I hate that I use this account to post these sad rants but this is my new way of trying to explain myself. I’ve let months go by simply by accepting I’ll die soon.
I had my first serious attempt yesterday (none have come this close). Mother’s Day. Who does that ? My whole immediate family including young kids (my first baby cousins) came over. Usually at these parties I’m one of the best dressed, on making drinks, somehow am also the entertainer and the one to get the kids to sit/eat. Can’t even imagine my family getting to the house and finding me lifeless. Yet I still tried to die. Due to my appearance and having avoided my family for the last few months.. everyone asked me if I was “okay”. I was pretty good with avoiding these pursuits of answers by helping in the kitchen and playing with the kids. No sane adult is going to force you, an adult, to start explaining where/what you’ve been when a kid is playing with you or your hands are occupied. I pathetically took advantage of this. I’ve always been relatively close to my family but I’ve burned ties twice now. First time around this time last year and second time we are currently in. What got me out of that first time ? I’m not really sure. I think I just knew I had to try one more time before really giving up. There were some cornered moments and while my loved ones were just doing what family does (checking in) I just kept replaying my attempt that occurred precisely two hours before anyone got there. I wore a dress with a collar. This collar was important because my neck was extremely bruised and looked scratched. My attempt if not apparent by now was by partial hanging. I put makeup on it and left my hair down to cover. It wasn’t enough but this goes to show how good I was with avoiding eye contact and being investigated. My sister isn’t easily fooled. We were setting up some food before people arrived and she asked me what happened to my neck. I didn’t even take the time to come up with a story just in case. Was it a cry for help? I wasn’t going to let it be. I somehow blamed it on my necklace scratching me when I took it off. To this second I don’t know how she believed me or the conversation shifted. Must have been a combination of my tone/mannerism and her just going with the flow because I was actually present. I haven’t been with anyone in so long. My isolation has ruined everything. Anyways I put more concealer and kept a smile for my family. My dad walked into the gathering with flowers for everyone. After greeting everyone he approached me with my own orchid and a trinket for me. I am not a mother but he made it a point to include me and to remind me he thinks of me. The trinket can be described as a decoration for a table. An all in all thoughtful gift. It has in cursive “live the life you love, love the life you live” with a clip I’m guessing to add a picture. I immediately grabbed it, turned it around so I wasn’t reading it anymore, somehow changed the conversation and he being my father (I believe knows me more than I think), took the hint to walk away. I’m grateful he did because I was about to have a mental breakdown. I somehow held my tears back and forced my attention back to my baby cousin which wasn’t hard she was drawing and wanted me to see. After a bit of this she wanted to go by the front of the house to play and her mom was there alone. This is down a hall away from where we were. I felt time move slow as we made eye contact and my mouth go dry as the space between us was closing. I knew what was coming. Everyone else was congregated in the kitchen and family room. A simple what’s up how have you been was about to send me over the edge. I didn’t even notice I was holding my dads gift in my right hand. She grabbed my left hand and instinctively said “wow I’ve never seen your skin this pale it’s like porcelain”. She didn’t mean it in a bad way just stating a fact. I looked at her and as my eyes started tearing up she let go. She asked me if I was sad and I said I can’t talk now because I’ll lose it. Thing is once I start I can’t stop. I told her I needed to go to the bathroom. She called her daughter said we need to talk I said okay and went to my bathroom upstairs. As I stared at myself in the mirror now completely alone I realized just how different I have to look to everyone. I looked at my dads gift and really started crying. After a few sobs I somehow managed to stop crying and fix my makeup a bit. I went back down to the party mostly to try to prove I’m okay and avoid being a topic. I know this was the bare minimum thing to do. I know this isn’t who I should be. This weekend coming is a bigger party. Point is I barely survived yesterday. I’m one of the youngest in my family not including the baby cousins. That being said everyone is older and has way more stressors than me. They either have kids, their careers, more bills, and whatever else. These people manage to go to every party, maintain conversation, and overall be apart of the family. I 23 unemployed overweight believe I can’t get it together. I can’t be apart of anything. I went through college and from the moment that last semester ended didn’t know what the fuck to do next. Before my attempt yesterday morning I spent an hour on a suicide hotline. I never admitted to the woman on the phone how close I was to the edge. This is what I wrote down after the call “I told her almost everything. The isolation, how I let myself go, and how I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I couldn’t actually say what my plan was. The lady was really nice. We agreed I should face everyone and get professionally evaluated. I didn’t really mean it. I’m going to die before I face anyone and I couldn’t tell her I can’t tell anyone. She was a really nice lady. I wonder if she’s a mom. It’s Mother’s Day. Mommy I can’t do it. You were always there for me. Always answered me. I can’t answer you anymore. I wish I could’ve talked to you. I wish I would’ve just talked. For what it’s worth I do love you. “. My mother called me around 9AM Mother’s Day morning. Said she needs help getting gifts ready and I told her I felt bad. She said how everyone is worried and I have no reason to be this far gone/sad. I somehow got the conversation to end. She ended saying I was going to be okay that we’re going to get me a therapist just have to get through mothers day and next weeks party. I said I love you and immediately tied the belt around my neck. I was seeing black, choking, ears ringing, and arms shuffling. Something came over me and I got myself out of it. I didn’t even cry. I went to my bathroom showered, got dressed, and you know the rest. Now I’m here 4 o’clock the next day writing. I have spent the whole day in bed. I think subconsciously I’ve let myself go into this isolation to weaken my body. For it to be easier for me to die and severed connections for it to be easier for those around me. I don’t know what I want from writing this down. I know my throat feels sore and I think I want to know why this is happening. I want to somehow try to put a reasoning behind everything. Somehow find a way to maybe really talk to one of the people that care without breaking down and shooting blanks with my mouth. I’ve tried even though it looks to those around me I haven’t. Thanks for reading.. comments are sincerely appreciated.

My father always told me that the morning after a stormy, spring night was the best time to go birdwatching. Something about the rain makes them come to the ground more, be it the fact that more worms migrate to the surface or just that wet feathers make it harder to fly. Unfortunately though, rain brings out more than just birds. Let this story be a warning to all you birdwatchers or nature fanatics out there: the forests aren’t as safe as you think they are.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I still remember the events that happened on that day clearly.
The mud sloshed underneath my boots as I walked through the forest. It was around 6 in the morning and the weather had cleared up a bit since the night before. My back was hurting from lugging my spotting scope and backpack along for the past four kilometers, and I still had another three to go until I reached ‘Uhu valley’, but everything would be worth it in the end. After all, there was a good chance that I could spot a rare Eurasian eagle-owl that day, and there was nothing in the world that would keep me from seeing one. During my little hike, I stopped several times when I saw something that caught my attention, as insignificant as some of it might have been. Through my binoculars, I saw several Eurasian blue tits frolicking around, singing their little songs as they hoped to attract a mate. I also spotted a little goldcrest, building a nest with its partner. As I was watching a common blackbird forage for food, I noticed something moving in the undergrowth far behind it. At the time I thought nothing of it, the creature moved away too quickly for me to get a good look at it and I figured it was probably just a deer or something like that. After staring at the bushes through my binoculars for a few more seconds I decided it was time for me to continue again. I didn’t want to miss the owl.
By the time I reached my destination another hour had passed. I unpacked my stuff and set up my spotting scope to get a good view of the valley. Now all I had to do was wait for a Eurasian eagle-owl to show itself. The first half of an hour was uneventful, with a few common bird species flying by here and there. Every now and then a buzzard would fly over, making itself heard with its mewing calls, but nothing else really stood out. That’s when all of a sudden I saw something move in the corner of my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; a Eurasian eagle-owl had landed not more than five meters away from me. It was an amazing sight, I could see every little detail: its large, orange eyes, its plumage that was a mix of dark and light stripes and specks, the powerful claws it uses to catch its prey… At that moment, I remembered why I got into birdwatching in the first place.
Sadly, my moment of awe was short-lived, since the owl got scared away by snapping branches and rustling coming from the undergrowth. A putrid, metallic smell filled my nostrils and snapped me out of my trance. Almost instantly, I was overcome with an intense feeling of dread and anxiety. I could not make out what was moving through the bushes, but It sounded bigger than a deer. My mind was racing, trying to think of which animal it could possibly be, when all of a sudden my thoughts were interrupted by someone talking in a raspy voice.
“Wow… The view… Here… Is amazing… Frank!”
All the hair on my body sprang up immediately. This was no animal, no, whatever this was could not be explained in natural terms. I knew I had to get out of there and that I had to be quick. In a hasty decision I decided to leave all of my equipment behind and I just bolted, and the creature gave chase. I ran as fast as I could without even bothering to look behind me. Whatever the creature could be, I didn’t want to find out. I could hear loud footsteps coming from behind me as I ran, and occasionally the creature would speak, each sentence it said painting a clearer picture about what might happen if I could not escape it in time.
“What… Is that… Over… There?” the hoarse voice said.
I kept running, not caring about the pain in my chest, or the cramp in my leg.
“Make it… Stop… Please…” it cried out, “I don’t… Want to… Die…”
The voice sounded closer than before, I could almost feel the creature’s breath in my neck. My legs were really starting to give in now and I had no idea how much longer I could run.
“Fuck, don’t let this be the way my life ends,” I panted, “I can’t die like this.”
The next few moments were a blur. I remember thinking that this was it, that my life would end just because I wanted to see a damned owl. I also remember giving one last sprint in a last ditch effort to shake off my pursuer. Every memory after that has been wiped from my brain. The next thing I remembered was that I was back in my car, covered in dirt and beyond tired.
I have been to many psychiatrists since to try and make sense of the situation, but no amount of therapy could help. Usually, they just told me that something traumatic must have happened to me, after which my mind filled in the blanks to cope with the situation, but I know that’s not true. What could possibly go wrong on a hike in a regular, temperate forest without any natural danger? Nothing that’s bad enough for me to make up some fairy tales about what happened, that’s for sure. Something attacked me in that forest, I’m sure of it. And that something let me live on purpose, to toy with me. It took me three months to get over my fear of the woods but just two days ago I finally went birdwatching again at a local nature reserve. Everything was going well, I was finally having fun again and reconnecting with nature. That was, until I noticed a familiar metallic smell in the air. Some might call me crazy, and say that there’s no way that this supposed creature is hunting me, like a cat toying with its food, but I know it is. Because before I was able to get out of there, I heard it say one last thing:
“Don’t let… This… Be the… Way… My life… Ends…”

My father always told me that the morning after a stormy, spring night was the best time to go birdwatching. Something about the rain makes them come to the ground more, be it the fact that more worms migrate to the surface or just that wet feathers make it harder to fly. Unfortunately though, rain brings out more than just birds. Let this story be a warning to all you birdwatchers or nature fanatics out there: the forests aren’t as safe as you think they are.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I still remember the events that happened on that day clearly.
The mud sloshed underneath my boots as I walked through the forest. It was around 6 in the morning and the weather had cleared up a bit since the night before. My back was hurting from lugging my spotting scope and backpack along for the past four kilometers, and I still had another three to go until I reached ‘Uhu valley’, but everything would be worth it in the end. After all, there was a good chance that I could spot a rare Eurasian eagle-owl that day, and there was nothing in the world that would keep me from seeing one. During my little hike, I stopped several times when I saw something that caught my attention, as insignificant as some of it might have been. Through my binoculars, I saw several Eurasian blue tits frolicking around, singing their little songs as they hoped to attract a mate. I also spotted a little goldcrest, building a nest with its partner. As I was watching a common blackbird forage for food, I noticed something moving in the undergrowth far behind it. At the time I thought nothing of it, the creature moved away too quickly for me to get a good look at it and I figured it was probably just a deer or something like that. After staring at the bushes through my binoculars for a few more seconds I decided it was time for me to continue again. I didn’t want to miss the owl.
By the time I reached my destination another hour had passed. I unpacked my stuff and set up my spotting scope to get a good view of the valley. Now all I had to do was wait for a Eurasian eagle-owl to show itself. The first half of an hour was uneventful, with a few common bird species flying by here and there. Every now and then a buzzard would fly over, making itself heard with its mewing calls, but nothing else really stood out. That’s when all of a sudden I saw something move in the corner of my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; a Eurasian eagle-owl had landed not more than five meters away from me. It was an amazing sight, I could see every little detail: its large, orange eyes, its plumage that was a mix of dark and light stripes and specks, the powerful claws it uses to catch its prey… At that moment, I remembered why I got into birdwatching in the first place.
Sadly, my moment of awe was short-lived, since the owl got scared away by snapping branches and rustling coming from the undergrowth. A putrid, metallic smell filled my nostrils and snapped me out of my trance. Almost instantly, I was overcome with an intense feeling of dread and anxiety. I could not make out what was moving through the bushes, but It sounded bigger than a deer. My mind was racing, trying to think of which animal it could possibly be, when all of a sudden my thoughts were interrupted by someone talking in a raspy voice.
“Wow… The view… Here… Is amazing… Frank!”
All the hair on my body sprang up immediately. This was no animal, no, whatever this was could not be explained in natural terms. I knew I had to get out of there and that I had to be quick. In a hasty decision I decided to leave all of my equipment behind and I just bolted, and the creature gave chase. I ran as fast as I could without even bothering to look behind me. Whatever the creature could be, I didn’t want to find out. I could hear loud footsteps coming from behind me as I ran, and occasionally the creature would speak, each sentence it said painting a clearer picture about what might happen if I could not escape it in time.
“What… Is that… Over… There?” the hoarse voice said.
I kept running, not caring about the pain in my chest, or the cramp in my leg.
“Make it… Stop… Please…” it cried out, “I don’t… Want to… Die…”
The voice sounded closer than before, I could almost feel the creature’s breath in my neck. My legs were really starting to give in now and I had no idea how much longer I could run.
“Fuck, don’t let this be the way my life ends,” I panted, “I can’t die like this.”
The next few moments were a blur. I remember thinking that this was it, that my life would end just because I wanted to see a damned owl. I also remember giving one last sprint in a last ditch effort to shake off my pursuer. Every memory after that has been wiped from my brain. The next thing I remembered was that I was back in my car, covered in dirt and beyond tired.
I have been to many psychiatrists since to try and make sense of the situation, but no amount of therapy could help. Usually, they just told me that something traumatic must have happened to me, after which my mind filled in the blanks to cope with the situation, but I know that’s not true. What could possibly go wrong on a hike in a regular, temperate forest without any natural danger? Nothing that’s bad enough for me to make up some fairy tales about what happened, that’s for sure. Something attacked me in that forest, I’m sure of it. And that something let me live on purpose, to toy with me. It took me three months to get over my fear of the woods but just two days ago I finally went birdwatching again at a local nature reserve. Everything was going well, I was finally having fun again and reconnecting with nature. That was, until I noticed a familiar metallic smell in the air. Some might call me crazy, and say that there’s no way that this supposed creature is hunting me, like a cat toying with its food, but I know it is. Because before I was able to get out of there, I heard it say one last thing:
“Don’t let… This… Be the… Way… My life… Ends…”

