Dog whistle noisesc

As If It Were Kismet: Prologue
Matt tore through the brush, blind in the dark. He didn’t care where he was going. He only knew he needed to be elsewhere. Far from here.
Behind him a creature howled that shocked his mind. It’s form was cruel and dangerous, though female. Nothing like the young woman she had once been. Nothing but a girl, a small and slight female.
It’s guttural growls and howls only grew closer as Matt tried to pick between seeing where he was going and getting away. The few times he looked he caught sight of the creature behind him. Hopping through the air with a speed that told him he was being toyed with. As if he were a mouse being played with by a cat.
But the reflex in him to run kept him going. His adrenaline going as hard as it could. The tightness and burning in his core tensing and locking up as his legs felt like there were being burned from within while taking on more of a heaviness.
His lungs were starting to betray him as he tried to gulp big breaths of air but only rapid and shallow breaths were all that he could manage. His brain was starting to burn….and then he was falling.
Falling down the side of a hill he saw the creature dart in a spring towards him, imperceivably fast almost. Catching him in mid air it seemed.
Managing to wrap its body around him and cushion his impact against the ground as they rolled. His mind barely took in what was happening during the roll. Only starting to understand what was happening once they were still.
The creature's triple D-cup breasts were unmistakably pressed hard against his back as he laid facing up at the night sky.
For a few seconds the world stilled and the needle light pain hitting the center of his brain took over for the cooking heat his brain had felt. His whole body felt heavy and reluctant to move.
Even if he could have really moved, a dull ache came over his limbs making them feel stilled and trapped as if by immeasurable amounts of sand that had engulfed him.
Slowly the arms holding him started to move. Moving so the creature's hands could start exploring him. Causing Matt to unstoppably let out a pathetic moan that made him go cold inside as hands lifted up his shirt and started to touch his exposed stomach and then his chest.
He would have whimpered so pathetically had he not still been in the depths of terror.
As its hands felt and groped his pecs he tried to situp as if to get away. For his efforts, his reward was a hand around his throat and a collection snarls and growls against his ear. A beastly, guttural voice spat words at him while somehow holding a feminine tone.
“Don’t move….I don’t know if I can calm down…”
Her words were not helped by her moans in his ear and the subsequent kissing of his ear. The flesh of his ear going between her lips as she moaned and seemed to pant. Releasing it and licking the side of his face with a moist warmth. He could feel its spittle, viscous and coating his flesh where the tongue touched. He could smell something in his saliva. Something that subtly entranced him.
Matt went stock still with fear and the confusion of mixed arousal. He barely perceived her right hand traveling lower on his body. A surprised moan and shudder echoed in the night from Matt’s lips as she took ahold of him. Her hand above his pants but still….stimulating him.
A light squeezing and almost probing of her digits kept him aroused and confused within her grasp. Resigning himself to the strange fate, Matt looked up at the stars as his mind tried not to shatter under the strange maelstrom of events and sensation that had started mere minutes ago.
His mind was only more confused as a slight figure, feminine in build, how it seemed to thunk the ground audibly as she landed on her feet out nowhere. Her knees barely bending under the pressure of the landing. Yet dirt was kicked up anyways and some of it onto Matt. Feeling it pepper his shirt and pants as it fell.
The figure, lit only faintly by moonlight, roared some dark tone Matt could only perceive as a demon as her eyes went bright with a crimson light. A light in the darkness that should not have been. “Let him go you bitch.” Was its words following the roar. Spittle escaping its mouth with faint droplets hit Matt's face.
The creature holding him by his throat and crotch seemed to tighten the grasp of both hands as it roared back. “HE IS MINE!”
The figure paused with a moment's hesitation. He was also her quarry. She had felt his fear without him knowing. His confused arousal. His fear. His terror.
And now he laid at the center of a struggle between two monsters. Unsure of who he wanted to win.
As If It Was Kismet Ch. 1
Matthew Berkshire hadn’t seen his mom in two years. Not that he had seen her much over the last six years.
A messy divorce between messy people and mom’s chaotic want for a life in Alaska had been one of the most…upsetting times in life. Setting him up for so much of what had defined his life thus far but then that had really started two years before he ever turned.
His ear buds were basic and simple. A part of cheap five pack, common for his life as he was known to lose little things. Small things. They had a mix of metal and hard rock playing in them. Some classics, some alternative. Whatever made him feel something, anything. Even if it was hate. Anger. Rage. It was better than feeling numb. Not belonging.
The escalator down to his lone bag to go with his lone carry on showed his mom waiting for him. His had a type, that’s for damn sure. Not that it helped him in the genetics department as he was stuck at 5’9” to go along with his mother’s five foot even as his dad stood six foot. Forever leaving him to feel small, to pale, under his dad’s shadow. Did he ever stand a chance?
The guy next to her with the unkempt former seventies porn stache was “Dave.” He’d met him twice when his mother came and visited him in Florida. To his credit the guy didn’t look annoyed. Kind of concerned kind of which made Matthew want to break his frozen look but he was well practiced. Having removed any note of sadness from his face through much…tribulation.
His mother’s look on her face betrayed a hint of worry as the bruises on his face lightly showed up close. Saying his name was his like a distant echo that belonged to someone else.
Dave cut in and pulled out his right headphone. “What the hell bud, they knock you hard enough to hurt hearing? Your mom’s asking how you are doing.”
Matthew pulled out the other bud and grunted an empty “sorry.”
“You still have bruises after two week? What did they do to you?” His mom’s voice was full of worry. Something he hadn’t heard in….too long. Too long to make him feel anything. To ever make him believe there was any sincerity to her words. To not think her voice and mannerisms were an act. An act by someone who…wasn’t really there.
“It’s only fair. I took a nose. Fractured a couple orbital bones. Left one with having to get his jaw wired shut. And one will never walk right again for what I did to his knee cap.” Matthew said it all with a bored and disinterested tone. Perhaps well rehearsed.
“My man, handing out ass kickings, not bothering to take names.” Dave was quick to be the typical man’s man about it. Matthew wasn’t quite done yet. Lifting up his shirt to expose the right side near his kidney. Revealing a nasty scar from a six inch blade. “Luckily they gave me this first so they could rule it all in self-defense. The fuck didn’t get it in more than inch before I ruined his knee cap and then I took the nose of one of the fucks holding me.” Now he chose to smile keeping the well practiced dead look in his eyes.
No retorts. No questions. Just horrified looks on their faces. As he liked. As he preferred. They could hate him. They could be disgusted by him. But by God they would fear him.
“Well the doc did a good job sewing you up.” Dave commented uncomfortably. “Dissolving sutures. Ain’t they grand.” He smiled again and let it abruptly fall off his face and started walking to the carousel for the baggage claim.
Waiting and making small talk with Dave as his mother stood in silence. He was not the little boy she abandoned. The little boy she left with an angry man. While never hitting him. Left him in constant fear till he turned twelve and just didn’t care anymore. Something snapped. Broke. And he didn’t care if he died. Didn’t care if he stole. Didn’t even care if he killed. He just knew not to get caught. Something left over from his grandfather’s wisdom which came to make more and more sense with each passing year of life since that thing inside him broke.
Finally his bag came around and Dave went to try first to grab it but Dave practically leapt ahead of him. “Is that your grandfather’s rucksack bag?” his mother asked in a perplexed voice.
“Figured it’s been around since Viet Nam. So it’d serve me better than any of the worthless stuff they called luggage.” Dave commented after Matthew’s words. “Well hell yeah I still got mine from Desert Storm. You know the first one.” Dave laughed and Matthew eyed him oddly. Be it in the south or whether it was Alaska, country boys are country boys he guessed.
The car ride to the two people’s house, as Matthew thought of them. Was uneventful and full of vistas he imagined metropolitan types wetting themselves over. At most they meant isolation to him. Furtherness from the world as there were no mountains in Florida. And what mountains he had last seen in another state had been when he was eight. Another life, to Matthew it felt like. A life alien to him.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 2
Dave and his mom’s place was some two story type tucked into a tree line far up an elevated point. It was by no means the highest point in the mountain but it certainly felt up there.
Rocks were where the driveway should have been Matthew thought. Grabbing his backpack and rucksack from Dave’s jeep was no hard thing for him. Matthew was in formidable shape for someone his age, maybe even five years older. He had gotten a mix of fairly big shoulders and arms along with the chest to go for it when compared to most kids his age. A side effect of working out at least twice a day. First thing in the morning, some time in the evening, and the school’s gym when had had a good semester in school before he had to leave Florida.
Dave tried to come up and help him but Matthew walked past him towards the house. His mom was not sure what to make of his demeanor. Matthew was not the sweet kind boy he had once been. But she had been gone from his life essentially for a long time.
Ushering him into the house she cracked some joke he did not hear. He was too busy looking about and seeing a mix of old outdated decorating mixed with the strange and odd flair of his mother. Color contrasting against drab and dated. Like brightly painting over an old home that was falling apart he thought.
“Your room is this way Mattie.” His mom brightly intoned.
Without expressing any interest he followed his mother. Still faced and nonplussed. Just going along with the current. Pushed and pulled with its roll like a piece of driftwood.
The room was simple. A single small bed. A set of rubber weights with a curl bar and barbells. “Your dad said you were into weight lifting so we got you a bunch of stuff. Dave says it looks like his department’s gym almost. The woman’s smile felt very alien to him.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I’ve got most of my stuff from home.” Matthew starting unpacking his rucksack and pulled out cables of repetitive and mixed colors. A single plastic barbell handle. The ruck sack could be filled with water bottles for added weight during pushups he figured. Remembering a Michael Keaton movie he watched with his dad post-Batman movies where he played a convicted killer using plastic bags filled with water for weights.
Matthew caught movement outside his lone fairly large window that could let him step out onto the roof of the house given its layout.
He saw a number of people running together through what he guessed was the backyard of the property, not that it had any fences to mark boundaries
They wore clothes that looked similar yet different from each other at the same time.”Oh those are the Johnston’s. Really nice bunch of people. Been on the mountain for a long time Dave tells me.”
Matthew looked at the group of people running and noticed the lack of resemblance. “They are related?” Matthew quizzically asked. Seeing a black and possibly a hispanic person amongst the bland looking white people.
“Oh well they are all adopted but for one or two of them…besides the parents of course. The family has a long tradition of taking in orphans they say. Real nice of them to do that don’t you think.”
Matthew looked at his mother and the hosier accent made no sense to him as he arched his left eye brow. Her and his dad were both from Florida. Born and raised. Sure her parents were from New York city but…
Matthew shook his lightly without turning to look at his mother as his vision was grabbed by one of the runners in particular. A girl of moderate height. Soft brunette. A plain beauty he figured with a slim build….and lack of remarkable breasts and rear to make any note of but….girls in general were his type at his age.
She was pretty enough. He couldn’t deny that but he found himself transfixed by her visage.
But the way she turned and looked at him, especially at that distance felt very disconcerting to him. Even if she was smiling like…she was a taste of a bright shiny day. Somehow.
Matthew’s mom noticed the exchange and smiled to herself with closed lips. “Oh that’s Vicky. She’s your age I think. Very sweet girl, who does the charity functions. You know bake sales, blood drives, car washes and the like. I think you should get to know her. Might be good for you.”
A truck horn sounded a couple of beeps in rather succession. “Oh that must be Mack, he said he might come by later this evening but he seems early.”
Matthew’s mother turned and left his room. Leaving Matthew to exchange a few looks with the alluring Vicky as she turned her head away from him to talk to the others in her group and look back at him.
Still Matthew’s left eyebrow was arched. In a way that reminded him of Spock from Star Trek that he and his grandpa used to watch on some streaming service or another.
As he heard ambient chatter elsewhere outside the house he figured to check it out as the alluring sight of Vicky would be around he figured. It was dull to stare at artwork. He was a boy who preferred jet skis and the like. Something he could ride and enjoy immensely. Even if at times it got him stabbed.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 3
Matthew sauntered out of the house and down the rockway that stood in for a driveway.
A few new people had come over from what he could first surmise of the situation. As he got closer it was obvious they were indigenous people. A couple of grown men…and a girl?
She was mousey. Maybe five foot. Hiding behind glasses and a big camo jacket that was far too big for her. It looked made for a grown man and the backwards trucker hat on her head kept her long black a beautiful mess of sorts.
She was cute in a way. A little androgynous but she had a cute energy to her. She reminded him of the more tomboyish Puerto Rican girls he had gotten into back in Florida. Given the deer corpses in the back of the truck….probably more dangerous to play with given the men in her family.
Small chatter passed between the adults when the girl noticed but turned away, trying to hide the tiny hint of a smile.
“Oh Mattie, this is Mack. He works with Dave at the sheriff’s department and John, he’s with fish and wildlife.” Matthew nodded at his mom’s words with some blankness as he looked at the deer the in the back of the pickup truck.
“Gale tells us you hunted with your dad some in Florida and Georgia.” Mack offered with a light hearted laugh camouflaged by his big simple and cheery but husky way he spoke.
