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

https://soundcloud.com/slamatoms/an-atom-in-the-void
ZELTRONXII:
Tired of MCs crying over the net/
That’s why I spike 'em for taking them shots over n over again/
So drunk stumbling tryna respond/
all I hear mumbling still pondering what’s going on In they medulla/
Stone cold like Medusa peered in my eyes/
Appear up on a peer looking down on these guys/
Drowning in pride see y'all down for the count/
but up for spouting ya mouth/ but the clouds ain’t a round/
I Spray 'em down with the hose/
Y'all catfishing your flows and y'all the bait that is thrown/
I take the throne there’s no debate/
Or make my own with the souls I erased the cage is remote
Hopping on a ghost beat/
Drop uncharted ice still spot the fire that my dome streams/
dripping off the top gods conscious lava flowing I’m holier than thou/
to hold a round your going down I’m up on cloud 9 is the count/
disguised a frown no water spouts to twist/
You lucky cuz the story wouldn’t sound like this/
When pointing rain the soils sprained I drown in bliss/
regardless I will sprout succeeding ground within/
the tiers fade rays wear n tear eye reign made arrangement/
Redefined the bounds my sole designers feat needed a facelift/
this arraignment fake supreme Chasing clout the cider vinega
my signature entitled to the script now i will gift the verse/

BUSCHWOOKIEE:
Look in the mirror and mutter the mantra
Sorry momma, your little boys making a monster
Approaching the crossroads limping over lost foes
god knows his thought flow's a rocky river where moss grows
oversaturated with blood stains as the game evaporated
limbs maimed, enemies lain decapitated
feet racing as his hands grab the pages
with illness this contagious you'll have to adapt in stages
An atom in the void, like a swift kick in the groin
Doubled over, two nuts crushed onto peanut butter and spread on point
The next best thing and a slice of bread so invite a friend
raise a toast of the finest red cause Christ is dead
SIKE, I told you sluts I was coming again
Serving up backshots like epidurals, now repent
Flow eternal, inserted subdermal into your skull
making deep cuts 'til the scalpels dull
Amazing the way he makes mazes with words
A mason from birth he graces the earth with his construction
Shaken and stirred the masses end up praising the worth
Of the foundation observed with admirations abduction
This alien introduction, People speak of flying saucers
Take me to your leader, I'll show him how fly the sauce is
Enough to make one nauseous, projectile cookie tosses
Shut your mouth and mitigate your losses

A couple if months I was searching for cool low level and non op magic items to add to a magic shop which I planned on adding to the city in which my campaign takes place, or at least where the story of this campaign starts. I came upon a comment on Reddit, where someone recommended making a magic hat from which you can pull an item once a day, but the item should be randon and something else every day. I thought the idea was amazing and started putting together a list of items. I decied the item was gonna be decided by a roll of a D100 dice and quickly realised that 100 items is a lot so I decided that 50 items is plenty and if need be I can update the hat when my party has opened the hat lets say 10 times and chance of a repeated roll increases. i wanted most items to be more mundane but high/low rolls should give items with a bit more character. I am first time DM and i gave this to my party when they were only level 2 so if you want to you can tweak your high roll magic items and use this in your campaign :)
MAGIC HAT
NEGATIVE
• 1/2 live snake (1d6+2 poison damage+poisoned for 1 hour) • 3/4 lit dynamite (3d6 damage) • 5/6 sleep arrow (fall asleep for 2h) • 7/8 firecracker (disadvantage on all vision based checks for 3 hours) • 9/10 mouse trap (1d4 damage) • 11/12 piranha (1d6 damage) • 13/14 pseudo-healing potion (poisoned until next long rest) • 15/16 magic arrow (returns like a boomerang towards the one who fired it) • 17/18 spooky wooden mask (wisdom saving throw 15 AC to avoid being possessed, if possessed, attack nearest target, effect ends when someone removes the mask or you are knocked out) • 19/20 evil genie bottle - spawns a spirit with GHOUL stats
NEUTRAL
• 20/21 functioning heart • 22/23 old finger • 24/25 messed up glasses • 26/27 brick • 28/29 beer mug full • 30/31 plate with a rich breakfast • 32/33 a set of utensils • 34/35 charcoal • 36/37 ordinary-looking thumb that appears magical • 38/39 unknown key • 40/41 smoking pipe • 42/43 bouquet of flowers • 44/45 bag full of apples • 46/47 cute colorful mittens • 48/49 half-eaten sandwich • 50/51 cookie baking recipe • 52/53 turtle shell • 54/55 human skull • 56/57 hallucinogenic mushrooms • 58/59 plate with sliced exotic fruit • 60/61 message in a bottle - this just explains a side quest where they can go help a man stranded on a remote island • 62/63 parrot egg • 64/65 mirror • 66/67 shoe with foot still in it • 68/69 empty whiskey bottle • 70/71 compass • 72/73 bird claws • 74/75 magic candle (very dim light 5 feet, never extinguishes) • 76/77 pretty woman dress • 78/79 +1 dagger that breaks after the first use
POSITIVE
• 80/81 Magic wand allowing communication with animals for 10 min (1x per day) • 82/83 potion of healing • 84/85 +1 dagger • 86/87 elixir of truth with charisma saving throw 16 (lasts 1 hour) • 88/89 skull ring (advantage on the first death saving throw, resets on long rest) • 90/91 gold bar worth 200 gold • 92/93 alchemist's fire • 94/95 3 smoke bombs • 96/97 water breathing potion (30 minutes) • 98/99 lucky coin (1x per day, decide if you want to roll with advantage) • 100 golden apple (1d4+2 permanent hitpoints)
Some of the effects of said items can be discovered for example by a moderately difficult arcana/investigation check. Hope you guys find it cool

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!"

Big Games, Big Deals Sale
Games Under Sale

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To round out my trilogy of posts, this post is going to be discussing the fighters of the Berserker Bowl elimination bracket, so I won't be counting anyone eliminated before then. I will only be looking at these characters as of their time in the Berserker Bowl. To be fair, none of them have changed since then in a meaningful way, at least from what we've seen. My standard rules apply, no alternate forms, which in this case there aren't, I'll be giving the top person in my opinion, along with anyone else I think might be close. If you want to see my thoughts for these categories with a wider batch of characters, check my posts on the KAT, and KVP.
Strength (lifting ability, not attack power): Mark Meyers. You can argue Adam Dudley maybe, but Mark is pretty much a physical beast from what we've seen. Mark made it to the championship through his physical power, (and dollar store indestructible), and was a successful fighter based on purely his physical abilities for a while. I think it's pretty clear for once.
Attack Power (ability to deal the most damage with a single blow): Rihito/Saw Paing/Gaoh. I'm putting them in that specific order. We see from Rihito and Saw Paing that Razor's Edge and Hammer of Burma are relatively close to each other. I will give the edge to Rihito, since Razor's Edge is a cutting attack, it can bypass durability to an extent. Gaoh should at least be mentioned because of his Rakshasa's Palm, which is a dangerous attack. However, I don't believe he has trained that move enough to have it on the same level of Saw Paing and Rihito, his version is clearly far inferior to Kiryu's.
Foot speed (how fast can a fighter move around the arena): Gaoh/Koga. With his already impressive footwork, and now Blink being added, I think Gaoh was the fastest fighter on his feet in the tournament. None of them besides Cosmo had ever truly showed significant foot speed anyway, but I think Gaoh is faster than Cosmo. However, with his dollar store Raging Fire, Koga can be pretty quick on his feet.
Hand speed (not just hands, but how fast can you strike/attack): This one is actually fairly difficult. I'm going to give it to Saw Paing/Cosmo. None of the fighters were shown to have very impressive hand speed, but Saw Paing has consistently shown to have strong rushes and combination attacks, and Cosmo has repeatedly shown an ability to strike quickly. Maybe Gaoh with some of his Gaoh style attacks, but those aren't necessarily fast, once you know the trick they're not too hard to deal with.
Reaction speed (no foresight, just pure reaction): Adam Dudley. Adam was able to deal with unpredictable attacks by Gaoh fairly easily. This was the hints of foresight that started to get taught to him, but overall, his reaction time, especially to unexpected attacks, is fairly impressive. Another contender would have to be Gaoh, able to quickly shift impact points like he does is a pretty impressive show of reaction speed. You could also say Koga because of his Fist Eye, but he can't keep it consistent, it takes a lot of focus and has a time limit, and not even a long time limit. In addition, I don't think it necessarily makes his reaction time that much better, since as we see with Terashi, if it's a surprise, they still react fairly normally to it. They more see things more clearly rather than enter the Matrix like Neo. You could also say Cosmo with Zone, but he's waiting for an exact moment rather than constantly being on the lookout, and Zone has its flaws.
Durability (ability to take hits without sustaining damage): Mark Meyers. Especially when he's using his knockoff indestructible, he made it difficult for Rihito, who has bare minimum top three AP in the tournament, to meaningfully damage him until he released it. When he can maintain his indestructible, it might rob him of quick movement, but he's a tank. Saw also has high durability himself, but he still in my opinion, falls short of Mark Meyers. We've seen that he still takes damage, he just doesn't take as much, while Mark was seemingly perfectly fine when using indestructible.
Endurance (ability to power through while still taking damage, relative to the fighters overall durability): Gaoh. He took an insane beating, and yes, he was shifting the damage, but he was still getting hit constantly. That he was able to endure all of that, while continuing to fight and eventually turn the tides and win, that's extremely impressive endurance. In my opinion, there's no contest here.
Fight IQ (intelligence relating to fights): Rihito (by the end of the tournament). Once everything clicks for Rihito, he just is a different animal. He went from it being a pretty even fight, to quickly winning with a choke, which is far outside his previously seen arsenal. You could make arguments for Saw, but I think that isn't too great of an argument. Saw is just single minded about striking, and just has solid striking. Cosmo in my opinion also has arguably the best fight IQ, but he struggles to use it. He has an excellent grasp of the theory of fighting, but isn't as good at putting it into practice. Koga also has good fight IQ, able to improvise an Iron Fingers and Raging Fire using just a few Niko Style moves, and incorporate it into his style. He definitely has some solid fight IQ that's continuing to grow, aided by his Fist Eye.
IQ (regular intelligence): Once again, do I have to pick someone? All of these people are morons. Rihito we know graduated from high school and got into a college, so him? I guess?
Overall Physical Stats: This one is for once, actually pretty tough. Mark has strength and durability, but loses his speed and mobility by a significant degree, which is a big weakness. Saw Paing has his skull and his bones, which are pretty impressive, offensively and defensively. Adam has his trunk, and even besides that is a pretty physically capable guy. Overall though, Saw Paing has both offensive and defensive benefits granted by his body, with no significant drawbacks associated to them. Sorry Adam, but your trunk doesn't give you any defensive help.
Striking technique (best at purely striking ability): Saw Paing. This isn't even a question, it's Saw. He was already a competent striker, but since we saw him before, he trained his striking to a much more refined level, truly perfecting each of his moves. He's 100% the best striker in the tournament, bar none. It isn't even a question.
Grappling/soft style technique (see above): Cosmo. There's really only two grapplers in the tournament, the other being Silva, but I think Cosmo just has the edge above him. We have seen much better grappling from Cosmo than we have from Silva in my opinion. Sure, Silva does no striking and just grapples, but he doesn't seem to have as deep an arsenal as Cosmo, or be as competent at using his arsenal as Cosmo. This also makes Silva the only fighter among all eight fighters to not get a single category, and only be mentioned in one category, the one he's best at, the only thing he does, and still not win. Good job Miracle of Sao Paulo.
Best arsenal/style (not the best fighter, but the individual style that’s the best): MMA/Niko Style Hybrid. Koga's hybrid of multiple martial arts being fused with the Niko Style in my opinion makes it the best style. It has the most variety, and while Koga primarily fights on his feet, he can deal with grappling. In addition, it has some Niko Style magic to deal with things like Rakshasa's Palm (even if it's just Gaoh's inferior version), which no one else in the tournament really has in their style, besides maybe Mark Meyers, but his style is just brute force. Koga has the most well rounded and complete style, with enough anime nonsense to edge out the others. Good job Koga.
So, that pretty much covers all the different tournaments we've seen so far, I'm excited for the RCT, and once it's done I'll probably make another one about it as well.
For a general summary on how many characters have won a category in my trilogy:
Tied for first with 4 each are Julius and Waktsuki, trading off in the categories of Physique, Strength, AP, and Durability. The two of them have traded off some between the two fights, based on the different showings in my opinion changing the outcome. Big Julius upscale in KVP, which in the RCT will likely continue, and since Wakatsuki is not competing, I expect Julius to get one more category at least.
Tied for second place with 3 each we have Saw Paing, Rihito, and Gaolang. To be fair, Saw Paing and Rihito just dominated the small talent pool of the Berserker Bowl, where they got all their wins, but hey, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Neither of them got a single category in the KAT or KVP categories. Gaolang has consistently won best striker when he's competed, and still had the best hand speed on Kengan's side in KVP, as he did in the KAT, but couldn't beat Carlos who took that category from him. I expect Gaolang will manage to break away from the other two and snag a category, minimum making him even with Wakatsuki. Also Rihito managed to win Berserker Bowl regular IQ, which is kind of a joke category that I just feel bad about giving to him, but I can't justify it going to anyone else.
Tied for third place with 2 each is Carlos, Akoya, Kaneda, Mark Meyers, and Gaoh. Gaoh and Mark also got all of theirs in the Berserker Bowl, with the others just being extremely specialized in a single thing. Akoya cleans up reaction time, Carlos with hand and foot speed, and Kaneda with the IQ stuff. Notably, Akoya is the only one in this category to win across multiple tournaments, the others have either just competed in one tournament, or were Gaoh in Berserker Bowl.
Other fighters who have won a single category are Hayami, Rolon, Terashi, Jurota, Rei, Sekibayashi, Hatsumi, Adam, and Cosmo. I'm assuming they will have some others join them, maybe Kanoh getting his first win in a category, he's been extremely close in multiple categories but never quite over the hump. I'm also assuming that they will have at least one move up the ranks, with this being Rolon and Jurota's second opportunity to win, and I can't even imagine Jurota not managing to win Grappling/Soft Style, even if he gets eliminated in the first round. Rolon might have a harder time to snag a category, as these don't lend themselves to all-rounders, with Kanoh and Ohma both having not won a single one, but he could still do it.