Sorry about the delay. I ultimately decided that the story needed a substantial re-write and ended up back at square one. Unfortunately, this means chapters will now only go up three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). Hopefully you’ll enjoy this new version, and find it worth the wait.
Also, my Patreon is now up if you feel like supporting my writing. I’ll add advance chapters as soon as they’re written.
Thanks for reading!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
2. Task Force Nemesis
He, General or mere Captain, who employs everyone in the storming of a position, can be sure of seeing it retaken by an organized counterattack of four men and a corporal.
- Battle Studies, Ardant du Picq
“You’re one of those Academy girls, aren’t you?”
Christie Stirling’s heart seized as a shock of adrenaline lanced through her body, and she needed a great deal of effort not to flinch or tremor. Other party guests looked around in surprise, but her smile remained unblemished. She turned with the lazy and graceless air she had portrayed throughout the night to look into the predatory eyes of Allana Rayker; the inhuman terrorist who had killed her best friend.
The question was either a trap or an accusation. The Academy—a fake university—was the cover of the shadowy organization that had recruited Christie. They had made her a Valkyrie; an enhanced super soldier tasked with protecting humanity from the devastating armaments of an extinct alien race, and those, like Rayker, who wanted to exploit those weapons for evil purposes.
Now that Valkyrie had found the evil woman’s hiding place, the hunt was reaching its final moments. But, shaken by surprise, Christie’s instincts screamed that her cover was blown, that she would be tortured and executed, and that the rest of the task force stealthily approaching the chateau would be discovered and attacked.
She feigned a puzzled smile as she fought for control of her emotions. All around the room, expensively dressed party goers mingled and talked with abandon. Light flashed off crystal glasses, chandeliers, and jewelry worth more than any citizen’s life. A man tipsy with wine laughed raucously at the joke of a Central Committee member, no doubt eager to impress one of the most powerful people in the galaxy.
The exclusive party, hosted by Joakinn Meissner, newly selected president of the largest arms manufacturer in the galaxy, had been anticipated for months. The guests were lost in the lavish display of wealth, with no idea, Christie was certain, that they might be about to witness a gruesome murder.
An angry inner voice drowned out the rising panic. How dare she allow herself to fail? How dare she let down her fellow Valkyrie, who had worked tirelessly for years to hunt down Rayker, and finally bring her to justice? And how dare she betray the memory of her friend Rose, who had already given her life in that struggle? There was simply no room for weakness, and Christie would be damned if she was going to let the operation end so abysmally.
She held onto her façade by her fingertips, as a gut-wrenching void swung beneath her.
“Where?” she asked, slurring her words. “Oh, you mean the mystery school? No, I went to Cambridge actually.”
She kept her eyes unfocused and wandering, but nevertheless taking in details. The galaxy’s most dangerous terrorist was dressed in black, and an earpiece was just visible behind the locks of black hair that fell from the neat bun. She didn’t hold a glass, and stood awkwardly, as one who doesn’t care to impress or reassure. On her wrists, Christie noticed the subtle bulges in the skin that marked her most deadly weapons—spikes of bone that she could launch with more power and speed than bullets.
Rayker stared into her eyes, dragging out the silence. Around them, the fabulously adorned guests began to look over, bemused by the strange interaction. Christie continued the drunken pause, allowing her eyes to droop with fatigue. She wished it were real, but tonight she could not be affected by alcohol. Like all Valkyrie, her bloodstream was flooded with nano machines that gave her enhanced speed, strength, and healing potential. Twenty-four hours earlier, a bioengineer had programmed the nanites to target and break down all alcohol enzymes that passed through her system.
Unfortunately, even advanced technology wouldn’t help her survive for long against Rayker.
Eventually Christie began to turn away, suppressing the shiver she felt at showing her back to a predator.
“Loving the dress,” she said with a hint of disdain. “Not everyone can pull off funeral black at a drinky fete.”
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” Rayker said, her voice neutral. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Christie stopped and looked back at her with a smirk. “Gosh, you’re scary!” she crowed. “You might almost be a villain in one of those spy movies!”
A wave of embarrassed silence, interrupted by a few titters, passed through the crowd, while others hid disbelieving grins behind their drinks.
Rayker ignored them and extended her hand. “Allana Rayker. I’m an associate of Herr Meissner.”
Christie shook limply. “I’m Petti.”
Rayker’s eyebrows flickered as she suppressed an obviously contemptuous expression. “You’re the girl who found success on the feeds recently? Modeling lingerie?” Her lips twisted into a fake smile. “I wouldn’t normally be interested, but so many men have told me that you have a surprising intellect.”
Of course, the meeting had been inevitable. Rayker had been prowling the halls of Meissner’s Chateau, interrogating every young woman in a similar fashion. Christie’s cover had been calculated to make her stand out, but in a way that could be easily dismissed. ‘Petti’ was a highly connected social influencer, who craved adoration and attention. It had been a fun role, up until now.
Christie grinned at the lascivious looks around her. “You guys—you’re so sweet!”
Her crowd of male admirers laughed, then directed blank stares at Rayker. Christie offered a prayer of thanks for the collective lust that was patiently trying to convince the intruder that she was an unwelcome bore who had no right to deprive them of the attention offered by an inebriated and provocatively dressed young woman, and should leave as soon as possible.
“Enchanté,” Rayker said, and stalked off.
“Is there a draft in here? I think I felt a chill,” Christie said to more laughter.
She turned her sunbeam smile back to the crowd while she reached a gently shaking hand up to brush the silver of her brooch. The tiny and delicate shapes of the flower’s petals helped calm her mind as she focused on the next step.
​
A mile away, in the dense woods of the Chateau’s outer grounds, Lance-Corporal Kayla Barnes moved slowly through the dark undergrowth. She placed each foot purposefully, testing the ground before shifting her weight to prevent the cracking of a twig or the rustle of leaves.
As she crested a low rise, she froze. The multi-wavelength vizor of her helmet showed the surrounding trees and foliage in dark grey and black patterns. Amidst the visual chaos she had been struggling to navigate, a pair of tiny white blobs had suddenly appeared.
Heat sources. Guards.
Kayla reached for the comm switch on her chest and triple clicked the talk button, sending a burst of static noise to the rest of the squad. Close behind, the three other members of her fire team, who had stopped when she had, raised their rifles and peered through scopes at the distant threat. Further along the gentle slope, the second half of their eight-woman squad also stopped, as they too scanned to locate the new target.
They were Rangers, part of Valkyrie’s elite infantry force. Under the cover of darkness, they had climbed through the surrounding mountains and crept past local security forces to infiltrate the chateau grounds. When the time came, their job would be to neutralize the VennZech corporation’s mercenary guards, leaving the Chateau infiltrators free to break in and take down Rayker.
Kayla would either succeed in her mission or die trying. She had graduated Valkyrie’s crushing selection course together with her three best friends, whom she had sworn never to let down. She had already unforgivably failed Rose Djallen; killed in action on a previous operation. Thandi Khawula was in the squad’s second fire team, covering her movements. Christie was in the chateau, facing their target alone.
As Kayla watched the distant blobs draw closer, they resolved into familiar human figures. Three of them. They were strolling, weapons slung, as they made the head and arm movements of everyday conversation.
Of course they were distracted; they had the Ambrosia detail. The planet was the luxury destination for the most powerful members of human society. On its pristine shores, rivalries and factions were forgotten. Powerful cartel members, after being offered a month’s stay, would be offered mutual, but discrete, agreements in place of a prison sentence. Business might be politely discussed, but anyone looking to extort or threaten fellow guests of would find their home planet visited by a Helvetic League security fleet. The normally fractious and squeamish planetary governors would look the other way. Nobody in their right mind would want to disturb this world’s tranquility.
But Valkyrie worked from the shadows and went wherever they pleased. Besides, if everything went to plan, nobody would even know what had happened.
The Chateau was built high on the slopes of Ambrosia’s most popular mountain range, not far from a huge ski resort. Perched on the edge of a sheer cliff, the building was flanked by a spectacular waterfall. In daylight, there was a jaw dropping view of the surrounding peaks and valleys. The grounds were covered in dense forests that stretched across the surrounding slopes. Normally, they were peaceful, disturbed only by the occasional guest out for an adventurous hike. Now they were crawling with Rangers, closing in to seal the chateau off from the outside world.
Kayla slowly turned her head and found the muted gray patch of her squad leader a short distance away. Their combat suits kept their body heat from seeping out into the world—as much a necessity to protect them in the vacuum of space as to keep them hidden. The diffuse blob of Corporal Ksenia ‘Kes’ Rudaski slowly raised an arm towards Kayla, and made a gentle motion in the direction of the approaching men.
Kayla raised her own hand in a thumbs up, then began to move forward. She did not need to see or hear her three other Rangers to know they would be close behind.
The two elements were separating. Kes’ Alpha team spread out on the rise to keep their rifles aimed at the new threats, while Kayla’s Bravo team crept towards them.
Their commanders had decided early in the operation that they should attempt to minimize human casualties wherever possible. To that end, Kayla and her squad mate Ray carried stun rifles. They could stop the heart of a human with a projectile that could latch into the skin and deliver a violent electric shock. Then, the Rangers would have up to two minutes to reach the unconscious victims and inject them with a solution to restart their cardiac rhythm before a powerful tranquilizer took effect. The men would wake up with amnesia hours later, and Valkyrie would confidently maintain its secrecy while assuaging the ethical concerns that interfering in human society often brought them.
Unfortunately, the weapons were only effective to a hundred yards. Kayla and Ray would have to get as close as they could before they could take out all three of the guards. They had night vision, and any sound would carry far on such a quiet night. Even distracted, they wouldn’t miss a disturbance amongst the trees.
Kayla had been a talented stalker since she was a child, a noiseless shadow in any environment. Nevertheless, there was always the chance that something could go wrong, and the Rangers couldn’t take the risk of a compromise when so much was on the line.
Certainly not, Kayla grimly reminded herself, when Christie’s life was in so much peril. One wrong move and Rayker would kill her immediately before making good her own escape and destroying months of work.
So Kes and her three Rangers kept their high-powered, suppressed rifles trained on the distant men. At the slightest hint of a problem, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill, and the ‘moral question’ would be chalked up to the fortune of war. False intelligence would be distributed implicating cartel involvement in the raid. Valkyrie ethics had always been a nebulous concept at best.
The closer Kayla got through the undergrowth to her target the closer, she knew, her watcher’s lethal assistance would have to pass by her own body. But she felt no fear. Thandi had become a talented marksman; neither she nor the others would make a mistake.
Now only fifty yards away, the men stopped by a large boulder, leaning against the rock while they drank from their canteens. Kayla dropped to her belly and merged into the ground as she slithered forward.
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie

Sorry about the delay. I ultimately decided that the story needed a substantial re-write and ended up back at square one. Unfortunately, this means chapters will now only go up three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). Hopefully you’ll enjoy this new version, and find it worth the wait.
Also, my Patreon is now up if you feel like supporting my writing. I’ll add advance chapters as soon as they’re written.
Thanks for reading!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Prequel (Parts 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
2. Task Force Nemesis
"He, General or mere Captain, who employs everyone in the storming of a position, can be sure of seeing it retaken by an organized counterattack of four men and a corporal."
- Battle Studies, Ardant du Picq
“You’re one of those Academy girls, aren’t you?”
Christie Stirling’s heart seized as a shock of adrenaline lanced through her body, and she needed a great deal of effort not to flinch or tremor. Other party guests looked around in surprise, but her smile remained unblemished. She turned with the lazy and graceless air she had portrayed throughout the night to look into the predatory eyes of Allana Rayker; the inhuman terrorist who had killed her best friend.
The question was either a trap or an accusation. The Academy—a fake university—was the cover of the shadowy organization that had recruited Christie. They had made her a Valkyrie; an enhanced super soldier tasked with protecting humanity from the devastating armaments of an extinct alien race, and those, like Rayker, who wanted to exploit those weapons for evil purposes.
Now that Valkyrie had found the evil woman’s hiding place, the hunt was reaching its final moments. But, shaken by surprise, Christie’s instincts screamed that her cover was blown, that she would be tortured and executed, and that the rest of the task force stealthily approaching the chateau would be discovered and attacked.
She feigned a puzzled smile as she fought for control of her emotions. All around the room, expensively dressed party goers mingled and talked with abandon. Light flashed off crystal glasses, chandeliers, and jewelry worth more than any citizen’s life. A man tipsy with wine laughed raucously at the joke of a Central Committee member, no doubt eager to impress one of the most powerful people in the galaxy.
The exclusive party, hosted by Joakinn Meissner, newly selected president of the largest arms manufacturer in the galaxy, had been anticipated for months. The guests were lost in the lavish display of wealth, with no idea, Christie was certain, that they might be about to witness a gruesome murder.
An angry inner voice drowned out the rising panic. How dare she allow herself to fail? How dare she let down her fellow Valkyrie, who had worked tirelessly for years to hunt down Rayker, and finally bring her to justice? And how dare she betray the memory of her friend Rose, who had already given her life in that struggle? There was simply no room for weakness, and Christie would be damned if she was going to let the operation end so abysmally.
She held onto her façade by her fingertips, as a gut-wrenching void swung beneath her.
“Where?” she asked, slurring her words. “Oh, you mean the mystery school? No, I went to Cambridge actually.”
She kept her eyes unfocused and wandering, but nevertheless taking in details. The galaxy’s most dangerous terrorist was dressed in black, and an earpiece was just visible behind the locks of black hair that fell from the neat bun. She didn’t hold a glass, and stood awkwardly, as one who doesn’t care to impress or reassure. On her wrists, Christie noticed the subtle bulges in the skin that marked her most deadly weapons—spikes of bone that she could launch with more power and speed than bullets.
Rayker stared into her eyes, dragging out the silence. Around them, the fabulously adorned guests began to look over, bemused by the strange interaction. Christie continued the drunken pause, allowing her eyes to droop with fatigue. She wished it were real, but tonight she could not be affected by alcohol. Like all Valkyrie, her bloodstream was flooded with nano machines that gave her enhanced speed, strength, and healing potential. Twenty-four hours earlier, a bioengineer had programmed the nanites to target and break down all alcohol enzymes that passed through her system.
Unfortunately, even advanced technology wouldn’t help her survive for long against Rayker.
Eventually Christie began to turn away, suppressing the shiver she felt at showing her back to a predator.
“Loving the dress,” she said with a hint of disdain. “Not everyone can pull off funeral black at a drinky fete.”
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” Rayker said, her voice neutral. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Christie stopped and looked back at her with a smirk. “Gosh, you’re scary!” she crowed. “You might almost be a villain in one of those spy movies!”
A wave of embarrassed silence, interrupted by a few titters, passed through the crowd, while others hid disbelieving grins behind their drinks.
Rayker ignored them and extended her hand. “Allana Rayker. I’m an associate of Herr Meissner.”
Christie shook limply. “I’m Petti.”
Rayker’s eyebrows flickered as she suppressed an obviously contemptuous expression. “You’re the girl who found success on the feeds recently? Modeling lingerie?” Her lips twisted into a fake smile. “I wouldn’t normally be interested, but so many men have told me that you have a surprising intellect.”
Of course, the meeting had been inevitable. Rayker had been prowling the halls of Meissner’s Chateau, interrogating every young woman in a similar fashion. Christie’s cover had been calculated to make her stand out, but in a way that could be easily dismissed. ‘Petti’ was a highly connected social influencer, who craved adoration and attention. It had been a fun role, up until now.
Christie grinned at the lascivious looks around her. “You guys—you’re so sweet!”
Her crowd of male admirers laughed, then directed blank stares at Rayker. Christie offered a prayer of thanks for the collective lust that was patiently trying to convince the intruder that she was an unwelcome bore who had no right to deprive them of the attention offered by an inebriated and provocatively dressed young woman, and should leave as soon as possible.
“Enchanté,” Rayker said, and stalked off.
“Is there a draft in here? I think I felt a chill,” Christie said to more laughter.
She turned her sunbeam smile back to the crowd while she reached a gently shaking hand up to brush the silver of her brooch. The tiny and delicate shapes of the flower’s petals helped calm her mind as she focused on the next step.
A mile away, in the dense woods of the Chateau’s outer grounds, Lance-Corporal Kayla Barnes moved slowly through the dark undergrowth. She placed each foot purposefully, testing the ground before shifting her weight to prevent the cracking of a twig or the rustle of leaves.
As she crested a low rise, she froze. The multi-wavelength vizor of her helmet showed the surrounding trees and foliage in dark grey and black patterns. Amidst the visual chaos she had been struggling to navigate, a pair of tiny white blobs had suddenly appeared.
Heat sources. Guards.
Kayla reached for the comm switch on her chest and triple clicked the talk button, sending a burst of static noise to the rest of the squad. Close behind, the three other members of her fire team, who had stopped when she had, raised their rifles and peered through scopes at the distant threat. Further along the gentle slope, the second half of their eight-woman squad also stopped, as they too scanned to locate the new target.
They were Rangers, part of Valkyrie’s elite infantry force. Under the cover of darkness, they had climbed through the surrounding mountains and crept past local security forces to infiltrate the chateau grounds. When the time came, their job would be to neutralize the VennZech corporation’s mercenary guards, leaving the Chateau infiltrators free to break in and take down Rayker.
Kayla would either succeed in her mission or die trying. She had graduated Valkyrie’s crushing selection course together with her three best friends, whom she had sworn never to let down. She had already unforgivably failed Rose Djallen; killed in action on a previous operation. Thandi Khawula was in the squad’s second fire team, covering her movements. Christie was in the chateau, facing their target alone.
As Kayla watched the distant blobs draw closer, they resolved into familiar human figures. Three of them. They were strolling, weapons slung, as they made the head and arm movements of everyday conversation.
Of course they were distracted; they had the Ambrosia detail. The planet was the luxury destination for the most powerful members of human society. On its pristine shores, rivalries and factions were forgotten. Powerful cartel members, after being offered a month’s stay, would be offered mutual, but discrete, agreements in place of a prison sentence. Business might be politely discussed, but anyone looking to extort or threaten fellow guests of would find their home planet visited by a Helvetic League security fleet. The normally fractious and squeamish planetary governors would look the other way. Nobody in their right mind would want to disturb this world’s tranquility.
But Valkyrie worked from the shadows and went wherever they pleased. Besides, if everything went to plan, nobody would even know what had happened.
The Chateau was built high on the slopes of Ambrosia’s most popular mountain range, not far from a huge ski resort. Perched on the edge of a sheer cliff, the building was flanked by a spectacular waterfall. In daylight, there was a jaw dropping view of the surrounding peaks and valleys. The grounds were covered in dense forests that stretched across the surrounding slopes. Normally, they were peaceful, disturbed only by the occasional guest out for an adventurous hike. Now they were crawling with Rangers, closing in to seal the chateau off from the outside world.
Kayla slowly turned her head and found the muted gray patch of her squad leader a short distance away. Their combat suits kept their body heat from seeping out into the world—as much a necessity to protect them in the vacuum of space as to keep them hidden. The diffuse blob of Corporal Ksenia ‘Kes’ Rudaski slowly raised an arm towards Kayla, and made a gentle motion in the direction of the approaching men.
Kayla raised her own hand in a thumbs up, then began to move forward. She did not need to see or hear her three other Rangers to know they would be close behind.
The two elements were separating. Kes’ Alpha team spread out on the rise to keep their rifles aimed at the new threats, while Kayla’s Bravo team crept towards them.
Their commanders had decided early in the operation that they should attempt to minimize human casualties wherever possible. To that end, Kayla and her squad mate Ray carried stun rifles. They could stop the heart of a human with a projectile that could latch into the skin and deliver a violent electric shock. Then, the Rangers would have up to two minutes to reach the unconscious victims and inject them with a solution to restart their cardiac rhythm before a powerful tranquilizer took effect. The men would wake up with amnesia hours later, and Valkyrie would confidently maintain its secrecy while assuaging the ethical concerns that interfering in human society often brought them.
Unfortunately, the weapons were only effective to a hundred yards. Kayla and Ray would have to get as close as they could before they could take out all three of the guards. They had night vision, and any sound would carry far on such a quiet night. Even distracted, they wouldn’t miss a disturbance amongst the trees.
Kayla had been a talented stalker since she was a child, a noiseless shadow in any environment. Nevertheless, there was always the chance that something could go wrong, and the Rangers couldn’t take the risk of a compromise when so much was on the line.
Certainly not, Kayla grimly reminded herself, when Christie’s life was in so much peril. One wrong move and Rayker would kill her immediately before making good her own escape and destroying months of work.
So Kes and her three Rangers kept their high-powered, suppressed rifles trained on the distant men. At the slightest hint of a problem, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill, and the ‘moral question’ would be chalked up to the fortune of war. False intelligence would be distributed implicating cartel involvement in the raid. Valkyrie ethics had always been a nebulous concept at best.
The closer Kayla got through the undergrowth to her target the closer, she knew, her watcher’s lethal assistance would have to pass by her own body. But she felt no fear. Thandi had become a talented marksman; neither she nor the others would make a mistake.
Now only fifty yards away, the men stopped by a large boulder, leaning against the rock while they drank from their canteens. Kayla dropped to her belly and merged into the ground as she slithered forward.
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Prequel (Parts 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie

