled with blood into symbols all over the corroded floorplate; next to his suit was unmistakable the footprint of an alien entity.
A glance at the empty spacesuit’s missing glove and boots made the nature of the struggle even more mysterious. While the suit and helmet were clean, the arms and legs were red—almost black. The oxygen hose stuck against an inverter, and the suit was twisted and turned backward, opposite any natural posture.
From behind Haruki’s cracked helmet his eyes had popped, bloody and gruesome. The throat showed horrible penetrations; not mere fingermarks, but lacerations and stab wounds inflicted by animal claws that must have buried themselves in his bleeding flesh, maintaining their terrible grip long after death. His throat, chin, and face were soggy; the material saturated; drops of blood had gathered like condensate inside his visor, bloodstained hair and cheeks.
All this the two astronauts observed without speaking—almost frozen. Then Jameson said:
“Poor Haruki! He got what he deserved.”
Peggy was vigilantly inspecting the storage bay. Her flashbeam was held in both hands and at full brightness, and her gloves were clenched around the handle.
“The work of a murderer,” she said, without removing her eyes from the surrounding inverters. “It was done by Nic—Chagall.”
Something half-hidden by the cable racks behind the inverters caught Peggy’s attention. It was the wall. She looked at it while lifting her flashbeam. It contained the code of computer and upon the entire wall the name “Stefan Bossi.” Written in blood over and over again—scribbled as if in haste barely legible—were the following lines, which Peggy read silently while her companion started scanning the dark confines of the enclosure and hearing a commotion from inside the bloody spiderwebs dangling from the wall.

public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String originalName = “Stefan Bossi”;
System.out.println(“Original name: “ + originalName);

// Reversing the name
String reversedName = new StringBuilder(originalName).reverse().toString();
System.out.println(“Reversed name: “ + reversedName);

// Converting to uppercase
String upperCaseName = originalName.toUpperCase();
System.out.println(“Uppercase name: “ + upperCaseName);

// Swapping first name with last name
int spaceIndex = originalName.indexOf(‘ ‘);
String firstName

“Bossi Stefan—”
Peggy stopped reading; there was no more to read. The code broke off in the middle of a line.
“What a flawless Java script,” she said, since she was somewhat of a programmer herself. With extraordinary patience she stood looking at the wall.
“Who’s Java?” Jameson asked rather confused.
“Computer code, a script that was written to play around with two words—a very jolly script indeed. Coded in first generation; I know the language. The script repeated my boyfriend’s name, but it must have been by mistake.”
“Your boyfriend?” Jameson said. “Let us go back; we must share this information with ground control.”
Peggy said nothing but nodded in compliance. Staring at the inverter behind the empty spacesuit of the missing astronaut with the oxygen hose entangled, she saw that the absent glove was stuck (or rather glued) to the vertical surface by some slimy substance drooling from the melted plastic. She took her torch to illuminate it into view. It was an oozing mess, and painted on the panel were the hardly decipherable words, “Peggy Lance.”
“Peggy Lance!” exclaimed Jameson, with sudden animation. “Why, that is your name—not Stefan Bossi. And—curse your soul! How it all comes together—the murderer’s name is Peggy Lance!”
“There is something weird going on here,” Peggy said. “I deny anything of the kind.”
There came to them from inside the wall—seemingly from a great distance—the sound of a growl, a high-pitched, frequency, cybernetic echo, which had no more joy than that of a predator prowling at its prey; a growl that originated from far away, closer and closer, distinct, more explicit but brutal, until it faded away outside the audible distance of their hearing; a growl so unnatural, so extraterrestrial, so morbid, that it filled those freaked out astronauts with a sense of dread unspeakable! They did not move their torches nor think of them; the menace of that horrible sound was the kind not to be disturbed by light. As it had originated out of solid metal, to die away grimly; from a culminating frequency that had seemed almost in their head, it retreated into the distance until its soft echoes, cybernetic and mechanical to the last frequency, faded into silence at an immeasurable distance.

Have

• Items with "various" condition indicates I have more than one copy.
• Modded systems will NOT come with illegal/pirated games.
• Most disk based games for trade have been professionally resurfaced and tested, unless the game was already in pristine condition.
• Do not ask me for prices or what value I have on these items. They are either listed or readily available on various sites. Please research prices thoroughly and make an offer.

Stock Consoles

Item	Condition	Notes
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW1011] OEM Red (not Mario Red) Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, custom transparent backplate, Pokemon stickers, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XKW1000] OEM Red/Blue Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW9420] This is a demo/kiosk unit that displays a message "Could not load software" upon boot. The console has been formatted and does not display the demo software. It needs to either be modded or loaded with the demo software to run. This is a collector's item more than anything. Kickstand and screen protector included. No Joy-Cons.
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW1003] UNPATCHED, Neon/Red Joy-Cons, includes glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW 1002] UNPATCHED, Pink/Neon Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch Lite (Blue)	CIB
Nintendo Switch Lite (Gray)	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo New 3DS (Black Friday)	Very Good	New top screen shield installed, some general signs of use throughout. Comes with charger.
Nintendo 3DS XL (Black)	Good	Loose; will come with third party charger
Nintendo *New* 3DS XL (Black)	Very Good	Comes with soft case, charger, and Nintendo-branded hard shell case
Nintendo WiiU Black 32GB	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords (may be third party) and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo WiiU Black 32GB Legend of Zelda Edition	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords (may be third party) and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo WiiU White (PAL) with New Super Mario Bros. U (PAL)	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo N64	Various	Loose, can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak, and OEM or custom controller
Nintendo N64 (Jungle Green)	Very Good	loose, can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak. Will come with a matching OEM Jungle Green custom controller if desired
NES	Good	New pin connector, lockout chip removed. Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Gamecube (Black & Platinum)	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Sega Dreamcast	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (White & Black, Gamecube compatible) with Homebrew Launcher	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (White & Black, Gamecube compatible)	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (Light Blue)	Very Good	Can include cords and/or controllers
Playstation 2 (Slim & Fat) with Free McBoot	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Playstation 3 (Slim)	Various	Loose, can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo DS Lite (Black)	Good	No charger, stylus, or Game Pak cover; charges with good battery and both cartridge slots work
Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie! Game Boy Color	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo 3DS (Pink)	CIB	With box protector
Playstation Classic	Loose	(x2) Includes 1 controller (each)

Modded Consoles

Item	Condition	Notes
Nintendo N64 (USB-C power mod)	Various	Loose, console has a USB-C port instead of stock power brick connector. Can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak, and OEM or custom controller. Console will be made to order
Nintendo Gamecube (Black & Platinum) with GCLoader ODE and/or USB-C power mod	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers. Console has a usb-c port instead of stock power brick connector. Console will be made to order.
Sega Dreamcast with GDEmu ODE	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers. No other mods installed.

Cartridge Games

Console	Item	Condition	Description/Notes
NES	Super Mario/Duck Hunt	Various	Loose
NES	Super Mario Bros. 3	Various	Loose
SNES	Super Mario World	Various	Loose. Will come with new save battery
Nintendo 64	Super Bowling 64	Very Good	Loose (Valued $800 firm)
Nintendo 64	Super Mario 64	CIB Very Good	Player's Choice
Nintendo 64	Super Smash Bros.	CIB Good
Game Boy (Color)	Pokemon Blue	Very Good	Loose. Will come with new save battery.
Game Boy (Color)	Pokemon Pinball	Various	Loose.
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario Advance	CIB Very Good
Nintendo 3DS	Pokemon Moon	Very Good	CIB
Switch	Nickelodeon Kart Racers	Very Good	Loose
Switch	Minecraft	Very Good	Loose
Switch	Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania	Loose
Switch	Super Mario Party	Very Good	CIB
Switch	Mario Kart 8 Deluxe	Very Good	CIB. Box art is slightly crinkled
Switch	Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Double Pack	New	Sealed

Disk Games (Complete or Semi-Complete)

• All boxes will be OEM boxes unless otherwise noted
• I can't stress enough that everything in this category COMES WITH THE GAME TOO.

Console	Item	Condition	Description/Notes
Gamecube	Legend of Zelda Collectors Edition Promo Disk	Good	Box and disk only, no inserts, some wear on the box art
Wii	Wii Sports	Various	Cardboard sleeve & Manual (some are missing manuals)
Wii	Mario Kart Wii	Very Good	Big Box, Wii Wheel (new in bag), Game with Manual & Inserts
Wii	Zelda Twilight Princess	Very Good	Box, Manual, & Inserts
Wii	Mario Party 8	Very Good	Box, Manual, & Inserts
Wii U	Mario Kart 8	Very Good	Box & Manual
Dreamcast	NFL 2K	Factory Sealed
Dreamcast	Sonic Advance	Very Good	First run
Playstation	Jet Moto 2	Very Good	Black label
Playstation	Road Rash 3D	Very Good	Greatest Hits
Playstation	Crash Team Racing	Various	Greatest Hits & Black Label, some missing manuals
Playstation	Soul Blade	Very Good	Greatest Hits
Playstation	Resident Evil Director's Cut	Various	Greatest Hits CIB

Loose Disks

• All disks have been professionally resurfaced/buffed when necessary and tested thoroughly
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have a case, box, or manual for any of the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Title	Description
Dreamcast	Marvel vs. Capcom 2	Has a Hollywood Video protective security sticker overlay
Gamecube	ATV 2: Quad Power Racing
Gamecube	Batman: Vengeance
Gamecube	Bionicle Heroes
Gamecube	Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad
Gamecube	Crash Tag Team Racing
Gamecube	Crazy Taxi
Gamecube	Donkey Konga	Also have several DK Bongos for trade!
Gamecube	FIFA 2003
Gamecube	Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Gamecube	Harry Potter to Himitsu no Heiya (JAP)
Gamecube	Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup
Gamecube	Home Run King
Gamecube	LOTR: Return of the King
Gamecube	Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Gamecube	Metroid Prime Echoes Bonus Disk
Gamecube	MC Groovz: Dance CRAZE
Gamecube	Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance
Gamecube	Naruto Clash of Ninja 2
Gamecube	NAMCO Museum
Gamecube	Need For Speed Underground
Gamecube	Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2
Gamecube	NHL 2003
Gamecube	Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Gamecube	Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Gamecube	Resident Evil 4	Disk 2 only
Gamecube	Resident Evil Biohazard 0 (JAP)	Both disks
Gamecube	Robotech Battlecry
Gamecube	Shrek 2
Gamecube	Sonic Heroes
Gamecube	Sonic Mega Collection
Gamecube	Splinter Cell: Double Agent	Both disks
Gamecube	Spy Hunter
Gamecube	Spyro: A New Beginning
Gamecube	Star Fox Adventures
Gamecube	Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Gamecube	Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2
Gamecube	Super Smash Bros. Melee (x2)
Gamecube	Tak: The Great Juju Challenge
Gamecube	Tak: The Power of Juju
Gamecube	The Simpsons Road Rage
Gamecube	Tony Hawk's Underground
Gamecube	True Crime: Streets of LA
Wii	Backyard Baseball '10
Wii	Battalion Wars II
Wii	Bleach: Shattered Blade (Shonen Jump)
Wii	Donkey Kong Country Returns
Wii	Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Wii	Kirby Epic Yarn
Wii	Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Wii	Mario Kart Wii
Wii	New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy 2
Wii	Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Wii	Wii Sports
Wii	Wii Sports & Wii Sports Resort (Single Disk)
Wii	Wii Sports Resort
Wii	Zelda Twilight Princess
Wii U	Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival
Wii U	Minecraft Wii U Edition
Wii U	New Super Mario Bros. U
Wii U	Pokken Tournament
Wii U	Splatoon
Wii U	Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Wii U	Zelda BOTW	Will come with home-printed cover
Playstation	Agile Warrior F-III X
Playstation	Auto Destruct
Playstation	Blasto
Playstation	Breath of Fire III
Playstation	Casper
Playstation	Chrono Cross	White Disks
Playstation	Crash Team Racing
Playstation	Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
Playstation	Dragonball Final Bout	Gray/Blue Disk (Bandai version)
Playstation	Final Fantasy Chronicles & Chrono Trigger	White Disk
Playstation	Final Fantasy Tactics	White Disk
Playstation	Final Fantasy VII	White Disks
Playstation	Grand Theft Auto
Playstation	Jet Moto 2
Playstation	Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver	Green Disk
Playstation	Lode Runner: The Legend Returns/Extra
Playstation	Mega Man X4	White Disk
Playstation	Mega Man X5	Blue Disk
Playstation	Metal Gear Solid	Disk 1 (Black)
Playstation	MYST
Playstation	Need for Speed 3
Playstation	Need For Speed: High Stakes
Playstation	Playstation Demo Disk 42 March 2001
Playstation	Playstation Underground Jampack Fall 2001
Playstation	Power Serve: 3D Tennis
Playstation	Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
Playstation	Revolution X: Music is the Weapon
Playstation	Ridge Racer
Playstation	Rogue Trip
Playstation	Saga Frontier 2	Comes with waterlogged manual cover and back art
Playstation	Silent Hill
Playstation	Squaresoft 1998 Collector's CD vol. 1
Playstation	Spyro The Dragon	Silver Disk
Playstation	Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles
Playstation	Syphon Filter 2	Disk 1
Playstation	Tekken 2	Color disk edition
Playstation	Tekken 3	Color disk edition
Playstation	Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
Playstation	Test Drive 4
Playstation	The Last Revelation
Playstation	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater	Blue Disk & Greatest Hits (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider II	Red Disk & Greatest Hits (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider III	Green Disk (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider	Blue Disk
Playstation	Toy Story 2
Playstation	Twisted Metal 4	SilveGreen Disk
Playstation	Twisted Metal II
Playstation	Wild Arms 2	Disc 2 only
Playstation	Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
Playstation 2	Contra: Shattered Soldier
Playstation 2	Dark Cloud
Playstation 2	Def Jam Fight For NY	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Def Jam Vendetta	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Drakengard 2
Playstation 2	Ed, Edd, n Eddy: The Mis-EDventures
Playstation 2	Gran Turismo 3
Playstation 2	Jak 3
Playstation 2	Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Playstation 2	Metal Gear Solid 3
Playstation 2	Metal Slug Anthology
Playstation 2	Midnight Club Street Racing	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	MLB Power Pros
Playstation 2	MLB Slugfest 2006
Playstation 2	Need For Speed Underground 2 (x2)
Playstation 2	NFL Street	DEMO NOT FOR RESALE
Playstation 2	Resident Evil X Code: Veronica	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Skate 3
Playstation 2	Sonic The Hedgehog
Playstation 2	Spider-Man Web of Shadows Amazing Allies Edition
Playstation 2	The Simpsons Road Rage	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	TMNT	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Tomb Raider Anniversary
Playstation 2	True Crime: Streets of LA
Playstation 3	Bayonetta
Playstation 3	Ratchet and Clank FUTURE: A Clank in Time	Greatest Hits
PSP	007 Casino Royale (Movie)	Tested, in original white shell
PSP	Capcom Classics Collection Remixed	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Daxter	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Dissidia: Final Fantasy	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Final Fantasy IV	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Movie)	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	From Dusk Till Dawn (Movie)	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan Daijiten	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Medal of Honor Heroes 2	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Medievil Resurrection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Metal Slug Anthology	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Midnight Club L.A. Remix	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	MLB	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Gundam	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Monster Hunter Freedom	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NAMCO Museum Battle Collection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NBA Ballers Rebound	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Need For Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NFL Street 2 Unleashed	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Pursuit Force	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Secret Agent Clank	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Splinter Cell Essentials
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront Elite Squadron	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront II	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Lethal Alliance	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tekken Dark Resurrection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tony Hawk's Underground 2 REMIX	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tron Evolution	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	True Crime: Streets of LA

Game & Console Boxes

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have an item to complete a set from the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Nintendo Gamecube	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	K-Mart exclusive cover and Nintendo Power Strategy Guide (no game or inserts)
Nintendo Switch	Switch Lite	Yellow and Coral boxes (no inserts)
Nintendo Switch	Switch Gen 1 & 2 Boxes	Red/Blue and Gray variants, some inserts
Nintendo 3DS	Pokemon X	Box and inserts only
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Console (Black/Blue) Super Mario Bros. 2	Console Box (x2)
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Console (White/Red) Super Mario Bros. 2	Console Box (x2)
Gamecube	Spongebob Sauarepants: Creature from the Krusty Krab	Black Label Box
Gamecube	Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble	Black Label Box
Switch	Zelda BOTW	Box & Art

Manuals

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have an item to complete a set from the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Atari 2600	Centipede	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Combat	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Missile Command	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Pac-Man	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Space Invaders	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Tutankham	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Asteroids/Missle Commands	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Bionic Battler	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Brain Drain	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Donkey Kong	Loose Manual
Game Boy	F1 Race	Loose Manual (x3)
Game Boy	Game Boy Camera	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Joshua The Battle of Jericho	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Jurassic Park	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Kid Icarus	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Kirby’s Pinball Land	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Pokemon Sapphire	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Star Wars	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Tetris	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Tetris Blast	Loose Manual
Game Boy	The Rugrats Movie	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Toy Story	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Yoshi	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Breath of Fire	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Breath of Fire II	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Cima The Enemy	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	DK King of Swing	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Frogger’s Adventure: Temple of the Frog	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Frogger Advance: The Great Quest	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Gauntlet/Rampart
Game Boy Advance	Golden Sun (With Poster)	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Lufia The Ruins of Lore	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Mario Kart Super Circuit	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Metroid Fusion	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Namco Museum
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Pitfall The Mayan Adventure	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Sapphire	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario World - Super Mario Advance 2	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario Advance	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Warioland 4	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Wolfenstein 3D	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Duke Nukem	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Frogger	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Pokemon Pinball	Loose Manual (x3)	2 in good condition, 1 has a loose cover
Game Boy Color	Revelations The Demon Slayer	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	X-Men Mutant Academy	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Zelda Oracle of Seasons	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	NFL Blitz	Loose Manual
Gamecube	NBA Live 06	Loose Manual
NES	Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros	Loose Manual (x2)
NES	Excitebike	Loose Manual
NES	Formula One Built To Win	Loose Manual
NES	Mega Man 2	Loose Manual
NES	Super Mario Bros 2	Loose Manual (x2)
NES	Super Mario Bros 3	Loose Manual
NES	Tetris 2	Loose Manual
Nintendo 64	Donkey Kong 64	Loose Manual (x2)
Nintendo 64	Goldeneye 007	Loose Manual (x2)
Nintendo 64	Mario Kart 64	Loose Manual
Nintendo 64	Zelda Ocarina of Time	Loose Manual (x2)
SNES	Super Mario All Stars	Loose Manual (x2)
SNES	Super Mario Kart	Loose Manual
SNES	Super Mario World	Loose Manual (x3)
Wii	Mario Party 8	Loose Manual
Wii	Mario Super Sluggers	Loose Manual
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy 2	Loose Manual
Wii	Super Smash Bros. Brawl	Loose Manual
Playstation	Crash Bandicoot (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Crash Bash (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Duke Nukem Total Meltdown	Loose Manual
Playstation	Final Fantasy VIII	Loose Manual
Playstation	Spyro The Dragon (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Tekken 2	Loose Manual
Playstation	Twisted Metal III (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual

Strategy Guides & Magazines

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• Some of these did not advertise posters or other promotional items, so I did not include that in the description. The ones that do indicate a promotional item will have that in the description

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Game Boy	Game Boy Player's Guide	Official Nintendo	Very Good
Game Boy	Pokemon Red	Prima Strategy Guide (x2)	Very Good
Game Boy Color	Pokemon Trading Card Game	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good - no promotional card
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Official Nintendo Power Guide (x2)	Acceptable, no poster, some loose binding, creases
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Prima Strategy Guide	Very Good - poster included (detached)
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire	Prima Strategy Guide	Acceptable, slightly waterlogged
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire	Prima Strategy Guide	Good
Game Boy Advance	Zelda Minish Cap	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good - poster included (attached)
Gamecube	Super Smash Bros. Melee	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Good, some creases
Gamecube	Zelda Wind Waker	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Multi	Primal Rage	Brady Totally Unauthorized Guide	Good, some creases
Nintendo 64	Diddy Kong Racing	Brady Totally Unauthorized Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Nintendo 64	Pokemon Stadium	Prima Strategy Guide	Very Good
Nintendo 64	Star Wars Episode I RACER	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good
Nintendo 64	Zelda Ocarina of Time	Prima/Gamestop Exclusive	Good
Nintendo DS	Pokemon Diamond and Pearl	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Nintendo DS	Pokemon White 2 and Black 2	Official Preview Guide	Very Good
Nintendo Power	Volume 99 - Goldeneye 007	Official Nintendo Power Magazine	Very Good, includes tear-outs (attached), small price sticker on front

Controllers, Accessories, & Misc.

Item	Condition	Notes
Official SNES Controller for Nintendo Switch	Very Good	(x2) CIB but missing plastic bags
Official Nintendo 64 Controller for Switch	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo Swtich Pro Controller	CIB	Used but in Very Good condition
Super Mario Game & Watch	Various	NIB & CIB but missing outer sleeve
Nintendo New 3DS Black Friday Bottom Faceplate	Very Good	Will trade for literally any other set of OEM faceplates
Mario WiiMote	Very Good	Loose, comes with blue strap and red WiiMote sleeve
N64 Expansion Pak	Very Good	Loose
Xbox One Minecraft Controller	Very Good	Loose
Various Nintendo Consoles & Handhelds Parts & Mods	Various	See what I do here
Custom Nintendo 64 Controllers	Various	See what I do here
Nintendo 64 Joystick Gears	New	See what I do here
Pokemon Go Plus wristband	Very Good	Complete in Box
Gamecube DK Bongos	Various
Retro Fighters N64 Controller (Ice Blue)	Very Good	Loose, but not used other than to test.
Dreamcast VMU's (Gray, Clear Blue, Clear Green)	Very Good	Missing caps, looking for other colored variants. I have: Clear Blue, Clear Green, Clear Black, Clear Red

Swaps

• I would like to straight swap these items for other specific items.

Console	Item	Swap For:
Xbox Series S/X	Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Disk Version (Loose)	Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Xbox Digital Code
Nintendo 64	Orange/Yellow Pokemon N64 Controller	Blue/Yellow Pokemon N64 Controller

High-Priority Wants

Console	Item	Description/Notes
Nintendo 64	Blue/Yellow Pokemon Pikachu N64	Light and Dark Blue varieties, Console and controller
Neo Geo Pocket Color	Baseball Stars	CIB Preferred
Miscellaneous	Tony Hawks' Pro Skater 1&2 Vinyl	Click link for specific release
Nintendo Gamecube	Paper Mario TTYD	Manual only
Game Boy Advance	Metroid: Zero Mission	Game and manual only
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Sapphire	Box only
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Box only
Misc. Nintendo	Nintendo Oddities	Kiosks, displays, promotional items, NFR cartridges, etc. Not dumb little Target/Walmart keychains
Nintendo New 3DS	New 3DS White	Can have any/missing faceplates
Nintendo Switch	Poor Condition Joy-Con Controllers	Any and all OEM Joy Cons. Can have stick drift. All buttons must be functional. Do not value these any higher than $25/set. Do not try to trade broken junk controllers for high value items. You will be blocked.
Dreamcast	VMU Variants	Looking for clear yellow and other international variants

Other Wants

• Open to offers!

