My husband (41M) and I (31F) altogether have 8 children. He has 4 from a previous marriage, I have 2 from a previous relationship, and my husband and I have 2 together. My MIL and Stepfather have NEVER liked me AT ALL! I don't know why, as I've always been cordial with them. I've always been smiley, "yes ma'am", "no ma'am", "no sir", etc. However, they were excited to find out we were having our first child together.. Or so I thought... Well, we ended up having him in September of 2022. They were all about their grandson, but my MIL didn't want me around when we'd bring our son over.
Well, November 11, 2022 we got married. We invited a few people that we thought were true friends, even invited my husband's parents... The only people that showed up was my husband, myself, and the pastor who ordained our wedding. (I've never been to a wedding and I just wanted someone to attend mine so it upset me, but at the end of the day, as long as it's my husband and I, I'm happy).
So because no one came to our wedding, we decided to keep our last pregnancy a secret. I wore oversized clothes, so no one really could tell I was pregnant. (Or so I thought). My husband's mom asked him if I was pregnant and my husband told her "no". We had a few others ask, too, but the answer was always "no". People would be so cruel and mean towards me due to having 4 children (well, I have 5 but one passed Christmas 2020) and would just be completely harsh and hurtful. I would find posts made about me on people's Facebook pages, a long in some Facebook Groups. It was extremely depressing!
So due to all of that, we decided to keep our last pregnancy a secret. (We had our son November 3, 2023.) My MIL thinks I'm a horrible mother, a horrible person, and all these other harsh things. She called the cops on me before for literally making a suggestion about mine and my husband's 2nd child together, when she was watching our child overnight. I mean, this woman freaking HATES me..
(I'm used to being able to throw a baby showediaper party for all my kiddos. (I usually make apple pie shots with everclear, jello shots, do a raffle of a basket of scratcher tickets or the tiny bottles of alcohol, or some homemade sugar scrubs and some pampering things in the last basket). It just sucks not being able to do that for our very last child... (I got my tubes taken out in April of 2024).
So AITA for not telling my MIL and others that we were pregnant with our last child?
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P.S. I know there are a lot of spelling and grammar errors; keep in mind that this is a first draft, and I am not fixing such errors right now. I am mainly looking for thoughts on the quality of writing and story itself.
The sky was grey and clogged with dark sagging clouds that seemed brooding and ready to release their sodden payload. Ironically the street was clogged with people who rushed antlike from place to place shoulders hunched eyes glancing furtively at the clouds. Amid the rush of black and brown and occasional blond heads rushing down the overladen sidewalks, there was a head of hair the shade of red on associated with crimson droplets of beaded blood or dark wine being swished in a glass.
Cain Caddel the owner of this remarkable hair, was not particularly special himself, at least in regards to his standing in society. He was a single middle-aged man who lived a comfortable and private life in a wooden cabin outside of the city. He had a golden retriever named Angel and had many books which he liked to read by the fire before bed. He had a standard paper pushing job in which he was competent and made good money in, but in which he had showed no inclination to climb the corporate ladder. He was gradually, though not slowly accumulating money for retirement. In short, Cain lived a comfortable life, the sort of which he had dreamed of when he had struggled simply to survive many years past. If Cain could describe his situation in one word it would be, content.
Cain was not in a hurry to get home to his dog and he did not care about the rain. He had felt it in the past and would feel it again. He only walked fast so as not to disrupt the swift tidelike flow of the crowd. The was nothing demanding his attention, nothing to stress him, nothing to bother him. Wasn’t this the closest thing to liberation a man could achieve? He had reached the final peak of all he had ever desired and he was satisfied. In that moment and for a reason which he could not precisely explain, Cain felt an intense, almost euphoric feeling of contentment. He felt a rising urge to laugh hysterically, but repressed it with surprising difficulty.
Perhaps it was the whim of a cruel God that made the following events happen when they did.
Cain felt a sudden ache in his head like how he felt midway through a bad headache, but as soon as it had appeared, the sensation vanished. It was as abrupt as running into a tree you hadn’t seen or teleporting somewhere utterly random. Then Cain missed a step and then another. He stumbled forward in a drunken shamble his head suddenly swimming in sluggish circles. Then he recovered. The entire sensation disappeared as instantaneously as it had appeared. For a moment Cain Found himself staring blankly at the ground too bewildered to notice anything.
But of course, then he heard the screaming.
It was the loudest scream the broke him out of his reverie. It was a man’s voice gibbering and high.
“STOP, STOP, STOP, STOP!,” repeated again and again mindlessly and pleadingly. The were other noises too. Whimpering moans, high wails, cries for help. Looking around Cain saw many people collapsed on the ground. The man who had cried stop was spasming violently and foaming at the mouth. His cries to stop were swiftly being replaced with vague gurgles. Most were not in the condition of the stop man though. Many quivered violently on the ground or screamed as though they were undergoing slow and brutal torture, but they were better than the stop man.
There were even a few stragglers who had not collapsed and had simply fallen to a knee or leaned against a wall. They all had faces screwed with pain and clenched fists. The faces of people who had just stepped on a nail or were undergoing surgery without medication.