Thank you u/luna2541 for leading us through the first section of A Darker Shade of Magic. I'll be your host for the second check-in. Below is a (not particularly) brief summary. There are prompt questions in the comments. Feel free to answer none, some, all, or add your own questions or comments.
If you need it the schedule is here and the marginalia is here. Spoilers from this book should be avoided and spoilers from other books or media must be behind spoiler tags. Use the following format to hide text > !your spoiler goes here! < (but without the spaces).
Lets head on over to "Grey London, which is yours. Red London, which is mine. White London, which is Holland’s. And Black London, which is no one’s."
Summary

FIVE: BLACK STONE

• I - Lila follows three street rats who steal from an urchin to whom she had just given some change.
• II - The letter delivery is a set up. The paper is blank. Kell feels the magic before a shadow jumps him.
• III - Lila waits for the rats to seperate before jumping one only for the other 2 to return. The recognise her as The Shadow Thief. She escapes.
• IV - Kell races to Ruby Fields losing his ambusher(s). The stolen parcel contains a stone engraved with the Antari word Vitari meaning magic. Kell hears someone approaching though no one should be aware of the room. The fabric the stone was wrapped in contained a tracing spell. Kell jumps out of the window to escape but is followed by a man with a X scar on his hand denoting him a cutthroat or traitor. He carries an enchanted blade of the royal guard and demands Kell surrender. Kell is wounded by this blade and so his own magic will not work. Instead he unintentionally taps into the stones magic to stop one assailant. The other he kills with his knife.
• V - Kell can't use blood magic to travel to Grey London. In a panic he taps the stone and makes the jump where he is robbed by a girl in men's clothing. She took the stone!

SIX: THIEVES MEET

• I - The magic Kell used on the cutthroat from the black stone invades him and there is "just enough [life] left" in the body. It begins to move....
• II - Lila returns to her room disappointed with her discovery that she only managed to steal a useless broken stone when Kell appears demanding it back. Kell collapses.
• III - Kell is tied to the bed but relieved to feel his magic has returned. He dramatically burns his bindings away. Lila uses the stone's magic before Kell is able to subdue her by trapping her wrist in the wall. Kell leaves via the window.
• IV - Lila hacks her hand free then tosses the sword she conjured out the window. Booth, a drunk man leaving the tavern, finds it. The hand holding it seems to take on a life of its own. It stabs the sword into Booth's body. The blood in his veins turning black and spreading through his body and turning both eyes black.

SEVEN: THE FOLLOWER

• I - Holland appears to Lila and with threats forces her to call Kell. Kell comes and orders Lila to run.
• II - Kell had sensed Holland's magic before hearing Lila's cry out. The two Antari fight and Holland manages to best Kell taking the stone and using its magic. Kell's blood begins oozing out of his body while chains hold him in place. Lila returns just in time. She disables Holland with a blow to the head then uses the stone to free Kell. Lila chains Holland's body using the stone. With help she manages to get Kell onto a cot just before he passes out.
• III - Lila had dragged Kell back to The Stone's Throw in the rain. She burnt herbs to mask the magic smell. Lila confessed to Barron she had taken him as a mark. Filling him in on the evening's events. Kell sleeps while Lila worries and wonders.

EIGHT: AN ARRANGEMENT

• I - Kell wakes feeling awful, but noting his wounds were almost healed even though it had only been a few hours. Lila had used a salve on the wounds she had found in one of his pockets. Kell explains about the different worlds and sources of magic such as the Thames. He tells her how the worlds diverged and Black London got cut off. The black stone is pure vitari without humanity or harmony. It must be destroyed, but that would be impossible. Therefore the only solution is to take it back to Black London to prevent it being misused. Kell can use the stone as a token to make a door to Black London, but it must be from White London. Lila wants to come with him on his mission. Kell relents though it is forbidden for Lila to travel between worlds. Lila leaves her valuables and they sneak out of the tavern
• II - They head through the slowly waking Grey London streets to where Kell has a door to Red London. Lila removes the stone from its hiding place in her hat and after planting a kiss on Kell's lips they try to pass from Grey to Red London.
• III - Barron wakes to the sounds of footsteps above in Lila's room. Armed with a shotgun he investigates. From Lila's description he knows the intruder is Holland and shoots him without hesitating. Holland saves himself with magic then slits Barron's throat.

Join u/maolette next week for chapters Nine through Eleven. III.
"The world sits in balance,” said Kell, “humanity in one hand, magic in the other. The two exist in every living thing, and in a perfect world, they maintain a kind of harmony, neither exceeding the other. But most worlds are not perfect"

I joined a carpool once. There were four of us.
Four mid-level managers who worked at the same real estate development company, and every one of us had tough commutes to work. There was me, and there was Ken, Pete, and Ryan. Before I joined the carpool, my commute was well over an hour. My sunrises were spent alone, an aggravating and mindless stop-and-go monotony fueled by caffeine. And my sunsets were a blinking red lightshow of aggravation the entire way home. Constant traffic. I remember I used to turn off my phone, turn off the radio, and drive in silence. I don’t do that anymore, but when I did, I remember liking the quiet. Driving that commute every day gave me time. Time to think about the things you’re doing, the things you’re going to do, and the things you’ve done. I am especially used to thinking about the things I’ve done. How I once had power over them, but now I don’t. They are permanently gouged in time; they leave marks. You better make peace with that. Because everything we do, we do not do alone. It is shared. Shared with others. With a God? With Fate? I don’t know. But I now know what I never thought about… that what we do, everything we do, is witnessed.
Ken Hallwell had the carpool idea and persuaded me to sign up. He spouted calculations about gas mileage, time saved, who would drive when, and all the other little details of starting a carpool group. Ken did not talk much, but when he talked about this carpool idea, he did. Maybe he wasn’t like me. Maybe he didn’t want to drive alone. We each took our turns driving, picking up the other three, weaving our way to work, sipping coffee, and talking sports, politics, office drama, project deadlines, and the varied minutiae that make up the forty-hour work week. It worked well, the way managers like things to work well. Especially Ken. He kept us on time. Doing the right things. He was one of those guys. Every group needs one. A likable guy. Organized. I always meant to invite Ken Halwell over to my house to meet my family. He was my age, and I knew he lived alone, had no kids, and never married. He had this scar that ran down the left side of his scalp to the top of his ear. You could see it because hair wouldn’t or couldn’t grow there. Something must have really gouged him.
I always meant to get to know more about Ken. But I never did.
It was a Thursday. I remember because it was Halloween. And because the next morning was a Friday, and it would have been my turn to drive. And Friday mornings are easy. Well, easier. But that night was Thursday, the drive from work to home. Pete spent most of the commute talking from the back seat about how Legal had grilled him on the land deal. Pete claimed to hate being grilled by legal, but I think he liked it because he loved telling lawyers how little they knew about land deals. Pete was dropped off first, and his kids met him at the curb, tugging at him to hurry up so they could trick or treat. Next was Ryan. Ken usually had to wake him up. Ryan was a napper. I’ve always been jealous of nappers. People who can just fall asleep anywhere. Kids fighting, game on, wife yapping on the phone, and nappers like Ryan pay no mind, dozing away through it all. It’s never been me. I’ve always been a light sleeper, noticing any sound or noise at night. Noises, which were always nothing, but left me lying in bed thinking of worst-case scenarios—horrible thoughts. Eventually, sleep would return. I have never slept great, and now I probably never will.
Ryan stepped out of the car, and Ken eased us back into the drive and onto the freeway for the seven miles to my place and then another four to his. By this time, the sun had set and been lost from view for over an hour. We sat quietly for a few minutes, and I stared up at the late evening sky. From a freeway, a packed freeway, the evening sky always has this color that changes, and I remember hating it. I used to watch it when I drove alone. It is a darkening grey like a giant ash cloud falling over the day. That night it crept past the sun, trying to take the sky into darkness. Maybe it was impatient for Halloween, that one night when the line between the living and the dead blurs and breaks. I remember feeling glad to be riding in that car, among those thousands of headlights and thousands of brake lights, thinking, what could happen here?
Traffic was stopped. Five rows of cars, trucks, and buses stretched ahead to the horizon, brake lights arcing on and off as we all inched forward. I was beginning to tell Ken about the costume my son and I made, ruined, and finally purchased when we suddenly lurched forward hard. Ken had hit the brakes to avoid a station wagon moving into our lane. A station wagon? I remember thinking you don’t see many of those anymore. Hardly any at all. It came from our left and either didn’t see us or didn’t care. I had never heard Ken swear, but I expected him to. If it were me, I would have. I probably would have even honked at that station wagon. But to my surprise, Ken just stared at it. The station wagon was pale white with fake wood paneling on the sides and back. It had one of those large rear windows facing us, the kind the driver could roll up or down to let anything in or out. The license plate was black. One of those black California plates I thought they had discontinued a long time ago, like station wagons. Traffic started moving again, slowly. But the station wagon didn’t move. It just sat there, brake lights shining red. When it moved, it seemed to roll, not roll, but glide. It glided forward, and we followed it.
“Jerk”, I said. But Ken was silent.
Eventually, he sighed, “Yeah….Jerk.”
I remember thinking that Ken was getting quiet. Ken had always been a quiet guy, but not this quiet. He was always looking at you, nodding, letting out a laugh or a short reply, and always following a conversation. Listening. But he wasn’t doing that now; he was staring at that car in front of us like he knew something. Like he knew the car. Or the driver. Something.
“Ken, you know this guy?” I asked.
He answered me, but I remember his voice cracking as he replied, “I — I think I do.”
He stared straight ahead, focusing. Traffic was still slow, but it was starting to pick up now and then. Whenever it did, the distance between our car and the station wagon widened, leaving space for a car to merge in. Still, whenever that happened, Ken would rev up the minivan and close the distance like he didn’t want any other car to get between us and that station wagon. We never seemed to be more than a few feet from the back of it, with Ken continuing to stare at it. Our lane stopped. The station wagon stopped, and we stopped. Then, in front of us, that long rear window started to roll down, inch by inch, like a glass curtain. I seem to remember wishing it wouldn’t, but it was. It was rolling down, and it stopped, and we could see inside. Nothing. There was nothing inside. Not nothing as in it was empty, but nothing as in it was a deep black. Devoid of light. You couldn’t see in the car; you couldn’t see through the car, to the front window, or the driver, or the traffic beyond. There was just nothing.
HONK. Traffic had started to move a little. Cars on both lanes on either side were passing us, and a couple of the cars behind us started to honk, their drivers aggravated. But we didn’t move. Ken didn’t move. I pulled my eyes away from the window to him. He was craning forward, glaring into that car, into that open window. “Ken?” I said. He gasped like he had forgotten to breathe and then slowly turned his head to me. There were tears welling up in his eyes, and he was shaking like he was cold and like he couldn’t stop shaking if he tried.
His head turned to me, but his eyes stayed tuned on that car when he broke a whisper, stuttering as he asked me, “Can you — Can you see them?” I followed his gaze back to that open window and saw nothing but that curtain of black in the middle of that station wagon, in the middle of our lane, in the middle of this freeway. A freeway that was starting to open up to move. Cars passed us, honking, picking up speed. “See what?” I asked, staring deep into that window in case I missed something. I peered at it intently. I remember having a feeling wash over me like I was not sitting in Ken’s minivan but standing at the edge of a hole, staring into emptiness. The hole seemed empty, but I knew something was in it, something that maybe I put down there.
“They found me,” Ken said, his voice cracking.
HONNKKKK. I jumped at the sound of the cars behind us, around us. They were really moving now, speeding by on each side. Then Ken opened his door. “Ken!” He seemed not even to know I was there. “Ken! Close the door!” He stepped out, and a moving van careened past him, less than a foot away, wind gusting into our car, horn blaring. “Ken!!” He leaned further out, and that’s when I reached for him; I reached for him, grabbed his wrist, and we locked eyes. As soon as we touched, in that very instant, I felt pain. Pain within me, inside me. Pain that was all mine, that had been there my entire life. My body ached from the outline of my skin to the organs inside me. I gasped and felt I would cry because I could now see into the back window of that car and see what Ken could see. Two small faces of two children were suddenly there, looking at me, each of them glaring at me. Two eyeless pale-white children whose tiny lipless mouths gaped open, forming holes of skin that cried forever. Behind them were two shadowy forms, one male and one female. The forms were reaching for the children with elongated limbs that contorted and stretched in ungodly ways, making sickening snapping sounds as they moved and reached. They seemed to be reaching for these child-things but could not touch them no matter how much they strained.
I screamed and felt Ken wrench away from me. He stepped outside the car into the rushing traffic and walked towards that station wagon. But I don’t think he walked; I think he was pulled. I called for him again, screaming into the rush and wind of the freeway and the cars when one clipped his driver's side door and snapped it off in a loud cracking metal sound, brakes screaming as it veered away onto the shoulder. I saw Ken stop at the driver's side window of the station wagon. He leaned forward, looked inside, and seemed to recognize whatever he saw in that car because his eyes glazed with tears. He slowly stood straight up, and in that instant, Ken Hallwell was struck by a passing charter bus, struck in a thunder of glass, teeth, blood, and metal that sprayed into the night air. I watched Ken’s body fly and thud into the road yards away. For just a second, it seemed his blank eyes met mine — -Then a sedan, avoiding the bus, braked hard and rear-ended the minivan I was in. I remember hearing adults screaming and children crying. Then, everything went dark.
Sixteen days later, I was in a hospital, and I was told two things: There was no station wagon that night. It was only a stalled car with a scared teenager inside. And the other thing was that Ken Hallwell was actually Keith Havers.
Ken/Keith was a suspect in a hit-and-run crash twenty-three years ago and five states away. The crash killed a husband, his wife, and their twin girls. The impact sent their vehicle off the road into a small creek, flipping it twice and crushing the two adults in their seats. An ignition cable had ignited a pool of gasoline, and the car — a pale white station wagon with wood paneling — began to burn in the creek bed with the family inside. Deputies found blood stains that didn’t belong to the family and one set of adult footprints near the crash site. The prints led away from that station wagon, from that family, and a second vehicle, a severely damaged pickup truck found on the road, idling, abandoned, and alone.
Now you know the two things I was told, but you should also know the two things I learned. Things the man I knew as Ken Hallwell held in his heart his entire tormented life.
We do not do anything alone.
What we do leaves a mark.