Looking in the back of the truck he spoke. “We used lever action thirty-thirties and Mosin Nagants in seven-six-two-fifty-four-rimmed.” Mack and John whistled in an exaggerated fashion. Leaving Matthew to wonder if they were mocking him.
Mack spoke. “Well we just used thirty-odd-six in a custom gussied Garand.” That caught Matthew’s attention. “You have a Garand…” Matthew finally demonstrated interest in anything. “My dad has an SVT-40 and a Hakim 8mm but he always wanted a Garand but was too cheap to buy one.”
Gale, his mother, chimed in loudly. “Oh his Dad loved his guns but was such an odd duck about how he bought or why he bought them. Never made sense to me how he wasn’t a collector but he didn’t get the latest and greatest.” Gale laughed uncomfortably. At least it seemed that way to Matthew.
Matthew pointed to the girl with an underhanded pointing hand. “And who is this? A cute little mute mouse or does she have a name?” Dave and the other men laughed.
Mack again spoke. “Well you people call her Rebecca, she’s my adopted daughter.” Matthew was taken aback by what he heard. “You people?”
Rebecca kindly spoke with a soft but almost melodic voice as she struggled to maintain eye contact. “White people or rather not members of our tribe. It’s just easier to appease the colonizer kind of thing. Borrowed from when the Jesuit missionaries chased us up here.”
Mack stepped in. “It’s just easier to have white people names than have them try to say our tribal names. And we don’t want them shortening or Anglicising our names kind of thing.” Rebecca stepped back into the conversation cutting off her adopted father. “It’s an insult to our history basically.”
Matthew cocked his head sideways raising his eyebrows shortly before letting them drop. “Well as soon as I’m eighteen I’m out of here and back to Florida so I’m a sort of involuntary colonizer of sorts. So I won’t be taking any of your land from you. The Seminoles on the other hand are still shit out of luck.”
Rebecca’s smile caused Matthew to reflexively smile. Mack made the moment more awkward. “See Becca, I told you someone off the reservation would like you some. You just have to be creative.” Mack laughed in a chiding manner…Matthew presumed. He sensed that he was the butt of some kind of cultural joke. Like marrying a white guy was some sort of insult or mark of shame. That kind of thing.
Rebecca turning away from him was not something he had been expecting. Her then getting in the truck in a huff left the group in a silence for a moment.
Dave spoke to break the awkward silence. “Well just bring the truck to work on Monday and leave it for me to grab up.” Mack acknowledged Dave and they started to get off as Rebecca looked at Matthew for another instance. Matthew couldn’t look away for some reason as the two seemed to lock eyes for an instance.
Till Vicky and family seemed to come jogging down the road. While Matthew’s eyes diverted from Rebecca’s. Hers did not till she realized he was looking elsewhere. And her vision found Vicky and what had been a hint of smile on her face turned glum and disappointed.
Matthew did not look away from the vision of Vicky but instead of a starry eyed fool looking longingly. It was a baffled look. Well baffled for him, with his eyes drawn narrow and night with a focus.
There was something about her…he couldn’t quite put a name too. The way she appeared to him. One second brunette. The next second blonde or blonde like. As if the color appeared in her air and disappeared in fractions of seconds. Much the same way her body almost seemed to…shift…very subtly…smoothly. A nicer bum. Larger breasts. And then back to a simple and plain form. Feminine no doubt. Attractive. But not so…remarkable.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 4
The next two days passed without incident. Nothing of any real substance or challenge to note.
Matthew got settled somewhat and started working out almost immediately. Exploring around the woods but Dave told him not to go far. Especially without a hunting rifle. Dave had left a simple semi-auto Winchester out for him. His bear gun as Dave referred to it with its four round magazine. But Matt figured till he got some practice with the rifle to leave it alone. He made a hiking stick like his grandpa taught him and treated it over a low fire. He would take some electrical tape for the end his hand would grip around. Plenty enough to ward off anything smaller than a bear he figured.
The ride to school was a pain in the neck but simple enough. Dave would let him use a clunker pickup truck he had laying around. It wasn’t pretty but it would get him to and from. Even if it was from the eighties and still backfired on occasion. But for now Dave and his mom took him on their way to the sheriff’s department.
It wasn’t much of a school. It wanted to be modern but its fifties original construction was very obvious. It serviced the pipeline families and familys’ of fisherman who worked the seasons in between their time at the pipeline.
Matt was to report to the principal for some reason Dave and his mom wouldn’t share. Which annoyed him but he figured it was to read him the law of land. Small towns with their big views of the outside world and like.
Dressed in jeans, a grey sweatshirt under a light jacket with steel toed boots set him more apart then he expected. His buzzed head didn’t help matters. Already he was feeling like a stranger in a strange land but he was quite strange after all. And he liked it that way. Normal people were so pathetically disappointing to him.
A secretary or assistant or some such led him to the principal’s office. Where it reeked of real wood that was old and fabric and upholstery that needed to be updated for the last twenty years, Matt figured.
“This is Matthew Berkshire, Principal Andrews.” The man was turned with his back to the door and he was quick to wave her off as he turned her around.
He was an older man. Fat and large. Tall with a body built like he had once been fit and a demeanour of annoyed and irate already as he fixed Matt with a scowl and look of disgust. Another worthless government whore. Matt thought to himself. His father and his grandfather had bestowed unto him a natural disrespect for government workers and the figures that wore unjustified authority as a shield but pretended the weight of the state was not at their back ready to crush all who resisted. Little figures of valor pretending to be mighty and alone but acting with the tyranny of the state and all the backing.
“Mr. Berkshire, please sit down.” His tone wasn’t unusually hostile, just gruff. As if he had better things to do.
Matt complied and took a seat in the chair while maintaining a friendly facade. Not everyone was an enemy. And not everyone needed to be an enemy. Even if anybody could be any enemy. There was no reason to make enemies you didn’t have to. Another of his grandfather’s bastardised wisdoms.
“Well I looked over you file and you have quite the history Mr. Berkshire.” Matt resisted qiuping back a joke. Instead he waited for Principal Andrews to continue as he remained nonplussed and looking as if he felt no need to respond. A simple head tilt with dead eyes looking back at the principle as if he was not even there would suffice.
Matt’s reaction or lack of a reaction rather made Principal Andrews only narrow his eyes with examination. He was not used to a kid not responding to him. Especially with his gruff and hard act going on.
“Well by all accounts you moved here after some problems at your last school. A fight broke out and you did some real harm to your fellow students it appears.” Of course, he would take the side of the perpetrators. School administrators always did. Especially when they weren’t white. Just a fact of the times. Cowardice and pathetic mediocrity was the way they leaned, like good government workers sucking the dick of Big Daddy government. Worthless whores.
Matt chose to reply. “Oh you mean the criminals that stabbed me. Got arrested at the hospital and then pled to felonies. Yeah Florida, with the American counties are good like that.” Principal Andrews went real still. No shame. No fear. No penitence. He didn’t like that.
“Well be it as it may Mr. Berkshire we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here…” Matt cut him off responding with a deadpan tone. “You mean self-defense meant to save one’s own life while the cowardly and pathetic school workers look on with zero interest but to keep their money rolling in and will allow known gang members with records of violent acts and crimes that should have them expelled many times over, where in certain Democrat counties such cowardice and idiocy empowered a couple school shooters?”
Principal Andrews looked at the Matt with a note of disgust. “Look here Mr. Berkshire, your beliefs matter not one bit here. This isn’t Florida. We don’t like our way of life being disrupted by outside agitators who have problems with authority.”
Matt did his best not to roll his eyes and let the older fat man drone own as he dead-stared him. Lifeless and without emotion.
The man came to a finish and Matt spoke up without having listened to him or paid him any attention. “Great now that’s taken care of. Can I please get to class and finish my sentence of two years at your wonderful school?”
Principal Andrews huffed and snorted before calling in Vicky. Vicky stood in the corner after entering with a quiet and seamless presence. Matt felt disturbed and tried not betray his feelings as the young Vicky was perceived and not perceived to be moving.
Principal Andrews made the introductions and Matt nodded back. She was to be his chaperone for the day. They had the same classes and she was to show him the ropes so to speak. The ins and outs of the school. The locations of their classes.
He recognized her. It was hard not to. The way her appearance seemed to shift fluidly almost. The petite and skinny brunette ever so lightly had a big bust and blonde hair with curves added when she seemed to shift before his eyes. Like watching a film but each frame had a different person.
Matt didn’t say anything about it. Even if he did he would only be acknowledging his crazed state, if he had one. If.
Unlike an obedient puppy dog he got up in a slow and awkward fashion and followed behind her as his oddly disproportionate frame allowed. Causing her a note of concern for some reason. As if she was seeing something she shouldn’t have been….Or he was just weird. And Matt could admit to himself he was just weird. Part of his charm, he would jest about it at times. Not that he had many people to jest to now.
As If It Were Kismet Ch. 5
Following Vicky into the hall off to their first class was simple. She exchanged small talk and he slightly smiled as if to obviously suggest he was just being polite.
Inside his head, Matt was trying to figure out if he was having a psychotic break. The way Vicky looked kept changing and he looked at the other people around him and they stayed the same.
He was searching his mind as they were walking. And thus he wasn’t paying attention to where he was looking and so fell to his face forward over his feet seemingly out of nowhere.
A series of laughs erupted as it sunk in that he was obviously tripped. Like in prison this was a challenge to his superiority. If he let this pass he would be mocked and sneered at by this same group of boys. He wouldn’t walk to them like he was going to do nothing like a little bitch.
In a rage he turned and punched the stomach of the first face he saw. Some typical blonde haired wannabe jock. He knew from experience not to aim for the ribs. Instead he needed to aim for where he thought the belly button was.
Yells and screams blindly echoed around him as his after the punch he followed up his elbow of the opposite arm slamming into the face of the jock. Harder than a fist, the elbow struck the jock’s jaw and seemingly dropped him against a locker. Just in time to catch an errant and soft punch to the nose that sure enough hurt but did little to slow him down as his dad had taught him to fight through the pain. Blood and scars happened. They were a natural consequence of life to a man.
Taking the punch and falling further into his red state Matt headbutted the punch thrower before another guy arm bared his throat from behind. Which he managed to get his grip on the arm over a letterman jacked and jerk the unprepared boy to the side with him still latched on.
A few feet away from the lockers Matt knew his only chance was to jump and push off the lockers and knock the boy to the ground and so he did. He heard a thunk of the boy’s skull bouncing off the ground and he turned to pull out of the grapple.
The beatings he had taken from his father, the grapples, being choked unconscious. Had prepared him for fighting little bitches who didn’t know what a fight was. It wasn’t gay porn with rabbit punch fists flying.
Blood was running down his face and the pain started to hit him as the threats had been eliminated. Only then did he remember to breathe. Taking breathes as Vicky came up to him with tissues and took a hold of his nose.
“Owww owww owww what the fuck my nose could be broken.” He said to Vicky as she pulled his head up and back.
“It’s ok Carl. It’s done.” Matt tried to look to see who Vicky was talking to. It was a boy taller than his 5’9” by more than a small margin. The boy eyed him bored and annoyed before speaking. “What happened here?” An unoriginal line but one Matt couldn’t be a smart aleck about. “Well you see there was an outbreak of tripping and we all tripped over my dick. It happens.” Matt was about to laugh when Vicky seemed to pull up while still gripping his nose causing Matt no small amount of pain which he audibly evidenced.
Vicky spoke in a tone he wasn’t expecting. As if she was accustomed to issuing orders. “Keep Iris away from the hall till we sanitize the site. We have blood from at least three people contaminating the site. And have Jake bring me a spare jacket and shirt for this moron.”
Carl seemed to acknowledge her orders and seemed to blink away. Maybe the punch hit harder than he expected. He had no time to wonder as Vick took her hand away from his and pushed him against the lockers. With ease he had not been expecting from her form and stature.
Before he could respond Vicky licked his blood covered chin and then his lips and spoke to him. “Focus on me you little blood bag.” Her tone had an annoyed yet feminine sneer.
“Look into my eyes. Look at me. You belong to me. You are just another food source in a collection of food sources.” Her eyes were a beautiful hazel Matt thought. Almost green. Pretty like jewels in some old treasure collections. The eyes he could get lost in before kissing her. Finally Vicky was just a slight and petite brunette and he thought she was beautiful.
She would make a hell of a girlfriend. Some cute thing he could see laying on the beach in Florida on their sides laughing and smiling before trading light kisses while hands wandered innocently. Before his mind could drift further he felt her lips on his. It took him a second to mentally grasp the kiss but his arms were around her back as her hands were at his sides. His eyes reflexively closed as he saw hers close.
It was ineffable to Matt. Beyond words, what was happening. The kiss, the moments beforehand. The way his brain tickled with electricity and gentle warmth. He had never had a kiss like this and he had traded more than a few kisses with at least a few girls.
The kiss was like a warm bath with his consciousness slipping beneath the surface. Their lips only parted to try new angles and approaches as Matt struggled to take in breath. It was a moment he could have stayed trapped in for….he didn’t know. But a curt throat clearing by another girl pulled them out of the moment.
The girl was taller than Vicky. Blonde. With slight curves. Vicky addressed her bewildered and gobsmacked, and perhaps a bit embarrassed. “Tina?”

