Last day of sophomore year was today and i’m honestly kind of frustrated. Little bit of background info, I have no ability to do math. I kid you not, anything that involves numbers whatsoever. It’s been like this basically since elementary school, and due to a combo of circumstances/difficult times during my childhood I just stopped trying. Pretty much everything besides math is manageable though because of my natural abilities with words and writing. I literally LOVE writing essays and researching things, and am very much a perfectionist in this space. Freshman year I dropped Algebra 1 and Physics because of, you guessed it: math. So, had a 4.0. This year though, I had to take both classes and failed. Physics was really close to being a passing grade though, and tbf I did pretty much use that class as a study hall. But with the math stuff earlier this year I attempted to advocate for myself and get help from my counselor, and suggested it may be something I needed to be tested for but that I may have dyscalculia. She didn’t really take it seriously and kind of just told me to go to tutoring for it. She enrolled me in an online credit recovery course for a half credit and said that it was quote “watered down” math and kept me in the Algebra 1 that I was failing. I did the research on IEP and learning disability evaluations, and wrote the formal evaluation consent that my mom sent to the district psychologist. Forward to now, the district said that I “don’t qualify for an evaluation” yet never once spoke to me or my mom in person on even over the phone. The school district has multiple psychologists who could evaluate me for this. It’s essentially just like an iq test and other measures, but the main criteria is an extreme deviation from math skills to what is expected based on other tests on reading comprehension and other measures. THEN after a diagnosis would be a separate evaluation for an IEP. So basically make it make sense that I don’t qualify to get a chance at a diagnostic evaluation that would take like 2-3 hours tops?? It’s honestly so frustrating because I take my school stuff very seriously and actually enjoy the majority of it. My final grades this year are 5 a+ and the 2 fs. The physics i’m not too worried about because it turns out I just need a physical science credit, which could be astronomy or forensics. I’m taking APs in jr and senior year, and plan on getting involved in journalism for my schools newspaper and speech and debate. It’s just so mind boggling how differently you’re treated in separate classes. My english teacher is so proud of me and always encouraging. Like she gave us all superlatives and said that I was most likely to win a pulitzer prize for writing or journalism and that just makes me feel like “wow maybe it is all worth it” yk? Then walking into an Algebra 1 class with freaking freshman, and the teacher talking to me like i’m a literal toddler. But basically long spiel beside, what the fuck do I do. I could technically get my own appt with an educational psychologist but i’d have to find one in my insurance network and wait months for an appt. I actually am diagnosed with ADHD, and I do take meds which help tremendously. But, the help for that would be a 504 which is just “accommodations” like longer deadlines on assignments. Learning disabilities are what qualify for an IEP which means that that they would be able to change things like graduation requirements and content.
4.0 last year, 2.8571 this year isn’t impossible to salvage, + ap classes at my school add another point to your weighted GPA.
I photomathed through the credit recovery and got a half credit in math. But, I need 3 to graduate. Honestly, I don’t think i’m getting any actual help from my school in math any time soon. It’s actually so insane that math is going to be the major thing holding me back, especially since it has nothing to do whatsoever with what I want to study in college or do for my career.
My dream (probably delulu now) is something related to law, journalism, or screenwriting, and getting into Emerson, Boston University, or NYU. (I understand they’re all very selective schools but i’m not stuck on them specifically, they’re just my dream schools)
if anyone has ANY advice on this subject please 🙏🙏 Like is there a way to just take these pass fail credit recovery type classes for all of my math credits? Some sort of online program that still has value for credits in actual hs that I can just cheat on. I’ve tried and i’ve tried to fucking understand math but it’s actually a lost cause atp. I went back and tried to figure out basic shit, or at least figure out how far behind I am. I’m going to be a junior, and I don’t know math from like 4th grade. Plus, my counselor asking why I don’t just go to tutoring or ask the teacher questions, it’s literally embarrassing. I have quite a bit of anxiety about asking things simple like if I can go to the bathroom. Plus, the anxiety I have surrounding math and just the way i’m perceived in general.
With APs, extracurriculars, As in pretty much everything else, unbelievably good college essay, and possibly finessing the system to get enough math credits, how can I accomplish the things that I actually aspire to do in the future.

I would rather be screamed at by people who are supposed to be my loved ones, then ignored. If my mere existence pisses them off, at least it means that I was important enough for them to actually notice me. Instead of treating me like I’m a fucking ghost. An emotional sponsor means that on some level, they do care. It might not be in the way I want them to, but if they get mad at me, it means that I at least cross their mind every once in a while. It means a hold some sort of significant space in their life.
However, completely ignoring me? Well, I might as well not exist. I might not get injured or anything, but these are the people who if I were to go missing or something wouldn’t even notice I was gone. I’d rather be with somebody who would get mad at me for not responding when I finally find me go off on me because they were worried. Rather than how I’m sure my significant other would act which is, “They’ve been missing for three days? I didn’t even notice.”
I’d like to mean enough to somebody to make them mad. Ideally, I wouldn’t have to deal with a negligent or an angry response and instead we met with love but that’s fucking unrealistic. If these are the only two options I have to choose from, I’ll choose rage any time because it means I am at least important enough to provoke an emotional response from the person.
But I’m not important. I’m invisible it’s all I’ve ever been. My entire life I have been treated like I didn’t exist. My parents, so-called friends, who only knew existed because of my parents introduced us, and my significant other all look straight through me. Barely texting, barely speaking to me, but if I bring it up, I’m just imagining things. And I hate that I have to fight, so goddamn hard to be heard. It’s not just an interpersonal relationships.
It’s in general. Because when I go out to the bar And I’m ready to close my tab, there could be no more than two other people in there. And yet no matter what I do, I can’t get the bartenders attention when I’m ready to close my tab and I have to literally ask someone else to bring them over. And I tried waiting patiently for them to just come over and ask if I’m ready to pay my tab, but they never do.
It was like that in school. Always the last to be picked up, often times not picked up at all. My parents frequently forgot I even fucking existed. There were times when we got separated at the grocery store and I had to wait in the front because they left without me. Didn’t come to find me until three goddamn hours later because they didn’t notice I was gone.
At work it’s much of the same. I’m pretty sure I get paid less than the other employees in spot doing the same work because people rarely come over to my checkout line. They always go to one of my coworkers. Then they say they had no idea the lane was empty because, and I quote, no one was at the register. Except I was. I was standing there the whole time saying that my lane was open. How they didn’t see or notice me I don’t fucking now. I’m 5’3 and they noticed somebody shorter than me before me so I know it’s not my fucking height.
At restaurants, the waiters and waitresses just plain forget about me a lot of the time. Sometimes they’ll notice me long enough to see me at a table but I rarely actually get served. It’s like as soon as I sit down, they forget all about me and I’m not even brought a menu. If it was a crowded restaurant, I could understand but these are places where there is very little traffic. I wait and wait and wait for someone to stop by my table and nobody ever does. I don’t try to say anything or flag anyone down because that would make me a Karen.
People constantly fucking talk over me. College was a nightmare because we were expected to participate in a class discussion. I did participate. But nobody noticed therefore, I got a lower grade. Every time I tried to say something, someone would interrupt, and say the exact same thing I was going to say in a louder voice.
Hell, maybe I am a ghost. Maybe I did die in that car accident when I was 19 and I just don’t remember it. I mean, considering that no one can see me or hear me I might as well be.

ever since i was young (i’m 20 rn) i never had the motivation to do anything i needed to do like school and stuff even when i knew the consequences. Yesterday was a good day but today was a bad day. My day started off with my bf basically calling me a slut (we joke around calling each other stuff like that) but this time he meant it, he didn’t call me that directly but he brought up my past mistakes and how hes uncomfortable with it still, he said that i used to show my noodes in past relationships and it’s “easier” for me because “i’m used to it” that’s far from the truth. He said he isn’t comfortable with that , but i’m not sure what he wants me to do, i regret it and wish i never did any of that. He said and i quote “it’s like ur selling ur body, but for free”
Then, i got an email from my college professor telling me that im gonna fail the class but i’ve passed all the assignments she gave me, but i just didn’t participate in the zoom classes. I know it’s my fault and i can’t blame anyone but myself. That’s the thing, i know the consequences, but i’m still lacking encouragement. I have another class that i might fail and i wanna do something about it, but i cant. I say today’s the day im gonna finish this assignment, but then i lay it off until the next day, then i rush it the last minute. Even though my parents are gonna be furious at me for failing my classes, that’s still not enough motivation to do my stuff, i know they’re gonna get angry, i’m not sure why I can’t just pick up my laptop, spend a few hours doing my assignments, and being done for the day. I know it seems like i’m just “lazy” and don’t wanna do anything, yeah i am lazy but that’s not the problem, i know i HAVE to because i don’t have a choice, but i just can’t bring myself to do it.
This isn’t relevant but i have social anxiety, and i overthink a lot, more than the average person. Whenever I go somewhere new, like a new job, or a new school, or i meet a new person, like a doctor, just a new person/place, i start having panic attacks and i end up crying a lot and hyperventilating. I think about my future a lot and somehow i imagine having a good job and living in a good place with my bf, even though im not doing anything to reach that. I just wanna sleep all day, and i don’t have the motivation or energy to do anything but play games. I even got a psychiatrist hoping it will help me. I don’t even leave my house. I barely even eat. I get nauseous a lot, and my head gets dizzy a lot.

TL;DR: I agreed to move in with a friend who just got divorced. He is now in a downward spiral, but I feel some sense of responsibility for him and his home.
In December, after graduating college, I (24, M) moved to Kentucky from Wisconsin to be closer to my paternal family. In my new living situation, I was paying $750 a month to live in my aunt’s basement. I thought that was a little much given the location and the fact that I’m family, so I began looking for a different living space fairly quickly.
Around this time, my friend (29, M) had caught his wife (25, F) cheating on him with an ex. Once she was caught, she filed for divorce from him. In the early stages of this situation, it was clear to tell when he was struggling. After about a month and a half, with all his ex’s things moved out, he offered for me to move in with him. He claimed I wouldn’t have to pay rent, and that all I needed to do was take care of his 4 dogs and cook a meal once a week. He even told me I could have the master bedroom. I agreed to this, but before moving in, we restructured so I paid $200/month instead of having no real incentive to work.
Upon moving in, I was told of all these big projects that he had planned. He was going to replace all the carpet with wood flooring, mulch the entire backyard, get new furniture, etc. I was optimistic about these changes and about living with a friend, but I soon realized that I was barely seeing him. While I basically had the whole house to myself, he was closing himself into our sunroom and just drinking straight liquor all day. One day, we were going to meet our mutual friend’s newborn daughter and he informed me that he was too drunk to drive… at 10 AM. He also admitted to multiple instances of bed wetting. This was when our friend group started joining in on my concern for him.
When he finally decided to take action on one of his “projects”, he ripped out all the carpet in the house on a random night at 3 AM, with 0 plan for when or how we’d replace it. This got dirt and dust all over our house cause he barely moved anything out of the way to do this. He then ordered a dumpster to the house, but missed putting a bunch of stuff in it and left shattered glass all over our driveway, that I ran over. His response: “My bad, G”. There are many other stories of his drunken incompetence: offering me a ride home from a car shop then sleeping through all my calls to pick me up, leaving a boiling pot on the stove as he left for 12 hours of work, leaving pain killers laying on the floor for our dogs to eat. He also randomly & admittedly orders prostitutes to our house, if I’m not home.
Once more people than just me started stating their concerns for his belligerence, he decided to be “sober”. I put that in quotes cause now he is seemingly abusing pain killers and weed, and refusing to sleep. He stays up 40+ hours regularly till his body cannot function anymore. And he often works on his car in the driveway from sunrise to sunset, even though it’s in good condition, and it drives the dogs crazy. So, he’s regularly just as out of it, as if he were drunk anyway.
I understand that he’s hanging out on the outskirts of his home because of the emotional connection he has to it, from his marriage. I also understand now just how dumb I was moving into this home, given his situation. I have family and friends that I have to deny from visiting cause I’m embarrassed of how it looks (besides my room). It’s tough to tell what to do to help him cause he laughs off my comments anytime I am serious with him about his actions. He “doesn’t believe in therapy”, and he has refused to take a single day off of work since I moved in. Luckily, I have no written living agreement with him, and none of the dogs are mine, so I can leave when I want. I’d rather see him get the help he needs though.