This is part 2 of my list for Virginia's post Furman execution roster. As mentioned in part 1's opening paragraph, character count limitations forced me into splitting my Virginia's execution roster into two separate posts. For the link to part 1, please click here.
59. Kevin Cardwell (1991-1998, lethal injection): Cardwell intercepted Anthony Brown, a 15 year old drug carrier, while he was at a bus stop. He lured Brown into his apartment and searched his belongings for any drugs. Brown was then dragged into the woods, shot to death, and stripped of the cocaine strapped to his legs.
60. Mark Sheppard (~1980s-1999, lethal injection): Sheppard and his accomplice Andre Graham were invited by their dealers, 40 year old Richard and 35 year old Rebecca Rosenbluth, over to their home to buy cocaine. However, an argument broke out during the transaction, and Sheppard shot the couple to death. The pair then drove away from the scene with the couple's car and a few undisclosed stolen items. Sheppard had a long history of violence that dated back to when he was 9 years old.
61. Tony Fry (1994-1999, lethal injection): Fry and his partner shot Leeland Jacobs, a 42 year old car salesman, while robbing his Ford Dealership. The pair tied Jacobs to a car they stole while he was still alive, and dragged him to death.
62. George Quesinberry Jr. (1989-1999, lethal injection): Quesinberry shot 63 year old Thomas Haynes while breaking into his office with an accomplice. When Haynes survived the initial shooting, Quesinberry hit him in the head with the gun and fractured his skull. The pair stole a total of $200 in the robbery.
63. David Fisher (~1970s(?)-1999, lethal injection): Fisher was paid $7,000 by an associate to kill 18 year old David Wilkey in retaliation for abandoning a murder scheme. Originally, Wilkey was part of a conspiracy to seduce and marry a young woman in order to kill her for an insurance policy, but backed out when he genuinely fell in love with the would be victim. He was tricked into going on a hunting trip with Fisher and shot to death by him. Fisher had 25 previous criminal convictions and was involved with organized crime. He was in the witness protection program at the time of Wilkey’s murder.
64. Carl Chichester (1991-1999, lethal injection): During a holdup of a Little Caesars, Chichester shot and killed the manager, 30 year old Timothy Rigney, for refusing to open the cash register. He and his two accomplices ran off with a total of $110.
65. Arthur Jenkins III (1991-1999, lethal injection): Jenkins and his teenage brother shot and killed their uncle, 72 year old Floyd, and their uncle's friend, 69 year old Lee Brinklow. They then stole their wallets and sacked Floyd's home for any money and valuables.
66. Eric Payne (~1980s-1999, lethal injection): Payne broke into the residences of two women, 61 year old Ruth Parham and 57 year old Sally Fazio, and raped them. Both women were beaten to death with a hammer, and he took money from their drawers and pocket books. He had a history of drug possessions and exposing himself to women.
67. Ronald Yeatts (1989-1999, lethal injection): Yeatts and an accomplice invaded 70 year old Ruby Dodson's home and stabbed her to death. The pair grabbed her purse during the burglary and divided up the money they found in it.
68. Tommy Strickler (1989-1999, lethal injection): Strickler and his partner kidnapped 19 year old Leann Whitlock from a mall and crushed her head with a 70 pound boulder. Whitlock's car and credit cards were stolen during the attack.
69. Marlon Williams (~1980s(?)-1999, lethal injection): Williams was paid $4,000 to murder 44 year old Helen Bedsole by his dealer, who was also her estranged husband. The couple were in the midst of a bitter divorce at the time, and the dealer wanted to both collect a life insurance policy and prevent Helen from dividing up their assets. He suck into the couple’s home, and shot and killed Helen in the kitchen. Williams had an extensive criminal history, which included cutting the throat of his ex girlfriend’s grandmother, 71 year old Virgina Parker, during a bungled attempt on her life.
70. Everett Mueller (1990-1999, lethal injection): 10 year old Charity Powers was dropped off at a skating ring by her mother. She was supposed to be picked up by her mother's friend, but they didn't show up due to failing asleep in their home. While Powers was waiting outside the ring in vain for her ride, she was abducted by Mueller. He raped the girl, slashed her throat, and dumped the body in a nearby forest.
71. Jason Joseph (1992-1999, lethal injection): While robbing a Subway with an accomplice, Joseph shot and killed one of the clerks, 22 year old Jeffrey Anderson.
72. Thomas Royal Jr. (~1991-1999, lethal injection): Royal and 3 other gang members fatally shot a police officer, 29 year old Kenneth Wallace, while he was sitting in his patrol car. Wallace was killed as part of the gang's campaign to target law enforcement agents. Royal and his fellow gang members were also suspected in the shooting of James Smith Jr. (age unknown), a Vietnam veteran, outside his trailer, but the charges were dropped from the lack of sufficient evidence.
73. Andre Graham (~1993-1999, lethal injection): Graham assisted the above mentioned Mark Sheppard in the Rosenbluth murders. He also shot and killed a waitress, 20 year old Sheryl Stack, and injured a 23 year old man while robbing a restaurant on his own, and is suspected in a total of 10 murders.
74. Douglas Thomas (1990-2000, lethal injection): The parents of Thomas' 14 year old girlfriend, 33 year old James and 33 year Kathy Wiseman, barred her from seeing him. In a bid to continue their relationship, Thomas and his girlfriend shot them to death in their home.
75. Steve Roach (1993-2000, lethal injection): Roach shot and killed 70 year old Mary Hughes on her doorstep and stole her credit card. He was caught on tape trying to use Hughes' stolen cards to pull money out of an ATM machine in North Carolina.
76. Lonnie Weeks Jr. (1993-2000, lethal injection): Weeks was pulled over by a state trooper, 50 year old Jose Cavazos, for speeding while driving a stolen car. In the confrontation that followed, he shot Cavazos dead after climbing out of the car, and fled the scene. He was captured hiding in a nearby motel after an hour long manhunt.
77. Michael Clagett (1994-2000, electric chair): Clagett's girlfriend was fired from her job as a hotel waitress by the management, and the couple decided to retaliate by robing the establishment. They shot and killed the owner Lam Van Son, a 41 year old Vietnamese refugee, a waitress, 31 year old Karen Rounds, two other employees, 31 year old Karen Rounds and 32 year old Wendell Parish Jr., and a customer Abdelaziz Gren, a 34 year old Moroccan immigrant, and took $400 in cash from the register. Van Son’s 3 year old son was sleeping in the backroom during the attack, but the couple left him unharmed.
78. Russel Burket (1993-2000, lethal injection): Burket snuck into the home of 30 year old Katherine Tafelski while her Navy SEALs husband was deployed overseas, and sexually assaulted her. Katherine and her 5 year old daughter Ashley were both beaten to death with a "rusty" crowbar.
79. Derek Barnabei (1993-2000, lethal injection): Barnabei seduced a fellow Old Dominion University student, 17 year old Sarah Wisnosky, into a relationship with him and kidnapped her. She was raped, partially strangled, beaten to death with a hammer, and dumped into a river near campus grounds. Due to him being of Italian ancestry, his death sentence and execution sparked outrage in Italy.
80. Bobby Ramdass (1992-2000, lethal injection): Ramdass was condemned for the shooting death of Mohammed Kayani, a 34 year old Pakistani immigrant working as a clerk, during a convenience store robbery. He also shot dead 19 year old Darrell Ferguson in an alley and wounded a cab driver in other robberies.
81. Christopher Goins (1994-2000, lethal injection): Goins broke into the home of his 14 year old girlfriend (who was 7 months pregnant with his child). He shot and killed her parents, 35 year old James and 29 year old Daphne Jones, and her siblings, 9 year old Nicole and 4 year old David. The girlfriend and her youngest sibling, 21 month old Kenya, were also shot in the attack. Both of them survived, but the unborn child was lost in the shooting.
82. Thomas Akers (1998-2001, lethal injection): Akers and his accomplice were driving with their friend, 24 year old Wesley Smith. When they pulled over on a road to urinate, they pounced on Smith. In the attack, he was strangled with a belt and beaten to death with a baseball bat. They pair then grabbed $200 from his wallet and dumped his body in a creek. While on death row, Akers demanded his execution and made threats against the judge who sentenced him if it wasn't carried out.
83. Christopher Beck (1995-2001, lethal injection): Out of anger for being fired, Beck invaded the house of his former employer, 52 year old William Miller. He waited for him and his two roommates, 54 year old Florence Marks and 34 year old David Kaplan, to return home and shot and stabbed them all to death. Marks was also raped in the attack. Although Beck claimed that he "only" staged a sexual assault on her, a medical examination confirmed that she was abused in that manner. Beck stole several guns, bicycles, and money in the robbery.
84. James Patterson (1987-2002, lethal injection): Patterson held his friend's mother, 56 year old Joyce Aldridge, in her home at knifepoint. Enraged that she only had a few coins in her purse, he raped Aldridge, stabbed her 3 times, and left her to die. When Aldridge managed to crawl to a phone to call her son for help, Patterson returned and stabbed her 14 more times. Although Aldridge's murder was left unsolved for years, Patterson was later imprisoned for raping an 18 year old girl, and DNA found at the murder was traced to his samples filed in the inmate database in 2000.
85. Daniel Zirkle (1999-2002, lethal injection): Zirkle's girlfriend broke off their relationship due to his violent behavior and filed protective orders against him. He was arrested for violating them and sentenced to a few months in jail. After his release, Zirkle went to his ex girlfriend's home without her permission to visit their daughter, 4 year old Christina. However, the ex girlfriend's other daughter, 14 year old Jessica Shifflett, blocked him from coming inside. He stabbed her to death and kidnapped Christina. He then drove Christina to the George Washington National Forest, slit her throat, and stabbed himself in a failed suicide attempt.
86. Walter Mickens Jr. (~1974-2002, lethal injection): Mickens ambushed and sodomized 17 year old Timothy Hall, and stabbed him 143 times. He stripped the boy of nearly all of his clothing, and left him to die in an abandoned apartment. A long time sexual predator and career criminal, Mickens had several robbery and sodomy convictions dating back to the 70s. One of his previous incidents involved breaking into an elementary school, and coercing a teacher of her purse by threatening the life of a 7 year old student. He also had a conviction for sexually assaulting a cellmate.
87. Aimal Kasi (1993-2002, lethal injection): In his efforts to fight against American foreign policy regarding Islamic nations, Kasi attacked the Langley CIA headquarters with a Type 56 assault rifle. He shot dead 2 CIA employees, 66 year old Lansing Bennett and 28 year old Frank Darling, and wounded 3 others. Kasi then fled to Afghanistan, but was lured into his native Pakistan to be captured in a joint FBI-CIA led operation, and extradited back to the United States to face trial.
88. Earl Bramblett (~1970s(?)-2003, electric chair): Bramblett had molested 11 year old Winter Hodges and feared that her parents, 41 year old William and 37 year old Teresa, were planning on reporting him to the police. In an attempt to prevent that from happening, he attacked the family in their home. Teresa was strangled, while William, Winter, and another daughter, 3 year old Anah, were shot dead. Bramblett then set the house on fire to destroy any evidence of the murders. He had several abuse allegations and was also suspected in the 1977 disappearances of two 14 year old girls, Tammy Akers and Angela Rader, that worked for him, but was never charged for any of them.
89. Bobby Swisher (1997-2003, lethal injection): Swisher abducted 22 year old Dawn Snyder from her flower shop at knife point and raped her. He slashed Snyder's throat and dumped her into a nearby river. Despite managing to swim back to shore, Snyder succumbed to her injuries on the river bank.
90. Brian Cherrix (1994-2004, lethal injection): Cherrix ambushed 23 year old Tessa Van Hart while she was trying to deliver a pizza. He sodomized and shot Van Hart twice in the head, and left the body in her car. The crime was left unsolved until Cherrix was arrested for shooting and wounded his brother two years later. In an attempt to secure leniency, Cherrix disclosed some details of Van Hart's murder, but tried pinning it on a deceased cousin. He only confessed when investigators learned that the cousin couldn't have possibly done it.
91. Dennis Orbe (1998-2004, lethal injection): Orbe fatally shot Richard Burnett, a 39 year old clerk, while robbing a grocery store, and seized $90 from the register.
92. Mark Bailey (1998-2004, lethal injection): Bailey shot and killed his wife, 22 year old Katherine, and their 2 year old son, Nathan, while they were laying in bed. He claimed to investigators that the murders were done out of anger for Katherine's alleged infidelity.
93. James Hudson (2002-2004, lethal injection): In a feud over a driveway, Hudson broke into the home of the Cole family (consisting of brothers, 64 year old Thomas and 56 year old Walter, and Thomas' wife, 64 year old Patsy) to confront them with a shotgun. He shot all three of the Coles dead and drove away from the scene. Hudson was captured after nearly a day long manhunt.
94. James Reid (1996-2004, lethal injection): Reid stabbed 87 year old Annie Lester 22 times with a pair of scissors, beat her with a can of milk, and strangled her with the cord of a heating pad. He left the body in her bedroom and fled her house. Although the evidence for his guilt was overwhelming (which included the blood on his clothes matched Lester's DNA, several of his fingerprints were discovered on the murder weapons, samples of his saliva were found on a cigarette butt in her house, and his handwriting was identical to the writing of a death threat sent to Lester), Reid's death sentence and execution was contested on the grounds of him allegedly having brain damage from a car accident, seizures, and alcoholism. The motivations behind Lester's murder remain unknown, but prosecutors suspected that it might have been part of a bungled robbery or rape attempt.
95. Dexter Vinson (1997-2006, lethal injection): Vinson attacked his ex girlfriend, 25 year old Angela Felton, near her home. Felton tried to escape by driving away, but he rammed her car with his, and forced her inside it. She was then dragged into a vacant house, raped, beaten, and stabbed in the face, neck, arms, buttocks, stomach, and vagina. The body was left in the house as Vinson fled the scene.
96. Brandon Hedrick (1997-2006, electric chair): Hendrick kidnapped a sex worker, 23 year old Lisa Crider, while he was cruising for prostitutes. Initially, Crider and Hendrick had engaged in paid consensual relations, but the situation turned violent when he robbed her of $50 at gunpoint. She was then raped, shot in the face, and dumped into a river.
97. Michael Lenz (~1990s-2006, lethal injection): While serving 29 years for a burglary and weapons possession conviction, Lenz stabbed a fellow inmate, 41 year old Brent Parker, to death. Both were part of a Nordic Neopaganism sect, and the killing was committed over Parker allegedly not expressing enough devotion to their deities. Parker was serving a life sentence for killing a friend during a drunken rage at the time of his own murder.
98. John Schmitt (1999-2006, lethal injection): During a holdup of a bank, Schmitt shot and killed the guard, 39 year old Shelton Dunning, and took $35,000 from the vaults.
99. Kevin Green (1998-2008, lethal injection): Green and his teenage nephew stormed a convenience store, and forced the owners, 68 year old Lawrence Vaughan and his wife, 53 year old Patricia, to hand over $9,000 in cash. They then shot the couple, killing Patricia and wounding Lawrence.
100. Robert Yarbrough (1997-2008, lethal injection): Yarbrough and his accomplice tied up 77 year old Cyril Hamby while robbing his grocery store. They subjected Hamby to beatings and nearly decapitated him with a pocket knife. The pair then stole beer, wine, cigarettes, and an undisclosed amount of money.
101. Kent Jackson (2000-2008, lethal injection): Jackson and an accomplice attacked 79 year old Beulah Kaiser in her apartment, and raped her. She was stabbed several times in the neck, beaten, and her cane was shoved down her throat after she was anally penetrated with it. A cigarette butt found at the crime scene was traced to the pair.
102. Christopher Emmett (2001-2008, lethal injection): Emmett was staying at a motel room with a coworker, 43 year old John Langley, while they were working on an out of town roofing job. The pair played cards until Langley went to bed. As he slept, Emmett bludgeoned him to death with a lamp, and stole $100 from his wallet. He used the stolen money to buy crack cocaine.
103. Edward Bell (~1990s-2008, lethal injection): While running away from officers trying to arrest him for a parole violation, Bell shot and killed one of his pursers, 32 year old Sergeant Ricky Timbrook. Bell had a long criminal record, which included several felony and misdemeanor convictions of assault, burglary, carrying conceal weapons, and was found to have stolen a car during the investigations of Timbrook's murder.
104. John Muhammad (~1999-2008, lethal injection): The so called “D.C. Sniper”, Muhammad shot and killed 17 random people between the ages of 21-76 with the help of a teenage accomplice in mostly sniper attacks. The killings took place in the national capital, hence the epithet, and across several states. Due to his affiliation with the Nation of Islam and the accomplice’s accounts of planning terrorist attacks and training camps, Muhammad’s murder spree are often considered to be acts of Islamic extremism in the media. However, experts believe that his real intentions was to kill his estranged wife using the sniper attacks as a mask. Muhammad had a long history of domestic violence, and had abducted his children from his estranged wife on numerous occasions. His accomplice had also accused him of sexual abuse a few years after his execution.
105. Larry Elliott (2001-2008, electric chair): Elliott, a former military counterintelligence agent, was in an online "sugar daddy" relationship with a much younger woman. At the woman's request, Elliott sent her over $450,000, which she used to pay for a home, credit card, car, breast enhancement surgery, and enrolling her children in a private school. The woman was also involved with a bitter custody dispute with her children's father, 30 year old Robert Finch. In an attempt to win the woman's devotion, Elliott shot and killed Finch in his home, and beat Finch's girlfriend, 25 year old Dana Thrall, to death with the butt of his gun.
106. Paul Powell (1999-2010, electric chair): Angry that his friend, 16 year old Stacie Reed, was in an interracial relationship, Powell made an attempt to rape her in her home. When she fought back, Powell stabbed her to death. He also tied up Stacie's 14 year old sister to be raped, stabbed, and strangled, and left the girl to die in the family's basement. The sister managed to survive with the timely arrival of their stepfather, who called the police and the paramedics to the scene. On the mistaken belief that the death penalty was off the table, Powell sent letters flaunting the lewd details of the murder to taunt the prosecutors, judge, and the victims’ family.
107. Darick Walker (~1996-2010, lethal injection): In 1996, Walker walked up to the door of 36 year old Stanley Beale, and angrily accused him of showing up at his home despite the fact that they were complete strangers. He then shot Beale dead in front of his children and girlfriend, and ran away from the scene. A year later, Walker forced himself into an apartment, and shot 34 year old Clarence Threat seven times while he was laying in bed with his girlfriend. Walker had a history of violence and frequently stole from his friends and family. In one reported incident, he kicked the stomach of a pregnant woman in an act of rage.
108. Teresa Lewis (2002-2010, lethal injection): Lewis conspired with two men that she had a sexual relationship with to kill her husband, 51 year old Julian, and her stepson, 25 year old Charles. Charles was about to be deployed to participate in the then upcoming invasion of Iraq, which gave him a $250,000 life insurance policy that Lewis wanted to collect from both him and his father. She let her accomplices inside their trailer, and shot Julian and Charles while they were sleeping. Charles was killed immediately, while Julian, who witnessed Lewis pay the attackers, survived long enough to notify the responders of his wife's involvement.
109. Jerry Jackson (2001-2011, lethal injection): Jackson broke into the apartment of 88 year old Ruth Phillips, and woke her up while he was rummaging through her room. Despite Phillips' pleas for her life, Jackson raped her and suffocated her to death with a pillow. He stole her car and a total of $60 in the break in, and spent the stolen money on marijuana.
110. Robert Gleason (2007+(?)-2013, electric chair): In 2007, Gleason shot and killed 54 year old Michael Jamerson, in order to prevent him from testifying about his drug trafficking activities, and was given a life sentence for the murder. While incarcerated, he tied up and strangled his cellmate, 63 year old Harvey Watson (who serving a life sentence for a mass shooting). Prison officials then transferred him to a high security prison to await trial for Watson’s murder, but he managed to strangle another inmate, 26 year old Aaron Cooper (who was serving 34 years for robbery), to death with the wire that separated their cages. Gleason demanded the death penalty, which was given to him by the courts. He also claimed that he committed several other killings before Jamerson, but his additional confessions currently remain unverifiable.
111. Alfredo Prieto (~1984-2015, lethal injection): Prieto was both a serial killer of young women and a member of the Pomona Northside street gang. His sexual crimes involved the abductions, rapes, and shooting deaths of at least 4 females, 24 year old Tina Jefferson, 22 year old Rachael Raver, 19 year old Stacey Siegrist, and 15 year old Yvette Woodruff. Raver and Siegrist’s partners, 22 year old Warren Fulton III and 21 year old Anthony Gianuzzi, were also murdered during their kidnappings. The other known victims, 27 year old Manuel Sermeno, and couple, 71 year old Lula and 65 year old Herbert Farley, were shot dead during robberies. In the home invasion that killed Woodruff, Prieto and his fellow gang members also abducted her 17 year old friend and the friend’s 33 year old mother. The mother and daughter pair were gang-raped, shot and stabbed together, but they managed to escape with their lives. Prieto was sentenced to death in both California and Virginia, but stayed in California’s San Quentin until his death warrant was signed in Virginia. He had also shot and injured 3 gang members over his suspicions of them sleeping with his wife, but was lightly sentenced due to the victims' gang affiliations.
112. Ricky Gray (~2005-2017, lethal injection): Gray and his similarly aged nephew murdered at least 9 people, which composed of a lone woman, 35 year old Treva Gray, and two entire families, the Harveys (consisting of parents, 49 year old Bryan and 39 year old Kathryn, and their daughters, 9 year old Stella and 4 year old Ruby), and the Baskerville-Tuckers (consisting of 21 year old Ashley, her 46 year old mother Mary, and Mary’s 55 year old husband Percyell) in a week long burglary spree. Almost all of the victims were tied up and gagged in their homes, and beaten to death with hammers or had their throats slit. Before she was killed by them with her parents, victim Ashley Baskerville had assisted Gray and his nephew in several of their robberies. The pair stole any items and valuables they could carry, and were reported to have taken money, computers, television sets, wedding rings, and even cookies. They were also linked to several non fatal assaults, one of which involved a 26 year old man being beaten into a coma.
113. William Morva (~2005-2017, lethal injection): Morva, a son of Hungarian immigrants, and an accomplice were arrested while trying rob a grocery store at gunpoint. While awaiting trial, he badly sprained his ankle and wrist in prison, and was transferred to the Montgomery Regional Hospital for treatment. He overpowered a deputy guarding him with a metal toilet-paper container, stole his gun, fatally shot Derrick McFarland, a 25 year old hospital security guard, and escaped. Morva then fled to Virginia Tech’s campus, and shot and killed 40 year old Eric Sutphin, one of the police officers chasing him.

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Welcome back to the Reformed UPG of the Week!
Gonna leave this here because reddit is still a massive pain these days

Slight update, the new reddit UI has made it almost impossible for me to quickly do these, like I used to be able to do. Thus, theres a chance it becomes UPG of the every other week until the problem is fixed. I can't spend every one of my entire Monday mornings working on this for hours with stupid formatting issues.

Last week I was reminded just how many Unreached People Groups there are in America. So today we are doing the largest unreached people group in the US, Jewish peoples of America.

Region: United States

map of Jewish peoples in the United States
Stratus Index Ranking (Urgency): 34
It has been noted to me by u/JCmathetes that I should explain this ranking. Low numbers are more urgent, both physically and spiritually together, while high numbers are less urgent. The scale is 1-177, with one number assigned to each country. So basically on a scale from Afghanistan (1) to Finland (177), how urgent are the peoples physical and spiritual needs.