Abruptly, Cain wondered why he was not experiencing such pain, or whatever it was. In the entire visible stretch of sidewalk he was the only one standing-
There was a deep thud and a crash of breaking glass as car crashed into the side of a glass skyscraper. Panes rippled and then shattered high up the building in a wave which left a wake of falling glittering shards. The shards fell among the catatonic people in a shattering rain. An errant piece hit Cain’s arm but failed to penetrate the fabric of his suit. Another grazed his temple, leaving a searing line of pain.
Cain decided to run.
He had no clue, no fucking clue what was going on, but staying outside seemed like a stupid idea. The smart move was to hide somewhere and wait this out. He felt a flash of guilt at the thought of leaving all the people out there to the mercy of errant cars and mysterious pain, but what could he do when everyone was affected? No, it was best to lie low and wait. Cain sprinted toward the nearest safe building, he had to be fast. there was no telling when the next derailed car would crash. He hopped over quivering torsos, and limp hands. Too limp. And the he pulled open the translucent glass door of some off brand looking retail store.
Without bothering scouting his surroundings, Cain ran through racks of wacky T-shirts and shelved of knickknacks, toward the back of the store which had an unlabeled door. Second floor, it must be! The first floor was unsafe, especially with all those windows, and that glass door. He needed high ground for safety.
There was a titanic roar and a concussion that thrust Cain forward and to his knees in a painful bump. The very windows he had been worried about burst violently inward along with dust, and debris, and…. and a red chunk. A chunk that looked like a piece of raw beef. It flew through the air and landed with a wet, small sound. A sound that seemed too small and too real. Cain stared at the chunk fascinated by it. He knew what it was, but.. No why think about it, it did no good. It would disctract him from what mattered. He needed to get to the second floor and wait for this die down, that was what he needed to do.
Everything would be fine and die down if he just waited on the second floor… Cain was still riveted by the chunk. it was red and glistening, and it pooled its redness around itself in a slow leak. Was like grocery store meat, so impersonal, so inhuman.
Cain stood, fast and shook his head like a dog. He turned around and walked through the unmarked door. It led to an unlit and narrow staircase with dirty white paint; the kind one would imagine coke gets snorted from liberally.
The staircase led to a hallway, which was essentially just a hallway version of the staircase: narrow dirty and poorly lit, and generally indicative of drug deals. There was a row of doors with golden numbers, and a shabby brown carpet and a row of windows overlooking the street. Amond a field of sprawling bodies there was a number of stragglers who stumbled drunkenly around the road as if they were heavily drugged. Glittering shards of broken glass sparkled cheerfully up between corpses and the occasional bang or scream could be heard In the background. A red flicker glinted off of the shards of glass.
“My fucking God, Lord have mercy, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.” Cain whispered his eyes breathily to himself, speaking out loud for the first time since the disaster began. Scenes kept replaying in his mind, over and over again in a cruel loop. The man screaming stop again and again futilely, like a pig at slaughter who knows it is about to die. His bloodshot eyes rolling sightlessly. The sides of his mouth foamed with white froth. The car hitting the building straight on, confidently and without hesitation, the driver killing himself. The chunk of meat that looked beef from a grocery store that had plopped down beside him like a treat tossed to an obedient dog.
Cain closed his eyes and breathed in slowly and shakily, then he breathed out. He tried to blot out the images and shut out the cycle. Images kept multiplying and reappearing: Ameobus that multiplied after being cut apart. But eventually he calmed down enough to think and be rational. He opened his eyes, though his breathing was still ragged and shaking.
“Ok what the fuck.” He whispered to himself, knowing he didn’t need to whisper but not caring. “What happened?”
It was like an Emp to the brain that had swept over everyone at once and destroyed people’s circuitry, though not everyone had been treated equally.
He was the prime example of that.
He had gotten off easy with just bad headache and a stumble for a few seconds, whereas others sounded as if their very souls were being rent apart. What was the significance of his near immunity? He had not worn any special headwear or worn any special clothing. He had no metal on him apart from his watch, phone, and parts of his pants. Could it be that he had been standing in just that right place for the attack to affect him to a lesser degree, the same way a lucky blind man could survive a hail of arrows by standing in the right place? It seemed unlikely. And he was already assuming it was an attack in the first place. It could have been aliens or the fucking wrath of God.
There was no benefit to speculation anyway, he needed to focus on the present. As it was, all he knew was that everyone in the immediate area was either dead or wandering in a drugged daze. He had no knowledge of how extensive this effect was; for all he knew, the entire continent, or hell the entire world had been affected. He could be the only sane person alive in the world.
So he should try to gather information, then. Cain took out his phone and opened the news app to the most recent story.
Oklahoma F4 Hurricane Kills Four, 10 Million In Estimated Damages.
Not surprising. The event was too sudden for anyone to make a news story already, and, if this had happened everywhere of course, who would make it ? All the writers and journalists were probably dead or more fucking zombies.
Wait what was he doing anyway? He didn’t know how extensive this was and for all he knew it could have only affected the immediate area. The police station was an hour away; it could be unaffected!
He dialed 911, it rang once, then twice, then three times, then ten times, then twenty. He glanced at his watch after five minutes and hung up the call. No good, he was being too optimistic.
So what did he do now? The news was out, and the police were probably the same as everyone else. There were no friends he wanted to call, and his mom was long dead. Any siblings either didn’t exist or were too separated for him ever to find them. He stared blankly at the useless keypad of his phone app for a minute before an idea came to him.
