Cover Art!
Just because you’re transported to another world, doesn’t mean you’ll escape from your pain.
Abused by her parents, thirteen-year-old Frances only wants to be safe and for her life not to hurt so much. And when she and her class are transported to the magical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the self-titled Demon King, Frances is presented with a golden opportunity. If she succeeds, Frances will have the home she never had. If she fails, Frances will be summoned back to the home she escaped.
Yet, despite her newfound magic and friends, Frances finds that trauma is not so easily lost. She is dogged by her abuse and its physical and invisible scars. Not only does she have to learn magic, she has to survive the nightmares of her past, and wrestle with her feelings of doubt and self-loathing.
If she can heal from her trauma, though, she might be able to defeat the Demon King and maybe, just maybe, she can find a home for herself.
[The Beginning] [<=Chapter 217] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Chapter 219 June 11 or see the next chapter now on Patreon]
The Fractured Song Index
Discord Channel Just let me know when you arrive in the server that you’re a Patreon so you can access your special channel.
***
Ginger makes an offer to Lakadara. The rest of Telkandra's remaining brood discuss the fate of their allies.
“Not good?” Sara asked as Helias strode into the tent and made his way straight to the bottle of wine.
“Not good,” Helias muttered.
Sara nodded woodenly. “Privacy spell?
The tauroll waved his sheathed Fangroar and after pouring himself and his wife a drink, sat down. “We’re safe. Oh Galena, this is really not good.”
“How dead are we?” Sara asked, her tone light.
“We’re not dead. We’re just in a lot of danger and even if we somehow force the humans to retreat, we’ve lost this war,” said Helias.
“Explain.”
Helias drank deep, noting that Sara was also drinking deep as well. “Thorgoth is going after the humans. That part of the plan is as good as it gets. We’ll be attacking them, and using the dragons, whilst our forces hold off Titania. Our objectives are also well-chosen.” Helias buried his head into his hands and let out a deep groan. “But winning this doesn’t change anything.”
“If we can defeat the humans, why won’t that change anything?” Sara bit her lip. “Unless it renders us unable to beat Titania?”
“Yes. Even on the chance we beat the humans we won’t be able to invade them, we won’t be able to defeat Titania. We’d be at a stalemate and both armies would have to withdraw.” His hands dropping to the table, Helias stared at his wife. “And we don’t have any reserves left. We’re going to lose the war, even if Thorgoth lives.”
“If we defeat the humans—”
The general shook his head. “By defeat, I mean we’ll hurt them but we can’t prevent them from withdrawing. We might kill a few of their leaders, their important mages and Otherworlders, but they will still have soldiers. After coming so close, they won’t surrender. They’ll keep attacking until they kill enough of Thorgoth and Berengaria’s supporters that nobody will help them, or until both of them die.”
“Alright so, what do we do?” Sara asked. Helias looked at his wife, noting how still she sat. Her wings were clamped tight to her back and her lips were drawn tight.
“Sara, I don’t have good answers.”
Sara steepled her trembling fingers as best she could. “They’re going to be better than mine. I don’t know anything about war.”
“Right. Well, you need to surrender to the humans if you are captured. Present yourself as a non-combatant. Cry, scream, anything to declare that you don’t mean any harm,” Helias said.
“Why not Titania?” Sara asked.
“She has every incentive to kill you off and far less compunction about doing so. Killing our family off would allow her to have more land to give away to her loyalists. In contrast, the humans have Erlenberg troops fighting with them along with those of the Lightning Battalion. They’re going to be far more friendly to Alavari civilians,” Helias said.
Soft hands, grabbed onto Helias’s waist with a surprisingly firm grip. “What about you? I can get away, but how are you going to survive this?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“Don’t you dare! Our daughter needs her father and I need my husband!”
The general stared at his wife. “Sara, I can’t surrender to the humans if we win. They want me dead.”
Sara refilled Helias’s glass. “Then you need to help Thorgoth defeat them.”