Console	Item	Description/Notes
NES	Super Mario 3	Box only; Left Bros preferred
Nintendo Virtual Boy	Virtual Boy Games, Boxes & Accessories	I have: Mario Clash, Mario Tennis, Teleroboxer, Golf (CIB), Wario Land, 3D Tetris, Galactic Pinball, Red Alarm, Red Alarm (NFR cart) & Virtual League Baseball (CIB); CIB preferred
Nintendo 64	JAP Watermelon console	Loose preferred, do not need cords/controller
Nintendo 64	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3	Loose or CIB
Game Boy Advance	Zelda Four Swords	Box & Manual (Greatest Hits Okay)
Game Boy Advance	Pac Man (NES Classic GBA Series)	CIB preferred
Game Boy Advance	Metroid (NES Classic GBA Series)	CIB preferred
Nintendo Gamecube	Mario Party 4	Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	Mario Party 5	CIB only (Greatest Hits Okay)
Nintendo Gamecube	Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disk	CIB only
Nintendo Gamecube	Paper Mario TTYD	Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	Soul Calibur II	Box & Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	Disk and manual only
Nintendo DS	HeartGold/SoulSilver PokeWalkers	Any and all, including the clip and cardboard insert
Nintendo Gamecube	Metroid Prime 1 & 2	Case art that advertises the dual pack only with manuals (no games)
Nintendo 3DS	Special Edition 2DS/3DS systems	I have: Pokemon B, Zelda Hyrule, Zelda Triforce, Black Black Friday, White Black Friday, Pokemon Red & Yellow 2DS (JAP), NES, Mario Maker 2DS, Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. 2; Interested in basically any special edition variant of the 2DS/3DS line, New & XL models preferred. Complete In Box preferred
Nintendo 2DS	White/Red Nintendo 2DS	Loose preferred
Nintendo 2DS	Blue/Black Nintendo 2DS	Loose preferred
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Screen	Or one with a damaged motherboard or other issues. Screen must be in working condition
Misc. Nintendo	Pokemon Boxes & Manuals	Any and all cardboard variants
Misc. Nintendo	Nintendo Game & Watch handhelds	Pre-Game Boy era systems only. Not looking for the new re-releases
Dreamcast	OEM Controller Variants	I have: Clear Green/Red/Black/Blue looking for other transparent variants and Sega Sports Black with matching VMU's
Dreamcast	Typing of the Dead	Case/Manual/Box only
Playstation 2	DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3	Manual only
Miscellaneous	Celeste OST LP Vinyl	Complete preferred, any edition
Miscellaneous	Lo-Fi Girl Vinyls	All collections, any edition
Miscellaneous	Console/Game Boxes & Styrofoam	Any and all, non-stock versions preferred

Items Pending Receipt

Item	Status

From the Shondaland bts video, we got 2 clips of Colin at The Hawkins Balloon event. I think they're after his hero moment, and that he is looking at Penelope and Debling in one of them.
The Featheringtons and Bridgertons arrive to The Hawkins Balloon event in Hyde Park. Colin is wearing his coat.
Colin is still wearing his coat as he envies Penelope's hand.
Hero Colin without his coat, and we won't see it again. 12 more days until we can see this in motion.
Colin post-Balloon basking in glory.
Since he is standing by the Royal Grandstand, the Queen possibly called him over to praise him. However, this isn't enough for Hero-complex Colin because he looks upset as he looks in the direction of the entrance/exit. In the clip, there is also a strong gust of wind (Forces of Nature), so I think he's looking at Penelope and Debling leaving together to promenade, Debling escorting Penelope to her carriage, Penelope thanking Debling for \"protecting\" her, etc. I'll quickly add how Colin and his friend (who saw Colin drooling over Penelope at the All-Seasons ball) looked at each other before turning their gaze to the entrance. Maybe I'm projecting because I'm an instigative friend, but what if he told Colin, \"Looks like you weren't the only hero today\" or \"Ms. Featherington hasn't come over to compliment your bravery.\"
Just to show where everything is in relation to one another. I don't think Colin is looking at the balloon become untied, losing control, and Debling trying to protect Penelope due to where Colin is looking, where Penelope and Debling are when he's groping her (#polinforever), and the disappearance of Colin's coat.

The cdrama "Shui Long Yin" Official Weibo account (@电视剧水龙吟) recently posted their drama wrap special! Original post found here. Congrats to a stellar production crew and their amazing cast members staring Luo Yun Xi, Xiao Shun Yao, Ao Zi Yi, Fang Yi Lun, Bao Shang En, Chen Yao, Lin Yun, and many more. Check out their Weibo account for more beautiful photos and clips of their cast members. There's also an English subbed video on YouTube.
https://reddit.com/link/1ce6s0i/video/52d3etkycywc1/player
Here's character promo videos:

• All character intros
• Luo Yun Xi as Tang Li Ci, ML
• Xiao Shun Yao as Shen Langhun, the hired assassin
• Ao Zi Yi as Chi Yun, Tang's righthand man
• Fang Yi Lun as Liu Yan, Tang's frenemy, non-blood brothers to enemies
• Lin Yun as A Shui, Tang's love interest
• Bao Shang En as Zhong Chunji, a Jianghu girl interested in Tang (can't say much since her character seems to have changed from the novel)
• Chen Yao as Xi Fang Tao, competitor to Tang, (can't say much since drama looks like a lot may have changed from original novel)
• Xu Zheng Xi as Gui Mudan, enemy to Tang, masteboss to Liu Yan
• Wang Yi Lun as Fang Ping Zhai, sworn brothers to Gui Mudan (other than that, looks like his character has changed)
• Xie Bin Bin as Yu Furen, Jianghu fighter part of Tang's group
• Jiang Zhen Yu as Hong Gu Niang, Miss Hong, devotee and strategist to Liu Yan (but character may have changed some)
• Yang Shi Ze as Pu Zhu, Shaolin Sect master

EDIT: There's a Reddit post with some of the promo posters: #ShuiLongYin Official Poster Release
EDIT: MangoTV's Official Trailer posted with English Subs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdhZVlp_1m8

2018 boy here. Watching the archives and saved these for making media share vids. Wanted to share with you all. Enjoy. Thanks for everything Wubby and crew. Feel better Wubby.
Wubby talking about an ex girlfriend, her wanting to put things in his ass. “My butthole is a one way street my man.” (maybe use with future streams, out of context clip)
Someone makes a dono asking for wubby cups, Whats a wubby cup? (maybe use with a future gamer supps clip)
Wubby says imagine being 34, that’s old as shit (save for when hes 34)
Wubby asks kid if he pooped his pants and describe it
Wubby asks if he looks good without glasses (before tiny eyes meme) no one spamming tiny eyes in chat
------- https://youtu.be/nVwKgyzaSYs?si=QaoQWCwfvjM70sd5&t=11976 (haircut stream, no glasses wubby, pre tiny eyes, still no tiny eye meme)
Wubby says one of his goals is to have ice come out of his fridge
Iconic. wubby doing the mod tier list, “oooohoh wwooowo owowoo oh fuck what was that?!” clip
Wubby talking about woman that has rabies when he was in the hospital. he stands up, pulls shorts down, still has green suit on (skip to 51:40 for more)
Leg wax stream. Alluux washes wubbys legs. (use for out of context)
Maybe a mod can help with this one. VPN doesnt work. Wubby super highpitch girly giggle (banned in the US now? Wasn’t like 2 months ago)
Wubby gets a bunch of $100 dono’s, pours booze in his mouth and spits it upwards and all over himself
Wubby gets even more huge dono’s, does a heroic speech, does a wedgie with his pants/green suit. “words are hard clip”
More big dono’s, running out of funny bits for chat, tosses gong, takes his pants off
Ploot.
Wubby interviews a 15 year old. Plays Marvin Gaye.
Wubby does fill kid Friday starwars bit, says he will not be using the force on a child today, cuz star wars
Wubby explains the kind of porn he wants to see. “poison from dick to butthole, only cure is her tongue”
Whole clip is so rough, fill kid with the girl from next clip. Shes 15.
He asks how old she is and dies inside
Wubby has green screen on, takes off his shorts, looks funny af, PP jingle
Media share, KealPlays donated a cameo of Chris Hanson to wubby
Wubby tells future wubby that hes gay and to quit denying it
Wubby 2019 birthday, has suit on, says “yoink, cover that belly up” stupid funny laughs. Wubby 2019 birthday, has suit on, says “yoink, cover that belly up” stupid funny laughs.
Wubby takes a swig of booze, spits it all over himself again
He gets a dono that says stop peaking your mic, wubby drunk af, talks into his mic peaking super loud for a minute straight. Chat livid. (VOLUME WARNING)
Wubby birthday stream, drunk, shows a sacred forbidden video of him lighting sparkler fireworks and he says “im a white girl, I like black dick” to the camera
Favorite - Wubby wasted dancing to song, trying to set up his decorations, one side falls, he turns around to set the other, first falls, then second, over and over. Yells “what the fuck is going on” (in my top 5 favorite wubby moments)
Wubby plays sub train, stands up, takes shorts off, dances with green screen on, PP swingin
Wubby talking about his dirty chair, shows chat, chat says cum stains, he says when he cums, he catches it all in his mouth, does funny ass trance thing
Wubby gets a dono from Frenchie that says “kiss me-“ he insta kisses before the dono finishes then it says “im 12”. Wubby yells “fuck you dude”
Wubby talking about where hes moving, super long drum roll, says San Diego
Wubby jizzed and killed a Finch story. Few minutes later, the term “wub cub” was born. Few after that “radar” outfit for twitch con. He says Mulan story but changes to finch story.
Wubby throws tiny hand at gong, hits bullseye, also wubby titty.
(VOLUME WARNING) Wubby lowers cost of “stay positive wubby” to 10 cents and chat spams it
Wubby talks about his room smelling like shit, its probably his chair, can use this for an out of context clip
Alluux makes 14 month (in 2019) dono about wearing diapers and stuff. Wubby says “get it out dude. Oh wait, was that allux? That’s why it was so sweet”
Wubby goes off about women putting cucumbers up their pussies, eventually says “how you gonna fuck a spectrum remote?”
Wubby does weird ass yoga and tases the gong (doesn’t do anything but had to try it) (few minutes of this is good but 14:39 in is funny af)
Cheeto hasn’t been feeling good, sitting outside wubbys room. Calls him in, cute af, the little arm twitch before he runs is the best
Wubby fades out his image, yells into mic if chat can see him, then he yells “I don’t have much time” as his voice fades away. Few mins before this, this all began we he watched a dude fuck a dog. But can use this out of context
Classic wubby screenshot. Laying down in his chaigreen suit, with his crocks in the hair, ass off screen.
Wubby says he’s looking lean, looking cut, raises the camera more and more so you can only see the top of his head.
Wubby talking about the Toronto meet up. Talking about how a chick said “shes going to meet up with her BF” then wubby fades away.
Wubby doing a heroic speech in just green screen suit. Does the “NYA NYA NYA NYA” meme thing.
Wubbys porn tier list. Incest porn. Makes imaginary story about step mom and step sister. Whole thing funny, at the end he says “youre so much bigger than your father!”
Big dono’s, we live in a society speech, strips with green screen suit on, hits the gong with his PP
Feel good clip one. Goes with next clip, wubby getting mad dono’s, makes goofy analogy, gets cute emotional with chat
Feel good clip two - “the stadium is full of lava, and the lava is full of love” context: he was getting tons of donos. earlier he said everyone is in a stadium, he has the mic and hes going to list off names and wants chat to scream and cheer in chat. Gets more dono’s, fake tases himself
Feel good - wubby talking about the rocks inspirational speech
Feel good - wubby talking about the rocks speech, saying he felt like a failure when he only got 500 views but when he really failed was when he gave up.
Wubby saying that the speech he just gave will resonate with atleast one person and that makes him happy.
2019 skinny wubby!
Favorite - Speed dating, german girl says “oh daddy” in german. Context: question was what porn category they didn’t agree with. Talking about incest porn. (stream before this was porn tier list.)
Speed dating, chick into fashion, wubby asks her if the guy were to stand up, could she tell him a better outfit, he stands up, has bullet proof vest on and red/black plaid pajamas on
Wubby playing mario sunshine, bets his twitch that he’ll hit a star, if he doesn’t, he deletes his twitch.
Wubby talks about how he blows his grandpa everyday
Mario sunshine. Wubby bets his stream again.
Wubby talking about if someone puts a finger in your ass
Wubby talks about AI driven sex robot in 2019 (relates to today maybe)
Wubby talking about the ending of breaking bad. The beginning of his bad takes
Sub train wubby wail
Giant german donates a shit ton of subs, wubby humps the camera
Wubby watches the wubby wail clip, laughs, at the end it plays a tiny clip of mario sunshine, he jump scares thinking it’s a naughty clip
Wubby watches him humping the camera, he listens closely, can hear his nuts slap
Twitch getting DDoS’d, wubby ending stream, blue wubby bit
Favorite memory of mine - first link is being a pain. It's the song that plays at the very beginning of the stream - This song played a lot at start of streams, chat asks what it is never answers, one of my earliest memories of wubby. ---- https://youtu.be/E4x6HJS2wn4?si=p0LJV4pVhm9-oOYW
Major hype, tons of huge dono’s from people, and then this is the first video of media share
Super wholesome community video. Keep watching after the first video ends for a second. Need more like this. Wubby was baited by the luigi
Wubby shits himself on stream
Wubby looking at animorph books. Says one looks like Peanut
Wubby driving, asks if chat wants to hear an orgasm sound, he hits the brakes and makes alluux scream
Wubby driving and TT adds sassy cop to his window
IMO, the cringiest wubby moment ever - (lowbit rate moment but you still get it) Wubby driving to the escape room with alluux and hes trying to find it, going through a alley and he just stops and stares down some guys. low bitrate moment, then awkwardness,
Escape room with alluux. Wubby gropes a mannequin.
Escape room. Wubby tells alluux to go inside a room, he watches on camera. Calls her a monkey cuz shes hopping around
Sub train. Giant german donates 100. Wubby blind throws a baseball bat over his shoulder and hits the gong.
Wubby asks hair salon lady to wash his hair, he says it really bad, she asks how long its been, he beats around the bush, he offers $100, she wants to cut the sides first, changes the subject to how he wants his hair done
(some muted spots, volume warning when you see the dragons) First stream after 2019 twitch con. Wubby does a top tier intro bit.
Carlos the gardener (with some of Jevins footage) made a compilation of wubbys stream. Had some twitch con clips. Met ash and few others for the first time. Wubby gets emotional.
Wubby talking about checking out new houses, shits in the bathroom to test the toilet, chat tells him to get a bidet, wubby says “a what? A BID-IT?”
Wubby shaving his beard to mutton chops, dono comes in that says “I know you wont see this but I love you” wubby responds by fake waking off and drooling
Double chin mutton chop wubby
Sub train, wubby shoots his paintball gun at his wall and draws a penis.
Wubby dancing with his green screen on and shorts down again to “drop it likes its hot”
Start of stream, wait screen is on, song playing, certain part of the song hits, wubby turns on cam and does retard goofy face and claps, with double chin
(fun fact, first 90 day stream) Wubbys dono’s got botched earlier, some replaying, this dono about wubby raiding last stream plays for a second time so wubby makes a funny, yelling at him as if he was mad about repeating the dono but actually complementing him
Wubby lost to the Wheel of Bad, alluux spanks him with a spatula
Another spanking, but with shitty eyebrows
Wubby shoots his camera while its on with a paintball gun
(NSFW click)Wubby got mad dono’s so he plays a twerk video for his chat, chick twerking, wubby pauses it, drags his image to her butt and sniffs.
(NSFW click) Same clip, wubby pauses while saying “if shes 15” at a super revealing part, he says hold on, unpauses to change the image. Eventually says “prison is just a room”
(NSFW click) Dude twerking this time, wubby tells chat a good way to bait him, crop the video and play it on mediashare, he’ll think it’s a chick, then zoom out.
Wubby talking about how dick size determines whether you can get women or not, disses himself good.
Wubby talking about his sex doll, makes the “pbk pbk pbk, fucking cums everywhere” thing. Keep watching and hes talking about flushing her vag out with a hydroflask/Gatorade bottle.
Wubby has to get spanked by alluux, she walks in with the biggest grin on her face, he turns music off, volume up, gain up, stares RIGHT at the camera, gets spanked, moans.
Wubby being goofy. Previous stream, he was watching twerk videos and he sniffed one of the chicks butt, his rep said he might get banned, rep came back and said just a warning, wubby talks about it on stream, as his talking, he takes his sub counter on screen and blows it up huge while talking
Wubby singing to a song “got a squirt gun, gonna point it at the squirt son(?), make my mom, squirt it on her only son” then awkward funny face
Start of stream, wubby turns off the BRB screen, fakes hes on the phone with another streaming platform, says "I can give up being a partner, I can give up twitch, but its gonna be 7 digits, 5 year contract, I don’t have any loyalty, with shroud gone…” then fakes noticing stream is watching
Wubby fucking PUMPED, first stream in new house, got a 100 gifted sub dono, does funny dance, shoots gong with paintball gun with no eviction notice
His dryer broke, wubby tells his dad hes doing laundry at his house, his dad says “okay bring your green screen suit” wubby says his dad wants to be one of the boys. Maybe use this clip with a few clips that his dad is in later.
Wubby talks about doing a price is right (scuffed) stream for the first time. Maybe use this with another clip
Someone donates another language version of Rap COD, fat guy in the video, wubby says “yall are gonna make me do it, my body type is not that fat” changes his cam view to just his head but you can see him in the mirror
Wubby hyping up stream for Halloween, says “it’s the day before Halloween! Its so easy as a pedophile…” and goes quiet and awkward

Wubby says he said the same thing hes about to say when this song by Eminem came out. “if Eminem calls you a goof, its over for you” (Idea: play this video again and see what he says.)
Wubby shoots near alluux with a paintball gun
Wubby dancing to Michael Jackson, has green screen on, his cam is showing up on his stomach so you see his head, he looks down, opens his mouth like hes sucking his dick
Wubby talking about no nut November, he says bunch of funny shit. “they’re gonna call me young gallows”
Wubby taps his mic on his chin really fast and it sounds glitchy as fuck
Wubby talking about the first price is scuffed. It just makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Im so proud of him.
Price is scuffed 1, contestant won, delayed winning sound effect funny
Same contestant wins some money, wubby offers her $200/$300 to change her reward to opening a box of his with a prize, she chooses the box, its lactate, she tells wubby he can keep it.
Price is scuffed 1 commercials, Handsome boi Peanuts commercial
Price is scuffed 1. Wubby wants to spin, changes him mind and has alluux do it, she spins and contestant wins $1000 dollars, alluux says “is anyone hiring”
Wubby talks about how he went to dinner with some streamers and twitch staff and had to leave early and sushidragon called him out on his stream so Wubby called him out on price is scuffed 1
Wubby has a good take on Joker.
Wubby was tossing back and forth the idea of getting a pornstar for an interview in a hottub, he DM’d Reily Reid and botched his message, “hey. Wanna come show? Hottub (answer question?) wrong pornstar lol? You? How it be?”
Just a crazy watch. Wubby had a youtube video and he wanted to put this guy in it but chose not to, instead he talked about it on stream, the wiafu pillow guy, managed to interview the guy live on stream. Goes for about 2 hours 11 mins to around 3 hours 15 mins in.
Wubby reveals his first tattoo
Lil Cheeto having some health issues but wubby being a champ and taking care of him, spending stream talking about him, shows clip of him holding Cheeto up as a lil boi and doing the lion king thingy
Someone makes a dono about being depressed, wubby makes a joke and says the cure to depression is “just be happy”, triggers some people in chat, use for out of context
Wubby and Alluux takes chat on a date, two perfectly lined dono’s, one asks to marry him, another asks to hold his hand, plays “that’s amore”, alluux holds out her hand like its chats
Date with chat, chat wants half a tendie and milk to go, wubby opens the to go box to find the half strip in there, funny af
Wubby clown skit, some muted audio at the start, Twitch shut down and banned wubby for his live stream in the restaurant, 5 days, then sent him an email saying they were wrong, wubby set up a skit where he dresses as a clown, some context: alluux comes out with cleavage because of the twitch streamers with there asses hanging out but don’t get banned, then there was that other twitch streamer that fed vodka to her cat and didn’t get banned, cant remember what the baby was about, also, on the phone call when wubby says “just two sentences”, hes talking about how his response from twitch was very short
Wubby bought chat cake for his 200k sub milestone, does a skit, drops lots of cake
Wubby explains and demonstrates how he poops and wipes
Someone dono’s that dragonball Z song, wubby hypes it up huge and it ends right before the build up
The iconic meme, wubby sits deep back into his chair and sticks his feet up at the cam
Amazing wubby laugh, chat goes Christmas shopping, chat tells him to read comments/reviews on sugar free gummy bears, wubby laughs super hard
Wubby says if you have a big clit, suck it like a baby dick
Someone plays a clip of wubbys favorite 16 year old, he drags his head to her at times it perfect, she says “we all know dennis hides kids in his basement, don’t you dennis?”
Wubby tells an emotional story of him playing some games with his friends and they heard him shit his pants, he lied, and destroyed a blanket, he plays the audio clip, you can hear it clear as day over the mic/discord
Wubby talking about how hes never had a wet dream, says unless his brother crawled into his bed and gobbled it up.
Wubby does a PO box, someone sent him a lifesize danny devito, sets it up behind him, he turns around and it scared him
Wubby and alluux in NYC, wubby calls Carolyn cornsnatch, super funny youtuber, tiktoker, etc, asks to hang out, he texts her “are you with your parents”
Carlos pays a slap, wubby kills a mini boss for calros, dark souls
Wubby asking chat to not be assholes with crowd control and reset the whole game, someone resets it
My dono: I used stopdrinking a lot and my name was u/wubbysandwubbysonly, I made a post and a random person made a wholesome comment to me and ended it with “wubby7” blew my mind - still sober
Wubby giving a speech to chat, hes back to where he was earlier (2 links above)
Priced is scuff 2 intro
Priced is scuff, wubby just being a goof, some context: synapse is sponsoring and twitch asked wubby to be pg-13/not cuss, wubby being wubby doing a little strip dance. Keep watching till after the Synapse add, funny bit with wub, midget and alluux, keep watching again, wubby and alluux do a cute dance to xmas music
Wubby sings rap cod
Wubby does Twitch Sings, sings freeze a poop and put it in my ass,
Carlosthegardener and wubby do twitch sings
Last stream of 2019, first time wubby talks about HP
Wubby shows the dopest piece of art that Alluux got commissioned for him