The Stratus Index - Synthesizes reliable data from different sources to clearly display the world’s most urgent spiritual and physical needs.The vast majority of missions resources go to people and places already Reached by the Gospel, while only 3% of missionaries and 1% of missions money are deployed among the Unreached. This is the Great Imbalance. As a result, there are more people without access to the Gospel today than a decade ago. Stratus seeks to equip the global church with fresh vision to accomplish the Great Commission by addressing some of the factors that perpetuate the Great Imbalance. We hope this tool allows the church to better understand what steps will be required to overcome the barriers that prevent needs from being met, spurring informed and collaborative missions strategy. Stratus Website

New York City
Climate: With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south.
Frozen Great Lakes
LA, California
Terrain: Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, and just ahead of Canada. So its hard to get a bead on all the types of Terrain. The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua, Sonoran, and Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast, both ranges also reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m). The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the state of California, and only about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and in North America.
30A in Florida
Denver, CO
Mississippi River
Wildlife of US: There are 311 known reptiles, 295 amphibians and 1154 known fish species in the U.S. Known animals that exist in the US include white-tailed deer, bobcat, raccoon, muskrat, striped skunk, barn owl, American mink, American beaver, North American river otter, red fox, American Black Bear, Hawaiian Monk Seal, Black-Footed Ferret, Gila Monster, Groundhog, Pronghorn, American Alligator, Crocodile, American Bison, bald Eagle, wolves, mountain lions, Grizzly bears, polar bears, lynx, muskox, caribou, and now I'm tired of searching for lists that include all the animals. We have tons of venomous snakes, we have invasive pythons in the everglades.
Unfortunately, there is an invasive but existing population of wild monkeys in Silver Springs Florida.
Bison in Yellowstone
Pigeons in New York
Environmental Issues: Environmental issues in the United States include climate change, Ohio, species conservation, invasive species, deforestation, mining, nuclear accidents, pesticides, pollution, waste and over-population.
Languages: While many languages are spoken in the United States, English is the most common. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English, and most states have declared English as the official language. Three states and four U.S. territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English, including Hawaii (Hawaiian), Alaska (twenty Native languages), South Dakota (Sioux), American Samoa (Samoan), Puerto Rico (Spanish), Guam (Chamorro), and the Northern Mariana Islands (Carolinian and Chamorro). In Puerto Rico, Spanish is more widely spoken than English. According to the American Community Survey, in 2010 some 229 million people (out of the total U.S. population of 308 million) spoke only English at home. More than 37 million spoke Spanish at home, making it the second most commonly used language. Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese (2.8 million), Tagalog (1.6 million), Vietnamese (1.4 million), French (1.3 million), Korean (1.1 million), and German (1 million). The Jewish Peoples of America speak English.
Government Type: Federal presidential constitutional republic

People: Jewish Peoples of America

Jewish man of America
Population: 4,596,000
Estimated Foreign Workers Needed: 92+
Beliefs: The Jewish peoples of America are 2.7% Christian, but only 1.6% Evangelical. That means out of their population of 4,596,000, there are roughly 73,000 believers who share their faith. That slightly more than 1 believer for every 100.
Like all those who deny Christ, the Jewish peoples are deceived and follow a false god. For religious Jewish peoples, God (not the true God at this point) is the Supreme Being, the Creator of the universe, and the ultimate Judge of human affairs. Beyond this, the religious beliefs of the Jewish communities vary greatly. Orthodox Jewish peoples generally follow the traditional religious beliefs and practices found in the Jewish literature that interprets Scripture regarding ethical, religious, civil and criminal matters. Conservative Judaism is less traditional than Orthodox and combines different ethical, philosophical, and spiritual schools of thought. Reform Judaism is the most liberal form and interprets Jewish beliefs and practices in light of contemporary life and thought. Reform Jewish peoples do not believe that the Jewish Law is divinely revealed. They are not restricted to kosher (traditional, approved) foods, nor do they wear the skull cap (yarmulke) when praying or use Hebrew in prayer. All religious Jewish peoples believe in the coming of a Messianic Age, but only the Orthodox Jewish peoples look for a personal Messiah.
Not all Jewish peoples are religious. Some understand their "Jewishness" only as a social and cultural identity. American Jewish peoples are more likely to be atheists or agnostics than most Americans.
The Wilshire Boulevard Temple, known from 1862 to 1933 as Congregation B'nai B'rith, is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 3663 Wilshire Boulevard, in the Wilshire Center district of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. Founded in 1862, it is the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles.
History: Jewish peoples were present in the Thirteen Colonies since the mid-17th century. However, they were small in number, with at most 200 to 300 having arrived by 1700. Those early arrivals were mostly Sephardi Jewish immigrants, of Western Sephardic (also known as Spanish and Portuguese Jewish) ancestry, but by 1720, Ashkenazi Jewish peoples from diaspora communities in Central and Eastern Europe predominated.
For the first time, the English Plantation Act 1740 permitted Jewish peoples to become British citizens and emigrate to the colonies. The first famous Jewish person in U.S. history was Chaim Salomon, a Polish-born Jewish person who emigrated to New York and played an important role in the American Revolution. He was a successful financier who supported the patriotic cause and helped raise most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution.
Despite the fact that some of them were denied the right to vote or hold office in local jurisdictions, Sephardi Jewish peoples became active in community affairs in the 1790s, after they were granted political equality in the five states where they were most numerous. Until about 1830, Charleston, South Carolina had more Jewish peoples than anywhere else in North America. Large-scale Jewish immigration commenced in the 19th century, when, by mid-century, many German Jewish peoples had arrived, migrating to the United States in large numbers due to antisemitic laws and restrictions in their countries of birth. They primarily became merchants and shop-owners. Gradually early Jewish arrivals from the east coast would travel westward, and in the fall of 1819 the first Jewish religious services west of the Appalachian Range were conducted during the High Holidays in Cincinnati, the oldest Jewish community in the Midwest. Gradually the Cincinnati Jewish community would adopt novel practices under the leadership Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, the father of Reform Judaism in the United States, such as the inclusion of women in minyan. A large community grew in the region with the arrival of German and Lithuanian Jewish peoples in the latter half of the 1800s, leading to the establishment of Manischewitz, one of the largest producers of American kosher products and now based in New Jersey, and the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the United States, and second-oldest continuous published in the world, The American Israelite, established in 1854 and still extant in Cincinnati. By 1880 there were approximately 250,000 Jewish peoples in the United States, many of them being the educated, and largely secular, German Jews, although a minority population of the older Sephardi Jewish families remained influential.
Jewish migration to the United States increased dramatically in the early 1880s, as a result of persecution and economic difficulties in parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these new immigrants were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jewish peoples, most of whom arrived from poor diaspora communities of the Russian Empire and the Pale of Settlement, located in modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova. During the same period, great numbers of Ashkenazic Jewish peoples also arrived from Galicia, at that time the most impoverished region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a heavy Jewish urban population, driven out mainly by economic reasons. Many Jewish peoples also emigrated from Romania. Over 2,000,000 Jewish peoples landed between the late 19th century and 1924 when the Immigration Act of 1924 restricted immigration. Most settled in the New York metropolitan area, establishing the world's major concentrations of the Jewish population. In 1915, the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition, thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many magazines in Yiddish.
At the beginning of the 20th century, these newly arrived Jewish peoples built support networks consisting of many small synagogues and Landsmanshaften (German and Yiddish for "Countryman Associations") for Jewish peoples from the same town or village. American Jewish writers of the time urged assimilation and integration into the wider American culture, and Jews quickly became part of American life. Approximately 500,000 American Jewish peoples (or half of all Jewish males between 18 and 50) fought in World War II, and after the war younger families joined the new trend of suburbanization. There, Jewish peoples became increasingly assimilated and demonstrated rising intermarriage. The suburbs facilitated the formation of new centers, as Jewish school enrollment more than doubled between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, while synagogue affiliation jumped from 20% in 1930 to 60% in 1960; the fastest growth came in Reform and, especially, Conservative congregations. More recent waves of Jewish emigration from Russia and other regions have largely joined the mainstream American Jewish community.
Eastern European Jewish immigrants arriving in New York ca 1887?
Culture: Typical qualification that all people groups can't be summed up in small paragraphs and this is an over generalization.
In North America, most Jewish peoples live in urban areas on the east or west coasts. New York City has the largest Jewish population in North America, with over a half million Hassidic Jewish peoples alone. In South America, they also live in cities, but keep themselves as a distinct religious and ethnic minority.
While maintaining a Jewish identity, the majority of North American Jewish peoples conform to the mainstream American culture. "Jewishness" is often defined in more secular terms such as the use of Yiddish words and family traditions, rather than in religious aspects, such as the following of Jewish laws regarding dietary restrictions. Not all Jewish peoples are religious. Some understand their "Jewishness" only as a social and cultural identity. Understanding what it means to be a Jewish people begins in childhood. It takes place in the home through storytelling and by taking part in Jewish rituals and festivals such as Rosh Hashanah (New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Passover. Socialization also takes place through participation in Hebrew school or synagogue youth groups. At the age of 13, the Bar Mitzvah ceremony for a boy (or Bat Mitzvah for a girl) is an important rite of passage, which marks him or her as an adult member of the community. While these ceremonies were more spiritually focused in the past, they have become equally important as social events.
Marriage and family relationships among Jewish peoples are much the same as other Americans. While Jewish families have fewer children, they are child-oriented, indulgent, and permissive. Although wives generally take on their husbands' surnames, Jewish identity is traced through the mothers. That is, if one's mother is a Jewish people, then he is, according to Jewish law, Jewish. He or she is entitled to all the rights and privileges that status brings, including the right to immigrate to Israel and settle there as a citizen.
I couldn't not include a pic of the notable cultural event of the American Hasidic Jewish peoples who dug a tunnel in New York
Cuisine: Popular dishes in American Jewish cuisine include:

• Bagel – A doughnut-shaped bread roll. The dough is first boiled and then baked, resulting in a dense, chewy interior with a browned exterior: A bagel and cream cheese is a popular pairing.
• Bialy – A bread roll similar to a bagel, but without a hole, and somewhat less chewy as the dough is not boiled before being baked.
• Blintz – A fried crêpe, usually filled with farmer cheese and served with various toppings.
• Brisket – An inexpensive cut of beef that is braised as a pot roast.
• Challah – A light bread made with eggs, used as regular food, and on ritual or holiday occasions.
• Chicken soup – Chicken broth with herbs like parsley, dill, or thyme, and often with egg noodles added.
  • Matzah balls are sometimes added to the soup instead of, or in addition to, noodles.
  • Kreplach are small dumplings that are another common addition to chicken soup.
• Chopped liver – A liver pâté made with hard-boiled eggs, salt, and pepper. Served as a side dish, hence the expression, "What am I, chopped liver?"
• Corned beef – Beef brisket that has been cured with brine and spices and then sliced.
  • Corned beef sandwich – A common use of corned beef.
• Gefilte fish – Ground fish – often a combination of carp, pike, and whitefish – that is mixed with other ingredients, formed into patties or balls, and poached; usually served as an appetizer.
• Kishke – A large, starchy sausage made with grain, vegetables, beef or chicken fat, and spices.
• Knish – A type of savory baked turnover; various fillings are used, such as potatoes or ground beef.
• Kugel – A baked casserole made with egg noodles or potatoes.
• Latke – A pancake made with grated potatoes and other ingredients, fried in oil.
• Lox – A sliced fillet of cured salmon. Belly lox is cured with brine and is therefore rather salty. Nova lox is cold-smoked. Lox is often eaten as a sandwich, on a bagel with cream cheese.
• Mandelbrot – A crunchy cookie, sometimes made with almonds, formed by baking a loaf which is then cut into small slabs and twice-baked.
• Pastrami – Beef brisket that has been cured with brine, rubbed with pepper, garlic, and other spices, smoked, and then sliced. Like corned beef it is usually served as a sandwich.
  • Pastrami on rye – Pastrami on rye bread topped with spicy brown mustard.
• Rugelach – Small baked pastries made by wrapping dough around a filling.
• Whitefish – Smoked freshwater whitefish, either filleted or made into whitefish salad.

New York Bagels

Prayer Request:

• Ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth loving Christians to work among the Jewish communities.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to grant wisdom and favor to the missions agencies that are focusing on the Jewish peoples of North and South America.
• Pray that the Jewish people will understand that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah.
• Ask the Lord to soften the hearts of the Jewish peoples towards Christians so that they might hear and receive the message of salvation.
• Pray that God will grant Jewish believers favor as they share their faith in Christ with their own people.
• Pray that strong local churches will be raised up in each Jewish community.
• Pray against Putin and his insane little war.
• Pray for our nation (the United States), that we Christians can learn to come alongside our hurting brothers and sisters and learn to carry one another's burdens in a more Christlike manner than we have done historically.
• Pray that in this time of an upcoming election and insanity that the needs of the unreached are not forgotten by the church. Pray that our hearts continue to ache to see the unreached hear the Good News.

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1)
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Here are the previous weeks threads on the UPG of the Week for Reformed from 2023 (plus a few from 2022 so this one post isn't so lonely). To save some space on these, all UPG posts made 2019-now are here, I will try to keep this current.

People Group	Country	Continent	Date Posted	Beliefs
Jewish peoples	United States	North America	05/06/2024	Judaism
Jordanian Arab	Jordan	Asia	04/29/2024	Islam
Bouyei	China	Asia	04/22/2024	Animism
Arab Libyans	Libya	Africa	03/25/2024	Islam
Gafsa Amazigh	Tunisia	Africa	03/18/2024	Islam
Hindi	South Africa	Africa	03/04/2024	Hinduism
Arabs	Iraq	Asia	02/26/2024	Islam
Bagirmi Fulani	Central African Republic	Africa	02/12/2024	Islam
Gujarati	Portugal	Europe	02/05/2024	Hinduism
Western Cham	Cambodia	Asia	01/29/2024	Islamc
Yadav	India	Asia	01/22/2024	Hinduism
Thai (updated)	Thailand	Asia	12/18/2023	Buddhism

a - Tibet belongs to Tibet, not China.
b - Russia/Turkey/etc is Europe but also Asia so...
c - this likely is not the true religion that they worship, but rather they have a mixture of what is listed with other local religions, or they have embraced a liberal drift and are leaving faith entirely but this is their historical faith.
Here is a list of definitions in case you wonder what exactly I mean by words like "Unreached".
Here is a list of missions organizations that reach out to the world to do missions for the Glory of God.

It was pretty unanimous that my last routine was way too much volume. Here is my new workout and diet regime. I am now down 170lbs.
Monday - Chest and Triceps

1. Bench Press
2. Dumbbell Press
3. Chest Flys
4. Incline Dumbbell Press
5. Triceps Pushdown
6. Skull crushers 7. Triceps Extension
7. Dips (assisted)
   
8. Treadmill 12-degree incline at 2.5 mph for 30 minutes (at night)
   

Tuesday - Back and Biceps

1. Lat Pulldown
2. Cable Row
3. Lat Pull-over
4. T-Bar row
5. Face Pull
6. Hammer Curls
7. Barbell Curl
8. Cable Curl
9. Seated curl
10. Hammer grip pull up (assisted)
    
11. 2–3 mile run (at night)
    

Wednesday - Shoulders

1. Dumbbell Shoulder Press
2. Side Lateral Raise
3. Barbell upright Row
4. Back Delt Fly
5. Overhead press
6. Cable Front Raise
7. Arnold Press
8. Shrugs
   
9. Outdoor run 2-3 miles (at night)
   

Thursday - Legs

1. Hamstrings
2. Quad Extension
3. Leg Press
4. Calf Raise
   
5. treadmill 12-degree incline at 2.5 mph for 30 minutes (at night)
   

Friday - Fun day usually just a very long walk 5 miles or so and some basketball.
Saturday - 45-minute walk 0 incline at 2.5 mph.
Sunday - 2-3 mile outdoor (at night)
Diet: Weekday
Breakfast: Premier Cookie Dough protein shake.
Lunch: Fair life protein shake, 2-3 cups of strawberries, large spring mix salad with a few servings of kens lite northern Italian dressing and one packet of chicken or tuna.
Snacks: usually a small bag of chips (110 cal), grapes, blueberries, carrots and hummus. turkey and cheese sandwich with yellow mustard, smart pop popcorn, Fairlife protein shake, Quest Protein bar. I dont have ALL of this every day but this is my roster that I choose from.
Dinner: I usually have a ton of calories left over so I kind of eat whatever i want.
Weekend: We usually eatout so I stick with chik fila grilled nuggets Qdoba chicken bowl (double chicken no rice no beans extra fajita veggies diablo cheese, pickled onion, green salsa and lettuce ftw) and popeyes blackend tenders. If we are at a sit-down restaurant I usually go for a good steak and asparagus and a baked plain sweet potato.
Supplements: Mens daily vitamin, Zinc, Vitamin C, Magnesium Glycinate, D3, Fiber (pooper problems), Krill Oil, Baby aspirin
I stick to this pretty good. Onces or twice a month ill go rouge and eat like an asshole. Overall my energy is through the roof and I fell good. I am less sore at the end of the week after 300-400 minutes of exercise than I was when I didn't do anything.