He opened Facebook, eyes glued to the blue f and heart beating rapidly. This would work, he knew it would. People of all kinds, all over the world used Facebook. If anyone else was alive in reasonable numbers, then there would be some kind of information on Facebook. And maybe this fucking nightmare only occurred in the surrounding few miles. Maybe the police were just busy and unable to pick up, that would be understandable given the situation. Maybe the news was working on a story right now and it was breaking news on every tv in bars and stores and houses all across America.

Breaking News: A deadly and unexplainable phenomenon engulfed the California Town of Mount St Louis. Initial Probe reveals thousands dead and thousand more catatonic. Experts are still researching cause…

The blue f faded and revealed a list of posts. The first was a picture of a solemn looking yellow lab curled in a corner surrounded by puppies with the snarky title of: Running from Her Responsibilities. The post was from six days ago.
Cain felt an irrational and sudden dip in his excitement but forced it away. Was he expecting all his desires to be magically fulfilled in the first second of opening the app? It wasn’t like Facebook regularly showed posts from less than an hour ago in the feed. But… With a frown, Cain went to preferences and switched to most recent. The blue F returned and disappeared as the page loaded and Cain’s Eyes widened, his heart beating rapidly and his chest feeling light and airy.
All of the most recent posts were about the same thing. I collapsed and now everyone around me is... Does anyone know if the police….Can someone…I was cooking and my wife fell over do you… Please help…
The posts were all accompanied by pictures. They were all different, many showed pictures of the street in different towns, all with the same story: people collapsed everywhere with a few stragglers, often crashed cars or damage was visible. Many people were isolated or with a friend or family and posted about collapsing and not being able to contact anyone or about family dying in extreme pain. One man survived after driving on a crowded highway, his picture showing a hellscape of overturned cars, scattered metal with intermittent fires, and sprawled and dismembered corpses.

Cain’s heart pounded in a dreadful THUMP THUMP that resonated through his chest in cruel and rapid beats. There were posts from everywhere. There was one from Florida and one from South Dakota, and dozens more from unnamed towns that could be anywhere. America was dead.
Jesus Christ is the world over? His legs weakened, whatever passive energy that had been holding them up draining out like water through sieve. He fell to his knees with a dull thump, but his didn’t care about the pain. A funny thought occurred to him.
I actually fell to my knees. I thought that was just the kind of shit people say when they’re being overdramatic.
The world was over. He knew it. This was not some attack, there was no technology that could do this. It might be aliens and it might be God, though it was probably something else. But it didn’t matter. It was over.
He sat there for a second just thinking about it all. He had been walking home to see Angel, then he was going to make dinner. He had been thinking about grilling a burger, and he would give some to her. He would read more of a mystery novel he had found at the Barnes and Noble. It was light thing, the book version of popcorn, but he wanted to finish it. He was going to work tomorrow. What was going to happen now? What did he do now?

Well first he had to wait and then of course he needed food and water and shelter. And he would obviously need to make it home to Angel. The streets would be clogged with crashed cars and corpses, so no driving fa car for poor old Cain. Maybe a bike or a motorcycle? He couldn’t drive one but he could take it slow. There would be no angry drivers honking the shit out of him for going 10 miles per hour. And when he got the hang of it he could go faster, maybe 20. But it the roads looked like the hellscape in the post he saw, then maybe he would have to stick to 10.

He felt a bit of pressure pass out from him like air whistling out of the end of an overfilled balloon. He knew what to do, yeah the world probably, well almost certainly, ended, but he had a solid course of action for the next few days. He just need to wait another hour to be absolutely sure nothing would explode or fall or otherwise reduce him to the state of one of the fortunate people lying dead on the street.
He leaned back against the wall and looked at the shoddy golden letter seven on the door opposite him. Behind him, the laden clouds finally released their load. Heavy droplets of rain pattered down on the dead streets. On the pavement, a man whose gaze was vacant of the normal thoughtfulness and constant analysis of a human being looked up as a cold droplet impacted his forehead. He stood where he was for a moment, his hair soon growing flat and waterlogged his suit clinging to his round middle-aged body, almost seeming to contemplate this new development. Then he kept walking forward, his steps slow and seemingly deliberate.



























Chapter 2.
David Sharp walked down the streets of New York in his standard relaxed yet confident stride, both of his hands in the pockets of his suit pants. It was one of his daily suits, fashionable, and quite expensive, but only enough that it evoked admiration and respect, not jealousy or annoyance at a pointless display of wealth.
He glanced down at a particularly twisted looking corpse. It was a thin and tall woman with equally thin and long blond hair. She wore a homemade looking sweater and had on a delicate pair of slip on shoes. She seemed like the type to bring her neighbors casseroles and call you hon or dear, or so he theorized.
As she was, her mouth was stretched open wide enough to fit a small melon, her jaw looked purple and discolored, the bones seemed to be in almost the wrong place. Her cheeks traced tears of dried blood from empty sockets where eyeballs had burst. Her torso was twisted like a rag doll from a spine broken in pained thrashing.
“Oh my dear, I’m so sorry for you” he said, his voice soft and genuine.
He looked up at a small figure who was standing father down the street.
This was not one of the zombie people whose minds had been broken by the event, but a person, he knew it.