PART 1

“Don’t touch!” Abe commanded, slapping Max’s hand away. They were both bent over at the waist, admiring.
“Sorry, it’s just… so… what is it?”
“I call it the Alchemic Thaumaturgator.”
“Of course you do. Is that because you couldn’t think of anything simpler, or you just liked the way it rolls off the tongue?” Max smirked.
“Mmm, it’s a work in progress.” He flung a sideways glare at him.
“Sure. So what is one of these?”
“It’s complicated and delicate and to be honest it’s a bit of a mystery, even to me.”
“Right.” There was a moment of silence as they continued scrutinising.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Abe murmured, almost to himself.
“I mean, yeah, of course….”
“Don’t look at me like that, I can’t tell you what I don’t know!” Abe stood up and let out a disgruntled huff.
“Hmm. Well, it’s confusing enough to give you nausea just looking at it so I’m sure they’d love it as an offering for the Nobel Prize, especially with a name like ‘Alcomic Thordy-whatsit.’”
“Well, maybe, if it gets that far. I nearly broke it last week, which is why I’m telling you,” Abe stood up straighter, one hand on his hip and the other pointed firmly at Max, “to strictly to keep your curious hands to yourself, ok? I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary.”
“Ok ok, I won’t touch it. But really, it looks like it should be in a museum somewhere. Or a Cabinet of Curiosities...”
“Little good would it do in either of those places.” Abe turned to Max and clasped both his hands in his own. “Listen, you are my closest friend and this thing is very important to me. I wouldn’t leave it with you if I didn’t think you were perfectly capable of safeguarding it, so please don’t worry, I know it’s in good hands.”
“If you really think I’m up to it?”
“I do.”
“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment!” Max threw his arms in the air in a sarcastic show of tah-dah! “Go forth, oh Knight of Overly-Complex Science, go do what you have to do and I’ll keep an eye on this beast for you. Shove it on the table and I’ll look after it and Will Not Touch It.”
Abe looked put out, but comically so. “Is that really what you think I sound like?” He laughed. “I’ll put it over here, then. Get in touch if you need me, any time. You have my contacts?”
“I do…” Max fumbled around his pockets. “They’re… here. Got them right here.”
“Good. In which case I’ll leave you to your own devices. See you soon, and thank you.”
“See you soon.”
“Take care. Oh, one more thing. If you talk to it, it talks back.” Abe shut the door behind himself.

***

“So, you’re an Alchronic Thormome… grater? Doesn’t sound right… So tell me, what is one of them?” Max stared at the thing, perplexed.
It reminded him of what the love-child would be between a glass roller coaster and a steampunk jellyfish, though it bore absolutely no resemblance at all to a jellyfish, and fascinated him far more than that nature documentary he had been watching last week ever could. Jellyfish bobbing around and being brainless and boring, and when they weren’t they were stinging people to death and getting eaten by turtles. Even the name is boring. Jelly. Fish. Like those squidgy, dry-goo kids toys that you’re supposed to throw at the window but gets hair stuck to it when it falls on the carpet. Yuck.
Which was weird, considering this monstrosity he had been tasked with looking after was definitely the most interesting and intricate and pretty thing he had probably ever clapped eyes on. It had a heaviness to it, a purpose. And it felt like it was watching him.
Better steer clear for a while. It looks weird, he had been told things that absolutely made it sound weird and to be honest, it frightened him a little.
He wasn’t usually one to be afraid. Hell, he’d always been the brawn of his sturdy group of friends, right since he was a kid. He had worked his way up the proverbial ladder and had been widely recognised as the guy you don’t screw with at his school, though he wasn’t particularly proud of how he got there, (there had been a lot of fights behind the bike sheds and nicked sandwiches under the threat of blackmail at lunch). But he had forgotten all that and settled himself into being the relatively good-looking, popular, flirtatious guy who did a moderately average job in the eyes of his colleagues and had a moderate measure of success with the ladies.
Made no sense then that this contraption he had been lumbered with for a stint had shaken him by its sheer solidness on his front room table. It seemed to be unmovable in its presence, though it was light as a feather when it had been brought in and that fact in itself threw him because how can something that looked so substantial weigh that little? His bloody breakfast weighed more!
“What the hell are you?” Max wondered out loud.
He sat and stared at the thing for the longest time, watching to see if it would move. Only the sparkly inner swirled. Nothing more. It gave him the feeling of lying on the bottom of the ocean, staring at the sun beams though the surface until it started to fade. His eyes stared to fade. His mind went blank. He was being sucked down a long, dark tunnel of still water by his chest, he was sinking and swimming and becoming the empty space around him, it seemed he could feel the particles in the air as they vibrated and resounded in his ears, felt himself being blinded…
Max blinked and snapped back into the room, found himself standing in front of the machine. The studded brass bands holding the tubes together rotated slowly, silently.
Yeah, there’s something not right about that thing. Something unnatural.
Slowly backing out of the room and trying very hard not to show the Alcolic Thormatador… Thermanter… the thing that it was making him uncomfortable, he sidled through the doorway and into the hall. Yeah, that thing is just plain wrong.
In the corridor he paused, tried to laugh at himself.
This thing is just metal and glass and sparkly water, he thought. It doesn’t have the brainpower to understand that I feel some kind of way about it and even if it did, what is it going to do? It’s an invention, a machine and nothing more and machines are made by people, made by my friend, so what the hell is there to be afraid of?
He reached the kitchen, surprised at his own existential awareness that seemed to come quite fluidly, which was most unlike him. Maybe he was getting soft in the head. He heard that happened at a certain time of life but that phenomenon would be a bit premature. He wasn’t much past his third decade, thank you very much!
Max filled a mug from the water boiler and threw in a teabag and a few sugars. He squeezed the bag against the side of the mug until the dregs started dropping, plapped it in the sink and poured in milk. He stirred his tea well, just as always, but now the clinking of the mug took on an added layer of comfort when he knew what was in the front room. He wasn’t in a dark tunnel where he couldn’t do anything but watch, he was in his own kitchen that he had had rebuilt last year. He picked out the worktops and cupboards, he chose the shiny silver appliances, he bought the gourmet herbs and put them on the window sill, slightly over-watered and flooding their drip trays until they almost overflowed. He was in his own kitchen, familiar down to the millimetre, and solid. Nothing could touch him here.
No, he thought, it’s just an invention. A thing.
He put the spoon down with certainty on the worktop and squared his shoulders: he marched down the hall towards the front room with his tea in his left hand and the right balled up into a fist. He paused for a second outside the door. No sound.
This is my house, I won’t be intimidated in my own damned house.
He rounded the corner, planted his feet wide and glared hard at the thing.
“Look, I don’t know what you are,” he said to the machine, “but you don’t look dangerous. And seeing as we’re going to be spending some time together, I’m just going to ignore you and you can ignore me, ok? No making me feel like I’m being watched, no making me feel like I’m swimming around somewhere in space, no more weird stuff and I won’t put you in the loft. We’ll coexist in blissful harmony, like water and jellyfish.”
The Alchemic Thaumaturgator just sat there, glistening.
“Ok. Good. Fine.”
He grabbed the fern and the shamefully stunted lucky bamboo (that damned plant his cat was always rubbing his face on) that were perched next to the door and shoved them onto the table in front of the machine, mostly obscuring it from view. Better.
Max backed up and sat on the couch under the window, across the room from the table and that freakish unicorn turd of a contraption. He wrenched his eyes away for just long enough to put on the television and throw one final look over at the thing on his table, searching for it amongst the foliage. It hadn’t moved. It just sat there. He gestured at it rudely with a slightly shaking hand.
The soothing sound of the narrator drew him back into his TV and another nature documentary, this time about the great apes of the rainforests of Western Africa. This was much more interesting. He swivelled sideways in his chair to face the screen directly, sipping away at his tea.
“See,” he said towards the table, “this is exactly what…”
He glanced back and promptly fell out of his chair. His tea went flying as his mug thudded to the floor in an all too under-dramatic fashion compared to what his adrenaline was doing.
The thing was lighting up! It was glowing! Only a little bit but it was actually putting out light!
“Jeez!” Max shouted at it from the floor. “What is that? How is that happening? What is it doing? Stop it! Stop it!”
He scrambled around, on his hands and knees and still on the floor, trying to shut off the sounds of viciously shaken branches and primates howling at each other. The screen mercifully emitted a heavy click and fell into blackness as the remote fell to the floor. In the resounding silence of the room it was just Max, his adrenaline-fuelled breathing and the glass machine.
He stared at it. It absolutely was staring at him, even from between the leaves, there was no doubt, the liquid in the middle was pooling and somehow gathering at the front of the tubes facing the room. The glowing light had already started to fade and the liquid lost concentration and dispersed again, slowly swirling around in all its glittery glory, just as it had before.
Max was still splayed out on the floor, his breathing struggling to return to normal. He stood up and flattened himself shakily against the wall.
“What just happened?” he muttered under his breath. “What the hell was that…”
The thing looked at him, ‘nothing to see here,’ it said, feigning innocence.
“Whatever you are, just stay the hell away from me!” Max shouted at the machine as skirted around the walls until he got to the doorway. The door was ajar but, because his eyes were fixed in horror at the fragments of the machine that were exposed from within the plants, he bumped backwards into the door, nudging it closed and clicking it shut. Fumbling for the handle he tried to wrench it open, only to find the handle in his hand, horrifyingly detached.
He was stuck in there with it.
Panic flooded his body. A sharp twist in his gut and sweat poured from every millimetre of his skin and a faint whine emitted from his mouth.
Deep breaths, he told himself. Deep breaths, you can figure this out. It can’t hurt you, so just sit down and figure it out.
He sat himself back on the sofa, pushing it further back and rucking up the rug into waves in front of him with his feet. Never had he been so afraid of an inanimate object before. Spiders, yes. The open ocean, yes. Heights, yes. But this?
He sat staring at it, filtering his brain through his usual coping processes. He couldn’t beat it, like he had done in school. He couldn’t charm it, like he had done at the office…
“It’s an elaborate Newton’s Cradle, for Christ’s sake! A fancy-man’s Rubik’s cube!” he told himself. “Some science experiment that a five year old could have done. Yeah, I bet he just put some glow stick stuff in the water and mixed it up and told me it’s real to scare me. It doesn’t even look that bad.” He stood up and took a hesitant half step towards it on quavering knees and reluctant feet, fighting the ‘flight’. “See? Can’t hurt me.”
Max blinked. The thing hadn’t even moved. What was so scary about it anyway? The glowing? It was probably the reflection off the TV. He moved the plants from in front of it with outstretched arms and stepped back as far as he could go.
“I’m going to call you Ruth,” he said, getting bold and pointing at it, “because Alcoholic Thermo… whatever is just ridiculous. Ok? And Ruth was my grandma’s name, and I liked her, she was safe as houses.” Sure, his grandma had died of an embolism nearly ten years ago, but he wasn’t going to admit that to this thing that he didn’t even know what an embolism was. Ruth was a safe name and the familiarity was comforting.
He felt the liquid moving towards the front of the glass again, shimmering and pulling him in. He felt his fear spike, then dissolve. It couldn’t hurt him. He was safe. He was in control.
“I think it was mean of him to call you something so ridiculous. But I suppose if he’s going to go for the Nobel Prize they like that kind of thing, don’t they?” He half laughed, took another step towards it. “Those competitions are always stupid though, nobody ever comes up with anything really new, it’s not like they’ve invented hovercraft cars or machines that can take you on holidays to the afterlife, is it?” He had nearly reached the table now. The tubes were glowing a little still and he could see something moving in there. His curiosity peaked over the top of his fear and had a good look at the prospect of getting closer. Curiosity decided to get closer.
Max leaned down, hands on knees, and stared into the ever-moving swirls that flowed through the glass tubing. Arms extended to their full defensive stance, he gently nudged the plants out of the way and took a good look at Ruth. He remembered his friend saying something about studs and elements.
“Hey, there they are! I didn’t see these before! So those… those are elements? Are they elements?” He asked the glass, dumbfoundedly pointing at the stuff he had assumed was glitter but now wasn’t half as sure. He had never seen elements before…
Ripples glowed in the liquid: it had heard him. They moved closer and were warming now, somehow.
“No way!” Max exclaimed, his mouth hanging open. So this is what Abe had meant! “It’s not possible! It’s not real! Is it real? Are you real?” He asked. “Of course you’re real, you’re sitting on my table! Ha! What a stupid question Max. So, if I ask you a question, are you gonna answer me, huh?”
The glass glittered at him, but nothing else.
“Ok, are you alive?”
Nothing.
“Hmph. Maybe it was a trick of the light.”
No answer.
Max flopped into the sofa, his brows furrowed at Ruth.
He found himself talking to himself, trying to dispel the weird energy that his friend’s invention had brought with it.
“This thing is strange. He said if I talk to it then it responds, but I asked it a question and it doesn’t do anything, but when I was watching that monkey progr…”
He stopped short.
“Yeah! Let’s shove that chimp documentary back on, shall we?”
Click, the screen shot into life of every colour of the rainforest, the howls echoing around the room. But Max didn’t watch the TV, he had his eyes firmly fixed on Ruth, remote still in hand in front of her, waiting expectantly.
Nothing. Dammit. Just the glittery same as glittery before.
Max tried not to let the tidal wave of disappointment wash him away. Maybe it wasn’t the show. Maybe it was a prank, a trick of the light after all.
Max bent to put the remote on the arm of the sofa. The light from the TV shone onto the table and Ruth crescendoed into life and started throwing out beams of light that looked like the solar flares he had seen on that awful show about space and rocks and stuff he wasn’t in the least bit interested in but had watched anyway.
But he had figured out the key: he was standing in between Ruth and the screen and his shadow had been overcasting the table! Ruth needed a full view to do… that thing… whatever it was that she was doing with the light.
Ping, pong, ping, pong, his eyes went between Ruth and the monkeys sailing through the trees by their ridiculously long arms, right up until the credits started rolling and she faded to a faint glow again. She still glittered but it wasn’t the same. She definitely needed encouragement. Inspiration, if you will.
Max flicked across through each channel, watching Ruth closely for any changes (of which there were none,) tock, tock, tock went the remote until he found a different channel, one that was obviously designed for people with limited imagination, because wow, even he can outpace the monotonous nasal narrator and he didn’t consider himself a particularly clever man! He wasn’t stupid either, but on the last one when they started to explain what a bacteria is he had lost his rag and shouted at the screen a bit.
“Everyone knows what a bloody bacteria is!” he had yelled. “Tell me something I don’t know, yeesh! Whoever said these documentaries were supposed to be informative obviously hadn’t got two brain cells to run together.” But the cinematography was nice. Lots of nature-looking things to watch, the natural world an’ all.
This time it was about walruses. All flopping around on the sea shore, getting sunburned and jabbing at each other with their overgrown chompers. He had seen this one before, it wasn’t as patronising as the others. Predictably narrated, yes, but not patronising.
He turned up the volume and spun round to look at Ruth.
She was throwing out flares again, hundreds of short wisps!
And just to test the theory, he tocked across onto the menu screen and selected a random game show that he had never heard of. True to form, Ruth dimmed back to her uninspired state of simple glitteritude.
“AHA! I knew it! You’re a sucker for the nature channel too! Aha! Ahahaha!”
Max threw up his arms in celebration, the remote going flying, cheering into the emptiness of the room. Empty, except for him and this thing which apparently had a liking for chimps and sunburnt sea mammals.
Damn, this thing is incredible, he thought. Why the hell, how the hell does it…?
He sat, flabbergasted, mouth agape.
Suddenly he jumped up, scrabbling around behind the sofa trying to find the remote again, where is it where is it where is it…
He flicked the volume up and down and Ruth still put out light. She shone and shone, the beauty!
He started singing to her, “shine on, you crazy diamond!”
She seemed to like that, too.