First / Previous
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I think it’s obvious that, while I’ve never lied to my dad and my brother about something big before, I haven’t told either of them about the animals at the zoo and I’m not planning on it. Even if they believed me, that would actually be worse than thinking I was being foolish by working here. If my dad knew what kind of animals the zoo had, he’d freak out, whether or not there were invisible walls to protect me. In and of itself, my father would demand I quit on the spot if he found out about my hourly rate because it was obvious that there was something about this job that warranted it.
So, I opened a savings account at the bank, and when I deposited the check, I put half in that account. That lowered the chances of my dad finding out how much money I was pulling in.
It wasn’t as if I had anything huge to spend the money on anyway, though. Dad had been thrilled with $25/hr. when I got the job, and we’d already started spending some of that first paycheck on new clothes and little house repairs and such. Money has always been tight, and we live in a three-bedroom house, with my dad graciously having taken the smallest room (which was kind of a catchall storage room up until then) once my brother and I wanted separate rooms when we hit our teenage years.
My mom isn’t in the picture, if you’re curious. She worked as a wildlife photographer, and was so good at it that she’d get paid to go off to remote places in Africa. For months at a time. As if we don’t have animals in America, right? But even when she was here, it always felt like she was distracted, wanting to go back to work. Like she cared more about the animals than about us. Say what you want about me, but I like animals more than people, I don’t love them more. I don’t even think of her as mom anymore; in my brain, she’s Patricia.
When I was nine and my brother Stanley was two, she basically left and never came back. Doesn’t even send postcards. For all I know, she’s dead, and the most meaningful thing I ever got from her was my passion for caring about other animals. I got into it early because of Patricia, and then practically every birthday or Christmas present was some book or movie or toy about wildlife. But that’s all she did for us besides financial support. My dad is a real rock in my life, and I count myself lucky I got at least one good parent.
When Patricia ditched us, I started to help out financially when I was younger by working odd jobs, and then real jobs when I hit sixteen. Stanley is sixteen now, and he’s been working at Hanks Hardware for a few months, which meant now it was all three of us pulling in money. But Stanley only makes $10/hr., working four hours after school and then eight hours on Saturday, so my $25/hr. literally doubled our household income. When I’d gotten the job, I told Dad and Stanley that I wanted Stanley to quit his job, and that I’d give him an allowance, $80 a week, which was what he'd be using for pocket money if he’d still been working.
Getting that time back would be huge for Stanley, because it would let him spend more time on his schoolwork. Not just to bring up his grades; he would literally be learning more. And he’s a junior now, doing things like taking a computer class to learn Microsoft Office. Living in a small town limits your options, and knowledge broadens them. I know that much for sure.
Not to mention, he could actually be a teenager, do the stuff kids did. Go see a movie, hang out with his friends at the bleachers and smoke pot, and head out to the lake to swim when the weather warmed up and have a genuinely fun summer instead of having a forty hour work week. And most important, playing video games. I know that sounds strange, but Stanley loves video games and plays online on the TV in the living room. But he hardly ever has time to play, which means sometimes he’ll stay up too late enjoying himself and fall asleep the next day during his first period class. Dad and I never have the heart to tell him to go to bed, though.
My father was uneasy about Stanley quitting, mostly because of the hypothetical of my job falling through. And Dad didn’t even know about the possibility of there being some terrifying incident with an animal, which might cause me such anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to push past it and would end up needing to quit. I really didn’t think that was likely after I’d managed to mostly get over my paralyzing fear of Yui, but I yielded to his logic and we negotiated. Stanley decided to switch to three hours three days a week and four hours on Saturdays.
Little did they know that not only was I was saving up for my own impending student loan payments, but my savings account would cover a most or maybe all of the cost of any college or trade school Stanley wanted to attend when he graduated. I was so happy about that, I don’t have the words. Half of my income is $25/hr. and for eight hours a day will be $52k a year, all of it put in my savings account. Before taxes, but still, that is fantastic money. I’ll have to come clean eventually, when Stanley started filling out FAFSA forms next year, and I’ll probably tell my dad that I was pretty sure they’re running drugs out of the back of the zoo or something. He’ll be so pissed, but that’s over a year away and I’ll burn that bridge when I came to it.
So, in general, I’ve been enjoying working at the zoo and depositing those paychecks. Call me a cynic, but inevitably, that meant something had to go wrong.
After settling in for my shift a few minutes before 9 p.m., Andrew bid me farewell and headed home. He’d just done one last walk of the zoo, so I took out a book and resumed where I’d left off, planning to do a sweep in an hour. I do have some enrichment planned for one of the animals, but I’d had to order something online and it won’t arrive for a few days.
Shortly after my second ramble around on my route to check every enclosure at the zoo, however, I got a text from my brother.

Gary and Shaun are going to the zoo. They want to try to see the animals.

I closed my eyes in annoyance. Gary and Shaun were two sort-of friends of Stanley’s, the middling kind of friend that you sit with at lunch and hang out with at parties but you’ve never actually been to their home. I knew Stanley had been bragging to his friends about my new job. Well, I guessed. He’d told me and Dad at the dinner table that his friends were impressed with my job, and I figured the fact that his sister had a college degree and had started work at $25/hr. was bragging material, especially when it meant Stanley could work fewer hours.
The idea that some of his friends would want to come check out the zoo hadn’t occurred to me, because I’d come at it logically: The zoo was closed to outsiders. Appointment only. And none of them would ever get an appointment, because they were human. But if anything, the rules that restricted them had probably made it a more enticing idea. Also, Stanley said it the zoo on Google Maps at this point, but that it was blurred out. Andrew told me that had been by request (anyone can do it actually), but I’m sure that made the temptation even worse.
Obviously I wasn’t going to let them in, but I didn’t want them to cause trouble, and they were teenagers. Teenagers tend to cause trouble as a general rule. The last thing I wanted was to have to tell Andrew that they’d shown up at the gate intent on visiting the zoo because my brother had talked it up so much. Not that Stanley knew what this place really housed, but still, Andrew had been so stern on no photography of Leila that I would’ve been embarrassed if I had to call the cops because of something like this.
My reply was curt.

Tell those dipshits the place is closed to walk-ins. I’m not letting them in.
I did. They want to go anyway.

I facepalmed and sighed before replying.

If you can’t talk them out of it, just don’t go with them. I’ll deal with it.

There was a long silence, then some ellipses as he typed, then another long silence. I got antsy and sent a follow-up.

Stanley, I mean it. I do not want you here if I have to call the cops to get them to leave. Stay home. If you show up here with them, I’m cutting off the money I give you.

I wasn’t the type to play fast and loose with threats about money, so that probably surprised him. There was the briefest of pauses.

Geez, no need to be a bitch about it. Fine. I’ll stay here. Good luck dealing with those assholes without me.