He kept walking forward, his stride now cautious and unsure. He looked around at the broken city around him as if searching for something. When he neared the man, he snapped his head toward him.
“Hey, are you alive?! He rushed up to the man “You don’t look like one of them”
The man turned around to look at David. His eyes were vacant, but not in the same way as the zombies. He wore a dirty band shirt and black exercise pants. His feet were scraped and red and he only had flip flops on.
“Laura, she died. She just died.” He said it in a the monotone of a college student doing a presentation about an obscure African tribe.
“she just fell over and started flailing her arms and screaming. I fell over too and I couldn’t do anything. When I was better, she was dead. I felt her pulse, and she felt too cold. She was pregnant. The baby is dead now too.
David touched the man’s shoulder.
“Come on, you need to eat and get inside. My house is nearby.” He smiled gently.
“I am much luckier than you, since there was no one for me to mourn. Feel welcome to stay as long as you need.”
He guided the man to his apartment with a hand on his back. The man followed with no resistance, his eyes stared constantly forward at some unknown point.
David guided the man to an elevator and up his suite on the fourth floor of the skyscraper. It was a perfect suite. Massive, with high ceiling and white ceiling lights that washed the entire apartment with an even glow, it was full of the kind of modern furniture that made use of simple geometric shapes to create an elegant but straightforward appearance.
He guided the man to an armchair in front of his custom flatscreen. The man sat down, accepting easily. He took to David’s guidance like a lost puppy, his mind was still pliable from his crushing loss, David could feel it.
In fact, David could feel it much more easily than normal. It was not just his ability to flawlessly modulate his emotions and analyze those around him. Martin was open to him, his mind was peeled apart by his loss: a normally solid wall, crushed by a fierce battering ram of emotional destruction.
Martin! That is his name, I am utterly sure.
David’s facial muscles twitched up in an involuntary smile, perhaps the first involuntary emotional response he had experienced since early childhood.
This could be very good. And he had the perfect test subject sitting placid and pliable, waiting for his guiding hand.
David reached out with an invisible hand toward Martin’s mind. He had always had the hand, he realized, but it had been more of a finger. It nudged, prodded, and massaged, but it lacked force, so much force that he had not known he had been using it. It was many times stronger now, maybe hundreds of times.
The hand plunged into the soft pliable mind as one would plunge their arm into a bowl of Jello.
“Uuuh!” Martin said.
He jerked slightly as if he had been shocked.
The fingers felt Martin’s Love for Laura and her blond hair and mischievous jokes, and the crushing, overwhelming emotional emptiness when he felt her cold dead corpse. The fingers explored, wiggling and invading. Martin’s Childhood memories were in there, they saw that he had gone to college for a year, but realized that he had always been too lazy to really apply himself. They saw him meeting Laura at the office and getting to know her. She was always serious when working, but she had a cute side where she laughed and joked. He had a love for classic video games, especially Mario, and he…
Martin was spasming violently, his hands clawed at his scalp and ripped out chunks of dirty black hair as though he was trying to remove a rabid rat from his skull.
He went. “UUUH, UUUUUHH, UUUUH!”
The hand stopped exploring and retracted carefully.
David sped over to the pathetic man, whose head now lolled loosely on his shoulder. He put a hand on Martin’s shoulder.
“Martin, Jesus, what happened? Did it happen to you again, the thing that killed everyone, I mean?
He ran over to Martin’s other side and examined his face.
The eyes were now as vacant as a zombie and a line of translucent drool traced down his chin and neck. His body was limp and responseless.
The hand split apart into many tiny gentle tendrils and wormed their way into Martin’s mind. David had not known he could do it until he had already started.
The hand had mashed and scrambled Martin’s weakened mind: a clumsy toddler playing with a fragile nest. The tendrils were very different.
They wormed their way quietly and harmlessly along, moving, fixing, rearranging; a hundred thousand fingers, reassembling a shattered mind.
More than a mere 100 times stronger
Martin bucked a few times, some invisible mechanisms being triggered accidentally. Then the vacant eyes were once again occupied. Martin sat up in his chair as his muscles regained control.
Martin stared fixedly at the T.V. then turned to examine the furniture and the window with the view of New York. He brought his hand to his face looking, most likely, at the dirty fingernails and scabbed over cuts. He put his hand down and sat for a few moments.
He stood and turned around, now looking at David. His eyes were no longer crushed and empty, but wide and confused.
“How…how did I get here?”
David smiled.
“I found you wandering around the street and at first I thought you must be one of those zombies. But I was walking nearby, and I saw that you looked a little different. It was hard to put a finger on; a certain clearness of the eyes, maybe. So I asked if you were alive and you responded with some meaningless sounds. It was quite clear that your mind was barely holding on.”
“Of course, I never leave a man in need so I escorted you to my house and set you down in a chair. It seemed likely to me that in your case the ailment of the mind was of a lesser degree and might heal over time. As we both can see, you are standing.”
Martin stood and absorbed the stream of information the same as a stone cliff might absorb a passing wind.
“I think… I lost something, but I can’t remember. Its fuzzy, I-“
“Oh God, Oh Shit!”
Suddenly he leaned forward as if he had been struck in the crotch and held his head.
“It fucking hurts!” Martin screamed, “Oh fucking God, it hurts!