“Then what? We’re never winning this war. Thorgoth is going to be invaded and—”
Cutting him off with the clink of her goblet against the table, Sara hissed, “And what? Why think that far? We can plan for that after this battle, so long as you are still here and with me.”
Letting out a breath Helias pushed his hair back and allowed himself a sigh. Reaching across the table, he took his wife’s hand.
“Sara, you’re right, but you know you can escape this if Thorgoth is defeated.”
The harorc placed her other hand on top of his. “We’re partners. I need you. We need you. So promise me that you’ll do your damndest to live.”
Helias closed his eyes and nodded. “I promise. First things first, before we turn in we need to talk to the dragons.”
***
Fennokra stalked slowly toward the camp. This wasn’t the collapsed side-passage where she and Yolandra had some privacy. This was the main camp where Thorgoth and their army were preparing for what had to be the final battle.
It was also where her siblings were swallowing the last of what seemed to be a side of salted pork.
“Velkandra, Makentra, we need to talk.”
Their second-eldest sister licked her lips, her neck rising to Fennokra’s level. “I am assuming you mean in private?”
“Of course.” Fennokra could see Velkandra’s haunches tensing to raise herself higher. Her sister was trying to look down on her. Allowing her head to dip, she held her height.
“Alright.” Velkandra flicked her tail and Makentra, licking his lips, followed them.
Since their enemies had set up their siege camp behind them, the Alavari camp had been reduced in size. Still, there was the alcove of the collapsed tunnel. Whilst couriers and soldiers crossed across this natural cavern to the defenses on the other side, they kept a good distance away.
Yolandra was waiting for them, scratching something into the cave wall. Fennokra let out a rumble in her throat and her sister turned from the wall suddenly, shaking her head.
“Velkandra, Mankentra—”
Velkandra puffed a cloud of smoke out. “What’s this all about?” she hissed, lips drawn back to show teeth.
Fennokra took a step away from her sister to take Yolandra’s side, her eyes narrowed. “Are you joking? Do you not think we should at least discuss what is going on?”
“And what would be the point? It is a bit late to be having this discussion. The course of the winds have been chosen,” said Velkandra.
Yolandra rose to her full height on her four legs, but even so she was still shorter than the silent Makendra. “The winds can be fickle, Velkandra, and where we are is proof.”
Velkandra pursed her lips, eyes for the first time, looking toward the ground. “The survival of our family is tied to that of Thorgoth. To abandon him would be death by the hand of the Stormcaller and her allies or by his hand.”
“Besides, if we were to abandon Thorgoth’s cause, that would be dishonorable. We promised to assist him,” said Makendra.
Fennokra blinked at her brother’s tone. It was quiet and yet there was a touch of a deep growl to his voice. His claws were ever so slightly digging into the ground.
“We are dragons. We can think and make decisions for ourselves. We are allowed to consider other options, are we not?” Fennokra asked.
Velkandra’s tail flicked violently side to side as her neck turned to her younger sibling. “Then why does it sound as if you wish to follow in the wingbeats of our elder sister?”
“Who we killed. I was there. I lost a claw striking her down!” Fennokra raised one clawed hand, flexing the remaining digits.
“On that, why did we have to kill Lakadara?”
All golden eyes fixed on Yolandra, who held the gaze of her siblings with a contemptuous scowl.
“Lakadara betrayed us,” said Velkandra, almost growling.
“I’ve been thinking over what happened. Lakadara said nothing about betraying our mother. She merely was questioning if Thorgoth was trustworthy,” Yolandra said.
A scowl flaring his nostrils, Makentra growled. “He fed us, trained us in how the humans and their allies fought. Hid us from their eyes—”
“And now Caldra is dead!” Yolandra exclaimed.
“Which is why we must kill the Stormcaller and her friends! So we can avenge him and our mother!” Velkandra almost completely unfurled her wings. Only the tips slapping the stone forced her to pull them back.