I've been in and out of prisons and jails ever since I was 17. I thought I had seen it all- Aryan Brotherhood members stabbing guards, gang wars, escapes and torture. I saw many things that still give me nightmares to this day.
"MacDonald, 402202," the guard barked out. I jumped up, the thin mattress under me exhaling a whiff of stale air. I looked through the bars, seeing Correctional Officer Shea. CO Shea was a morbidly obese man with a penchant for being loud and lazy. I had seen a member of the Bloods punch him straight in the nose before, a scene I still remembered with some humor. Shea had crumpled like wet paper on the floor, screaming and crying as more COs ran over and tackled the inmate.
"Yeah?" I asked. Shea handed me a sheet of paper. He regarded me with his gray, colorless eyes.
"Congratulations, you're being transferred. Pack your shit. This is your last day at Springfield Correctional Center."
***
You might think I would be happy to get a transfer. SCC was, after all, a shithole. The food was terrible and always cold, the place always smelled like bleach and chemicals, and at night it got so cold with only my flimsy sheet that I regularly woke up shivering. The building was nearly a century old, and the fact that it still functioned at all was a miracle in itself.
But, to be honest, I was not thrilled about the transfer. I had made friends here and knew the lay of the land. I didn't have to worry about getting jumped or stabbed to death in the showers. As the old adage goes, it's better the devil you know than the one you don't.
I was led out of my cell the next evening with all the worldly possessions I owned, which fit neatly into a clear trash bag with room to spare. I owned some prison clothes, toothpaste, a toothbrush, deodorant, a Bible, a pair of sandals and a radio. I felt the unbearable lightness of my existence reflected in that bag as it smacked rhythmically against my leg.
"Good luck, friend Josh!" a rather insane acquaintance of mine named Alvin called out from his cell as I passed down the bleak, concrete hallway.
"Take care man. I hope we meet again on the outside," I said, waving, knowing I would almost certainly never see any of these people again. Hell, I hadn't even seen my family in over five years. None of them came to visit me anymore. No one wrote me letters or put money in my commissary account or sent me books to read.
"Well, we're all born alone, and we all die alone," I thought to myself as CO Shea walked by my side. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just finished running a marathon. I looked over at his face, seeing the burst capillaries on his nose from years of hard drinking and the squint of his little, piggy eyes. There was a slight gleam of intelligence and slyness behind that ugly mug, though.
"Well, amigo," Shea said in his slow, plodding way, "I got assigned to go with you. I'll be your ride along buddy. You excited or what?" I smiled faintly at him
"There are worse people than you here, Shea," I said. "Far worse."
***
I got on the prison bus in my bright-orange jumpsuit. To my surprise, I saw the back was nearly empty. There was only one other prisoner in the back. Shea sat with us to monitor us. We were also handcuffed and anklecuffed. A chain ran down and connected the two.
I looked over at the other prisoner, a black guy with a shaved head. I think he also shaved his eyebrows. I mean, I literally didn't see a single hair on his head besides eyelashes, which he apparently hadn't found a way to shave… yet.
"Sup," he said. I nodded.
"Sup." We sat there in awkward silence as Shea plopped down hard on the bench between us. It groaned like a confused old man.
"So what do you know about this place, Shea?" I asked. He sucked down half a bottle of Coke and then heaved a deep sigh.
"I don't know much about it, to be frank," he admitted sheepishly. "It is apparently brand-new, though. They asked us to send a couple people who met... certain criteria."
"What does that mean?" the black guy asked. Shea gave him a serious look.
"Come on, Timmy, you know what I mean. Hardened criminals. People with long records who tour prisons like some people tour French beaches." I scoffed.
"There are far worse people than me in prison," I said.
"Well, they asked for no murderers or gang bangers too. I don't know why, but maybe it is some new government program. They apparently call it an 'experimental prison’.”
“What about me?” Timmy asked. Shea apparently knew what he meant.
“You’re not a murderer, Timmy,” Shea said, his lips forming the faintest twitch of a smile. “You never…”
“Well, there was that time my girlfriend got me to drop some acid with her. She went and killed her parents. Then we hit the road,” Timmy said fondly, his eyes rising as if he were looking at a hovering angel in the far-off distance.
“You were never convicted of any accessory charges, so it doesn’t count,” Shea retorted.
“Oh, it counts,” Timmy drawled in his slow, plodding way. “It counts. Everything in life counts. If I’ve learned anything in the last 36 years, it’s that you can never truly escape anything you’ve done- good or bad.”
***
I couldn't see much from the prison van. There was a small, shatterproof window in the swinging back doors, but it only gave a fleeting view of what was behind us. I noticed the dark forests stretching out to the horizon over rolling hills.
We drove for a few hours. The three of us bullshitted, talking about everything from sports to politics to the recent spate of fatal stabbings at SCC.
I felt the van stop. I looked out the back window, seeing more endless trees. I didn’t see a single house or car on the road we had taken.
“This place is a ghost town,” I said. Shea nodded.
“Yeah, it’s dead as Frank Sinatra ‘round here,” Shea said, wheezing out a high-pitched laugh at his own joke. “This area used to be big for coal mining, but as it dried up and people lost their jobs, they moved away. You know, my grandfather was a coal miner.”
“Good place to build a prison, huh?” Timmy asked. “If there is no one around…” We were cut off by a clanging alarm up ahead. I heard something large moving, probably the gate opening. Then we were inside.
I saw the guard towers and rolls of razor wire for a brief moment as the van pulled into an open garage. The darkness immediately blanketed us. The garage door slowly rolled shut behind us. Shea jumped up.
“Let’s get you boys inside so I can take off your handcuffs and everything,” he said, motioning for us to follow. He pulled out a flashlight from his belt, guiding us through the pitch black. The dim light sent shadows racing across the room like groping tentacles. I caught glimpses of strange objects in the darkness. They looked like medieval torture devices.
“What is this place?” I whispered. My voice echoed far too loudly off the cold concrete floor and walls. “Those look like torture devices on that table, Shea. I think those bloody things are thumbscrews and that might be a pear of anguish…” I pointed to the pear-shaped object with three, wicked blades whose points came together sitting on a dusty shelf. The ornate handle had springs connected to it. The object could be forced into any human orifice and, when the springs were engaged, it would open like a flower inside the person’s body, ripping their flesh apart and enlarging that orifice to a bloody, gaping hole.
“How do you know so much about this?” Shea asked, giving me a strange look. He narrowed his little piggy eyes. He continued to fumble with the flashlight, peering around for a door to exit the garage. I looked back at the car and saw the driver just sitting there, his entire body as lifeless and still as a mannequin.
“I’ve read a few books…” I said as Timmy interrupted us.
“I see a little red light glowing under that door,” Timmy said. Shea focused his flashlight on the spot. Across the room, I noticed what Timmy was pointing at. It was an ancient-looking black door. The wood had started to crack and splinter down the middle. Engraved in silver on the front, it said, “Entrance to Northfrost Penitentiary.”
“Hello?” Shea called toward the door as the three of us moved forward, the steel chains giving my steps a clinking rhythm.
Shea reached the antique crystal doorknob. Timmy and I stood next to a dust-covered brazen bull, its bronze mouth wide open as if it were silently roaring at us. As Shea pulled open the door, crimson light flooded into the garage.
Tinted black glass covered the back wall. A speaker button sat next to the window. I looked to my right, seeing a massive sign sprawled across the wall there. It read:
RULES FOR PERSONAL CONDUCT AT NORTHFROST

1. The COs without faces don’t work here and we don’t know who they are. If you see one, press one of the buttons labeled “Emergency Dispatch” that are scattered around the complex.
2. When the red emergency lights come on, hide until they shut off.
3. Do not go into the medical ward for any reason.
4. The warden roams the prison every night at 3:33 AM looking for human meat. Don’t let him catch you.

“What is this, a goddamned joke?” Timmy asked, his dark face forming into a scowl.
“Uhh, well…” Shea rubbed the back of his neck, looking like an obese little boy who lost his parents. “I’ve never been here before, but this is all pretty unusual, I’ll admit.” A buzzing came from the back of the room, and suddenly a garish, echoing intercom turned on.
“Please remove their chains and direct them through the door on the left,” a female robotic voice said calmly in a tone as cool as lemonade on a hot day. “Your transfer will then be complete.” Shea sighed in relief.
“Good,” he grunted. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“Bro, you can’t leave us here,” Timmy protested. “What the fuck is this place? Where is everyone? Why is there a room filled with bloody, ancient torture devices next to the garage?” Shea put up his hands.
“I’m sorry, son, but I have orders. I’m just a messenger here. I was told to transfer you here, and that’s what I’ve done.” He fumbled around his belt for his keyring. He came over and unlocked the handcuffs and anklecuffs from both of us. I stretched, rubbing my wrists. I was glad to be out of those suffocating restraints.
“Thanks for everything, then,” I said, picking up my extremely light garbage bag of possessions and heading for the door on the left. Timmy reluctantly followed behind. A sign on this door read: “To General Population.”
But when we got to the other side and it slammed shut behind us, I found a hallway filled with more red emergency lights streaming down. An involuntary shiver ran down through my body. I remembered those absurd rules someone had put up. What had it said about red lights? My mind raced for a few moments, then the answer popped up. It said to hide.
A man shrieked up ahead, his voice riddled with agony and terror. The hallway split to the right and left, and I couldn’t see anyone. Timmy and I stopped.
“Dude, screw this,” Timmy said, turning and running back toward the door we had come through. He tried pulling it open, but it was firmly locked.
***
The scream came again, louder and closer, but this time it was cut off suddenly. I heard someone gurgling like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. And then everything went deathly silent again.
The gray, concrete floor of the hallway had arrows pointing forward on it. There were no doors here. There was nowhere to hide that I could see. Timmy and I reluctantly went forward. As we got to the intersection, we saw the dead body of a man in a brown khaki uniform.
His sightless eyes remained open. They stared up at the ceiling, glassy and still filled with horror. Deep gouge marks bit deeply into the flesh on his back and arms and chest. His throat had been cut or bit open as well. A spreading puddle of blood encircled his body.
I saw a dark blur at the end of the hallway on the right. It looked like little more than a shadow. I whispered to Timmy, pointing. We decided to go left immediately. My heart was pounding at this point. I felt like a soldier walking through the no-man’s land of a warzone. I expected the attack to come at any moment.
The hallway to the left had some doors. I sprinted forward as quietly as I could with Timmy close by my side. I read the first door: To Medical Ward.
“Ugh, no,” I whispered, going to the second one. I heard light footsteps behind me. Turning, I saw a creature from a nightmare sneaking up on us in the bloody glow of the emergency lights.
Its skin was black and shiny like that of a centipede’s. In its general form, it reminded me of a hairless werewolf. It towered over us, its eyes like bone-white cataracts, its claws as long and sharp as a dagger. And yet, its face seemed almost reptilian. It had two small nose holes like a snake and a jaw that unhinged and dropped far below its head. I saw rows of blood-soaked fangs. It gave off a low, gurgling growl that emanated from its chest.
With a rush of adrenaline and a sense of mortal terror, I pushed through the second door without reading the sign on the front. Timmy was right behind me. I heard him scream as he fell into me.
I found myself in a prison dormitory, and we weren’t alone. As I hit the ground, I saw a white face peering out at me from behind the bunk bed. The man hiding there saw the abomination behind us and got up, screaming and running away.
The creature growled, giving chase. In two powerful bounds, it had rushed across the dormitory and grabbed the man by the neck. I looked back at Timmy, seeing him groaning on the ground. Blood poured from deep cuts on his back. I grabbed him, pulling him up.
“Let’s go, let’s go, no time to…” I said when I was cut off by the sound of a neck snapping. I looked back, seeing the creature had twisted the man’s head around in a circle. It raised the limp body to its massive mouth and severed the head in a single powerful bite.
“Get me out of here, man, please,” Timmy whispered as I pulled him back out into the hallway. I looked over, seeing another werewolf creature bounding down the hallway, chasing a man in a prison jumpsuit. I had no choice.
I pulled Timmy toward the door labeled “Medical Ward”. With a creak of rusted hinges, it opened. We went inside to hide.
***
“Maybe there’s something in here we can use to bandage you up,” I said to Timmy, pulling him down the short hallway toward a room filled with single beds. I didn’t know why the rules said to avoid this place. It looked totally empty. Against the back wall, I saw a glass cabinet filled with bandages, rubbing alcohol, band-aids and other various first aid supplies. I ran toward it. Timmy limped along after me, still groaning.
“Goddamn, I think those claws went down to the bone,” he said.
“It’s gonna be OK,” I said as I pulled out some antiseptic and bandages, adding, “It could’ve been a lot worse.” The universe would immediately prove me right. I heard a slight giggling from under one of the beds. Timmy and I both froze.
Two rotted hands reached out, dragging the mutilated body of a little girl behind them. She had patches of garish, black stitches running across her face, hands and arms. Dark, clotted blood dripped from the sites. She wore a gore-smeared hospital gown and had no eyes. I looked into the empty sockets. They stared back at me like two black holes spinning in the void.
As she rose, her giggles became full-blown laughter, a hysterical gurgling like the laugh of a dying person. Then she ran at me. I saw the silver gleam of a scalpel in her little hand.
“No!” I screamed, raising my hands to protect myself. The scalpel came down, slicing across my palm. It cut deeply. A cold, burning pain ran up my arm. I repressed the urge to scream.
At that moment, the red emergency lights flicked off. Bright, fluorescent lights popped on, flickering and strobing in rapid succession. Timmy ran forward, tackling the undead girl. But I saw more small hands reaching out from under the beds, hands filled with sores and squirming larvae. I could see the bones of their hands through necrotic patches eaten into their flesh.
I ran for Timmy, grabbing him and hauling him up.
“Time to go! Now!” I screamed, pulling him forward as more undead boys and girls rose up, all with sharp knives and surgical instruments grasped in their little hands. I felt a sudden pain in my leg. Looking down, I saw a knife sticking out of my thigh. The empty eye sockets of a little boy’s face stared up at me, grinning like a skull.
I collapsed on the ground as we were surrounded. I prayed to God then, knowing we would die. I prayed that he would forgive me for all my mistakes, because I was on a fast-track to the afterlife and would be seeing him in a few seconds. With a sharp cry of pain, I yanked the knife out of my leg, turning it on my attacker.
Then a gunshot rang out. The head of the nearest girl exploded in a shower of bone fragments and dead maggots. I looked up, seeing Shea standing at the door, his pistol raised.
“Come on!” he screamed. “Come on, you idiots! Let’s go! Now!” Timmy and I didn’t need any more encouragement. As Shea continued to blow apart the nearest of the undead abominations, we limped and scrambled towards him. My leg gave a shriek of pain with every step.
We got out of the medical ward, battered and bruised but still alive.
***
“Why’d you come back, Shea?” I asked through pained breaths. Shea gave me a frantic look.
“When I got back out to the car, the driver was dead. His throat was… ripped out or something, I don’t know. I grabbed his keys and came back for you two. I don’t know where we are, but I’m getting you out of here,” he explained. I looked at him in amazement. I had never thought in a million years Shea would risk his life to save some scumbag inmates.
“So what’s the plan?” Timmy asked, sweating heavily, his eyes wild and pained. “How are we getting out of here without dying?” Shea shrugged.
“The door locked behind us when we came in,” I said. “Unless we can break it down and get back to the car…” We passed by buttons labeled “Emergency Dispatch” under glowing red emergency signs. I wondered if we could get help somehow through them.
“Halt!” someone cried from behind us. I looked back, seeing a man in a black correctional officers uniform. He ran toward us, his hand on the radio hanging from his belt. But something immediately seemed off about the figure.
As he got closer, I realized why. He had no face. His entire head was just smooth, white skin, without hair or any signs of features. He spoke again, and the voice seemed to come from all around his body.
“You must report to the medical ward,” the strange figure said. “We do not allow injured people in the hallways.”
“No, we’re fine,” Shea said, grinning. “See, buddy? I work for the DOC too.” He pointed at the identification clipped to his breast pocket. The figure raised his radio to his lips.
“We have resistance near Dormitory One,” the fake CO said into his radio before any of us could stop him. Shea ran forward, knocking the radio from his hand. The CO instantly straightened up and whipped out his pistol, pointing it at Shea’s torso. He fired, and I saw Shea’s chest explode in a blossoming flower of blood.
“No, dammit!” Timmy said, running forward. I saw a silver gleam in his hand, and I realized he had taken one of the scalpels from the undead Shea had killed in the Medical Ward. As the fake CO spun to point the pistol at Timmy, Timmy ran into him, stabbing the scalpel deeply into the CO’s neck.
They fell together with Timmy on top of the fake CO. His body weight drove the scalpel deeper into the white, featureless skin. Blood the color of soot spurted from the wound. The gun went off, the bullet missing Timmy entirely and smashing into the ceiling. The CO’s gurgling death gasps seem to come from all around his body. I grabbed Timmy.
“Get the guns!” I said. “They’re both dead. We need the guns.” He nodded, grabbing the CO’s gun and taking an extra magazine from his belt. I did the same with Shea’s gun and magazine. I pressed the button labeled “Emergency Dispatch” as more faceless men appeared far off down the corridor. Then we fled as fast as we could from that hallway, but, seeing as we were both in pretty bad shape, it wasn’t very fast.
At that point, I was just glad to be alive, though.
***
We wandered around the prison, avoiding the faceless COs whenever we saw them patrolling the hallways. They would radio to each other, their voices always surrounding their bodies rather than coming from their heads, which I found extremely eerie and unsettling. A couple times, I saw men in black SWAT suits with automatic rifles gunning down the fake COs. I wondered if this was the “Emergency Dispatch”. Timmy and I avoided them as well, and we gave a wide berth anytime we heard gunfire.
We passed cells with mummified corpses hanging from the ceiling. We passed dormitories where the victims of the strange, werewolf-like creatures littered the floors, rotting and stinking like roadkill. Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of another survivor, a pale face peeking out from some hiding spot, but Timmy and I kept pushing forward, looking for a way out.
We were in a sprawling gymnasium, sitting down and resting for a few minutes, when we encountered the Warden.
We heard a demonic roar from the hallway, a mixing of many strange, inhuman tongues. As Timmy and I sat up quickly, a decapitated body flew into the gym, and a creature from Hell followed after it. The body smacked into the concrete wall with a soft, fleshy whack.
The Warden stood ten feet tall. He had on a black correctional officers uniform and a leather visor cap. His face looked like it had no flesh. A thick layer of bone covered it with two reptilian eyes peering out from behind slitted pupils. He hissed, a forked tongue shooting out of his gaping maw. His fingers looked like sharp daggers of bone. A smell like old leather and blood rose from his body.
“Shoot it!” I screamed, raising the pistol and firing at its head. The first shot blew off its visor cap, revealing the hairless, reptilian skull underneath. But the bullet only gouged the top of its skull. It ran at us with powerful, bounding steps, covering the distance in moments.
Timmy and I fired as fast as we could as it got within a few feet of us. It bounded into Timmy like a freight train hitting a car. Timmy’s body went flying and smashed against the back wall with the sound of bones shattering. I slammed another magazine in the pistol as the Warden turned to me.
We had hit it, I saw. One of its eyes had exploded in a shower of gore and vitreous fluid, and its head was bleeding badly. I raised the gun, aiming for the same eye and firing.
The Warden smacked his hand against his face as if he had forgotten something, falling to the floor. I ran forward, putting the pistol point-blank against his ruined eye before emptying the clip. By the end, he wasn’t moving anymore.
“Oh, God,” I said, walking over to Timmy. I saw his shattered legs, his broken spine and his snapped ribs. He coughed up blood. “I’m sorry, Timmy. I really am.” His head might have nodded slightly as he died, giving a final death gasp before falling still.
***
I found a ring of keys on the Warden’s body. In excitement, I ran downstairs and tried the locked door. It worked.
I went to the van, pulling out the dead driver and starting it. After smashing through the garage door, I drove it through the gate. It did catastrophic damage to the prison van, but it got me far enough away before the engine gave out.
I don’t know what kind of prison that was, but I hope I never see that hellscape again.

I've been in and out of prisons and jails ever since I was 17. I thought I had seen it all- Aryan Brotherhood members stabbing guards, gang wars, escapes and torture. I saw many things that still give me nightmares to this day.
"MacDonald, 402202," the guard barked out. I jumped up, the thin mattress under me exhaling a whiff of stale air. I looked through the bars, seeing Correctional Officer Shea. CO Shea was a morbidly obese man with a penchant for being loud and lazy. I had seen a member of the Bloods punch him straight in the nose before, a scene I still remembered with some humor. Shea had crumpled like wet paper on the floor, screaming and crying as more COs ran over and tackled the inmate.
"Yeah?" I asked. Shea handed me a sheet of paper. He regarded me with his gray, colorless eyes.
"Congratulations, you're being transferred. Pack your shit. This is your last day at Springfield Correctional Center."
***
You might think I would be happy to get a transfer. SCC was, after all, a shithole. The food was terrible and always cold, the place always smelled like bleach and chemicals, and at night it got so cold with only my flimsy sheet that I regularly woke up shivering. The building was nearly a century old, and the fact that it still functioned at all was a miracle in itself.
But, to be honest, I was not thrilled about the transfer. I had made friends here and knew the lay of the land. I didn't have to worry about getting jumped or stabbed to death in the showers. As the old adage goes, it's better the devil you know than the one you don't.
I was led out of my cell the next evening with all the worldly possessions I owned, which fit neatly into a clear trash bag with room to spare. I owned some prison clothes, toothpaste, a toothbrush, deodorant, a Bible, a pair of sandals and a radio. I felt the unbearable lightness of my existence reflected in that bag as it smacked rhythmically against my leg.
"Good luck, friend Josh!" a rather insane acquaintance of mine named Alvin called out from his cell as I passed down the bleak, concrete hallway.
"Take care man. I hope we meet again on the outside," I said, waving, knowing I would almost certainly never see any of these people again. Hell, I hadn't even seen my family in over five years. None of them came to visit me anymore. No one wrote me letters or put money in my commissary account or sent me books to read.
"Well, we're all born alone, and we all die alone," I thought to myself as CO Shea walked by my side. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just finished running a marathon. I looked over at his face, seeing the burst capillaries on his nose from years of hard drinking and the squint of his little, piggy eyes. There was a slight gleam of intelligence and slyness behind that ugly mug, though.
"Well, amigo," Shea said in his slow, plodding way, "I got assigned to go with you. I'll be your ride along buddy. You excited or what?" I smiled faintly at him
"There are worse people than you here, Shea," I said. "Far worse."
***
I got on the prison bus in my bright-orange jumpsuit. To my surprise, I saw the back was nearly empty. There was only one other prisoner in the back. Shea sat with us to monitor us. We were also handcuffed and anklecuffed. A chain ran down and connected the two.
I looked over at the other prisoner, a black guy with a shaved head. I think he also shaved his eyebrows. I mean, I literally didn't see a single hair on his head besides eyelashes, which he apparently hadn't found a way to shave… yet.
"Sup," he said. I nodded.
"Sup." We sat there in awkward silence as Shea plopped down hard on the bench between us. It groaned like a confused old man.
"So what do you know about this place, Shea?" I asked. He sucked down half a bottle of Coke and then heaved a deep sigh.
"I don't know much about it, to be frank," he admitted sheepishly. "It is apparently brand-new, though. They asked us to send a couple people who met... certain criteria."
"What does that mean?" the black guy asked. Shea gave him a serious look.
"Come on, Timmy, you know what I mean. Hardened criminals. People with long records who tour prisons like some people tour French beaches." I scoffed.
"There are far worse people than me in prison," I said.
"Well, they asked for no murderers or gang bangers too. I don't know why, but maybe it is some new government program. They apparently call it an 'experimental prison’.”
“What about me?” Timmy asked. Shea apparently knew what he meant.
“You’re not a murderer, Timmy,” Shea said, his lips forming the faintest twitch of a smile. “You never…”
“Well, there was that time my girlfriend got me to drop some acid with her. She went and killed her parents. Then we hit the road,” Timmy said fondly, his eyes rising as if he were looking at a hovering angel in the far-off distance.
“You were never convicted of any accessory charges, so it doesn’t count,” Shea retorted.
“Oh, it counts,” Timmy drawled in his slow, plodding way. “It counts. Everything in life counts. If I’ve learned anything in the last 36 years, it’s that you can never truly escape anything you’ve done- good or bad.”
***
I couldn't see much from the prison van. There was a small, shatterproof window in the swinging back doors, but it only gave a fleeting view of what was behind us. I noticed the dark forests stretching out to the horizon over rolling hills.
We drove for a few hours. The three of us bullshitted, talking about everything from sports to politics to the recent spate of fatal stabbings at SCC.
I felt the van stop. I looked out the back window, seeing more endless trees. I didn’t see a single house or car on the road we had taken.
“This place is a ghost town,” I said. Shea nodded.
“Yeah, it’s dead as Frank Sinatra ‘round here,” Shea said, wheezing out a high-pitched laugh at his own joke. “This area used to be big for coal mining, but as it dried up and people lost their jobs, they moved away. You know, my grandfather was a coal miner.”
“Good place to build a prison, huh?” Timmy asked. “If there is no one around…” We were cut off by a clanging alarm up ahead. I heard something large moving, probably the gate opening. Then we were inside.
I saw the guard towers and rolls of razor wire for a brief moment as the van pulled into an open garage. The darkness immediately blanketed us. The garage door slowly rolled shut behind us. Shea jumped up.
“Let’s get you boys inside so I can take off your handcuffs and everything,” he said, motioning for us to follow. He pulled out a flashlight from his belt, guiding us through the pitch black. The dim light sent shadows racing across the room like groping tentacles. I caught glimpses of strange objects in the darkness. They looked like medieval torture devices.
“What is this place?” I whispered. My voice echoed far too loudly off the cold concrete floor and walls. “Those look like torture devices on that table, Shea. I think those bloody things are thumbscrews and that might be a pear of anguish…” I pointed to the pear-shaped object with three, wicked blades whose points came together sitting on a dusty shelf. The ornate handle had springs connected to it. The object could be forced into any human orifice and, when the springs were engaged, it would open like a flower inside the person’s body, ripping their flesh apart and enlarging that orifice to a bloody, gaping hole.
“How do you know so much about this?” Shea asked, giving me a strange look. He narrowed his little piggy eyes. He continued to fumble with the flashlight, peering around for a door to exit the garage. I looked back at the car and saw the driver just sitting there, his entire body as lifeless and still as a mannequin.
“I’ve read a few books…” I said as Timmy interrupted us.
“I see a little red light glowing under that door,” Timmy said. Shea focused his flashlight on the spot. Across the room, I noticed what Timmy was pointing at. It was an ancient-looking black door. The wood had started to crack and splinter down the middle. Engraved in silver on the front, it said, “Entrance to Northfrost Penitentiary.”
“Hello?” Shea called toward the door as the three of us moved forward, the steel chains giving my steps a clinking rhythm.
Shea reached the antique crystal doorknob. Timmy and I stood next to a dust-covered brazen bull, its bronze mouth wide open as if it were silently roaring at us. As Shea pulled open the door, crimson light flooded into the garage.
Tinted black glass covered the back wall. A speaker button sat next to the window. I looked to my right, seeing a massive sign sprawled across the wall there. It read:
RULES FOR PERSONAL CONDUCT AT NORTHFROST

1. The COs without faces don’t work here and we don’t know who they are. If you see one, press one of the buttons labeled “Emergency Dispatch” that are scattered around the complex.
2. When the red emergency lights come on, hide until they shut off.
3. Do not go into the medical ward for any reason.
4. The warden roams the prison every night at 3:33 AM looking for human meat. Don’t let him catch you.