David walked over to Martin and eased him into the chair.
“Sit down,” he said in his most gentle voice. “sit here for a second and you will feel a little bit better.”
David put his hand on Martin’s back and soothed. The hand’s touch soft and guiding, massaged the aching mind.
After a few minutes Martin’s back muscles relaxed.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Do not thank me. I am simply doing my duty as a decent human being.”
Martin turned to David with a face of mixed gratitude, and intense confusion.
“Please… what happened.”
“First, you should look outside. It will explain better than I am capable of. Hold on to your stomach.”
Martin walked toward the window with an unsteady studder to his steps. He tilted his down and looked at the street only to jerk back in shock. Little black shapes littered the street, and several cars were piled on top of each other like pancakes tossed in a lazy pile.
“Jesus!”
Before Martin could speak further, David began explaining
“I do not know exactly what happened, but three days ago, there was something like a wave that swept over everyone in the world, as far as I can tell. Most died, and most who survived turned into what I and the remainder of the internet is calling zombies; people who live but only in the scientific sense. They have no mind; they walk around in a shambles without any apparent direction. Out of those who did not die, a bare fraction retained their mind: their ability to think and make logical decisions.”
David spoke in the businesslike but sad-tinged tone of someone who has accepted a truth but has yet to fully move past it.
“I do not know what spared this group, whether it was some unknown factor or pure random chance. But I would be surprised if more than 1 in 1000 people survived, though that is a wild guess based on nothing but my own intuition. You are the first person I have seen that I am absolutely sure is not a zombie.”
“I believe that your headache and your fuzzy mind were caused by the wave. I theorize that the wave affected everyone to a different degree, in the most extreme cases, people died in minutes, but some took hours to die. I believe you were affected almost to the point of zombification, but the effect ended right on the brink between a living mind and a shattered one. When I found you, your eyes seemed to have a spark of intelligence but little more.”
Martin still looked out of the window, with a hunched back and dark hair hanging in strings.
“What about me…what happened to me? I lost something.”
David walked next to Martin; lips pinched in a sympathetic line.
“Martin, I don’t know… how could I? Everyone in the world had to deal with the wave on their own. I felt pain like you did. How could I have been there when it happened to you? I only found you by chance. As your mind strengthens it may come to you and it may not, that is the best I can tell you.”
Martin turned to look at David, his eyes were bloodshot from tears, his stubble and greasy strands of hair seemed to stand out.
“How do you know my name? I never told you.”
David smiled his gentle smile again.
“You let it slip out while you were a near zombie. I thought it would be good for you to hear it again, nothing more than that.”
The hand reached out to Martin’s mind, ready sooth away irrational anger and needless distrust, but it felt a wall. A wall of sturdy steel-hard will.
Martin’s eyes grew wide and he took a step back.
“You, you just tried to do something to me! I felt it in my mind!
David’s smile smoothly transitioned into an expression of affront and sad understanding.
He spoke slowly and with a hint of hurt.
“David, I know that you are confused and angry, but all I have ever done is help you. Please try to direct your anger at something else. I do not mind being supportive, I cannot help if you lash out.”
Martin’s expression softened, and he hesitated.
It was then that the hand, now a fist, struck.
The wall of steel shattered and the hand drew back splitting apart into tendrils which weened their way into the crevices of Martin’s mind.
Martin instantly relaxed, all anger and suspicion disappearing like a candleflame before a gale.
But then a wave a steel hard resolve exploded out of Martins mind and the tendrils were blown apart.
The hand started reforming itself.
I cannot be gentle with this one.
Martin’s face screwed up in an expression of utter rage.
“You FUCK, you BASTARD, it was you wasn’t it!”
Martin charged at David a pocketknife gleaming in his hand.
Hidden the whole time.
David turned on a heel and dodged Martin. Of course he had taken self-defense courses. He could defeat and immobilize Martin easily, but Martin was useless now, he was too fargone to be worth keeping.
David, caught Martin’s wrist and with an efficient twist, had Martin on his stomach with an arm stuck behind his back. There he patiently waited. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
The hand reformed.
Four seconds. Five seconds….
David fed his will into the hand, increasing its size and its power.
Ten seconds.
The hand seemed about to explode. It was a white-hot pulsing mass of will.
Martin seemed about to know what was going to happen.
“PLEASE, PLEASE, STOP, I’M SORRY-“
The hand crashed into Martin’s feeble wall.
It tore apart like a thin sheet of rice paper.
It sank deep into Martin’s mind and he moaned in pain. David felt more and more of Martin’s memories. They came earlier and earlier the deeper he went until he saw a sweet face with dark hair and red lips, and feeling of warmth and simple love. Then he let the hand explode.
Martin Jerked upwards almost throwing David off of him and then went limp. Blood pooled from where his eyes faced the floor.
David, got up and walked to the window with his hands behind his back.
“It seems that I am not the only one who changed.”










Chapter 3

Hi all - I recently took a trip to Paris to visit my sister who had just moved there and decided to turn this into a week of some of the best dining in the city (with some help from the community on helping me select spots). I’d like to thank the community for suggesting spots that served some of the best food I’ve ever had and I wanted to share my experience with the community in case it helps anyone else visiting Paris. Apologies if the descriptions below are quite long, as I am just so excited by my experience. Not sure how I’ll be able to top a week of eating like this again but I’m just grateful to have been able to experience it. The below is a mix of some classic fine dining along with some more casual spots mixed in, which I find helpful to break up some of the more extensive tasting menus. Happy to provide more detail or answer any questions as helpful!