There is something wrong with my family.
When I walked through the door after spending two days at a slumber party, the house smelled of… bacon.
Holy shit.
Mom was actually cooking dinner.
Which was crazy because Mom never cooked dinner.
She was either at work, locked in her home office on the ground floor, or in her room complaining of a migraine.
We never ate Mom’s cooking because she never cooked for us.
My brother Fitz once joked she would cook us an Excel spreadsheet, or throw her iPhone in the air fryer to make a stew.
He was almost right.
A few months ago, Mom microwaved her iPad.
We weren't really an eating together type of family. Sure, we had the white picket fence and family SUV.
We greeted our neighbours every day with nuclear family smiles. Mom was the head of her book club on her days off, and Dad worked in an office. From the outside, we were your average Brady Bunch. My best friend had even commented on it. “Ruby, your family is so close! I wish mine were like yours!”
Close couldn't have been further from the truth.
Keeping up appearances is all we had to do in front of the locals.
I smiled my biggest smile and wore my hair in a perfect ponytail.
Fitz and Cassie followed suit, playing their part as nuclear children.
That is what Mom wanted us to be. However, our dollhouse wasn't as perfect as perceived. Inside our so-called forever home, we were a disconnected group of lodgers.
Mom barely spoke to us, and when she did, she was enforcing yet another rule.
Don't go into the living room unsupervised. Don't go into the basement. Don't eat food outside of the kitchen. Don't wear your shoes inside.
Mom had different rules tailored to each of us.
For me, I wasn't allowed electronics after 8pm.
Fitz, who was one year older, had a set curfew of 9pm.
Cassie could only eat fruit and vegetables on Wednesday.
Snacks, candy, and chocolate were banned for all of us.
We weren't even allowed to sit on the living room couch. Mom was terrified of us ruining it, so we had beanbags.
When I first got a whiff of bacon, I was convinced either our house was burning down, or my brother had finally gotten tired of his Uber Eats diet.
Fitz wasn't a cook, though.
Christmas 2019, his turkey dinner gave us all food poisoning.
I was slipping out of my shoes and hanging up my jacket, when a familiar voice tinkered from the kitchen.
“Ruby, sweetie? I’m making dinner if you're hungry!”
It smelled amazing, whatever it was.
I was in disbelief, walking into the kitchen to find my Mom standing over a bubbling pan.
“Can you set the table, honey?”
Fitz and Cassie joined us, followed by Dad.
“Smells good, Mom!” Fitz jumped into his seat with a grin.
Which was definitely odd for him. Normally, the guy took 5 working days to sit down.
Cassie slid past me, ruffling my hair. “Hey, sis!”
My family were acting different in general. Cassie was unusually smiley, not the bratty teenager she usually was, while my brother dropped his patronising smirk and I'm better than you attitude, for a more laid back vibe.
Usually, my brother and sister were insufferable.
Cassie always had to bring up how much she hated all of us.
Fitz wouldn't rest until he had the last word, and Dad’s face was beet red.
Now, it was like they'd had a personality purge.
Fitz caught my eye, his lips curling into a smile.
“Yo.” He saluted me with two fingers, which was not my brother.
Fitz Setori greeted me with a scowl or a pretentious movie quote.
Before I left for the slumber party, he wouldn't shut up about a black and white French movie only he had seen. If Cassie and I liked a movie, he hated it. If he liked something, Fitz made sure we didn't like it.
My brother’s wardrobe was like he was trying to cosplay Sherlock Holmes, and I still didn't understand how he had friends at school. The thing with my siblings was, I missed them. It used to be the three of us versus the world (and our dictator-like mother). But since starting high school, Fitz had turned into this pretentious film freak with an obsession with being right, and Cassie was sixteen going on twenty one.
Presently, my brother’s demeanour was more relaxed, not the stiff uptight bullshit he usually was, always trying to get ahead of the conversation and prove himself right. In the corner of my eye, I could have sworn something flashed, a bright light filling the edges of my vision, like a polaroid was being taken.
Fitz didn't notice. Leaning over the table, he stabbed his fork into my steak, speaking through a mouthful of mashed potato. “Are you eating this?”
I shook my head, watching in disbelief as he took my whole plate, inhaling my food too.
Cassie, who was always glued to her phone, gave him a playful shove.
Well, that was weird.
The two of them couldn't go one day without trying to rip each other's heads off. I don't know what baffled me more.
Seeing my siblings sitting together, shoulder to shoulder instead of avoiding each other like the plague, or the fact that Cassie was yet to announce that she hated all of us, and couldn't wait until college. Which usually followed with Fitz saying, “What college?” and ending up with a face full of food.
But it didn't end there.
Because, when they were sent to their rooms, they continued, snapping at each other with passive aggressive remarks until they were physically trying to murder one another. The craziest part is, the two of them used to be so close.
If Cassie didn't throw a death threat at Fitz, it wasn't a normal Seteri dinner.
Now, I was watching them nudge each other like they knew something I didn't.
“Okay, what happened while I was away?” I spoke up, toying with my fork.
“Hmm?” Mom settled me with a smile. “What do you mean?”
I bit my tongue, waiting for Dad to intervene with a cough.
When we did eat together, which was rare, Dad wasn't a fan of talking at the table. When I risked a look at him, though, Dad was happily chewing through his meal. He caught my eye, grinning through steak juices running down his chin. “Isn't it a wonderful day?”
He nodded for me to continue, a crunching noise twisting my gut.
Dad was grinding through the steak bones.
He stopped, slowly inclining his head. “Ruby, are you okay, darling?”
I felt my fingers tighten around my fork.
Dad never called me darling.
He made it clear I wasn't the favorite child, making little effort with me when I was a kid in favour of Fitz and Cassie.
It was always those two who he spent time with. I remember sitting outside the basement door with cookies, waiting for Cassie and Fitz to come back up the stairs. They were down there for hours, sometimes a whole day.
The only bonding I did with my father was when I snuck down there myself.
Dsd was always working, so I stuck around, usually spinning around in his chair or poking things I shouldn't poke.
I was still struggling to process darling, mashed potato creeping back up my throat, when Fitz kicked me under the table. His smile was unnerving me, the way he and Cassie kept grinning at each other, like they knew something I didn't.
It was just like when we were kids.
Fitz was trembling, trying and failing to hold in laughter.
“What's going on, Ruby?” He choked, before bursting into childlike giggles.
Cassie joined in, her smile stretching wider and wider.
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
Too many teeth.
“We never have dinner together,” I said pointedly, glancing at Mom. “Unless you're impressing a work colleague.”
I turned to Fitz. “You barely come out of your room, and when you do you're insufferable.” Fitz only smirked, and I moved onto Cassie, who wasn't fooling me with her innocent smile with far too many teeth. “And you only come downstairs when you want something.”
There was a pause, before Fitz exploded into laughter.
Cassie started giggling, and to my confusion, even Mom was trying to hide her smile.
My rule obsessed, fun-hating mother was barely holding in her own hysterics.
Dad wasn't laughing.
Dad was still fucking grinding bones between his teeth.
I stood up, which made my brother howl harder.
“What's so funny?”
My family didn't respond, snorting like middle schoolers.
I snatched my plate up from Fitz.
“You're all fucking sociopaths.”
I waited for the inevitable chastising for swearing. I stubbed my toe a few weeks ago, accidentally saying, fuck and Mom almost had a nervous breakdown.
She said my vulgar language was a problem that would be solved by taking away my phone for a week. But this time, Mom didn't even notice. She was still eating, stifling her own snickers.
I was planning on heading to my room, but I couldn't help it, making a detour down the hallway.
Dad always told me to look at the teeth.
Too many teeth was bad.
Too many teeth meant something was wrong.
Mom immediately noticed, her shadow following me.
Another flash of light behind me, and this time I could hear a shutter sound.
“Ruby, where are you going?”
Twisting around, my mother was smiling at me. I blinked, and the hallway I had known my whole life suddenly appeared warped, like it wasn't real, like it was slowly closing in on me, and my destination was getting further away.
With panic rising in my chest, my hands searched for a door that was no longer there, bleeding into the wallpaper. Another flash. This time it was brighter, filling the dark with light that didn't make sense, a blinding white blur fraying the edges of my vision.
But where was the camera?
“Ruby.”
I blinked again.
Mom was standing closer, her smile wider.
“Is there something wrong?”
I found my voice. “What was that light?”
Mom did a slow head incline, mimicking my brother. “What light?”
I was growing progressively more paranoid, my hands shaking.
“Is someone taking photos of me?” I whispered.
Mom’s plastic grin didn't waver. “Photos? What do you mean, sweetie?”
I managed to shake my head, pushing past her.
“Nothing.” I said, “I'm okay. I'm just tired.”
Mom nodded, and I could hear Fitz giggling behind me.
When I looked, however, there was nobody there.
Still, my brother’s shrieks of laughter followed me all the way to my room.
Only stopping when I slammed the door.
4:01am.
There was a figure standing in my doorway. I thought it was a trick of the mind, but no, there was someone standing inside my room, peeking through their hands. For a disorienting moment, I was frozen. I couldn't move.
“Fitz?”
When I sat up, I was blinded by that same light, the unmistakable sound of a camera shutter filling the silence.
The figure didn't have a face, a shadow hanging over my bed. But looking closer, it did have wide, laughing eyes peeking through its fingers. Keeping my gaze glued to the figure, who was very slowly uncovering its eyes like playing a game of peek-a-boo, I reached to switch on the light.
The shadow ran away, though I definitely saw my brother’s dark red hair.
I didn't sleep well that night. I kept waking up.
The laughing had stopped, but I could still see Fitz’s unmoving shadow.
His feet under the door.
All night.
Obviously, I called him out on it the next morning.
“What were you doing last night?” I demanded, trying to force down toast.
Fitz acted oblivious, because of course he did.
“What did I do?” he teased, wearing that smirk I wanted to carve off of his face.
“You stood outside my door all night!”
Fitz chuckled into his glass of juice. “You caaaaaaan’t prove it.”
Mom was yet to get ready for work, eating cereal from the box.
She was halfway through a bottle of wine when I came down for breakfast, laughing hysterically at a refrigerator commercial.
Usually, my mother was gone before I woke up. Not to mention, we weren't allowed to eat cereal for breakfast.
It was always health food crap.
“Mom.” I gritted out.
Cassie was making coffee behind us, joining in with the theatrics.
My sister hated coffee.
“Mom!” I yelled, when my brother winked at me.
Mom ignored my complaints, kissing the rim of her glass. “Be a doll, and go get Mommy’s favorite vino from the basement,” she downed the rest of her wine, tipping her head back and blowing strands of hair from her eyes.
“You know,” she sighed, “The expensive one.”
“Don't you have a job to go to?” I glanced at my phone. “It's almost eight.”
“Mmm.” Mom rolled her eyes. “Maybe later.”
My workaholic mother who went to work with gastritis, and had even forced Fitz to go to school with the flu, was acting like a drunken teenage girl.
Mom’s whole life revolved around perfect attendance.
She scanned our report cards for tardies, threatening our phone privileges if we were a minute late for class.
Suddenly, I was the one who felt like a mother.
“Mom, you need to go to work.”
“Yeah, Mom!” Fitz mocked my voice, leaning his chin on his fist. “You need to go to work!”
Mom settled me with a patient smile. I thought she would get mad, though she seemed amused. “Mommy wants a drink, darling. Fetch me the wine.”
I nodded, standing up.
Anything to get away from these psychopaths.
My siblings' laughter followed me, once again, out of the kitchen.
Down the hallway.
Before stopping abruptly, when I stepped in front of the basement door.
Reaching out with shaking hands, I grasped the handle.
I hadn't been down to the basement in a while for a number of reasons.
Heading down stone cold steps, I used my phone light to navigate the darkness. I remembered the exact way I used to jump down them as a kid, two at a time, squeezing the handrail tightly.
Sometimes, Cassie joined me, the two of us holding hands.
I recalled the time we used to run up and down the Miller family stairs.
Cassie and I would sing a song, the two of us giggling nervously.
One step, two step, three step, four.
I can hear a human knocking on the floor!
There was no sign of my mother’s expensive vino when I stepped inside the Setori family basement. It was exactly how I remembered it, a single observation bed, my Dad’s desk filled with research. I wasn't supposed to look at them, because it was dangerous.
Instead, I focused on the strange looking machines and rows of metal shelves filled with an assortment of jars.
When he was fifteen, Fitz opened one up.
He didn't tell me what was in it, but he was violently sick for days.
Further into the basement, I could sense their shuddering breaths.
”Do not look, Ruby.” Dad always told me.
But I couldn't help it, risking a glance, the breath catching in my throat.
Five slumped figures, each of them brutally tied back to back under a single buzzing bulb.
My parents’ prisoners.
Riley and Connor Setori with their teenage children Fitz and Cassie, and then of course, the girl who made me.
The reason why I was alive and breathing.
Ruby Setori.
I want to preface this by saying it was never my choice that I became Ruby.
Dad was insistent, and as a kid, I followed my parents.
My family and I were born in a lab as Mimics.
There were three Mimic families, though we were the only survivors. I've only ever known mimicking, and being forced from person to person. It's kind of like shape shifting, but we need human bodies and voices to survive.
Human voices make us real.
My siblings were born after me, but something was wrong with them.
I don't really remember it, but I used to live in a white room with sponge walls.
Fitz and Cassie were in the room next to me. The people in white spoke of failures and more tests, and my brother was so weak, while my sister was spitting up blood. They concluded that their original forms were dying.
A default body for a mimic is a faceless being with no discernable features, a shadow you swear you see in the corner of your vision, what you think is a trick of the mind. With my old body, I could explore the darkness and creep into the corner of any human’s eye. I started to get better. Voices were hard at first.
You have to get the exact tone, and once you have that, you can latch onto the body and brain. My first successful mimic was a scientist named Doctor Carlisle.
His voice didn't make sense to me, but I was able to replicate it and use it to my advantage. When we escaped the lab, my father broke into the Miller house.
I was too young to really understand, but my Mom urged me to mimic their youngest daughter.
Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was a lot more comfortable to mimic.
I spent 8 years being Elizabeth Miller, before we were forced to relocate.
The family we were impersonating were growing suspicious of us, and my brother was getting progressively sicker. He couldn't acclimatise to a body. The Miller son almost killed him, and he only embodied the kid’s voice.
The Setori household is where we struck gold.
Fitz Setori, sitting in front of me, blindfolded, was my brother’s saving grace.
When I was twelve years old, my parents kidnapped the Setori family and forced them into their own basement, immediately stealing their faces.
I remember Ruby Setori sitting cross legged on the floor, her wide eyes filled with tears.
Dad said I had to talk to her to form the connection. When she refused to talk back, my father was forceful.
Our first conversation was me mimicking her sobs, her throaty cries for me to get away from her.
With Ruby’s voice, I asked her questions.
Mom told me I had to talk to her, before the bond was severed.
“What's your favorite color?” I asked, swirling her voice around my mouth.
“What did you do to my family?” Ruby squeaked.
I looked at my dad for help, and he shook his head.
“Ask her again.”
I took a deep breath. “What is your favorite color?”
“Pink.” She whispered.
“Pink.” I repeated, leaning closer.
“Please.” Ruby said. “Please don't hurt me.”
“Please.” I said, clinging onto her tone, the exact indentation in her speech.
She cocked her head, and I did too.
“Please don't hurt me.”
“I'm not going to.” I told her, when the invisible ribbon binding us together tightened, entangling. This time I was speaking over her. My face became Ruby Setori. Thick brown hair and wide eyes, lips parted in a silent cry.
“I promise I'm not going to hurt you.”
Ruby stared at me like I was a monster.
She shrieked, stumbling back, only to be forced back into place by my mother.
Dad told me mimicking had three stages.
Voice.
Body.
Mind.
I already had Ruby’s voice, and I was wearing her face.
Her memories hit me like a tidal wave, warm and cosy.
I saw her perfect family, all of her friends, growing up behind a white picket fence and a fluffy dog called Cosmo. Ruby liked orange soda and ice cream. She was smart at math, but got her words mixed up. She loved elephant plushies and the Disney channel.
The human girl was scared of the dark, scared of what lurked in the dark.
Scared of me.
I wanted to tell her I wasn't a monster.
“Ruby.” I whispered, “I'm sorry.”
She didn't move, and something slimy erupted up my throat.
Ruby’s expression was frozen in terror, her mouth slightly open, eyes wide.
“Ru… by.” The girl’s voice was a strangled cry. “I’m… s… ooooorry.”
I lurched back, swallowing a cry.
Ruby Setori was mimicking me.
Which was the final stage.
I went through it as a little kid, but I was too young to remember assimilating with Elizabeth Miller.
My brother's assimilation was different, and a lot more brutal.
Fitz Setori did not want to have his face and voice stolen.
He escaped four times, attacking my mother, despite her wearing his own Mom’s face. My brother was gentle, kneeling in front of him and speaking in soft tones. My sister and I watched from the corner of the room, too scared to go near the unpredictable human boy.
“Hello.” My brother was too sick to stand. “Can you… tell me your name?”
Fitz spat at him.
“Fuck you.” The fourteen year old hissed, “You're not taking my voice.”
“Fuck… you.” My brother mimicked, already taking hold of the boy’s tone.
Fitz shuffled back. “Get away from me!”
“Get… away… from me.” My brother copied.
His nose wasn't bleeding this time, and very slowly, he adapted Fitz’s face.
It took a while, and a lot of screaming and crying.
I didn't want to watch, but I was also curious about how human children were supposed to act. I was never in a stable body enough to fully adapt to emotions. Fitz was feeling panic and fear and anger, all of which I decided to copy.
But my brother did manage to mimic Fitz Setori.
Mr and Mrs Setori begged my parents to let their children go.
But my dad needed the Setori kids. For our survival.
Cassie and I sang another song, this time to block out the screaming.
My family took over the Setori household, and slid into our roles as the not quite perfect family on the quiet suburban street. Growing up, Dad insisted on daily tests to make sure our bonds with the Setori siblings were still intact. We were forbidden from talking to them.
Presently, I couldn't stop myself.
There was something wrong with my family.
And I had zero doubts the family had something to do with it.
Dad had drawn a line on the basement floor.
We were acquired to stay behind the line, unless we wanted to be grounded until college.
Stepping over it, I shivered, my bare feet grazing warm blood pooling across the floor. Mom and Dad were always protective over the basement. They told us the Setori family were safe and unharmed. But that was hard to believe even my parents resented humans for creating them, and torturing them.
What my parents did to the human was a whole other level of torture.
Especially the adults.
Mr and Mrs Setoti had been in a medically induced coma for almost four years. Their heads were bowed, plastic tubes sticking directly into their skull.
Cassie Setori was awake. I could hear her breathing.
She was pretending to be out of it.
Fitz Setori had been fixed by my father a year ago.
Dad said his behavior was too ‘dangerous’.
One minute the boy was screaming and threatening, and the next, he was silent, drool seeping down his chin, head tipped back, blinking at the ceiling.
The fixing was in case Fitz ever managed to gain control of my brother.
When I crouched in front of the Setori siblings, I felt a deep, twisting guilt eating me up inside.
They were barely human anymore, stripped of their terrestrial bodies, atoms and static and a shadow of what once was. The blood made me nauseous, splattering their arms and legs and clothes they were growing out of.
Ruby’s hair was almost at a Rupunzal length. I wanted to see the good in that, maybe call her a princess, though maybe she was more of a Sleeping Beauty, forced into slumber.
Fitz had aged way beyond his age, bearded like his father.
Cassie’s pigtails were touching the floor.
I pretended not to see the restraints cruelly binding their wrists, the burn marks branding them as ours.
The three were skeletal, pale and malnourished.
Humans who were anything but.
My stomach twisted when I peeked under Cassie’s blindfold.
Her right eye was gone, scooped out of its socket.
Dad didn't have to hurt them.
He didn't have to tie them up.
But I know what humans are like.
They are scary and unpredictable and will murder their own kind.
I did try to talk to them before Dad fixed the Setori son.
Fitz, Cassie and me.
The Setori siblings told us we were dead.
That they were going to kill us slowly, an painfully.
By slicing their own throats.
Fitz tried to argue that it wasn't us who did this.
Only for his original to call him a piece of shit.
Ever since then, Mom put a lock on the basement door.
I was trying to loosen Ruby’s ropes, ignoring my father’s earlier warning, when a familiar light filled the room.
A camera flash.
When I stumbled to my feet, I was alone.
A giggle caught me off guard.
It was Ruby Setori herself, her lips split into a grin.
“Can we play a game?” She asked.
Her voice was made of static, barely a whisper.
The girl wasn't supposed to have her voice.
My voice.
I held my breath. I had to be tactical with my speech.
“What did you do to my family?”
“I have a better question,” she said, growing stronger. She lifted her head. I could hear her straining against the ropes. “What's your favorite color?”
“Pink.” I said. “What did you do to my family?”
In the corner of my eye, I detected movement.
There was something at the other end of the room.
Twitching.
“What about your favorite TV show?” Ruby asked, leaning forward. “You must have one. Maybe it's even mine!”
It was hers, and she knew that.
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I said, my mouth filling with blood.
Just like Dad said, our bond was severing.
If I continued to talk to her, I risked detaching from her completely.
Ruby Setori wanted her voice back.
“I love Buffy!” The girl’s smile was, dare I think, genuine.
“How about we talk about your brother? Is he doing okay, Ruby? Is he acting…“
She paused, sucking her teeth. “Kinda weird?”
Upstairs, I could hear Fitz’s laughter getting louder and louder.
“Please.” Ruby was mimicking her younger self.
Even blindfolded, I could see the gleam in her eyes.
“What did you do to my family?”
Her words forced me into action.
I prodded Fitz Setori, only for his head to hang.
Unconscious.
There was dried blood under his nose, a slimy ooze of black.
Prying open his mouth, I checked his teeth.
Too many.
Just like Cassie, a whole new row of spiky incisors were pushing through.
Dad was hurting them.
He was torturing them.
Turning them into something.
My quivering hands found a needle sticking into the back of his head, colorful wires protruding into his skin.
There was a clear fluid being pumped into the three of them.
If Dad was experimenting on the Setori family, was it affecting us too?
“Well?” Ruby demanded, her voice twisting, contorting into that of a monster.
“What did you DO to my FAMILY?”
Instead of answering her, I forced my legs to move toward the movement on the other side of the room. There was something piled on the floor, jerking in sharp movements, a slimy mess of inside out flesh. It hit me when I was closer.
The bodies entangled with each other, some of them headless, others missing arms and distinct facial features, were me. Dozens of Ruby Setori’s both made of buzzing static and terrestrial flesh, covered in a slimy, blood tinged substance, like these things were being born. Not made.
I think I was sick. All over myself.
Another blinding flash hit the corner of my eye, and in front of me, another thing was slowly forming, first static, growing into skin, a body moulded and sculpted into existence.
This Ruby had no eyes, no arms, her limbs contorted like doll pieces. I was aware I was staggering back, slipping in what looked and felt like part of a placenta.
The Setori siblings were making copies of me.
My gaze found one singular version of me who was almost perfect.
Except her enlarged brain expanding Through the skull.
And these replicas were getting better by the minute.
“Ruby!”
Mom shouted from upstairs. “Did you get my wine?”
I left the basement, my heart in my throat.
Upstairs, my brother and sister were giggling.
And downstairs in the basement, the Setori siblings were laughing harder.
Three nights since I spoke to Ruby, and the copies of me are getting better.
One of them managed to walk upstairs yesterday.
I think the siblings are slowly making another version of their sister.
I want to talk to her. I want to know what she's doing to my family.
But I can't talk to her.
If I do, I lose Ruby Setori.
Mom and Dad play peek-a-boo with me every night.
They're behind every door, their hands covering their faces.
Cassie is eating meat raw from the refrigerator.
Fitz is getting better at crawling under my door.
And the laughter in the basement is getting louder.
Please help me. I'm so scared of my own family.
I don't think the Setori’s were my parent’s best choice after all.