That was indeed exactly what I wanted, and he must have known that. Hell, I had pepper spray and a taser, so it’s not like I couldn’t keep them out if I really wanted to. But when it came down to it, I figured, what were they going to do? I wasn’t going to open the door or the front gate. The fence was ten feet high, the kind with spaced bars that had decorative spikes at the top, and it was brand new. It wasn’t as if they were going to take bolt-cutters to a barbed wire fence like in a movie.
In the end, I sat back in my chair and just fell back on my regular routine. I wonder now, if I’d called Andrew and told him, maybe asked him to come hang out for a while, whether things would’ve turned out different. But I wasn’t very well going to wake him up for something that essentially sounded like a minor irritation.
At 10:41 p.m., a beep, beep, beep, alert sounded, and I know the exact time because I picked my phone up off the desk out of habit, assuming it was what was making the noise. But it wasn’t. Looking up to the screen of cameras, one was outlined in red, pulling my focus to it. It was an exterior camera with a wide view that panned back and forth, but was now stopped on movement that it had detected and had deemed sufficient to audibly alert me. I later learned that it was in conjunction with a motion detector on the fence. On the screen, I saw two boys, one on the outside of the fence to the left of the entrance gate and one on the inside.
“What the fuck?” I breathed, standing up and putting my book aside. My fingers went to the mouse and keyboard, and I expanded the view from the camera and zoomed in. It seemed I’d underestimated the boredom and curiosity of two small-town teenage boys.
I saw how the first boy had gotten in when the second boy used the same technique, which was to climb a rope that had knots tied in it about a foot apart, a rope that had been hooked onto one of the spikes at the top, presumably with a loop that had been lassoed and tightened. He made it to the top, shifted and dropped to hang from the top by his hands, then let himself fall to the ground, his knees bending and absorbing the shock of the impact before falling on his butt.
One of the boys had hit a growth spurt, topping out at 5’11” now, all gangly limbs. He had short brown hair and I could see him wearing a sweatshirt with the logo of his school on it. That’s the best outfit to wear when breaking in, apparently: something that shows what high school you go to. The other one was a little more built and half a foot shorter, with long blonde hair that he probably thought made him look like Chris Hemsworth. It didn’t.
“I cannot believe this,” I growled, my anger flaring. Heading quickly out of the office, slamming the door behind me, I was out the door and walking toward the entrance, driven by my anger.
Already walking into the park at a speed driven by their interest in the forbidden areas, they started on the path that went toward enclosure one and rounded the zoo. “Hey!” I barked.
“Ripley!” Gary exclaimed. “Your brother said you wouldn’t open the gate, so we let ourselves in.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked, keeping pace beside them, rage bubbling up inside me. They slowed but didn’t stop. “Do you think this is a joke? There’s a reason I told my brother not to come with you. That alarm you set off goes to the owner of the park, and they’ll definitely be pressing charges. You really want ‘breaking and entering’ on your rap sheet?”
They gave me long-suffering looks, the kind only someone under twenty is capable of. The kind that imply you’re neurotic, or pushy, or self-centered. The kind that say you don’t know what you’re talking about, that they know so much more than you, and that all you are is an annoyance.
“Come on. What is with this place? It sounds awesome, some private zoo, but Stanley didn’t know anything about it,” Shaun told me. Glancing at my belt, where my pepper spray and taser were, he asked, “Is it that top secret? Everything here could sell on the black market for a million bucks or something?”
“They’re expensive animals if poachers get their hands on them, yes,” I said tightly.
“Why would they hire someone fresh out of college for that?” Gary asked, his eyes continuing to take in his surroundings, the path and everything in sight bathed in their standard eerie red glow. “And what’s with the lights?”
“It’s for night vision,” I told him, skipping over the part implying I wasn’t qualified for this job. “Hey, stop.” Moving in front of them, I forced the issue, moving to stand in front of them and forcing them to either stumble to a stop or run into me. “If you climb back over the fence and leave now, before anyone gets here, I’ll lie and say I didn’t know your faces.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re uptight,” Shaun chuckled. “What’s the big deal? I mean, we might not even see anything, since it’s nighttime and the animals are sleeping. It’s not like we’re stealing a tour.”
Honestly, I have no idea how our species has survived this long when our formative years make us so confidently stupid. “So, why are you even here then?” I asked, folding my arms.
“Why not?” Gary asked.
With that, they were quickly walking around me, toward enclosure one. I hadn’t yet seen the animal in enclosure one, but what I did know was I didn’t want to see it for the first time tonight. Roger’s short and snappy description described it as Bear - Steve. According to procedure in the small manual Andrew had given me, I was supposed to deter any intruders with fact that they were on camera and threaten to call the police. It didn’t say what to do if that didn’t work, but I assume I was supposed to…call the police. And also call Andrew, of course. That didn’t solve my urgent problem though, which was two teenagers who wanted to see something cool.
“That’s it,” I growled, taking my taser in one hand and my pepper spray in the other, hoping the sight of me being armed would deter them. Heading after them, I snapped, “If you guys do not leave, I will make you leave.”
Shaun turned and walked backwards so he could speak to me. “Just because you’ve got a complex since they hired you to look after a place like this, doesn’t mean you have any real authority,” he told me. “Look, call the cops if you want. Tell them some teenagers broke in. Response time around here is probably fifteen minutes, so we’ve got ten minutes, minimum. We just want to see something cool, and then we’ll leave.”
I hate that he called my bluff on the weapons, especially in hindsight. I’m not a confrontational person, and my instincts are always to avoid a fight if possible. So, in this case, my instincts were telling me to call in someone else to help get these clowns out of the zoo, not to use the weapons I had for just such a purpose. It makes me feel helpless and angry knowing that I back down from fights, but I balked at the idea of getting physical with them. Only the fact that that wasn’t supposed to be part of my job kept me from feeling like a complete failure as security.
“The animals here are not puppies,” I finally exclaimed. “Some of them are territorial. They could seriously hurt you.”
They finally slowed their pace as they closed in on the gate to the wooden fence. “What are you talking about, territorial? They’re zoo animals,” Gary said.
“This is a huge zoo, and it’s more like a preserve,” I sighed. “It backs up into the forest. These animals build their homes here, scent mark the boundaries, and regularly eat small animals that come in through the bars of the fence to explore. So, like I said. These. Are not. Puppies.”
The two of them finally came to a stop at the gate, looking at me warily. “With this fence, how dangerous could they be?” Gary asked. I didn’t answer. Shaun scanned the expanse behind the gate and Gary looked around, making it clear what he was looking for when he said, “Where are all the signs and shit?”
“There’s a tour guide,” I said. “They don’t need signs.”
“Okay, so, what’s in here?”
Shaking my head, I let out a sigh. “It’s time to leave. I’m serious.”
Gary glared at me for a beat and then said the worst word possible. “Whatever.” Then he turned and unlatched the gate, walking through.
“Gary!” I shouted, stopping short at the threshold. Shaun walked past me, and I made a grab for him, but was too slow. I’ll regret that until the day I die.
Halted at the gate like there was an invisible force field keeping me out in just as it kept the animals in, I officially started panicking. I’d messed up, and now I couldn’t even hit them with either the pepper spray or the taser unless I wanted them to be easy prey.
My eyes scanned the smaller plants along the fence, which slowly grew in average height the closer you got to the tree line. The trees were surprisingly close to the fence, only a few yards in. Also, there were no footprints, no path that only grew small weeds from an animal that often paced back and forth, so I wasn’t sure how often it came out of the trees. Maybe it didn’t.
I wondered if there was another lake, maybe a small pond, that I didn’t know about further in, if the animal lived there. Or maybe this one was relatively reclusive, so I might have time to get the boys out. It could be that it had heard the ruckus of voices and decided to investigate, as it did during tours, but it would take a while to get here. Or I could get lucky and whatever it was could have just had a great meal, deciding to pass up the humans within its grasp.
But I was not lucky.
Putting my pepper spray and taser back in their holsters, I took a couple steps back as I pulled out my cell phone and called 911.
There was a brief pause before I heard someone pick up, and a calm female voice spoke, “911, what is your emergency?”
“Yes, I work at a private zoo, address 11842 Lincoln Road,” I spoke, drawing the shocked gazes of both boys. “Two teenage boys broke in, and they’re refusing to leave the property.”
“For real, Ripley?” Gary exclaimed, as if genuinely offended at my actions.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
Gary was standing near enough to the tall trees that he was under the branches, and something dropped on him, its weight crushing him to the ground. He didn’t even have time to scream. Shaun did, though, crying, “What the fuck?” as he stumbled backwards.
“Get out of there!” I screamed, grabbing my taser from its holster and pointing it at the animal.
On top of Gary’s body was something that looked like a koala. The only thing was, it must have been almost twice as big and had an orange, spotted pattern on its fur. The kicker was the teeth. Koalas eat eucalyptus leaves, most people know, so they don’t have much use for many teeth or even sharp teeth. They’re equipped with a pretty pathetic set of chompers.
Whatever this was, I knew it had a full set of teeth made for a meat-eater, because it had bitten down on Gary’s neck and ripped out a chunk of flesh, arterial blood spraying from the wound.
Shaun, unfortunately, did not take the opportunity to run. He stared at his downed friend, just as I did, in horrified fear. And then ran to him. “Gary!” he screamed. “Hey, get the fuck off him!”
“Shaun, don’t!” I shouted.
Whatever Shaun was thinking, it was less about the potential of him being attacked versus the fact of his friend being attacked right at that moment. I’ll say that about him at least: he didn’t just leave his friend to die. Unfortunately, if he had, it might’ve saved him. Throwing himself at the animal, Shaun shoved it off, an impressive show of strength, before grabbing Gary by the arm and trying to pull him to his feet. “Come on!”
I could see that Gary was barely conscious, though. A gash in an artery that was profusely bleeding will do that to a person. I attempted to aim my taser at the animal, but only a split-second passed before it turned and leapt once more, slamming into Shaun and biting his neck. I stumbled back in fear, adrenaline now pumping through me in earnest, as Shaun cried out in terror and fell to the ground before the animal ripped out his throat.
My vision swam at the sight of a copious amount of blood and the sound of Shaun choking on it. Thick chewing sounds came from the animal before it swallowed and then turned to me.
I only realized I’d dropped my cell phone when I heard a faint, panicked voice ask, “Ma’am? Ma’am, are you there?”
Lowering the taser, I slowly took a couple steps forward, picked up the phone, and I quietly said, “Yeah. I’m here.”
It felt like she was speaking from the other end of a long tunnel when I heard, “I’m sending police and EMT right now. What happened? Was someone injured?”
Swallowing hard, I grimaced as tears came to my eyes. Staring at the animal, which was still meeting my gaze unwaveringly, I simply answered, “Yeah. They’re dead.” At that point, the animal grabbed one of the boys by the throat, then the other, and started dragging them into the trees.
She hesitated before asking some more questions, and I replied to them all absently. Eventually, the animal was gone from my sight, but I still walked backwards as I retraced my steps to the security office, exactly like the first time I’d seen Yui. Eventually I arrived at the security room, and my shaky hand swiped the key card to get in. Shutting the door, I told the 911 operator, “I’m safe.”
“Good. The police should be there in ten minutes.”
My brain thought it was funny that it turned out the boys had been right about the timing, but filed it under ‘things to think about later’. “Okay. I have to call my boss.”
“Just stay on the line with me until the police arrive, okay?”
“It’s okay. I’m fine,” I said quietly. “I just really need to call my boss.”
In spite of her protests, I hung up. The silence of the room rang in my ears and I slowly sat down in my chair, pulling up Andrew’s number.
After four rings, he picked up, his voice drowsy but tense, knowing I’d only call if something had happened. “Ripley? What’s wrong?”
It took me a moment to find my voice. “Two teenagers broke in. They’re dead. Steve killed them.”
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed. After a few beats, he said, “Okay, all right, I’ll, ah, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Did you call the police already?”
“I was on the phone before it even happened, saying they broke in.” I grimaced at that. I was supposed to call my boss first, not the police. That let him determine what actions to take.
Andrew let out a breath. “Okay. I’m assuming Steve took the bodies?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, I’ll call Suzanne and have her put Steve down for a nap, and then get the bodies back to where the EMTs can get them.”
That confused me, and I didn’t really know what to say, so I went with, “I’m sorry, Andrew. I should’ve tried harder to get them to leave. Even tasing and pepper spraying them would’ve-”
“Ripley, this is not your fault,” he said firmly. “I’ll be there soon as I can, all right?”
We ended the conversation and I glanced at the screen of cameras, which was how I’d left it, focused on that section of the fence where the boys had climbed in, with the view enlarged to take up most of the screen. I stared at it until the police arrived.
When the motorcade of flashing lights were visible at the end of the road through one of the cameras, I pressed the button to open the front gate. Fielding the police officers and the EMTs and their questions, I brought them to the enclosure, and right at the edge of the tree line were the two bodies, looking exactly as I’d last seen them. So, I guess Suzanne knows how to run her zoo and handle things when the worst happens.
Both boys were put into body bags and lifted onto gurneys, and then each one was put into one of the two waiting ambulances. Andrew arrived before too long and answered all the questions the police had for him, the ones I didn’t know how to answer. Also the questions that I didn’t really feel comfortable answering, like, “What species of bear is it exactly? And why is there just this flimsy fence here?” I watched from a distance as they took his statement and, I determined by watching their facial expressions, Andrew seemed to answer their questions to their satisfaction.
The long, exhausting experience ended when the last of them left, and Andrew and I went back to the main building, going to his office. Instead of sitting in his desk chair, my boss vied for the couch that sat against one wall, used occasionally by visitors. I sat at the other end, leaning back heavily into the cushions.
Andrew spoke first, echoing his earlier sentiments and immediately making it clear that what occurred wasn’t my fault. I felt some anger at myself, mostly because I knew that if I’d used one of my weapons on one of them, they’d still be alive. But I hadn’t wanted to go to such extremes just because they’d climbed over a fence. They were dumb teenagers, right? I’ve never been tased or pepper sprayed, but I’d seen videos on YouTube and it didn’t look like a fun time.
“Look, you said it that first day in your interview, that people are stupid,” he told me. “Teenagers especially. You know that’s a fact. You did the best you could in that moment, so don’t look back and think of what you could’ve done to fix things, because solutions always seem obvious in hindsight. All right?”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Andrew sent me home at that point, saying he’d take the rest of the shift. I was too weary to object, so I left.
Stanley was still sleeping safely in his bed, and that’s one thing I’m so grateful for. If this job took my brother from me, I’d be done with it. Still, I don’t relish waking up tomorrow and having to face him. I don’t know exactly how he’s going to react to the news, but it’s going to be the worst thing in the world that’s happened to him, mostly because of the guilt of not being able to talk them out of going. The same way I couldn’t talk them out of staying out of an enclosure.
My schedule is still nocturnal, so I’m not tired enough to sleep right now. Hopefully I’ll get sleepy soon. For now, I’ll play one of Stanley’s mindless old school video games with the sound muted. My main goal is to get the image of all that blood out of my head.
​
First / Previous

Paul Hellyer was Canada’s former Minister of Defence, and he's quoted by Karl Nell as one of the highest ranking and most reliable "evidences" of his claims.
Here's a "Vice" interview to Paul Hellyer describing the sources of his beliefs in ETs: The World's Highest Ranking Alien Believer (youtube.com) -> A book written by Philip J. Corso and a phone conversation with an anonimous US general who told him "every word of it is true and more". The anonimous general then goes on stating that there have been face to face meetings between US generals and extraterrestrials.
But strangely, Karl Nell - the 5th highest ranking military figure in USA - publicly declares that we have no clues about NHIs intentions or purposes, hinting to a lack of whatsoever comunication with NHIs.
That's it. A book and a phone call persuades the former Canadian Minister that everything about ETs is true. And he's quoted in turn by Karl Nell as the highest ranking source.
Except for the ranking, isn't this too little as evidence for such HUGE claims?
EDIT:
Since many of you are implying that these persons are straight out lying or pushing disinfo, I'll point out that they're all retired servicemen with a record of transparency and integrity. I'm sure that they're 100% convinced about their claims, but since they're basically quoting each other as evidence of their claims when the apparent primary source is not as reliable as the ranking suggests, that's my catch: an old retired person is human as everybody else, and confronted with lots of free time and apparently unexplicable phenomenons could easily fall for suggestion or conspiracy theories themselves.
EXAMPLE:
Karl Nell quotes as biggest evidence of his statements Paul Hellyer;
Paul Hellyer makes his claims by quoting as primary source Philip J. Corso's book, STEVEN GREER (of whom he repetitely declares to be a huge admirer) and a phone convo with an anonymous US general;
Philip J. Corsomakes incredible conspiracy claims in his book and states, among many other things, that US government reverse engineered from ETs such things as Kevlar (actually invented by the chemist and researcher Stephanie Kwolek in 1965) and optic fiber (actually invented by phisicist Narinder Singh Kapany during his time at Imperial College of London in 1953).

Getting organized to sit down and write a major term paper is such a daunting task for us folks with ADHD. As a student I would have vague ideas of what I want to write, but lacked the executive function to get to the job done. I would stare at a blank Word doc, type a sentence, delete a sentence, repeat. Unexpected for a writing major, I know. Are you looking for a way to break out of this cycle?
May I present: the Index Card Method.
As a high school student in the 1990s, I was forced to use this method to write a ten page senior thesis. Nearly all senior level English classes in my school used this method. Prior to that year, I had seen students carrying around fat stacks of index cards, protecting them like their ability to graduate depended on them. It did. I begrudgingly followed this methodical approach even though it wasn't "the way I write." Ironically, I found it so helpful I continued using this method throughout college, and admittedly even in grad school 25 years later.
What is it?
It's a low-tech system of organizing your sources, topics, details, citations, and anything else that goes into your paper.
Why low-tech?
It is a hands-on process loaded with sensory actions. Physically handling and arranging the index cards helps me focus on a task. Filling out an index card and setting it aside and then picking up another FEELS productive. Seeing a growing pile of index cards as you move through the project LOOKS like productivity. These sensory activities boost my momentum.
The best part of this method is how it breaks down a mountain of a project into smaller tasks without requiring me to create a big plan before I can start working on it. The size of each task is literally the size of an index card. Plus, it is an opportunity to use those cool pens you bought the last time you said you would start journaling.
The Index Card Method cannot be done the night before a paper is due, at least I wouldn't try it anyway. If you don't like writing outlines or drafts, give this method a try - but if you're cramming, do give yourself a week to get it done.
How does it work?

Step 1: Cards

Get some 3x5 index cards. For a 10-page, double spaced paper, you will need around 300 cards.
Do not get 150 4x6 cards. They must be 3x5.
For this post, I will assume anyone following this method is using lined index cards. It does not matter if the cards are lined, but know that when I say "On the top line write..." I mean where the actual top line of the card would be. This also means you will be writing across width of the cards in landscape orientation, meaning a full line of text on a 3x5 card runs 5 inches, not 3 inches.
There are two simple, but vital rules to remember when creating cards.

1. Only write on one side of the card. Leave the other side blank. You will need to see all of a card's contents at a quick glance.
   
2. If you make a mistake on a card, immediately tear it in half so it doesn't get mixed up with the ones you want to keep.
   

Step 2: Thesis card

You will only have a thesis card if you are writing a thesis (argument) paper.
In the center of the top line of your thesis card, write "Thesis Statement."
Now write your thesis statement below that.

Step 3: Topic cards

In the center of the top line write "Topic." Below that, write the name of a topic related to your thesis statement.
Topics should be broad, written as one or two words. Create as many topic cards as you think you will need. You can always create more later, so don't get stuck on this part.
Example: topics related to a thesis on the healthcare industry may include: Insurance, Costs, Medicare, Medicaid, Prevention, Prescription Drugs, Hospitals, etc.

Step 4: First Layout

Spread out your topic cards on a table. Select the broadest topics and line them up in a row in the order in which you would like them in your paper. Now arrange the narrower topics in columns below the broad topics in the order that makes sense to you. Using the example of the healthcare industry in the previous step, "Costs" may be a broad topic with "Insurance" and "Prescription Drugs" listed beneath it.
Split a topic if you need to. "Costs" could also be split into "Consumer Costs" and "National Costs", then "Insurance" and "Prescription Drugs".
Don't expect to have a lot of topic cards at this point. You may only have one or two subtopics for each broad topic. This is fine. You can always add more as you go along.
Take a picture of your topic cards in this arrangement.
Congratulations, you just made an outline!
Now type it out. Title it "Preliminary Outline."