Abri Soba - This is the perfect spot for lunch to switch it up and have some great soba, hot or cold. The duck with leeks and cold soba along with the hot broth on the side has delicious umami flavor and for 6 euro more, you can make it a lunch set with 2 massive pieces of fresh maki, fried chicken karaage, and a salad (this is how you get really full. The shrimp tempura with hot soba was also very hearty and tasty. The lunch set of choice of soba with the maki, chicken, and salad was 26 euro and less depending on accompaniments to the soba.
Les Papilles - This is one of the spots I will go every time I’m in paris. It’s such a homey, welcoming bistro with a tiny kitchen (be sure to take a peek) that has a 4 course set menu. The front of house explains each dish in incredible detail in both French / English. In my multiple trips here, you quickly realize they really specialize in their soup course. They always start with a soup that will cure the soul before a full-bodied, family-style meat main course. This is followed by a cheese course and then a small dessert. At 45 euros with this flavor and this amount of food, this just has to be one of the best deals i’ve found in paris. This time, they started with the soup course of sweet potato mash, sweet cream with olive oil, breadcrumbs, and spicy chorizo in a sweet potato broth. This was followed by the main course, a veal breast braised for 4 hours with breadcrumbs, tarragon, carrots, fresh peppers, snap peas, fresh thyme, and garlic. They ended with a blue cheese d’auvergne with a prune confit and then a chocolate panna cotta (the panna cotta was only dish I didn’t love but not bad by any means).
El Nopal Taqueria - This is a small spot on a side street that serves some classic meat tacos. You can just sit on the street and keep ordering as much as you please while sipping a cold beer. The chicharron taco was by far my favorite, as the others were solid but nothing crazy. The sauces there really elevate the tacos and the spicy green sauce was so good (it should be sold in markets). The pork quesadilla with the green sauce was also delicious.
Le Colimacon - This is a bistro with a regularly changing a la carte menu. We started off with one of their main recommendations, their “snail chips” which were burgundy escargots made with garlic, butter, and parsley. They were in these chips made to look like the escargot shell that you could eat in one bite and truly was one of the best takes on escargots i’ve ever had. They then continued the strong start with an absolutely divine dish of a french toast topped with foie gras, pan fried smoked duck breast, sliced poached fruit, honey and cumin sauce, and a salad of young shoots and olive oil vinaigrette. The fattiness, sweetness, and acidity blended together here to create a near perfect dish. These two starters are worth the trip here alone. The beef sirloin tartare and seabass carpaccio for the mains were very solid, but just were not on the level of the starters. I think duck is where they truly shine here. We also ordered the organic leg of lamb from Sologne which was solid but definitely forgettable. Next time I come, I’d go with more duck or the Iberian black pork if on the menu instead. Overall, it’s a very quaint spot and would highly recommend.
Chez Aline - Sandwich spot that will always have a line but moves quick and is worth the wait. Very fresh, constantly changing sandwiches on incredible baguette where if you don’t speak French, you can point to the items you want in their sandwich that the chef makes that day. Lots of vegetables and salads. I ordered the jamon beurre which when toasted is ridiculous and also got the chicken salad sandwich, which is light and oddly refreshing which I rarely get out of sandwiches. Perfect casual sandwich spot with one chef behind the counter handling everything.
Frenchie - This was a pretty special meal and my first tasting menu of the trip. I have seen some of the mixed reviews but had a lovely time and was blown away by several dishes. The green asparagus with tarragon sorbet, tarragon puree, and gin caper sauce they introduced to the menu two days before dining there was refreshing, acidic, texturally complex, and just perfect, one of my favorite dishes ever. The pigeon with artichoke, guanciale, and brocoletti course and the skate wing with clams, lemon, asparagus and wild garlic course were also phenomenal with the pigeon being a bit richer and the fish before being so light and perfectly cooked, balancing each other out so well. The ravioli with anchovies, chicory, and mustard seeds were in a delicious, earthy broth but this was my least favorite of the mains. The kiwi parfait glacé dessert with sweet/soucitrusy kiwi sauce was one of my favorite courses of the whole meal. The banoffee dessert with dulce de leche, banana, and pecan nuts also shined. The only area they actually missed was on the amuse bouche (one of them tasted like cardboard and got me a bit worried for what was to come, thankfully there was no need to be worried).