“What is this, a goddamned joke?” Timmy asked, his dark face forming into a scowl.
“Uhh, well…” Shea rubbed the back of his neck, looking like an obese little boy who lost his parents. “I’ve never been here before, but this is all pretty unusual, I’ll admit.” A buzzing came from the back of the room, and suddenly a garish, echoing intercom turned on.
“Please remove their chains and direct them through the door on the left,” a female robotic voice said calmly in a tone as cool as lemonade on a hot day. “Your transfer will then be complete.” Shea sighed in relief.
“Good,” he grunted. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“Bro, you can’t leave us here,” Timmy protested. “What the fuck is this place? Where is everyone? Why is there a room filled with bloody, ancient torture devices next to the garage?” Shea put up his hands.
“I’m sorry, son, but I have orders. I’m just a messenger here. I was told to transfer you here, and that’s what I’ve done.” He fumbled around his belt for his keyring. He came over and unlocked the handcuffs and anklecuffs from both of us. I stretched, rubbing my wrists. I was glad to be out of those suffocating restraints.
“Thanks for everything, then,” I said, picking up my extremely light garbage bag of possessions and heading for the door on the left. Timmy reluctantly followed behind. A sign on this door read: “To General Population.”
But when we got to the other side and it slammed shut behind us, I found a hallway filled with more red emergency lights streaming down. An involuntary shiver ran down through my body. I remembered those absurd rules someone had put up. What had it said about red lights? My mind raced for a few moments, then the answer popped up. It said to hide.
A man shrieked up ahead, his voice riddled with agony and terror. The hallway split to the right and left, and I couldn’t see anyone. Timmy and I stopped.
“Dude, screw this,” Timmy said, turning and running back toward the door we had come through. He tried pulling it open, but it was firmly locked.
***
The scream came again, louder and closer, but this time it was cut off suddenly. I heard someone gurgling like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. And then everything went deathly silent again.
The gray, concrete floor of the hallway had arrows pointing forward on it. There were no doors here. There was nowhere to hide that I could see. Timmy and I reluctantly went forward. As we got to the intersection, we saw the dead body of a man in a brown khaki uniform.
His sightless eyes remained open. They stared up at the ceiling, glassy and still filled with horror. Deep gouge marks bit deeply into the flesh on his back and arms and chest. His throat had been cut or bit open as well. A spreading puddle of blood encircled his body.
I saw a dark blur at the end of the hallway on the right. It looked like little more than a shadow. I whispered to Timmy, pointing. We decided to go left immediately. My heart was pounding at this point. I felt like a soldier walking through the no-man’s land of a warzone. I expected the attack to come at any moment.
The hallway to the left had some doors. I sprinted forward as quietly as I could with Timmy close by my side. I read the first door: To Medical Ward.
“Ugh, no,” I whispered, going to the second one. I heard light footsteps behind me. Turning, I saw a creature from a nightmare sneaking up on us in the bloody glow of the emergency lights.
Its skin was black and shiny like that of a centipede’s. In its general form, it reminded me of a hairless werewolf. It towered over us, its eyes like bone-white cataracts, its claws as long and sharp as a dagger. And yet, its face seemed almost reptilian. It had two small nose holes like a snake and a jaw that unhinged and dropped far below its head. I saw rows of blood-soaked fangs. It gave off a low, gurgling growl that emanated from its chest.
With a rush of adrenaline and a sense of mortal terror, I pushed through the second door without reading the sign on the front. Timmy was right behind me. I heard him scream as he fell into me.
I found myself in a prison dormitory, and we weren’t alone. As I hit the ground, I saw a white face peering out at me from behind the bunk bed. The man hiding there saw the abomination behind us and got up, screaming and running away.
The creature growled, giving chase. In two powerful bounds, it had rushed across the dormitory and grabbed the man by the neck. I looked back at Timmy, seeing him groaning on the ground. Blood poured from deep cuts on his back. I grabbed him, pulling him up.
“Let’s go, let’s go, no time to…” I said when I was cut off by the sound of a neck snapping. I looked back, seeing the creature had twisted the man’s head around in a circle. It raised the limp body to its massive mouth and severed the head in a single powerful bite.
“Get me out of here, man, please,” Timmy whispered as I pulled him back out into the hallway. I looked over, seeing another werewolf creature bounding down the hallway, chasing a man in a prison jumpsuit. I had no choice.
I pulled Timmy toward the door labeled “Medical Ward”. With a creak of rusted hinges, it opened. We went inside to hide.
***
“Maybe there’s something in here we can use to bandage you up,” I said to Timmy, pulling him down the short hallway toward a room filled with single beds. I didn’t know why the rules said to avoid this place. It looked totally empty. Against the back wall, I saw a glass cabinet filled with bandages, rubbing alcohol, band-aids and other various first aid supplies. I ran toward it. Timmy limped along after me, still groaning.
“Goddamn, I think those claws went down to the bone,” he said.
“It’s gonna be OK,” I said as I pulled out some antiseptic and bandages, adding, “It could’ve been a lot worse.” The universe would immediately prove me right. I heard a slight giggling from under one of the beds. Timmy and I both froze.
Two rotted hands reached out, dragging the mutilated body of a little girl behind them. She had patches of garish, black stitches running across her face, hands and arms. Dark, clotted blood dripped from the sites. She wore a gore-smeared hospital gown and had no eyes. I looked into the empty sockets. They stared back at me like two black holes spinning in the void.
As she rose, her giggles became full-blown laughter, a hysterical gurgling like the laugh of a dying person. Then she ran at me. I saw the silver gleam of a scalpel in her little hand.
“No!” I screamed, raising my hands to protect myself. The scalpel came down, slicing across my palm. It cut deeply. A cold, burning pain ran up my arm. I repressed the urge to scream.
At that moment, the red emergency lights flicked off. Bright, fluorescent lights popped on, flickering and strobing in rapid succession. Timmy ran forward, tackling the undead girl. But I saw more small hands reaching out from under the beds, hands filled with sores and squirming larvae. I could see the bones of their hands through necrotic patches eaten into their flesh.
I ran for Timmy, grabbing him and hauling him up.
“Time to go! Now!” I screamed, pulling him forward as more undead boys and girls rose up, all with sharp knives and surgical instruments grasped in their little hands. I felt a sudden pain in my leg. Looking down, I saw a knife sticking out of my thigh. The empty eye sockets of a little boy’s face stared up at me, grinning like a skull.
I collapsed on the ground as we were surrounded. I prayed to God then, knowing we would die. I prayed that he would forgive me for all my mistakes, because I was on a fast-track to the afterlife and would be seeing him in a few seconds. With a sharp cry of pain, I yanked the knife out of my leg, turning it on my attacker.
Then a gunshot rang out. The head of the nearest girl exploded in a shower of bone fragments and dead maggots. I looked up, seeing Shea standing at the door, his pistol raised.
“Come on!” he screamed. “Come on, you idiots! Let’s go! Now!” Timmy and I didn’t need any more encouragement. As Shea continued to blow apart the nearest of the undead abominations, we limped and scrambled towards him. My leg gave a shriek of pain with every step.
We got out of the medical ward, battered and bruised but still alive.
***
“Why’d you come back, Shea?” I asked through pained breaths. Shea gave me a frantic look.
“When I got back out to the car, the driver was dead. His throat was… ripped out or something, I don’t know. I grabbed his keys and came back for you two. I don’t know where we are, but I’m getting you out of here,” he explained. I looked at him in amazement. I had never thought in a million years Shea would risk his life to save some scumbag inmates.
“So what’s the plan?” Timmy asked, sweating heavily, his eyes wild and pained. “How are we getting out of here without dying?” Shea shrugged.
“The door locked behind us when we came in,” I said. “Unless we can break it down and get back to the car…” We passed by buttons labeled “Emergency Dispatch” under glowing red emergency signs. I wondered if we could get help somehow through them.
“Halt!” someone cried from behind us. I looked back, seeing a man in a black correctional officers uniform. He ran toward us, his hand on the radio hanging from his belt. But something immediately seemed off about the figure.
As he got closer, I realized why. He had no face. His entire head was just smooth, white skin, without hair or any signs of features. He spoke again, and the voice seemed to come from all around his body.
“You must report to the medical ward,” the strange figure said. “We do not allow injured people in the hallways.”
“No, we’re fine,” Shea said, grinning. “See, buddy? I work for the DOC too.” He pointed at the identification clipped to his breast pocket. The figure raised his radio to his lips.
“We have resistance near Dormitory One,” the fake CO said into his radio before any of us could stop him. Shea ran forward, knocking the radio from his hand. The CO instantly straightened up and whipped out his pistol, pointing it at Shea’s torso. He fired, and I saw Shea’s chest explode in a blossoming flower of blood.
“No, dammit!” Timmy said, running forward. I saw a silver gleam in his hand, and I realized he had taken one of the scalpels from the undead Shea had killed in the Medical Ward. As the fake CO spun to point the pistol at Timmy, Timmy ran into him, stabbing the scalpel deeply into the CO’s neck.
They fell together with Timmy on top of the fake CO. His body weight drove the scalpel deeper into the white, featureless skin. Blood the color of soot spurted from the wound. The gun went off, the bullet missing Timmy entirely and smashing into the ceiling. The CO’s gurgling death gasps seem to come from all around his body. I grabbed Timmy.
“Get the guns!” I said. “They’re both dead. We need the guns.” He nodded, grabbing the CO’s gun and taking an extra magazine from his belt. I did the same with Shea’s gun and magazine. I pressed the button labeled “Emergency Dispatch” as more faceless men appeared far off down the corridor. Then we fled as fast as we could from that hallway, but, seeing as we were both in pretty bad shape, it wasn’t very fast.
At that point, I was just glad to be alive, though.
***
We wandered around the prison, avoiding the faceless COs whenever we saw them patrolling the hallways. They would radio to each other, their voices always surrounding their bodies rather than coming from their heads, which I found extremely eerie and unsettling. A couple times, I saw men in black SWAT suits with automatic rifles gunning down the fake COs. I wondered if this was the “Emergency Dispatch”. Timmy and I avoided them as well, and we gave a wide berth anytime we heard gunfire.
We passed cells with mummified corpses hanging from the ceiling. We passed dormitories where the victims of the strange, werewolf-like creatures littered the floors, rotting and stinking like roadkill. Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of another survivor, a pale face peeking out from some hiding spot, but Timmy and I kept pushing forward, looking for a way out.
We were in a sprawling gymnasium, sitting down and resting for a few minutes, when we encountered the Warden.
We heard a demonic roar from the hallway, a mixing of many strange, inhuman tongues. As Timmy and I sat up quickly, a decapitated body flew into the gym, and a creature from Hell followed after it. The body smacked into the concrete wall with a soft, fleshy whack.
The Warden stood ten feet tall. He had on a black correctional officers uniform and a leather visor cap. His face looked like it had no flesh. A thick layer of bone covered it with two reptilian eyes peering out from behind slitted pupils. He hissed, a forked tongue shooting out of his gaping maw. His fingers looked like sharp daggers of bone. A smell like old leather and blood rose from his body.
“Shoot it!” I screamed, raising the pistol and firing at its head. The first shot blew off its visor cap, revealing the hairless, reptilian skull underneath. But the bullet only gouged the top of its skull. It ran at us with powerful, bounding steps, covering the distance in moments.
Timmy and I fired as fast as we could as it got within a few feet of us. It bounded into Timmy like a freight train hitting a car. Timmy’s body went flying and smashed against the back wall with the sound of bones shattering. I slammed another magazine in the pistol as the Warden turned to me.
We had hit it, I saw. One of its eyes had exploded in a shower of gore and vitreous fluid, and its head was bleeding badly. I raised the gun, aiming for the same eye and firing.
The Warden smacked his hand against his face as if he had forgotten something, falling to the floor. I ran forward, putting the pistol point-blank against his ruined eye before emptying the clip. By the end, he wasn’t moving anymore.
“Oh, God,” I said, walking over to Timmy. I saw his shattered legs, his broken spine and his snapped ribs. He coughed up blood. “I’m sorry, Timmy. I really am.” His head might have nodded slightly as he died, giving a final death gasp before falling still.
***
I found a ring of keys on the Warden’s body. In excitement, I ran downstairs and tried the locked door. It worked.
I went to the van, pulling out the dead driver and starting it. After smashing through the garage door, I drove it through the gate. It did catastrophic damage to the prison van, but it got me far enough away before the engine gave out.
I don’t know what kind of prison that was, but I hope I never see that hellscape again.

I've been in and out of prisons and jails ever since I was 17. I thought I had seen it all- Aryan Brotherhood members stabbing guards, gang wars, escapes and torture. I saw many things that still give me nightmares to this day.
"MacDonald, 402202," the guard barked out. I jumped up, the thin mattress under me exhaling a whiff of stale air. I looked through the bars, seeing Correctional Officer Shea. CO Shea was a morbidly obese man with a penchant for being loud and lazy. I had seen a member of the Bloods punch him straight in the nose before, a scene I still remembered with some humor. Shea had crumpled like wet paper on the floor, screaming and crying as more COs ran over and tackled the inmate.
"Yeah?" I asked. Shea handed me a sheet of paper. He regarded me with his gray, colorless eyes.
"Congratulations, you're being transferred. Pack your shit. This is your last day at Springfield Correctional Center."
***
You might think I would be happy to get a transfer. SCC was, after all, a shithole. The food was terrible and always cold, the place always smelled like bleach and chemicals, and at night it got so cold with only my flimsy sheet that I regularly woke up shivering. The building was nearly a century old, and the fact that it still functioned at all was a miracle in itself.
But, to be honest, I was not thrilled about the transfer. I had made friends here and knew the lay of the land. I didn't have to worry about getting jumped or stabbed to death in the showers. As the old adage goes, it's better the devil you know than the one you don't.
I was led out of my cell the next evening with all the worldly possessions I owned, which fit neatly into a clear trash bag with room to spare. I owned some prison clothes, toothpaste, a toothbrush, deodorant, a Bible, a pair of sandals and a radio. I felt the unbearable lightness of my existence reflected in that bag as it smacked rhythmically against my leg.
"Good luck, friend Josh!" a rather insane acquaintance of mine named Alvin called out from his cell as I passed down the bleak, concrete hallway.
"Take care man. I hope we meet again on the outside," I said, waving, knowing I would almost certainly never see any of these people again. Hell, I hadn't even seen my family in over five years. None of them came to visit me anymore. No one wrote me letters or put money in my commissary account or sent me books to read.
"Well, we're all born alone, and we all die alone," I thought to myself as CO Shea walked by my side. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just finished running a marathon. I looked over at his face, seeing the burst capillaries on his nose from years of hard drinking and the squint of his little, piggy eyes. There was a slight gleam of intelligence and slyness behind that ugly mug, though.
"Well, amigo," Shea said in his slow, plodding way, "I got assigned to go with you. I'll be your ride along buddy. You excited or what?" I smiled faintly at him
"There are worse people than you here, Shea," I said. "Far worse."
***
I got on the prison bus in my bright-orange jumpsuit. To my surprise, I saw the back was nearly empty. There was only one other prisoner in the back. Shea sat with us to monitor us. We were also handcuffed and anklecuffed. A chain ran down and connected the two.
I looked over at the other prisoner, a black guy with a shaved head. I think he also shaved his eyebrows. I mean, I literally didn't see a single hair on his head besides eyelashes, which he apparently hadn't found a way to shave… yet.
"Sup," he said. I nodded.
"Sup." We sat there in awkward silence as Shea plopped down hard on the bench between us. It groaned like a confused old man.
"So what do you know about this place, Shea?" I asked. He sucked down half a bottle of Coke and then heaved a deep sigh.
"I don't know much about it, to be frank," he admitted sheepishly. "It is apparently brand-new, though. They asked us to send a couple people who met... certain criteria."
"What does that mean?" the black guy asked. Shea gave him a serious look.
"Come on, Timmy, you know what I mean. Hardened criminals. People with long records who tour prisons like some people tour French beaches." I scoffed.
"There are far worse people than me in prison," I said.
"Well, they asked for no murderers or gang bangers too. I don't know why, but maybe it is some new government program. They apparently call it an 'experimental prison’.”
“What about me?” Timmy asked. Shea apparently knew what he meant.
“You’re not a murderer, Timmy,” Shea said, his lips forming the faintest twitch of a smile. “You never…”
“Well, there was that time my girlfriend got me to drop some acid with her. She went and killed her parents. Then we hit the road,” Timmy said fondly, his eyes rising as if he were looking at a hovering angel in the far-off distance.
“You were never convicted of any accessory charges, so it doesn’t count,” Shea retorted.
“Oh, it counts,” Timmy drawled in his slow, plodding way. “It counts. Everything in life counts. If I’ve learned anything in the last 36 years, it’s that you can never truly escape anything you’ve done- good or bad.”
***
I couldn't see much from the prison van. There was a small, shatterproof window in the swinging back doors, but it only gave a fleeting view of what was behind us. I noticed the dark forests stretching out to the horizon over rolling hills.
We drove for a few hours. The three of us bullshitted, talking about everything from sports to politics to the recent spate of fatal stabbings at SCC.
I felt the van stop. I looked out the back window, seeing more endless trees. I didn’t see a single house or car on the road we had taken.
“This place is a ghost town,” I said. Shea nodded.
“Yeah, it’s dead as Frank Sinatra ‘round here,” Shea said, wheezing out a high-pitched laugh at his own joke. “This area used to be big for coal mining, but as it dried up and people lost their jobs, they moved away. You know, my grandfather was a coal miner.”
“Good place to build a prison, huh?” Timmy asked. “If there is no one around…” We were cut off by a clanging alarm up ahead. I heard something large moving, probably the gate opening. Then we were inside.
I saw the guard towers and rolls of razor wire for a brief moment as the van pulled into an open garage. The darkness immediately blanketed us. The garage door slowly rolled shut behind us. Shea jumped up.
“Let’s get you boys inside so I can take off your handcuffs and everything,” he said, motioning for us to follow. He pulled out a flashlight from his belt, guiding us through the pitch black. The dim light sent shadows racing across the room like groping tentacles. I caught glimpses of strange objects in the darkness. They looked like medieval torture devices.
“What is this place?” I whispered. My voice echoed far too loudly off the cold concrete floor and walls. “Those look like torture devices on that table, Shea. I think those bloody things are thumbscrews and that might be a pear of anguish…” I pointed to the pear-shaped object with three, wicked blades whose points came together sitting on a dusty shelf. The ornate handle had springs connected to it. The object could be forced into any human orifice and, when the springs were engaged, it would open like a flower inside the person’s body, ripping their flesh apart and enlarging that orifice to a bloody, gaping hole.
“How do you know so much about this?” Shea asked, giving me a strange look. He narrowed his little piggy eyes. He continued to fumble with the flashlight, peering around for a door to exit the garage. I looked back at the car and saw the driver just sitting there, his entire body as lifeless and still as a mannequin.
“I’ve read a few books…” I said as Timmy interrupted us.
“I see a little red light glowing under that door,” Timmy said. Shea focused his flashlight on the spot. Across the room, I noticed what Timmy was pointing at. It was an ancient-looking black door. The wood had started to crack and splinter down the middle. Engraved in silver on the front, it said, “Entrance to Northfrost Penitentiary.”
“Hello?” Shea called toward the door as the three of us moved forward, the steel chains giving my steps a clinking rhythm.
Shea reached the antique crystal doorknob. Timmy and I stood next to a dust-covered brazen bull, its bronze mouth wide open as if it were silently roaring at us. As Shea pulled open the door, crimson light flooded into the garage.
Tinted black glass covered the back wall. A speaker button sat next to the window. I looked to my right, seeing a massive sign sprawled across the wall there. It read:
RULES FOR PERSONAL CONDUCT AT NORTHFROST
The COs without faces don’t work here and we don’t know who they are. If you see one, press one of the buttons labeled “Emergency Dispatch” that are scattered around the complex.
When the red emergency lights come on, hide until they shut off.
Do not go into the medical ward for any reason.
The warden roams the prison every night at 3:33 AM looking for human meat. Don’t let him catch you.
“What is this, a goddamned joke?” Timmy asked, his dark face forming into a scowl.
“Uhh, well…” Shea rubbed the back of his neck, looking like an obese little boy who lost his parents. “I’ve never been here before, but this is all pretty unusual, I’ll admit.” A buzzing came from the back of the room, and suddenly a garish, echoing intercom turned on.
“Please remove their chains and direct them through the door on the left,” a female robotic voice said calmly in a tone as cool as lemonade on a hot day. “Your transfer will then be complete.” Shea sighed in relief.
“Good,” he grunted. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“Bro, you can’t leave us here,” Timmy protested. “What the fuck is this place? Where is everyone? Why is there a room filled with bloody, ancient torture devices next to the garage?” Shea put up his hands.
“I’m sorry, son, but I have orders. I’m just a messenger here. I was told to transfer you here, and that’s what I’ve done.” He fumbled around his belt for his keyring. He came over and unlocked the handcuffs and anklecuffs from both of us. I stretched, rubbing my wrists. I was glad to be out of those suffocating restraints.
“Thanks for everything, then,” I said, picking up my extremely light garbage bag of possessions and heading for the door on the left. Timmy reluctantly followed behind. A sign on this door read: “To General Population.”
But when we got to the other side and it slammed shut behind us, I found a hallway filled with more red emergency lights streaming down. An involuntary shiver ran down through my body. I remembered those absurd rules someone had put up. What had it said about red lights? My mind raced for a few moments, then the answer popped up. It said to hide.
A man shrieked up ahead, his voice riddled with agony and terror. The hallway split to the right and left, and I couldn’t see anyone. Timmy and I stopped.
“Dude, screw this,” Timmy said, turning and running back toward the door we had come through. He tried pulling it open, but it was firmly locked.
***
The scream came again, louder and closer, but this time it was cut off suddenly. I heard someone gurgling like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. And then everything went deathly silent again.
The gray, concrete floor of the hallway had arrows pointing forward on it. There were no doors here. There was nowhere to hide that I could see. Timmy and I reluctantly went forward. As we got to the intersection, we saw the dead body of a man in a brown khaki uniform.
His sightless eyes remained open. They stared up at the ceiling, glassy and still filled with horror. Deep gouge marks bit deeply into the flesh on his back and arms and chest. His throat had been cut or bit open as well. A spreading puddle of blood encircled his body.
I saw a dark blur at the end of the hallway on the right. It looked like little more than a shadow. I whispered to Timmy, pointing. We decided to go left immediately. My heart was pounding at this point. I felt like a soldier walking through the no-man’s land of a warzone. I expected the attack to come at any moment.
The hallway to the left had some doors. I sprinted forward as quietly as I could with Timmy close by my side. I read the first door: To Medical Ward.
“Ugh, no,” I whispered, going to the second one. I heard light footsteps behind me. Turning, I saw a creature from a nightmare sneaking up on us in the bloody glow of the emergency lights.
Its skin was black and shiny like that of a centipede’s. In its general form, it reminded me of a hairless werewolf. It towered over us, its eyes like bone-white cataracts, its claws as long and sharp as a dagger. And yet, its face seemed almost reptilian. It had two small nose holes like a snake and a jaw that unhinged and dropped far below its head. I saw rows of blood-soaked fangs. It gave off a low, gurgling growl that emanated from its chest.
With a rush of adrenaline and a sense of mortal terror, I pushed through the second door without reading the sign on the front. Timmy was right behind me. I heard him scream as he fell into me.
I found myself in a prison dormitory, and we weren’t alone. As I hit the ground, I saw a white face peering out at me from behind the bunk bed. The man hiding there saw the abomination behind us and got up, screaming and running away.
The creature growled, giving chase. In two powerful bounds, it had rushed across the dormitory and grabbed the man by the neck. I looked back at Timmy, seeing him groaning on the ground. Blood poured from deep cuts on his back. I grabbed him, pulling him up.
“Let’s go, let’s go, no time to…” I said when I was cut off by the sound of a neck snapping. I looked back, seeing the creature had twisted the man’s head around in a circle. It raised the limp body to its massive mouth and severed the head in a single powerful bite.
“Get me out of here, man, please,” Timmy whispered as I pulled him back out into the hallway. I looked over, seeing another werewolf creature bounding down the hallway, chasing a man in a prison jumpsuit. I had no choice.
I pulled Timmy toward the door labeled “Medical Ward”. With a creak of rusted hinges, it opened. We went inside to hide.
***
“Maybe there’s something in here we can use to bandage you up,” I said to Timmy, pulling him down the short hallway toward a room filled with single beds. I didn’t know why the rules said to avoid this place. It looked totally empty. Against the back wall, I saw a glass cabinet filled with bandages, rubbing alcohol, band-aids and other various first aid supplies. I ran toward it. Timmy limped along after me, still groaning.
“Goddamn, I think those claws went down to the bone,” he said.
“It’s gonna be OK,” I said as I pulled out some antiseptic and bandages, adding, “It could’ve been a lot worse.” The universe would immediately prove me right. I heard a slight giggling from under one of the beds. Timmy and I both froze.
Two rotted hands reached out, dragging the mutilated body of a little girl behind them. She had patches of garish, black stitches running across her face, hands and arms. Dark, clotted blood dripped from the sites. She wore a gore-smeared hospital gown and had no eyes. I looked into the empty sockets. They stared back at me like two black holes spinning in the void.
As she rose, her giggles became full-blown laughter, a hysterical gurgling like the laugh of a dying person. Then she ran at me. I saw the silver gleam of a scalpel in her little hand.
“No!” I screamed, raising my hands to protect myself. The scalpel came down, slicing across my palm. It cut deeply. A cold, burning pain ran up my arm. I repressed the urge to scream.
At that moment, the red emergency lights flicked off. Bright, fluorescent lights popped on, flickering and strobing in rapid succession. Timmy ran forward, tackling the undead girl. But I saw more small hands reaching out from under the beds, hands filled with sores and squirming larvae. I could see the bones of their hands through necrotic patches eaten into their flesh.
I ran for Timmy, grabbing him and hauling him up.
“Time to go! Now!” I screamed, pulling him forward as more undead boys and girls rose up, all with sharp knives and surgical instruments grasped in their little hands. I felt a sudden pain in my leg. Looking down, I saw a knife sticking out of my thigh. The empty eye sockets of a little boy’s face stared up at me, grinning like a skull.
I collapsed on the ground as we were surrounded. I prayed to God then, knowing we would die. I prayed that he would forgive me for all my mistakes, because I was on a fast-track to the afterlife and would be seeing him in a few seconds. With a sharp cry of pain, I yanked the knife out of my leg, turning it on my attacker.
Then a gunshot rang out. The head of the nearest girl exploded in a shower of bone fragments and dead maggots. I looked up, seeing Shea standing at the door, his pistol raised.
“Come on!” he screamed. “Come on, you idiots! Let’s go! Now!” Timmy and I didn’t need any more encouragement. As Shea continued to blow apart the nearest of the undead abominations, we limped and scrambled towards him. My leg gave a shriek of pain with every step.
We got out of the medical ward, battered and bruised but still alive.
***
“Why’d you come back, Shea?” I asked through pained breaths. Shea gave me a frantic look.
“When I got back out to the car, the driver was dead. His throat was… ripped out or something, I don’t know. I grabbed his keys and came back for you two. I don’t know where we are, but I’m getting you out of here,” he explained. I looked at him in amazement. I had never thought in a million years Shea would risk his life to save some scumbag inmates.
“So what’s the plan?” Timmy asked, sweating heavily, his eyes wild and pained. “How are we getting out of here without dying?” Shea shrugged.
“The door locked behind us when we came in,” I said. “Unless we can break it down and get back to the car…” We passed by buttons labeled “Emergency Dispatch” under glowing red emergency signs. I wondered if we could get help somehow through them.
“Halt!” someone cried from behind us. I looked back, seeing a man in a black correctional officers uniform. He ran toward us, his hand on the radio hanging from his belt. But something immediately seemed off about the figure.
As he got closer, I realized why. He had no face. His entire head was just smooth, white skin, without hair or any signs of features. He spoke again, and the voice seemed to come from all around his body.
“You must report to the medical ward,” the strange figure said. “We do not allow injured people in the hallways.”
“No, we’re fine,” Shea said, grinning. “See, buddy? I work for the DOC too.” He pointed at the identification clipped to his breast pocket. The figure raised his radio to his lips.
“We have resistance near Dormitory One,” the fake CO said into his radio before any of us could stop him. Shea ran forward, knocking the radio from his hand. The CO instantly straightened up and whipped out his pistol, pointing it at Shea’s torso. He fired, and I saw Shea’s chest explode in a blossoming flower of blood.
“No, dammit!” Timmy said, running forward. I saw a silver gleam in his hand, and I realized he had taken one of the scalpels from the undead Shea had killed in the Medical Ward. As the fake CO spun to point the pistol at Timmy, Timmy ran into him, stabbing the scalpel deeply into the CO’s neck.
They fell together with Timmy on top of the fake CO. His body weight drove the scalpel deeper into the white, featureless skin. Blood the color of soot spurted from the wound. The gun went off, the bullet missing Timmy entirely and smashing into the ceiling. The CO’s gurgling death gasps seem to come from all around his body. I grabbed Timmy.
“Get the guns!” I said. “They’re both dead. We need the guns.” He nodded, grabbing the CO’s gun and taking an extra magazine from his belt. I did the same with Shea’s gun and magazine. I pressed the button labeled “Emergency Dispatch” as more faceless men appeared far off down the corridor. Then we fled as fast as we could from that hallway, but, seeing as we were both in pretty bad shape, it wasn’t very fast.
At that point, I was just glad to be alive, though.
***
We wandered around the prison, avoiding the faceless COs whenever we saw them patrolling the hallways. They would radio to each other, their voices always surrounding their bodies rather than coming from their heads, which I found extremely eerie and unsettling. A couple times, I saw men in black SWAT suits with automatic rifles gunning down the fake COs. I wondered if this was the “Emergency Dispatch”. Timmy and I avoided them as well, and we gave a wide berth anytime we heard gunfire.
We passed cells with mummified corpses hanging from the ceiling. We passed dormitories where the victims of the strange, werewolf-like creatures littered the floors, rotting and stinking like roadkill. Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of another survivor, a pale face peeking out from some hiding spot, but Timmy and I kept pushing forward, looking for a way out.
We were in a sprawling gymnasium, sitting down and resting for a few minutes, when we encountered the Warden.
We heard a demonic roar from the hallway, a mixing of many strange, inhuman tongues. As Timmy and I sat up quickly, a decapitated body flew into the gym, and a creature from Hell followed after it. The body smacked into the concrete wall with a soft, fleshy whack.
The Warden stood ten feet tall. He had on a black correctional officers uniform and a leather visor cap. His face looked like it had no flesh. A thick layer of bone covered it with two reptilian eyes peering out from behind slitted pupils. He hissed, a forked tongue shooting out of his gaping maw. His fingers looked like sharp daggers of bone. A smell like old leather and blood rose from his body.
“Shoot it!” I screamed, raising the pistol and firing at its head. The first shot blew off its visor cap, revealing the hairless, reptilian skull underneath. But the bullet only gouged the top of its skull. It ran at us with powerful, bounding steps, covering the distance in moments.
Timmy and I fired as fast as we could as it got within a few feet of us. It bounded into Timmy like a freight train hitting a car. Timmy’s body went flying and smashed against the back wall with the sound of bones shattering. I slammed another magazine in the pistol as the Warden turned to me.
We had hit it, I saw. One of its eyes had exploded in a shower of gore and vitreous fluid, and its head was bleeding badly. I raised the gun, aiming for the same eye and firing.
The Warden smacked his hand against his face as if he had forgotten something, falling to the floor. I ran forward, putting the pistol point-blank against his ruined eye before emptying the clip. By the end, he wasn’t moving anymore.
“Oh, God,” I said, walking over to Timmy. I saw his shattered legs, his broken spine and his snapped ribs. He coughed up blood. “I’m sorry, Timmy. I really am.” His head might have nodded slightly as he died, giving a final death gasp before falling still.
***
I found a ring of keys on the Warden’s body. In excitement, I ran downstairs and tried the locked door. It worked.
I went to the van, pulling out the dead driver and starting it. After smashing through the garage door, I drove it through the gate. It did catastrophic damage to the prison van, but it got me far enough away before the engine gave out.
I don’t know what kind of prison that was, but I hope I never see that hellscape again.