Step 5: Sources

Go find sources you would like to use for your paper. When you find a source you would like to use, create a bibliography card.

Step 6: Bibliography cards

In the center of the top line write "Bibliography".
In the upper left hand corner of the card on the top line, write the number "1", as it is your first Bibliography card. This is your source ID.
Now write the complete and proper reference of your source, formatted according to your citation style. Include doi links, if applicable. Where italic font is used in a citation, underline it on your card.
Open a new document file. Title it "References", "Works Cited", etc., depending on your citation style. Type out your bibliography cards in the order appropriate to your citation style. Most likely they will be alphabetical by author. As you find more sources and write out bibliography cards, add them to this document.
About citation styles:
A citation style is a way to reference your sources, specifically how you list them out and how you identify where you found a fact or quote.
If you are in highschool, your teacher will tell you how to write write and format sources and citations. If they don't, ask.
If you are an undergrad, most professors don't care which style you choose, but they want it consistent. If this is the case, I recommend using APA or MLA because they use simple, in-line citations.
If you are a graduate student, use the appropriate style for your field. If your reference style uses foot notes or end notes, please be aware you may need to create citation IDs later to help you stay organized.

Step 7: Read and Highlight

As you read through your sources, highlight anything that stands out to you that you may want to use in your paper.
This is where I would normally say it does not matter if your sources are printed or digital, but for many of us it does matter. Stepping away from technology is one the reasons I find this method so effective. I encourage you to print articles or photocopy sources when possible.
Your school likely has access to full-text articles online that can be downloaded as PDFs and printed later.
If your source is text from a website, right click on in the body of the text and select Print. When the print window pops up, select PDF (or Adobe PDF) as your printer. In the next pop up, select where you would like to store your file. Your source is now saved as a PDF. By the way, printing to a PDF is the easiest way to save a file while maintaining its formatting. Try it from any program. Now when you print it to paper, it will look like the PDF.

STEP 8: Detail cards

In the center of the top line write the topic related to the highlighted text. If you do not have a related topic card, make one.
In the upper left corner on the top line, write the source ID that matches the one on its respective bibliography card.
In the upper right corner on the top line of each card write the page number(s) from your source as "p 87" or "pp 87-88". If your source does not have page numbers, write your source's equivalent as it applies (act/scene numbers, time stamp, etc.). Look up a style reference guide for requirements.
Now in your own words, write about an area you highlighted. If you want to directly quote the article, make sure you use quotation marks. Otherwise, simply paraphrase it. Use complete sentences.
If you are copying a long quote and run out of room on a card, write the topic, source ID, and page number on another new card and continue writing your quote. In the bottom right corners write "1 of 2" and "2 of 2" respectively.
Create bibliography and detail cards for all your sources. Find more sources as needed. For a 10-page double spaced paper, expect to have around 150-200 detail cards.

Step 9: Second Layout

Lay out all of your topic cards in the same order as your preliminary outline, only this time line them all up in one row.
By this time you may also want to combine or eliminate topics because your project took a different direction from when you first wrote them. This is fine.
When you think you have enough detail cards, sort them into piles by topic. Now arrange your detail cards in columns under their topics in a way that makes sense to you.
Take a picture of all your cards in this arrangement.
Congratulations, you just layed out your final outline!

Step 10: Type Your Outline

Save a copy of your preliminary outline and title it "Final Outline." Fill in the text from the detail cards. Each detail card should be a separate bullet point on your outline. After typing out a detail card, add the citation at the end. You already know the source because you wrote the source number in the upper left hand corner of each card.
You should not have anything in your final outline that is not written down on an index card.

Step 11: First Draft

Save a copy of your final outline and name it "First Draft." Now arrange your bullet points into paragraphs. This is your draft.
Now print it . Proofread it. Ask a friend to proofread it. Mark it up and make any necessary changes on paper. Don't change any quoted text because quotes are ...well ...quotes.

Step 12: Final Copy

Save a copy of your First draft and name the file "Final Copy." Type the edits you handwrote on paper. I realize with today's technology a lot of proofreading and peer editing is done electronically. This is fine. If you're using Google Docs, be sure to use Suggestion Mode. If using Word, turn on Track Changes.
Your paper is done.
High school students, if your teacher doesn't think you've made enough changes between your draft and your final copy, hand over your stack of index cards, both outlines, and your highlighted sources. They will know you didn't use ChatGPT or copy someone else's work because you can't fake what you've just handed to them.
Edit: See my other post for a technique that harnesses your ADHD to help you organize a project or to present new ideas to a group.
https://www.reddit.com/TwoXADHD/s/Y4pUfQR0R3

So - I just finished listening to “Nice White Parents” and have some thoughts.
We have a 2y old who will attend a “fancy” daycare near Bushwick this fall, and as I do research on elementary schools in preparation for the 3k and 4k application cycles (knowing it pays to get in early to secure a K spot), I’m having a crisis of values / philosophy.
The schools in Bushwick, Ridgewood, and the surrounding areas are not good. They are generally rated B-/C range academically on sites like niche and InsideSchools (whereas Manhattan has a slew of B to A+ range public schools in all districts). They’re “fine” as in safe, and full of perfectly fine but overworked teachers, with larger ratios and a general over reliance on screens to subdue portions of the class during split lesson periods (from my tours). We’re considering moving to Manhattan for better schools, since the rent is really not that much higher.
I am a mixed race FT working parent who grew up extremely poor and worked my way into the upper middle class. I’m aware of how the NYC school application system and tax structure perpetuates segregation and inequality across the city, yet I feel like I must buy into the whole game in order to secure the best education for my child and try to end our family’s cycle of poverty.
I’m also aware that plenty of families and children do “fine” and many get into top high schools and colleges etc regardless of where they grow up in the city. However, studies show that ones zip code and immediate network (the social and academic opportunities available within a given neighborhood) generally win out over level of parental involvement when it comes to positioning a child to make an adequate living (and I don’t mean being a billionaire, just living comfortably and having savings). This relates to socioeconomic status, but is more deeply related to the culture and level of systemic wealth - or median level of income for a given neighborhood.
I really like my neighborhood- our friends are here, there are interesting cultural events, good mix of small businesses owned by ethnic communities, etc. but though I value diversity, I feel like white people use this term to rationalize their decisions a lot in well intentioned but awkward ways (“I want my kid to be in a diverse classroom” prioritized over things like class size or quality of education).
A lot of my friends and fellow parents are white upper middle class or wealthy couples who “choose” living and raising their kid in this area because they want to instill progressive values, but more and more I hear them ranking all the “good” schools from other areas on their school choice forms, which seems hypocritical to me, but also underlines what people really want deep down - their kid to be safe and do well in school.
I am not so proud or concerned with taking on some impossible social responsibility to solve racial inequality that I will let diversity be a deciding factor in my kids education. I want them to feel a sense of belonging, sure, but tbh - it’s also important to realize that sometimes you will be the only POC in the room and learn how to cope with that.
SO - my question is - if enough white wealthy parents kept their kids in the local district schools, and donated to their PTAs etc - how long would it really take for a school to be good? Richer white parents have been living in Bushwick for decades now, migrating to the “cool area” so they can “vibe” and live in a “rad place to raise their little dudes” (quoting from another post). So why aren’t the schools better???
Are the rankings wrong? Is it population drop? I’m really trying to understand how such an expensive area can house so many wealthy people and have such bad schools. Is it because no one will really commit and they’re all going to charter schools or schools in other districts (or private?)?
This post was longer than intended - but I’m just at a loss. I don’t really want to live in Manhattan - but I also think that resistance comes from wanting to “raise my kid in a cool area where we vibe” which is super immature, and I kind of don’t care anymore. It’s not like my childless friends help out my kid ever. I hardly see them. And a free babysitter once in a blue moon doesn’t seem worth it to stick around. And having 5 good restaurants in a neighborhood doesn’t make the neighborhood “good” - it just means rich people will travel there to eat ethnic food. Is it because there just aren’t enough rich parents to make a big impact on the funds for local schools? Do Bushwick parents simply not give enough to their PTAs (perhaps because they grew up middle class and don’t realize how much is spent on UES and UWS PTAs?)? These are real questions I’m trying to figure out as we make a decision whether to move and grapple with the ethics of that.
Anyway - have others thought about all of this? Did you ultimately move and say goodbye to living in a hip area?
If you’re rich enough to live somewhere like Brooklyn Heights or Carrol Gardens - is that a good alternative? Seems to have similarly bad/ segregated school issues.

Hello,
Before becoming a Catholic, I was more fearless and open-minded in selecting books privately or topics for my studies. I'm German and currently writing my bachelor's thesis in German literature. Finding a topic has been tedious. Initially, I was very conscientious and rejected anything I couldn't morally support 100%, which was exhausting and frustrating.. its impossible in some areas.
Now, my professor has suggested a thesis topic (because when I choose one myself 95% of the work is perfectionalisticly and fearfully searching a topic and now I see this happen again after I searched two times for new topics after he made the suggestion... imagine how many attempts it were before) a related to eroticism and lust. The novel, by a Catholic author, involves motifs of paganism and ancient Greece as a bad example, leading the protagonist towards sensuality and near-abyss before converting to God. I naturally struggle with choosing a topic, making this even harder. The only scene that is actually erotic is just a few lines even if the whole novel is kind of about the main figure losing his way becaue of lust (its written much more discrete ans nice because its from the 19th century)
Fortunately, the author is Catholic and avoids explicit sexual scenes, focusing instead on seduction themes. I'm concerned about the impact of secondary literature on me, as it often discusses the human body in erotic ways. Additionally, there's criticism of Christianity and Christian morality, which scares me. I fear quoting it might be sinful, though I'm simply presenting differing opinions. Refuting it would be out of place.
I need to complete this work but struggle with constant scruples and rejection of topics, even if I find my concerns a bit unrealistic.
Another topic I struggle with is choosing books to read in everyday life. Before I was christian I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes novels but then I suddenly stopped because the author is a spiritualist (i think) and the stories often contained paranormal things. I am in generel afraif of just freely choosing a book because it could impact my relationship to God in a bad way because of immoral things in there and things that are more from maybe the "demonic" or bad things that are written about God etc.
What is your opinion about this? Am I just scrupulous? How do you handle these things like literature that you enjoy in your free time and topics in university/college/school/at work that involve topics or opinions that are not ideal?

Hallo zusammen! Heute nehme ich euch mit auf eine kleine Reise – meine eigene „Farewell-Tour“ von Disney Plus. Ja, ihr habt richtig gehört, ich habe mich entschieden, mein Abonnement bei dem Streaming-Giganten zu kündigen. Warum, fragt ihr? Nun, das ist eine Geschichte, die sich über ein paar gemütliche Sonntagabende und eine wachsende Liste ungeguckter Serienepisoden erstreckt.
Disney Plus kündigen

Ein kleiner Einblick in meine Entscheidung

Es war einmal... nein, so fangen nur Märchen an, aber tatsächlich begann alles an einem eher unspektakulären Abend, an dem ich durch meine Abonnements scrollte. Da bemerkte ich, dass Disney Plus schon seit Monaten mehr Staub angesammelt hatte als meine alte DVD-Sammlung. Trotz der fantastischen Welten von Star Wars und den endlosen Abenteuern der Avengers, fand ich kaum noch Zeit, all diese Welten zu erkunden.

Wie ich mit Unsubby kinderleicht Disney Plus gekündigt habe

Die Kündigung meines Disney Plus-Abonnements war dank Unsubby ein echtes Kinderspiel. Statt mich durch verschiedene Menüs auf der Disney-Website zu klicken, habe ich einfach Unsubby verwendet. Mit nur ein paar Klicks war alles eingestellt: Ich musste meine Daten nur einmal eingeben, und Unsubby hat sich um den Rest gekümmert. Das Tolle daran? Ich musste mich nicht einmal durch die Abschiedsumfrage von Disney kämpfen – Unsubby.com hat den Kündigungsprozess so reibungslos wie möglich gestaltet. Es war fast so einfach, als würde ich durch Netflix zappen, nur ohne die Qual der Wahl! Absolut empfehlenswert für jeden, der sich ohne Stress von einem Abonnement trennen möchte.

Ein bisschen Wehmut beim Abschied

Ja, ich gebe es zu: Als ich auf den Button klickte, um mein Disney Plus-Abonnement zu kündigen, fühlte ich eine unerwartete Wehmut. Es war, als würde ich meine alten College-Hoodies aussortieren – sie hatten zwar schon bessere Tage gesehen, aber die guten Erinnerungen blieben. So war es auch mit Disney Plus: Viele gemütliche Abende, an denen ich "Frozen" gesungen oder mit "Star Wars" in andere Galaxien gereist bin. Manchmal ist es jedoch an der Zeit, sich von alten Gewohnheiten zu verabschieden und Platz für Neues zu machen.