Link to original nosleep post:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1bsb26v/i_found_a_set_of_blank_cassette_tapes_at_the_junk/
What began as an innocent adventure, had ended in the loss of our innocence.
But the journey wasn't over yet. Somewhere... out there in the fog, were five more bodies and a killer. A killer that, according to the tapes that I'd found in the junk store, was responsible for eight deaths, and now a ninth...
...My friend Mike.
"If you're listening to this, you've found the first three bodies. To find the fourth, fifth, and sixth, look for the island in the marsh, and proceed to the dock on its easternmost side. Not far from it, you'll see a pile of stones. Remove the stones, and beneath them, you'll find the next three bodies. Once you find them, switch to tape six."
CLICK.
I took the headphones from around my ears, placed them back around my neck, and began to relay the instructions to Jess.
But before I could even finish what I was saying, the fog had cleared, and my friend had already spotted the very location of the next burial site.
"The island!" Jess called out, pointing to a forested mass of land that stood out in the distance from the marsh's otherwise flat horizon.
—
After traversing another hundred yards or so of muddy terrain, something that, by now, Jess and I had both become quite accustomed to, we finally reached the dock.
We had spent most of the walk in silence, still unable to comprehend what we'd seen back at the wrecked boat, and still unsure who exactly to blame for Mike's death.
But after climbing up onto the dock and following it to the very mound of stones described on the tape, Jess finally spoke.
"The faster we move these rocks, the faster we find the clue, and the faster we wake up from this nightmare."
I didn't know what to say, so I just started grabbing stones and tossing them to the wayside as fast as I could, as my friend joined in and did the same.
We'd cleared out all but two of the rocks, when suddenly, Jess stopped what she was doing, and simply stared at one of them.
"What's wrong?" I asked, before she proceeded to turn the stone around and reveal the letter "N" carved into it.
"It's one of the clues." Jess said, as I found the letter "E" carved into the other.
Remembering the first two clues we'd found, I spelled out each of the four letters that we'd discovered.
""J" "A" "N" E"" I said, throwing the rock away.
"But who could that be?" Jess asked, doing the same with hers and revealing the spot on the ground where the next three bodies were buried.
"I don't know, but we'd better keep going." I said, as I began to dig in the dirt, already huffing and puffing from exhaustion.
But Jess put her hand on my shoulder and urged me to stop.
"Wait. What's the point?" She began, "You already know that they're down there. Why dig them up? Haven't you seen enough dead bodies for one day? And we already have the clues. Just play the next tape."
She had a point, and I was much too tired to argue, so I switched tape "5" for tape "6", called Jess over to share my headphones, and pressed play.
CLICK.
"If you're listening to this, it means you've found the fourth, fifth, and sixth bodies. That of a family. A mother. A father. And their child. Guilty of perpetuating the myth of familial love, and instilling in their offspring, the very values that keep that myth alive. Should the child have gone on to live to old age, it too, would either have become like the widow, or left one behind. To find the seventh and eighth bodies, switch to tape seven."
CLICK.
I did as the narrator suggested, and switched tape "6" for tape "7."
CLICK.
"If you're listening to this, you've found six out of the eight bodies, and are ready to search for the last two. To find them, simply follow the path into the woods, until you reach the old cottage with no windows, and knock on the front door. The man who lives inside will welcome you in, and take you to the last two graves."
CLICK.
—
We'd been following the path through the woods for some time, when we finally arrived at the old cottage, its exterior windowless, exactly as the tape had described.
Jess and I walked up to its front door and stood there for a moment, both shaking in fear.
These tapes found their way to you, not us. They chose you. You were the one who was meant to get us into this mess, and you are the one who's meant to get us out of it. Reminding myself of what Jess had told me after we'd met the old fisherman, I worked up the courage to go on, knowing that something terrible was very likely waiting for us inside the cottage...
...And knocked on the door.
After less than a minute of waiting...
...Someone opened it.
Contrary to my expectations, he was a rather short man with a bald head and a boyish face.
"Welcome. Come in, come in." He said, gesturing for us to enter, his high-pitched voice counterpoint to the ominous one that I'd heard on the tapes.
It can't be him. I thought to myself. Plus the tapes referred to the man who lived in the house in third person, not first.
—
A few minutes later, Jess and I were sitting inside the home, warming our ironically cold bodies by a fireplace that our host had started for us.
"Are you the killer?" I asked, wasting no time.
"A killer of what?" The man squeaked, answering my question with one of his own.
"People!" Jess added, "The ones buried out there in the marsh."
"There's people buried out there?" He replied, "That's news to me."
"Then why'd you ask... of what?" Jess asked.
"Well, a man has to kill all sorts of creatures to survive out here. Birds, squirrels, even mice. Speaking of which, you must be hungry."
He stood up, walked over to a door in the back of the room, and began to open it.
"Wait!" Jess called out, "What's in there?"
"Dinner." He replied.
"Let us come with you then." I insisted.
"Very well."
—
Upon stepping inside, the man reached for an old string light switch.
I gripped Jess' hand, fearing the worst, but when the dim bulb turned on, hardly emanating any light into the dark room, I could see that he wasn't lying...
...Hanging there on hooks, were all sorts of creatures. Birds, squirrels, and even mice, just as he described.
Jess and I both took a step back, clearly disgusted by the dinner options, when the man laughed.
"Oh, come on. Meat is meat, and you said you were starving. Now, I'll cook them up, just take a seat over there in the corner." He said, pointing to the shadowy corner of the room.
Despite her better judgment, Jess looked into the darkness, and did as he suggested.
That's when I heard her fall to the ground, and start screaming.
"Jess!" I called out, as the man laughed.
He simply smiled at me and pointed to the darkness. "Go on, take a look."
I backed away from him, took a step into the shadows, and looked down, to find a pair of side by side graves, each dug deep into the dirt, and one currently occupied by Jess.
"You said you weren't the killer!" I cried out to him.
"I lied," He replied.
"But the voice on the tapes?"
"Oh him? He was just a guy I hired to record them. Told him the tapes were for a game."
"Our friend died because of those tapes!"
"Did I kill him? Or did curiosity?"
"He said he saw you, and you left him there to die."
"Indeed I did, but only because he wasn't supposed to be there. None of you were supposed to be there. Or find the tapes in the first place."
But wait, Jess said I was chosen to find them. But if not me, then who?
"Jane!" I called out, remembering the clues. "Who's Jane?"
"She was the one who was supposed to find the tapes. I would tell you to listen to the last cassette, to hear the full story, but I'm afraid you won't have a chance to do that. Anyways, as I was saying, the tapes were meant for Jane, as was the grave your friend is standing in. But..." The man continued with a smile, "...You two will do."
That's when suddenly...
...He lunged at me, in an attempt to tackle me into the other grave.
What transpired next happened too fast to comprehend, but the next thing I knew...
...The man was lying there at the bottom of the other grave, his eyes wide in disbelief...
...As the broken, rusty tooth from the bear trap that I'd taken with me to remember Mike's death, protruded from the killer's neck.
And as he lay there dying, his body writhing, blood pouring out of it, I reached down into the second grave and helped pull Jess up to safety.
She gave me a great big hug, and we both stood there shaking for a minute, before I removed my headphones, held them up for us both to share, switched tape "7" for tape "8," and pressed play.
CLICK.
"If you're listening to this, you've found the last two bodies in the marsh. That of myself, and my dear Jane. A pair of lovers guilty of the most tragic love of all... unrequited love. Myself, with nothing but love to give, and Jane, having given all her love away to another. And if you must know how I lured her out here, you have to understand our bond over the macabre. Our fascination with disappearances, cold cases, and unsolved mysteries. Surely if Jane made it this far, she found the tapes that I'd left for her in the store, and couldn't resist the call to find the bodies in the marsh. And after making her way all the way out to me, here we'll lie, unrequited lovers meant to die apart... united in death for all eternity."
CLICK.
"What the-" Jess said.
"Um." I replied, gripping Jess even tighter, my wounded arm, wrapped in my plaid shirt, draped around her shoulder.
Now that the journey had ended, and after all we had gone through, the thought of finally kissing Jess right then and there crossed my mind, but before I could...
...She called out. "Hey, Tyler."
"Yeah?" I replied.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"What?"
I turned around to find, of all things, another wooden box, resembling the ones we'd found at the first couple burial sites, just lying there on the floor.
And after crouching down to pick it up, I opened it to find, not another clue, but instead...
...Eight more tapes, wrapped in a flimsy old rubber band, just like the ones that I'd found in the junk store.
"Let's not listen to those." Jess said.
"Definitely not." I replied.
—
A few days later, as news of Clinton's reelection flooded news headlines, my town did their best to keep what happened under wraps, and held a private funeral for Mike.
As a reward for us finding the serial killer, and his eight bodies, the police withdrew any charges associated with the meddling that Jess and I had done, out there in the marsh, and kept the first set of tapes for themselves.
Unbeknownst to anyone else, Jess and I kept the second set, and ironically, buried it behind our house, in the town where the marshland is so expansive that it was named for it. A town that we got married in, had kids in, and still live in to this day, making humble livings, and keeping as far away from the marsh as we can.
To this day, whenever we pass the spot on 139, where the bend of the road meets the sharp turn sign, we think of Mike, and keep our eyes on the road, careful not to look out into the marsh, towards the scarecrow, or the boat, or the island.
Oh, and that basketball season that Jess had a good feeling about on the night that we set out on our adventure... is still the worst season on record for the boys in green. I still tease her about it daily.

Link to original nosleep post:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1bml3v0/i_found_a_set_of_blank_cassette_tapes_at_the_junk/
The journey to discovering the first body was even more exhausting than I anticipated. And according to the tapes that I'd found in the junk store, there were still seven more out there... somewhere in the marsh.
Who knows how far we'll have to go, just to find the next one? I wondered, as I waited for the second cassette's audio to begin playing.
"If you're listening to this, you found the first body in the marsh. To find the second, simply take five steps north." The narrator began, his voice playing back from the cassette player and into my headphones.
But upon waiting for further instructions, I only heard silence.
Wait... What? I thought to myself, before the man continued.
"You're probably wondering how that could be possible. Well, the truth is, the body that you just found... is part of a pair. A couple, to be precise. In this case, a very old couple, guilty of buying into a false dream. That, of lifelong companionship. An illusion of eternal love, knowing full well, that we're all born alone... and die alone. When you're ready to find the next body, switch over to the third tape."
CLICK.
I pressed pause on the cassette player. There are two bodies here?
That's when I remembered that Jess and Mike were still digging in the mud, a few feet from where we found the first body, in an attempt to find its clue, and completely unaware that there was another corpse beneath their feet.
"Wait! Stop!" I called out to them.
But it was too late.
Seeing the remains of the second body, Jess screamed and stumbled back, while Mike, having just pulled a small wooden box out of the ground, suddenly dropped it and closed his eyes.
"Another one?" He yelled out to me.
"Yeah. According to the tapes, it was a couple." I explained.
"Well thanks for warning us!" Jess added.
"I just played it now!"I replied.
"Well did it say their names?" Mike asked.
"Their names? No. But it said they were very old."
"Ah, okay."
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason." Mike replied, defensively.
"So what was the clue?" Jess interjected.
Mike picked up the wooden box that he had just unearthed from the burial site, opened it, and revealed a piece of paper, with nothing but the letter "J" written on it.
"What do you think it means?" I asked.
"It's just one clue, idiot." Mike scoffed. "It's too soon to say. More the reason we get to finding the others. What are the next instructions?"
I switched tape "2" for tape "3" and pressed play.
CLICK.
"You've made it to tape three. Which means you've discovered the first two bodies. To find the next one, keep heading in the same direction you've been walking, and don't stop until you find the wreckage of an old boat, lodged in the mud. Not far from it, you'll find the third body. When you do, switch to tape four."
CLICK.
—
We'd been trudging through the marsh, navigating the fog with just a single flashlight, for what must have been another twenty minutes or so, when Jess and Mike's banter began to wear on me.
"You know, with the election coming up in just a few days, I really wish I could vote." Jess said to Mike.
"Why?" He asked.
"'Cause then I could help change the world."
"That's not how it works. You'd vote for Clinton in an already blue state, so it would basically mean nothing."
"You're both wrong!" I interrupted. "The world doesn't change overnight, and her vote would matter. But none of us are old enough to vote anyway, so can we just drop-"
But before I could continue, Jess interjected, calling back to Mike and I from up ahead.
"Hey guys..."
We both looked over, to find her pointing to, of all things, a thick mist that was enveloping everything ahead of us, and rapidly closing in.
"Maybe we should head back after all." Jess backtracked.
"Yeah, you already found a second body, Mike. Now can we just go home?" I insisted.
But Mike wasn't having it.
"Sorry losers. We gotta keep going. A vote's a vote. But we're almost there. And don't worry, a little fog's not gonna hurt nobody."
That's when it hit me.
"Mike, back at the last couple we found. You had asked me if the tape had said their names?"
"Yeah. So what?" He replied.
"Why is that?"
"I told you. No reason."
"Just be honest."
"Alright fine..." He said, before pausing for a moment, and then looking me in the eyes. "...I thought that maybe my dad was one of them."
"I knew it!" I exclaimed, frantically pacing around the grass. "Mike, are you kidding me? That's why you're dragging us along with you?"
"Now that I know there are all these missing people out here, it just got me thinking... Maybe that's where he ended up." He replied.
"Dude," I began, "Hate to break it ya, but your dad was a drunk, who went to the packie one day, and never came back. I don't know where he is. But one thing I do know is... he sure as heck ain't out here."
"What did you just say, Tyler?" Mike growled, his face growing red with anger, as he stormed over to me.
But Jess jumped between us. "Hey, stop!"
"Fine. You know what. I don't need you guys. I'll find the rest of the bodies myself." Mike said defiantly, as he turned around and walked away.
"But what about the mist? We only have one flashlight." I yelled out to him.
"Keep it! I don't need it!" He called back to us, without looking back, as he disappeared into the fog.
—
Jess and I must have been walking in circles for a good thirty minutes, disoriented by the mist, before we finally got our bearings, and continued on our way back home.
"It's just funny is all. Pahk the cah." Jess said, doing her best impression of a Boston accent, while careful not to trip in the grass.
"That's your impression of me?" I asked, my boots splashing in the mud.
"Yeah, is it wicked pissah, kid?" She answered playfully.
"Good one." I replied. "Easy for you transplants to joke about our accents, after you move to our town, with your fancy homes, your fancy cars, and your Long Island accents. Well, you know what? Maybe I find your accent funny too."
"Do you now?"
I paused for a moment.
"Nah, it's cute." I replied.
"Cute?" Jess asked.
"Oh, I mean uh... totally not cute at all, I swear."
She stopped and gave me a cheeky smile.
"Tyler, are you flirting with me?"
"No..." I said, as she took a step closer.
"'Cause you know, out here in the marsh, surrounded by a sinister fog and all these dead corpses, might be..."
"An inappropriate time?" I interjected, my face beginning to blush.
Jess leaned in even closer, her face just an inch from mine, and smiled. "...Romantic."
As she was about to kiss me, I saw her close her eyes, but couldn't seem to close mine, completely in shock that this moment was finally happening.
But just before her lips touched mine, I felt my boots sinking into the mud, and tilted my head down, leaving her hanging there, confused.
"What's wrong?" Jess asked, opening her eyes, a look of disappointment washing over her face.
"Um... We have a bit of a problem." I said, gesturing to the ground, where both of our legs were now almost completely submerged in the mud.
"Oh no!" Jess said, before attempting to pull herself out of the ground, and realizing that she was stuck. I followed suit, also to no avail.
Then we looked at each other, and both began to laugh at the awkward situation we'd gotten ourselves into... until we continued to sink deeper and deeper into the mud.
Jess' eyes suddenly turned from jovial to concerned, and she began yelling, "Help! Help!"
I joined in, but after a few minutes of shouting, began to lose hope, accepting our inevitable demise, and the irony of two more bodies being added to the marshy graveyard.
But just when the mud reached our necks, as we each shot each other one last look of affection, suddenly someone came stomping over, and ripped us out of the ground.
"What on earth are you two kids doing out here at this hour?" Our rescuer exclaimed, as he dropped us onto a more stable patch of grassy marshland a few feet away.
He was an old man with a white beard, wearing a pair of rubber wading pants, that were completely covered in mud.
The serial killer! I thought to myself, before realizing that his voice sounded nothing like the tape's narrator, and that he could have easily killed us when we were stuck in the marsh, but didn't.
"We got lost." I replied, careful not to offer up too much information.
"Thanks for saving us." Jess added.
"You two are lucky I was out here."
"What were you doing out here?" I asked, suspicious of his why someone, besides us, would be out here in the marsh so late at night.
"Clammin.'" He replied.
"Clammin'?" Jess asked.
"I'm a clammer. Ain't nothin in the world that brings me as much solace as searching for clams at night. But anyways, you two better be getting back. I saw the man out there earlier."
"The man?" I asked.
"Yes, the man in the marsh." He replied.
"Who's... that?" Jess added.
"Us clammers and fishermen see him all the time, out there in the marsh. Always at night. And always digging away in the mud. Legend has it, he's the captain of that submerged boat out there, forever trying to free it."
Jess and I both looked at each other, our eyes wide with fear.
"Anyways, I'd better be getting back. Low tide's upon us and there's clams to be clammed. You kids get home safe now."
And like that, he was gone, disappearing into the fog like a ghost in the night.
But Jess and I were much more concerned with what he'd told us, than with the old man himself.
"We've gotta find Mike!" Jess said frantically, as she turned to me, a look of panic in her eyes.
"Are you serious?" I replied. "But we agreed to head back. Mike made his choice to stay."
"You heard the old man. There's someone else out there. We've gotta save him."
"But-" I began to say, before Jess grabbed me by the collar and interrupted.
"No buts, Tyler! These tapes found their way to you, not us. They chose you. You were the one who was meant to get us into this mess, and you are the one who's meant to get us out of it. So please, for crying out loud, put on your big boy pants, turn around, and be a hero for once in your life."
I didn't know whether to feel hurt or flattered. All I knew was that she was right. I'd never really had much of a purpose in life before finding the tapes, and in a weird way, they gave me one. So I dusted off the dried mud from my clothes, took Jess by the hand, and set off into the foggy marshland.
—
When we finally arrived at the wreckage of the old boat, we found the nearby burial site completely excavated, the tape's third body protruding from the ground, and a box with what presumably was the next clue lying beside it.
And not far away, just lying there in the grass...
...Was Mike. Half alive, his body caught in an old bear trap, its rusty jaws clamping down into his torso, blood pouring out everywhere.
"I found the body." He mumbled to Jess and I, as he noticed us approaching, blood dripping from his mouth.
"Mike!" Jess screamed, as she started to run towards him, before I stopped her and crouched down to help him.
But no matter how hard I tried and tried... no matter how much force I put into it... the trap wouldn't release Mike from its grip.
Eventually, I stood up and took a few steps back, knowing that my friend would soon die from his wounds, as my own blood was now pouring from my arm.
Jess and I both knelt down by his side.
"I'm sorry... For what I said." I whispered to him, as a tear rolled down my cheek.
"I'm sorry too." He replied.
"Did someone do this to you?" Jess asked.
"No." Mike replied. "I had just found the body, but couldn't see well, and accidentally stepped in the trap. But then a little while later, I did see him."
"Who?" Jess asked.
"The man from the tapes. He walked by and stood there for a minute, right where you were just standing. He looked at me for a moment, then just walked away and left me here to die."
"The man in the marsh." Jess said.
"Tell me something, Tyler." Mike began, gesturing to the body. "Is it him? Is it my dad?"
I sat there for a minute, not sure what to say, then moved the headphones from around my neck to my head, switched tape "3" for tape "4" and pressed play.
CLICK.
"If you're listening to this, you've found the third body. A widow, guilty of investing her entire life in that of another. Her husband, who, after sharing her life, her time, and her memories with, simply passed away one day. She should have known, as we've learned from the first two bodies, that love is not forever. And investing in it, a fool's errand. When you're ready for the directions to the next bodies, switch to the fifth tape."
CLICK.
I looked at Mike as he lay there, dying in the grass, a hopeful look in his eye.
"It was him. It was your dad, Mike." I said, unable to tell him the truth, and hoping the lie would bring him some sense of closure, some sense of solace, in his final moments.
He probably knew I was lying, but nevertheless... it brought a smile to his face.
"Thank you." He mumbled, before his eyes eventually closed, and he passed on from this life.
Jess and I both began to cry our eyes out, as we sat there in the mud, our warm embrace counterpoint to the cold body that lay beside us.
"Maybe we should go back... and get help." Jess said, sniffling, a sense of defeat in her voice.
"No," I replied, wiping the tears from my face. "It's too late. We've gotta keep going. We've gotta find the bodies, and make this guy pay for what he's done."
Jess reached over and helped me wrap my plaid shirt around my arm, in an effort to clot the wound, as I stared down at the ground, still processing what had just happened.
"Mike hated this shirt." I said, unable to stop myself from letting out a laugh.
"He really did." Jess replied, fighting a tearful chuckle of her own.
That's when I remembered the wooden box that I'd seen earlier, its structure identical to the one we'd found by the first two bodies.
I picked it up and opened it, revealing a piece of paper, with nothing but the letter "A" written on it.
"Another letter. "A."" I said.
"'J" and "A"." Jess replied, "What do you think it's spelling?"
"I have no idea."
"Well, we'd better find the next one then."
As the mist began to clear, and Jess looked out at the immense stretch of marshland that still lay before us, I switched tape "4" for tape "5" and pressed play.
CLICK.