(originally posted on JustSyncIntuit original post)
I warn you that this post will be long and in three parts. It's the transcription of an episode of serendipity that will take us, starting with Charles Lindbergh, then through Shakespeare and other points of interest, on the trail of a spirit.
TL;DR: Here's a 👁️‍🗨️ table of contents.
⚠️ This post was intended as a follow-up to Identity Crisis, which I published on Retconned on July 24, 2022. The wave of coincidences hadn't stopped with the publication of the post.
I had hoped to publish the post before August 2022, but it didn't work out as expected.
However, I persevered and took the necessary time to finish it, which ended up being 21 months! During that time, I made additional connections and the topic's content expanded.
First, I'll repost here what I already wrote in the Identity Crisis thread and then add the rest of the story:
​
^{⌄ original posts ⌄}

IDENTITY CRISIS

I would like to talk about an entertaining little experience triggered by the post: Charles Lindburg or Lindbergh? by Emilieduchatelet1706.

Doubtful ressemblance

Seeing images of Charles Lindbergh immediately came to mind a certain resemblance to Patrick McGoohan.
Charles Lindbergh vs Patrick McGoohan
Well, I readily admit that it's not obvious, and I don't even dare to defend my case, but it's the rest of the story that matters.
Patrick McGoohan, plane… immediately, there too, I had in mind the episode of Columbo, Identity Crisis (s05e03).
Patrick McGoohan plays Nelson Brenner, the killer, and Columbo discovers that he was an aviator in his life full of travels and experiences. Columbo calls him a hero, much like Charles Lindbergh.
I think it's even likely that the character of Nelson Brenner was inspired by Lindbergh.

Fun Fact

Fun fact: As I write these lines I mechanically typed on Google "charles lindbergh" hero, and on the first link I clicked on I see this.
In the image Lindbergh stands in front of his plane, the Spirit of St.Louis. The article talks about his multiple lives. The first line, which I have highlighted, says: “Who the hell was Charles Lindbergh, whose multiple avatars spanned the entire history of the 20th century?”
…and Columbo is there in the corner.
In this video that I had prepared and uploaded before starting to write my post (and therefore before coming across the article), Columbo asks Brenner if he is the one standing in front of a plane (a “T33… SilverStar”) in a photo in black and white.
And ends with “Yes I seem to remember reading about that”... I find it a bit funny in this new context.

Steinmetz

In the episode there is another shady character whose true identity remains a mystery, he's called Steinmetz.
Mechanically too, I had typed Steinmetz on Google and I came across Charles Proteus Steinmetz, American mathematician and electrical engineer. I notice that his real name is “Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz”.
August, that sounds familiar to me. I look at Charles Lindbergh's page and yes that's right, his name is "Charles Augustus Lindbergh".
-> Identity Crisis
 
These entertaining little coincidences…

TAPESTRY OF LIFE

Small personal theory

I'm beginnig to imagine a small personal theory (a small hypothesis to guide my thoughts). That of a new birth in adulthood (rather around 40 years old than 20 years old). In any case a threshold in life.
In this vision, the genetic heritage is replaced by the knowledge of life before, that is to say before the threshold, and wisdom.
The reborn person by groping their way, configures (and reconfigures), (re)connects the data of the previous life to adapt to the (true) life to come. In a better way of their formatting before in the previous matrix with its so-called genetic program and the teaching received. And it's as if there was an underlying program of knowledge and wisdom from the start that tutored their life. A better program.

Not so personal?

I'm not a Christian... but a quick quick look at Wikipedia shows that I may not be far from the concept of born again that we hear about here and there.

Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."
"How can someone be born when they are old?" Nicodemus asked.
"Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit."
— Gospel of John, John chapter 3, verses 3–5, NIV[8]

Water and Spirit

In the previous image of the article -> Spirit of St.Louis is the name of the plane, and in front of the magazine cover with Columbo there is a magazine cover where it is written: La guerre de l'eau est déclarée (Water war is declared).

ALL IN ONE

Yesterday I was watching the first video again where Columbo looks at the picture on the wall. On the same wall I see a portrait that looks familiar, it seemed to me that it was supposed to represent Shakespeare (but maybe not, maybe it's Cervantes :D).
I've heard of a theory that Shakespeare didn't exist and that in fact Francis Bacon (the philosopher) was the author of his work. I have since associated the "idea" of Shakespeare with Francis Bacon.
Well, this theory is completely in line with the subject of Steinmetz in the Columbo episode. But we see that the portrait of Bacon does not at all resemble that of Shakespeare: Shakespeare vs Francis Bacon.
But Steinmetz himself? Francis Bacon vs Charles Steinmetz.
Wonderful! Bravo. Bravo.
​
^{⌄ follow-up ⌄}
⚠️ A note about the use of the word similarity in this post:
When the word 'similarity' is used in this post, it means that the elements being compared share the same idea, but are not necessarily identical copies. For example, something that moves from right to left can be seen as different from something that moves from left to right, but at the level of idea there may be a resemblance.

THE SIMPSONS

▶ The Simpsons - Steinmetz; Very soon after posting, doing a quick search on Steinmetz I come across a scene from The Simpsons episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield (s07e14)":

Homer as Steinmetz

Homer Simpson challenges Mister Burns to a game of golf. Burns as usual is mistaken about the identity of Homer Simpson. He calls him... Steinmetz!

Club sandwich

Homer says "Mmm... open-faced club sand wedge" and puts the word 'club' right before 'sand wedge'. The result is the phrase "club sandwich" (~ sand wedge). And one of the traditional ingredients in a club sandwich is bacon.

SHAKESPEARE

Interesting documentary

I don't know how I landed on the topic The Shakespeare Hole that I had already seen in the past but it was exactly the right time to remind myself of a documentary on Shakespeare that I had forgotten in a mental watch-later-list.
It is an interesting documentary, Cracking the Shakespeare Code (2017), about hidden codes in the work of Shakespeare with in particular the thesis that Sir Francis Bacon would be one of the authors. Viewable here.
This time I watched it! And... this lack of unfamiliarity... I don't remember ever watching it before but I didn't feel any sense of novelty. Hmmm...
For those interested, there are other hypotheses regarding Shakespeare's authorship.

Shakespeare the Bard

Shakespeare is known as "the Bard". The word bard, which means poet, also has other definitions, a piece of armor or ornament on a war horse and by analogy... bacon placed on game or meat before roasting.

COLUMBO

Sometimes the synchronicities come completely out of the blue, sometimes I have an intuition of where to focus my interest. Trivially I told myself that I was going to watch the episode of Columbo talking about Shakespeare, Dagger of the Mind.
In this episode several elements seem to gently taunt my flow of thoughts but it is obviously not the easiest things to explain. However I can relate a really curious series of synchronicities concerning golf and the Simpsons episode I mentioned above:

Welcome to the club

▶ Columbo in the club; Columbo while in London is invited to what I guess is called a gentlemen's club. There he makes two remarks:

• "When you said 'club', I thought you meant a country club or a health club."
  
• "When you said 'tea', I was afraid we were gonna get nothin’ but those tiny sandwiches."
  

Note the vocabulary used which, more or less subtly, refers to golf (while the episode has nothing to do with golf at all). A country club is commonly referred to simply as a golf club. And with ▶ the first video of The Simpsons freshly in mind, the words club, tea, and sandwich resonate like synchronicity. Especially with the formulation used by Columbo which adds a note of irony. Tea sounds exactly like tee, and sandwich for sand wedge.
▶ The Simpsons in the club; In the same episode of The Simpsons, the Simpson family is invited to a country club. Which echoes Columbo's words.
We will even notice that Homer and the kids remain at one entrance to the room while Marge is invited in among the other women. Which is the opposite of the Columbo video where the butler says: "Why do you think we keep the ladies out, sir?".

Pearls and balls

▶ Columbo - pearls; Note that in the scene a character throws a round white object which hits the head of another character who then lies on the ground in the middle of white pearls.
▶ The Simpsons - balls; Here a character hits a golf ball in the air which hits the head of another character who then lies on the ground before kneeling and finding himself in the middle of white balls.

Ruse

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: Skip this one if you don't want to know how Columbo confounded the culprits just yet.
▶ Columbo - subterfuge; Without formal proof, Columbo discreetly puts a white bead in an umbrella which allows the culprits to be confounded by their reactions.
Also note these three points:

• A character who verifies that the bead is genuine: "Why, it’s the same. Exactly the same."
  
• A character who accuses another of trickery: "He put it there. Can’t you see? Before we came. He put it there!"
  
• A private discussion between two characters with the idea of keeping the subterfuge secret: "Off the record, eh?"
  

▶ The Simpsons - cheating; Smithers puts a golf ball on the green near the hole to make Mr. Burns win.
And note the same three points:

• A character who verifies that the balls are genuine: "These aren't reptile eggs."
  
• A character who accuses another of trickery: "You've been cheating. No matter where Mr. Burns hits the ball you put a fresh one on the green."
  
• A private discussion between two characters with the idea of keeping the cheating secret: "If you would keep quiet about the alleged decades of cheating I'm sure he'd support your application for membership tonight."
  

"sir" scenes

▶ The Simpsons - sir; Homer says: "For once, maybe someone will call me "sir" without adding, "you're making a scene"."
▶ Columbo - sir; A character hears himself called "sir" and arguably, he's making a scene...

BACON

When you're in a synchronistic wave, the interest isn't just the thrill of the coincidences, but also the fact that you learn about areas you weren't so interested in. And I found out more than enough about bacon. So much so that I saw references to bacon everywhere. It was no longer of interest.

Bacon overload

I wanted to move on, which was immediately comically reflected in the synchronicities as I came across these two clips of the Simpsons (from other episodes) that say it all:
▶ The Simpsons - Butter your bacon: "So, you think you know better than this family, huh? Well, as long as you're in my house, you'll do what I do and believe what I believe. So, butter your bacon!" :-)
▶ The Simpsons - The bacon man: The clip I saw at the time on the Internet only included the part where Homer takes his order. So without any mention of Shakespeare. But already the fact that Homer presents the "portrait" of the omelette and says that we could add a "bacon nose", "bacon hair", "bacon mustache", etc... that made me chuckle. It gave me the impression that they were mimicking what I was doing just before with the portraits of Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and Charles Steinmetz.
It was more than a month later while writing this post and creating the video extract that I noticed that Shakespeare was mentioned just before! "I'm getting a sweatshirt with Shakespeare's face on it!". So we have a mention of a portrait of Shakespeare followed by a "portrait of bacon".

Bacon numbers

And the Internet bombarded me with bacon number this, bacon number that... what!? This profusion of bacon has even been prophesied; they made a law about that, the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon!
I quote:

In a January 1994 interview with Premiere magazine, Kevin Bacon mentioned while discussing the film The River Wild that "he had worked with everybody in Hollywood or someone who's worked with them."
Following this, a lengthy newsgroup thread which was headed "Kevin Bacon is the Center of the Universe" appeared.

→ L.O.L.

PROTEAN SPIRIT

PROTEUS

I overlooked something about Steinmetz the first time, he's called Charles PROTEUS Steinmetz:

Steinmetz Americanized his name to Charles Steinmetz. He chose Proteus as his middle name—the nickname his professors in Germany had affectionately bestowed upon him in recognition of the shape-shifting sea god. In Greek mythology, Proteus was a cave-dwelling prophetic old man who always returned to his human form—that of a hunchback. Steinmetz thoroughly enjoyed the comparison.
src: Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady

Shakespeare and Proteus

It's no surprise Shakespeare and Bacon, prolific writers, talked about Proteus. On the Proteus wikipedia page there is this quote:

I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.
— William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part Three, Act III, Scene ii

I wanted to know what the last line meant and a quick search led me to this Reddit post, What does Richard/Gloucester mean when he says "Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down.". This is a transcription of a scene from the film Richard III (1955).
In the video they refer to, the original monologue from the play Richard III is mixed with parts of a monologue by the same character (Richard III) from another play, Henry IV (the one in the Wikipedia quote):

[…]

And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

[…]
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
[…]
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall,
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.

I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut! were it further off, I'll pluck it down.

Bacon and Proteus

Francis Bacon also speaks of Proteus in "De sapientia veterum, liber", translated into English in "Of the Wisdom of the Ancients". It's short and interesting to read.

XIII. Proteus Or Matter

PROTEUS, the poets tell us, was herdsman to Neptune. He was an old man and a prophet; a prophet moreover of the very first order, and indeed thrice excellent; for he knew all three,—not the future only, but likewise the past and the present; insomuch that besides his power of divination, he was the messenger and interpreter of all antiquity and all secrets. His dwelling was under an immense cave. There it was his custom every day at noon to count his flock of seals and then go to sleep. And if any one wanted his help in any matter, the only way was first to secure his hands with handcuffs, and then to bind him with chains. Whereupon he on his part, in order to get free, would turn himself into all manner of strange shapes—fire, water, wild beasts, &c., till at last he returned again to his original shape.
The sense of this fable relates, it would seem, to the secrets of nature and the conditions of matter. For under the person of Proteus, Matter—the most ancient of all things, next to God—is meant to be represented. Now matter has its habitation under the vault of heaven, as under a cave. And it may be called the servant of Neptune, inasmuch as all the operation and dispensation of matter is effected principally in liquids.
[…]
src: https://www.bartleby.com/82/13.html

Spirit and Water

Consonant values

I noticed that the consonants of P-r-o-t-e-u-s are the same as those of S-p-i-r-i-t.

Matter of fact

The sense of this fable relates, it would seem, to the secrets of nature and the conditions of matter. For under the person of Proteus, Matter—the most ancient of all things, next to God—is meant to be represented. Now matter has its habitation under the vault of heaven, as under a cave. And it may be called the servant of Neptune, inasmuch as all the operation and dispensation of matter is effected principally in liquids.

Proteus, associated with matter, emerges from the sea^*️⃣ and sleeps in a cave, changing shape in between if one tries to capture him. The example of water is notoriously the first that comes to mind when we talk about the states of matter.
^*️⃣Note that in the video ▶ The Simpsons - The bacon man there is mention of returning to the ocean ("So, here for a snack before they roll you back into the ocean?"), in context I find that line a little ironic.

Capture the Serendipity

He can foretell the future, but, in a mytheme familiar to several cultures, will change his shape to avoid doing so; he answers only to those who are capable of capturing him.
src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus

At this point I reflect on how easily connections come to us when we are in this particular position of observer, whether we like it or not. This is the principle of serendipity. Very strange word which I bet many have trouble pronouncing correctly and which for me has changed during my life (Mandela Effect). By the way, I had posted about this on Retconned in the past and when looking for my post I preferred to go through Google rather than the Reddit search engine.
This is where I get suggested a movie, Serendipity (2001), but it's a romantic comedy, I'm not too into that, I'm barely interested. But my instinct tells me it's not there by chance. If I don't watch the film, I will still look into the director's filmography.
Peter Chelsom; I'm looking at the list of movies he's directed. Not very funky at first glance but there are one or two key words, one or two imagery elements that have been involved in previous synchronicities for me that kept me from abandoning this lead in a hurry. I ended up clicking on the link of the movie The Mighty (1998).

The Old Man of the Sea

A young boy suffering from a debilitating disease causing deformities rides 👁️‍🗨️ on the shoulders of another, stronger boy. The young boy lends his insight while the other boy lends his strength.
It reminds me of the story of the Old Man of the Sea:

• In The Odyssey: Book IV, Homer (the other Homer) calls Proteus the wise Old Man of the Sea.
  
• The Old Man of the Sea in the tales of Sinbad the Sailor depicts 👁️‍🗨️ an old man clinging to a man on his shoulders.
  