Ruby groaned as the alarm went off signaling that one of her charges had arrived back from their mission. While troublesome in its own right, what really got under her skin was that she only had one charge at the moment, and that edge lord piece of shit wasn’t supposed to complete his task for AT LEAST another 4 deca-cycles according to the prediction algorithm. Grumbling to herself, she rolled out of bed and poured herself a glass of water to offset the hangover she was trying to recover from.

A few moments later she was gliding down the hall to the meeting room. She knew Jason was going to pitch a fit that she had left him waiting, the self-entitled brat always did think the world revolved around him; but perhaps he should have thought about that before freaking dying so early. If he wanted her to be there to meet him upon death, he could at least have the decency to not die the morning after one of her binges.

Other staff members gave her a wide berth, even if it was a hollow title, she was still technically far above basically anyone else in the pecking order, at least those who had a physical presence within the Agency. She knew they all mocked her behind her back, even divine beings were sadly prone towards gossip. She put the anger at her subordinates/coworkers out of her mind for now; even if she didn’t particularly LIKE Jason, he still didn’t deserve her coming in with baggage.

Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed that she’d arrived in front of the conference room door. She had been mulling over her thoughts, just staring into nothingness, for several minutes before she finally snapped back to the present. With a soft rap on the door, she opened it and floated inside. Jason was lounging, sprawled out on the regally padded chair throne he so fancied.

They exchanged pleasantries before she sat down to go over the mission summary. Upon seeing the cause of death, she had regrettably lost her composure and started to laugh uncontrollably. Her mighty subordinate had been felled by a goblin?! The mighty Jason Alexander Coyle, “mercenary extraordinaire”, had gotten his shit kicked in by a lowly goblin using what looked like a shiny butter knife. Oh, it was just too rich to not laugh at the absurdity.

It took her much longer than she would like to admit, to stop laughing. Jason of course wore a sour look through the entire endeavor. She shrugged it off, she had little doubt that if the same thing had happened to someone else, he would have been right beside her doubled over in laughter. Hell, once he was in a less pissy mood, she might even be able to get him to laugh about it later.

As luck would have it, it appeared that Jason’s actions had been enough to alter the tides of the war. The kingdom, and its divinity, would still lose many to the battles ahead, but Jason had done enough that the Agency could still bill the client for services rendered. As she spoke, she could see the disdain the man had for her, he always complained that she was drunk and reeked of liquor. Sure, that was often true, but he didn’t need to be such a stick in the mud about it all.

She went ahead and authorized the transfer of credits to Jason’s account. As soon as she did so, he opened up the store page and tuned her out. She watched him open up the back-channel site and purchase something, a small part of her wondered who was going to get roasted over the coals this time for allowing their admin privileges to be hacked. She toyed with the idea of bringing up his illegal actions, but truth be told she didn’t really give a shit. The other divinities were far too lax with their security, it had been child's play for one of her previous wards to hack into the Agency’s system and build the black site.

She’d ask him once about the whole thing, didn’t really grasp as much as she would have liked, but basically it functioned by spoofing a handler's credentials. This allowed the user to gain access to encrypted parts of the network, specifically access to certain privileged services that handlers enjoyed and most importantly, access to the mission assignment database. Users could buy and sell restricted or banned goods, and a part of the profits would be siphoned off to her ward’s personal account.

With Jason’s attention otherwise occupied, Ruby went ahead and reviewed the logs for his previous mission. Something about it was nagging at her. She couldn’t put it into words; however, the whole series of events just didn’t feel like ‘bad luck’. Using her divine authority, she rewound events, watching Jason’s lungs unfill with blood and refill with air.

The goblin skulked back to its den of corpses, resheathing the dagger at its hips, and reburied itself underneath the bodies. She let it rewind another few moments before stopping the feed and letting it run at normal time. She watched the goblin, slowly shifting the bodies out of the way, making sure they made no noise when it moved them. Slowly, carefully, it began to creep towards Jason’s exposed back. It drew the blade, again slowly and quietly. It closed the distance making sure to never let Jason see it or to give him any reason to think someone was behind him. Then in a flash of movement it leapt, burying the dagger right into a joint in Jason’s armor. The placement was perfect, no resistance, so the blade sank to the hilt. Allowing it to puncture Jason’s right lung.

Ruby rewound the log once more. This was wrong, very wrong. The goblin was way too good to just be some random grunt. Its movements were too smooth, its aim too precise. No, she was sure of it now, this was not a normal goblin. She focused her attention on the thing, aiming to scan the goblin for abnormalities, the dust covering it offering a surprising level of resistance to her scan. Not enough to stop her from doing what she wanted, but more resistance than she felt was reasonable for the anti-magic powder.

When she finally gained access to the monster’s stat block, her suspicions were proven correct. That was no normal goblin, that was a Redcap, a Redcap assassin no less. What in the dozen hells was a Redcap assassin doing in the middle of a freaking battlefield?! Such a valuable unit wouldn’t be used on the front lines, their skill set was terribly suited for the chaos that was an active battle. No, something was very wrong here and Ruby was going to figure out what.

As her mind raced trying to puzzle out what the actual fuck was going on, something else about the goblin flagged in her mind. It had come out of the corpse pile with the dagger already in its possession. She highlighted the various bodies that had made up the goblin's hidey hole, and then rewound the scene back. Every time one of the highlighted bodies met their fate, she froze the moment and pulled the scene into a separate window. It took a few minutes, but she eventually had all of the corpses frozen in the heartbeat before their deaths. She went through and scanned every single individual. Not a single one had been equipped with a magic disruptor blade. “So, where the fuck did the Redcap get a kingdom issued disruptor?”

Looking up, she saw that Jason was still fiddling with whatever it was that he bought. She tried to make idle conversation with the man, but he had gone full auto pilot, giving curt one-to-two word answers when asked a question or having to respond to a comment. She rolled her eyes, as much as she and him butted heads, she did have to admit that she did kind of like the guy. He had been going a little too hard into the whole dark and brooding edge lord thing recently, but that was hardly his fault. The human soul was ill suited to withstand the trauma of death, much less multiple deaths. The Agency usually did a memory scrub every couple missions, to prevent that kind of issue, but Jason had been dodging the screenings. For a moment she considered just letting sleeping dogs lie. Jason was dead and the mission was over regardless of what she might find, but the whole thing just rubbed her the wrong way.

Taking a little nip from her pocket flask, she once more focuses her attention on the Redcap. After scrubbing through the last several months of the creature’s life, she finally finds what she was looking for. The blade had come from one of Jason’s personal guards.

Ruby did a deep dive on the guard, and what came back made her blood run cold. The man had recently lost his lover. Jason had ordered a company to mop up a fleeing enemy force, before it could regroup and cause more issues. The entire thing had been a ruse and the company had been slaughtered to the last. The guard's lover had been part of that company. The loss had hit the man hard, driving him to the only rock left in his life. His deep belief in the kingdom’s divinity.

And wouldn’t you know it, apparently the kingdom’s divinity had some issues with Jason that it couldn’t be bothered to address through the proper channels. So instead of letting Ruby handle the trainwreck that was Jason’s social skills, this little scum lord of a God, had taken upon themself to deal with the issue. Several months of holy visions were enough to convince the grieving widow to betray everyone and everything he had ever known.

Once the guard had been properly brainwashed into turning his coat, it had been a simple matter to worm his way on to all of Jason’s post-fight surveys of the battlefield. The magic scanners that were exclusive to Jason’s retinue, had allowed him to see that Jason’s inhuman ability to avoid taking damage was really just a creative use of high-level magic. High-level magic that could have easily been used to save many of the kingdom’s soldiers. But of course, Jason believed himself too good to give the common man a means to protect themselves and those they loved. All this knowledge was of course worthless to the guard, he was nowhere near skilled enough to actually challenge Jason. But wouldn’t you know it, the divinity had thought of that too.

The podunk worm had brokered a secret deal with the enemy he’d contracted the Agency to deal with. In exchange for getting rid of a thorn in the God’s side, it would use its powers to scale back the war. Instead of facing a war of eradication, the enemy would be allowed to keep some of the land it had conquered.

At the urging of his God, the guard held a series of clandestine meetings with the Redcap. Imparting all the information he had learned in the months of shadowing Jason. He also gave the beast two gifts, the first was a Disruptor blade the guard had swiped from a fellow honor guard; when Jason’s corpse was found the blade would be traced back to the unfortunate guard instead of the traitor. The second was a satchel of Grarothian powder that had been blessed by the divinity, to ensure that Jason wouldn’t see the attack coming. It had worked of course; Jason hadn’t even known he was in danger till the blade was already buried in his lung. Oh, she was going to have the wannabe God’s head on a pike after this.

It pained her to admit it, but Jason deserved the final say in how this was all going to go down. She attempted to grab his attention, but the man was lost in his own little world. She tried waving her hands, ignored. She tried snapping her fingers in his ears, ignored. She even went so far as to beat her wings, blasting his face with the wind force of just under a category 1 hurricane; again ignored. Her rage was starting to reach fever pitch. So, she defaulted to the most tried and true method of stress reduction she had in her arsenal. She decided the only way for herself and Jason, once he knew the truth, to calm down would be to relax with a drink of the finest Earth treats.

With a heavy heart she opened up her most beloved extra planer storage space. This place was used for the only two things Ruby really cared about anymore. It was where she kept her most prized and coveted liquor, and where she kept the last few mementos, she possessed of her fallen wards. Her eyes scanned the room, she needed to pick the right apology gift. As she carefully made her way towards the back, she saw it. Tucked in about two thirds of the way to the back wall, stood a single hogshead of ancient scotch whiskey. The second to last gift she had received from one of her dearest friends, all those years ago.

Yes, this was the correct one. She felt it deep within her chest, a proper atonement requires a proper level of sacrifice. With a heavy heart she lifted the barrel over her head and began to stride out of the extra dimensional space. As she neared the opening, the soft clink of something falling and a flash of gold caught her eye. Sitting on a tiny end table was a small pouch of coins, one of which had somehow gotten loose and tumbled face up onto the polished table face.

For a moment she hesitated, she knew exactly what those coins were; and knew how much trouble she would get into if upper management found out she had them. That said, she also knew a sign when she saw one. The artifacts that she held within this place were the last remnants of those she had failed most of all. She pondered the meaning behind the fact that two of her previous charges seemed to have taken a shine to Jason, offering up to him their most precious of gifts. With a heavy heart and a plea to those long lost, she grabbed the coin before closing the pocket dimension.

With a loud *CLUNK* She set the hogshead down. Apparently, the sound of the barrel had finally made enough noise to draw Jason’s attention away from his screen. From a much smaller storage pocket she produced two crystal glasses. Pouring a hefty serving into each glass, she set one down in front of herself and the other in front of Jason. Locking eyes with the man, she said a single word.

“Drink”

The man twisted his face up in disgust at the sight of the liquor.

“Thanks, but no thanks, I’m not inclined to degr...”

“I said, DRINK!” Ruby growl bellows, casting the Command spell on the last word. Jason, despite his best efforts to ignore the compulsion, is forced to do as he is told, and takes a hearty swig of his hundred-year-old Scotch. With a smile on her lips, Ruby takes the opportunity to sip the illustrious gift. The hours melt away as they both sip and savor the deep complex flavors of this legendary brew.

As the drink flows her recollection of events becomes just a tad bit hazy. She can’t really remember how long it takes, but she does eventually come clean about the reason for this impromptu bout of drinking. It comes as little shock that Jason is... less than pleased to learn about the events that led to his death. He downs the rest of his drink in a single gulp, a waste of grand booze in Ruby’s opinion, and demands she fill his next one to the brim. For the first time in FAR too long, Ruby gets to see the Jason she had known all those years ago was still in there.

As the festivities carried on, she would occasionally catch him fiddling with the token he had bought. Curiosity finally getting the better of her, she decided to ask him about it, deciding to NOT mention that she knew it was illicitly purchased. He was cagey about it at first, but eventually loosened up and told her the truth.

He had grown bored with the usual missions that he had been assigned. He was sick of always having to play support, always cleaning up someone else’s messes, always laying the groundwork for someone else’s story. So, he had decided to cash in his points, and finally make use of the vacation time he had accrued. He had picked out what looked to be a pretty basic Isekai mission. Ruby suggested not mentioning his luck to anyone else, even she was aware how rare and coveted those missions were.

As the night wound to a close, they said their goodbyes. Before taking her leave, Ruby remembered the other present she had for Jason. A sharp whistle was the only warning she gave him before flicking the coin at his head. Even drunk, the man’s senses were still a thing to marvel at as he caught it in midair .

“The fuck is this?”

“Think of it as a gift.” She snorts.

“Oh, how generous of you. A whole gold coin, whatever will I spend it on.” Jason responds as he jangles the large coin pouch at his hip.

“Oh, fuck off. I’ll take it back if you’re going to be a brat about it.”

Jason drops the coin into his wallet and shakes it again for good measure. “Oops, too late now. Guess you’ll just have to let me keep it.” He gives her a smug grin.

She scoffed before turning around and making for the door. She could hear him activate the token as she closed the door behind her. As she wandered down the hallways back to her room, she pondered the events of the day. The rogue client would need to be dealt with, but she still wasn’t sure if burying him in legal paperwork for the next millennia or two, or just giving him a good old fashion human curb stomping, was the better punishment for his actions.

The choices bounced around in her head till she finally reached her residence. Having made no real progress in deciding her actions, she elected to just table the decision till she woke up next. The God was small time, so it wasn’t like it was going anywhere.

She took her time getting ready to sleep. Being a divine being herself, she didn’t actually NEED to sleep, but she did so enjoy the human customs surrounding the whole process. She took a long hot bath to unwind, before summoning a pair of adorable pajamas. Her body clean, and her mind at peace she laid down in her oversized excessively fluffy bed.

She had barely closed her eyes and began to drift off to blissful sleep, before she was awoken once again by the sound of her alarm going off.

“You have got to be shitting me. HOW?!?!”