I’ve posted about my experiences so many times, but forgot a huge detail:
Sometimes I feel NAUSEOUS after waking up from nightmares, and a YouTube comment of a video of a guy feeling scared and nauseous at his job (dark restaurant by himself) and walked by a human face with big black eyes) the comment said that demons send out energy that cause nausea trying to possess you.
Because I’m so tired of retyping the same thing, I’ll just state the main symptoms:
Vivid nightmares: Has included seeing very clear and detailed, human-like beings, including an old man dancing around making surprised faces at me, mocking me for screaming in terror (screaming didn’t wake me up the first time) while my mom danced around in lingerie (at least the demonic old was fully clothed.
Another one was I was in my dark room (past house) and shined a light on this old man’s face. He had an unnatural, cartoon-like open mouth frown, white another guy was trying to remain hidden in the dark.
These were both nightmares where I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs, completely terrified, and felt like I was going to throw up, and seeing them stuck in my head and feeling like they were still there and I desperately prayed and read Bible verses.
Another was seeing this witch like creature (looked like Kamek from the Mario Bros. but with white human skin and black robe and hat instead of blue, definitely still had those huge glasses) LITERALLY PHYSICALLY INSIDE OF MY HEAD, like in my brain or my skull.
There was a black guy wearing a red top hat and, kind of like a musician dressed like Satan. I said “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus” and he disappeared so instantly I didn’t even see him disappear, I just looked down and back and he was immediately gone, like he was never there.
Another this Wiccan girl (I guess) summoned a demon (that actually looked like a demon) for a board game that was supposed to help us get ahead in life (not a Ouija board).
I’ve had many other very strange, vivid, uncanny dreams, some not necessarily bad, but feeling like I left reality and forgot I existed, weird glitch in reality stuff.
Intrusive thoughts: Keep thinking about hurting others, emotionally and physically.
Seeing demonic monsters, very clear and detailed, while wide awake, but not through my eyes or ears, only in/through my mind.
When I was 13 or 14 I literally woke up, got out of bed, ran down the hallway (not in control of it) and ran to my mom to tell her something was wrong. I suddenly started barking in her face, screaming out of terror, and it stopped after calling out to God.
I’ve also had episodes of suddenly speaking gibberish, my hand getting stuck in the air.
I could literally become possessed and controlled again and the police would just yell at me to stop and tase me maybe shoot me, and they’d just label me crazy and/or a criminal.
I even felt demons fill the room when I tried to pray to God one time, when I was 13-14 going through that serious, what was either spiritual warfare or bad medication side effect, but I haven’t taken that one in over a decade…..
But something I’ve been forgetting to mention is THE NAUSEA after some of this nightmares.
It’s getting harder and harder for me NOT to believe in the spiritual.
Maybe I just haven’t been convinced enough to sacrifice everything (current and potential) for God, but I still feel very hesitant and unwilling to just accept God’s will and plan and commit to things like willingly staying celibate/virgin (I don’t even want kids, this cycle needs to end, and don’t really see marriage happening for me, but I’m not asexual and don’t want to remain celibate for life or until my 30s or 40s, I’m 28).
I don’t know if I’ve simply thought so hard and deep about everything, that I somehow dug myself into insanity?
I have smelled what seemed like sulfurotten eggs, and something knocked my water bottle down and then my Uber Eats driver was literally named “Jesus” (a sign?).
On the flip side, I heard chanting in my head that translated to “god of death” or “devil of death”, and right after that happened to check this account, and had a DM that I had 666 karma, which I did, and today I reached 666 notes on my phone.
Also my parents found a huge orb on our security cameras, literally floating up and over the roof like it knew how to/where it was going on.
I’ve had plenty of nightmares that literally take place in my room and this house too, I recently saw my grandfather (who is alive, so it can’t be his spirit) open my door (after barely opening it at first, then fully opening to reveal it with him) and jump on me on my bed, wearing a toga made out of a bedsheet, and his face was disfigured, like, off, like kind of a pointed face and his eyes were kind of staring off and up to the side, like he was looking at me but not looking at me at the same time).
Also my sister grew a penis and flapped it around in my face while my parents just stood and watched.
An unseen person dropped a baby carrier (in the old house) and it was crying REALLY LOUD, like it was being tortured. I looked to check it was ok, and it was just a doll, and cried even louder and harder.
And usually I don’t even notice hearing any sound in my dreams!
The orb was real by the way, not part of a dream.
I wake up with scratches too, and my wallet was standing up, half on top of my phone, half on the dresser, very weird position, couldn’t set it that way on accident, my cookies disappeared, and I heard a growl and the curtain seemed to scratch me.
This suddenly worse last September or October,just suddenly feeling terrified and reality warping, feeling something trying to take control of my body again.
How can medical science and psychology possibly explain this?
I’m sure I forgot some details, but it’s impossible to remember everything.

I’ve posted about my experiences so many times, but forgot a huge detail:
Sometimes I feel NAUSEOUS after waking up from nightmares, and a YouTube comment of a video of a guy feeling scared and nauseous at his job (dark restaurant by himself) and walked by a human face with big black eyes) the comment said that demons send out energy that cause nausea trying to possess you.
Because I’m so tired of retyping the same thing, I’ll just state the main symptoms:
Vivid nightmares: Has included seeing very clear and detailed, human-like beings, including an old man dancing around making surprised faces at me, mocking me for screaming in terror (screaming didn’t wake me up the first time) while my mom danced around in lingerie (at least the demonic old was fully clothed.
Another one was I was in my dark room (past house) and shined a light on this old man’s face. He had an unnatural, cartoon-like open mouth frown, white another guy was trying to remain hidden in the dark.
These were both nightmares where I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs, completely terrified, and felt like I was going to throw up, and seeing them stuck in my head and feeling like they were still there and I desperately prayed and read Bible verses.
Another was seeing this witch like creature (looked like Kamek from the Mario Bros. but with white human skin and black robe and hat instead of blue, definitely still had those huge glasses) LITERALLY PHYSICALLY INSIDE OF MY HEAD, like in my brain or my skull.
There was a black guy wearing a red top hat and, kind of like a musician dressed like Satan. I said “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus” and he disappeared so instantly I didn’t even see him disappear, I just looked down and back and he was immediately gone, like he was never there.
Another this Wiccan girl (I guess) summoned a demon (that actually looked like a demon) for a board game that was supposed to help us get ahead in life (not a Ouija board).
I’ve had many other very strange, vivid, uncanny dreams, some not necessarily bad, but feeling like I left reality and forgot I existed, weird glitch in reality stuff.
Intrusive thoughts: Keep thinking about hurting others, emotionally and physically.
Seeing demonic monsters, very clear and detailed, while wide awake, but not through my eyes or ears, only in/through my mind.
When I was 13 or 14 I literally woke up, got out of bed, ran down the hallway (not in control of it) and ran to my mom to tell her something was wrong. I suddenly started barking in her face, screaming out of terror, and it stopped after calling out to God.
I’ve also had episodes of suddenly speaking gibberish, my hand getting stuck in the air.
I could literally become possessed and controlled again and the police would just yell at me to stop and tase me maybe shoot me, and they’d just label me crazy and/or a criminal.
I even felt demons fill the room when I tried to pray to God one time, when I was 13-14 going through that serious, what was either spiritual warfare or bad medication side effect, but I haven’t taken that one in over a decade…..
But something I’ve been forgetting to mention is THE NAUSEA after some of this nightmares.
It’s getting harder and harder for me NOT to believe in the spiritual.
Maybe I just haven’t been convinced enough to sacrifice everything (current and potential) for God, but I still feel very hesitant and unwilling to just accept God’s will and plan and commit to things like willingly staying celibate/virgin (I don’t even want kids, this cycle needs to end, and don’t really see marriage happening for me, but I’m not asexual and don’t want to remain celibate for life or until my 30s or 40s, I’m 28).
I don’t know if I’ve simply thought so hard and deep about everything, that I somehow dug myself into insanity?
I have smelled what seemed like sulfurotten eggs, and something knocked my water bottle down and then my Uber Eats driver was literally named “Jesus” (a sign?).
On the flip side, I heard chanting in my head that translated to “god of death” or “devil of death”, and right after that happened to check this account, and had a DM that I had 666 karma, which I did, and today I reached 666 notes on my phone.
Also my parents found a huge orb on our security cameras, literally floating up and over the roof like it knew how to/where it was going on.
I’ve had plenty of nightmares that literally take place in my room and this house too, I recently saw my grandfather (who is alive, so it can’t be his spirit) open my door (after barely opening it at first, then fully opening to reveal it with him) and jump on me on my bed, wearing a toga made out of a bedsheet, and his face was disfigured, like, off, like kind of a pointed face and his eyes were kind of staring off and up to the side, like he was looking at me but not looking at me at the same time).
Also my sister grew a penis and flapped it around in my face while my parents just stood and watched.
An unseen person dropped a baby carrier (in the old house) and it was crying REALLY LOUD, like it was being tortured. I looked to check it was ok, and it was just a doll, and cried even louder and harder.
And usually I don’t even notice hearing any sound in my dreams!
The orb was real by the way, not part of a dream.
I wake up with scratches too, and my wallet was standing up, half on top of my phone, half on the dresser, very weird position, couldn’t set it that way on accident, my cookies disappeared, and I heard a growl and the curtain seemed to scratch me.
This suddenly worse last September or October,just suddenly feeling terrified and reality warping, feeling something trying to take control of my body again.
How can medical science and psychology possibly explain this?
I’m sure I forgot some details, but it’s impossible to remember everything.

These are all the items required for completing the "Your Garden" quest for the Arcana Invoker Class
Note: 1 Arcana Debris is equal to either 1 King Drago Insignia or 1 Darkon Insignia
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0 - The Fool's Humble Beginnings

• Drops from Undead Infrantry in /oaklore

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 - The Magician's Desire - Costs 4 Arcana Debris
a. Staff of Inversion

• Drops from Staff of Inversion in /escherion

b. BattleMage Armor

• Sold from the BattleMage shop - Locations
  • AC Version costs 500 AC
  • Non-AC Version costs 100,000 Gold

c. Nightlocke War Staff

• Drops from Nightlocke Staff in /aqw3d

d. Calamitous Warlic's Tome

• Drops from Calamitous Warlic in /ruinedcrown

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 - The High Priestess' Intuition - Costs 3 Arcana Debris
a. Dishpan Cleric Costume

• Drops from Chaos Dragon in /cleric

b. Chaotic Healer

• Sold from the Chaos Slayer Class shop - Locations
  • Costs 100,000 Gold

c. Battle Cleric of the Dragon - Merge the following in /terminatemple

• Gold Voucher 25k - x16
• Termina Sigil - x90
  • Drops x2 from 'Good Company' quest from Lady Celestia
  • Drops x1 from 'The Sky Opens' quests from Lady Celestia
• Dragonguard Badge - x15
  • Drops from Termina Defenders in /terminatemple

d. Amia's Cult Secret

• Drops from Amia the Cult Leader in /fotia

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 - The Empress' Initiative - Costs 3 Arcana Debris
a. Queen's Sage Scythe

• Merge the following in /goose
  • Cysero's Cookies - x300
    • Drops from any of the monsters in /goose

b. ShadowFlame Empress - Merge the following in /brightforest

• Gold Voucher 25k - x8
• Shadowed Empress
  • Gold Voucher 25k - x8
  • ShadowFlame Armor Scrap - x100
    • Drops from any of the monsters in /brightforest
• ShadowFlame Armor Scrap - x100
  • Drops from any of the monsters in /brightforest

c. Fragment of the Queen - x10

• Drops from Queen of Monsters in /transformation

d. Empress' Finger's Ring - x3

• Drops from The Empress' Finger in /firstobservatory

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 - The Emperor's Authority - Costs 2 Arcana Debris
a. King Klunk's Crown

• Drops from Legion Fenrir or Laken in /underworld, /evilwarnul, and /evilwardage

b. Crowned Skull of Na'al

• Sold from the Infernal Arena Champion shop in the Book of Lore
  • Must have finished Infernal Arena questline
  • Costs 0 AC

c. Zealous Crown - Merge the following from Doom Legacy Merge - Locations

• Zealous Veil
  • Drops from Kalron the Cryptborg in /techdungeon
• Zealous Badge - x4
  • Drops from ' A Solemn Favor' quest from Stellaria
• 1,000 Gold

d. Lich Emperor's Catalyst - x4

• Drops from Lich Emperor in /warundead

Made a compilation for those planning to do the non-insignia route. I highly recommend on doing the insig route though. Good luck and have fun farming!
(If you find any errors or any suggestions, please comment so that I can fix or implement it.)
Format: Item (quantity): /location - How to get

0 - The Fool's Humble Beginnings

• /oaklore - Kill Undead Infantry

1 - The Magician's Desire

• Staff of Inversion: /escherion - Kill Staff of Inversion
• BattleMage Armor: /castle - Buy for 100k gold
• Nightlocke War Staff: /aqw3d - Kill Nightlocke Staff
• Calamitous Warlic's Tome: /ruinedcrown - Kill Calamitous Warlic

2 - The High Priestess' Intuition

• Dishpan Cleric Costume: /cleric - Kill Chaos Dragon
• Chaotic Healer: /newfinale - Buy for 100k gold
• Battle Cleric of the Dragon: /terminatemple - Merge items below
  • Gold Voucher 25k (16)
  • Termina Sigil (90)
  • DragonGuard Badge (15)
• Amia's Cult Secret (2): /fotia - Kill Amia the Cult Leader

3 - The Empress' Initiative

• Queen's Sage Scythe: /goose - Merge Cysero's Cookie (200)
• ShadowFlame Empress: /brightforest - Merge items below
  • Gold Voucher 25k (8)
  • Shadowed Empress
  • ShadowFlame Armor Scrap (100)
• Fragment of the Queen (10): /transformation - Kill Queen of Monsters
• Empress' Finger's Ring (3): /firstobservatory - Kill Empress' Finger (Accept Drago's quest as well for Ancient Remnant)

4 - The Emperor's Authority

• King Klunk's Crown: /evilwarnul - Kill Legion Fenrir
• Crowned Skull of Na'al: /infernalarena - Finish questline to unlock shop item
• Zealous Crown: /thorngarde - Finish "Zyrus is Lost" quest and merge items below
  • Zealous Veil
  • Zealous Badge (4)
• Lich Emperor's Catalyst (4): /warundead - Kill Lich Emperor

5 - The Hierophant's Servitude

• Blessed Abezeth: /celestialarena - Finish "Battle Diabolical Warlord!" quest and merge Lumin Badge (100)
• Inquisitor of the Light: /lightguardwar - Merge items below
  • High Crusader
  • Medal of Justice (50)
• Divine Elixir (55): /poisonforest - Kill Xavier Lionfang (buying/crafting through alchemy is costly and might take a while)
• Chaos Weaver Cleric's Doctrine (5): /chaosweb - Kill ChaosWeaver Cleric

6 - The Lovers' Embrace

• Love Token (666): /battlewedding - Kill mobs in the map
• Time Heart (166): /portalmazec - Kill Vorefax (you can try /portalmaze or /portalmazeb if the boss is hard or it takes too long)
• Storm Heart (6): /pride - Kill Valsarian
• Mercutio's Heart (66): /mercutio - Kill Mercutio

7 - The Chariot's Triumph

• Racing Trophy (300): /table - Complete the racing mini-game
• Sphinx Sentinel: /crocriver - Merge items below
  • Gold Voucher 25k (4)
  • Sobekemsaph's Hieroglyph (20)
  • Sobekemsaph's Scale (20)
• Dread Deadmoor BattleAxe: /deadmoor - Kill Lucid Nightmare
• SMU Brutalcorn's Horn (77): /ultrabrutalcorn - Kill SMU BrutalCorn

8 - Justice's Righteousness

• Ouroboros Scale (88): /camlan - Complete "Coocooned Gold" quest
• Libran Scales: /lightoviacave - Kill Imbalanced Knight or Mage
• Akriloth's Scale (888): /gravestrike - Kill Ultra Akriloth (you can also kill Sepulchuroth in /shadowstrike)
• ArchFiend Dragonknight's Scale (8): /underlair - Kill Archfiend DragonKnight

9 - The Hermit's Solitude

• Fa's Gamer Fuel (99): /garden - Kill Fa
• ARTX 3090 Controller: /mverse - Kill Major Mushroom
• Soulseeker's Grim Hood: /marsh2 - Kill Soulseeker
• Nothing's Solus (999): /pocketdimension - Kill Nothing

10 - Wheel of Fortune's Destiny

• Lucky Pet: /pilgrimage - Kill Lucky
• Second Chance Coin (10): /onsen - Complete "I heard you like Gacha" quest
• Treasure Chest (250) - drops from all monsters except few ones
• Ultra Lobthulu's Fortune (100): /ultralob - Kill Ultra Lobthulhu

11 - Strength's Fortitude

• Enchanted Martial Artist's Gi: /superslayin - Merge items below
  • Gold Voucher 25k (4)
  • Martial Artist's Gi
  • Fatal Lily (25)
  • Pockey Ball (25)
  • Dragon Orb (10)
• Strong Axe of Golmoth: /dreampalace - Merge items below
  • Axe of Golmoth
  • Scales of Golmoth (15)
  • Token of Fire (20)
• Fortitude Tonic (11) - /alchemyacademy or craft in /alchemy with Necrot + Roc Tongue
• Strong Drag's Intact Wing (11): /dracocon - Kill Strong Drag

12 - The Hanged Man's Discernment

• Chained Rune Bonebreaker: /archportal - Kill High Legion Inquisitor
• Noble Sacrifice: /necrodungeon - Kill 5 Headed Dracolich (5th Head)
• The Answer: /battlefowl - Kill Zeuster Projection
• Astero's Insight (12): /fortressdelve - Kill Astero

13 - Death's Mortality

• Death's Oversight (10): /shadowattack - Kill Death
• Death Pit Arena Medal (250): /deathpit - Kill mobs in the map
• Enchanted DeathKnight: /bonecastle - Merge Bonecastle Token (60)
• Super Death's Scythe Fragment (13): /superdeath - Kill Super Death

14 - Temperance's Frugality

• Celestial Wings of Guiding: /celestialrealm - Merge Infernal Token (100)
• Blessed Coffee Cup: /lightguard - Complete "Holy Roast" quest
• Northern Crown (10): /snowmore - Kill Jon S'Nooooooo
• Azkorath's Wing (14): /infernalspire - Kill Azkorath