While writing these lines

While writing these lines from my notes (more than a month later^*️⃣) I distractedly watched the Serendipity movie trailer... and there I see a golf scene that I hadn't noticed before (probably because I had not watched the entire video). I decide to watch the film.
^*️⃣Also while writing these lines I mentally played with the word "serendipity"; seren-dipidy, seren-pididy, etc. Which inevitably reminded me of ▶ this scene from a music video where Ben Stiller struggles to find the right name for rapper Puff Daddy. The plot coincidentally revolves around a golf ball...

SERENDIPITY

The plot of the film is a story of a character who seeks the identity of another, enough to entice him to pursue serendipity. Reminds me of the content of this post.
Moreover, there are several factual elements that suggest that resemblance:

Amazing likeness

Knockoff

▶ Serendipity - Prada:

• Purchase of a product (supposedly) from a luxury fashion house brand: "Ooh! Prada!" ... "I'll take it."
  
• Discussion about a knockoff product name: "Eve, that's a horrific knockoff. At least my fake says Prada. Yours says Prado."
  
• Discussion about altering the product a bit to make it more presentable: "Yeah? Well, I say for a dollar, I can buy a little magic marker and fix that."
  

▶ The Simpsons - Chanel:

• Purchase of a product (supposedly) from a luxury fashion house brand: "Oh, it's beautiful. Can it be a real Chanel?" ... "All right, I will buy it."
  
• Discussion about knockoff product names: "Don't be a sap, Dad. These are just crappy knock-offs." | "I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox and Sorny."
  
• Discussion about altering the product a bit to make it more presentable: "Homer, please, I have to alter this suit so it looks different for tomorrow." | "Just slap some bumper stickers on it."
  

Golf

▶ The Simpsons - golf; To put into context, we had in the episode of The Simpsons:

• A character hit in the head by a golf club.
  
• A character hit in the head by a golf ball.
  
• A multitude of white balls scattered on the green.
  

[+]

• A character acknowledging a buried feeling: "I knew my kind wasn't welcome here."

▶ Serendipity - golf; The film Serendipity uses the synchronicity of golf as an factor of serendipity. And note these points:

• A character hit in the head by a golf ball.
  
• A character hit in the head by a golf club.
  
• A multitude of white balls scattered on a green floor.
  

[+] just a tiny bit of interpretation here:

• A character saying: "I think I swallowed a filling". Which I think is to be understood in the context of the film as "I think I swallowed a feeling".

Serpent and Destiny

Furthermore, the serpent is, in my humble opinion, an underlying theme in the film. I will avoid going too deep into the interpretations and just quickly relate a few noteworthy elements:

Serpent of old

▶ Serendipity - Cool Yule; The film opens with the song "Cool Yule" by Louis Armstrong with the Commanders. With these lyrics:

♪ And you gonna flip when Old Saint Nick ♪
♪ Plays a lick on a peppermint stick ♪

Old Nick could mean the Devil, Old Serpent, etc. An interesting discussion about the adjective "Old" in Old Nick.

Another one bites the dust

▶ Serendipity - crawling; A scene where the main character, Jonathan Trager (black jacket), is crawling on the ground.

In order, garter.

▶ Serenditpy - T-r-a-g-e-r; Jonathan Trager, T-r-a-g-e-r. Trager anagram of garter. Like a garter snake. But also a vocabulary used for a bride (which is in line with the apparent theme of the film).
Reminds me of something I jotted down somewhere...
...there it is:

Notably the pendant suspended on a ribbon from around Bacon’s neck, which in earlier portraits was deliberately concealed in such a way as to suggest a secret, is in this picture shown exposed, revealing itself as the Lesser George and thereby suggesting or indicating that Bacon was a secret Knight of the Garter, or had the right to be one.
src: https://www.fbrt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Portraits_of_Francis_Bacon.pdf#page=6

Some infos on The Order of the Garter.

Snake Club

The presence of the word snake in Beckinsale (the name of the main actress) is obvious. But, I was interested in the consonants of the word and I saw there the term Snake Club.
I explain, we remove the vowels and: b.c.k.n.s.l → s.n.k c.l.b
I do a Google search on "snake club". I come across a page on a movie site that talks about what looks like a Z movie titled "Snake Club: Revenge of the Snake Woman". I scroll down a bit and come across 👁️‍🗨️ this poster showing Kate Beckinsale herself in the first place of movie recommendations.

IN THE QUR'AN

CLUB AND SNAKE

At the time of the synchronicities with the Simpsons episode, I was interested in the symbolism of golf. The golf club is reminiscent of a farm tool, the hoe, I kept that in mind. With the intrusion of the serpent into my serendipity, I was instead led to think about the story of the staff of Musa (Moses) in the Qur'an. Especially in Surah 20, Ta-Ha:

20:17 And what is that in your right hand, O Moses?"
20:18 He said, "It is my staff; I lean upon it, and I bring down leaves for my sheep and I have therein other uses."
20:19 [Allah] said, "Throw it down, O Moses."
20:20 So he threw it down, and thereupon it was a snake, moving swiftly.
20:21 [Allah] said, "Seize it and fear not; We will return it to its former condition.
- Translation: Sahih International ⇠ I'll keep this translation throughout the topic.
src: Qur'an 20:[17-21]

This new perspective has taken the serendipity in a interesting direction. A scene described in this same surah caught my attention; Musa and Harun confront the magicians summoned by Pharaoh:

20:61 Moses said to the magicians summoned by Pharaoh, "Woe to you! Do not invent a lie against Allah or He will exterminate you with a punishment; and he has failed who invents [such falsehood]."
20:62 So they disputed over their affair among themselves and concealed their private conversation.
20:63 They said, "Indeed, these are two magicians who want to drive you out of your land with their magic and do away with your most exemplary way.
20:64 So resolve upon your plan and then come [forward] in line. And he has succeeded today who overcomes."
20:65 They said, "O Moses, either you throw or we will be the first to throw."
20:66 He said, "Rather, you throw." And suddenly their ropes and staffs seemed to him from their magic that they were moving [like snakes].
20:67 And he sensed within himself apprehension, did Moses.
20:68 Allah said, "Fear not. Indeed, it is you who are superior.
20:69 And throw what is in your right hand; it will swallow up what they have crafted. What they have crafted is but the trick of a magician, and the magician will not succeed wherever he is."
20:70 So the magicians fell down in prostration. They said, "We have believed in the Lord of Aaron and Moses."
20:71 [Pharaoh] said, "You believed him before I gave you permission. Indeed, he is your leader who has taught you magic. So I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, and I will crucify you on the trunks of palm trees, and you will surely know which of us is more severe in [giving] punishment and more enduring."
20:72 They said, "Never will we prefer you over what has come to us of clear proofs and [over] He who created us. So decree whatever you are to decree. You can only decree for this worldly life.
20:73 Indeed, we have believed in our Lord that He may forgive us our sins and what you compelled us [to do] of magic. And Allah is better and more enduring."
src: Qur'an 20:[61-73]

I spotted other similarities:

Intrigue and trick

➔ Qur'an 20:[61-63]; Note this:

• A secret confabulation: 20:62 "So they disputed over their affair among themselves and concealed their private conversation."
  
• Characters implying that other characters intend to use a trick: 20:63 "They said, "Indeed, these are two magicians who want to drive you out of your land with their magic and do away with your most exemplary way."^*️⃣
  

^*️⃣The magicians repeat here the words of Pharaoh a few ayat ("verses") before: "He said, "Have you come to us to drive us out of our land with your magic, O Moses?" Qur'an 20:57.
▶ Columbo - subterfuge (spoiler!); We have already mentioned these points in ALL IN ONE > COLUMBO > Ruse:

• A character who accuses another of trickery: "He put it there. Can’t you see? Before we came. He put it there!"
  
• A private discussion between two characters with the idea of keeping the subterfuge secret: "Off the record, eh?"
  

▶ The Simpsons - cheating; Same here:

• A character who accuses another of trickery: "You've been cheating. No matter where Mr. Burns hits the ball you put a fresh one on the green."
  
• A private discussion between two characters with the idea of keeping the cheating secret: "If you would keep quiet about the alleged decades of cheating I'm sure he'd support your application for membership tonight."
  

By hook or by crook

➔ Qur'an 20:[64-73]; Note this:

• An injunction to throw a staff...: 20:69 "And throw what is in your right hand; [...]"
  
• ...that will swallow up an illusion (objects that move like snakes; see 20:66): 20:69 "[...] it will swallow up what they have crafted. What they have crafted is but the trick of a magician, and the magician will not succeed wherever he is."
  
• Characters thrown down to prostration^1️⃣: 20:70 "So the magicians fell down in prostration. They said, "We have believed in the Lord of Aaron and Moses.""
  
• Characters acknowledging a hidden feeling: 20:73 "Indeed, we have believed in our Lord that He may forgive us our sins and what you compelled us^2️⃣ [to do] of magic. And Allah is better and more enduring.""
  

^1️⃣The magicians didn't just fell down, they were thrown down: fa-ul'qiya [So were thrown down] al-saharatu [the magicians] sujjadan [prostrating].Note that this is the same verb, in the passive form, as in the previous ayah in which Musa was asked to throw down his staff: wa-alqi [And throw] ma [what] fi [in] yaminika [your right hand]. This emphasizes the correlation between the two events.
^2️⃣The Arabic word "akrahtana" translated as "you compelled us" carries a notion of aversion. That is to say, to be compelled to something that generates aversion. Here the magicians finally admit their true feelings towards Pharaoh's orders.
▶ The Simpsons - golf; Notice the similarities:

• A character throws a golf club...
  
• ...which hits another character who then falls face down.
  
• The latter acknowledges a buried feeling: "I knew my kind wasn't welcome here."
  

▶ The Simpsons - cheating; ~ Swallowing fake snakes:
The club-thrower character puts a whole golf ball in his mouth, chews it, and proves that "these aren't reptile eggs".
▶ Serendipity - golf; Note the same similarities here:

• A character is hit by a golf club and then falls face down.
  
• The same character who says: "I think I swallowed a filling". Which I think is to be understood in the context of the film as "I think I swallowed a feeling"^*️⃣.
  

^*️⃣Note also the use of the verb "to swallow".

Destiny and Serpent

Divine measure

In Surah Ta-Ha Allah commands Musa to meet Pharaoh, reminding him of the divine interventions in the key stages of his existence on Earth:

20:36 [Allah] said, "You have been granted your request, O Moses.
20:37 And We had already conferred favor upon you another time,
20:38 When We inspired to your mother what We inspired,
20:39 [Saying], 'Cast him into the chest and cast it into the river, and the river will throw it onto the bank; there will take him an enemy to Me and an enemy to him.' And I bestowed upon you love from Me that you would be brought up under My eye.
20:40 [And We favored you] when your sister went and said, 'Shall I direct you to someone who will be responsible for him?' So We restored you to your mother that she might be content and not grieve. And you killed someone, but We saved you from retaliation and tried you with a [severe] trial. And you remained [some] years among the people of Madyan. Then you came [here] at the decreed time, O Moses.
20:41 And I produced you for Myself.
20:42 Go, you and your brother, with My signs and do not slacken in My remembrance.
20:43 Go, both of you, to Pharaoh. Indeed, he has transgressed.
src: Qur'an 20:[36-43]

All of these life events brought Musa to the ad hoc place and time: 20:40 "[...] Then you came [here] at the decreed time, O Moses.".

Tamed serpent

A sinuous life course alternating between threat and benevolence though not turning away from fate. Symbolized from the outset by the abandonment of the baby on the river, a river that snakes its way to destination. And marked at the appointed moment by the transformation of the staff into a serpent before it is returned to its former condition.
End of part 1/3.
The continuation is in On the trail of a spirit (2/3) →

I warn you that this post will be long and in three parts. It's the transcription of an episode of serendipity that will take us, starting with Charles Lindbergh, then through Shakespeare and other points of interest, on the trail of a spirit.
TL;DR: Here's a 👁️‍🗨️ table of contents.
⚠️ This post was intended as a follow-up to Identity Crisis, which I published on Retconned on July 24, 2022. The wave of coincidences hadn't stopped with the publication of the post.
I had hoped to publish the post before August 2022, but it didn't work out as expected.
However, I persevered and took the necessary time to finish it, which ended up being 21 months! During that time, I made additional connections and the topic's content expanded.
First, I'll repost here what I already wrote in the Identity Crisis thread and then add the rest of the story:
​
^{⌄ original posts ⌄}

IDENTITY CRISIS

I would like to talk about an entertaining little experience triggered by the post: Charles Lindburg or Lindbergh? by Emilieduchatelet1706.

Doubtful ressemblance

Seeing images of Charles Lindbergh immediately came to mind a certain resemblance to Patrick McGoohan.
Charles Lindbergh vs Patrick McGoohan
Well, I readily admit that it's not obvious, and I don't even dare to defend my case, but it's the rest of the story that matters.
Patrick McGoohan, plane… immediately, there too, I had in mind the episode of Columbo, Identity Crisis (s05e03).
Patrick McGoohan plays Nelson Brenner, the killer, and Columbo discovers that he was an aviator in his life full of travels and experiences. Columbo calls him a hero, much like Charles Lindbergh.
I think it's even likely that the character of Nelson Brenner was inspired by Lindbergh.

Fun Fact

Fun fact: As I write these lines I mechanically typed on Google "charles lindbergh" hero, and on the first link I clicked on I see this.
In the image Lindbergh stands in front of his plane, the Spirit of St.Louis. The article talks about his multiple lives. The first line, which I have highlighted, says: “Who the hell was Charles Lindbergh, whose multiple avatars spanned the entire history of the 20th century?”
…and Columbo is there in the corner.
In this video that I had prepared and uploaded before starting to write my post (and therefore before coming across the article), Columbo asks Brenner if he is the one standing in front of a plane (a “T33… SilverStar”) in a photo in black and white.
And ends with “Yes I seem to remember reading about that”... I find it a bit funny in this new context.

Steinmetz

In the episode there is another shady character whose true identity remains a mystery, he's called Steinmetz.
Mechanically too, I had typed Steinmetz on Google and I came across Charles Proteus Steinmetz, American mathematician and electrical engineer. I notice that his real name is “Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz”.
August, that sounds familiar to me. I look at Charles Lindbergh's page and yes that's right, his name is "Charles Augustus Lindbergh".
-> Identity Crisis
 
These entertaining little coincidences…

TAPESTRY OF LIFE

Small personal theory

I'm beginnig to imagine a small personal theory (a small hypothesis to guide my thoughts). That of a new birth in adulthood (rather around 40 years old than 20 years old). In any case a threshold in life.
In this vision, the genetic heritage is replaced by the knowledge of life before, that is to say before the threshold, and wisdom.
The reborn person by groping their way, configures (and reconfigures), (re)connects the data of the previous life to adapt to the (true) life to come. In a better way of their formatting before in the previous matrix with its so-called genetic program and the teaching received. And it's as if there was an underlying program of knowledge and wisdom from the start that tutored their life. A better program.

Not so personal?

I'm not a Christian... but a quick quick look at Wikipedia shows that I may not be far from the concept of born again that we hear about here and there.

Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."
"How can someone be born when they are old?" Nicodemus asked.
"Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit."
— Gospel of John, John chapter 3, verses 3–5, NIV[8]

Water and Spirit

In the previous image of the article -> Spirit of St.Louis is the name of the plane, and in front of the magazine cover with Columbo there is a magazine cover where it is written: La guerre de l'eau est déclarée (Water war is declared).

ALL IN ONE

Yesterday I was watching the first video again where Columbo looks at the picture on the wall. On the same wall I see a portrait that looks familiar, it seemed to me that it was supposed to represent Shakespeare (but maybe not, maybe it's Cervantes :D).
I've heard of a theory that Shakespeare didn't exist and that in fact Francis Bacon (the philosopher) was the author of his work. I have since associated the "idea" of Shakespeare with Francis Bacon.
Well, this theory is completely in line with the subject of Steinmetz in the Columbo episode. But we see that the portrait of Bacon does not at all resemble that of Shakespeare: Shakespeare vs Francis Bacon.
But Steinmetz himself? Francis Bacon vs Charles Steinmetz.
Wonderful! Bravo. Bravo.
​
^{⌄ follow-up ⌄}
⚠️ A note about the use of the word similarity in this post:
When the word 'similarity' is used in this post, it means that the elements being compared share the same idea, but are not necessarily identical copies. For example, something that moves from right to left can be seen as different from something that moves from left to right, but at the level of idea there may be a resemblance.

THE SIMPSONS

▶ The Simpsons - Steinmetz; Very soon after posting, doing a quick search on Steinmetz I come across a scene from The Simpsons episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield (s07e14)":

Homer as Steinmetz

Homer Simpson challenges Mister Burns to a game of golf. Burns as usual is mistaken about the identity of Homer Simpson. He calls him... Steinmetz!

Club sandwich

Homer says "Mmm... open-faced club sand wedge" and puts the word 'club' right before 'sand wedge'. The result is the phrase "club sandwich" (~ sand wedge). And one of the traditional ingredients in a club sandwich is bacon.

SHAKESPEARE

Interesting documentary

I don't know how I landed on the topic The Shakespeare Hole that I had already seen in the past but it was exactly the right time to remind myself of a documentary on Shakespeare that I had forgotten in a mental watch-later-list.
It is an interesting documentary, Cracking the Shakespeare Code (2017), about hidden codes in the work of Shakespeare with in particular the thesis that Sir Francis Bacon would be one of the authors. Viewable here.
This time I watched it! And... this lack of unfamiliarity... I don't remember ever watching it before but I didn't feel any sense of novelty. Hmmm...
For those interested, there are other hypotheses regarding Shakespeare's authorship.

Shakespeare the Bard

Shakespeare is known as "the Bard". The word bard, which means poet, also has other definitions, a piece of armor or ornament on a war horse and by analogy... bacon placed on game or meat before roasting.

COLUMBO

Sometimes the synchronicities come completely out of the blue, sometimes I have an intuition of where to focus my interest. Trivially I told myself that I was going to watch the episode of Columbo talking about Shakespeare, Dagger of the Mind.
In this episode several elements seem to gently taunt my flow of thoughts but it is obviously not the easiest things to explain. However I can relate a really curious series of synchronicities concerning golf and the Simpsons episode I mentioned above:

Welcome to the club

▶ Columbo in the club; Columbo while in London is invited to what I guess is called a gentlemen's club. There he makes two remarks:

• "When you said 'club', I thought you meant a country club or a health club."
  
• "When you said 'tea', I was afraid we were gonna get nothin’ but those tiny sandwiches."
  

Note the vocabulary used which, more or less subtly, refers to golf (while the episode has nothing to do with golf at all). A country club is commonly referred to simply as a golf club. And with ▶ the first video of The Simpsons freshly in mind, the words club, tea, and sandwich resonate like synchronicity. Especially with the formulation used by Columbo which adds a note of irony. Tea sounds exactly like tee, and sandwich for sand wedge.
▶ The Simpsons in the club; In the same episode of The Simpsons, the Simpson family is invited to a country club. Which echoes Columbo's words.
We will even notice that Homer and the kids remain at one entrance to the room while Marge is invited in among the other women. Which is the opposite of the Columbo video where the butler says: "Why do you think we keep the ladies out, sir?".

Pearls and balls

▶ Columbo - pearls; Note that in the scene a character throws a round white object which hits the head of another character who then lies on the ground in the middle of white pearls.
▶ The Simpsons - balls; Here a character hits a golf ball in the air which hits the head of another character who then lies on the ground before kneeling and finding himself in the middle of white balls.

Ruse

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: Skip this one if you don't want to know how Columbo confounded the culprits just yet.
▶ Columbo - subterfuge; Without formal proof, Columbo discreetly puts a white bead in an umbrella which allows the culprits to be confounded by their reactions.
Also note these three points:

• A character who verifies that the bead is genuine: "Why, it’s the same. Exactly the same."
  
• A character who accuses another of trickery: "He put it there. Can’t you see? Before we came. He put it there!"
  
• A private discussion between two characters with the idea of keeping the subterfuge secret: "Off the record, eh?"
  

▶ The Simpsons - cheating; Smithers puts a golf ball on the green near the hole to make Mr. Burns win.
And note the same three points:

• A character who verifies that the balls are genuine: "These aren't reptile eggs."
  
• A character who accuses another of trickery: "You've been cheating. No matter where Mr. Burns hits the ball you put a fresh one on the green."
  
• A private discussion between two characters with the idea of keeping the cheating secret: "If you would keep quiet about the alleged decades of cheating I'm sure he'd support your application for membership tonight."
  

"sir" scenes

▶ The Simpsons - sir; Homer says: "For once, maybe someone will call me "sir" without adding, "you're making a scene"."
▶ Columbo - sir; A character hears himself called "sir" and arguably, he's making a scene...

BACON

When you're in a synchronistic wave, the interest isn't just the thrill of the coincidences, but also the fact that you learn about areas you weren't so interested in. And I found out more than enough about bacon. So much so that I saw references to bacon everywhere. It was no longer of interest.

Bacon overload

I wanted to move on, which was immediately comically reflected in the synchronicities as I came across these two clips of the Simpsons (from other episodes) that say it all:
▶ The Simpsons - Butter your bacon: "So, you think you know better than this family, huh? Well, as long as you're in my house, you'll do what I do and believe what I believe. So, butter your bacon!" :-)
▶ The Simpsons - The bacon man: The clip I saw at the time on the Internet only included the part where Homer takes his order. So without any mention of Shakespeare. But already the fact that Homer presents the "portrait" of the omelette and says that we could add a "bacon nose", "bacon hair", "bacon mustache", etc... that made me chuckle. It gave me the impression that they were mimicking what I was doing just before with the portraits of Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and Charles Steinmetz.
It was more than a month later while writing this post and creating the video extract that I noticed that Shakespeare was mentioned just before! "I'm getting a sweatshirt with Shakespeare's face on it!". So we have a mention of a portrait of Shakespeare followed by a "portrait of bacon".

Bacon numbers

And the Internet bombarded me with bacon number this, bacon number that... what!? This profusion of bacon has even been prophesied; they made a law about that, the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon!
I quote:

In a January 1994 interview with Premiere magazine, Kevin Bacon mentioned while discussing the film The River Wild that "he had worked with everybody in Hollywood or someone who's worked with them."
Following this, a lengthy newsgroup thread which was headed "Kevin Bacon is the Center of the Universe" appeared.

→ L.O.L.

PROTEAN SPIRIT

PROTEUS

I overlooked something about Steinmetz the first time, he's called Charles PROTEUS Steinmetz:

Steinmetz Americanized his name to Charles Steinmetz. He chose Proteus as his middle name—the nickname his professors in Germany had affectionately bestowed upon him in recognition of the shape-shifting sea god. In Greek mythology, Proteus was a cave-dwelling prophetic old man who always returned to his human form—that of a hunchback. Steinmetz thoroughly enjoyed the comparison.
src: Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady

Shakespeare and Proteus

It's no surprise Shakespeare and Bacon, prolific writers, talked about Proteus. On the Proteus wikipedia page there is this quote:

I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.
— William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part Three, Act III, Scene ii

I wanted to know what the last line meant and a quick search led me to this Reddit post, What does Richard/Gloucester mean when he says "Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down.". This is a transcription of a scene from the film Richard III (1955).
In the video they refer to, the original monologue from the play Richard III is mixed with parts of a monologue by the same character (Richard III) from another play, Henry IV (the one in the Wikipedia quote):

[…]

And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

[…]
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
[…]
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall,
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.

I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut! were it further off, I'll pluck it down.

Bacon and Proteus

Francis Bacon also speaks of Proteus in "De sapientia veterum, liber", translated into English in "Of the Wisdom of the Ancients". It's short and interesting to read.

XIII. Proteus Or Matter

PROTEUS, the poets tell us, was herdsman to Neptune. He was an old man and a prophet; a prophet moreover of the very first order, and indeed thrice excellent; for he knew all three,—not the future only, but likewise the past and the present; insomuch that besides his power of divination, he was the messenger and interpreter of all antiquity and all secrets. His dwelling was under an immense cave. There it was his custom every day at noon to count his flock of seals and then go to sleep. And if any one wanted his help in any matter, the only way was first to secure his hands with handcuffs, and then to bind him with chains. Whereupon he on his part, in order to get free, would turn himself into all manner of strange shapes—fire, water, wild beasts, &c., till at last he returned again to his original shape.
The sense of this fable relates, it would seem, to the secrets of nature and the conditions of matter. For under the person of Proteus, Matter—the most ancient of all things, next to God—is meant to be represented. Now matter has its habitation under the vault of heaven, as under a cave. And it may be called the servant of Neptune, inasmuch as all the operation and dispensation of matter is effected principally in liquids.
[…]
src: https://www.bartleby.com/82/13.html

Spirit and Water

Consonant values

I noticed that the consonants of P-r-o-t-e-u-s are the same as those of S-p-i-r-i-t.