“Then what?” Yolandra asked.
Velkandra frowned. “Then what? We’d have our revenge—”
Yolandra’s tail cracked against the ground. “Then what? You all must have heard of what Thorgoth is capable of. What he’s done to others.”
Makentra rolled his eyes. “Sara’s story is just a story. She might have been just trying to turn you.”
“She was honest and she is not the only tale I’ve heard. You must have heard rumors of what Thorgoth did to his own son, Teutobal,” said Fennokra.
“Propaganda,” Velkandra hissed through her gritted teeth, while smoke wafted through the gaps. “In any case, we have no other option. We fight or we die.”
Fennokra, her claws grinding against the floor, had had enough.
“Velkandra, Makentra, have you ever considered that Thorgoth is perhaps using us for his own goals? We have not even considered what he might do to us after we’ve destroyed the humans and their allies. How do we know the Stormcaller and her allies might treat us better? Besides in the first place, she never intended to kill our mother—”
Fennokra blinked. She was flying backwards, something hard was bearing her into the wall. Dizzy as if struck by one of the Stormcaller’s spells, she realized that the force was the foreclaws of her elder sister. Mad rage lit those golden eyes that were the exact same shade as hers. Horrified, Fennokra tried to throw Velkandra off, but her sister was larger and heavier than her.
“Say that again. I dare you to say that again—ARGH!”
Velkandra rolled off, forced off of Fennokra by the Yolandra shoving into her side. As the elder dragon recovered, the smallest of Telkandra’s brood hissed, “It’s the truth! You are a fool to deny it!”
An ugly sneer on her lips, wings quivering with fury, Velkandra snorted. “The truth? Oh right so we are speaking the truth then. Well here’s the truth. Our kind is doomed!”
Makentra blinked. “Sister?”
“Of course Thorgoth is going to get rid of us or try to after this campaign. He has to, but right now he needs us and that’s what we need to rely on until we gain more strength. Of course, whether he wins or the Stormcaller’s allies win, how can we expect to survive in a world dominated by these lesser species hm? How could they ever not see us as a threat?”
Velkandra stalked toward the wide-eyed Fennokra and Yoandra. Her head turned side to side as she fixed her sisters with wild wide eyes.
“Well? Tell me Fennokra. Speak the truth Yolandra. Or are you both too afraid to admit that our kind are doomed and the only thing is to live as long as we can and hopefully avenge those that hurt us as we do so.”
“You’d have us fly to our deaths?” Makentra asked.
The stammering voice brought Velkandra around. Extending a wing, she touched its tip to her brother’s. “I would at least have us fly together.”
Fennokra shook her head. “We’d knowingly fly with a murderer of children and someone who would want to kill us after we’ve stopped being helpful to him.”
“And we have no other options,” said Makentra. Letting out a breath, he rose to his claws and walked away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sisters.”
Velkandra, without another word, turned for the exit. “You know it’s true, Fennokra, Yolandra.”
Fennokra closed her eyes. Yolandra, though, narrowed hers. “Doesn’t change that Lakadra’s blood is on our claws.”
Velkandra flinched and left. She strode away so quickly she nearly stepped on Helias and Sara as they came to the cave. She gave the pair no acknowledgement other than a growl.
“See you tomorrow, General,” said Makentra, his tone curt. “We will talk to King Thorgoth ourselves for the plan’s details.”
“Of course,” said Helias. He bowed as the pair left before turning to Yolandra and Fennokra. “I believe we missed something important?”
“Be honest, General Helias. Even if we succeed tomorrow, your king has no use for us after we help him kill the Stormcaller, am I correct?” Fennokra asked.
Sara and Helias didn’t say anything. Their slight move to stand closer so they could hold hands was enough.
“I thought so,” said Fennokra. She let out a sigh and glanced at Yolandra, who nodded. “We will be on the battlefield tomorrow. Where are we going?”