I’ve always had a great relationship with my MIL. However, ever since I got pregnant I feel like my personal boundaries I have set are being broken and I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m nervous about how she is going to act when baby gets here when I already feel like she isn’t respecting my wishes.

1. I experienced a traumatic first pregnancy loss at 12 weeks. We told family one day before we had the bad US. We explicitly told my MIL that we wanted to keep the news about pregnancy and subsequent loss private. Less than one week after my D&C, my MIL confessed that she shared our loss with her mother (who regularly talks to extended family about other family drama) and she “just had to tell her.” I was very hurt by this and lost a lot of respect/ trust for her so I’ve been guarded a bit ever since. She apologized to me but I guess I’m still not completely the same after feeling a loss of trust so I’m hesitant to share too much with her for fear of her oversharing again.
   
2. We found out we were pregnant again almost a year later and decided to wait to share the news until we got through the first trimester. My MIL was very very excited, which we appreciated, but I was feeling incredibly anxious about the pregnancy and also about my “baby bump” early on. I recognize I’ve always been a bit self conscious and body dysmorphia. I was wearing an extra large winter jacket just to avoid comments about my body and my MIL said “I can already see you have a bump there.” Fast forward to 19 weeks and the first thing she says to be is you can see your bump now with a comment at 25 weeks about how I’ve “popped”. I tried to brush it off. Later on, she was describing another family member who is pregnant as “huge” and I inserted myself to say that I’m not sure “blank” would appreciate it if she knew she was being described that way because I know I wouldn’t. I know I’m probably being overly sensitive to comments but she is the only one that is making uninvited comments about my bump/ how I look.
   
3. My husband knew his mom would try to touch my stomach at a family meet up and sent a text to her beforehand to let her know that I was uncomfortable with people touching my stomach. She proceeded to get drunk, touch my belly, apologize for overstepping, asked if she could touch it, which I said “no that’s ok” and she proceeded to touch it anyway. She later apologized while still drunk but now I’m uncomfortable to be near her, especially when drinking because of that experience.
   

Anyone else experience anything similar? How have you dealt with boundaries during pregnancy with your MIL? How did you manage when baby arrived?

Link to original nosleep post:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1bgxwgm/i_found_a_set_of_blank_cassette_tapes_at_the_junk/
Growing up as a young kid in the late 1980s, I was always terrified by the stories I'd hear of people who'd go to the grocery store, take a hike in the woods, or even a trip to a crowded beach, and would disappear, never to be seen again.
Whenever I'd see their faces memorialized on the back of milk cartons, their last photographs forever immortalized in the macabre medium of ink on cardboard, it would send shivers down my spine.
But the truth is, by the mid 1990s, I had overcome my fears, too preoccupied by the distractions of an adolescent life.
That is, until one day, in 1996, when, at the age of fourteen, a mere freshman in high school, during my weekly pilgrimage to the junk store, I made a discovery in the cassette pile that would change my life forever.
"You're still listening to tapes?" My best friend Jess asked, rolling her eyes, a nerd in the truest sense. "Get with it, dude. CDs are the future. Higher dynamic range, superior sound quality. It's not even a question."
"Yeah, yeah." I replied, ignoring her criticism, as I rummaged through the store's now mound of cassettes, its collection having significantly accumulated since the dawn of the compact disc just a few years prior.
"Look at that thing. It just looks... not cool." My friend Mike added, as he pointed to my cassette player, which was clipped onto my belt, its black plastic headphones draped around my neck. "I swear, if you wear that to school, and the football team asks, I'm denying that we're friends."
Somewhere between elementary school and high school, he'd been converted to an athlete and, by association, became popular. But I didn't care about being cool. Or acting cool. Or dressing cool. I just liked what I liked, and to me, cassettes were functional, and cheap. And that, to me, was really cool.
"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never-" I began to say to them, before something caught my eye at the bottom of the box.
It was a stack of eight homemade cassette tapes, each with a number scribbled onto it, bundled together by a flimsy old rubber band, that looked like it would break at any moment.
There was just something about them. Something so nondescript, so unapologetic, so mysterious, that I felt compelled to buy them, without even knowing what was recorded onto their magnetic tape.
"What are you guys doing later?" I asked Jess and Mike, as we left the store, and began our walk home, the ocean's waves showering us with mist, as they crashed along the seawall of our small South Shore town.
"First game of the season tonight." Mike replied, "Wouldn't miss it."
"You should check it out. Even I'm watching," Jess added, "We signed Walker in the draft. I just have a feeling about this season."
"No thanks." I declined, "I just can't get into sports. Despite my blue collar dad's continued attempts to convert me."
"Your loss." Mike replied, as we parted ways, each of us heading off in different directions.
—
Later that night, I was lying in bed, fantasizing about a world where Jess confessed her undying love for me, when I suddenly remembered that I'd bought the cassette tapes earlier that day.
So, I found the one labeled "1," popped it into my cassette player, and hit the rewind button.
After a minute, I heard it stop, and pressed play...
CLICK.
...Expecting to hear some grunge, britpop, or maybe even ska music. But what came out of the speakers was something... else.
"If you're listening to this..." A man said, his ominous voice crackling over the magnetic tape, "...You've found my instructions on where to find the bodies in the marsh."
What the heck? I thought to myself, nearly spitting out my soda. This must be some kind of prank. But for some reason, I couldn't stop listening.
"Bodies that, if discovered in the correct order, will provide clues to who I am. And why I did what I did."
Okay, maybe it's some sort of audio game? Like a detective thing, Yes, that must be it.
"As this is the first cassette in the set of eight, for this tape I'll be providing step by step instructions on how to find the first body. So, when you're ready, please proceed to the marshes on 139, where the bend of the road meets the sharp turn sign. You'll want to pause the tape now, until you get there."
CLICK.
I did just as he instructed, and paused the tape.
139. That's an actual street, not far away. Wait a minute. Could this be... real?
I wasted no time, picking up the plastic rotary telephone that I'd begged my parents to let me keep in my room, and called Jess' house.
"What the heck, dude!" She answered, "You just booted me offline. I've been downloading this song all day, and it was at 95%."
"Sorry," I replied, "But there's something I need to tell you."
I proceeded to tell her about the tape, and its instructions, and asked her to skip school with me the next day, to accompany me on my search for the bodies. Naturally, she laughed off the request, citing a presentation she had to give at school the next day, but offered up going right then and there.
"At night? Are you crazy?" I asked.
"I mean it's not real. So what's the worst that could happen?" She reasoned.
"Okay, let me call Mike."
I would have bet a million dollars that Mike would have declined the invite, and called me an idiot for even entertaining the idea, but when he picked up the phone, he was so upset that the boys in green, as he called them, had lost, that he jumped at the chance to get out of the house.
"Really?" I replied.
"Yeah, I can't listen to my old man make up excuses for them anymore. It's much too early in the season."
—
About an hour later, Jess, Mike, and I met at the marshes on 139, where the bend of the road meets the sharp turn sign, just as the narrator, as I'll call him, had described.
"Where to now, genius?" Mike asked, gesturing to the immense stretch of marshland that lay before us. A stretch of marshland that was so expansive, in fact, that our town was even named for it.
"One second." I said, before putting on my headphones and pressing play on the cassette player.
CLICK.
"If you're listening now, it means you made it to the starting point. Next, you'll want to turn to the marsh, and scan the horizon for an old scarecrow. Once you find it, walk across the top of the marsh, careful not to fall into its trenches, until you reach the scarecrow. Until then, pause the tape."
Once again, I did just as he instructed, and paused the tape, before returning my headphones to my neck, and looking off into the distance.
Sure enough, about a football field's distance away, was the scarecrow, its body illuminated by the moonlight, its arms open wide, as if calling us over to join it.
"Follow me." I said to my friends.
—
A few minutes later, I was trudging through the grassy surface of the marshlands, my flashlight in hand, as Jess and Mike lagged behind me, bantering away as usual.
"It's up, up, down, down, right, left, right, left, A, B, and start." Mike said.
"No, you idiot, it's up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, and start." Jess corrected.
"Will you two shut up already?" I called out, as I forged ahead, too annoyed to look back at them.
"You know what, Tyler? I'm really starting to worry about you, dude." Mike said.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?" I replied, rolling my eyes.
"You're really changing. Hanging out at the comic book store. Listening to metal. And worst of all, wearing those flannels around your waist."
I stopped in my tracks, and turned back to him.
"Me change? Dude, I saw you bullying Shea in the locker room, with the other football players."
"So what? The kid deserved it."
"Did he? Why?"
"For being a nerd. That's why. And you know what?"
"What?"
"Maybe you deserve to be bullied too."
I dropped my flashlight and stormed over to him, before we both locked eyes, fists clenched.
That's when we heard Jess, call back to us from up ahead.
"Hey guys..." She said.
We both looked over to her.
Jess simply pointed a few feet away, where we saw...
...A giant scarecrow, towering above the marsh, its wooden body barely keeping it standing, nearly all of its hay having fallen off.
—
CLICK.
"If you're listening now, it means you made it to the scarecrow. Next, you'll want to look out at the Y-shaped ravine before you, separating you from two different patches of marsh. Jump to the one on the left, take about five steps, and dig there. That's where you'll find the first body, and a clue. After you find it, you'll want to switch to the second tape."
CLICK.
I relayed the recording to my friends, who had very different reactions.
"I'm not jumping-" Jess said.
"Stand back." Mike interrupted, as he took a few steps back, crouched down, ran...
...And cleared the ravine, his boots splashing into the muddy marsh on the other side.
Jess and I simply looked at each other, then over at Mike, then down at the ravine, and finally back at each other.
—
A few minutes later, Jess was helping me up from the ravine, she too, having just crawled up from it after falling in.
Meanwhile, Mike was laughing so hard at us, that he stumbled backwards and tripped over something.
Seeing that Mike, too, was now covered in mud, Jess and I joined in on the laughter, and before we knew it, all three of us were all uncontrollably howling under the moonlight, all three of us, dirt caked onto all of our clothes.
But then Mike stopped laughing.
"Hey guys..." He said.
Jess and I looked over at him.
"...What the heck is that?" He continued, pointing to an object that was protruding from the marsh.
I turned on my flashlight, shined it onto the object, and was shocked to find...
...A human hand, long decomposed, its digits collapsed into the mud, its wrist bones sticking up through the grass.
Jess screamed at the top of her lungs.
Mike, having just stood up, fell back to the ground, his eyes wide in horror.
And I, I took it the worst of all, immediately turning to the ravine and gagging into it, as if that was the polite place to do it.
"But wait," Jess began, "That means..."
"...They're real. The tapes are real. And there are seven more bodies out here." I muttered, my body beginning to tremble.
"Cool." Jess said, before taking a closer look.
"We've gotta go tell someone. The cops. Let's get out of here." I said, still in shock.
"Are you kidding, dude? We have a once in a lifetime chance here, to find these bodies. Now let's find the clue and play the other tape." Mike said, his voice excited, but his body shaking.
"He does have a point, as disgusting as it is." Jess added.
"You can't be serious?" I yelled out to them both.
"Hey, you're the one that found the tapes. And wanted to come out here." Jess replied.
"The way I see it, there's only one way to decide." Mike called out.
"Oh yeah? What's that?" I asked.
"We vote." He said, with a smile.
—
A few minutes later, Mike and Jess were digging through the mud, searching for the clue, as I watched on in horror, switched tape "1" for tape "2", and pressed play.
CLICK.