Matter of fact

The sense of this fable relates, it would seem, to the secrets of nature and the conditions of matter. For under the person of Proteus, Matter—the most ancient of all things, next to God—is meant to be represented. Now matter has its habitation under the vault of heaven, as under a cave. And it may be called the servant of Neptune, inasmuch as all the operation and dispensation of matter is effected principally in liquids.

Proteus, associated with matter, emerges from the sea^*️⃣ and sleeps in a cave, changing shape in between if one tries to capture him. The example of water is notoriously the first that comes to mind when we talk about the states of matter.
^*️⃣Note that in the video ▶ The Simpsons - The bacon man there is mention of returning to the ocean ("So, here for a snack before they roll you back into the ocean?"), in context I find that line a little ironic.

Capture the Serendipity

He can foretell the future, but, in a mytheme familiar to several cultures, will change his shape to avoid doing so; he answers only to those who are capable of capturing him.
src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus

At this point I reflect on how easily connections come to us when we are in this particular position of observer, whether we like it or not. This is the principle of serendipity. Very strange word which I bet many have trouble pronouncing correctly and which for me has changed during my life (Mandela Effect). By the way, I had posted about this on Retconned in the past and when looking for my post I preferred to go through Google rather than the Reddit search engine.
This is where I get suggested a movie, Serendipity (2001), but it's a romantic comedy, I'm not too into that, I'm barely interested. But my instinct tells me it's not there by chance. If I don't watch the film, I will still look into the director's filmography.
Peter Chelsom; I'm looking at the list of movies he's directed. Not very funky at first glance but there are one or two key words, one or two imagery elements that have been involved in previous synchronicities for me that kept me from abandoning this lead in a hurry. I ended up clicking on the link of the movie The Mighty (1998).

The Old Man of the Sea

A young boy suffering from a debilitating disease causing deformities rides 👁️‍🗨️ on the shoulders of another, stronger boy. The young boy lends his insight while the other boy lends his strength.
It reminds me of the story of the Old Man of the Sea:

• In The Odyssey: Book IV, Homer (the other Homer) calls Proteus the wise Old Man of the Sea.
  
• The Old Man of the Sea in the tales of Sinbad the Sailor depicts 👁️‍🗨️ an old man clinging to a man on his shoulders.
  

While writing these lines

While writing these lines from my notes (more than a month later^*️⃣) I distractedly watched the Serendipity movie trailer... and there I see a golf scene that I hadn't noticed before (probably because I had not watched the entire video). I decide to watch the film.
^*️⃣Also while writing these lines I mentally played with the word "serendipity"; seren-dipidy, seren-pididy, etc. Which inevitably reminded me of ▶ this scene from a music video where Ben Stiller struggles to find the right name for rapper Puff Daddy. The plot coincidentally revolves around a golf ball...

SERENDIPITY

The plot of the film is a story of a character who seeks the identity of another, enough to entice him to pursue serendipity. Reminds me of the content of this post.
Moreover, there are several factual elements that suggest that resemblance:

Amazing likeness

Knockoff

▶ Serendipity - Prada:

• Purchase of a product (supposedly) from a luxury fashion house brand: "Ooh! Prada!" ... "I'll take it."
  
• Discussion about a knockoff product name: "Eve, that's a horrific knockoff. At least my fake says Prada. Yours says Prado."
  
• Discussion about altering the product a bit to make it more presentable: "Yeah? Well, I say for a dollar, I can buy a little magic marker and fix that."
  

▶ The Simpsons - Chanel:

• Purchase of a product (supposedly) from a luxury fashion house brand: "Oh, it's beautiful. Can it be a real Chanel?" ... "All right, I will buy it."
  
• Discussion about knockoff product names: "Don't be a sap, Dad. These are just crappy knock-offs." | "I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox and Sorny."
  
• Discussion about altering the product a bit to make it more presentable: "Homer, please, I have to alter this suit so it looks different for tomorrow." | "Just slap some bumper stickers on it."
  

Golf

▶ The Simpsons - golf; To put into context, we had in the episode of The Simpsons:

• A character hit in the head by a golf club.
  
• A character hit in the head by a golf ball.
  
• A multitude of white balls scattered on the green.
  

[+]

• A character acknowledging a buried feeling: "I knew my kind wasn't welcome here."

▶ Serendipity - golf; The film Serendipity uses the synchronicity of golf as an factor of serendipity. And note these points:

• A character hit in the head by a golf ball.
  
• A character hit in the head by a golf club.
  
• A multitude of white balls scattered on a green floor.
  

[+] just a tiny bit of interpretation here:

• A character saying: "I think I swallowed a filling". Which I think is to be understood in the context of the film as "I think I swallowed a feeling".

Serpent and Destiny

Furthermore, the serpent is, in my humble opinion, an underlying theme in the film. I will avoid going too deep into the interpretations and just quickly relate a few noteworthy elements:

Serpent of old

▶ Serendipity - Cool Yule; The film opens with the song "Cool Yule" by Louis Armstrong with the Commanders. With these lyrics:

♪ And you gonna flip when Old Saint Nick ♪
♪ Plays a lick on a peppermint stick ♪

Old Nick could mean the Devil, Old Serpent, etc. An interesting discussion about the adjective "Old" in Old Nick.

Another one bites the dust

▶ Serendipity - crawling; A scene where the main character, Jonathan Trager (black jacket), is crawling on the ground.

In order, garter.

▶ Serenditpy - T-r-a-g-e-r; Jonathan Trager, T-r-a-g-e-r. Trager anagram of garter. Like a garter snake. But also a vocabulary used for a bride (which is in line with the apparent theme of the film).
Reminds me of something I jotted down somewhere...
...there it is:

Notably the pendant suspended on a ribbon from around Bacon’s neck, which in earlier portraits was deliberately concealed in such a way as to suggest a secret, is in this picture shown exposed, revealing itself as the Lesser George and thereby suggesting or indicating that Bacon was a secret Knight of the Garter, or had the right to be one.
src: https://www.fbrt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Portraits_of_Francis_Bacon.pdf#page=6

Some infos on The Order of the Garter.

Snake Club

The presence of the word snake in Beckinsale (the name of the main actress) is obvious. But, I was interested in the consonants of the word and I saw there the term Snake Club.
I explain, we remove the vowels and: b.c.k.n.s.l → s.n.k c.l.b
I do a Google search on "snake club". I come across a page on a movie site that talks about what looks like a Z movie titled "Snake Club: Revenge of the Snake Woman". I scroll down a bit and come across 👁️‍🗨️ this poster showing Kate Beckinsale herself in the first place of movie recommendations.

IN THE QUR'AN

CLUB AND SNAKE

At the time of the synchronicities with the Simpsons episode, I was interested in the symbolism of golf. The golf club is reminiscent of a farm tool, the hoe, I kept that in mind. With the intrusion of the serpent into my serendipity, I was instead led to think about the story of the staff of Musa (Moses) in the Qur'an. Especially in Surah 20, Ta-Ha:

20:17 And what is that in your right hand, O Moses?"
20:18 He said, "It is my staff; I lean upon it, and I bring down leaves for my sheep and I have therein other uses."
20:19 [Allah] said, "Throw it down, O Moses."
20:20 So he threw it down, and thereupon it was a snake, moving swiftly.
20:21 [Allah] said, "Seize it and fear not; We will return it to its former condition.
- Translation: Sahih International ⇠ I'll keep this translation throughout the topic.
src: Qur'an 20:[17-21]

This new perspective has taken the serendipity in a interesting direction. A scene described in this same surah caught my attention; Musa and Harun confront the magicians summoned by Pharaoh:

20:61 Moses said to the magicians summoned by Pharaoh, "Woe to you! Do not invent a lie against Allah or He will exterminate you with a punishment; and he has failed who invents [such falsehood]."
20:62 So they disputed over their affair among themselves and concealed their private conversation.
20:63 They said, "Indeed, these are two magicians who want to drive you out of your land with their magic and do away with your most exemplary way.
20:64 So resolve upon your plan and then come [forward] in line. And he has succeeded today who overcomes."
20:65 They said, "O Moses, either you throw or we will be the first to throw."
20:66 He said, "Rather, you throw." And suddenly their ropes and staffs seemed to him from their magic that they were moving [like snakes].
20:67 And he sensed within himself apprehension, did Moses.
20:68 Allah said, "Fear not. Indeed, it is you who are superior.
20:69 And throw what is in your right hand; it will swallow up what they have crafted. What they have crafted is but the trick of a magician, and the magician will not succeed wherever he is."
20:70 So the magicians fell down in prostration. They said, "We have believed in the Lord of Aaron and Moses."
20:71 [Pharaoh] said, "You believed him before I gave you permission. Indeed, he is your leader who has taught you magic. So I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, and I will crucify you on the trunks of palm trees, and you will surely know which of us is more severe in [giving] punishment and more enduring."
20:72 They said, "Never will we prefer you over what has come to us of clear proofs and [over] He who created us. So decree whatever you are to decree. You can only decree for this worldly life.
20:73 Indeed, we have believed in our Lord that He may forgive us our sins and what you compelled us [to do] of magic. And Allah is better and more enduring."
src: Qur'an 20:[61-73]

I spotted other similarities:

Intrigue and trick

➔ Qur'an 20:[61-63]; Note this:

• A secret confabulation: 20:62 "So they disputed over their affair among themselves and concealed their private conversation."
  
• Characters implying that other characters intend to use a trick: 20:63 "They said, "Indeed, these are two magicians who want to drive you out of your land with their magic and do away with your most exemplary way."^*️⃣
  

^*️⃣The magicians repeat here the words of Pharaoh a few ayat ("verses") before: "He said, "Have you come to us to drive us out of our land with your magic, O Moses?" Qur'an 20:57.
▶ Columbo - subterfuge (spoiler!); We have already mentioned these points in ALL IN ONE > COLUMBO > Ruse:

• A character who accuses another of trickery: "He put it there. Can’t you see? Before we came. He put it there!"
  
• A private discussion between two characters with the idea of keeping the subterfuge secret: "Off the record, eh?"
  

▶ The Simpsons - cheating; Same here:

• A character who accuses another of trickery: "You've been cheating. No matter where Mr. Burns hits the ball you put a fresh one on the green."
  
• A private discussion between two characters with the idea of keeping the cheating secret: "If you would keep quiet about the alleged decades of cheating I'm sure he'd support your application for membership tonight."
  

By hook or by crook

➔ Qur'an 20:[64-73]; Note this:

• An injunction to throw a staff...: 20:69 "And throw what is in your right hand; [...]"
  
• ...that will swallow up an illusion (objects that move like snakes; see 20:66): 20:69 "[...] it will swallow up what they have crafted. What they have crafted is but the trick of a magician, and the magician will not succeed wherever he is."
  
• Characters thrown down to prostration^1️⃣: 20:70 "So the magicians fell down in prostration. They said, "We have believed in the Lord of Aaron and Moses.""
  
• Characters acknowledging a hidden feeling: 20:73 "Indeed, we have believed in our Lord that He may forgive us our sins and what you compelled us^2️⃣ [to do] of magic. And Allah is better and more enduring.""
  

^1️⃣The magicians didn't just fell down, they were thrown down: fa-ul'qiya [So were thrown down] al-saharatu [the magicians] sujjadan [prostrating].Note that this is the same verb, in the passive form, as in the previous ayah in which Musa was asked to throw down his staff: wa-alqi [And throw] ma [what] fi [in] yaminika [your right hand]. This emphasizes the correlation between the two events.
^2️⃣The Arabic word "akrahtana" translated as "you compelled us" carries a notion of aversion. That is to say, to be compelled to something that generates aversion. Here the magicians finally admit their true feelings towards Pharaoh's orders.
▶ The Simpsons - golf; Notice the similarities:

• A character throws a golf club...
  
• ...which hits another character who then falls face down.
  
• The latter acknowledges a buried feeling: "I knew my kind wasn't welcome here."
  

▶ The Simpsons - cheating; ~ Swallowing fake snakes:
The club-thrower character puts a whole golf ball in his mouth, chews it, and proves that "these aren't reptile eggs".
▶ Serendipity - golf; Note the same similarities here:

• A character is hit by a golf club and then falls face down.
  
• The same character who says: "I think I swallowed a filling". Which I think is to be understood in the context of the film as "I think I swallowed a feeling"^*️⃣.
  

^*️⃣Note also the use of the verb "to swallow".

Destiny and Serpent

Divine measure

In Surah Ta-Ha Allah commands Musa to meet Pharaoh, reminding him of the divine interventions in the key stages of his existence on Earth:

20:36 [Allah] said, "You have been granted your request, O Moses.
20:37 And We had already conferred favor upon you another time,
20:38 When We inspired to your mother what We inspired,
20:39 [Saying], 'Cast him into the chest and cast it into the river, and the river will throw it onto the bank; there will take him an enemy to Me and an enemy to him.' And I bestowed upon you love from Me that you would be brought up under My eye.
20:40 [And We favored you] when your sister went and said, 'Shall I direct you to someone who will be responsible for him?' So We restored you to your mother that she might be content and not grieve. And you killed someone, but We saved you from retaliation and tried you with a [severe] trial. And you remained [some] years among the people of Madyan. Then you came [here] at the decreed time, O Moses.
20:41 And I produced you for Myself.
20:42 Go, you and your brother, with My signs and do not slacken in My remembrance.
20:43 Go, both of you, to Pharaoh. Indeed, he has transgressed.
src: Qur'an 20:[36-43]

All of these life events brought Musa to the ad hoc place and time: 20:40 "[...] Then you came [here] at the decreed time, O Moses.".

Tamed serpent

A sinuous life course alternating between threat and benevolence though not turning away from fate. Symbolized from the outset by the abandonment of the baby on the river, a river that snakes its way to destination. And marked at the appointed moment by the transformation of the staff into a serpent before it is returned to its former condition.
End of part 1/3.
The continuation is in On the trail of a spirit (2/3) →

Have

• Items with "various" condition indicates I have more than one copy.
• Modded systems will NOT come with illegal/pirated games.
• Most disk based games for trade have been professionally resurfaced and tested thoroughly, unless the game was already in pristine condition.
• Do not ask me for prices or what value I have on these items - please make an offer.

Consoles

Item	Condition	Notes
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW1011] OEM Red (not Mario Red) Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, custom transparent backplate, Pokemon stickers, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW9420] This is a demo/kiosk unit that displays a message "Could not load software" upon boot. The console has been formatted and does not display the demo software. It needs to either be modded or loaded with the demo software to run. This is a collector's item more than anything. Kickstand and screen protector included. No Joy-Cons.
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW1003] UNPATCHED, Neon/Red Joy-Cons, includes glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW 1002] UNPATCHED, Pink/Neon Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch Lite (Blue)	CIB
Nintendo Switch Lite (Gray	Very Good	Loose; will come with USB-C cable for charging.
Nintendo New 3DS (Black Friday)	Very Good	New top screen shield installed, some general signs of use throughout. Comes with charger.
Nintendo New 3DS XL (Black)	Very Good	Comes with soft case, charger, and Nintendo-branded hard shell case
Nintendo WiiU Black 32GB	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords (may be third party) and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo WiiU Black 32GB Legend of Zelda Edition	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords (may be third party) and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo WiiU White (PAL) with New Super Mario Bros. U (PAL)	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo N64 (stock)	Various	Loose, can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak, and OEM or custom controller
Nintendo N64 (USB-C power mod)	Various	Loose, console has a usb-c port instead of stock power brick connector. Can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak, and OEM or custom controller
Nintendo N64 (Jungle Green)	Very Good	Stock, loose, can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak. Will come with a matching OEM Jungle Green custom controller if desired
NES	Good	New pin connector, lockout chip removed. Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Gamecube (Black & Platinum) with GCLoader ODE	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers. No other mods installed.
Nintendo Gamecube (Black & Platinum)	Various	Stock. Can include cords and/or controllers
Sega Dreamcast	Various	Stock. Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (White & Black, Gamecube compatible) with Homebrew Launcher	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (White & Black, Gamecube compatible)	Various	Stock. Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (Light Blue)	Very Good	Stock. Can include cords and/or controllers
Playstation 2 (Slim & Fat) with Free McBoot	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Playstation 3 (Slim)	Various	Loose, can include cords and/or controllers
Xbox 360 Slim	Various	Stock. Console only, no hard drive
Nintendo DS Lite (Black)	Good	No charger, stylus, or Game Pak cover; charges with good battery and both cartridge slots work
Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie! Game Boy Color	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo 3DS (Pink)	CIB	With box protector
Playstation Classic	Loose	(x2) Includes 1 controller (each)

Cartridge Games

Console	Item	Condition	Description/Notes
NES	Super Mario/Duck Hunt	Various	Loose
NES	Super Mario Bros. 3	Various	Loose
SNES	Super Mario World	Various	Loose. Will come with new save battery
Nintendo 64	Super Bowling 64	Very Good	Loose (Valued $800 firm)
Nintendo 64	Super Mario 64	CIB Very Good	Player's Choice
Nintendo 64	Super Smash Bros.	CIB Good
Game Boy (Color)	Pokemon Blue	Very Good	Loose. Will come with new save battery.
Game Boy (Color)	Pokemon Pinball	Various	Loose.
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario Advance	CIB Very Good
Nintendo 3DS	Pokemon Moon	Very Good	CIB
Switch	Nickelodeon Kart Racers	Very Good	Loose
Switch	Minecraft	Very Good	Loose
Switch	Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania	Loose
Switch	Super Mario Party	Very Good	CIB
Switch	Mario Kart 8 Deluxe	Very Good	CIB. Box art is slightly crinkled
Switch	Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Double Pack	New	Sealed

Disk Games (Complete or Semi-Complete)

• All boxes will be OEM boxes unless otherwise noted
• I can't stress enough that everything in this category COMES WITH THE GAME TOO.

Console	Item	Condition	Description/Notes
Gamecube	Legend of Zelda Collectors Edition Promo Disk	Good	Box and disk only, no inserts, some wear on the box art
Wii	Wii Sports	Various	Cardboard sleeve & Manual (some are missing manuals)
Wii	Mario Kart Wii	Very Good	Big Box, Wii Wheel (new in bag), Game with Manual & Inserts
Wii	Zelda Twilight Princess	Very Good	Box, Manual, & Inserts
Wii	Mario Party 8	Very Good	Box, Manual, & Inserts
Wii U	Mario Kart 8	Very Good	Box & Manual
Dreamcast	NFL 2K	Factory Sealed
Dreamcast	Sonic Advance	Very Good	First run
Playstation	Jet Moto 2	Very Good	Black label
Playstation	Road Rash 3D	Very Good	Greatest Hits
Playstation	Crash Team Racing	Various	Greatest Hits & Black Label, some missing manuals
Playstation	Soul Blade	Very Good	Greatest Hits
Playstation	Resident Evil Director's Cut	Various	Greatest Hits CIB

Loose Disks

• All disks have been professionally resurfaced/buffed when necessary and tested thoroughly
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have a case, box, or manual for any of the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Title	Description
Gamecube	ATV 2: Quad Power Racing
Gamecube	Batman: Vengeance
Gamecube	Bionicle Heroes
Gamecube	Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad
Gamecube	Crash Tag Team Racing
Gamecube	Crazy Taxi
Gamecube	Donkey Konga	Also have several DK Bongos for trade!
Gamecube	FIFA 2003
Gamecube	Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Gamecube	Harry Potter to Himitsu no Heiya (JAP)
Gamecube	Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup
Gamecube	Home Run King
Gamecube	LOTR: Return of the King
Gamecube	Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Gamecube	Metroid Prime Echoes Bonus Disk
Gamecube	MC Groovz: Dance CRAZE
Gamecube	Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance
Gamecube	Naruto Clash of Ninja 2
Gamecube	NAMCO Museum
Gamecube	Need For Speed Underground
Gamecube	Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2
Gamecube	NHL 2003
Gamecube	Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Gamecube	Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Gamecube	Resident Evil 4	Disk 2 only
Gamecube	Resident Evil Biohazard 0 (JAP)	Both disks
Gamecube	Robotech Battlecry
Gamecube	Shrek 2
Gamecube	Sonic Heroes
Gamecube	Sonic Mega Collection
Gamecube	Splinter Cell: Double Agent	Both disks
Gamecube	Spy Hunter
Gamecube	Spyro: A New Beginning
Gamecube	Star Fox Adventures
Gamecube	Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Gamecube	Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2
Gamecube	Super Smash Bros. Melee (x2)
Gamecube	Tak: The Great Juju Challenge
Gamecube	Tak: The Power of Juju
Gamecube	The Simpsons Road Rage
Gamecube	Tony Hawk's Underground
Gamecube	True Crime: Streets of LA
Wii	Backyard Baseball '10
Wii	Battalion Wars II
Wii	Bleach: Shattered Blade (Shonen Jump)
Wii	Donkey Kong Country Returns
Wii	Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Wii	Kirby Epic Yarn
Wii	Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Wii	Mario Kart Wii
Wii	New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy 2
Wii	Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Wii	Wii Sports
Wii	Wii Sports & Wii Sports Resort (Single Disk)
Wii	Wii Sports Resort
Wii	Zelda Twilight Princess
Wii U	Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival
Wii U	Minecraft Wii U Edition
Wii U	New Super Mario Bros. U
Wii U	Pokken Tournament
Wii U	Splatoon
Wii U	Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Wii U	Zelda BOTW	Will come with home-printed cover
Playstation	Agile Warrior F-III X
Playstation	Auto Destruct
Playstation	Blasto
Playstation	Breath of Fire III
Playstation	Casper
Playstation	Chrono Cross	White Disks
Playstation	Crash Team Racing
Playstation	Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
Playstation	Dragonball Final Bout	Gray/Blue Disk (Bandai version)
Playstation	Final Fantasy Chronicles & Chrono Trigger	White Disk
Playstation	Final Fantasy Tactics	White Disk
Playstation	Final Fantasy VII	White Disks
Playstation	Grand Theft Auto
Playstation	Jet Moto 2
Playstation	Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver	Green Disk
Playstation	Lode Runner: The Legend Returns/Extra
Playstation	Mega Man X4	White Disk
Playstation	Mega Man X5	Blue Disk
Playstation	Metal Gear Solid	Disk 1 (Black)
Playstation	MYST
Playstation	Need for Speed 3
Playstation	Need For Speed: High Stakes
Playstation	Playstation Demo Disk 42 March 2001
Playstation	Playstation Underground Jampack Fall 2001
Playstation	Power Serve: 3D Tennis
Playstation	Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
Playstation	Revolution X: Music is the Weapon
Playstation	Ridge Racer
Playstation	Rogue Trip
Playstation	Saga Frontier 2	Comes with waterlogged manual cover and back art
Playstation	Silent Hill
Playstation	Squaresoft 1998 Collector's CD vol. 1
Playstation	Spyro The Dragon	Silver Disk
Playstation	Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles
Playstation	Syphon Filter 2	Disk 1
Playstation	Tekken 2	Color disk edition
Playstation	Tekken 3	Color disk edition
Playstation	Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
Playstation	Test Drive 4
Playstation	The Last Revelation
Playstation	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater	Blue Disk & Greatest Hits (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider II	Red Disk & Greatest Hits (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider III	Green Disk (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider	Blue Disk
Playstation	Toy Story 2
Playstation	Twisted Metal 4	SilveGreen Disk
Playstation	Twisted Metal II
Playstation	Wild Arms 2	Disc 2 only
Playstation	Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
Playstation 2	Contra: Shattered Soldier
Playstation 2	Dark Cloud
Playstation 2	Def Jam Fight For NY	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Def Jam Vendetta	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Drakengard 2
Playstation 2	Ed, Edd, n Eddy: The Mis-EDventures
Playstation 2	Gran Turismo 3
Playstation 2	Jak 3
Playstation 2	Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Playstation 2	Metal Gear Solid 3
Playstation 2	Metal Slug Anthology
Playstation 2	Midnight Club Street Racing	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	MLB Power Pros
Playstation 2	MLB Slugfest 2006
Playstation 2	Need For Speed Underground 2 (x2)
Playstation 2	NFL Street	DEMO NOT FOR RESALE
Playstation 2	Resident Evil X Code: Veronica	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Skate 3
Playstation 2	Sonic The Hedgehog
Playstation 2	Spider-Man Web of Shadows Amazing Allies Edition
Playstation 2	The Simpsons Road Rage	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	TMNT	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Tomb Raider Anniversary
Playstation 2	True Crime: Streets of LA
Playstation 3	Bayonetta
Playstation 3	Ratchet and Clank FUTURE: A Clank in Time	Greatest Hits
PSP	007 Casino Royale (Movie)	Tested, in original white shell
PSP	Capcom Classics Collection Remixed	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Daxter	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Dissidia: Final Fantasy	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Final Fantasy IV	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Movie)	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	From Dusk Till Dawn (Movie)	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan Daijiten	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Medal of Honor Heroes 2	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Medievil Resurrection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Metal Slug Anthology	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Midnight Club L.A. Remix	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	MLB	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Gundam	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Monster Hunter Freedom	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NAMCO Museum Battle Collection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NBA Ballers Rebound	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Need For Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NFL Street 2 Unleashed	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Pursuit Force	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Secret Agent Clank	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Splinter Cell Essentials
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront Elite Squadron	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront II	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Lethal Alliance	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tekken Dark Resurrection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tony Hawk's Underground 2 REMIX	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tron Evolution	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	True Crime: Streets of LA