“You’re going with me. We’re attacking the forces sallying from Kairon-Aoun. The plan is that you dragons breathe flame over their army to soften them before we attack.
“Understood. Any questions Fennokra?” Yolandra asked.
Fennokra shook her head. What could be asked anyway?”
Yolandra flashed the pair a joyless smile. “For what it is worth, you two have been good caretakers to us. Even if it was to preserve your own lives.”
Helias didn’t bow. Instead he extended a hand. Yolandra stared at him, but Fennokra, recognizing the gesture, extended a single talon.
“May you always be able to see the sun.” At the dragon’s blink, Helias smiled. “It’s an Alavari saying. It may come from when we used to be enslaved by the Goblin Empire. It means good luck.”
Yolandra nodded and Fennokra found herself smiling.
“Our mother taught us a saying as well. May you never fly alone. I wish that for you both,” said Fennokra.
“Thank you,” said Sara in a quiet voice. She curtsied and the two dragons dipped their heads. They watched Helias and Sara leave with placid smiles.
Then, when nobody was looking, they turned from the entrance to hide their bulks as best they could. The gloomy light of the alcove their only curtain of privacy.
***
Frances slowed slightly as they approached Lakadara’s enclosure. However, Ginger did not slow down.
“Hold on, Ginger, what’s the plan?” Frances asked.
Adjusting her new crown mid-stride, Ginger said, “I’ll show you. I’m certain it’ll work, though.”
Frances’ eyebrows rose. “Is that crown getting to your head already?”
The new Queen of Erisdale flashed a slightly nervous grin over her shoulder. “Yes actually, but I think that’s a good thing in some way. Don’t you?”
Frances found herself nodding. It was strange to see her friend even more confident than usual and so comfortable in the regal crown that she wore atop of a standard Lightning Battalion light blue uniform. Yet she rather enjoyed the new gait that Ginger had.
“I do.” Frances smirked. “Your Majesty.”
Ginger rolled her eyes. “Fuck you.”
Giggling, Frances stopped herself as they drew even closer to Lakadara. The dragon was drawing herself up, placing her massive foreclaws over each other.
“Lakadara. I am Ginger, the new Queen of Erisdale. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The dragon coughed, blowing out a puff of smoke. “Greetings Ginger, Queen of Erisdale. I’m sorry for your predecessor’s demise.” Lakadara’s golden eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”
Ginger dipped her head. “Thank you and as to why I’m here. I have a proposition. If you accept it, I will grant you and your kin, the domain of the Erisdalian mountains marked by the Kwent River Valley, Freeburg and Athelda-Aoun as your home in perpetuity, so long as you do not attack humans unless in self-defense.”
“I am unfamiliar with human geography. From the Stormcaller’s expression, I assume that is a lot.”
Frances swallowed and closed her mouth, but she didn’t question her friend. Ginger, still smiling slyly, nudged her. “It is. Frances, can you lend me a hand here?”
Nodding, Frances closed her eyes and imagined a rough map of Erisdale and its territories. With a wave of Ivy’s Sting she created an image of Erisdale, highlighting in red the expanse of the mountains that bordered Alavaria and Erisdale. The area that Ginger had described sketched a rough red triangle between the three points. It was a fairly sizeable area with a low and Alavari human population.
“My husband is in negotiations with Queen Titania and I’ll have to talk to Frances and Prince Timur, but we are quite certain that Athelda-Aoun will also be included in this area,” Ginger said.
Lakadara’s golden eyes were flickering as she examined the land. Suddenly, she turned, long neck arching toward the Erisdalian Queen. “And what must I do? Fight on your kingdom’s behalf?”
Ginger shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“Nope. If you would like to do so we can renegotiate the agreement, but my husband and I fully intend to grant you this land.”
The dragon’s tail lifted up as her eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself and the favor you seek. This is far too generous.”
“Let me explain myself first. If what I’m told by my experts is correct, you can lay eggs by yourself without a mate, but it takes time right? A few decades?”