First: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/14vo5lb/troublemakers_deaths_pity/
*previous:* https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1cqxbp3/troublemakers_triple_cross/
......
Caz didn't remember blacking out as she smashed through the wall, Valkyrie armor absorbing most of the blow. All she knew is that when she opened her eyes, she was moving faster than ever, throwing herself over obstacles and around corners as that massive emitter slung blinding pulses of light at her, but she wasn't stupid, it could hit her anytime it chose; They were herding her like livestock. Caz kicked off one wall of an alleyway, then the other and landed on the roof, never breaking stride as she leapt from crumbling rooftop to crumbling rooftop like she had wings, one arm protectively clutched to her chest to protect the remote. Jumping down a level she sprinted across the lower roofs, circling back around to try and retrieve her Huntress, When a Block-90 sailed through the air towards her. She caught it, Barely registering the name Dahlia engraved on the slide. She didn't need to see the troublemaker's guardian specter as a weighted chain sailed through the air from nothing to knock aside the emitter of a Geknosian spec ops' laser rifle. Caz instinctually aimed, and fired Dahlia, The soldier reeling back as a .30 caliber Durasteel slug slammed through their faceplate.
A soldier appeared in front of her, swinging a war gauntlet at her face. Sliding between their legs she put a round through their taint at point blank range to bring them to their knees before putting another round in the back of their helmet as she stood, never breaking stride.
Her muscles stung like hornets and her breath burned like fire, but she couldn't help but let loose a feral laugh as she slid, jumped, and vaulted through the rubble of the ruined village. The Dahlia barked, a spec ops soldier crumpling or flinching to swing their rifle from the shimmer in the air right in front of them so Cassius could drive a Kama into their throat. She didn't see charlotte anywhere, and despite the betrayal and stabbing of Remin, she couldn't help but be concerned for the girl. Another spec ops appeared in front of her, she slid around them, putting five rounds in their back armor, only for them to turn around and deliver a haymaker straight into her mask.
She felt her nose break as she slammed into the roof, momentum halted by the brutal hit as the remote flew from her hand. He reyes watched it sail through the air and fall.
Fall.
Fall into the waiting, ring bedecked hand of Drake. A shiver ran through the air as Drake pocketed the remote, a black, tattered spartan's cape flowing about his shoulders. But unlike every other time he'd lost consciousness and returned, it was like he had lost power this time, in a matter of fact, it was like he'd been drained of it. But the way he held himself was so much different, there was a sparkle in his eyes as he drew his sword, helmet flying into his palm as he snugged it on. The rings glimmered even as they absorbed so much of the light that hit them that they appeared as silhouettes.
There was a sudden change in the spec ops as they focused on Drake, she watched them gather into small groups, forming fire teams as the metal buzzards above turned to focus on the lone man. The words that fell from Drake's lips were like the first rumbles of thunder before a deadly monsoon.
"I haven't felt this scared since I was in the arena... And you have no idea how excited that makes me!"
...
Charlotte would not let the darkness of her mind claim her again. She tugged and pulled at the threads of her consciousness, fighting her older sister for control of her own body. But her older sister pulled back harder, tugging the knife taut against someone's throat. A shock of pain, a shock of cold and she was forced to let go. For a moment, she and her older sister were one. She could feel her older sister's fear, fear of punishment and reprisal. A tough mask hid the fragile being beneath that so desperately cried for freedom but feared what it could mean. All charlotte could do, was push in her determination to be free again to her older sister before they separated again.
But this time she was not alone in the darkness, The soft sound of penny whistles and old war drums followed a man in furs and carrying an odd metal tube attached to a stock. His presence felt like an open field under a night full of stars that stretched on forever, or an endless calm ocean where you stood on a steady boat, the world as your oyster. But there was also something scary about it, like the ability to do anything was both curse and blessing. But when the man softly set himself down beside her, he also sat with her sister, letting them face each other, speaking with a soft twang she could only describe as old country, the man chuckled.
"I reckon you girls both want the same thing, and with the lord as my witness, I'm here to grant you that wish."
He held out his hands to either of us.
"Let us pray to the lord our god that he may deliver you from the lands of egypt and into the promised land."
They both took his hand, and bowed their heads as he recited a few ancient prayers. Charlotte felt a burning in her soul, a lightness that replaced the oppressive dark with a field of beautiful flowers, just like home. Looking to big sister sylva, she could see the fearful, broken look in her eyes, but also a spark of determination as the man picked up his percussion cap rifle and walked away, the sound of pennywhistles and drums following him as she tearfully, but strongly took her older sisters hand.
"Do the right thing."
As she pulled her hands away, the remote was left in her hand. Charlotte could feel the smile behind Sylva's mask as she tossed the remote, watching it turn into a swallow that flitted off as fast as it could.
...
Death slammed a palm against the wooden doors, bursting them open like they were old and rotten as he stormed into Conquest's throne room, scythe slamming against the stony floor as Drake stood off to the side. He felt an odd sensation, like he was only as strong as a human could be, like he had no power left.
And it was like a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He moved slower, hit softer, and got hit harder now, he knew that, but it excited him to actually be able to fight!
Death stopped a few paces from conquest, who was lacksadaisically sipping from a clear goblet as servants played soft music from a corner and served her wine, either chained to their instruments, or dragging a heavy weight by their ankle or equivalent. Drake looked on in grinning anger, teeth grinding together as he observed the degrading spectacle. Death collected himself slightly, no expression visible on his skull face as he spoke in a voice like nails on a chalkboard.
"I heard that you used a soultrap, Conquest. Those were banned during the eight thousandth pantheonal convention, but I heard you used one on my chosen here."
Conquest snorted into her goblet before spotting drake and tensing so hard the goblet shattered.
"So what?! your little monster breaks more rules than I could dream of breaking!"
Death glanced back at Drake as the swordsman leaned casually against a pillar, gripping two rings menacingly with a manic grin of rage directed at conquest. The god couldn't look the mere mortal in the eyes as Death raised a calming skeletal hand.
"He breaks universal rules, supposedly unbreakable ones... and admittedly, I'm not sure how the fuck he does it. But we all agreed that soul traps are both inhumane, unfair, and straight up bullshit. It says that in the fuckin rulebook, Verbatim. If you want to fight my chosen, you'll do it in Yovun's arena, per the five thousandth convention. I don't want a war amongst the gods Gul'vak, but it seems you do..."
Conquest straightened upon the utterance of her true name, a low growl coming from her throat.
"You know nothing about what you speak of Human! Do not lecture me about rules!"
Heat mirage appeared around Death before he took a deep breath and simply said.
"Drake, if Conquest wants to break agreed upon rules... I guess I can turn a blind eye just this once. Go wild."
The room rumbled as two rings hit the ground, disappearing into black smoke so they could be summoned back without issue. Conquest stood, grabbing her hammer from thin air. But then two more rings clinked against the ground as Drake exploded with power, surging forth on black wings wreathed in pale flame. Conquest flinched and screamed.
"ALRIGHT!"
Drake stopped the lethal thrust inches away from Conquests fearful face, the hammer tumbling to the ground as Drake summoned the rings back onto his hands. He'd wanted to drive alexandros through her heart. But he could wait, as he turned around, rage broiling in his heart as he forcefully cooled it, this was not his world, it was the world of gods and primordials. It would be wise to follow their rules. Conquests voice was faux-strong as she shakily snarled.
"I'll follow the godsdamned rules... just keep that Thing away from me."
Drake felt a smile come to his face, pride swelling in his chest, this was a different kind of power he felt as he joined Death's side fearlessly. At the drop of a hat, he could make the greatest enemy of his people grovel at his feet. But, taking a deep breath, he pushed the feeling away, knowing now how the high priest felt every time he cracked that whip against a young Drake's raw back. How dangerous getting addicted to that feeling could be. He'd enjoy it for now, but he also made a solemn promise to hold back any chance he could. To show the mercy he never received.
Death swept around, beckoning Drake.
"Come, young warrior, I sense that your friends need you."
Drake was shaken from his thoughts as he rapidly joined Death's side.
"How do you know?"
"Old john brown has finally selected a chosen. For a god of liberty he has a lot of deference to the big G."
"Who's the big G?"
"God, used to be kind of a pompous bastard really, but he's grown on me."
"Nothing you just said makes sense to me."
"To You."
Death clarified confusingly.
...
Drake looked over the gathered Geknosian spec ops, noticing Charlotte's pummeled form leaning against a pile of rubble, chest weakly rising and falling. Cataclysmic rage burned in his heart as a blaster bolt burnt across his chest with his first step forward. He wouldn't need to remove a ring for this, he wanted to kick ass old school style. He took each bolt as they came his way, burning his flesh and charring his armor. But the pain was like a drug, his blood running hot with battle-lust as he called out.
"Take a breather guys! they're all mine!"
Drake picked up speed, charging through the flashes of laser bolts even as they burned his skin and charred his flesh. As his foot hit the ground, he felt them running with him, the warriors that made up the liquid iron in his blood. From the first Hoplite to his father the Warmonger. A million souls crying out for revenge as he planted a flying double footed kick to a spec ops soldier's breastplate, bringing them to the ground and sliding the blade of his sword into the gap between their neck and chest armor, purple blood spilling out as he brought the sweeping cut up, striking the chin of another's helmet before driving the point of his sword directly into their throat. He dove out of the way as a laser bolt obliterated the ground where he'd been standing, herding him into a ring of the spec ops.
Good, just where he wanted to be, up close and personal. He danced through the circle of death, blaster bolts intended to harm or kill splashing against other Geknosians in blinding flashes as Drake carried himself through the barrage on dancer's feet, the steps he'd practice with Cassius allowing him to strike freely. Each strike flowing into another, seamlessly switching between single handed and two handed grips as he leapt up, monkeying onto a spec ops soldier and stabbing his sword's blade into the gap between neck and shoulder all the way to the hilt. Leaping towards another with a manic grin as he saw fear in the eyes behind the visor before the helmet went flying with the head still inside it. Suddenly a Geknosian in ornate armor appeared in front of him, thrusting a saber for his throat.
Drake let the blade skitter off his helmet's faceplate, returning a slash that was parried with a strong low block. Steel rang, clashing and clamoring as the two danced back and forth. One thinking they were meeting their prey in honorable battle, the other fighting like a rabid, enraged beast that had been backed into a corner. The saber snapped under a particularly vicious blow, the Geknosian general just able to register surprise before Drake separated his head from his shoulders. Blood pumping, skin burning as the headless corpse slumped down by his feet. He looked around at the spec ops who still had their guns raised and trained on Drake.
"Grack this! I don't wanna die here!"
One shouted, Drawing Drake's attention as they threw their blaster to the ground and slammed down on their knees, putting their hands on the back of their heads. Drake looked around at the clearly hesitating spec ops and through his manic, uncontrollable grin he called out.
"Anyone else not want to die?!"
Slowly, ever so slowly the remaining blasters were lowered, then tossed to the ground as the two metal buzzards hummed frantically away. Seeing Caz limp to his side with her railgun, he put his hand on her forearm as she tried to raise it to point at the fleeing aircraft.
"Let em go."
"But they just tried to-"
"Some must live to spread the word."
Caz looked up at him for a moment, confused, before a spark of realization lit up her pain filled crystalline eyes as she looked at the surrendering spec ops.
"Prisoners..."
Drake nodded and flicked the blood from his swordblade before wiping it clean on the dead general's crotch flap.
"Prisoners."
He confirmed, looking to charlotte as she slowly clambered to her feet, swaying weekly as she clutched her head. Drake let his smile fall and fade before saying.
"who else needs medical attention."
"everybody but Cassius and Destrier as far as I know, including yourself dumbass."
Drake chuckled and nodded, getting an odd look from Caz as he stated.
"I'll be fine, I'll just pop off a pinkie ring for an hour when we get home."
Caz sighed and helped Drake support the badly wounded Charlotte to the forge building.
"somethings changed about you, and it's not the lack of power."
Drake chuckled and simply responded.
"I don't know, I just feel... better, all of a sudden. Fightings fun again."
"I'm not sure that's a good thing, Drake."
Drake chuckled softly and helped get Charlotte into the forge building without responding.
......
Part 107: will be linked here upon release.

.....ok, so hear me out.
In recent years, Taylor Swift has moved more units than any other artist. If anyone's name can sell a music-based video game in 2024, it's Taylor. It's hard for me to believe that a Taylor Swift video game has never been pitched, but Epic/Harmonix would be the perfect ones to make it happen.
It wouldn't even have to be marketed as a Rock Band game, but simply as a Taylor Swift video game based on the Eras tour concept, with a soundtrack spanning the entirety of Taylor's career. Even if only the hardcore Swifties showed interest in a Taylor video game, it'd likely be successful, but I could also see it being a major Christmas seller with families who want to sing/enjoy familiar music together.
I don't know. I'm throwing out any idea that could help revive the struggling music gaming genre.
While vocals would be the focus of the game, it would support use of the Riffmaster for voxtar players, as well as a standard controller mode (with gameplay similar to Fortnite Festival). I'm sure some sort of Fortnite/Festival event could be used as cross-promotion.
All songs can be exported into Rock Band 4 (bass and drum charts are baked into the code, even if they aren't playable in TS:Eras) for $14.99 (free with the Taylor's Version edition).
Each era would feature an age-appropriate Taylor avatar, and imagery inspired by that album, similar to The Beatles: Rock Band.
Taylor Swift: The Eras standard edition: $49.99

• Base game download only

Taylor Swift: The Eras, game + microphone bundle: $69.99

• Base game download
• USB microphone

Taylor Swift: The Eras (Taylor's Version): $199.99

• Base game download
• Voucher for export of tracks into Rock Band 4
• All downloadable content
• USB microphone
• Microphone stand
• Riffmaster guitar controller

The on-disc soundtrack below features 48 songs, with an additional 29 tracks available as DLC.
On-Disc Soundtrack
Taylor Swift

1. Picture to Burn
2. Teardrops on My Guitar
3. Should've Said No
4. Our Song

Fearless

1. Fearless
2. Love Story
3. You Belong With Me
4. Today Was a Fairytale

Speak Now

1. Sparks Fly
2. Speak Now
3. The Story of Us
4. Enchanted
5. I Can See You

Red

1. Red
2. I Knew You Were Trouble
3. 22
4. We Are Never Getting Back Together
5. All Too Well (10 Minute Version)

1989

1. Blank Space
2. Style
3. Shake It Off
4. New Romantics
5. Is It Over Now?

Reputation

1. ...Ready For It?
2. Don't Blame Me
3. Delicate
4. Look What You Made Me Do

Lover

1. Cruel Summer
2. Lover
3. The Man
4. You Need to Calm Down

Folklore

1. Cardigan
2. August
3. Invisible String

Evermore

1. Willow
2. No Body, No Crime (feat. HAIM)
3. Marjorie

Midnights

1. Anti-Hero
2. You're On Your Own, Kid
3. Midnight Rain
4. Karma
5. Mastermind

The Tortured Poets Department

1. Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)
2. The Tortured Poets Department
3. But Daddy I Love Him
4. Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?
5. I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
6. So High School

DLC ($2.49/song; pack prices below)
Taylor's Roots ($12.99)

• Tim McGraw
• Mean
• Ours
• Begin Again
• Betty
• 'Tis the Damn Season

Taylor's Ballads ($10.99)

• Fifteen
• White Horse
• Back to December
• Wildest Dreams
• Down Bad

Taylor's Anthems ($16.99)

• Forever & Always
• Mine
• Long Live
• Better Than Revenge
• Out of the Woods
• Getaway Car
• Lavender Haze
• Bejeweled

Taylor's Duets ($19.99)

• Electric Touch (feat. Fall Out Boy)
• Castles Crumbling (feat. Hayley Williams)
• The Last Time (feat. Gary Lightbody)
• Everything Has Changed (feat. Ed Sheeran)
• Safe & Sound (feat. Joy Williams & John Paul White)
• Bad Blood (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
• ME! (feat. Brendon Urie)
• Exile (feat. Bon Iver)
• Coney Island (feat. The National)
• Florida!!! (feat. Florence + the Machine)

Dumb idea? A way to get the teen girl market (and normies in general) interested in rhythm gaming? Let me know what you think!