Game & Console Boxes

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have an item to complete a set from the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Nintendo Gamecube	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	K-Mart exclusive cover and Nintendo Power Strategy Guide (no game or inserts)
Nintendo Switch	Switch Lite	Yellow and Coral boxes (no inserts)
Nintendo Switch	Switch Gen 1 & 2 Boxes	Red/Blue and Gray variants, some inserts
Nintendo 3DS	Pokemon X	Box and inserts only
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Console (Black/Blue) Super Mario Bros. 2	Console Box (x2)
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Console (White/Red) Super Mario Bros. 2	Console Box (x2)
Gamecube	Spongebob Sauarepants: Creature from the Krusty Krab	Black Label Box
Gamecube	Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble	Black Label Box
Switch	Zelda BOTW	Box & Art

Manuals

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have an item to complete a set from the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Atari 2600	Centipede	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Combat	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Missile Command	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Pac-Man	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Space Invaders	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Tutankham	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Asteroids/Missle Commands	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Bionic Battler	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Brain Drain	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Donkey Kong	Loose Manual
Game Boy	F1 Race	Loose Manual (x3)
Game Boy	Game Boy Camera	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Joshua The Battle of Jericho	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Jurassic Park	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Kid Icarus	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Kirby’s Pinball Land	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Pokemon Sapphire	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Star Wars	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Tetris	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Tetris Blast	Loose Manual
Game Boy	The Rugrats Movie	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Toy Story	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Yoshi	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Breath of Fire	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Breath of Fire II	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Cima The Enemy	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	DK King of Swing	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Frogger’s Adventure: Temple of the Frog	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Frogger Advance: The Great Quest	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Gauntlet/Rampart
Game Boy Advance	Golden Sun (With Poster)	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Lufia The Ruins of Lore	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Mario Kart Super Circuit	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Metroid Fusion	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Namco Museum
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Pitfall The Mayan Adventure	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Sapphire	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario World - Super Mario Advance 2	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario Advance	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Warioland 4	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Wolfenstein 3D	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Duke Nukem	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Frogger	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Pokemon Pinball	Loose Manual (x3)	2 in good condition, 1 has a loose cover
Game Boy Color	Revelations The Demon Slayer	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	X-Men Mutant Academy	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Zelda Oracle of Seasons	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	NFL Blitz	Loose Manual
Gamecube	NBA Live 06	Loose Manual
NES	Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros	Loose Manual (x2)
NES	Excitebike	Loose Manual
NES	Formula One Built To Win	Loose Manual
NES	Mega Man 2	Loose Manual
NES	Super Mario Bros 2	Loose Manual (x2)
NES	Super Mario Bros 3	Loose Manual
NES	Tetris 2	Loose Manual
Nintendo 64	Donkey Kong 64	Loose Manual (x2)
Nintendo 64	Goldeneye 007	Loose Manual (x2)
Nintendo 64	Mario Kart 64	Loose Manual
Nintendo 64	Zelda Ocarina of Time	Loose Manual (x2)
SNES	Super Mario All Stars	Loose Manual (x2)
SNES	Super Mario Kart	Loose Manual
SNES	Super Mario World	Loose Manual (x3)
Wii	Mario Party 8	Loose Manual
Wii	Mario Super Sluggers	Loose Manual
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy 2	Loose Manual
Wii	Super Smash Bros. Brawl	Loose Manual
Playstation	Crash Bandicoot (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Crash Bash (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Duke Nukem Total Meltdown	Loose Manual
Playstation	Final Fantasy VIII	Loose Manual
Playstation	Spyro The Dragon (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Tekken 2	Loose Manual
Playstation	Twisted Metal III (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual

Strategy Guides & Magazines

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• Some of these did not advertise posters or other promotional items, so I did not include that in the description. The ones that do indicate a promotional item will have that in the description

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Game Boy	Game Boy Player's Guide	Official Nintendo	Very Good
Game Boy	Pokemon Red	Prima Strategy Guide (x2)	Very Good
Game Boy Color	Pokemon Trading Card Game	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good - no promotional card
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Official Nintendo Power Guide (x2)	Acceptable, no poster, some loose binding, creases
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Prima Strategy Guide	Very Good - poster included (detached)
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire	Prima Strategy Guide	Acceptable, slightly waterlogged
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire	Prima Strategy Guide	Good
Game Boy Advance	Zelda Minish Cap	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good - poster included (attached)
Gamecube	Super Smash Bros. Melee	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Good, some creases
Gamecube	Zelda Wind Waker	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Multi	Primal Rage	Brady Totally Unauthorized Guide	Good, some creases
Nintendo 64	Diddy Kong Racing	Brady Totally Unauthorized Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Nintendo 64	Pokemon Stadium	Prima Strategy Guide	Very Good
Nintendo 64	Star Wars Episode I RACER	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good
Nintendo 64	Zelda Ocarina of Time	Prima/Gamestop Exclusive	Good
Nintendo DS	Pokemon Diamond and Pearl	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Nintendo DS	Pokemon White 2 and Black 2	Official Preview Guide	Very Good
Nintendo Power	Volume 99 - Goldeneye 007	Official Nintendo Power Magazine	Very Good, includes tear-outs (attached), small price sticker on front

Controllers, Accessories, & Misc.

Item	Condition	Notes
Official SNES Controller for Nintendo Switch	Very Good	(x2) CIB but missing plastic bags
Official Nintendo 64 Controller for Switch	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo Swtich Pro Controller	CIB	Used but in Very Good condition
Super Mario Game & Watch	Various	NIB & CIB but missing outer sleeve
Nintendo New 3DS Black Friday Bottom Faceplate	Very Good	Will trade for literally any other set of OEM faceplates
Mario WiiMote	Very Good	Loose, comes with blue strap and red WiiMote sleeve
N64 Expansion Pak	Very Good	Loose
Xbox One Minecraft Controller	Very Good	Loose
Various Nintendo Consoles & Handhelds Parts & Mods	Various	See what I do here
Custom Nintendo 64 Controllers	Various	See what I do here
Nintendo 64 Joystick Gears	New	See what I do here
Pokemon Go Plus wristband	Very Good	Complete in Box
Sony PS3 controller	New	New in Box/Blister pack
Gamecube DK Bongos	Various
PS Vita 4GB Memory Card	Very Good	Loose (x2)
Retro Fighters N64 Controller (Ice Blue)	Very Good	Loose, but not used other than to test.
Dreamcast VMU's (Gray, Clear Blue, Clear Green)	Very Good	Missing caps, looking for other colored variants. I have: Clear Blue, Clear Green, Clear Black, Clear Red

Swaps

• I would like to straight swap these items for other specific items.

Console	Item	Swap For:
Xbox Series S/X	Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Disk Version (Loose)	Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Xbox Digital Code
Nintendo 64	Orange/Yellow Pokemon N64 Controller	Blue/Yellow Pokemon N64 Controller

High-Priority Wants

Console	Item	Description/Notes
Nintendo 64	Blue/Yellow Pokemon Pikachu N64	Light and Dark Blue varieties, Console and controller
Neo Geo Pocket Color	Baseball Stars	CIB Preferred
Miscellaneous	Tony Hawks' Pro Skater 1&2 Vinyl	Click link for specific release
Miscellaneous	Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow Vinyl	Click link for specific release
Nintendo Gamecube	Paper Mario TTYD	Manual only
Game Boy Advance	Metroid: Zero Mission	Game and manual only
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Sapphire	Box only
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Box only
Misc. Nintendo	Nintendo Oddities	Kiosks, displays, promotional items, NFR cartridges, etc. Not dumb little Target/Walmart keychains
Nintendo New 3DS	New 3DS White	Can have any/missing faceplates
Nintendo Switch	Joy-Con Controllers	Any and all OEM Joy Cons. Can have stick drift. All buttons must be functional.
Dreamcast	VMU Variants	Looking for clear yellow and other international variants

Other Wants

• Open to offers!

Console	Item	Description/Notes
NES	Super Mario 3	Box only; Left Bros preferred
Nintendo Virtual Boy	Virtual Boy Games, Boxes & Accessories	I have: Mario Clash, Mario Tennis, Teleroboxer, Golf (CIB), Wario Land, 3D Tetris, Galactic Pinball, Red Alarm, Red Alarm (NFR cart) & Virtual League Baseball (CIB); CIB preferred
Nintendo 64	JAP Watermelon console	Loose preferred, do not need cords/controller
Game Boy Advance	Zelda Four Swords	Box & Manual (Greatest Hits Okay)
Game Boy Advance	Pac Man (NES Classic GBA Series)	CIB preferred
Game Boy Advance	Metroid (NES Classic GBA Series)	CIB preferred
Nintendo Gamecube	Mario Party 4	Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	Mario Party 5	CIB only (Greatest Hits Okay)
Nintendo Gamecube	Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disk	CIB only
Nintendo Gamecube	Paper Mario TTYD	Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	Soul Calibur II	Box & Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	Disk and manual only
Nintendo DS	HeartGold/SoulSilver PokeWalkers	Any and all, including the clip and cardboard insert
Nintendo Gamecube	Metroid Prime 1 & 2	Case art that advertises the dual pack only with manuals (no games)
Nintendo 3DS	Special Edition 2DS/3DS systems	I have: Pokemon B, Zelda Hyrule, Zelda Triforce, Black Black Friday, White Black Friday, Pokemon Red & Yellow 2DS (JAP), NES, Mario Maker 2DS, Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. 2; Interested in basically any special edition variant of the 2DS/3DS line, New & XL models preferred. Complete In Box preferred
Nintendo 2DS	White/Red Nintendo 2DS	Loose preferred
Nintendo 2DS	Blue/Black Nintendo 2DS	Loose preferred
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Screen	Or one with a damaged motherboard or other issues. Screen must be in working condition
Misc. Nintendo	Pokemon Boxes & Manuals	Any and all cardboard variants
Misc. Nintendo	Nintendo Game & Watch handhelds	Pre-Game Boy era systems only. Not looking for the new re-releases
Dreamcast	OEM Controller Variants	I have: Clear Green/Red/Black/Blue looking for other transparent variants and Sega Sports Black with matching VMU's
Dreamcast	Typing of the Dead	Case/Manual/Box only
Playstation 2	DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3	Manual only
Miscellaneous	Celeste OST LP Vinyl	Complete preferred, any edition
Miscellaneous	Lo-Fi Girl Vinyls	All collections, any edition
Miscellaneous	Console/Game Boxes & Styrofoam	Any and all

Items Pending Receipt

Item	Status

Marking this as a spoiler, since I cannot talk about this series without going in detail.
To preface things, mukashi mukashi... I was in a slump, without any anime to watch, so I turned to this community for suggestions. Among them, it was the Monogatari series. Especially, Bakemonogatari. I tried to give it a try, but first episode was... weird, and did not sit well with my stomach. Then, due to 'red car' effect, I've started seeing more and more of it mentioned, even some clips on YT. And then, I tried again. And made it 2 or 3 episodes into it. But this last week, I've finally put my man-pants on and went for the ride. If not for work, I don't think I would have taken a break for this series. And I don't know why. It's got a lot of the things I hate. Incoherent animation, too much vagueness, a love triangle where the sweet and caring girl loses and lots of sexualization of minors.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a guy that dislikes seeing boobs, anime or not, and I worship the animators of My Dress Up Darling for what they were able to achieve with Kitagawa. However, consistently showing groping of girls that are 14 or 10 years old... that's a bit... ugh, yeah. Let's say we all have a limit. But for some reason, my limit went softer this time, because the show was that... gripping?
Also, I am surprised this series has not given me a seizure with how often they were changing backgrounds and scenes. It surely gave me many headaches.
So, what's next in store? Which series I should watch? And are they all weird? And, more importantly, does Tsubasa get a happy ending? She seems like the best girl in the show

“If a woman’s breasts are showing all the men will grab them, that’s what happens to little boys” ….WTF? Since when do little boys get openly groped on the reg? Like beyond it being misogynistic I just can’t understand people even getting a coherent message from it at all. All the clips I’ve seen from that class are so nonsensical. Feels like just Keith working out his issues with his little therapy dolls.

Foreword: While I've been playing RimWorld for about half a year now, I have only played the one colony since the beginning, building up from 3 starting pawns and a yorkshire terrier. It's a massive complex now, with no real planning for efficiency, just organically grown in size and by needs. Two huge pens for farmed animals (the smaller one is for boomalopes), spacious storage areas, a reinforced building for mechanoid gestation as well as storing waste packs and atomization. In addition, the mountain at the map center has been transformed into part alter, part throne room.
Recently, I joined RimWorld on another account, and found the community's posts rather great, especially the art. Now I have a better visualization of what is happening in the game, the 2D pawns taking on a better form in my imagination. Honestly, I got more attached to my colonists.
I'd like to specifically thank u/Fonzawa for their superb art and stories. Now I'm paying even more attention to the relationships between my colonists, and I'm enjoying the little interactions (except for social fights, these damned idiots). And I've been inspired to try and make some of my own art of colony life. We'll see how that goes.
Disclaimer (we all play RimWorld here, but I thought I'd add this anyways): Violence, Gore.
Q: Did I just write a story for RimWorld?
A: Yes, yes I did.
Q: Why?
A: I like writing fiction and expansive colony building games do things to my brain. Exhibit 1-> Too many hours on Kenshi.
Q: Why am I posting this?
A: I like the community and thought some of you might enjoy a story.
Alright, here's the story "The New War Queen." Please enjoy!
.
The New War Queen, Part 1: Siege
I reached the top of the hill where the captains stood, the crescent moon and countless stars glowing in the sky. The journey was long, made harder by the heavy weapons we took turns hauling across two mountain ranges. Nithe, Whel, and Biak shouldered two doomsdays and a triple launcher up the slope behind me. The party was eighteen strong, all of us armed to the teeth and then some. I smiled at the toxic packs and cannons some of us carried- the interlopers weren't immune to the gas like most of us were. I glanced at Raywolfen, the impid standing at a distance ahead of us. She and the genie wouldn't be as safe when canisters started flying.
I got into earshot of the captains and heard the tail end of Colossus's orders.
"... carefully. We never heard back from the last raid. They're all probably dead." The tower of a man noticed me and nodded. "Krax, how are the big guns?"
I grinned. "When they get up here, we'll do a last check, but we should be good to go. Maybe give the team a little rest before we start?"
I looked past him and the other captains, at the shadows of a huge building in the distance, barely illuminated by the weak moonlight. The only other lights were faint yellow spots and probably coming from windows. The whole settlement was likely one massive structure, but that didn't count for everything. How the interlopers held out all these years I would probably never figure out. There had to be some trick. Some edge they had over us.
The genie, Vix, produced a transponder from her pockets. She toyed with it, long fingers pressing a few buttons as the rest of us watched. Finally, she looked up, just as the heavy weapons team reached us.
"Equipment ready for drop," she said. "Big Dog sends final orders. Priority targets are the damn outlanders. Let none of them escape. Proceed with extreme prejudice."
There was a moment of quiet as we all took in the instructions. Then Ukar spoke up.
"They've been among the interlopers for a while now. How would we tell the difference between them and the targets?"
Vix shrugged. "The interlopers have been a thorn in the Big Dog's side for a while. I think he'd be grateful if we wiped them all out."
I grit my teeth silently. Sure, they were rebellious rabble, those fools from beyond this world. They kept resisting their betters, refusing to give us what we were owed. But they weren't all fighters. Some had to be farmers and miners. Without them, we wouldn't gain anything from future raids. We'd lose a source of loot if we killed them all. But orders from the Big Dog were final.
I glanced at Colossus. "About that break...?"
He looked over at Whel, who was breathing hard enough for even Raywolfen to hear. He nodded, "Fifteen minutes. One bar and half a canteen at max. Make sure they're ready."
.
We slunk through the labyrinth of trees, slow and steady. Raywolfen and two others kept far ahead and out of sight, the captains following up with the rest of us at their backs, spread out to cover as much area as possible. Eventually, we reached a relatively clear spot. The perimeter was set, and the outriders kept patrol. Vix pushed a button on the transponder, and soon pods fell from the atmosphere to our feet. They split open, spilling out steel slabs, tools, and extra rations. The first part was over. Soon, the siege would start.
Barricades were erected quickly and soon Decker was hard at work on the mortar while I helped pile the shells nearby. I hefted one for Whel to see.
"Incendiaries," I said, rubbing a thumb over the dull orange cylinder. "Either their base is surrounded by trees, or we're setting fire directly."
Whel chewed the last of a ration bar and swallowed, then patted the doomsday at his side. "Hope it's the building. More fun that way."
I shook my head, "You've got a serious issue, you know? If I see someone choking on gas or on fire, I'm not gonna stand there and watch. I'll shoot them and move on."
He smiled nastily. "You're the one with the problem, Krax. The inferiors deserve nothing but what we give them. And what we give them is whatever we feel like giving. So, if I want to light them up, then they'll be lit u-."
The crack of a gun - maybe more than one? - silenced the sadistic pyro. We were all on alert, quiet. Colossus tore at the talkie clipped to his duster and spoke into it.
"Outriders, come in," but got only static in reply. He tried again, "Gurand, answer me." More static filled the air. And then the device clicked, and a panicked shout barked from its small speakers.
"Ray is down! They caught us-."
The talkie clicked silent, and a moment later another sharp crack sounded through the trees. Colossus stared at the radio in his hand. Before he could say or do anything, another crack reached us. My heart sank a little. Colossus tried one last time but received only static.
We all looked at the captains expectantly, surprise written on our faces and panic slowly creeping into the most skittish of us.
Colossus pulled his SMG to his chest and said simply, clearly, "Move out, wide spread. Heads on a swivel. Decker, leave the mortar, bring the shells."
We fell in with our respective captains, the heavy weapon bearers shielded by those upfront. We did our best to stay silent, but I could hear the snaps of twigs underfoot every so often. And then, I heard something else. Something growing louder. Closer.
Thoom thoom thoom, thoom thoom thoom
Colossus raised a fist before opening his hand and cutting the air horizontal. We halted and scattered for cover. I found myself sharing the cover of a boulder with Nithe and someone armed with a bolt-action, a ballistic mask hiding their features. Looked like Ace's gear. Together, we raised our weapons and looked around our protection, scanning for targets just like the rest of the group. The dull, rhythmic booming kept going on, getting louder and louder, closer and closer.
Thoom thoom thoom, thoom thoom thoom
Thoom thoom thoom, thoom thoom thoom
Nithe jerked backwards suddenly, her elbow striking the side of my head. As I fell behind the boulder, clutching my skull, I heard the crack of the rifle, followed by two more. Nithe was writhing in pain on the ground, groaning angrily, the doomsday launcher in the dirt and fallen leaves.
Colossus bellowed his order, and everyone still standing opened up with everything they had. Tracer fire flew around the boulder almost immediately. Canisters were launched over us at whatever was on the other side of our cover. I could just hear the wind up of charge weapons over the thunder of gunfire.
The bolt-action in Ace's hands banged close by, and the waster pulled back on the handle to chamber another round. Before he could fire again, I caught a glimpse of something blue before his head exploded. His body crumpled into a limp heap, blood pouring from the ruined neck stump.
I crawled to where Nithe was, and like me she was spattered with the waster's remains. Giving her a quick onceover I saw that she'd been shot in the shoulder, blood pumping from the wound. I threw off my pack and quickly groped the medkit. Above the din I heard the dull rhythm again, and this time felt barely a tremor through the ground with each boom.
Thoom thoom thoom, thoom thoom thoom
"Big mech incoming!"
I was stuffing the hole in her shoulder with disinfected gauze when I heard the shout, and the air warmed. Then it got hot, and I heard a high-pitched whine over the gunshots and shouting. I looked up from Nithe and saw several of the others, clustered close together among the bullet ravaged trees.
And then they, the forest, and the air itself were enveloped in a blast of orange flame. The explosion knocked me on my back, my head hitting the forest floor hard enough that starbursts filled my vision. Before I could see properly again, I heard the terrible screaming of the burning and dying. I heard Colossus roar a retreat, followed by even more gunfire. The high-pitched whine was rising again.
I felt around as I sat up and my fingers found the stock of a gun. I shook my head and tried to see what I was picking up. It was the bolt-rifle the Ace had been using. Groggily, I checked that a round was chambered, and shouldered the weapon. I looked at Nithe again, but she was staring at the inferno where so many soldiers had been. I wanted to drag her with me, despite the risk of being unable to immediately aim and shoot whoever came from the other side.
Another explosion rocked the world, and some of the screaming stopped abruptly.
Grabbing a handful of her collar, I started pulling her across the ground, bringing out a yelp of pain from Nithe. I kept the rifle against my shoulder, held up by my other hand, scanning. I had to keep the boulder between us and whatever and whomever was on the other side.
Thoom thoom thoom, thoom thoom thoom
The thing coming around the rock was huge. A mechanoid, six legged, its head a heavily armored crest of white and blue. Two guns rode on its back, one smoldering orange with heat. The other looked like a charge blaster. Its many red eyes locked on me. I brought the rifle up too slowly.
The cannon swiveled and fired.
.
I don't know what happened, but I couldn't see. I blinked, and I was relieved that I was only blinded by dirt. I tried to raise a hand to my face.
"Here! Another one!"
I couldn't move. I tried, but I couldn't. And I felt so, so cold.
"Diabolus got her with the charge gun. Get Akio over here while I do what I can."
"Get off me!" someone shouted nearby. It sounded like Nithe.
Something hot pressed against my stomach, and the pain of it turned everything red, then black.
.
Jostling. I was bouncing up and down, and it was horrible. My stomach kept coming down on something round and broad, sending pain shooting through me. I tried to raise my head, but that brought red back into my vision along with making the experience all the worse. I went limp, and my head bumped against someone's back.
"Awake? Sorta?" asked the person carrying me like a potato sack. He sounded gruff, angry. I suppose that made some sense.
Bastard, I wanted to say. But my stomach kept shooting jolts of agony through me. It was all I could do not to keep gasping for breath.
The moonlit grass beneath me was a blur, and the pace was fast and steady. I tried to turn my head to the sides to see something other than the ground. There were more people, running in the same direction we were going. They were hauling our guns, our supplies. Some were carrying soldiers. And whoever was carrying me overtook each of them.
"You'll be patched up soon, don't you worry," said the man. "Then, we'll have a chat."
.
End of Part 1: Siege
Coming up, Part 2: Prisoner
Afterword:
Hey if you read this story, I hope you liked it, and I appreciate the time you took to give it a scroll!
Thanks again to u/Fonzawa for the creative inspiration to write this, and thanks to the RimWorld community for the everything I've seen since joining.
Also accepting constructive criticism!
Edits: I missed some stuff before posting... Even more edits: Oh man I need to be better about this. Also, the divisions I put didn't work out well.