“Yes. Still, that doesn’t explain—”
“Here me out. This war is going to end. We may lose, but if we win, banishing you to the north is making you Queen Titania’s problem and she’ll have more than enough problems to deal with. You might just end up coming south again and we know how that ended. I’d prefer to avoid that so that means we need to make an agreement. You need a new home and I need peace for Erisdale. If the kingdom has to give up some poor agricultural land then I’m all for it.”
The dragon nodded. “I see, but why so much land? Why not just give me a cave? Or request my service as Thorgoth did?”
“And how will you eat? Hunt? Where will your grown children go? I’m making an agreement that will last for decades, not just a few years. As for service? I was tempted, but you wouldn’t agree to that anyway and why should you? We haven’t given you any reason to agree.” Ginger gave Frances a wave to dispel the map. “Maybe in the future we can work something out, especially if the dragon population increases. Your service in return for more food, but again, I want to start us off on the right path, not the left path.”
“Left path?” Lakadara asked.
“Erisdalian expression. It means the wrong path,” Frances said helpfully.
Lakadara nodded slowly. “You still ask for a boon, though.”
Ginger nodded. “Yes. I want you to speak to your siblings. Before the upcoming battle starts, tell them of my deal with you. So long as they choose to accept that deal and defect, then I will have it so our forces will not hurt them. After that, you may leave. I will not request you to fight with us.”
“You want me to show myself to Thorgoth? To the siblings that tried to kill me?” Lakadara asked, mouth agape.
Ginger stepped closer to the dragon, who lifted her head away from the queen. “I want you to save your siblings. I want you to save yourself from becoming the last purple dragon in existence. I would rather you not be alone, stewing in hatred for my kingdom and our allies who brought down your family, even if we had just cause. I want peace. What do you want?”
“How do I know I can trust you?” The dragon suddenly grimaced. “Ah, right, you want a lasting peace. You have every reason to want peace.”
Ginger, arms crossed tapped her foot. Frances could see how stiff her friend was, but the action was also comforting. That her magic-less friend had such control over the situation, despite being faced with the dragon was rather…badass.
Letting out a puff of smoke that slowly drifted into the cavern, the dragon pondered the queen’s proposal. Frances held her breath and yet the dragon remained silent, only her tail moving from side to side.
Ginger waited, still content to wait for the dragon’s answer. Frances couldn’t. The tension coiled in her chest, waiting to explode.
“Lakadara, what do you want for your future?” Frances asked.
The dragon glanced at Frances, golden eyes wide. She turned back to Ginger, who continued to stand tall, awaiting Lakadara’s answer patiently.
“I accept your offer, and your promise for the future,” said Lakadara, dipping her head.
“We are glad that you wish the same as we do,” said Ginger. She extended her hand and Lakadara, took her claw and put the tip of it on the queen’s palm.
*Author’s Note: Queenly Ginger was really neat to write 😀 *

I've thought about switching things up for tonight's script and decided to make it an M4F one! I guess this kinda flows into the lore of my previous three scripts, with this being a sequel to the third one. Hope you enjoy it! As always, my script is free to use without monetization, just crediting me under my YT Handle @"AkitaScripts" is all!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Synopsis: You and your boyfriend have been together for about a week. You just had your first date a few days ago, and the two of you have discussed not to tell anyone. However, your classmates are beginning to notice your relationship with him, with some jealous students making fun of it. Eventually, it becomes too much for you, and you end up in detention after a fight in the hallways. As you exit the school, you find your boyfriend waiting outside in the rain…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(The school is nearly empty, and the rain is pouring outside the walls. All of the students except you have already left. As you walk out through the quiet hallways, you hear the janitor mopping the floor, rumbling about his job.)
[faint dialogue from the Janitor]
(You barely pay attention to whatever the janitor said as you reach into your backpack, only to find nothing but your books and supplies. You forgot your umbrella back at home. You put on your hood and push open the doors, the gates of freedom letting out a loud creak. You point your head down to the ground and begin to walk outside, feeling the rain hit your head. Suddenly, you stop feeling the raindrops, and you look up to see your boyfriend, the VA, close to you with an umbrella.)