Just a personal list of my most memorable Moyes’ games since his reappointment in 2019. Telling that the majority of league matches come from the 2020-21 period, suggesting it’s probably the right time to change. Thanks David, you put the pride back into being a Hammers fan.
Hope others share their favourite games.
Premier League- 4th Oct 2020- Leicester 0- West Ham 3 First signs that Moyes’ counter attacking style could be effective and exciting as we shock a high-riding Leicester team. Antonio, Fornals and Bowen all on the scoresheet.
Premier League- 18th Oct 2020- Tottenham 3- West Ham 3 Optimism from the previous games start to fade as we flatline early to a three-goal deficit, are we back to the same old West Ham? An amazing turnaround capped by Lanzini’s wondrous injury-time equaliser shows Moyes’ has instilled a grit and perseverance we have been missing.
Premier League- 5th April 2021- Wolves 2- West Ham 3 Barnstorming first-half as we brutalise Wolves on the break and race into a three-goal lead. Moyes’ favoured style now supercharged with Lingard on board. The heady heights of 4th in the table, daring to dream of the Champions League.
Premier League- 23rd May 2021- West Ham 3- Southampton 0 Late-season defeats to Newcastle, Chelsea and Everton have killed the Champions League dream but joy abounds on the final day of the season as we clinch 6th and a Europa League spot. Pablito scores two quick first half-goals and a late Declan Rice solo effort seals the deal. Fans allowed back in the stadium after a season of playing in eerie emptiness; strangely we thrived!
Premier League- 7th November 2021- West Ham 3- Liverpool 2 This was Moyes’ peak in the league as our physical strength on set-pieces and lightning- fast breaks overcame a disgruntled Liverpool. We reach the heady heights of 3rd yet strangely it seemed to go downhill league-wise from here.
Europa League- 17th March 2022- West Ham 2 Sevilla 0 (AET) Moyes greatest result? Still feels a surreal night, a weird fever dream as we comfortably upset a Sevilla side who had made this competition their own. The atmosphere at the bowl is fervent, Soucek heads us level in the tie and Yarmolenko adds the scriptwriter's ending, scoring the winner and leaves the pitch with the Ukrainian flag. Russia had declared war on his country three weeks earlier. Lopetegui leaves defeated but with unfinished business in Stratford.
Europa League- 15th April 2022- Lyon 0 West Ham 3 Going into second-leg as underdogs , the Hammers produce a classic away performance to shock an overconfident French side and march into the semi-finals. Ballon D’Awson, Rice and Bowen with the goals and the high point in Moyes’ relationship with the fans as he is serenaded off the pitch.
Premier League- 16th April 2023- West Ham 2- Arsenal 2 Flickering signs of mongrel in the dying dog as the Hammers take offence to a showboating Gunners side two-up and high on hubris. Rice leads the press and Arsenal crumble under the pressure leaving their title challenge in tatters. The home fans ask why it took 30 games into the campaign to show this passion. Moyes' side have been too passive and meek all season.
Europa Conference League Final- 7th June 2023- Fiorentina 1 West Ham 2 Moyes and Bowen entrench themselves in Hammers folklore as a last-gasp winner seals our first trophy in 43 years. In truth, the match was emblematic of late-Moyes style as we grind our way unprettily through the game but who cares when the result is this joyous. Moyes gets a deserved first trophy of a long managerial career and in keeping with his old-school values hangs the medal round the neck of his elderly father.
Europa League - April 19th, 2024- West Ham 1 Bayer Leverkusen 1 The rage against the dying of the light as a first half of shock and awe rattles the all-conquering Leverkusen. Moyes’ side, desperate to stay in the competition, go for the jugular from the off and show the high-energy, front-foot style fans have been crying out for. We know the dream is dead when the half-time whistle goes, and we are only one -up. Predictably, the players can hardly run in the second half, lack of squad depth and indiscipline from key players have left us snookered. Fully expect to see the referee exposed as being ‘on the take’ in the next few years. That first half though, what might have been Davie?

I'm getting this warning: Your active refr handle count is currently 802150 which is dangerously close to the limit. Please check the Engine Fixes log for more details.
My mod list:
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"0194","FSMPM - The FSMP MCM"
"0195","CBPC Equipment Physics"
"0196","Your mom (and dad)"
"0197","Achievements Mods Enabler"
"0198","Realistic Water Two SE"
"0199","Water in Wells - mesh-only animated wells"
"0200","Skyrim Caches"
"0201","Moonlight Tales Mini - Highly Compatible Werewolf and Werebear Addon"
"0202","Growl - Werebeasts of Skyrim"
"0203","Underwear for BHUNP and HIMBO for Underwear.dll"
"0204","Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice"
"0205","Sound Record Distributor"
"0206","Storm Lightning for SSE and VR (Minty Lightning 2019)"
"0207","Thunder Sounds - WiZkiD Mix -"
"0208","Enhanced Blood Textures"
"0209","Audio Overhaul for Skyrim (4.1.2)"
"0210","A Tribute to the Kaua'i 'o'o- Immersive Easter Eggs (SE-AE version)"
"0211","NPC Dialogue Audio Enhancer"
"0212","Skyrim Extended Cut - Saints and Seducers"
"0213","Acoustic Space Improvement Fixes"
"0214","Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion"
"0215","Regional Sounds Expansion (SRD - Wilds Dungeons Towns Ambience Birds - Fixes)"
"0216","Precision Trail Replacer - Simple"
"0217","SkyHUD"
"0218","QuickLoot EE"
"0219","ConsolePlusPlus"
"0220","Wynter's Breezehome"
"0221","moreHUD Inventory Edition"
"0222","moreHUD SE"
"0223","More Informative Console"
"0224","SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators SE"
"0225","More Immersive Activations (SkyRem Activations)"
"0226","EVG Animated Traversal"
"0227","Dungeons - Revisited"
"0228","SkyClimb"
"0229","Simpler Knock"
"0230","Take a Peek - New Stealth Mechanic"
"0231","Interactive Wash Basins"
"0232","The Final Cataclysm - 2020"
"0233","EVG Animated Traversal - Patch Collection"
"0234","Purchaseable Store-Display-Items"
"0235","Convenient Dialogue UI - SE"
"0236","Take a Peek - New Stealth Mechanic - Settings Loader"
"0237","A Matter of Time - A HUD clock widget"
"0238","A Matter of Time - A HUD clock widget - Settings Loader"
"0239","Static Mesh Improvement Mod"
"0240","Static Mesh improvement Mod - SMIM - Quality Addon"
"0241","Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers"
"0242","Take a Nap - Sleep on Chairs"
"0243","Horns Are Forever (Persistent Argonian Horns)"
"0244","Improved closefaced helmets"
"0245","Improved Closedfaced Helmets Patches"
"0246","Convenient Horses"
"0247","Take a Seat - New Sitting Animations for OAR or DAR"
"0248","Better Wedding Guests"
"0249","Falskaar"
"0250","Falskaar - Addons and Patches - Fast Travel fix"
"0251","Falskaar - Addons and Patches"
"0252","Moonpath to Elsweyr SSE"
"0253","Comprehensive Falskaar Fixes"
"0254","Beyond Skyrim - Assets"
"0255","Beyond Skyrim - Bruma"
"0256","Beyond Skyrim - Bruma inegration patch"
"0257","Fat Skyrim - A worldspace expansion - Standalone"
"0258","Darkend"
"0259","Beyond Reach"
"0260","Fluffworks (Fluffy Animals)"
"0263","Static Mesh Improvement Mod Improvement Mod"
"0265","Simple Wearable Lanterns"
"0266","The Scarlett - A Buildable Ship (SE)"
"0267","Wolf Follower - Dynamic pet including Hunger and Growth system - SE"
"0268","Security Overhaul SKSE - Lock Variations"
"0269","Security Overhaul SKSE - Add-ons"
"0270","Skyrim Immersive Creatures Special Edition"
"0271","Zoro's Katana's"
"0272","Berserk Judeau Armor"
"0273","Equip Enchantment Fix"
"0274","Scrambled Bugs"
"0275","Falling Gildergreen Petals - SE"
"0276","Gildergreen Regrown"
"0277","Keyword Item Distributor"
"0278","MergeMapper"
"0279","Dialogue Movement Enabler"
"0280","Dirt and Blood - Dynamic Visual Effects"
"0281","The Forgotten City"
"0282","Expanded Dragon Bridge"
"0283","Skyrim Borders Disabled - SSE-Edition"
"0284","Helgen Reborn"
"0285","Enhanced Solitude SSE"
"0286","Icy Mesh Remaster"
"0287","Settlements Expanded"
"0288","Stonecrest City Reborn SE"
"0289","Midwood Isle"
"0290","Siege at Icemoth"
"0291","Siege at Icemoth F&S patch"
"0292","Beyond Reach - Tweaks and Enhancements"
"0293","More Bandit Camps SSE"
"0294","Wyrmstooth"
"0295","All Thieves Guild Jobs Concurrently"
"0296","Bandit Economy"
"0297","Bandit Lines Expansion"
"0298","Clockwork (SSE)"
"0299","The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal SE"
"0300","Blackreach Railroad"
"0301","Brhuce Hammar Legacy - Special Edition"
"0302","Aethernautics- A Space Travel Mod"
"0303","The Lost Wonders of Mzark"
"0304","Fyr Manor Special Edition"
"0305","Dwemer Spectres Special Edition"
"0306","Ancient Dwemer Metal - My patches for SMIM Dawnguard Dragonborn by Xtudo"
"0307","The Wheels of Lull - Unwound Edition - Settings Loader"
"0308","The Wheels of Lull SE"
"0309","Moon and Star"
"0310","Catching Clockwork - Wheels of Lull Fishing Addon"
"0311","TrueHUD - Wheels of Lull Patch"
"0312","Khajiit have ears"
"0313","Toymania"
"0314","IA Merged - Vanilla version"
"0315","Garm the Husky Companion"
"0316","Fare Thee Well - Spouses and Children Give Blessings (TAGS - Family)"
"0317","Immersive World Encounters SE"
"0318","BERSERK"
"0319","Berserk - The Black Swordsman"
"0320","Berserker Armor - An Immersive Berserk-inspired Armor"
"0321","ADXP I MCO Berserker guts Animation"
"0322","Dragon Slayer - Berserk"
"0323","BDOR Berserker Conversions"
"0324","Berserker Armor - BDOR Berserk Model"
"0325","[immyneedscake] BDOR Berserk SSE (Cloth SMP)"
"0326","Berserker Armor - SkyTEST Patch"
"0327","Berserker Armor - Immersive World Encounters Patch"
"0328","Berserker Armor - Growl Patch"
"0329","Berserker Armor MAIN FILE"
"0330","Berserker Armor - Update"
"0331","Footprints"
"0332","Footprints - Alternative Design"
"0333","SPID for Footprints"
"0334","Ultimate fix - SPID for Footprints"
"0335","Boethiah for Good Guys"
"0336","Capital Windhelm Expansion"
"0337","Capital Windhelm Expansion ai"
"0338","Capital Windhelm Expansion ussep"
"0339","Capital Windhelm Expansion - Normal"
"0340","Warbird's Whiterun Metropolis"
"0341","WWM - USSEP Patch"
"0342","WWM - DVLaSS Underside Patch"
"0343","Whiterun Battle Brothers"
"0344","WWM - SIC Patch"
"0345","SIC SE - Add-Ons and Patches"
"0346","VIGILANT SEAE"
"0347","VIGILANT Voiced - English Addon"
"0348","TrueHUD - Vigilant Boss Bars ini"
"0349","Attack Dogs - A dog combat overhaul"
"0350","Attack Dogs - Bone Wolf CC Patch"
"0351","Attack Dogs - Skytest - SIC Patch"
"0352","Attack Dogs - Unofficial Skyrim Patch"
"0353","Attack Dogs - Vigilant Patch"
"0354","Attack Dogs - Wolf Follower Patch"
"0355","Attack Dogs - Winterhold Restored Patch"
"0356","Immersive College NPCs"
"0357","Immersive College of Winterhold"
"0358","Actor Limit Fix"
"0359","Better College Application"
"0360","Obscure's College of Winterhold"
"0361","Ultimate College of Winterhold"
"0362","Winterhold Restored"
"0363","Relationship Dialogue Overhaul - RDO SE"
"0364","Relationship Dialogue Overhaul - Update and MCM"
"0365","ES - EVGAT Patch"
"0366","Solitude Docks Updated"
"0367","Expanded Towns and Cities"
"0368","Cities of the North - Falkreath"
"0369","The Great City Of Falkreath SSE Edition"
"0370","Cities of the North - Falkreath Patch Collection"
"0371","Lanterns Of Skyrim II"
"0372","Myrwatch - Editable Home Cells (Cell Bug Workaround)"
"0373","SkyTest Integration"
"0374","Cities of the North - Morthal"
"0375","Interesting NPCs (3DNPC) - Patches"
"0376","Mfg Fix"
"0377","Civil War Aftermath SE"
"0378","The Shire SE"
"0379","Undeath Remastered"
"0380","Carved Brink"
"0381","Skyrim Cut Content Restoration"
"0382","Extended Vanilla Menus"
"0383","Point The Way"
"0384","Jewelry Limiter - Another Multiple Rings and Amulets Mod"
"0385","Equipable Beast Tails - HDT SMP (Physics)"
"0386","BIGGERER Smp Argonian Tails"
"0387","ES AI Overhaul patch"
"0388","Gemling Queen Jewelry SE"
"0389","Folkstead and the Border of Hammerfell"
"0390","Circlet USSEP Fixes"
"0391","Gemling Queen Jewelry SE USSEP Circlet Fix"
"0392","Undeath - Classical Lichdom"
"0393","Undeath - XPMSSE - Strange Runes - Skeleton Patch"
"0394","Pirates Wield Cutlasses"
"0395","AI Overhaul SSE - Official Patch Hub"
"0396","Xelzaz - Custom Fully Voiced Argonian Telvanni Follower"
"0397","Beyond Skyrim - Wares of Tamriel SE"
"0398","Project AHO"
"0399","Project AHO - Skytest Patch (Fix Invisible Mudcrabs) - ESPFE"
"0400","Unofficial Project AHO - Bugfix and Improvement Patch"
"0401","College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion"
"0402","Better Dynamic Snow SE"
"0403","LeanWolf's Better-Shaped Weapons - All in One Installer"
"0404","Civil War Deserters"
"0405","Castle Volkihar Rebuilt - SSE"
"0406","Cloaks of Skyrim SSE"
"0407","Artesian Cloaks of Skyrim"
"0408","FileAccess Interface for Skyrim SE Scripts - FISSES"
"0409","Depths of the Reach"
"0410","Skyrim Underground SSE"
"0411","SkyrimUnderground_Add-On"
"0412","Cities of the North - Dawnstar"
"0413","Save The Dark Brotherhood - Skyrim Special Edition"
"0414","Dark Brotherhood Reborn - Dawnstar Sanctuary SEE"
"0415","House of Horrors - Quest Expansion"
"0416","Nilheim - Misc Quest Expansion"
"0417","The Only Cure - Quest Expansion"
"0418","The Only Cure Quest Expansion - Patches"
"0419","The Whispering Door - Quest Expansion"
"0420","The Heart of Dibella - Quest Expansion"
"0421","The Shire Unofficial Patch"
"0422","Unofficial Carved Brink Patch"
"0423","Go to bed"
"0424","Sleeping Expanded - Animations and NPC reactions"
"0425","Skyrim Sleeping Bags SE - Sleep Under Blankets"
"0426","Skyrim Reputation"
"0427","Skyrim Reputation Improved"
"0428","Skyrim Reputation - Fixed and Patched"
"0429","The Innocence Lost - Quest Expansion"
"0430","Thieves Guild Alternative Endings"
"0431","Destroy the Thieves Guild - Special Edition"
"0432","Skyrim Reputation Patches for Quest Expansions and Alternate Routes"
"0433","Dynamic Activation Key - MCM"
"0434","Dynamic Activation Key - Addons Collection"
"0435","Drengin's Blue Palace Terrace"
"0436","ES Blue Palace Terrace"
"0437","ES LoS II Patch"
"0438","BluePalaceTerrace-AI Overhaul-patch-SE"
"0439","Bruma and Other Patches for Convenient Horses"
"0440","Paarthurnax - Quest Expansion"
"0441","Scion - A Vampire Overhaul"
"0442","Save the Icerunner - Lights Out Alternate Routes"
"0443","Penitus Oculatus"
"0444","About Roggvir"
"0445","Defy the Gardener"
"0446","Serious Civil War Finale Sieges"
"0447","Supreme Fog for Morthal Region"
"0448","Base Object Swapper"
"0449","CC Bow of Shadows Lingering Invisibility Fix"
"0450","Riften Extension - Southwoods District"
"0451","Vanilla hair remake"
"0452","Dark Brotherhood Reborn - Patches Tweaks and Enhancements"
"0453","EVGAT - Dynamic Climb-able Ladder Doors"
"0454","INIGO"
"0455","Inigo Whistle Key"
"0456","Inigo - Bloodchill Manor patch"
"0457","Inigo Riding Patch"
"0458","Midwood Isle - Beyond Skyrim Bruma patch fix"
"0459","Whose Quest is it Anyway NG"
"0460","Happy Little Trees"
"0461","Happy Little Shrubs"
"0462","Skyland Happy Little Trees Bark"
"0463","ES Happy Little Shrubs patch"
"0464","Skyland AIO"
"0465","Better Dynamic Ash SE"
"0466","Slightly More Revealing Vanilla Clothing - 3BA Bodyslide"
"0467","Moonpath to Elsweyr Navmesh Fix"
"0468","GKB Waves Reborn"
"0469","GKB Waves Reborn-Midwood Isle"
"0470","GKB Waves"
"0471","Use Those Blankets"
"0472","Become a Bard"
"0473","Bards Reborn Student of Song Become a Bard and Bards College Expansion"
"0474","Serana Dialogue Add-On"
"0475","SDA Patch Hub SE"
"0476","Skyrim Reputation - Scion A Vampire Overhaul Patch"
"0477","Trueblood Serana"
"0478","Dawnguard Don't Hunt Cured Vampires"
"0479","QAPP - Quests Award Perk Points"
"0480","AI Overhaul - Various Patches"
"0481","COTN Morthal Patch Collection"
"0482","COTN Dawnstar Patch Collection"
"0483","QAPP - Quests Award Perk Points Patches"
"0484","Quest Conflict Fixes - Get Aegisbane"
"0485","Quest Conflict Fixes SSE"
"0486","Berserker Armor - Quest Conflict Fixes Patch"
"0487","Shadow of Skyrim - Nemesis and Alternative Death System"
"0488","Improved Camera SE - INI Tweaks"
"0489","SmoothCam"
"0490","SmoothCam - Modern Camera Preset"
"0491","SmoothCam Vanilla Enhanced 2"
"0492","Combat Pathing Revolution - NG"
"0493","BeastHHBB - Khajiit and Argonian content - player character and NPC replacer"
"0494","Immersive Armors"
"0495","Immersive Armours - SSE CBBE 3BA BodySlide"
"0496","Skyrim Reputation - Sneak Tools Patch"
"0497","Sneak Tools SE Edition"
"0498","Lux"
"0499","Lux - Via"
"0500","Lux Orbis"
"0501","Lux (patch hub)"
"0502","Lux - Via (patch hub)"
"0503","Lux Orbis (patch hub)"
"0504","Unofficial Lux Patchhub"
"0505","Sweets and Such - Baking Expanded SE"
"0506","Bards Reborn Enchanced Solitude Patch"
"0507","Bards Reborn Student of Song Undeath Patch"
"0508","Bards Reborn Student of Song AI Overhaul and USSEP Patch"
"0509","Moon and Star - Undeath Remastered Patch"
"0510","Immersive Sounds - Compendium"
"0511","Audio Overhaul - Immersive Sounds Integration (AOS - ISC Compatibility Patch)"
"0512","Unofficial Moonpath to Elsweyr Patch"
"0513","Bards Reborn USSEP Patch"
"0514","Castle Volkihar Rebuilt - Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Patch"
"0515","Cathedral Weathers and Seasons"
"0516","ENB Helper SE"
"0517","Particle Patch for ENB"
"0518","Obsidian Mountain Fogs"
"0519","Embers XD"
"0520","ENB Light"
"0521","Enhanced Volumetric Lighting and Shadows (EVLaS)"
"0522","Rudy ENB Cathedral Weathers ADDONS and REQUiRED Files"
"0523","Moons And Stars - Sky Overhaul SKSE"
"0524","Splashes Of Storms"
"0525","Rudy fix for Splashes of Storms and ENB"
"0526","Bright Waterfall Fix for ENB"
"0527","Less Distracting Blowing Snow Effects for ENB Particle Patch"
"0528","Show Player In Menus"
"0529","CoMAP"
"0530","Infinity UI"
"0531","Compass Navigation Overhaul"
"0532","Dear Diary Dark Mode (warm text)"
"0533","Dear Diary Dark Mode - Compass Navigation Overhaul Patch"
"0534","Stress and Fear - A Dynamic Sanity System"
"0535","Flat World Map Framework"
"0536","Extended Cut - Saints and Seducers Paper Map for FWMF"
"0537","Apocrypha Paper Map for FWMF"
"0538","Beyond Reach Paper Map for FWMF"
"0539","Midwood Isle Paper Map for FWMF"
"0540","Strange Runes"
"0541","ElSopa - Potions Redone"
"0542","RUSTIC SOULGEMS - Special Edition"
"0543","Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Soul Gems"
"0544","Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Deathbells and Nirnroots"
"0545","Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Torchbugs and Moths"
"0546","Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Bthardamz"
"0547","Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Chaurus Eggs and Sacs"
"0548","Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Glowing Mushrooms"
"0549","Rudy - More dramatic Red Mountain Plume"
"0550","Patch for Rudy HQ Misc. and Expanded Towns and Cities ETaC"
"0551","Obscure's College of Winterhold - Rudy HQ Miscellaneous SE Patch"
"0552","Soul Cairn Paper Map for FWMF"
"0553","Skyrim Paper Map by Caro Tuts for FWMF"
"0554","Paper Coldharbour Map for VIGILANT (FWMF)"
"0555","Duncan's Paper Maps for FWMF"
"0556","Rudy HQ - Standing Stones SE"
"0557","Bright Waterfall Fix for ENB Fix - Purple wind"
"0558","Use Or Take SKSE"
"0559","Oblivion Interaction Icons"
"0560","The Wheels of Lull CBBE 3BA and HIMBO Patch"
"0561","TrueHUD - HUD Additions - Gray Cowl of Nocturnal Boss Ini Tweaks"
"0562","Immersive Armors Patch"
"0563","Prisoner cart fix SMIM"
"0564","Sunder and Wraithguard - Editable Vault Cell (Cell Bug Workaround)"