Was ich dabei gelernt habe

Diese Erfahrung war durchaus lehrreich. Es hat etwas Befreiendes, sich von einem Dienst zu trennen, den man nicht mehr wirklich nutzt. Ich habe gelernt, dass man nicht an einem Service festhalten muss, nur weil man sich daran gewöhnt hat. Und seien wir ehrlich, das Kündigen war so einfach, dass es fast schneller ging, als eine Episode von „The Mandalorian“ zu schauen – ein paar Klicks und fertig!

Mein Rat an euch

Wenn ihr mit dem Gedanken spielt, euer Disney Plus-Abonnement oder irgendeinen anderen Dienst, den ihr nicht mehr nutzt, zu kündigen – zögert nicht! Es kann erstaunlich befreiend sein, sich von unnötigem Ballast zu befreien. Und wer weiß? Vielleicht entdeckt ihr dadurch ja eine neue Serie oder ein neues Hobby, das euch genauso begeistert. Nehmt es von jemandem, der durch diese digitale Generalüberholung gegangen ist: Manchmal ist ein frischer Start genau das, was ihr braucht.
Ich hoffe, diese kleine Anekdote hat euch ein Schmunzeln entlockt und zeigt, dass Veränderung manchmal genau das Richtige ist. Bis zum nächsten Mal – lasst uns offen bleiben für alles Neue und Spannende, das da kommen mag!

Hi, this is my first time posting on this app, so bear with me. This post will be going over the first (and last) time I worked in a dental office to receive shadowing experience.
From the beginning, I (20y/o) have known pretty much all my life that I wanted to be a doctor. It wasn’t until about my sophomore year in high school (the start of the pandemic) that I knew for sure I wanted to be a dentist. I just really liked the more hands-on approach to medicine, IDK. Anyway, I decided that was what I wanted to do, and was going to meet all the prerequisites necessary to apply for dental school. Currently, I attend Arizona State University, (it was all I could afford) and am studying for a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. I intend on graduating from here in the spring of '26, and, hopefully, I get accepted to one of the two in-state schools before then. I really don’t want to take a gap year and want to start practicing dentistry ASAP. So, I decided working in a dental office would be a great experience for me as meeting a certain amount of shadowing criteria is required.
Back in the second semester of my freshman year in college, I emailed about 10 dental offices in the Tempe area. I messaged the email attached to their website(s), explaining who I was, what I was studying, and that I wanted to be a dentist. None of them responded, and I was starting to lose hope. Except for one. The office manager who was in charge of emails responded to me about forwarding her my availability with school, and when was the best time to come in for an interview. I was super stoked about the opportunity and jumped on it as fast as I could.
About a couple of days later, we did an over-the-phone interview, which was just getting to know me and my situation a little bit more. And, if she liked me, we would move forward with the employment process. We ended up scheduling an in-person interview a couple of days later, where I met the dentist(s) (one was the head dentist, and the other was an associate, I believe. This was a corporate office, so they both very well could have been associate dentists, IDK). I’ve worked several jobs in the past, so I was always pretty strong when it came to interviews. Long story short, the dentist(s), hygienists, and dental assistants all liked me, so we moved forward with the employment process. Everything was smooth sailing until it wasn’t.
I didn’t start working until about a month later, as the office manager I had spoken with beforehand said that one of the HR employees responsible for my employment was “on vacation” (this could have been true, but I guess we’ll never know). Then, she (the office manager) ended up getting sick, so my employment was delayed for some time. Anyway, I started working and loved every bit of it. The role I was granted was a sterilization technician, which was fine by me, considering I had absolutely no certification to do x-rays, dental assisting, or anything else dental-related. My job was literally just to set up and break down the rooms, and clean the instruments required for the dental procedures. The job was really easy, and there were many instances where I even finished my work early. When I wasn’t working, I was allowed to shadow 1 of the 2 dentists working in the office, and I even got some chair-side experience alongside them. However, things took a turn for the worse.
Basically, the person training me was the office manager. She seemed really sweet and cool at first, but she became extremely toxic to work with very quickly. I don’t know what could have set her off, but I am extremely nice and respectful to literally everyone I meet. She was responsible for training me and would set unrealistic expectations for me to meet in an unreasonable amount of time. She was also very passive-aggressive to me for little to no reason at all, and would call me names, and would even treat me as if she was on a pedestal, and she was better than me in every way shape, and form.
With that being said, one of the first goals she set for me (keep in mind, this was literally my 4th shift working there) was to break down the rooms (and sanitize them) after the procedures in 2 minutes or less. The next goal she set for me was to set up the rooms for procedures in 5 minutes or less. I didn’t know if I could accomplish these goals yet, and if they were even reasonably achievable for someone like me or not, (considering I had 0 years of experience and she had 4) as I didn’t know how long it would even take me to break down or set up a room yet (at this point I wasn’t trained on any of this, lol). One red flag that she said that I didn’t think anything of at the time was (and I quote), "If you don't meet these goals in the next two weeks or less, we're going to have to evaluate if this is going to work out". I don't know how this flew straight over my head, and why the hell I didn't start looking for a new job ASAP, but then again, I had worked several jobs in the past, and ALL of my bosses and co-workers loved me. I am still friends with some of them to this day. I have had to quit jobs in the past but was never fired. All the jobs I had ever worked ended on good terms.
As the weeks went on, I was improving. I was getting quicker with setting up and breaking down the rooms, and sanitizing them to their entirety. I was more focused on making sure everything was thoroughly sanitized (I mean, this is a doctor's office, right?). Long story short, I did not meet her expectations and time goal. As time went on, they didn't fire me, so I thought I was in the clear. Mind you, I was dorming for my freshman year and did not have a car. Despite this, I made sure to always show up to work 15 minutes early (at the minimum). I would walk 2.5 miles to work the mornings I was scheduled and really did not want to mess up the opportunity they had given me.
Later on that month (I worked this job for exactly 1 month and 7 days), I kept getting messages from the office manager. She was cutting my hours, telling me that they weren't as busy on certain days I was scheduled and therefore did not need to come in. I thought she was being nice and giving me the day off, but yet again, this was another red flag that I was completely oblivious to. She was cutting my hours very low. To sum it up, I was working on Friday, closing up the office. The lead dentist came up to me before he left, and he told me how much of a good job I was doing, and how proud he was of me for my improvements. This made me feel really good, as the office manager I was working with this entire time never said anything nice about me, nor did she send any positive affirmations my way.
Over the weekend, I thought nothing of it. I believed I was going to be working in this office for some time based on the lead dentist's expression that Friday close. I came in for my morning shift on Monday, and everything changed. As I came into work, I just had this gut feeling that something was off. I made my way to the office to greet everyone that morning. I said, "Good morning", and they (both dentists, the office manager, hygienists, and assistants) didn't say a word back to me. They didn't even acknowledge my presence. As I was working my shift, towards the end, the office manager came up to me as I was in the middle of cleaning up a room post-op for an implant procedure. She said that she needed to talk to me in the office with the lead dentist. I was respectful, and followed after her, closing the door and taking a seat on my way in.
They both seemed pretty serious, and I thought to myself, "Am I about to get fired"? Basically, the office manager had the lead dentist (the same dentist who complimented my work ethic the Friday before) fire me. They reasoned that I, "did not improve in ample time to meet the office's expectations". I was honestly starstruck and didn't know what to say. The whole ordeal lasted maybe 5 minutes at the most, and the office manager sat there quietly the entire time. Then, she had the audacity to say, "Okay, do you have any more questions for me and Dr. _____?". Like bruh. I thought I was doing good, lol, then they just fired me? OK. I didn't say anything, other than, "I'm sorry that I let you guys down", and "Thank you for the opportunity at hand, I know you guys truly believed in me". Then, they were super rude to me, and were like, "Yeah, (after I had said thank you and everything) you can grab your things and leave now". I usually listened to music on my 2.5 mi commute back to my dorm, but this time, I walked back in silence, in the Arizona heat, in my all-black scrubs.
I still want to be a dentist. Although I felt like a total failure being fired from something I loved doing, I wasn't going to let that stop me. Today, I continue to shadow several dentists in my area, building strong relations with them as time goes on. I currently work as a certified personal trainer for a private gym, as I am very passionate about diet and exercise, and it has also exponentially increased my communication skills from before I started training gym clients. I plan to take the DAT this spring, and although my GPA is kind of low, (between a 3.0 and a 3.5 but definitely on the lower end of the spectrum) I know that I still have another year before I start applying to schools in the summer of '25, which'll give me enough time to bring that number up a bit. I firmly believe that my DAT score, personal statement, and ECs/LORs will be a great equalizer for me considering my admission process.
Let me know what you guys think of this story, lol. This is my first post on Redditt ever, so I apologize if it was too long.

Guys this college is a piece of sh#t. Dont take admission here. Sale bahut laalchi hai baat baat me paese maangte hai.
Guys dont fill this college in your counselling this is not a college , it is a school. Teachers uneccerarily trouble you by giving lesser internal marks. WTF inko internal marks dene me bhi problem hai.
Especially the HOD of CSE department Deepika kumar........IDK how is she doing PHD she does not know 'C' of Computer and apni frustration Students pe uttarti hai marks na deke bilkul hadd hai.
Again saying do not take admission here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Farewell party ke liye teachers and HOD bhikhaari ban jaate hai .......students ko rok rok ke paese maangte hai
aur jo students paese na dete ya paese kam dete hai unke ye log internal marks kaat lete h as usual
inko students ke career ke saath MC BC karne me maja aata hai literally hadd h.
Bhagwan maaf nhi karega in logo ko aesi harkate hai inki.
IF YOU TAKE ADMISSION HERE YOUR 4 YEARS BE MISERABLE AND NEXT TO HELL TRUST ME.

Guys this college is a piece of sh#t. Dont take admission here. Sale bahut laalchi hai baat baat me paese maangte hai.
Guys dont fill this college in your counselling this is not a college , it is a school. Teachers uneccerarily trouble you by giving lesser internal marks. WTF inko internal marks dene me bhi problem hai.
Especially the HOD of CSE department Deepika kumar IDK how is she doing PHD she does not know 'C' of Computer and apni frustration Students pe uttarti hai marks na deke bilkul hadd hai.
Again saying do not take admission here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Farewell party ke liye teachers and HOD bhikhaari ban jaate hai .......students ko rok rok ke paese maangte hai
aur jo students paese na dete ya paese kam dete hai unke ye log internal marks kaat lete h as usual
inko students ke career ke saath MC BC karne me maja aata hai literally hadd h.
Bhagwan maaf nhi karega in logo ko aesi harkate hai inki.
IF YOU TAKE ADMISSION HERE YOUR 4 YEARS BE MISERABLE AND NEXT TO HELL TRUST ME.

I struggle so much mag focus to the point na hindi ko natapos college ko and bagsak lahat ng grades ko so dumating sa point na ayaw na ako sustentuhan ng parents ko (they also knew I'm gay and syempre typical religious family pinalayas ako), tried seeking for help but since I don't have money at mahal ang magpa doctor sa pinas so may sinuggest yung fb group na sinalihan ko na free daw sa pgh, so nag pa appointment ako sa website and everything, months have passed dumating na yung araw ng appointment ko, I'm from cavite pa btw so I need to travel far para lang sa libreng konsulta but when I got there grabe yung pila, which I understand kasi libre nga, naghintay talaga ako ng almost 4 hours or more ata kasi may initial screening muna eh then specialized doctor na ata yung huli, grabe less than 10 mins lang yung interview sakin ng doctor tapos inulit niya lang tanong ng nung inang naginterview sakin then sabi niya "high chance na may ADHD ka but you need to do this tests first tapos balik ka dito" akala ko simple tests lang siya sa laboratory, nung nag pa quote ako sa hospitals kung magkano shet ang mahal hindi ko afford and hindi ako diagnosed so walang discount since walang pwd id, tapos may niresetang gamot yung doctor grabe inask ko din yung price niya hindi ko kinaya yung presyo per tablet 80+ pesos! TANGINA ANG HIRAP MAGING MAHIRAP dito ko na realize na wala dead end na talaga, I tried working pero I struggle talaga so now I'm jobless and still have bills to pay and I don't know what to do anymore ( or doesn't even want to do anything anymore).

It has been 3 years since I completed 10th and started preparing for JEE but there is one question that someone or other still asks today and I am unable to give a satisfactory response.
The question is what is the difference between B.E. and B.Tech ?
I have googled it thousands of time but I have not being able to find one good response. Parents and Relatives ask this question quite frequently and me being unable to answer has led them to start not trusting my capabilities and credibility. My latest response was it is one and the same to which they replied and I quote, "Ek hi hote to alag alag naam kyun rakhte ?"(Translation :- "If it were one and the same then why would they have different names ?")
Now it is getting on my nerves and they are pushing me to join our local college instead of BITS because local college gives b.tech degree as compared to b.e. of BITS.
I request the seniors to please enlighten me on the difference between both the degrees so that I don't ruin my future and finally can attain mental peace which has been rare since past couple of years. Thank You.