Alliance - Thank you to all members of the this community who recommended this spot, as it truly does fit a 2 star level as a one star spot. The service was the best I’ve ever had, largely due to Shawn who serves as the front of house and who also helped open the restaurant. We ended up being the last table in the restaurant and Shawn came and sat with us for an hour to have some cocktails and converse about how he came to open Alliance with the chef Toshitaka Omiya, the gastronomic scene in paris, and his favorite spots to frequent in the city. Pivoting to the food, each dish was spectacular, with beautiful plating and even more beautiful flavor and balance. I went with a few friends, some of who do not frequently have fine dining, and they were blown away and more than happy to enjoy a 3.5 hour meal here. I would say the only underwhelming bites were the spring roll with cabbage and ginger amuse bouche and the watercress and caviar bite but the potato gnocchi with caviar, cream, and white wine dish and black leg chicken course were perfectly rich and balanced in texture and flavor. These were two of the best dishes I’ve ever had. This onion pie amuse bouche I wish I could have had 10 more of and paired really well with the rice crisp with steak tartare bite and came with a crispy yet soft on the inside cheese gougere with a “spicy stick”. The chef’s use of onion started with the onion pie and really shined throughout the night. An oyster appetizer with fried onions and lemon was another dish that left me speechless, really cool in terms of both soft texture balanced with crispy onions and warm and cold temperatures playing off each other. They replaced one crab dish I couldn’t eat due to dietary restriction with this leek dish with this creamy sauce that I can’t recall the description of for the life of me but was my favorite dish of the night (I had to give the rest of the table a taste who all were taken aback by how delicious this dish was). The John Dory fish course with an extraction of collagen and glasswort and the white asparagus course with passion fruit pepper and dried apricot were light and perfect in the midst of some richer courses. They ended with two awesome desserts, a beetroot, hibiscus, and smoked yogurt dessert and a red, yellow, and green kiwi dessert, along with a lovely cheese cart.
Le Rigmarole - This is the spot I’d recommend the most to anyone visiting Paris that doesn’t necessarily want to pay 2-3 michelin star pricing, as I can say I enjoyed this meal as much or more than most of the michelin star spots I’ve been. I tried writing down each course we had, which were pickled radish, carrots and cabbage, lightly fried asparagus fried in german beer, scallop crudo in olive oil, grilled cuttlefish in spicy yogurt sauce, rockfish with mushrooms, chicken neck with spices and orange zest, scarpinocc with homemade ricotta and spring garlic leaves, chicken artery / offal (that takes “20 chickens to make”), chicken heart, chicken wing, smoked zucchini with smoked fish roe, bone marrow ragu pasta, chicken “of all parts” meatball with flakey pita-esque bread, and chocolate fondant with oolong ice cream. I was lost for words on so many of the courses and the couple Robert and Jessica who run the spot are so lovely and curate the menu around each individual they are serving, which was awesome as some members of the party were more experimental than others in what they like and some had dietary restrictions. The wine recommendations were also incredible as I love earthy, funky wines and they had a lot of fun selecting some of their funkiest wines. This will be my first stop every time i’m back in paris.
Early June - This is very cool spot in terms of ambience, and I would definitely try a new chef next time as they change regularly, but I really did not enjoy my meal here with the new chef from Napoli who took over the day before I dined with them. The dishes were quite flavorless and seemed to lack any love. This was the only meal I had in paris that I was even slightly disappointed with.
Epicure - (Aside from visiting my sister) This was the main reason for my visit and was the most excited I’d ever been for a meal. Somehow it still surpassed my lofty expectations. This just felt like a masterclass in technique as nothing was something I hadn’t tasted before in terms of ingredients, but they somehow made everything 10x more delicious and exciting than I’d ever experienced them before. From the caviar from Sologne on a potato mousseline smoked with haddock to the burnt grilled leeks with tartare of Perle Blanche oysters, spring onions, and lemon in a seaweed butter (best dish I’ve ever had in my life) to the candele macaroni with black truffle, artichoke, foie gras, gratinated Parmesan cheese, and black truffle juice, they just maintained an astonishing level of consistency and flavor across each course. The Bresse Hen poached in a bladder (they accommodated my allergy to crayfish which I appreciated given this was one of the dishes I wanted to try most) just took the meal to an even more absurd level as I’d never had poultry that was as soft as a perfectly cooked fish. The salmon from Scotland with the tandoori spices, fennel, mint oil, and “rice krispies” completely shifted from the classic French and was so perfectly cooked. I didn’t even know food could be cooked this well… Nothing missed at all or even came close to disappointing me. Every dish made my eyes bulge and my cheeks hurt from smiling at how exciting everything tasted. The textures were mind-boggling as they danced across jellos and purees and temperature contrasts that I had never imagined possible. The service was also immaculate as they quickly adjusted when they quickly realized we were there to truly just soak it all in and have a fun time rather than be very serious. They gave us a full kitchen tour, and we got to meet Eric Frechon’s sous chef who had taken over the kitchen since Frechon’s departure 2 days prior and who kindly wrote a message and signed both of our menus (which they reprinted during the meal to reflect all the changes due to our dietary restrictions). They only do one staggered seating for each meal, so there’s no rush, which became evident in the meal lasting 4.5 hours. This was definitely one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever had but I had no complaints and completely believe the price was justified by the experience. Thanks again to all members of the community for pushing this recommendation.
Le Servan - I’ve seen some mixed reviews but honestly had a lovely experience, and this meal was my first after eating at Epicure the night before. I wasn’t expecting to like much food for a bit after Epicure, but this was really delicious. I definitely went a bit more out there in the dish choices going for sweetbreads, veal brain, and black pudding fried wontons, and they were all cooked extraordinarily well and were perfectly seasoned with nothing overpowering the stars of the dishes.