Chapter thirteen ~Kayara~
They had to ride through grass fields so tall and unruly that even their ponies, easily twelve hands high, were struggling. Only an hour or two more and they would be back in the Elven territories.
Anataya led. Flanked by her guard and her lady in waiting. The kid took up the rear and Kayara had to fight to not look behind her to make sure he was ok and still there. She could hear his pony trying to feast on the grass and the glorious wildflowers, and that would have to be enough. She knew it would only cause upset if she were to bruise his ego as such.
They had seen glorious sunsets and pitch black nights, steep grass-slick hills and uneven forests. The others seemed quite up to the task and readily familiar with camping. With killing their meal. With sleeping on the hard ground.
She had spent the night in a jail cell before, but there had been fresh straw and a blanket. She was indeed glad that it was a warmer season or she surely would have frozen to death thanks to the princesses scheme!
“What’s with that face?” Asked Tyren, a wolfish grin at the ready. She rode her gelding with the proficiency of a soldier. Hers was the only pony that could keep its head up when riding through the tall grasses. The rest of them had to keep their calm and keep a stern, short rein.
“I’m hungry.” Kayara said simply. “You didn’t want the hare that I caught for you!” The boy chirped up behind them. It had looked like a much meaner version of the pet she had kept as a child. Its eyes were so the same as the fluffy piebald bunny she had once adored. She thought back to the now vacant cage in her room. The hand painted river rock that had been made upon her death. Seventeen year old Kayara had horrid penmanship but hadn't been bad with a paintbrush.
She had buried the bunny in the family's pet cemetery just off the main garden, right below her window. The rock was painted with various pinks and purples and yellows. The colors of energy that floated over the bunny when she pet it. Like static on a blanket.
“We should be nearing the city by tomorrow afternoon. If that helps.” Tyren offered. Her eyes were so cold. As if no emotion flickered behind them, so at odds with the olive branch she voiced.
“Thank you Tyren.”
Houses and farms began popping up in clusters, like the fungus on the trees in the woods. They were built in the style of elven homes. Three stories high and dome shaped. Elven country homes were more like live-in garden centers. Massive living walls of braided living cedar formed the exterior and wildflowers grew out of the cracks. Some of the bigger homes had towers protruding, miniature tree castles amongst the most luscious gardens.
“For the last time, we are not going to steal from my people.” Ana said with a voice that threatened violence. No bullshit, no stealing, she wouldn't have it.
“Ana, they'd likely offer you their food if we rode closer to their homes. Close enough that they could see who you are.”
“I said no. If you don’t drop it I will have you whipped when we return.” Anataya said slowly, anger burning in each word spat. Then suddenly kicked her pony into a faster pace. Then faster again and again; grass and dirt from the road flying into Kayara and Tyrens faces and nearly spooking their own equestrians out of control.
They gave chase and found the princess heading towards the fields below a wealthy man's mini palace. You could tell he was an old wealth by the way they grew their fields in circles with trees and flowers that had specific old timey jobs in the garden.
Anataya ran into a corn and bean field. Sunflowers, growing in bunches, stood tall and bright against the cobalt blue skies. Onion flowers were blooming in the underbrush. Likely other crops could be found in the field but Ana was racing ahead into the center where the tangles of beans and such grew the thickest. Then she stopped.
She hopped off her pony and stood for a moment in the center of the now partially trampled field. Then she collapsed to her knees. Tyren rolled her eyes hard as she banked her pony to a stop near the now hysterical princess. Ana wept and screamed and dug at the dirt. Kayara jumped down from her pony in sync with Tyren, and the two of them tried to hoist the princess to her feet. To no avail, Anataya was too far gone into madness to register their words.
A Violet Corona of light began to bleed into sight before Kayaras eyes. It wrapped around the princesses crown as if it was such. Illuminating the man who appeared in the corn and vines, flashlights and shotgun at the ready. Dogs were being held back by another man. Both were Elves, old and wealthy looking. “The Princess- Braeden the Crowned Princess is in our garden!” “Yes Olh K see that.” The one with the gun, lowered the weapon and nodded at his partner to make the dogs stand down. A whistle and the barking ceased. A stray yap came from the tiny brown dog carried by the third man that came into view with another source of truly very bright light. He was clearly the one in charge. He wore a simple pair of baggy trousers and a tight fitting top. An army issued long sleeves meant to endure cold temperatures. Kayara recognized it because her fathers eldest son had been issued the same one.
His silver chain, a bear head pendant, violet eyes. This was a high ranking officer in Antayas dead brother's army. Fucking hells.
Ana stopped crying at the sight of the necklace. On the back of the head would be the officer's information, although it wasn’t really needed. That pendent was named in stories and songs. Kayara had once seen an opera about the living hero, the mantatur slayer and peace keeper of his own kind. The Great Grizzly of Craephen— and this man before them was one of his main commanders. Maybe an advisor!
“Geraeld!” Ana said as if she’d seen a ghost.
“Antay?” Getaeld seemed to be at a loss for words.
Kayara had no idea what to do or where to look as the princess rushed to embrace the man. He held her awkwardly as the dog in his one hand tried to wiggle free. “It has been so long!”
“Not long enough princess.”
“Geri, you know her?” The one holding four big dogs on fine leather leashes, he held them with a farmers grip but his hair and his robes spoke only of wealth.
The other man, the one with the gun now uncocked and limp in his arms; he said “what are you doing here?”
Maybe he was in charge. His unbuttoned trousers and puffed up boxers told Kayara he was the first to be up and alert that there was something going on in his backyard. The one with the little dog passed it to the shotgun guy and strode forward to assess the damage to his property. “You’ve terrorized my boyfriend's property and terrified our dogs. What do you have to say for this, your majesty?”
“I am so terribly sorry Geri… Geri, please forgive me Geri.” The princess dropped to her knees and widened her eyes at him, hands clasping together at her chin.
“You are a child, Majesty.” He glared but yanked her to her feet, hauling her away to his boyfriend’s house. “I shall take you home. Follow me.” The princess began stumbling and pushing him or tripping him up and so, with a heavy and exhausted sigh, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Like a sack of potatoes! The princess proceeded to prop herself up on her elbows and smirk at the amassed crowd. She looked directly at Kayara and winked! Kayara could have sworn the woman's back arched up a notch…