15 - Devilish Temptation

• Fiendish Outlaw: /fiendpast - Kill Dage the Lich
• Fiendish Remains (50): /voidrefuge - Complete "Carnage Delenda Est" quest
• Glass Horns: /ashfallcamp - Kill Blackrawk
• Fiend Champion's Spike (15): /originul - Kill Fiend Champion

16 - The Tower's Upheaval

• Earth Stone (500): /fableforest - Complete "Back to your Roots" quest
• Dragon Runestone (20): /alchemyacademy - Buy in merge shop
• Arcangrove Tower House: /buyhouse - Merge items below
  • Arcangrove Blueprint
  • Building Material (25)
  • Foundation Material (25)
  • Decor Material (15)
• Nevanna's Revelation (16): /gaiazor - Kill Nevanna

17 - The Star's Hope

• Star Scrap (500): /starsinc - Kill Living Star or Star Sprites
• Rising Star Token (116): /herolobby - Kill Training Partner
• Dark Stars: /deadlines - Kill Eternal Dragon
• Star Sapphire Fragment (17): /skytower - Kill Star Sapphire

18 - The Moon's Illusion

• Moon Rock Fragments (300): /lunacove - Kill mobs in the map
• Blood Moon Warrior: /marchosiasfight - Kill Marchosias
• Celestial Khopesh: Open Book of Lore - Complete CruxShadows in /cruxshadows questline and merge items below
  • Khonsu Seal
  • Stellar Khopesh
• The Moon's Reflection (18): /astravia - Kill The Moon (accept La's quest as well for La's Gratitude)

19 - The Sun's Optimism

• Golden Sun Seal (190): /titanattack - Kill Titanic Paladin
• Sun Zone Chit (190): /sunlightzone - Kill mobs in the map or complete "Suckers for Supper" quest
• Armor of the Sun: /thirdspell - Merge Thirdspell Token (60)
• The Sun's Enlightenment (19): /astraviacastle - Kill The Sun (accept Drago's quest as well for Astravian Medal)

20 - Judgement's Absolution

• Trumpet: /astraviajudge - Kill Trumpeter
• Judgment Tonic (20) - /alchemyacademy or craft in /alchemy with Dragon Scale + Moglin Tears
• Enchanted Lance of Doom Reborn: /shadowbattleon - Merge item below
  • A Whisper (30)
  • Lance of Doom Reborn
• Minos' Sentence (20): /judgement - Kill Minos

21 - The World's Voyage

• Darkon's Receipt (22): /garden - Do "Darkon's 1st/2nd/3rd Errand" quest
• Teeth (22): /eridani - Do "Sweet Dreams Are Made of Teeth" quest by killing Creature 6
• La's Gratitude (22): /astravia - Do "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" quest by killing The Moon
• Astravian Medal (22): /astraviacastle - Do "Vanity Project" quest
• A Melody (22): /astraviajudge - Do "A Storied Vow" quest
• Bandit's Correspondence (22): /eridanipast - Do "Pastorela" quest
• Suki's Prestige (22): /astraviapast - Do "Morning Mood" quest
• Ancient Remnant (22): /firstobservatory - Do "Taurus Gugalanna" quest
• Mourning Flower (22): /genesisgarden - Do "Wheel of Fortune" quest
• Unfinished Musical Score (22): /theworld - Kill Encore Darkon

If you reached this far, congrats on getting the class! Get your items in the shop and rank up your Arcana Invoker in /icestormunder.

“We need to talk, Ella.”
That was the last thing Alex ever said to me.
Five years ago, via text, before he cut me out of his life.
Now he wasn't answering his fucking phone.
“Hey, you've reached Alex!”
I met Alex Locke in the fifth grade.
I suffered from chronic headaches as a kid, and Alex lost time a lot, sometimes blanking out whole days. According to Alex, it was like being switched off.
Due to his condition, the boy fell asleep a lot, sometimes tumbling down the stairs during his episodes, which meant he was always in the nurse’s office with a head injury, or curled into a ball snoozing. I wasn't as sick as Alex, but I liked to sleep off my headaches in the nurse’s office and would wake to Alex playing Pokémon on the bed next to mine.
Other times, he would be sitting on the observation bed with his knees drawn to his chest. Alex wasn't a fan of shots.
I discovered that when I was torn from a headache induced sleep to his blood curdling wails.
I thought for sure he was dying, until I glimpsed the shot in Nurse Golding’s hand. Initially, I wasn't surprised the kid was screaming, she was trying to stab the thing into the back of his head.
Though, after reassuring me it was part of Alex’s treatment, she calmly told me to distract the boy while she administered his daily shot.
I panicked and attempted a puppet show with my hands. Alex was so confused by whatever I was trying to do, he stopped screaming, frowning at me like I had grown a second limb.
It worked! Kind of. Nurse Golding was ruffling his hair and calling him brave, when Alex’s eyes widened, his hand going to the back of his head. He started wailing again, but this time I was pretty sure it was for attention.
Alex definitely had his eyes on the tub of candy the nurse kept on her top shelf.
Alex made me feel better about my headaches. I found his company comforting, and we became sick-buddies. Sometimes, his other friends would slip into the nurse’s office to prod him and tease him, and I felt a little left out. The two of them paid no attention to me, focusing on annoying Alex.
Growing up, we both got progressively better. Alex’s episodes decreased to one a month, and my headaches were easier to tolerate. The two of us still ended up in the nurse’s office, but for different reasons. I accidentally shoved a needle through my finger during arts and crafts, and was too shocked to cry.
Alex had fallen over during gym, and had the tiniest scratch on his leg, which set off the waterworks.
When Nurse Golding was trying to rip the needle out of my finger with tweezers, Alex was demanding she replaced his bandaid.
Starting middle school, the two of us came face to face with Nurse Jane.
She was terrifying, as well as completely incompetent. There was no candy in her office, and her solution to a girl in my class breaking her arm, was “Put a wet piece of tissue paper on it”
Alex tried the, I'm sooo sick! thing, and Nurse Jane spent half an hour lecturing him about healthy food.
He returned to class miraculously cured, looking paler than he did before visiting her.
Neither of us dared enter Nurse Jane’s office, unless we were really sick.
We were ten when Alex threw a ball of paper at me, hitting me in the face.
I was about to throw it back, when the boy twisted around in his seat and motioned for me to unravel the paper.
He had scribbled a funny picture of Nurse Jane being blown up into a balloon.
Underneath, written in bright red crayon:
DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH US?
YES [ ]
NO [ ]
At first, I was hesitant.
I told him I'd think about it, so he came straight to my house himself.
I didn't even know he knew my address.
“Why don't you want to play?” Alex asked through a mouthful of chocolate chip cookies. Mom had given him a plate to take up to my room.
Hiding behind him were his two friends, Lucy Conrad, a curly haired brunette with ribbons in her pigtails, and Ki Jacobs, the foreign exchange kid from Australia. The three of them already seemed like a tight knit group in class, sending each other notes and giggling.
I wasn't sure I wanted to be the odd one out in their little gang.
Still though, Alex was insistent that I join them.
So, I did. The three invited me to the town’s summer festival, and I had so much fun I forgot why I was scared of ruining their friendship. Ki choked on his Coke float, which shouldn't have been funny, but it was his over-reaction that sold me. The rest was history.
Initially, I was kind of hesitant, only hanging out with them on select days, making sure not to be too invasive.
Mom warned me that joining an already established friendship group was dangerous, on account of me potentially being left out. She had horror stories from her own teenagehood, where she was the fourth member in a group of girls, who turned on her for their own entertainment, inviting her to slumber parties for the sole purpose of bullying her.
But that wasn't what we were. Mom’s warning scared me and I waited for Alex to start teasing me about my big nose, or my overly large front tooth.
He didn't even notice my tooth until I told him, so he opened his mouth and prodded at his own molars, teasingly calling them horse teeth. Alex said he didn't care what I looked like.
Eventually, the barriers I had built began to crumble, and I started to see these kids as real, proper friends.
I was invited to play every day, the four of us venturing across town to swim in the lake or hunt for buried treasure with a map Ki definitely didn't print off of Google. Mom was wrong.
I was never left out. If I didn't turn up to our secret spot in the forest, the three of them would walk straight through my front door— and when I was a little older, Alex grew brave, climbing through my bedroom window, dragging me out of bed himself. When I was sick with the flu, the three insisted on sitting with me (keeping a safe distance) and watching Disney movies with me all day.
They all got sick too, so eventually, the three crawled into bed with me.
With my Mom’s words still haunting the back of my mind, part of me expected them to blow me off one day.
In the summer before seventh grade, Ki invited me, along with the others, to his parent’s house in Thailand.
I think that is when it started to hit me.
The four of us getting stupidly drunk and lying on the beach, exchanging ghost stories that weren't remotely scary, sending us into fits of hysteria.
This wasn't whatever Mom talked about. I don't think Mom had friends.
This was best friends.
Entering teenagehood, we made that declaration, on my fifteenth birthday, drinking milkshakes at the diner and trying to hide our tipsy giggles from the booze Ki had taken from his father’s drinks cabinet. We went skinny dipping in the lake, and I had my first kiss.
I went to summer camp, returning to town three weeks later, not to my mother (who had forgotten I was coming home) but to my three idiot friends who made me promise I would never leave for camp ever again.
I wasn't planning on it. The other kids called me Wobbly Legs because I couldn't balance on the tree swing, and two campers were suspended for inappropriate behavior in the lake.
Mom and Dad treated the others like their own children, even giving them each a house key (so Alex didn't have to brave tumbling through my window).
He hit his head once, knocking the back of his skull on my new makeup table, and my Mother almost had a panic attack.
This didn't stop him, though.
I think my best friend had grown accustomed to slipping through my window at midnight, armed with a flashlight and my favorite candy bars.
I thought we were going to last forever, until we were old, reminiscing our childhoods under a late setting sun.
But that wasn't the real world.
Halfway through my senior year, I lost my parents to a seventeen year old drunk driver.
Jason Chatham, who already went to juvie for intentionally running over a cat, was the mayor’s son, so Jason got a reduced sentence and four weeks of community service. He gave me a bullshit ‘apology’ and was forced to beg for forgiveness, despite the fucker smirking through the whole court trial.
Jason was sent abroad to college, and my parents’ funeral wasn't even an open casket.
Apparently, there wasn't much left to bury. I couldn't even afford the fucking funeral, it was the town that paid.
I had no other relatives. There was just me, Mom, and Dad.
Alex, Lucy, and Ki stayed by my side the whole time, but I barely talked to them. I was numb, my body felt detached and wrong, like it didn't exist.
Time moved far too slowly. I was burying my parents, a shovel stuck in my clammy hands, and then it was pitch black, and I was sitting in a random alleyway, my head spinning, halfway through a bottle of whisky.
It tasted like poison, but it also stopped me thinking for a while.
Alex found me, still in his funeral attire. I wasn't sure why he had his tie wrapped around his head, though. He didn't hug me or tell me it was going to be okay.
Alex snatched the booze, took a long swig, and then threw it over his shoulder. I don't know why I found the sound of the bottle splintering on the ground so funny, but I burst into hysterical giggles that felt real and a relief. I didn't cry like I expected.
I stood up, throwing out my arms to keep my balance.
“You're a loser.” I told him, trying not to slur my words.
Alex nodded at my dress. Lit up in the glow of a nearby streetlight, I realized my best friend’s eyes were red from crying, his lip wobbling. The idiot was trying so fucking hard to pretend we were okay, and failing miserably.
His blondish brown curls were sticking up everywhere.
I could tell he had been running his hands through it.
Alex was far too empathetic, sucking up my emotions.
“And you're covered in barf.”
His voice was shaking, but Alex was still smiling.
He held his hand out for me to grab, and I hesitated, just like when I was a little kid. But I needed him. I knew that, even in my unstable mind full of black and white and a slowly spreading numbness threatening to swallow me whole. Mom and Dad were gone, and he was all I had.
The town would go back to their day-to-day lives, and I would break apart. I considered following them in a brief episode of psychosis. The only people who could pull my head from the fog were my friends. So, I grabbed Alex’s hand, clinging onto him for dear life like I was going to lose him too.
I expected the whole, I'm so sorry for your loss bullshit I had been suffocating in all day, but Alex talked about birds instead. I don't know why, and it's not like he was making any sense, trying to unsuccessfully name different kinds.
But it was enough.
Alex’s stupid rant about birds distracted me from drowning myself in poison.
He took me back to his place, ordered my favorite pizza, and pretended I didn't just lose my parents.
Ki and Lucy joined us, and at first it was awkward and I was still drunk, still demanding he give me back my whisky.
Then, though, the night devolved into our usual antics, and for the first time since my parent’s death, I was laughing.
That night ended however, and once the hysteria had died down and my hangover was gone, reality hit like a wave of ice water. The world bled into black and white, and not even pills could help, so shut myself away.
I finished my senior year with my diploma sitting in my mailbox with a letter from the school expressing how sorry they were for my loss. I tore it up, setting fire to the remnants. I was so fucking SICK of sorry. The word condolences didn't even sound real anymore.
Leaving town seemed like the best idea for a fresh start. The night before I left, I crept through Alex’s bedroom window.
I did tell him and the others I needed space, drunkenly shouting at them to leave me alone when they found me sleeping in our old childhood tree house. That night, I woke him up, wrapping my arms around him and thanking him for being my friend.
Alex was half asleep, mumbling at me to join him, and I did, keeping a tight hold of him all night.
It was supposed to be a goodbye. I wasn't planning on coming back to a town that had murdered my parents.
And protected their killer.
But it's hard to say a real goodbye.
When I left for college, Alex and the others promised they would text and call every day. Lucy expected daily updates, and Ki was obsessed with my roommate's secret hamster she was hiding under her bed.
We stayed in touch, initially.
I couldn't just let them go. I was planning on inviting them for drinks, and having one last memory.
I facetimed them during the campus tour, showing them my room and exploring the city.
I was waiting to declare some kind of friendship ending speech, but, I guess moving away was a natural killer.
I started ignoring calls, responding in one word answers to their texts.
Two months into college, I had new friends, new experiences, and I wasn't the girl who's parents died.
Alex proposed in a long paragraph text that they come visit and stay in my room, and I had to keep making excuses as to why it was a bad idea.
Listen, I was the bad friend.
I know that now. I don't blame them for being pissed, but ignoring me for five (5) years was taking it too far.
Presently, I had called Alex a grand total of 35 times.
He wasn't picking up the phone, and I was left to a robot voice telling me to leave a message, after Alex’s voice from five years ago called me a donut.
“Hey, you've reached Alex! Don't expect me to answer the phone. It's not 1993. Just text me!”
Which was ironic considering my texts weren't being delivered.
I had zero choice but to go down the boomer route.
Initially, I knew what I was going to say and how I was going to say it, but by the fifth attempt, my voice was shaking.
“Hey, me again.” I said through gritted teeth, kicking through leaves. “You probably didn't get my last, uh, thirty four calls, because you're busy, or…whatever…”
I trailed off, clenching my phone tighter.
“Anyway! How have you been? Uh, we’re both adults now, but I figured we should maybe, uhhh, talk… maybe?”
Alex was surely ignoring me.
Again, I didn't blame him. We were adults with our own lives. The problem was, I had zero idea what Alex had been doing the last five years because he was MIA. Alex’s social media hadn't been updated in years, and I was pretty sure he'd just made new ones.
The same went for Ki and Lucy.
His last text, (We need to talk) didn't even make sense without a follow up, and now I was back home in a town I didn't want to be in, stuck in a dead end job I hated, trying to pick up the splintered pieces.
I was aware of my colleague yelling my name, dropping my cigarette and stomping on the cinders. “I really need to talk to you,” I didn't realize I was crying until I was swiping at my eyes.
Sometimes, life doesn't always work out the way you planned it.
“I know it's been a while since you uh, stopped texting me or whatever…” I let out a choked cough. “Which is my fault, by the way,” my chest was aching,
“But I've actually come home!” I tried to laugh, but it was more of a sob. “Yeah, it turns out NY wasn't really my scene.”
That was a lie, though Alex was probably used to me lying.
Sometimes, life doesn't work out.
After graduating college, I was offered a job in New York, only for it all to fall through when depression hit. The world turned black and white, and I rotted in bed all day. I quit my part time job, packed up my stuff, and came home.
I had been staying in the motel on the edge of town for a while, planning to move back into my parents house.
But knowing my friends were still in town, and intentionally ignoring me, I was taking my time.
I wanted to hear his voice.
Five years was a long time.
“I'm staying at my parents' old house, so maybe come see me sometime?” I blurted out, studying the sky above me.
Cotton candy clouds we used to pretend to eat.
“You've still got the key my Mom gave you, right?”
It was unusually cold for April. I had to keep pulling my jacket around me.
“Alex, I really fucking miss you.” I whispered. I wanted to tell him that I needed him, just like when I was seventeen. That he was the only thing keeping me afloat. “I miss you, Ki, and Lucy, so call me, okay?” I paused. “I know you're mad, but we can talk it out, all right? Just text me, and I'll be there.”
“Eleanor.” My colleague was grumbling behind me, “Your break is over.”
I tapped my screen impatiently. “I’m coming,” I said, “Alex, I've got to go, all right? Call me when you get this.”
When the line went dead, I shoved my phone in my pocket and resumed selling coffee to dead eyed customers.
I recognised Mrs Morris, the lady who lived opposite Mom and Dad. She offered me a smile, but her eyes were so sad.
I could practically sense her knee-jerk reaction to say, I'm sorry for your loss.
I handed the woman her usual, a black coffee, trying to ignore the way she clasped her wrinkly hands around mine, squeezing for dear life.
Maybe her husband died….
“Have you seen Alex anywhere?” I asked, wiping down the counter.
The woman's expression crumpled. “I'm sorry, who, dear?”
“Alex.” I said, “Alex Locke? You used to give us candy when we were kids.”
Mes Morris inclined her head. There was something odd about her expression. “Oh, the Locke’s moved away a long time ago,” she hummed, “I haven't seen them in years, tweety pie.”
The nickname brought back memories. Mrs Morris used to call me Tweety Pie.
I nodded, pouring her a refill. “Is Alex still in town, though?”
“Hm?”
“Alex.” I said, growing slightly impatient, “Their son, Alex Locke?”
Her eyes darkened, suddenly hollow, like I was talking to a memory. She was looking straight through me like we were back at my parent’s funeral. Mrs Morris wore a rose in my Mom’s honor.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said softly, “It was… so terrible what happened,” her expression seemed to twitch, and a shiver creeped down my spine. “God rest their beautiful souls.”
I had grown accustomed to tuning out condolences.
“Yes, I miss them,” I said dismissively, leaning over the counter. “But have you seen Alex? What about Ki and Lucy? I've been in town for a while, but I can't get in touch with them.”
Instead of answering, the corners of her mouth curved into a small smile. “You look so much like your mother, Eleanor.”
“Thanks.” I gave up, forcing a smile.
“Eleanor.” her face crumpled, “Such a bright young girl.”
My stomach knotted. “No, Mrs Morris, you mean my Mom.”
She blinked, sipping her coffee. “Hm? Oh, yes, yes! My condolences!”
I got the same response from patrons I used to know.
Townspeople blatantly ignoring my question, throwing me a fucking pity party for a loss I hadn't exactly gotten over, but over time, the pain was getting easier to deal with.
Grief never leaves you, but time can force you to move forwards instead of dwelling on the past.
Halfway through my shift, my colleague plonked a basket of flowers on the counter, where I was trying and failing to perfect a foam heart for a teenage girl who was definitely judging my ‘art’ skills.
The basket of flowers was full of roses, my mother’s favorite.
Alex planted them in her yard when we were thirteen, surprising her for her birthday. There was a little card attached to the flowers, and I ripped it off, my heart beating out of my chest.
To my dismay, though, it wasn't Alex’s handwriting.
Unless Alex had taken up calligraphy in his five year absence.
Eleanor,
I'm so happy to see you again in town! I hope you like the flowers. I know they were your sweet late mother’s favorite. I have left a surprise for you inside your parents house. It's not a lot, of course, but I want you to know you are never alone, sweetheart. I will always be here.
Enjoy your surprise. You will never be alone again.
With so much love, and much needed hugs.
A friend.
“Who sent this?” I asked, re-reading the note. To my confusion, there was a box of headache pills. I hadn't suffered from headaches since I was a kid, but it was when I was sliding my fingers over the box, a dull thrum pounded across the back of my skull. I trashed the pills, dumping the basket in my work locker.
My colleague shrugged. “I dunno. Someone left it on one of the tables.”
“So, it wasn't a guy?” I said, gingerly rubbing my forehead.
He shrugged. “I don't know what they looked like, I didn't even see someone coming in.”
That night, following the note’s instructions, I returned home to an empty house, letters for repossession piled on the floor.
I broke down somewhere between walking into the kitchen and seeing five year old milk sitting on the counter, and exploring my childhood room, the marks I scratched into the wall to track my height progress. It was so cold.
So empty.
Without Mom and Dad, there was no light.
The house was just one dark, empty memory of what had been. Switching on the lights, I tried to make it at least a little homely. I ordered pizza and ate it staring at my phone, waiting for a text from Alex. When my phone did vibrate, I almost jumped out of my skin.
Just the Uber Eats guy requesting a tip, which I'm pretty sure wasn't allowed.
I was unpacking in my room when a voice came from downstairs.
“Ella! Holy shit, you didn't tell us you were coming home!”
Alex.
The crumpled pair of pants I had been folding slipped out of my hands.
I felt like I couldn't breathe, stumbling downstairs.
His voice sent pinpricks through me.
“Alex?”
The hallway was empty, a chill grazing my cheeks.
“Ella! I'm so glad you're home! Don't ever go away again!”
I froze.
“Where are you?” I managed to get out.
“We’re down here!”
The voice was coming from the basement.
It was when I was slowly making my way down the stairs, my phone vibrated with a text. I was reaching for it, when it vibrated again, and again, and again, buzzing in my pocket.
Pulling it out, I found myself staring at a multitude of text messages.
05/07/2019: We need to talk, Ella. Did you get my last text?
05/07/2019: I've been feeling weird lately. Like I did as a kid. I keep switching off, Ella. There's something wrong. I don't know what it is, but we need you here.
05/07/2019: Ella, please. The cops are brushing us off, but there's something going on. We need you here. NOW.
05/13/2019: Can you call your local sheriff department? Anyone?! STOP IGNORING MY CALLS!
05/16/2019: Ella, you're fucking killing me. Do you not care? Are you really going to abandon us?
05/16/2019: Ella, are you there? I'm really cold.
05/16/2019: It's dark.
05/16/2019: It's so dark, I can't see I don't understand what's happening Please can you come and help me? I'm so cold and it's dark and I can't can't I need you to take me home Ella please
06/05/2020: I like that you're so close to me. It's not cold when you're here.
06/05/2020: Sshshhh! She's coming! Act natural Sit up straight No, not like that Like this!
06/05/2020: wait where did you go? Ella where did you go Ella where did you go Ella where did you go Ella
For a moment, I was hypnotised by the texts, my hands trembling.
Alex did send follow up messages.
But I never got them.
“Ella, we’re wait... ING. Come on, we’ve missed you so much!”
Alex’s voice should have made me happy.
But I recognised it, phantom bugs creeping down the exposed flesh of my arms and filling my mouth.
Prom night, junior year.
He was standing at the bottom of my stairs wearing a suit and tie. Ella, we’re waiting!” was from that night.
When my phone flashed again, I ignored it, forcing my legs to move down the stairs.
My basement was exactly how I left it, a mess of boxes and my old bike.
Except, sitting in the corner were three figures drowned in shadow. There was a light, something illuminating the dim.
But I was already stumbling over to my friends, who looked exactly the way I left them, frozen at eighteen years old.
Their skin was pale, papery thin and wrong.
“There… you… are!”
Alex lifted his head, half lidded eyes finding mine. “Aren't… you… happy to see… us?”
His lips were barely moving. I glimpsed the start of decomposition melting into his face, eating away at his flesh, tiny holes where maggots had burrowed inside him. His hair was matted with old blood, where someone had tried and failed, and then tried again to violently force a device inside his head, long orange wires sticking from his spine.
I could see where he'd struggled, rusted handcuffs still coiled around his wrists, an unnatural light illuminating his iris.
Something warm crept up my throat.
The glow illuminating the room was emanating from his eyes. I could see straight through him, his body more of a science experiment where his skull had been forced open, an electronic device woven inside the dead flesh of his brain.
Whoever did this to him saw Alex as nothing more than arts and crafts, flesh and bone to cruelly mould.
I was too numb to scream, my body stiff.
He lifted his head, blinking at me, like he was still alive.
“Fi…nally,” he choked through a mouthful of oozing black, “You're…home.”
I knew his voice that had been cruelly stitched and knitted together.
He greeted me when I came back from summer camp with the exact words.
“Finally!” Alex had cried, wrapping his arms around me. “You're hOme!”
I could hear where his words had been cut and sliced, glued to each other to sound like a coherent fucking sentence.
“I've… been… wAiting for… you.”
The boy’s lips stretched into a grin. “For… you… tO see yoUR… big… sur…prise!”
Every word had been handpicked directly from his memories.
I took slow steps back, tripping over something on the ground.
A Macbook.
There was a sticky note attached.
Here's another surprise! There's a USB wire on the floor somewhere, sweetie! I forgot to update them, so feel free! I hope you enjoy your surprise as much as I enjoyed making them!
Feeling sick to my stomach, I switched the laptop on.
The USB was across the room. I could see the end stained vivid scarlet.
There were three folders.
2019.
2020.
2021.
There was another separate folder.
2007.
I clicked into it, a list of names coming up.
I was loading into Alex’s name, when Lucy spoke.
“What… are… you… waiting… for?”
Her giggle was half human, and half not, a crackle of laughter and static.
I knew her voice, and it fucking hurt.
My 12th birthday, Lucy stood at the table in front of a giant chocolate cake. “What are you waiting for?” she teased. “Blow out your candles!”
When she did lift her head, my best friend’s face was bruised and battered.
Ki’s grinning lips were skeletal, his head split in two, held together with duct tape. The way he was slumped, swaying back and forth, his head of thick curls glued to his head, made me sick to my stomach.
“UPDATE…us.”
Ki’s words had been ripped straight from years ago, when he yelled at me for annoying him to play Minecraft.
My computer is UPDATING! Jeez, be patient!”
Whoever did this to them made my friends suffer.
I cupped Alex’s cheeks, and his skin was ice-cold.
“Who did this to you?”
He responded with a smile.
“Not…telling...y–”
”I'm not telling you!” I remembered his tone from back in school. I begged him for answers to the chemistry test.
It was like talking to not just a corpse, but the corpse of a memory too.
I pulled out my phone to call the cops, when my phone flashed again.
Unknown number
Update them! I can assure you, if you don't, I will happily add you to my collection, Eleanor. This time I won't let you go. Check the second folder.
They were watching me.
I glimpsed a single red light blinking on the ceiling.
Taking the laptop, I left my friends, and called the cops.
“No, that's not how this is going to go.”
The voice was sugary sweet through my phone, intercepting the call.
I recognised her.
Nurse Golding, from Kindergarten.
“Update your friends,” she told me in a shrill laugh, “I made them very specially for you, Eleanor. I worked tirelessly, every day and night to make sure you came back to your friends.”
She paused.
“You're not lonely anymore, are you? Of course, if you don't want to be grateful, I can always revert you back–”
I ended the call, throwing up everywhere.
Somehow, I found myself back in the basement, my breaths heavy.
I planned to destroy the laptop, and set fire to the house, when something caught my eye.
I didn't notice until I was fully looking at my friends.
There were three of them, and four chairs against the wall.
Four rusted handcuffs.
I think I've been here before, but how? When?
How can I not remember it?
I keep thinking back to my childhood. Alex was losing time.
Is that what happened to me?
Edit: since writing the above, six townspeople have told me to update my friends. All of them are the older residents in the diner. I keep coming down here, but I can't fucking do it.
I can't do this.
The USB goes directly inside their heads. How does this thing even work?!
Please help me. Can this be reversed? What did Alex’s texts mean?
I don't know what to do!