Faggio - This came as a recommendation from one of the waiters at Epicure as his friend runs this pizza shop and he admitted he might be a little biased but claimed this was his favorite spot to eat in Paris. I wasn’t expecting much given I’ve enjoyed some of the best pizza in New York, Japan, Italy, New Haven, etc., but this shockingly stood among some of the best. It’s Neopolitan style and the sauce and fior di latte they use in their pies made the pizza so light and perfect and just hit on all cylinders. I highly recommend especially to break up a lot of fine dining.

hey! never posted before. i’m getting my gallbladder taken out today and am so nervous about returning to food. i had a bit of sugar free jello last night that made me so sick! i’m a girl that loves her fries, pizza, chicken tenders (you know, comfort food. food for my brain/mental health) and i want to make sure i am able to eat these foods eventually.
does anyone have any tips for preventing a life long intolerance to these foods? i take ox bile daily and i’ve thought about incorporating milk thistle to support my liver.
my plan is to keep my diet super bland after surgery: turkey sandwich on sourdough, chicken breast with broccoli, homemade chicken noodle soup with fish crackers. that sorta thing.
i want to do this right. i don’t want to live without needed to shit myself after eating fries hahahahhaa
help! surgery is in an hour :)

I am a fairly new BT, but I’ve worked with kids all my life (I was an art teacher until mid-pandemic). I am loving this job so far, but I am looking for ways to improve my interactions with one client in particular.
He is severely impacted, with very minimal communication skills and frequent SIB in reaction to frustration. He really loves getting messy with shaving cream, playing with jello, and other squishy sensory stuff. I am looking for specific sensory toys at the moment, but I’d like to find some activities that I can engage in parallel to build up rapport.
Does anyone have any ideas for mixing/combining materials to create a sensory play experience? I don’t think I can do homemade slime (glue + contact solution) because he habitually nibbles/tastes things like playdough.
I was thinking of suggesting bulk plain gelatin, and putting small plastic toys inside and encouraging him to dig them out with tongs or tweezers, but I’d love any other ideas y’all might have.

Hi! I have been dealing with chronic urticaria and allergic reaction to Motrin for the past 2 months. Hives break out every night and was really bad after the sauna yesterday. I’m reading the book, Gut and Physiology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride and her hypothesis is that hives are a result of a leaky gut and poor microbiome flora. I am starting to go on the GAPS intro diet to see if I have any relief. Has anyone tried this diet and see results? Best of luck to all of us suffering from this disease

Today I officially started puree stage after two long weeks of clear liquids (protein shakes, broths, jello, etc). I’m immediately feeling terrible heartburn and I’m wondering if there’s a reason for this. Also, how often do you eat during puree? How do I know when I’m supposed to eat if I’m not “hungry”. Even knowing if I’m full is so confusing to me - how do you know?
For reference, today I ate:
10 am - 1 egg (half the yolk), 1 tbsp of cottage cheese (I was only able to eat about 1/3 of this meal)
1 pm - 1 banana smushed, I put it in a 4 oz container and it showed like 3oz (I only ate about half of this serving)
3 pm - 4 oz non fat cappuccino
5pm - 1 oz homemade hummus.
I don’t know if I’m eating correctly, if I’m hungry or not, when I’m full. And I have so much anxiety.
My plans for dinner (around 6:30/7 after my workout) is to have a boiled potato with some cottage cheese on top. I’m also going to be drinking my protein shake while I workout so I don’t know if I’ll even be hungry for diner?
Can someone help haha

Today I officially started puree stage after two long weeks of clear liquids (protein shakes, broths, jello, etc). I’m immediately feeling terrible heartburn and I’m wondering if there’s a reason for this. Also, how often do you eat during puree? How do I know when I’m supposed to eat if I’m not “hungry”. Even knowing if I’m full is so confusing to me - how do you know?
For reference, today I ate: 10 am - 1 egg (half the yolk), 1 tbsp of cottage cheese (I was only able to eat about 1/3 of this meal)
1 pm - 1 banana smushed, I put it in a 4 oz container and it showed like 3oz (I only ate about half of this serving)
3 pm - 4 oz non fat cappuccino
5pm - 1 oz homemade hummus.
I don’t know if I’m eating correctly, if I’m hungry or not, when I’m full. And I have so much anxiety.
My plans for dinner (around 6:30/7 after my workout) is to have a boiled potato with some cottage cheese on top. I’m also going to be drinking my protein shake while I workout so I don’t know if I’ll even be hungry for diner?
Can someone help haha

Today I officially started puree stage after two long weeks of clear liquids (protein shakes, broths, jello, etc). I’m immediately feeling terrible heartburn and I’m wondering if there’s a reason for this. Also, how often do you eat during puree? How do I know when I’m supposed to eat if I’m not “hungry”. Even knowing if I’m full is so confusing to me - how do you know?
For reference, today I ate: 10 am - 1 egg (half the yolk), 1 tbsp of cottage cheese (I was only able to eat about 1/3 of this meal)
1 pm - 1 banana smushed, I put it in a 4 oz container and it showed like 3oz (I only ate about half of this serving)
3 pm - 4 oz non fat cappuccino
5pm - 1 oz homemade hummus.
I don’t know if I’m eating correctly, if I’m hungry or not, when I’m full. And I have so much anxiety.
My plans for dinner (around 6:30/7 after my workout) is to have a boiled potato with some cottage cheese on top. I’m also going to be drinking my protein shake while I workout so I don’t know if I’ll even be hungry for diner?
Can someone help haha