It's time. Nidoking gained buffs enough from generation to generation to keep it in UU for every generation from 3 to 8. Consensus seems to put its best performance as Gen 2 OU, as its only OU placement and generally strong performance, albeit argument can definitely be made for Gen 5 UU. Clefable gained buffs to take it to a consistent OU placement later on. This is going to be a weird one, so let's get started.
The metagames in question:
​
Gen 1 UU: During the pre-sleep-ban metagame, Clefable was seen as a solid early game threat due to its ability to effectively be a sleep-twave user with STAB Body Slam and interesting coverage options that gave it the ability to be a lesser version of Hypno that you're more willing to risk. However, since then, sleep was banned, and Hypno was banned (it turned out banning sleep made the best sleeper MORE overpowered, not less, weirdly enough), making Clefable's niche a bit different, and arguably quite a lot more shaky...until suddenly, sleep was RE-unbanned, and Clefable shot up. Remember how Clefable was an alternative Hypno, who at one point was the best mon in the tier? Yeah, now Clefable is a dangerous mon to switch into that spreads status around, with access to STAB Body Slam and Hyper Beam, Thunder Wave, and a number of interesting tech coverage options. It's solid, albeit the VR still puts Clefable only at B+ tier - a very respectable first outing for the alien. Unfortunately, I have to restrict Gen 1 UU from the poll for reasons that will be clear soon.
​
Gen 2 OU/UUBL: Unfortunately for Clefable, it got better enough in Generation 2 to cause it to be overpowered in UU...but just not good enough for OU play. It has some interesting play as a Belly Drum sweeper with Moonlight and Return, or it can run mixed to hit certain mons on the switch, but...I'm going to be honest, with Fighting types necessary to hit Snorlax decently well, why are you using the significantly worse model? The VR places Clefable in D-rank, meaning there is no good reason to use it. Gen 2 OU will be excluded from the poll.
​
Gen 3 UU: Clefable is...fine. It has gained Calm Mind to set up with a less risky move than Belly Drum, and Cosmic Power can work against teams that don't have proper phasing, and generally its unpredictability in its set is its main asset. Unfortunately for Clefable, that's...really the big thing. Once you know what Clefable set is being run, it's really not too hard to deal with, and it never likes taking a Toxic under any circumstances. It's still not terrible, and the VR puts it at B- tier. However, after this generation, things start to get funky. Gen 3 UU will be excluded from the poll.
​
Gen 4 UU: Initially, Clefable didn't get too much of a look at the beginning of generation 4 in OU standard play, causing it to fall to UU, where it was quite good. Where in Gen 3 Clefable was prone to getting Toxiced or forced out from fear of it, in Generation 4 Clefable gained the ability Magic Guard, blocking Toxic damage entirely. Its poor stats are starting to become a mild limiter on its potential, rather than the thing dragging it down, as it has interesting support options in Wish and Thunder Wave and Heal Bell, the ability to set up Calm Mind without fearing Toxic, gaining a power boost (much like the Nidos in gens 5 onward) from Life Orb without having to take recoil, and, probably most hilariously, STAB no-drawback Double Edge to tear through Stall teams. It even has a FEAR set that ignores Stealth Rock for those low-ladder memes! Clefable is eating well in DPP UU, with the VR putting it at A+ tier. In fact, with how good people realized Clefable was in DPP UU, after the tiers were frozen...
​
Gen 4 OU: Yes. For those who weren't aware, people playing Generation 4 realized that Clefable didn't just have potential, Clefable should have been OU the enetire time. Immunity to entry hazards, Toxic damage, and even Full Paralysis making the speed drop (on an already slow mon) the only thing Paralysis does, amazing special bulk, Knock Off to remove items and wear down teams, and Soft-Boiled to restore HP with a high PP value, along with everything mentioned in the UU section makes Clefable nothing short of a tier staple. It fears powerful Fighting-types more than it does in UU, yes, but with how good Latias and Jirachi are, they're not the hardest thing in the world to remove. Running any kind of defensive team without Clefable is a very poor idea. Just like UU, the VR places Clefable in A+ tier.
​
Gen 5 RU: It should be noted that this is, while not as dramatic as Gen 4, as despite Clefable gaining unaware it not being the same level of game changer as Magic Guard, a pokemon that arguably should have been OU again. It's on the rise, with the VR currently placing it in B+ tier in OU. However, I will not be including it. I'll only be including RU this time because I have to draw the line somewhere. In BW RU, Clefable is doing the same things it did in DPP UU. Great special bulk, immunity to residual damage and recoil, Wish support, offensive wallbreaking with Life Orb Double Edge, the Calm Mind bulky sweeper set, and overall, with the return of some of Generation 4 mons it's used to, the environment is quite familiar for it. The VR places Clefable in A tier.
​
Gen 6 OU: So, remember how Clefable's basic only issue was physically offensive Fighting types and it worked as a defensive mon despite having no resistances whatsoever? So, Clefable is now a Fairy type. Clefable has entered its final form, and it is one of the best Pokemon in the entire tier. Moonblast now gives Clefable a strong STAB move to use on its Calm Mind set, always noticeable lacking. It still has Gen 1 movepool nonsense, with Flamethrower to nail Steel types that now threaten it. Did I mention it's had Stealth Rock since gen 4? It's had Stealth Rock this whole time and now it's an even better user of the move than before. Knock Off's buff isn't super relevant for Clefable, but it's still often using it for the utility. The Clefable everyone is complaining about when people complain about Clefable? This is that Clefable. Clefable has achieved Peak Clefable, and the VR has placed it in S tier, near the very apex of the metagame.
​
Gen 7 OU: While not as dominant as it was in Generation 6, Clefable maintains a solid place in OU with, again, All of The Things That Make It Good. 3 attacks life orb, Calm Mind, and rocks are all very relevant things, and while the generally more aggressive metagame and the higher preponderance of Steel-types has made Clefable a less obvious slam-dunk to place on any team than in generation 6, Clefable is maintaining a respectable A rank in the official VR.
​
Gen 8 OU: While most of what I have to say about Gen 6 and 7 remains true, there's one interesting addition that makes a minor addition in Generation 5 suddenly very relevant. Previously, the only truly viable ability on Clefable was Magic Guard due to its incredible ability to blank hazard and Toxic damage. However, suddenly, there is an item that allows one to blank hazards while using a different ability - Heavy-Duty Boots. Boots Unaware Clefable is always a potential threat due to everyone expecting Magic Guard, and with Stall better than ever in SS OU, Unaware Clefable existing as an option to blank setup sweepers became very, very appreciated. The VR places Clefable in A+ tier, a little above its SM placement, but not the absolute beast god it was in ORAS.
​
So yes, I can't talk about more space with Clefable - I am not going to be talking about a different tier in the same generation without Megas for most other mons, but I had to note the meteor fairy's rise to power in Gen 4. I'd be remiss not to.
View Poll

Phần cuối của các vụ kiện Vinfast
T thấy vinno đang xuất tinh rất ngạo nghễ, còn báo chí thì liên tục đẩy bài về VF3, vậy nên t muốn làm 1 người tốt và tránh cho tụi nó bị suy thận vì sục c quá trớn.
Update vụ kiện đầu tiên: Vinfast vs Mittal Steel
Vụ này thì ai cũng biết t là nguồn tin đầu tiên lôi ra được cái tên Baosteel, giờ t sẽ update thêm vụ này:
Ai cũng biết mittal steel kiện vinfast vì thép, nhưng hãy công bằng 1 chút, đây là nước Mỹ, cho dù Mittal Steel có là Steel Giant, sở hữu nhiều bằng sáng chế, nhưng ko phải Mittal Steel có thể chuyện bé xé to, claim patent field rộng hơn đã đăng kí, xong r bắt các nhà sản xuất phải mua thép của mình, ko là sẽ ăn kiện, vv Nó đ phải là như vậy
Các nhà sản xuất nhỏ lẻ vẫn được pháp luật hoa kì bảo vệ bằng các điều khoản liên quan tới luật chống độc quyền ( anti trust ), trong đó có lạm dụng patent field:
patent misuse that restrains economic competition substantially can also violate united states antitrust law.
Ok, hiểu r ha, vinfast bị mittal steel kiện vì patent, nhưng cơ sở nào để cho Mittal Steel quyết định đưa đơn lên tận USITC, yêu cầu tạm hoãn nhập khẩu xe vinfast vào Mỹ ?
Giờ thì quay lại coi mittal kiện vinfast vì infringe patent nào, cái mittal kiện là “Coated Steel Strips, Coated Stamped Products and Methods.”
Miêu tả về cái này:
The Asserted Patents claim a steel product containing a coating that
has a thickness of greater than 30 micrometers and includes four layers that are created through a
process in which the steel is heated and press-hardened through die quenching, which is referred to as
“hot stamping.” 4 The four-layer, hot-stamped steel product “makes it possible to obtain a mechanical
resistance in excess of 1000 MPa,5 a substantial resistance to shocks, fatigue, abrasion, and wear, while
retaining a good resistance to corrosion as well as a good capacity for welding, painting and gluing.”6
These features are important for the shaping of parts for automotive industry applications such as
vehicle frames. 7 The Asserted Patents thus satisfy “a need for coated steels which may be used to
prepare shaped parts by a stamping process which are suitable for welding.” 8
Miêu tả bằng hình ảnh qua kính hiển vi:
https://preview.redd.it/dhma97vhh60d1.png?width=639&format=png&auto=webp&s=35a77eed8e5e43cffbbc6514aadf72b046453bba
Cảm thấy khó hiểu thì coi video này:
https://youtu.be/f5JpJERRdeo
Dập nóng phủ 4 lớp trực tiếp:
https://youtu.be/Nq-ylhozfmk
Cái quy trình này mới là cái Mittal claim và sẽ là cái Mittal dùng để thuyết phục USITC đấm vinfast
Thứ 1: Mittal vừa nghiên cứu công nghệ, vừa nghiên cứu luôn cách ứng dụng sản phẩm:
https://preview.redd.it/tny6clfkh60d1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=fa2c06e8a8164b5cea982b1b3f004a5b5c74ba1e
Mittal claim là việc dùng cái loại thép phủ nhôm ở patent trên ( usibor 1500 và ductibor 500 ) giúp làm giảm đáng kể trọng lượng xe, trong khi vẫn đảm bảo độ an toàn.
mittal nó vừa nghiên cứu sản phẩm, vừa bán giải pháp dựng xe theo tiêu chí lightweight, dựa trên kết hợp thép và nhôm, nó claim nó là thằng dẫn đầu thế giới và là tiên phong nghiên cứu cấu trúc dựng xe thép - nhôm này.
Vì nó là tiên phong nghiên cứu, nên tất cả những thằng automaker muốn build xe dựa trên cấu trúc thép - nhôm của nó, thì phải xin phép nó, mua license sản phẩm từ nó, còn ko thì phải tự nghiên cứu cấu trúc của mình.
T có nghiên cứu thì đúng là những thằng EV maker build xe dựa trên kết hợp thép - nhôm, đều dùng cấu trúc của mittal steel. đây là steel structure của tesla model 3
https://www.fenderbender.com/topics/news/article/11507087/new-photos-reveal-tesla-model-3s-blend-of-aluminum-ultra-high-strength-steel-2017-08-24[/URL]
Vậy cái mittal steel thấy vin đã chôm gì mà nói là vinfast gây thiệt hại cho mittal steel ? Chính là cái cấu trúc body frame ở trên.
Vượng vin copy tesla, copy từ fsd, trợ lý ảo, thằng cung cấp pin và cả cấu trúc xe. Nhưng cấu trúc thép sử dụng trên xe tesla lại ko phải do tesla nghĩ ra mà là 1 thằng khác: mittal steel
Trong patent mittal steel kiện "Coated Steel Strips, Coated Stamped Products and Methods" , Products and Methods bao gồm cả cái cấu trúc thép phân phối lực ở trên. Loại thép đó được xếp loại UHSS , ultra high strength steel hay còn tên gọi khác: press hardened steel
Press hardening steel has several names that refer to how it is used, including hot stamped, hot press forming (HPF), and hot formed (HF). PHS also has names based on its chemical composition, including hot-stamped boron, carbon-manganese-boron, and 22MnB5 boron.
A single PHS part can have multi-strength performance (e.g., energy transfer and energy absorption) via processes such as tailored tempering, tailored welded blanks (TWBs), and tailored rolled blanks (TRB).
chỉ có 1 số ít thằng làm được uhss và phs, chủ yếu vài cái tên sau:
https://preview.redd.it/kbu4xfdmh60d1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=433cd6bcafef926b876736601a4f4a11f642a81f
Vậy là đã thấy baowu xuất hiện r, baowu cũng làm được uhss và phs cho auto
Nhưng cái gì mới là chốt hạ vinfast ? Chính là trọng lượng
Vinfast sử dụng cấu trúc thép - nhôm của mittal steel để hạ trọng lượng xe xuống đáng kể, và để vượt qua bài kiểm tra về độ an toàn của euro ncap
VinFast VF 8 nặng 2,540 đến 2,600 kg , đó là đã áp dụng cấu trúc thép - nhôm của mittal steel để giảm trọng lượng xe đi đến 30%, nếu ko sử dụng thì sẽ nặng như nào ? Nhẹ v r nhưng trong bài kiểm tra của euro ncap, vf8 vẫn húc luôn hình nhân người qua đường.
https://youtu.be/joJG3688HEs
Trong ngành auto, xe khối lượng càng nhẹ, độ an toàn càng cao và càng dễ đạt safety test
Thêm nữa là ở đây, mittal steel cũng claim là sử dụng thiết kế A pillar của mittal steel giúp các nhà sản xuất xe dễ vượt qua bài kiểm tra về độ an toàn hơn.
https://youtu.be/-sGb1US8OlY
Vậy cho nên tổng hợp lại, lập luận của Mittal Steel với USITC là: vinfast đã sử dụng cấu trúc của mittal steel cũng như thiết kế thép - nhôm của mittal steel, thiết kế a,b,c pillar để vượt qua được safety test của euro ncap, nếu vinfast ko sử dụng thì có vượt qua đc euro ncap ko ???
Nếu vinfast ko vượt qua đc euro ncap, vậy thì vinfast có đủ tiêu chuẩn để mang xe kinh doanh thị trường Mỹ ko ?
- Vinfast trực tiếp sử dụng cấu trúc lực, công nghệ sản xuất thép uhss phủ nhôm do Mittal Steel nghiên cứu, nhưng vinfast từ chối mua license khi Mittal Steel yêu cầu, trong khi các auto maker khác đều có ?
Mittal Steel bị thiệt hại trực tiếp tiền license, vì vinfast chôm thiết kế của mittal trên mỗi chiến ev vinfast bán ra chứng minh đc thiệt hại và yêu cầu bồi thường 1 khoản lớn là hợp lý.
Biện hộ về: "vinfast chỉ mua thép từ nhà sản xuất có license" đã hoàn toàn mất hiệu lực, vì đây vin còn chôm luôn cấu trúc thép làm auto để giảm trọng lượng xe, baowu hay baosteel cũng đ cứu nổi Vin, mà nó cũng đ muốn cứu thằng chơi ngu như vậy 📷

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 Noah 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~”

To clarify I have a gigantic gaps of memory in my childhood like I don't remember 80% of it, like below 9ish y/o it's a lot of huge blanks, save for some maybe flashes of media that I watched on repeat a thousand times but even then I couldn't describe any
anyway, there's this hyper specific feeling that I immediately recognize as something I felt a lot in childhood, that I think only happened around/associated with specific houses/other places I frequented in childhood, and it's this mixture of like, shame and embarassment, and a bit of fear or unease. it almost feels like your body is nauseous without actaully being nauseous at all, like a low hum of discomfort in a scared, humiliating type of way? but in a weirdly almost sexual way? or adjacent to? like I wanna hide away because I feel super gross. it's super hard to explain, because it's like, how would I know to later on relate that feeling to sexuality before even puberty if it wasn't related? my biggest reach/theory is that I'm blocking out/repressing some kinda sexually traumatic memory but I wouldn't know how possible that is? I've heard a lotta stuff about repressed memories etc and it being debated so idk what the consensus is because my memories after 8-9ish y/o onward is a taaad bit clearer, and I more clearly remember being SA'd and groomed a bit later around 9-11 y/o by older kids, and all of that triggered a different feeling? still shame and fear ig but it did not mimic this super specific, worse feeling it'd been like 15 years since I'd felt it but then a few years ago I felt it outta nowhere for no reason and i immediately recognized it so quickly

I decided to get an OBGYN appointment after trying to conceive for 6 months and I’m going to share the info I received in case it helps anyone! She was so kind and was so helpful! They didn’t do any actual testing, and won’t until we hit the year mark. However, she went over my cycles with me! I use the Daysy Basal Body Temperature Thermometer, and have been tracking when we had s** and taking my temperature every morning when I wake up. Based off of the fact that I’m getting a regular period on average 32 day cycles she said it definitely looks like I’m ovulating! Also she said to NOT do it every day over ovulation, she said “Your man was shooting blanks.” 😂 Either we were doing it too much or totally missing the perfect time to do it right before ovulating. She said only one month looks like we did it right and hit it correctly. So she said Cycle Day 1 is the first day of your cycle when you start your period, do it on CD 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22. And on CD day 14, 16, and 18 make sure you are doing it at the same time of day on those days. She said don’t worry about using ovulation test kits. If you are doing it every other day over that time frame you are hitting ovulation. She said in hindsight you can know for sure when you ovulated because it’s exactly 14 days before you got your period. Also she was happy I was taking prenatal vitamins. She said neither of should be drinking alcohol or smoking (which we don’t). Also she said Coke and Pepsi are directly linked to Autism and this info is not being shared enough, she said neither of us should drink those while we are TTC. Also not to use lube that contains alcohol. And I told her that the fertility friendly lubes kind of burn and she said try a tiny bit of olive oil or coconut oil the ones you would cook with not the ones with added stuff. So it all made me feel better that maybe we aren’t actually struggling with infertility maybe we have just not being hitting ovulation right. (And even if you hit it just right, I think there is still only a one in four chances you will get pregnant.) sending best wishes around this Mother’s Day time because I know it is hard to put on a brave face when you want to be a parent so badly! ❤️