I hope this is allowed. Strangely, absolutely none of the teacher groups I’ve been able to find outside of homeschooling allow surveys at all.
I am an older adult college student, old enough that my own daughter is going into high school next year, and I’m writing a Toulmin essay on AI-powered programming use in school, and would like to know the honest thoughts of teachers on this subject.
This is written to be nonjudgementa, and is anonymous entirely so that there’s no fear of being dogpiled if an answer runs against the grain. I also specifically checked the options to not collect IP or any other data. SurveyMonkey wouldn’t let me use the text box without paying $99, so I couldn’t ask for open-ended thoughts in an anonymous location. If you do have thoughts you’d like to share, you may message me here. No identifiable information will be shared in the essay, nor quoted, without explicit permission.
If anyone is interested in reading this essay AFTER it’s finished and has been turned in, I’ll gladly share it.
Thank you in advance to anyone who assists me by answering these ten questions, and please feel free to share, if you feel so inclined.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/8L775NQ

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I think it’s obvious that, while I’ve never lied to my dad and my brother about something big before, I haven’t told either of them about the animals at the zoo and I’m not planning on it. Even if they believed me, that would actually be worse than thinking I was being foolish by working here. If my dad knew what kind of animals the zoo had, he’d freak out, whether or not there were invisible walls to protect me. In and of itself, my father would demand I quit on the spot if he found out about my hourly rate because it was obvious that there was something about this job that warranted it.
So, I opened a savings account at the bank, and when I deposited the check, I put half in that account. That lowered the chances of my dad finding out how much money I was pulling in.
It wasn’t as if I had anything huge to spend the money on anyway, though. Dad had been thrilled with $25/hr. when I got the job, and we’d already started spending some of that first paycheck on new clothes and little house repairs and such. Money has always been tight, and we live in a three-bedroom house, with my dad graciously having taken the smallest room (which was kind of a catchall storage room up until then) once my brother and I wanted separate rooms when we hit our teenage years.
My mom isn’t in the picture, if you’re curious. She worked as a wildlife photographer, and was so good at it that she’d get paid to go off to remote places in Africa. For months at a time. As if we don’t have animals in America, right? But even when she was here, it always felt like she was distracted, wanting to go back to work. Like she cared more about the animals than about us. Say what you want about me, but I like animals more than people, I don’t love them more. I don’t even think of her as mom anymore; in my brain, she’s Patricia.
When I was nine and my brother Stanley was two, she basically left and never came back. Doesn’t even send postcards. For all I know, she’s dead, and the most meaningful thing I ever got from her was my passion for caring about other animals. I got into it early because of Patricia, and then practically every birthday or Christmas present was some book or movie or toy about wildlife. But that’s all she did for us besides financial support. My dad is a real rock in my life, and I count myself lucky I got at least one good parent.
When Patricia ditched us, I started to help out financially when I was younger by working odd jobs, and then real jobs when I hit sixteen. Stanley is sixteen now, and he’s been working at Hanks Hardware for a few months, which meant now it was all three of us pulling in money. But Stanley only makes $10/hr., working four hours after school and then eight hours on Saturday, so my $25/hr. literally doubled our household income. When I’d gotten the job, I told Dad and Stanley that I wanted Stanley to quit his job, and that I’d give him an allowance, $80 a week, which was what he'd be using for pocket money if he’d still been working.
Getting that time back would be huge for Stanley, because it would let him spend more time on his schoolwork. Not just to bring up his grades; he would literally be learning more. And he’s a junior now, doing things like taking a computer class to learn Microsoft Office. Living in a small town limits your options, and knowledge broadens them. I know that much for sure.
Not to mention, he could actually be a teenager, do the stuff kids did. Go see a movie, hang out with his friends at the bleachers and smoke pot, and head out to the lake to swim when the weather warmed up and have a genuinely fun summer instead of having a forty hour work week. And most important, playing video games. I know that sounds strange, but Stanley loves video games and plays online on the TV in the living room. But he hardly ever has time to play, which means sometimes he’ll stay up too late enjoying himself and fall asleep the next day during his first period class. Dad and I never have the heart to tell him to go to bed, though.
My father was uneasy about Stanley quitting, mostly because of the hypothetical of my job falling through. And Dad didn’t even know about the possibility of there being some terrifying incident with an animal, which might cause me such anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to push past it and would end up needing to quit. I really didn’t think that was likely after I’d managed to mostly get over my paralyzing fear of Yui, but I yielded to his logic and we negotiated. Stanley decided to switch to three hours three days a week and four hours on Saturdays.
Little did they know that not only was I was saving up for my own impending student loan payments, but my savings account would cover a most or maybe all of the cost of any college or trade school Stanley wanted to attend when he graduated. I was so happy about that, I don’t have the words. Half of my income is $25/hr. and for eight hours a day will be $52k a year, all of it put in my savings account. Before taxes, but still, that is fantastic money. I’ll have to come clean eventually, when Stanley started filling out FAFSA forms next year, and I’ll probably tell my dad that I was pretty sure they’re running drugs out of the back of the zoo or something. He’ll be so pissed, but that’s over a year away and I’ll burn that bridge when I came to it.
So, in general, I’ve been enjoying working at the zoo and depositing those paychecks. Call me a cynic, but inevitably, that meant something had to go wrong.
After settling in for my shift a few minutes before 9 p.m., Andrew bid me farewell and headed home. He’d just done one last walk of the zoo, so I took out a book and resumed where I’d left off, planning to do a sweep in an hour. I do have some enrichment planned for one of the animals, but I’d had to order something online and it won’t arrive for a few days.
Shortly after my second ramble around on my route to check every enclosure at the zoo, however, I got a text from my brother.

Gary and Shaun are going to the zoo. They want to try to see the animals.

I closed my eyes in annoyance. Gary and Shaun were two sort-of friends of Stanley’s, the middling kind of friend that you sit with at lunch and hang out with at parties but you’ve never actually been to their home. I knew Stanley had been bragging to his friends about my new job. Well, I guessed. He’d told me and Dad at the dinner table that his friends were impressed with my job, and I figured the fact that his sister had a college degree and had started work at $25/hr. was bragging material, especially when it meant Stanley could work fewer hours.
The idea that some of his friends would want to come check out the zoo hadn’t occurred to me, because I’d come at it logically: The zoo was closed to outsiders. Appointment only. And none of them would ever get an appointment, because they were human. But if anything, the rules that restricted them had probably made it a more enticing idea. Also, Stanley said it the zoo on Google Maps at this point, but that it was blurred out. Andrew told me that had been by request (anyone can do it actually), but I’m sure that made the temptation even worse.
Obviously I wasn’t going to let them in, but I didn’t want them to cause trouble, and they were teenagers. Teenagers tend to cause trouble as a general rule. The last thing I wanted was to have to tell Andrew that they’d shown up at the gate intent on visiting the zoo because my brother had talked it up so much. Not that Stanley knew what this place really housed, but still, Andrew had been so stern on no photography of Leila that I would’ve been embarrassed if I had to call the cops because of something like this.
My reply was curt.

Tell those dipshits the place is closed to walk-ins. I’m not letting them in.
I did. They want to go anyway.

I facepalmed and sighed before replying.

If you can’t talk them out of it, just don’t go with them. I’ll deal with it.

There was a long silence, then some ellipses as he typed, then another long silence. I got antsy and sent a follow-up.

Stanley, I mean it. I do not want you here if I have to call the cops to get them to leave. Stay home. If you show up here with them, I’m cutting off the money I give you.

I wasn’t the type to play fast and loose with threats about money, so that probably surprised him. There was the briefest of pauses.

Geez, no need to be a bitch about it. Fine. I’ll stay here. Good luck dealing with those assholes without me.