In the morning I feel like I’ve slept a month.
It isn’t cold. I’m not dizzy. And Jimmy hasn’t thrown up again. I know I’m not supposed to stop taking my pills all at once, but I don’t feel like I need them anymore. I want to be a good Mom. And a good Mom can’t live in that kind of fog.
I smile at my son, who rubs his eyes groggily from a stool at the kitchen island while I hunt for something to make for breakfast. I barely notice the empty refrigerator shelves when there’s a knock at the door. I leave Jimmy in the kitchen and run to the front entrance where I see a repairman through the side window. I grasp the top deadbolt and attempt to twist, but I must be so weak from being ill—how long have I been ill?—because it won’t budge, and Jimmy calls my name from the kitchen. I shout over my shoulder that I will be right there, only to be interrupted by a voice I don’t recognize from the back of the house.
I look away from the door as Jimmy dashes up the stairs and a woman in a teal suit and heavy gold jewelry marches in high heels up the hall, talking on a cell phone.
“Hey, who are you?” I call out to her. “What are you doing here?”
“I have to call you back,” she says into the phone. “The repairman is here again.”
“Hey!” I holler at the woman who doesn’t so much as look at me as she passes and starts turning each lock on the door, ushering the repairman inside.
Realtor: “Thanks for coming today. We’re expecting heavy foot traffic and I’d like to be able to tell them the whole…issue…is taken care of. By the way…were you the one that found them?”
“Thank goodness you’re here,” I follow at the repairman’s heels as he follows the woman in teal with the gold jewelry down the hall. “It’s been so cold. Every day it gets worse—”
Crew Cut: “Excuse me.”
I’m startled by someone grabbing my arm, turning me away from the repairman and the woman who shouldn’t be in my house that is leading the way to the basement.
“What? Who are you?” I demand, ripping my arm away from a stout woman with a crew cut and serious face. Terror floods my body and I think she must be here to rob me. “What are you doing in my house?”
Crew Cut: “Are you Morgan?”
“There’s nothing here to steal, or can’t you see that?” I shriek, and it’s only then that I realize there’s nothing actually here. From where we stand in the hallway, I can see into the living room where there should be a sofa on the right and a TV mounted on the opposite wall. Both are gone. The room is empty.
“What the hell?” I breathe, spinning into the room that spins around me so fast I clutch the sides of my head to slow it down. When was the last time I took my anti-anxiety medication? The sleeping pills? I can’t remember. The last few days have been such a blur and I’ve slept so long I’m not actually sure what day it is, but I do know that this isn’t right. My TV should be here. My couch should be here—right here. Right where I’m standing in the spinning room. I try to remember the side effects of my medication. Drowsiness. Confusion. Nausea. Dizziness. Operating machinery without memory of doing so. Scary, ridiculous things that I decided were worth the risk when I agreed to take them. But outright hallucinations? I need to call my doctor, then I remember that I haven’t seen my phone since…
Crew Cut: “You okay?”
I scream as I turn and find Crew Cut beside me. Her sharp features have softened with what looks like understanding, but I don’t even understand. Should I know who she is? Should I know why she’s here?
Morgan: “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Crew Cut: “I’m here for the open house.”
I’m staring at her, mouth gaping, not sure which one of us is the crazy one, when I hear voices down the hall. Two women are admiring the staircase, running their fingers over the spindles and commenting on the sturdiness of the railing.
Morgan: “Hey! What are you doing? Get out, this is my house.”
They continue past the staircase to the other side of the hall, tittering about restored crown moldings before disappearing into the formal dining room.
“Hey!” I chase after them. “Stop! Where do you think you’re going?”
Crew Cut: “Come sit with me for a minute.
Before I answer, Crew Cut takes my arm in her beefy grip and hauls me toward the kitchen. A woman in a pantsuit is coming out of it, taking a video on her phone and muttering things like lovely, and simply gorgeous.
Morgan: “Who is—”
Crew Cut: “Relax and come sit.”
Crew Cut’s heavy hands push me onto a stool at the island, and I grasp the marble, steadying my voice as much as my frayed nerves will allow.
Morgan: “I don’t know who any of you are, but you shouldn’t be here. I’m going to call the police.”
Crew Cut: “Oh yeah? Where’s your phone?”
I won’t meet her gaze when I say, “I’ll find it.”
Crew Cut: “Sure you will.”
Morgan: “It should be on the counter, beside the toaster—”
I stop when I realize the toaster isn’t where it should be next to the stove. Come to think of it, the counters are completely bare when there was supposed to be soap by the sink, a roll of paper towels in the holder, and a Keurig on the coffee bar.
I stand and Crew Cut pushes me back down.
Crew Cut: “Save it. The cops aren’t coming.”
Morgan: “Are you—are you holding me hostage?”
Crew Cut (laughs): “Am I holding you hostage?”
Morgan: “Why is this funny?”
Crew Cut: “Oh honey, I wish it were that simple…No, I’m not holding you hostage. I’m like you.”
Morgan: “What do you mean?”
Crew Cut: “I used to live here.”
Morgan: “What? When?”
More people—what look like two couples under forty—pass by in the hall.
Crew Cut: “Long enough to see many people come and go.”
Morgan: “What are you doing here now?”
Crew Cut (shrugs): “Same as you.”
Morgan: “No. No, I don’t know you. I didn’t invite you.”
She scoffs and I spring from the stool and run toward the people—the outright strangers in my home—and am stopped by a petite woman who appears in the kitchen doorway.
Lyla (cheerily): “Oh, hello.”
Morgan: “What are you doing here?”
Lyla: “Oh, me? My name’s Lyla, and I used to live here, too. I had to come and see how much has changed.”
Morgan: “But this is my home. What gives you the right. What gives any of you the right?”
Crew Cut is directly behind me, squeezing my shoulder. Her touch is friendlier this time, but still infuriating.
Crew Cut: “Better take that seat, sister. Wait for the traffic to die down.”
Morgan: “The only one who should even be here is the repairman. Where the hell did he go? He needs to fix the heat—"
Lyla: “Oh dear.”
Crew Cut: “Come. Sit.”
Morgan: “Get your hands off of me! I need my phone. I need the police.”
It’s hard to think, hard to breathe with one particularly strong woman at my back insisting I sit, and another at my front blocking the way. This can’t be happening. Maybe this isn’t happening. Maybe I am going crazy.
Morgan (cries): “Why are you in my house?”
I see a glimpse of the repairman heading down the back hall to the basement. With a mighty heave, I shove aside the petite woman—Lyla—and chase after the repairman. He’s the only part of this—whatever this is—that doesn’t feel completely insane or like some kind of terrible nightmare. I’m sure he’s the only one who can help me.
I don’t think about the basement, the fire. I need to get to him, to ask him what’s going on, as if he’ll know. Lyla catches up with me at the top of the basement stairs and twists my arm.
Lyla: “You don’t want to go down there. Morgan—”
I don’t ask how she knows my name or why her eyes are wide with terror. Answers are in the basement, with the man who is finally here to fix the heat. I pull away from Lyla and plunge into the darkness that swallows me whole the second I descend the steps.
Morgan (calls out): “Hello? Sir?”
My voice falls flat, as if smothered by the darkness around me. When I reach the bottom, actual smoke creeps up so suddenly and so fiercely, it clogs my throat as I feel around for the string for the lightbulb. I cough, calling out to the repairman again. There’s no way he can navigate this darkness; no way he can breathe when my own lungs ache for fresh air. Where is he? And where is the string for the light? My fingers finally brush against it, and it takes another few tries to get a grip on it. Then I pull…
There’s a woman standing beside me, her features taut in a horrifying mask of fear and desperation. I see the whites of her bulging eyes, lips curled back from her yellowed teeth in a snarl, cheeks smeared with soot. But it’s the sounds she’s making that steal whatever breath I have left. From between her clenched teeth, guttural moans escape, as if she’s sobbing or screaming around a clamped jaw.
I stumble away from her, toward the room I previously refused to enter. Heat pours from the claustrophobic space, the red walls seeming to pulse and bulge, as if reaching for me. My cheeks flush with more than heat. Fear is thick here. Terror coats my body like an oily, viscous second skin that doesn’t just weigh me down—it pulls me into the small room. The moment I cross the threshold, I’m fully engulfed in smoke, and through the haze I see flames along the walls, spreading toward the center of the room, toward me just inside the door. The heat sears my arms, my face, my legs beneath my pajama pants, and I see two small figures within the flames. Two iridescent balls with flailing limbs that reach for me—
A hand on my shoulder pulls me out. The air is instantly cooler and I can breathe without choking on smoke.
Lyla has me by the arm, yanking me step after stumbling step up the stairs, cursing at me all the way.
Lyla: “We don’t go in the basement. Damnit, we don’t go down there.”
Morgan (coughing): “What was that? What was that?”
At the top, I think I see the desperate, soot-covered woman step into the small circle of light at the foot of the stairs before Lyla slams the door and shakes my shoulders.
Lyla: “That’s Miranda’s place. We don’t disturb Miranda. Do you understand?”
Morgan: “No, no, I don’t understand. Who are you? Who is she?”
Lyla: “She used to live in your house. She lost her children in that room.”
The flailing limbs looked a lot like small arms, I realize.
Morgan: “How? When?”
Lyla: “We leave her alone. She’s gone through enough.”
Morgan: “But why is she in my house? Why are any of you in my house?”
There are so many people here now. I bump into them. They don’t notice me. They’re admiring the molding, the floors, the staircase. They’re eating cookies and reading off pieces of paper. I burst into the kitchen, scream at a couple opening my fridge—my empty fridge—and put my hands on the counter beside the stocky, crew cut woman and yell in her face.
Morgan: “What the fuck is happening here?”
She looks bored, but a hint of sympathy colors her face.
Lyla: “Just tell her.”
Crew Cut rolls her eyes and holds the paper she’s been reading up to me. It’s a picture of my house from the street with a list of specs beneath it.
Morgan: “What is this? Why do you have a picture of my house?”
Crew Cut: “They all do. Look around.”
She’s right. Every person poking through my home does so with one of these papers. They read, compare, write notes. I look again at the paper in Crew Cut’s hands.
It says FOR SALE at the top.
Morgan: “No. No, it can’t. I—I just bought this place. We still live here. We—”
Jimmy.
My heart leaps from my chest as I leap away from the women—the only ones who seem to notice me—and past two biddies admiring the staircase as I throw up myself up it. How could I have forgotten my boy? My precious Jimmy. He’s probably terrified in this house with all these strangers. I am a shit mom. What if something’s happened to him? What if one of these people has hurt him? I can’t let myself imagine it. When I find him—and I will—I will hold him and kiss him and love him until he knows it's going to be OK.
A young couple is skirting the edges of my bedroom, stopping to check out the view from the window.
Morgan (screeches): “Why are you in my room?”
I don’t wait for their answer before I pull aside the sheet to look inside the tent in the middle of the floor.
It’s empty.
I call out his name and rip through the blankets because sometimes he likes to hide underneath them, but he isn’t there. Where else would he be? Maybe someone has hurt him. Oh god…What if….
What if someone took him?
I push through the terror to the hall where I am almost run down by a small, naked girl scampering from the bathroom, leaving wet footprints on the floor.
I holler after her, chasing her into Jimmy’s room. His racecar bed isn’t pressed against the wall where we set it up. The boxes of toys in the corner are gone, and the latest Lego creation, the one that spelled out WELCOME, has also disappeared. There’s no sign of Jimmy or the sopping wet child I followed in here.
A naked child. Why, with all these other people, would there be a naked kid here? What if she’s not here and those pills really are making me hallucinate? It makes more sense than anything else—certainly more than naked kids in the hall or two fully-clothed men sitting in my bathtub, laughing and pretending to sip from imaginary glasses of wine.
If I’m hallucinating, why are there still footprints on the floor? I reach down and touch one and my fingers come away wet. I’m not imagining them or the child that made them, and that’s a problem. And I still haven’t found Jimmy.
I throw open doors until I’ve searched the entirety of the second floor and make my way up the next flight of stairs. There isn’t any furniture on the third floor—never had been. I’m spinning in the center of the empty office space when a new kind of terror strikes.
The roof. The pathways between buildings. The three-story fall to the ground.
“Jimmy!” I scream and rush up the spiral staircase and out the rooftop door. I brace myself for a gust of winter wind that never comes. It should be freezing. The last time I came up here, the cold was blistering. Now—
Now my mind trails past the weather as I turn in a circle, sweeping the roof for any sign of my son. There’s an elderly couple at the front edge, looking down. My god…have they found him?
“Jimmy,” I breathe. When I make my way to them, I’m too afraid to look down. They smile—at each other, not me—and turn to head back inside. They aren’t disturbed as they should be if my Jimmy had fallen. I look over the side and see only the sidewalk and the street lined with budding trees and the first blades of green grass.
Green grass, as if it’s spring.
No, it’s impossible. It’s—a dream. Of course. It must be. It was the only thing that explained the people and the weather and everything else. Women like the soot-covered Miranda weren’t real. Flaming bodies of small children certainly didn’t exist outside of nightmares. I think night terrors was one of the side effects of my sleeping pills, and that’s what this is, and when I’ve exhausted myself here, I’ll wake up in the tent beside Jimmy and I’ll flush every last pill down the toilet. It’s the only thing that makes sense. The only—
Roof Woman: “It isn’t a dream.”
My frantic gaze snags on a woman sitting on a folding chair, her back to me, huddling underneath a blanket.
Roof Woman: “It isn’t a dream. I wish it was.”
I back away from the edge of the roof and she slowly turns to me. She’s not old but not exactly young, with a tired look about her and a deep sadness in her eyes as she appraises me.
“Who are you?” I whisper, but I’m terrified of the answer because deep in my bones, in a place I won’t acknowledge, I already know what she’s going to say.
Roof Woman: “I used to live here…Just like you.”
Morgan: “I—I live here now. My son—have you seen him? I can’t find him.”
Roof Woman: “This is all a little much for the kids. This house is not a great place for children. You’ve heard about the basement?”
The flaming arms reaching for me in a burning room are forever seared into my brain. I realize for the first time that if the basement really was on fire right now, everyone would be leaving. I would be leaving. Why didn’t I try to run outside when Lyla brought me back upstairs? If that fire was real, this whole place would be up in flames by now. It’s just more confirmation that the woman in front of me is wrong and this is a very bad dream.
“I’ve heard about the basement,” I manage to say with a suddenly dry throat.
Roof Woman: “Good. But have you heard about what happened on the roof? The little boy who ran too fast and fell over the side before his mother could catch him?”
My own eyes press out of my skull. She can’t really mean—
Morgan (chokes out): “Jimmy—”
Roof Woman: “His name was Dale. My son was six when he got away from me. Six and so fast. So…fearless.”
Her eyes gloss with tears and she turns away, her gaze lowering to the edge of the roof beside her. There’s a small child’s shoe on the ground beneath her chair, as if it slipped off of Dale’s foot when he went over.
Morgan: “I didn’t…I didn’t know.”
Roof Woman: “How could you? You have your own son to be concerned with. Your own precious boy to keep safe.”
Morgan: “Please…do you know where he is?”
Roof Woman: “We have one job as mothers. When we fail, we never get over it.”
Morgan: “That’s why I need to find him. All these people... It’s not safe here.”
Roof Woman: “No, it’s not.”
She narrows her weary eyes and pulls the blanket tighter around her. For a moment, her sleeve slides up her arm and I see a long, deep scar on her left wrist.
Roof Woman: “Try the closet. For some reason they all like the closets.”
Something has shifted in my body while talking to her. Some of the hysteria has settled. And I’m certain I will find Jimmy in a closet, but…
But I don’t know if finding him will be enough. I wonder if I’ve kept him safe, or if I’ve missed something, some crucial detail that damned us to some terrible fate.
I’m turning down the spiral stairs when I notice two teenagers huddling underneath it, reading something off a piece of paper I assume is the listing of my home that all the other people have.
Teenage Boy: “Okay, okay, so we did the beams in the dining room where that guy hung himself, we got the master bedroom. We got…we got everything except the roof where that kid fell and…the basement.”
The boys are arguing about who should go down to the basement, when their mother—looking frazzled and annoyed—takes the paper from their hands and scolds them for what she calls despicable rubbish, before shoving them out the door. Shaking her head, she balls up the paper and tosses it behind her.
As soon as they leave, I descend the spiral stairs, collect the paper, and open it.
It’s a list with checkmarks down the left side. At the top, in big, bold letters, it says Death-Rowhouse. On the list, in seemingly no particular order, are rooms with a brief description of what has happened there.
Dining Room – January 1, 1930, at approximately four-fifteen in the afternoon, stockbroker James Hollis hung himself from the rafters.
Upstairs Bathroom – September 21, 1990, MaryAnn Wilson, four years old, drowned in the bathtub while her parents had a party downstairs.
Back entrance – May 5, 1983, Dawn Fields was strangled by an unknown attacker just outside the door in the area’s first homophobic hate crime.
Kitchen – February 23, 2019, Lyla Henderson—
Lyla. I stop reading and head for the stairs in the hall. It couldn’t be the same woman who yanked me out of the basement. Despicable rubbish the boys’ mother had said. That’s all this is. A terrible joke.
There are so many people coming in and out of rooms that I don’t notice the wet, naked child running down the second-floor hallway until she almost collides with me. I move out of her way and into a hushed conversation between the same old biddies I saw downstairs. One tips her head until her neck fat collects in a pile under her throat, claiming this house is so reasonably priced because of all the death, while the other tsks and asks her co-conspirator if she really believes all that garbage.
I don’t wait for the other to reply before I push through a family headed for Jimmy’s room and make it to the top of the last flight of stairs. Above the casual din of many conversations I hear shouting—voices I recognize but I’m not sure how. My socks slip on the wood floor at the bottom of the stairs and I trip into the living room where I find a couple screaming the most terrible obscenities at each other. None of the other people touring the room pay the raging couple any attention—not even when she pulls a gun out of her purse and flat out accuses the man of sleeping with someone named Cheryl—
Cheryl. I know that name. I’ve heard it before. But…where?
She has a gun and that should scare everyone. It should scare me. We should all be running for an exit in this house that should’ve burned down from the fire in the basement, but everyone is strolling around like this isn’t madness, like I really am dreaming, and none of it feels real right now so I turn away from the living room—even as I wince at the gunshot that sends no one in a panic—and hurry back to the kitchen where I find Lyla at the counter with Crew Cut.
They look up at me and I slap the paper down between them, smoothing it so they can see what I’ve been reading.
Crew Cut (sniggers): “Death-Rowhouse. Clever.”
Lyla (groans): “Ugh, not this again.”
Morgan: “What is this? What the fuck is happening here?”
Crew Cut: “Just another open house.”
She shrugs and for the first time I notice the purple bruises around her neck.
Morgan (mutters): “It’s the pills. It’s got to be the pills.”
Lyla: “The pills?”
Morgan: “I’ve taken too many. Or they’re too strong. Or…or…”
Crew Cut: “Or it’s the carbon monoxide.”
I stop muttering and look across the island at Crew Cut. At Dawn Fields and the strangulation marks above the collar of her flannel shirt. At Lyla whose blue lips are smiling softly at me, her eyes glistening above dark, haunted circles and gaunt cheeks.
Lyla: “Same thing happened to me. In this very room. Only, mine was intentional.”
I can’t speak. Lyla pushes the paper across the marble countertop to me and I look down.
Lyla in the kitchen. Miranda and her children in the basement. Dale on the roof and his mother Jane in the third-floor bedroom. And then I read…
Master Bedroom – February 28, 2024, Morgan and Jimmy Fraser were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning when a furnace repairman called in a welfare check.
Morgan and Jimmy Fraser found dead. The coldness in the words seep through my body, through blood and bones and a heart that isn’t beating. For the first time since waking up I’m not dizzy or confused or feigning hallucinations. I can see Lyla and Dawn for the ghosts they are, the dullness that surrounds them compared to the vibrance of the people who move around us like we aren’t even there.
Because we aren’t.
Lyla’s blue lips crack with another try at a smile.
Lyla: “Welcome Morgan. You’re with us now.”
I slowly back away from the island, from Lyla and Dawn, from the sudden smell of natural gas in the kitchen and someone’s comment about the stove being electric now—for safety reasons. I turn down the hall, past a woman shaking her head, telling her husband that something is wrong in the living room. That it just feels off. And it should. There’s a man bleeding out on the floor from a gunshot wound to the chest and his wife is piled on top of him after swallowing her own bullet. As I round the stairs, I catch a glimpse of James Hollis dangling like a worm at the end of a hook from a rope tied to the beams to the left of where the dining room table should’ve been.
On the second-floor landing, a couple is speaking to the woman with the gold jewelry. The realtor. She’s assuring them—and everyone within earshot—that the furnace is being fixed and what happened a few months ago will surely NOT happen again.
A few months ago…when Morgan and Jimmy Fraser were found dead.
There is a boy in the doorway of Jimmy’s room. He’s wearing a winter coat and missing a shoe. When the wet, naked child—MaryAnn—bolts down the hallway again, he catches her and shakes his head. She glances up warily at me, slumps her shoulders, and heads back to the bathroom. The boy retreats into Jimmy’s room and I follow him. He stands a few feet from the closet, staring at the closed doors with his dark, vacant eyes. I pull the doors open and find Jimmy in his Star Wars pajamas on the floor. He looks up at me with dark circles under his eyes, his skin too pale, his lips too blue. My heart shatters because I’ve failed him in the most absolute way, at the only thing I was ever supposed to do: keep my son safe.
He stands as I fall to my knees, and he wraps his thin arms around my neck while I cry. I tried to be a good mom. I tried to protect him from the pain of his father’s loss, from my pain about it. I tried to give him a good life. And here we are…surrounded by—
Ghosts.
I look up and see the boy with the missing shoe—the boy from upstairs whose name is Dale. Behind us, near the bedroom door, Dawn and Lyla wait holding hopeful breaths, Lyla with a tentative smile. I don’t see couples taking notes and photographs of my home, the old biddies gossiping, the teenage boys obsessing over heinous deaths. Our deaths.
The living have gone, and I’ve got Jimmy, and suddenly it hits me. I’m free. We’re free. I don’t need pills anymore. I don’t need to grieve. I’m relieved. Relieved from trying so hard to hold it together and be all things to my son. Relieved from trying so hard to live.
I kiss his hair and promise him that it’s going to be okay, and this time I mean it. We can spend the rest of eternity in this big, beautiful house together, with the other mothers and children, and the women and men who met tragic ends, just like we did, here—in the place where we used to live.