I’m a relative newbie here, practicing on and off for the past three years. I’m working on another grimoire and want some advice on what to include. I’ll update with the more I learn but version 1.0 is going to include a more manageable mount of information.
I’m nordic pagan, reaching out into more general “witchy” things. I mostly pray and offer food on my altar but don’t do much more than read runes for others.
Current list of sections added:

• about me
  
• nordic deities
  
• elder futhark info
  
• nordic hate symbols/dog whistles
  
• nordic divination history
  

Sections to maybe add:

• tarot meanings/info/history
  
• oneiromancy (still need good research)
  
• herbs 101
  
• Scandinavian folk magic
  
• christian/pagan syncretism in relation to nordic heathenry/paganism
  
• SeidGaldr
  

I’ll take any suggestions on further reading for topics or sections to add. Heck, any good resources are appreciated!

As this whole conflict has been playing out, I was remaining pretty indifferent, even as people I know have been participating in campus protests and encampments. This was mostly out of ignorance as I knew that I would need to start doing my research to form an opinion. However, reading the pro-Israel posts on this Reddit that
A) complain about the most minor inconveniences caused by the protests on campus (news flash, children in Gaza are dying, sorry you have to walk 2 minutes longer to class)
or
B) say that peaceful protest are a hate crime towards Jews (even when there are Jews at the encampment supporting the cause and being welcomed)
has shown to me that they are willfully missing the point just to reinforce their existing beliefs, and I’ve started to research the conflict more. While students are out there risking their education and putting so much money and time towards a better future for Palestinian children, it seems that most zionists spend their time online complaining about it. No, the vandalism doesn’t turn me away from their cause. My anger towards stupidity has quite literally fueled my support for the cause. Palestine will be free🇵🇸from the river to the sea 🔻(and to you Israel apologists, this is not a dog whistle, it is the triangle on the flag)

Ok, sometimes, they are down in the woods,so I called them and whistled..but no one came. Me and my dog started down the back the of their track and nothing seemed out of ordinary, except 3 giant beasts were nowhere to be seen. I went down further on the track and saw their fence was down and a clear horse sized path smashed down between trees. We live deep in the woods and the property behind me is all woods. I went back to the house and yelled for my sister to come help me find the horses. I was calm, my sister had some anxiety. The last time I had been with my horses was about 4-5hrs previously and they were all 3 standing in their barn. It was getting dark and I had my headlamp and a flashlight (I take lights everynight for dinner feeding). My sis and I each grabbed a halter and lead line and started out way through the woods. It was pretty easy to follow their tracks, hoof prints, poop and mashed down foliag,about 30 min into our hike my sis says "I see Karma", she is a red and white paint so her white was easier to see in the darkness. My sis's gelding headed right to her and my mares followed. My sis haltered Karma and I haltered Lottie, my black mare, they were so well behaved and i think relieved to see us as much as we were to see them. Karma and my sis led us back toward our property. Day, the gelding (no halter, just loose) in between the mares and me and Lottie in the back. We had to squeeze through some tight spaces, and at one time my face was pretty much in Day's butt as we headed onto our property. When we finally got in the barn it was pitch black outside. I am so proud of my horses because they we so good, albeit bad for breaking out. They never got out before and are not allowed to go back on that part of the track until we fix the fence. Thought you guys would appreciate reading about this adventure I had tonight.

Hi all. I live next door to two really big mean dogs. They are left outside in there fenced yard most of the day.
Anytime me and my family are in our back yard the dogs will rush out and attack the fence, they then will start biting and fighting each other.
We tell our kids to stay away from the fence, but today our new puppy wondered off on our kids and got close to the fence, there dogs bit him up through the fence, none of the kids got bit luckily while they pulled him away from them.
I talked to the owners in person and told them I'm struggling being there neighbor, this behaviors been going on for years. There answer was the dogs will probably die in a few years of old age.
I asked if I could help maybe train them which they are open to. This is where I need help, what can I do to get them to stop being so aggressive and going psycho when we are close by? I thought about everytime I go outside I give them a doggie cookie so they think hey he's friend not foe? There ok with me giving them cookies, I just don't know what I need to do.
I also just bought a bark deterrent whistle to hang on the fence, maybe they'll start to stay away from us?

I need advice, though this is partially to vent, I want to get my thoughts and feelings out there, so that maybe something someone says can help me. I (F18) live in my childhood home with my father (M55), mother (F50), sibling (NB14), sister (F21) and brother in law (M23). I get along great with everyone, except for my father. I've known my father, mother, and sister as long as I can remember, my sibling is 3 years younger than me, and we've known my brother in law for about 5 years.
In childhood, my father was never really present in our lives. He worked a normal job with normal hours, but when he got home all he did was watch TV. I remember this very distinctly as we were kicked off the TV at 5, when he came home. Even when he was off of the TV, he was distant and never really involved with us. Even when he did take one or more of us out, it was just to something we liked for a small amount of time, then we had to go to a hardware store or something with him for hours. All of us quickly learned to not accept his offers of going to McDonald's for a quick meal. He'd occasionally trick us, saying it was a reward for something, then drag us somewhere anyway.
His distant behavior became worse when his dad died, and his mother came to live with us. To make a long and horrible story short, she put me and my sibling through hell, bullying us about weight, appearance, behavior and anything you could ever think one would nitpick children for. This was when I was 13-14, and it left a lot of issues for myself and my sibling to deal with. At first he denied anything was happening, but then it got so bad I slipped to my therapist that I wanted to end my life, and he took me seriously after that. My father's mother was kicked out, but I was in rough shape.
Ever since then he has treated me like a fragile flower, always trying to say things like "You can always talk to your mom or I", but he knew this wasn't the case. I could never bring up anything with him as he would just tell me to go to mom, and never really supported me emotionally. He has depression and anxiety just like myself and my sibling, but unlike us he doesn't take his meds or go to therapy; he basically just doesn't do anything to improve himself.
But it really got bad when my sister graduated from high school and moved out. She had been with her boyfriend for about 3 years when they got engaged, and were married. This sent my father on a downward spiral. According to my mother, he had a bad drinking problem in the past, and had calmed down for a while, but this is when it started up again. My sister was always his obvious favorite; she looked like him, was athletic, smart, extroverted, and she had none of the mental issues he did. So her "leaving" him was very hard. He just couldn't deal with her growing up. I think it was partially because he never spent time with us, since after that he kept asking me to spend time with him, but at that point I had checked out of the relationship as much as he had.
He started spending more time in front of the TV. It really didn't help that he had an injury at work and had surgery on both of his shoulders, and he was being bullied when he did work. At this time, my mother had gotten a job to help pay for everything, and I was mostly home with my father, and he decided this meant I would do everything-all of the chores, cleaning up after him, cooking... everything my mom would normally do. They operated on his non-dominant shoulder first, so he could've helped, but no, he's just a poor helpless baby. I was 16 at the time, and also trying to learn to drive. His "driving lessons" consisted of him scolding me occasionally if I did something wrong, but not helping me learn at all.
I wanted to find a job, but between school and taking care of the house I was unable to. I got an allowance, but it was rather pitiful, and didn't even partially compensate me for the hours of endless work. Then there was an incident. My mom had told me to watch out for him when he'd been drinking, and I can easily tell when he was drinking. This was a day where I could tell he was drunk, but he came in asking for my help with something. He said that our truck was having issues and he wanted to look at the engine, so he asked me to help him wipe it off. I agreed. I went out with him, and my "helping" him was him watching while I wiped off the hood. Then he started to get angry.
I was focusing on the hood since he said he needed to lift it to look at the engine, but he told me to focus on the windshield. I was obiviously confused, but he grabbed another wiper and started to violently break apart the snow and wiping it off. I was still confused and kept wiping off the hood, but that made him more angry. He was moving in a way I knew would hurt him, but he was now raising his voice with me, angry and showing it. I started to dissociate, as that is my coping strategy, so I don't remember the exchange very well. All I know was there was a lot of swearing and yelling and calling me useless. Eventually he threw down his scraper and stormed off to the house.
I remember I was cold, sad, and I wanted to cry and run off into the woods never to be seen again. I wanted to scream, sob, punch a wall; but I did none of that. All I did was stand there for a while, then remember it was garbage day and take the garbage cans down. When I got inside, he was in his chair, watching TV, whistling to a song. I went to my room and cried. I hated myself, him, and the world so much, and that day I broke a streak of almost a year of self harming. I wanted to do more, but my dog helped me not to.
I wish I had let him go. I wish I had let him drive. At that point I still had some slight love for him, and that made me want to prevent his death. I honestly regret that now. He often got mad and snapped at mom, but it was never directed at me before. I knew that mom, with all the stress she was going through with her job and being both the house- maintainer and breadwinner wouldn't be able to handle that he had snapped at me. So I downplayed it, just telling her what happened and she said he probably either wanted fast food or alcohol, both of which he is addicted to. I still haven't gotten an apology.
I'm going to skip over some time here, as honestly his behavior is too frequent and habitual to mention every frustrating thing, so I will fast forward to the worst of it. A few months before my sister's wedding, it got really bad. He had yelled at my mom a few times, and every time we just took the dogs into our rooms, and we had gotten door knobs with locks specifically for this sort of thing. It happened often enough that all it took was a text to the other, and my sibling and I knew what to do. The worst happened on March 23rd, 2023. I don't know how it started; we never knew, but it didn't matter. The worst part is, my sibling was stuck in the bathroom when it started, right next to where my dad was screaming at my mom. They can't use that bathroom now when he's home because of this.
All I knew was I got the text and got our 2 dogs in my room. All I could hear (I was on the 2nd floor and this happened on the 1st) was how my mom was a bad person, getting the kids to hate him, she was a female dog, etc. Again it's a little fuzzy, but it got worse when he got to the 2nd floor. When you get to the top of the stairs, to the right there is their bedroom, and down a short hallway there is a bathroom and 2 bedrooms, one being my sister's old room. He went in to their room, and all I can remeber is him screaming over and over, "And you can just go F YOURSELF", all while slamming their bedroom door.
He did this for a while. All I know is that I, my mom, and my sibling all recorded it, but I am not willing to listen through that recording to figure out how long he was yelling at the top of the stairs, but the recording is 10 minutes and 47 seconds. Eventually his slamming of the door got too forceful, he broke the whole door frame, and the door ended up wedged in the staircase. He knocked himself out in this process somehow, and was out for a while. When his friend came (mom had called him), he even tried to fight him, but he was put into bed. He says he doesn't remember this whole night.
There was an intervention after, with mom and his friend, and he agreed to stop, or at least slow down. He didn't. There were some more screaming fits, and the last major one was in the beginning of December. But now, instead of screaming, he'll just get mad and snap at mom for nothing. I hate seeing her cry, and this affected my sibling and I as well. My sibling hates him, and is just waiting for him to die. They felt conflicted about this at first, but after father corrected himself after using their correct pronouns and made a comment around them about how anyone who's trans is just mentally ill, they lost the tiny sliver of affection they had for him. I have done my best to be a good older sister, assuring them it's normal, and helping them come to terms with their feelings. Now they just say we really are just waiting for him to die, and they feel nothing towards this idea.
Father has gone to therapy once, after a screaming fit where I wrote down how much him doing this made me want to die, but he says he doesn't want to go back. He continues to drink, and to not take his meds. My reason for this post was yesterday. Mother's Day.
Despite both mom and I working later than him, he still does minimal house work. If he does anything, it is to empty the dishwasher into the dish drainer, then bug mom for praise. Mom, sibling and I do almost all of the housework. I thought maybe he'd pitch in on mother's day, but no. I told mom she was not allowed to do any housework, and I did all of the laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc. The only thing I couldn't do was cook. But then, as I'm cleaning off the countertop and the table, father walks in and asks mom, "So what are you planning on doing?"
I wanted to punch him. He had been drinking, too. He'd been at least slightly drunk since noon. But HOW DARE HE. I think that was when I lost all hope for him. Then mom said, "I was just gonna leave it to you", and he had the audacity to look surprised, and even a little mad. He then walked away, I think to get stuff, but I don't care. I looked at mom, and she had the same baffled, amazed, and angry look I assume was on my face. But she looked a little sad, too. He couldn't do even this one thing on his own, on mother's day.
I had been angry with him for a long time, but at that it just grew into this huge raging fire. I hate him. With every bit of me. His disrespect and unwillingness to fix himself made me want to scream at him, give him a taste of what he gave us. But I couldn't. For the rest of the evening, mom couldn't just sit there; he needed to know the temperature and time things needed to cook, and she was just so frustrated.
Everything's at a boiling point. I want to tell him off, tell him how I feel, how much he's hurt everyone, and just how much I hate him. But I know I can't. If I do, he'll take it out on mom. Mom's too stressed already, as her job is hard and she's saving to separate if needed. She won't divorce him, since he could take the house, though they are both on the title, and she doesn't want to risk it. He's unhealthy as it is, my sibling is right; we really are just waiting for his liver to give out from all of the alcohol. But still, I am having a hard time living in the same house.
Sorry for the length, I get long winded when emotional. I'm just ignoring him for now, but I feel like my emotions could explode any day. Please give any advice you have. Thank you all.
TL;DR!: My father who is abusive has made me reach my limit, but I can't say anything. If I do, he'll yell at my mom, and I don't want that. I can't move out and she doesn't want to risk a divorce, in fear of losing everything, what do I do?