That was indeed exactly what I wanted, and he must have known that. Hell, I had pepper spray and a taser, so it’s not like I couldn’t keep them out if I really wanted to. But when it came down to it, I figured, what were they going to do? I wasn’t going to open the door or the front gate. The fence was ten feet high, the kind with spaced bars that had decorative spikes at the top, and it was brand new. It wasn’t as if they were going to take bolt-cutters to a barbed wire fence like in a movie.
In the end, I sat back in my chair and just fell back on my regular routine. I wonder now, if I’d called Andrew and told him, maybe asked him to come hang out for a while, whether things would’ve turned out different. But I wasn’t very well going to wake him up for something that essentially sounded like a minor irritation.
At 10:41 p.m., a beep, beep, beep, alert sounded, and I know the exact time because I picked my phone up off the desk out of habit, assuming it was what was making the noise. But it wasn’t. Looking up to the screen of cameras, one was outlined in red, pulling my focus to it. It was an exterior camera with a wide view that panned back and forth, but was now stopped on movement that it had detected and had deemed sufficient to audibly alert me. I later learned that it was in conjunction with a motion detector on the fence. On the screen, I saw two boys, one on the outside of the fence to the left of the entrance gate and one on the inside.
“What the fuck?” I breathed, standing up and putting my book aside. My fingers went to the mouse and keyboard, and I expanded the view from the camera and zoomed in. It seemed I’d underestimated the boredom and curiosity of two small-town teenage boys.
I saw how the first boy had gotten in when the second boy used the same technique, which was to climb a rope that had knots tied in it about a foot apart, a rope that had been hooked onto one of the spikes at the top, presumably with a loop that had been lassoed and tightened. He made it to the top, shifted and dropped to hang from the top by his hands, then let himself fall to the ground, his knees bending and absorbing the shock of the impact before falling on his butt.
One of the boys had hit a growth spurt, topping out at 5’11” now, all gangly limbs. He had short brown hair and I could see him wearing a sweatshirt with the logo of his school on it. That’s the best outfit to wear when breaking in, apparently: something that shows what high school you go to. The other one was a little more built and half a foot shorter, with long blonde hair that he probably thought made him look like Chris Hemsworth. It didn’t.
“I cannot believe this,” I growled, my anger flaring. Heading quickly out of the office, slamming the door behind me, I was out the door and walking toward the entrance, driven by my anger.
Already walking into the park at a speed driven by their interest in the forbidden areas, they started on the path that went toward enclosure one and rounded the zoo. “Hey!” I barked.
“Ripley!” Gary exclaimed. “Your brother said you wouldn’t open the gate, so we let ourselves in.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked, keeping pace beside them, rage bubbling up inside me. They slowed but didn’t stop. “Do you think this is a joke? There’s a reason I told my brother not to come with you. That alarm you set off goes to the owner of the park, and they’ll definitely be pressing charges. You really want ‘breaking and entering’ on your rap sheet?”
They gave me long-suffering looks, the kind only someone under twenty is capable of. The kind that imply you’re neurotic, or pushy, or self-centered. The kind that say you don’t know what you’re talking about, that they know so much more than you, and that all you are is an annoyance.
“Come on. What is with this place? It sounds awesome, some private zoo, but Stanley didn’t know anything about it,” Shaun told me. Glancing at my belt, where my pepper spray and taser were, he asked, “Is it that top secret? Everything here could sell on the black market for a million bucks or something?”
“They’re expensive animals if poachers get their hands on them, yes,” I said tightly.
“Why would they hire someone fresh out of college for that?” Gary asked, his eyes continuing to take in his surroundings, the path and everything in sight bathed in their standard eerie red glow. “And what’s with the lights?”
“It’s for night vision,” I told him, skipping over the part implying I wasn’t qualified for this job. “Hey, stop.” Moving in front of them, I forced the issue, moving to stand in front of them and forcing them to either stumble to a stop or run into me. “If you climb back over the fence and leave now, before anyone gets here, I’ll lie and say I didn’t know your faces.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re uptight,” Shaun chuckled. “What’s the big deal? I mean, we might not even see anything, since it’s nighttime and the animals are sleeping. It’s not like we’re stealing a tour.”
Honestly, I have no idea how our species has survived this long when our formative years make us so confidently stupid. “So, why are you even here then?” I asked, folding my arms.
“Why not?” Gary asked.
With that, they were quickly walking around me, toward enclosure one. I hadn’t yet seen the animal in enclosure one, but what I did know was I didn’t want to see it for the first time tonight. Roger’s short and snappy description described it as Bear - Steve. According to procedure in the small manual Andrew had given me, I was supposed to deter any intruders with fact that they were on camera and threaten to call the police. It didn’t say what to do if that didn’t work, but I assume I was supposed to…call the police. And also call Andrew, of course. That didn’t solve my urgent problem though, which was two teenagers who wanted to see something cool.
“That’s it,” I growled, taking my taser in one hand and my pepper spray in the other, hoping the sight of me being armed would deter them. Heading after them, I snapped, “If you guys do not leave, I will make you leave.”
Shaun turned and walked backwards so he could speak to me. “Just because you’ve got a complex since they hired you to look after a place like this, doesn’t mean you have any real authority,” he told me. “Look, call the cops if you want. Tell them some teenagers broke in. Response time around here is probably fifteen minutes, so we’ve got ten minutes, minimum. We just want to see something cool, and then we’ll leave.”
I hate that he called my bluff on the weapons, especially in hindsight. I’m not a confrontational person, and my instincts are always to avoid a fight if possible. So, in this case, my instincts were telling me to call in someone else to help get these clowns out of the zoo, not to use the weapons I had for just such a purpose. It makes me feel helpless and angry knowing that I back down from fights, but I balked at the idea of getting physical with them. Only the fact that that wasn’t supposed to be part of my job kept me from feeling like a complete failure as security.
“The animals here are not puppies,” I finally exclaimed. “Some of them are territorial. They could seriously hurt you.”
They finally slowed their pace as they closed in on the gate to the wooden fence. “What are you talking about, territorial? They’re zoo animals,” Gary said.
“This is a huge zoo, and it’s more like a preserve,” I sighed. “It backs up into the forest. These animals build their homes here, scent mark the boundaries, and regularly eat small animals that come in through the bars of the fence to explore. So, like I said. These. Are not. Puppies.”
The two of them finally came to a stop at the gate, looking at me warily. “With this fence, how dangerous could they be?” Gary asked. I didn’t answer. Shaun scanned the expanse behind the gate and Gary looked around, making it clear what he was looking for when he said, “Where are all the signs and shit?”
“There’s a tour guide,” I said. “They don’t need signs.”
“Okay, so, what’s in here?”
Shaking my head, I let out a sigh. “It’s time to leave. I’m serious.”
Gary glared at me for a beat and then said the worst word possible. “Whatever.” Then he turned and unlatched the gate, walking through.
“Gary!” I shouted, stopping short at the threshold. Shaun walked past me, and I made a grab for him, but was too slow. I’ll regret that until the day I die.
Halted at the gate like there was an invisible force field keeping me out in just as it kept the animals in, I officially started panicking. I’d messed up, and now I couldn’t even hit them with either the pepper spray or the taser unless I wanted them to be easy prey.
My eyes scanned the smaller plants along the fence, which slowly grew in average height the closer you got to the tree line. The trees were surprisingly close to the fence, only a few yards in. Also, there were no footprints, no path that only grew small weeds from an animal that often paced back and forth, so I wasn’t sure how often it came out of the trees. Maybe it didn’t.
I wondered if there was another lake, maybe a small pond, that I didn’t know about further in, if the animal lived there. Or maybe this one was relatively reclusive, so I might have time to get the boys out. It could be that it had heard the ruckus of voices and decided to investigate, as it did during tours, but it would take a while to get here. Or I could get lucky and whatever it was could have just had a great meal, deciding to pass up the humans within its grasp.
But I was not lucky.
Putting my pepper spray and taser back in their holsters, I took a couple steps back as I pulled out my cell phone and called 911.
There was a brief pause before I heard someone pick up, and a calm female voice spoke, “911, what is your emergency?”
“Yes, I work at a private zoo, address 11842 Lincoln Road,” I spoke, drawing the shocked gazes of both boys. “Two teenage boys broke in, and they’re refusing to leave the property.”
“For real, Ripley?” Gary exclaimed, as if genuinely offended at my actions.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
Gary was standing near enough to the tall trees that he was under the branches, and something dropped on him, its weight crushing him to the ground. He didn’t even have time to scream. Shaun did, though, crying, “What the fuck?” as he stumbled backwards.
“Get out of there!” I screamed, grabbing my taser from its holster and pointing it at the animal.
On top of Gary’s body was something that looked like a koala. The only thing was, it must have been almost twice as big and had an orange, spotted pattern on its fur. The kicker was the teeth. Koalas eat eucalyptus leaves, most people know, so they don’t have much use for many teeth or even sharp teeth. They’re equipped with a pretty pathetic set of chompers.
Whatever this was, I knew it had a full set of teeth made for a meat-eater, because it had bitten down on Gary’s neck and ripped out a chunk of flesh, arterial blood spraying from the wound.
Shaun, unfortunately, did not take the opportunity to run. He stared at his downed friend, just as I did, in horrified fear. And then ran to him. “Gary!” he screamed. “Hey, get the fuck off him!”
“Shaun, don’t!” I shouted.
Whatever Shaun was thinking, it was less about the potential of him being attacked versus the fact of his friend being attacked right at that moment. I’ll say that about him at least: he didn’t just leave his friend to die. Unfortunately, if he had, it might’ve saved him. Throwing himself at the animal, Shaun shoved it off, an impressive show of strength, before grabbing Gary by the arm and trying to pull him to his feet. “Come on!”
I could see that Gary was barely conscious, though. A gash in an artery that was profusely bleeding will do that to a person. I attempted to aim my taser at the animal, but only a split-second passed before it turned and leapt once more, slamming into Shaun and biting his neck. I stumbled back in fear, adrenaline now pumping through me in earnest, as Shaun cried out in terror and fell to the ground before the animal ripped out his throat.
My vision swam at the sight of a copious amount of blood and the sound of Shaun choking on it. Thick chewing sounds came from the animal before it swallowed and then turned to me.
I only realized I’d dropped my cell phone when I heard a faint, panicked voice ask, “Ma’am? Ma’am, are you there?”
Lowering the taser, I slowly took a couple steps forward, picked up the phone, and I quietly said, “Yeah. I’m here.”
It felt like she was speaking from the other end of a long tunnel when I heard, “I’m sending police and EMT right now. What happened? Was someone injured?”
Swallowing hard, I grimaced as tears came to my eyes. Staring at the animal, which was still meeting my gaze unwaveringly, I simply answered, “Yeah. They’re dead.” At that point, the animal grabbed one of the boys by the throat, then the other, and started dragging them into the trees.
She hesitated before asking some more questions, and I replied to them all absently. Eventually, the animal was gone from my sight, but I still walked backwards as I retraced my steps to the security office, exactly like the first time I’d seen Yui. Eventually I arrived at the security room, and my shaky hand swiped the key card to get in. Shutting the door, I told the 911 operator, “I’m safe.”
“Good. The police should be there in ten minutes.”
My brain thought it was funny that it turned out the boys had been right about the timing, but filed it under ‘things to think about later’. “Okay. I have to call my boss.”
“Just stay on the line with me until the police arrive, okay?”
“It’s okay. I’m fine,” I said quietly. “I just really need to call my boss.”
In spite of her protests, I hung up. The silence of the room rang in my ears and I slowly sat down in my chair, pulling up Andrew’s number.
After four rings, he picked up, his voice drowsy but tense, knowing I’d only call if something had happened. “Ripley? What’s wrong?”
It took me a moment to find my voice. “Two teenagers broke in. They’re dead. Steve killed them.”
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed. After a few beats, he said, “Okay, all right, I’ll, ah, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Did you call the police already?”
“I was on the phone before it even happened, saying they broke in.” I grimaced at that. I was supposed to call my boss first, not the police. That let him determine what actions to take.
Andrew let out a breath. “Okay. I’m assuming Steve took the bodies?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, I’ll call Suzanne and have her put Steve down for a nap, and then get the bodies back to where the EMTs can get them.”
That confused me, and I didn’t really know what to say, so I went with, “I’m sorry, Andrew. I should’ve tried harder to get them to leave. Even tasing and pepper spraying them would’ve-”
“Ripley, this is not your fault,” he said firmly. “I’ll be there soon as I can, all right?”
We ended the conversation and I glanced at the screen of cameras, which was how I’d left it, focused on that section of the fence where the boys had climbed in, with the view enlarged to take up most of the screen. I stared at it until the police arrived.
When the motorcade of flashing lights were visible at the end of the road through one of the cameras, I pressed the button to open the front gate. Fielding the police officers and the EMTs and their questions, I brought them to the enclosure, and right at the edge of the tree line were the two bodies, looking exactly as I’d last seen them. So, I guess Suzanne knows how to run her zoo and handle things when the worst happens.
Both boys were put into body bags and lifted onto gurneys, and then each one was put into one of the two waiting ambulances. Andrew arrived before too long and answered all the questions the police had for him, the ones I didn’t know how to answer. Also the questions that I didn’t really feel comfortable answering, like, “What species of bear is it exactly? And why is there just this flimsy fence here?” I watched from a distance as they took his statement and, I determined by watching their facial expressions, Andrew seemed to answer their questions to their satisfaction.
The long, exhausting experience ended when the last of them left, and Andrew and I went back to the main building, going to his office. Instead of sitting in his desk chair, my boss vied for the couch that sat against one wall, used occasionally by visitors. I sat at the other end, leaning back heavily into the cushions.
Andrew spoke first, echoing his earlier sentiments and immediately making it clear that what occurred wasn’t my fault. I felt some anger at myself, mostly because I knew that if I’d used one of my weapons on one of them, they’d still be alive. But I hadn’t wanted to go to such extremes just because they’d climbed over a fence. They were dumb teenagers, right? I’ve never been tased or pepper sprayed, but I’d seen videos on YouTube and it didn’t look like a fun time.
“Look, you said it that first day in your interview, that people are stupid,” he told me. “Teenagers especially. You know that’s a fact. You did the best you could in that moment, so don’t look back and think of what you could’ve done to fix things, because solutions always seem obvious in hindsight. All right?”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Andrew sent me home at that point, saying he’d take the rest of the shift. I was too weary to object, so I left.
Stanley was still sleeping safely in his bed, and that’s one thing I’m so grateful for. If this job took my brother from me, I’d be done with it. Still, I don’t relish waking up tomorrow and having to face him. I don’t know exactly how he’s going to react to the news, but it’s going to be the worst thing in the world that’s happened to him, mostly because of the guilt of not being able to talk them out of going. The same way I couldn’t talk them out of staying out of an enclosure.
My schedule is still nocturnal, so I’m not tired enough to sleep right now. Hopefully I’ll get sleepy soon. For now, I’ll play one of Stanley’s mindless old school video games with the sound muted. My main goal is to get the image of all that blood out of my head.
​
First / Previous / Next
***
/storiesbykaren