It's been 5 years. 5 years since I came to Stardew Valley. 5 years since I took over this farm. 5 years since I haven't been able to leave. I think I'm going mad.
I loved the valley when I first started living here. The residents of Pelican Town were good people, well, most of them were. I befriended them easily. I'd farm, decorate the house, care for my animals and play with my dog. Life was good. I truly believed it was good.
There's something odd about this valley though. It won't let you question anything for too long. It'll make you accept everything peculiar, no matter how much it affects you. The Junimos, wizard, witch's cave, the monsters in the mines and the unending skull cavern only made me suspicious for a short while before I accepted them as 'just some small town's quirks'. I couldn't die no matter what I encountered in the mines. I started believing that was normal after the first few times.
No rational human being would think like that. But I wasn't a rational human, the valley was controlling me, sustaining me somehow.
During my 1st year in the valley, I fell in love and married the love of my life, Elliott. We adopted 2 children, I didn't know where they came from. There are no orphanages in the valley. Elliott wouldn't answer my questions. It's been 4 years since my children became toddlers. They won't grow up. I don't know why, but they won't grow up. It's like time is frozen. Does the valley exist outside of time?
During the same year, I fixed up the community centre. That was the worst mistake of my life. Having driven Joja out of town, I had cut off the only contact I had with the outside. I let the Junimos move onto my farm to help me, another mistake. They lurk in the shadows now, watching my every move. I'm scared. I just want it all to end already. I want to leave. But I can't. I can only leave if one of the townspeople come along with me. But I always have to return. They won't let me leave for good.
During my 3rd year here, I found him. Mr. Qi. My only salvation in this god-forsaken valley. He's special, different. He severed the hold the power of the valley had on me. He freed me. He woke me up. He knows the truth about the valley, he just won't tell me. I do everything he tells me to like a loyal dog, hoping that I'll get answers someday. I think it might have paid off.
Mr. Qi got me this cellphone, now I can access the internet. But only this subreddit for some reason. I couldn't use the internet in the valley, although the townspeople could. The valley was barring any contact I had with the outside. I know the letters I got from my mother are fake, her cookies didn't taste the same. Something was pretending to be her.
I don't know what I should do now. I'm scared. The Junimos can't see me when I'm in Mr. Qi's room. I hope they don't figure out how to enter. They'll hurt me.
I'm trembling while I write this post. Mr. Qi said it's okay, but he's watching me too. I can see it even if he's wearing sunglasses. I don't know whether I should be afraid of him. He's helped me. He's good, I think.
It's almost 2 A.M. I'm tired. I just want to leave.
If anyone can see this, please help me. I want to leave Stardew Valley. Save me. Please.
Edit: fixed error about grandpa's death date

Earlier, I ran up against a divestment march shutting down Green Street, with students carrying these beautiful banners from curb to curb, advocating for a timeline by which institutions will entirely divest from fossil fuels – that’s it, no more – which is now. A couple of the banners, I know personally – watched the paint dry in the chapel of the derelict peace church I call home, which is where the kids painted them. The moment on Green Street was somewhat awkward in that I was driving a van at the time – off to pick up groceries for the food pantry we operate out of said derelict peace church. Offering a thumbs up gesture to activists who are engaging in a bit of civil unrest – the march was spontaneous, traffic waited – while I am behind the wheel of a 1990s van that advertises its grandiosity right there in the name – requires a bit of explaining.
There’s no time, of course – I make the turn and carry on, rolling over some measurable angle of the earth surface at a speed inconceivable to every conception of human, over many hundreds of thousands of years, before the present age got to work on the problem. Earth Day knows we humans have a hard time with timewise perspective, which is how we come to assign an entire planet’s celebration to one of the 365 fractions of the oblong it takes to pass around the sun. See that small pinch of time on yonder curve? Where our gratitude lies for the orbit as a whole, and this could be said for so many other conditions of modern life. Picture that wee pinch of brain in yonder skull? What I use to think of the cosmos as a whole. Observe these slight pinches of lips upon my face? How I describe your vast beauty, after which we trip to a park bench, make out.
The place where I live on planet earth is also but a pinch, but I feel welcome in it and to it. This time of year, pleasure comes from wondering around in admiration of life’s profusion. Without even trying, I pass a tree covered in thousands of tiny flowers, each one seeming to levitate and fluoresce. The tree next to it has bright pink flowers the size of cupcakes, the surface of the tree covered in them like it’s no big deal, like its par for the course. The sexual parts of the next tree are reminiscent of showy candelabras. The tree after that seems to be printing out random erotic patterns from the crooks of its branches. True, neighborhoods with perpetually adolescent trees are more likely to leave the pipes uncracked, but for the world that values maturity, spring is a sex show. Yes, autumn colors can be a scandal – but spring is the season with major obsessions.
Sustainapalooza is the festival that the earlier act of civil disobedience was adjacent to. It brings together student groups, campaigns, artists and activists around the concept of environmental futures that, operationally speaking, take the form of booths around a third of the geometrical commons area, where students are talking about agriculture, honeybees, clean water, renewable energy and their intersection with gender, race, class and pandemic adjacency. Creating spaces for discourse about sustainability at a world-class university, with a large international student population, is a challenge, and Sustainapalooza seems to ripen to it. Someone is giving out free haircuts. Someone is dressed as a banana – no, two people, no three. A clothing swap takes up a long line of tables. Free homemade food samples abound. A woman on stage tunes her guitar.
If the organizers of Sustainapalooza knew who I was – and keep in mind, the organizers meet in this very building – doubtless they would have demanded I give the festival’s keynote address, based on the merits of low-cost lifestyle alone. Pebbles would have been tossed at my windows, and rams would have battered my tower door, to impel me to say a few words about being free of property and purchase, the aching burdens of acreage. What the crowd would not expect, on my way to the lectern, speech in hand, is just how much thought I’ve given to sustainability as a concept, how it’s really a motive force with the capacity to carry all of humanity into the future on its back. In fact, I find real challenge in imagining alternatives to sustainability as a way to get from here to there, at least as far as existence is concerned. If not sustained, what are we?
Overruled! This would be the first word out of my mouth when the strings grew quiet and the crowd leaned in to hear my address. Overruled! Not that there were any orchestras in evidence, nor audience present for any notional oration. Overruled! O, sustainability – what subterranean haunts must we slip out from under to cope with overbearing rule! Life is a requirement for the existence of fire, but once lit, the planet’s survival contends with our willingness to do finer and finer things with it until it reveals modernity’s beating heart in the form of a combustion engine, which is a machine for producing authority from the remnants of the past, using a phenomenon – fire – inherent to the biological project. But we can’t sustain this! we cry to the heavens, which is not where the problem lay. Modernity just guns its engines, leans down on its horns, in reply.
Let’s say we get past that. Let’s say the remaining fossil fuels somehow stay in the ground, and we stop turning the sky into trays of burnt cookies. Let’s say we stand before the periodic table, start crossing off elements we have a handle on – hydrogen, iron, bismuth – put checks next to the ones we don’t – lead, uranium, plutonium – and with carbon already taken care of, realize we might now be in a relationship with nature that one could say was objectively, measurably sustainable, would be forever more, or at least as long as we continue to do things the way they were done before. Fat chance, we might say, of the western project, its tendency to outgrow the pot its planted in, no matter how large – but let’s say, against all odds, it is so. Where does the human project go next once our objections to the human project have been roundly sustained?
At least as they’ve been conceived so far. With a piece of flint in one hand and a silicon wafer in another, we use a third hand where our prehensile tails once grew to turn the page on the stone age formulation. We are free, sustainability – you made good! Sustainability, we knew you well! But then, as it always does, sustainability rises from the grave, announces it has passed through the land of the dead, knows life better than it knows itself. This is where we are now – the world returning to life by virtue of having once been alive, the sexual excitement so evident, everyday people sneeze and cry for the density of spunk in the air. Sustainability, where will the human dwell when the human perforce drifts away? We become more than we can ever know, never to return, that sustainability will crown its vast attainments, that day on its throne bows to night.