For context I still live with my parents, I move out in a month for college and I’m gay; I was openly gay and my mom didn’t seem to have a problem because she’s known my girlfriend the full 12 months we’ve been together and she’s always been supportive of us up until recently. My mother has been watching a lot videos called: “I died and went to hell videos” and that’s how this whole craziness started.
I was on my computer when my mother called me into her room and she began to tell me, “how God intended for men and women to be together” and me knowing where this was going was

1. Absolutely shocked she would say this to me

And

1. Angered by this decision to tell me some bullshit like that now.

So I obviously reacted negatively and I tried to leave and she forced me to stay and got all in my face, backing me into a corner forcing me to listen to her words. After she’s done I say “okay” and I head to my room pissed off by what she said. She come back for round 2 and continue to bother me, I actually don’t know what she said here because I blocked it out of my memory but, she basically said the same thing and she wouldn’t leave the fuck alone, which is a common theme with her she loves to come and bother me even further.
Flash Forward to Mother’s Day and I’m still pissed about what she said to me so I tell her about it and she takes it all the way to the edge no more dog whistling. In short, she continuously says “the devil is making you like girls”, “it’s against god”, and the kicker “your soul is in jeopardy. And all those words basically mean, “you’re gonna go to hell because you like women.” And she continues to get all in my face and I argue back with her and I honestly tell her that I’m probably not going to have a relationship with her. The argument got so bad while I was sitting on the bed she literally stood up on it to scream in my face. When she got down she threatened to hit me for “being disrespectful” so I got up and did the same thing to her and out of anger I bawled my fist and she hit my stomach and called me a bitch. Ironic that this all happened on Mother’s Day right? Anyways she then gets really in her feelings about me calling her a homophobe and continuously says she not a homophobe because she has gay friends or because she also had crushes on women and made out with one. (which is honestly beyond me) She kept telling me over and over again how the devil was making me like girls and she said if she was in my shoes she wouldn’t date at all, it would be her and Jesus alone if it meant her “soul was in jeopardy”. She tried to tell me that she loves me but I just don’t believe her because I personally don’t think if you love someone you love all parts of them all parts of their identity so what she said to me basically was, “I love you but… conditionally.” After the screaming match she told me to let it go and left and come back several times to bother me more.
I immediately called my older cousin who’s also a gay woman and she picked me up from the house and girls me how sorry was about the situation and I went to also visit my Uncle who’s a Pastor and he told me : “Regardless of all that religious crap I love you no less and God made no mistakes.”
Fast Forward to today, before school my older brother tells me that I have “let go of that small shit, and that she’s trying to help you” and after school, my dad talks to me about the situation and he says to me, “Do you think I like you being gay? No.” And he continued to talk about shit he went through in his life and how some people don’t have both parents and that my mom suturing her best and that I need to apologize to her for saying “I’m not going to talk to her again.” And he tells me again that I’m the Bible it says that being homosexual is wrong but you’re gonna do what you wanna do? Which I don’t even know what that means because they all apparently think being gay is a choice and I fully decided to make my life harder so I go through shit like this. And when I get to my dad’s house he tells me that I need to call my mother and apologize but I fully refuse to do so.
Anyways, Am I The Asshole like everyone is trying to make it seem?

Most of you have probably seen the truly disastrous New York Times/Sienna swing state polls that came out this morning, that paint a dire picture for the ostriches in the Biden campaign. I understand dismissing polls from outlets like Rasmussen, because their entire polling operation is just a guy named Gary sitting behind a folding table in the lobby of the Rec Center at The Villages. But are we going to dismiss The New York Times? Are they part of the “vast right wing conspiracy” now too? What about NBC, Washington Post, NPR, CBS et al? And virtually all of the polls are wrong? Biden’s approval numbers? The “wrong track” numbers? Biden’s confidence numbers? The economic poll numbers? Everything is wrong? Really? Now who’s on “Earth II?”
And then there are the numbers themselves. A traditional (+/- 3%) MOE means a 6-point swing. NYT has Trump at +13 in Nevada. Assuming that poll is off by a whopping 50%, he’s still beating the swing. That’s disastrous. 10 points in Georgia? Horrible. 7 points in both Michigan and Arizona? All outside the swing. Polling among traditionally Democrat voting groups are even less encouraging. Recent polling indicates 30% of Black men are considering voting for Trump. Suppose that survey is off by 50%, it still means 15% - which is disastrous for Biden. Don’t even get me started on the youth vote. Many people forget that not too long ago, the big prizes of Ohio (18 electoral votes) and Florida (29 electoral votes) were up for grabs. With those two states now firmly in the Red column, the Democrats have a very narrow gauntlet to run.
For some reason, whether it’s rose-colored optimism or just plain denial, we’re all supposed to act as if everything is fine. From Simon Rosenberg to Geoff Garin to Molly Jong Fast (who I’m now calling Pauline Kael, Jr) we’re told not to worry. But you know things are bad when you watch turd-polishing Democrat operatives on cable news say things like:

“Well, Anderson, when you look at exurban, lactose-intolerant, Latvian-American independents with three fingers, aged 37-39, Biden is +2 compared to 2020…….”

My spleen is going to implode if I hear one more Democrat pundit say, “Don’t worry, polls this far out fluctuate wildly.” Yes, in a typical year they do. But this is no typical year. For the first time since 1892, two former presidents are running against each other, and that changes everything. Why pundits and campaign managers can’t seem to understand this is simply beyond me. Unless your comparisons are to the 1892 race, I don’t want to hear them. In a typical election year, polls move drastically in the last 6 months because the electorate is getting to know the challenger for the first time. That’s simply not the case this year.
Both these men are completely known quantities. There’s nothing left to discover. Both have run against each other before. Both have done the job of President before - very recently. Opinions are largely set. That’s why we’ve seen almost no movement in polls from 12 months out to 6 months out. Everything is baked. Trump killed one million Americans by ignoring COVID, staged a literal bloody coup attempt, was convicted of rape, defamation and a lifetime of financial fraud totaling almost half a billion dollars, and the needle didn’t move. If you think getting convicted of “falsifying business records” is going to move that needle, then I’ve got some oceanfront condos in Nebraska to sell you. He’s not going to jail. Short of him killing Kristi Noem’s other dog live on the Times Square Jumbo-Tron, Trump’s numbers are fixed. Biden fares no better. Is he going to get younger over the next 6 months? Are we going to have sudden deflation that wipes out 3 years of price increases? Is the Fed going to cut rates by 5 points? Are the Israelis and Palestinians going to start holding hands and singing Kumbaya? In 6 months? There are no October Surprises coming, folks - so don’t count on one.
That’s why we need to take these polls extremely seriously - NOW. No more dismissing them. No more waiting around hoping they’ll change. No more, “Just wait until “______” months out. No more whistling past the graveyard. Our task is different this cycle. It’s not about persuading open minds, it’s about changing voters’ closed minds, which is a far more difficult and lengthy task. Here are a few ideas for starting that process now:

1. LEAN HARD ON THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM: Across the political spectrum most Americans share one core value: We like to be left alone. We don’t like busybodies (especially the government) telling us what we can and can’t do. We like our freedom. The GOP has already become the party of extremist, authoritarian busybodies, and their future plans are truly dystopian. We need to hang the entire party’s authoritarian impulses around Trump’s neck like an albatross. Book bans, IVF bans, abortion bans, protest bands, porn bans, voter suppression - these are not popular with the vast majority of Americans. We need to start portraying the GOP as the Handmaid’s Tale/SNL Church Lady/Nurse Ratchet figures that they are. (And it’s not hyperbole when it’s already happening in Red states coast to coast. We have plenty of ammo). The hallmark message of this campaign needs to be “Creepy Republicans (mostly men) are obsessed with your bedroom and your bathroom.” Do you want Ted Cruz in your OB/GYN’s exam room with you and your doctor? Because that’s where we’re headed if you elect Trump/Republicans. Educate the hell out of Americans on Project 2025 and its Evangelical-based Puritanism. That’s a long, tough task that needs to begin NOW, not in October.
2. EDUCATE PEOPLE ON BIDEN’S ACHIEVEMENTS: This shouldn’t have to be our job, but sadly Biden has been sitting in an ivory tower for 3+ years, refusing to use the world’s biggest bully pulpit to tout his own achievements. Add in a mainstream media that completely ignores him and it’s even worse. It might be too late. Read this truly stunning article from The Hill: 34% of Americans know NOTHING about the American Rescue Plan. 44% know NOTHING about the CHIPS Act. 24% know NOTHING about the Inflation Reduction Act. The infrastructure law fares no better, at 30% ignorance. 25% of the country thinks Biden is responsible for ending Roe V. Wade! Maybe educating them will pull a few percentage points our way, but it’s an uphill climb at this late date.
3. PROMOTE THE HELL OUT OF RFK, JR: I’ve been beating this drum for months now, and thankfully some Democrat operatives are starting to come around. RFK, Jr is one of the greatest gifts the Democrats have ever received, and they need to starting acting like it. Unlike Biden and Trump, he is the one candidate in this race that Americans are getting to know for the first time. And once they do, he pulls almost exclusively Trump voters. Kennedy has virtually no appeal to Democrats, once they get to know him and his policies. So educate them! Promote him! He is doing almost exclusively MAGA press, picking up almost exclusively MAGA endorsements, and taking almost exclusively MAGA positions. If you don’t believe me, please sign up for his emails. They are virtually indistinguishable from Trump’s messaging. Go to one of his events - you’ll find almost entirely former Trump supporters. As people have gotten to know RFK, Jr. his polling as gone from pulling mostly Biden supporters, to mostly even, to pulling mostly Trump supporters. His brand of wacky, anti-vax conspiracy theorism is perfectly poised to keep 3rd-party-curious voters from returning to Trump. Trump and his MAGA surrogates have been stepping up their attacks on RFK Jr lately, because even they know it in their bones. The Democrats need to promote RFK, by using social media to micro-target the anti-vax, conspiracy theorist, tinfoil-hat crowd that would traditionally go back to Trump. It’s a golden opportunity, and they’re blowing it.
4. STOP ACTNG LIKE IT’S 1982: Biden and his surrogates seem stuck in a time warp. They’re operating a campaign from a bygone era: Wait until the last few months, run some local TV ads with American flags and amber waves of grain, send out some junk mailers, pick up a union boss endorsement or two, get the local paper (if it even exists anymore) to endorse you, smile a lot, and kiss some babies. Meanwhile the GOP knows it’s in a fight for a knife in the mud. Trump is doing rallies - where are Biden’s? Trump and his minions are savaging Biden on a minute-by-minute basis - where are Biden and his surrogates? Don’t wait to go for the jugular - do it now. And keep that shiv in Trump’s neck for the next 6 months. Don’t worry about looking “Presidential” - worry about looking strong. Get creative and provocative with your dystopian ads. Scare people. Don’t worry about naysayers complaining that you’re exaggerating, because you’re not. Leverage social media - hard. Live in 2024. Embrace it. In other words - stop bringing a casserole to a knife fight.

None of these ideas may ultimately work, but we need to start the fight, and start it now.

Here to remind you all to vote by tomorrow. And when you do…don’t be bamboozled by someone who says he’s trying to bring balance to Anchorage. Anchorage has been off-balance ever since Bronson took office. He’s also the one who has made this non-partisan position into a very partisan one by using far-right dog whistle type language to scare people. He has decimated our city government of well-qualified career professionals by hiring unqualified “leaders” and refusing to fill needed positions at the city and police department. He has decimated our city by moving our homeless population around from one ill-conceived idea to the next, by not providing snow plowing in a timely manner, by creating an unprofessional work environment in city hall - and don’t forget - he’s an airline pilot- with the accompanying ego, and without any experience or interest in governing or providing government services to citizens. Vote LaFrance for mayor. She understands how government works and knows how to provide tax-payer paid services to citizens.

Hopeful for some insight!
I've driven my 2010 Kia Forte and unfortunately on Friday, had an accident where it is totaled.
My partner and I are both tall (5'10" and 6'4"). We do not have children and don't plan to. I'd say we have folks in the back seat of our cars maybe twenty times a year.
I'd like to graduate from a sedan to a compact SUV to help with sitting a little higher and cargo for dogs/road trips. My main priorities are affordability both in initial purchase and long-term ownership, decent gas mileage and comfort for a tall person. I don't have as much care for zippiness of engine or off-roading. This would be my daily driver for about a 20 mile round trip commute for work as well as general errands in a car-centric city. I have excellent credit and a decent amount saved but could be open to financing - especially if it was a great deal (like Mazda's current 0% for 36 months). I'd likely look at a few bells and whistles (adaptive cruise control would be great, Apple Car Play, sunroof would be nice) but I'd imagine no trim at the top of the line.
Right now, I've whittled down to a few. Any guidance on these makes/models in terms of green flags or reds flags? Any thing else I should be checking out?