Ever since I could remember myself, I was a cowardly person. Or, to formulate it in a lighter tone, I am prone to be scared.
Living in a rural area with few kids around my age to play with, we all knew each other in the town and our families were either relatives or friends. My childhood friends had noticed my fidgeting when we would go to darker places. The quickening of my breaths when entering an abandoned townhouse. Or, when going to the farms late at night to play hide and seek. While they picked on me from time to time, they didn't give me a hard time about it. They understood also that the world is dangerous enough so, having one person in your group who is too careful, keep the careless people in line.
I was very good in games; throwing stones with precision on target cans, chasing, dodgeball. However, I was exceptionally good at hide and seek and, being a scrawny little dude, was easy for me to fit in unlikely places. During the day I would go exploring on my own and, at night, I knew where the best hiding spots were that were not too dark or far from an inhabited house. Yet I could feel the fear once in a while. A sudden gust of wind whistling through broken branches, would be enough to make me very scared.
When I was around 8, I told my parents about my fear of the dark. They initially told me that I think too much of it but, as the months went by and they saw my everyday efforts to avoid dark corners and always having the lights turned on in my room, they grew concerned.
They asked me on whether I had a negative experience in my past while being in the dark. I didn't. I always had this fear that, in the dark, no one is truly alone. That something is there always, waiting to drop my guard. My grandmother, who happened to be in the house during this conversation, she was looking at me concerned and, at the same time, nodding at me. As in a way to tell me that my concerns were valid.
In the following years, I put a lot of effort in my academics and fitness. I signed up to a couple of self defense classes that boosted my confidence in myself, although I still remained thin and short. This fear of the dark, while it lessened, it never vanished even when I finished high school and was about to study at a college a bit too far from my homely town.
My grandmother, bless her soul, had visited us that fateful morning when I was preparing to move to the Uni dorms. She asked my parents that she wanted to talk to me in private and, while initially surprised, they did as she asked and went to carry my stuff in their car.
'My boy' she said with a calm tone, her brown eyes losing their usual joyful gleam 'living alone in a dark, cold city is different. I worked in that city and other cities for many years to bring food on the table. You dear grandfather also was a hard working man. He taught me how to protect myself. I never needed to use what he taught me. But, he also knew that there was one more thing that made me scared. Yes' she admitted as I looked at her surprised.
'The dark' she continued as I didn't interrupt her 'has always been a fear for me. I never had anything bad happen to me in it, but it always made me wary. You know how some stories go. Demons, ghouls, ghosts etc. We often hear that the true monster under the bed is human. But, what if it actually isn't?'
I nodded at her, my hands trembling a bit 'even going to a psychologist for this didn't help. Session after session, my fears got little yet they still are there.'
She nodded at that she gently took my trembling hands in hers. She was trembling a bit too.
'Maybe I have an issue or a curse that I passed it down on you, my darling Lukas. We all have problems. However, a few years ago, when your grandfather was in his deathbed for over two weeks, he told me to keep the lights open when it was night, every single night. He never liked to have them on next to his bed, which is why I had a night lamp always on my side of the bed and not his. Right there though, in that hospital room, he asked me that. I did so. He then told me he could sometimes see shadows in the hospital. And sometimes, those shadows didn't neither natural nor friendly.'
'Before he passed away, he gave me this cross to wear around my neck. It was a gift from his godfather. He told me, even during the war, that cross was his candle in the dark. He never took it off and he always felt that it gave him courage.'
She opened her woven bag and took the cross out. I inclined my head, understanding. She wore it on my neck and kissed the top of my head.
'Ever since I wore this cross, I felt more at ease when it would be dark. I stopped using my lamp from time to time. The fear was still there yet, I felt as if your grandfather was next to me, guarding me against whatever was lurking behind the dark curtain of the night. May it be your candle now, a small reminder that dawn always comes even after the darkest of nights.'
I thanked her profusely and we shed tears of farewell. I love her a lot and now I know one more reason why. She understood me completely.
It wasn't easy getting used to the city life. Working part time at a bakery and hustling through my engineering degree was taxing on my body. Yet, I had two cool roommates at the dorm and we kept each other good company in and out of the dorms.
I was on one hand, way of my surroundings, especially late at night when I could return home from a party. But I never got rid of my need for exploration. So I knew which routes and shortcuts to use at night, because I had already explored them during the day.
One such route however, was next to an abandoned, soon to be demolished hotel. While it was open for visitation as a soon to be demolishes historical landmark, that place gave me the chills since the first time I laid my eyes upon it. It had a very creepy vibe, the same type of vide I felt towards darkness; only this place made me feel actually nauseous when I was near it. As if something or someone really dangerous was lurking in its shadows of the night.
I tried to explore it during the day, to face my fear within its dusty beige and flowery decorated walls that started to smell of mold. Yet, that place was making me feel pure dread, even during the day. Its basement was the creepiest place I had visited in my life. Even during the hours of the day, I felt pure fear just being in there. In its gray walls and emptiness, I could feel a resounding presence.
What also didn't help were the local news, which were reporting disappearances of people every couple of months near that area. Since I heard those news, I never went to explore that building again. I even bought a pepper spray can, just in case, when I had to go even remotely near that place. It was right in the middle of my quickest route back home from the city center.
Every night, I used a different route to go home after a party. Every night.
Not that night two months ago. Because that was when I met some monsters.
It was a Friday night. The third year engineering students at Uni made a collab party with the philosophy third years. It was an interesting party and people really hit it off. My roommates, Josh and Chris, were also there, dancing and meeting new people. I was there just for the vibes. I had the next morning off at the bakery, so I just wanted to drink a couple of beers and chill. It was almost summer and we had no written exams except for written projects, to it was all good.
I decided to stroll back home at around 02:30 AM. My mates wanted to stay more so, I wished them a good time and went back on my own. It wasn't the first time I did that and I never encountered problematic strangers on the way home. Not this night.
I was halfway through on one of the paths I was using to go home. This path was dimly lit by a couple of street lights. Not many houses were around, only some shops that were closed for the night. I saw from afar three large looking men nudging a person between them. When I took a closer look, I felt terror in the pit of my stomach. That person was a young woman, no older than me. Under the street lamp, I could see that her hair were a mess and something was tricking down from the mouth. Blood. One of those brutes were choking her strong enough to make her not scream for help.
I was frozen stiff in fear. Quickly, I moved to the side, behind another street lamp. I sent my GPS coordinates to my mates and told them to call the police right now. Thankfully, they saw my message instantly. I then took pictures and a short video, showing how they were dragging the poor woman with them and I sent them to my friends.
While I was about to call the police myself, I stood appalled and terrified at what I was witnessing. She was putting up a fight and at one point, one of them punched her in the face.
That's what took me out of my terrified state. That woman was suffering and God knows what else those assholes would do to her. I couldn't rely solely on the police. Friday nights were the worst, the police department would have their hands full of burglaries and other crimes. It would take them at least ten minutes to respond and that might be too late for her.
So, I looked around me and saw some large stones. I put some in my pockets and threw the largest one at the direction of the men.
It hit the arm of one of them with a loud noise. As he turned around to see what was that, I threw another one that hit him square on his temple and he dropped on the pavement, unconscious.
'Come take on someone your size' I shouted as I threw one stone after another at the other two, hitting him n the shoulder.
I was good at aiming, too many games of dodgeball taught me how to be accurate with my throws.
The two assholes dropped the woman like a sack of potatoes on the ground and raced straight at me.
I felt the adrenaline hit me and, before I realized it, I was running full speed away from them, while glancing back and throwing them more stones.
They were screaming in anger as they were approaching me but I was speeding up. I could feel the vibrations in right pocket from my phone, but I couldn't answer right now. They were gaining on me, so I turned abruptly to my left and used a different path.
That path was leading near where the woman was lying and the third man was still down. I ran and saw that the young woman wasn't there anymore, but the man was still on the ground.
She escaped, I thought with glee as I ran and ran in the routs ahead of me. At one point though, I saw only one of them behind me.
Oh crap.
I then realized I was in the lot where that damn hotel was. And it had two ways out, if one of them was right behind me the other was right across me. The lot had no other ways out, it was like a cage because of smaller demolitions that needed to be done in some service buildings right outside the hotel. I looked at the threatening figures gaining on me. I froze for a second.
I could escape them by entering the hotel and exiting via the door in its basement. Yet I knew something dreadful was in there, in that basement.
Yet I thought, if something dreadful was in there, I shouldn't be afraid, not now. I needed to be strong. I lunged towards the hotel's entrance, my sudden change of course disorienting my pursuers. They soon followed after me.
I was faster than them now in the dark. Under the dim city lights, I could see quite clearly in front of me. I followed the dusty corridor to my right and went down the only set of stairs leading to the basement.
That's when I felt it. That's when I knew. Someone was in here, in the almost complete darkness of the basement. The only light that was entering was from the almost closed exit door. No windows, no lamps. When I ran towards the door on the right side of the basement, my feelings of dread and panic multiplied; there was a lock and chain on the door. I tried to open it but it wouldn't budge. I felt the darkness around me like a thick blanket ready to strangle me while also hearing footsteps on the floor above. The assholes were coming down here.
In that moment, I felt as if my life passed in front of me. There was no way out other than those stairs. If I tried to use them now, there was a high chance they would get me while they would come down here. And if they got me, I was a dead man, I knew it.
I felt my grandmother's cross over my beating heart. I wasn't alone. I felt a soft feeling of relief and bravery engulfing my trembling limbs. I took a deep breath and, in the pitch black darkness, the city lights showed me a bunch of desks and chairs towards the left corner of the large room.
Those weren't here two years ago. I ran towards them, despite an alarming feeling of fear that hit me when I looked towards the dark, left corned. I hid in between some of them offices. They were large and heavy desks and I found a small nook between two of the ones further to the front to hide in it. People in hide and seek always look for the furthest, darkest corners, not the up front, obvious hiding places.
I held my breath. I then took deep breaths to calm myself down. Beads of sweat feel on my forehead, my shirt was drenched. I felt the ground beneath me and felt something like a heavy brick. I took it in my right hand. If they were to find me or catch me while running away, I wouldn't go down without a fight.
I took my phone out, texted my location to my friends but I had no signal. Damn it. I checked my other pocket. I had a couple of stones left. Maybe I could use them to distract them.
The steps got closer to the stairs. I breathed shakily, then slowly, then silently. My heart was pumping in terror as I saw the two men enter the basement.
In that moment, my vision got darker. As if, the darkness in the basement was thicker, heavier. I felt the cross on my chest become heavy and warm. I raised my left hand and, to my amazement and horror, I felt that the cross was almost too hot to hold. Something was very wrong in this place.
The men entered the basement. One of them was lighting up the place and checking the desks one by one, while the other was guarding the stairs.
I didn't think that far, they did. If they find me-
The cross was now burning in my grasp but I didn't let go. I was suddenly feeling all my senses to scream at me to run away from something infinitely more terrible than those two monsters.
'Come out you piece of shit' the dude in front of the stairs shouted, gasping for air 'we will find you and we will have our sweet time taking turns beating you up, little punk.'
His voice was deep and was threatening, but it didn't matter. I wanted to shout at them to run away. I didn't know what it was. I looked through the small crack in front of me.
I froze. My limbs felt suddenly paralyzed. On the left corner of the room, from where I was standing close to a few minutes ago, was a figure. It was tall, abnormally tall. It was wearing a top hat and a tux, yet I couldn't see arms from the sleeves. It had its back towards the room. But I felt it. It wasn't human.
'Whoa' I heard the dude standing in front of the stairs when his phone's light centered on that figure. His buddy also audibly gasped.
'Who the fuck is that' one of them asked and the other just shrugged his shoulders.
The room's felt darker and darker by the second, the light from their phones started to flicker.
'Sir, we are looking for a scrawny ass punk. He is our friend-'
'Is he a friend like that woman you were planning to have your way with a few minutes ago?'
My body now was completely numb. My hand was on my cross and I felt it burn. It was the only thing that reminded me that this was real. That male voice was smooth, almost intoxicating to listen to. But it also felt as if it was a guttural growl from a beast.
'Or that poor old couple you killed two weeks ago? Or that young father you found near your turd and shot on the back? Should I go on?'
The two dudes looked suddenly terrified. One of them pulled a gun out of his pocket.
'Who the fuck are you?!'
The figure slowly turned and that's when I screamed.
There was unending darkness in those empty sockets for eyes, except for an alarming gleam reminiscent of the light of a hunter's moon. The nose was abnormally big and sharp, the face of the skin gray, wrinkled and decaying. And, its mouth was terrifyingly wide, with countless black teeth forming a horrific smile that was pointed towards me.
The men gasped loudly, one dropping his phone, the other looking towards my direction and then towards that thing.
In the last flicker of his phone's light, the figure disappeared from the corner and appeared in front of the two now terrified men.
As they started screaming and shooting at it, I saw that thing's upper limbs exiting the tux's sleeves, boney and black from rotten flesh, piercing the head of the dude with the gun. It then tore off the head and threw it to the side, while its mouth took a bite from the headless corpse's neck.
The other man screamed bloody murder, but the beast pierced his chest with its limbs and dragging him towards it, muffled screams and blood gurgling and bone crunching were the only sounds in the basement. The screams were soon gone, the gurgling was gone, the bones crunching sounds disappeared. That thing ate both of them and I saw it all, under the dimness of the city lights from the basement's door and under the flickering of their phones' torches.
Not even the bones remained, not even a drop of blood. I was trembling in fear, tears coming down my eyes. I was next.
The figure stood. It looked at me, those horrific eyes piercing my own. I felt it hated me in that moment. That thing wanted to tear me to pieces.
In an enraged voice, stripped from all the smoothness and the inviting tone of before, that thing growled.
'If it wasn't for that thing you have around your neck, I'd have you for dessert.'
The figure disappeared in a black smog.
I don't know how long I was in that nook. I don't know how many hours of shock my brain tried to process. It was way after 6 AM that I saw the light of dawn piercing through the basement door. I mustered the courage to crawl out of my hiding spot. I stood up, my mind hazy and dizzy, my limbs trembling from weakness and tiredness. I approached the stairs, not daring to look to my left.
Not even a drop of blood was there. Only their dropped, crushed phones. Their torches were still on. I left them there.
I looked behind me, towards that corner. I could feel it was there. Now invisible under the light of day, but waiting.
'Goodbye, Lukas'.
I felt terror again in my heart. It knew my name. I ran as fast as I could up the stairs, not looking back, I ran and ran and ran, until I reached in front of my dorms.
I entered my room and my friends were there. They looked at me relieved and came to hug me.
I hugged them back, crying harder than I ever did before. The terror gave its place in overwhelming relief. I don't remember how I got into the shower and then went to the police station to give a testimony of the events.
I met the woman who was assaulted at the police station. Thankfully, she wasn't severely injured by those brutes and she was already treated at the hospital. When she saw me, she rushed to come close to me and hugged me, thanking me for helping her. She had managed to run away to a nearby pub and soon after, she contacted also the police.
The police had already arrived on the spot where my friends had instructed them to go, based on the coordinates I sent to them in that message. They arrested that man. After I left the basement and my phone gained signal, my friends sent them the coordinates of the hotel that they had just received. They also checked the hotel, except for the phones, they found nothing from the other two criminals.
I knew though. As I recounted with the woman and the police the events of that night, I knew what happened to those two. Yet I didn't say anything about what that thing did to them. No one would believe me. Those men were wannabe monsters who met their end by the hands of an actual monster.
I am now in my room, the lights turned on. Every whistle of the wind outside, makes me flinch and look around. Every shadow I see in the corners makes me terrified. I still remember those hollow, dark eyes with that horrible orange gleam. I don't know if I ever feel ok.
But suddenly, I reminded myself. I looked at my left palm. The burnt imprint of my grandmother's cross was there, the only reminder of the reality of what happened. And the reminder that in my hour of need, in that thick, murderous darkness, I wasn't alone. I touched the cross over my chest, my candle in the dark. I pulled it towards my temple and, for the first time in my life, I prayed.
I prayed in gratitude. I was alive. That woman was alive. The two criminals were dead. The third was behind bars.
But the monster was in that basement, lurking, waiting for its next victim.
I just hope that, when that building is demolished, that thing will stay in the shadows under the rubbles, forever.

247Sports just released their updated 5 star rankings. Tavien St. Clair (Ohio State QB commit) is apparently pushing him for the number one spot though. This story has the full quotes from 247Sports' Andrew Ivins on Underwood: https://atozsports.com/college-football/recruiting-analysts-lsu-football-quarterback-commit-bryce-underwood-top-2025-class/