• GMC Terrain
• Chevy Equinox
• Kia Sportage
• Toyota Rav4
• Honda CR-V
• Honda HR-V
• Mazda CX-5
• Volkswagen Taos

Praveen aruthu thalliya padangalin varisai

• Ratchagan
• Jodi
• Thullal

Ipdiyapatta filmography irundha Satyajit Ray va kooda naaku mela pallu pottu pesalam. He has earned the right.

Link to original nosleep post:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1arh0e8/has_anyone_heard_of_the_maze_below_the/
I don't know exactly how it happened.
Everything was going great. It was Valentine's Day. My wife had just left for work. And I had just put the second batch of her favorite cookies in the oven for when she returned home.
The only catch is, after I put them in the oven...
...I completely forgot that it was Valentine's Day.
Maybe I was distracted by all my work calls.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
All that matters is, when I emerged from my home office a little while later...
...The entire kitchen had gone up in flames...
...And a few hours later...
...My entire house had burnt to the ground.
—
When my wife finally got home, after racing back from work, it immediately didn't matter to her that it was Valentine's Day anymore.
She was just glad that I was alive.
"Are you okay?" She asked, tears in her eyes, as she ran over to me, as I stood outside, shivering, wrapped in a blanket beside a fire truck.
"Yeah I'll be ok. Can't say the same for the house." I joked, gesturing to the destroyed building.
We both looked over at our home of nearly ten years, as firefighters put out the last of its smoking embers.
She couldn't help but laugh. "Were you able to salvage anything?"
"Oh!" I replied, before reaching into the pocket of my sweatshirt and pulling out a large, sealed plastic bag full of cookies. "Forgot to tell you. I was able to grab the first batch on the way out."
"Aww." She said.
"Want one?" I offered, reaching to open the bag, but she stopped me.
"No, I don't have an appetite right now, after all this. But maybe later."
"No worries." I said, putting the bag of cookies back into my sweatshirt pocket.
"What now?" She asked.
"Hotel I guess?" I proposed.
"Well we could stay with my mom, but that's a two hour drive. After this, that sounds like a lot."
That's when a firefighter overheard us, and interjected.
"Sorry to eavesdrop, but if you don't have anywhere to go. I've got a spare bedroom at my house, down by the harbor. If you're too tired to drive tonight." He offered, with a sympathetic look on his face.
"Thanks, I really appreciate that." I replied, "But we couldn't. It's a really kind gesture, though. Seriously."
"Thank you though, it means a lot." My wife added.
"Oh, of course." The firefighter replied, "No pressure at all. Just with you here like this, I wouldn't have been able to sleep tonight knowing I didn't offer."
He turned away, took a few steps, and then doubled back. "You sure? It really would be no bother to me at all."
My wife and I each looked at each other, exhausted.
"I suppose it beats paying for a hotel." I reasoned.
"Or a two hour drive." My wife said.
—
A couple hours later, we were sitting in the firefighter's kitchen, eating a dinner that he had made for us.
"Seriously though, we'll forever be in your debt for this." I said, slurping pasta.
"Are you kidding?" The firefighter replied, as he did the same. "After what you've gone through today, it's the least I could do."
"You really saved us a long drive to my mom's place." My wife said, after taking a bite.
"Can I ask you a question, though?" The firefighter asked, putting his fork down.
"Of course." I replied.
"What was it about me, that earned your trust?" He continued.
"Our trust?" My wife asked.
"Yeah, like was it the uniform? Or my charm?" He said.
"Uh, I don't know. Why?" She replied.
"Just curious what exactly lowered your guard enough to come back with me, to my house. A stranger's house." The firefighter continued.
I couldn't tell if he was joking, or was looking for a straight answer. So I went with the latter. "Uh, maybe a combination of both? But if I had to pick one. Maybe the uniform? Everyone trusts a firefighter."
"Really? Thank you! That's what I thought, but the others, they all said it was my charm, and I’m really starting to think that the uniform alone really seals the deal." He said.
"The others?" I asked.
"Yeah, the others. Downstairs." The firefighter replied.
"I'm sorry, I'm not following. There's other people downstairs?" My wife asked.
"Yeah, like you." He said nonchalantly.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Like people I found, in desperate situations, like yours, that needed help." The firefighter explained.
"And... what are they doing down there?" I added.
"Oh, there's a whole dungeon down there." He said, with a completely straight face.
"A... dungeon?" I asked.
"Yeah, like with torture devices, and a maze and everything. It's actually really cool, do you want to see it?" He offered.
My wife and I both looked at each other, then back at the firefighter...
...And suddenly burst out laughing…
...As he, too, began to roar with laughter.
Eventually, the laughing subsided, and the kitchen got awkwardly quiet, so I tried to change the subject. "Anyways, great pasta sauce. Is that cumin in there?”
But he ignored me, and picked up right where he left off. "No, but seriously, you've gotta check it out. Like literally, you have no choice."
I just played along, hoping he would change the subject. "Yeah, yeah, okay, fine, fine, we'll check it out. After dinner."
But he wouldn't let it go. "No. Now." He commanded, his facing turning from jovial to menacing.
The joke was growing old, and starting to get a bit creepy, so I stood up from my seat and gestured for my wife to get up. "Come on, let's go."
"Go? I'm afraid that's not possible." The firefighter replied, "The doors and windows are locked from the inside out, and only I can open them."
That's when I decided that he had crossed the line, so I puffed up my chest, and started to move closer to him in a threatening fashion.
"Dude, seriously? I'm a firefighter. I'm in the best shape of my life. And you, no offense, look like you don't even work out."
I couldn’t help but take offense, but I still thought he was joking, so I just smiled back nervously.
"Oh, and I've got an ax." He added, removing a firefighter's ax from under the table and holding it up before us.
He was not joking.
Seeing the weapon, my wife jumped up from her seat, and we both ran to the door, only to find it locked from the inside, just as he had told us.
"Told you."
—
A few minutes later, we were standing at the foot of his basement, having just descended a rickety flight of stairs.
The firefighter must have noticed me walking nervously down them, as he had followed behind us.
"Oh, please excuse the stairs." He apologized, "I really need to get them replaced. But with all of the construction I've been doing in the dungeon and all, they just haven't been a priority."
I didn't know what to think of any of it. I was just hoping it would end.
But it didn't.
"Ok, so here's how it works." The firefighter began, pointing his ax toward the entrance to what, literally, looked like a dungeon. "I'm gonna give you a five minute head start, during which time I'd suggest you run as fast as you can. Now, at the end of the maze, there is an exit. And if you make it there, I promise I'll let you out. But for full transparency, no one has ever made it that far. Cause, you know, they don't know the maze, and I designed it, so I kinda have the upper hand. But maybe you'll be the first?"
My wife and I just stared at each other with a look of horror, as it became clear that this was actually happening.
"Anyways, you're gonna see a lot of fucked up shit in there. People are gonna beg and plead for you to take them with you. But whatever you do, do not give in. I know in the moment you're gonna want to do the right thing but, trust me, based on how it's gone in the past, they're just gonna slow you down, and you're gonna need every second you can get." He then turned to us, as if to make sure we were listening, and asked, "Got it?"
To which I, unsure of what to say, just replied, "Uh... yeah.".
That's when he pulled out a stopwatch, put his thumb to the start button...
"Ok ready... get set.... go!"
...And clicked it.
I looked over at my wife, whose eyes had grown wide with fear...
...And, without hesitation, grabbed her by the hand, darting off with her into the dungeon.
—
Five minutes later, we were running through the maze below the firefighter's house, uncertain of our exact progress but confident that we had made it pretty far into its depths, when we stumbled onto a man, locked up in a cage, his body emaciated from what must have been starvation.
"Help me!" He called out, "Take me with you!"
My wife stopped for a moment, a look of sadness in her eyes, and began to reach out to him, but I intercepted her hand and led her past him, further into the maze.
"We have to keep going!" I called out.
"I feel terrible leaving another behind." She replied.
He wasn't the first we'd seen. In fact, in just that previous five minutes alone, we'd encountered many of the countless others that the firefighter was referring to, and what seemed like a hundred unspeakable horrors.
But we had stayed strong and forged ahead, and as a result, I felt like we were getting close to the end of the maze.
"We're no use to them unless we get out of this place, and call for help." I assured her.
"You're right." She replied.
"We must be getting close to the exit."
"If there even is one."
She had a point. There was a possibility that the firefighter had lied to us, and there was no exit at the end of the maze.
But there was something about the way that he talked, something so honest and direct, that made me think there actually was a way out at the end. And the more I thought about it, I was confident that without an actual exit, for us to potentially reach, there'd be no fun in the game that he'd created for himself.
"Trust me." I said.
"I trust you." My wife replied.
That's when we heard it. The unsettling sound of someone whistling, coming from behind us in the maze, and approaching quickly.
"Run!" My wife said, her sense of hopelessness now transforming into one of survival.
—
By the time we finally made it to the end of the maze, the firefighter had caught up to us, still whistling. But when he turned the corner and saw us, standing at the door, tugging at its locked doorknob, he dropped his shoulders. "Aw, man. Seriously?"
I tried to bring myself to speak, but my body was frozen in fear.
Finally, I let out the words, "Seriously, what?"
"You beat me to the exit. You're the first ones to do it." He said.
He started running over to us, ax still in hand, as I closed my eyes, bracing for impact and fearing the worst...
...But rather than feel pain, I felt...
...A hug. A gentle, warm, embrace...
...Before I opened my eyes and saw him hug my wife as well.
"Congratulations! That is no easy feat." The firefighter said, "I mean, that is one disturbing, and distracting place. Luck was on your side. Wait, no, sorry, I shouldn't assume luck. You did make it to the end so skill must have been a factor. I don't want to take that away from you."
My wife and I just stood there, waiting for him to get to the point.
"So, um..." My wife said, gesturing to the door. "Do we still get to leave?"
"Get to leave? Get to leave? How dare you!" He said, in a serious tone… before cracking a smile and patting us both on the back, "I'm just fucking with you, of course you get to leave! I am a man of my word, and you did play by the rules and win."
The firefighter walked over to the door, removed a key ring full of keys from his pocket, and began rummaging through it, "Let's see here..."
Until he finally picked one and held it up.
"...There it is!" The firefighter continued, "But can you imagine if I forgot the key ring upstairs and had to go all the way back through that maze?" He said with a chuckle, opening the door from the basement into his backyard.
My wife and I both looked outside, into the darkness, and immediately started walking towards the exit, before the firefighter put his hand out and said. "Not so fast. I said I'm a man of my word, and I am. I told you earlier that if you made it to the exit, I'd let you out. However..."
I suddenly realized there was a caveat.
"...There's one slight caveat." He continued, "When I do let you out, there just so happens to be two dogs out there, that I keep extremely hungry for this very occasion. So when you get out there, I just want to warn you, it's highly probable that'll tear you both apart. Actually, scratch that, it’s one hundred percent probable.”
Between the fire and the maze, my wife and I were both so exhausted, that we both looked at each other, nodded in agreement, and walked out into the backyard, ready to accept our fate.
Then, we looked back at the firefighter, who said, "What? Don't look at me like that? I can't just be letting people escape from here so they can go and tell the cops about this place. Anyways, it's been fun. And sorry I had to make an already bad day even worse. On Valentine's Day no less. Anyways, goodbye."
And like that...
...He slammed the door behind him, leaving us out there in the backyard, standing there in the dark.
—
A few minutes later…
…We suddenly heard the sound of dogs growling.
And as my eyes adjusted to the light, sure enough, I saw two sickly pitbulls, drooling and howling as they approached us, hunched over, and ready to attack…
...Until it hit me...
...The Valentine's Day cookies!
Without hesitation, I reached into my sweatshirt pocket and removed the plastic bag of cookies that I had offered my wife when we were standing outside our burning home, just a few hours earlier. To be precise, the first batch of the very cookies that had set said home ablaze, thus setting off a chain of events that led us to that very moment.
As the dogs got closer and closer, I carefully, and quietly unzipped the plastic bag, turned it upside down, and dropped the cookies on the ground...
...And like that, as soon as the dogs got a whiff of the cookies, they charged over to them and started devouring and fighting over them, in the process completely forgetting about my wife and I.
Together, we slowly walked past the pitbulls, turned around, and backed away slowly, until we eventually reached the fence at the far end of the backyard and, one by one, my wife going first, hopped the fence and ran to safety.
—
Later that night, while we sat in the police station, waiting to tell them everything, my wife, still in a daze from what had happened, asked, "What flavor were they?"
"Huh?" I replied, still in a daze of my own.
"The cookies. What flavor were they?"
"Your favorite of course. Peanut butter and chocolate chips."
"Fuck."
"You know, when I saved that first batch from the house. I was like, if these things are gonna burn my house down, we've at least gotta taste them. But you never got to."
"It's the thought that counts."
"I suppose so."
"Happy Valentine's Day." She said.
"Happy Valentine's Day." I replied.
And then, we both leaned in, and kissed, in a way we hadn’t done in years. Like when we first met, over a decade ago.
We may not have had a home anymore. Or any faith left in humanity. But we had each other. And sometimes, that's enough.
That was last night, and today, while the police hopefully raid that motherfucker's house, you better believe that I'm gonna be at my mother-in-law's place, baking another batch of those cookies.