VA: Hey.
(You lock eye contact with him with gloomy pupils.)
[short pause]
VA: I heard about what happened from Jalen… and I’m sorry you had to-
(You suddenly wrap the VA in your arms, interrupting him. Tears begin to roll down your face and onto his shoulder as you start crying.)
VA: Hey, hey… it’s okay… it’s okay.. (holds you close to him with one of his arms, and kisses you)
[pause]
VA: Hey… look at me.
(You raise your head up from his shoulder, looking him in the eyes.)
VA: It’s going to be okay… hey, you wanna go sit down somewhere? We shouldn’t be standing out in the open.
[pause]
VA: Alright, follow me, and stay close to me.
[short pause]
(You and the VA walk in silence for a few minutes to a nearby pavilion. After a few minutes, You gently shake his arm to get his attention.)
VA: Mhm? (looks at you)
[pause]
VA: Did he tell me anything?[pause]
VA: Well, other than you landing in detention, Jalen didn’t say much. I just got the news an hour ago, before our last class ended. So, I just waited out there. I didn’t know how long detention would last.
[pause]
VA: Well… I was gonna wait by the doors, but that janitor kicked me out. He said he still needed to quote-unquote “clean the corners”.
[pause]
VA: Yeah, he’s quite grumpy. Anyways, we’re here.
(The two of you walk to one of the tables in the pavilion. As you sit down, the VA sits down next to you.)
VA: So… (puts down his umbrella on the wooden table) are you still okay, or do you need some time?
[pause]
VA: Alright… take your time telling me what happened. (wraps his arms around you and gently moves closer)
[pause]
VA: Yeah… we did decide on not telling anyone about our relationship until we were ready. And yes, I know that everyone else figured it out already.
[pause]
VA: So… lemme get this sorted out: Maddison and her group of friends found out and made fun of our relationship..?
[pause]
VA: And did they start making fun of you today, or has this happened before?
[pause]
VA: This started yesterday?
[pause]
VA: Alright, so… after a day of them making fun of you, what exactly happened that landed you in detention?
[pause]
VA: (surprised) You slapped her in the face?!
(You don’t say anything, but you look away from him and dig your head into his chest, nodding afterwards in confirmation. The VA holds you even closer in comfort.)
VA: Hey.. again, it’s okay.
[pause]
(You let go of him. Stressed and upset, you explain how you’re not okay, as you begin to cry again. The VA hugs you again to calm you down.)VA: Hey, hey, listen to me… listen to me… there’s no need to be upset about what you did. Even though there were better options, you were in the right to do that. Not that I would recommend doing it again as an option, but if you have issues like this, just come talk to me… okay?
(You look up at him and nod.)
VA: Alright then. (takes off your hood and gently combs through your hair)
(As he comes through your hair, you ask him a question.)
[pause]
VA: Why did they do it?
[pause]
VA: Well.. first off, why do you think they did it?
[pause]
VA: You think they just wanted to make fun of you for that?
[pause]
VA: Okay… I might know why they made fun of you for dating someone.
[pause]
VA: What do I mean? Well.. lemme explain. So, before you and I met a few months ago, I used to be friends with Maddison. Sure, I was never romantically interested in her, but she’d used to always flirt with me at times. Now, I don’t know if she did like me the same way you do, but she could also just be jealous.
[pause]
VA: Well, think about it: have you ever even seen Maddison date anyone?
[pause]
VA: No, right? That’s because she never has dated anyone.
[pause]
VA: Now, you also have to take into the fact she’s friends with Joe. And as we both knew, Joe liked you in a… eeh… certain way.
[pause]
VA: And he knows that you and I are dating, so he’s jealous.
[pause]
VA: No, Joe probably isn’t just jealous of how you’re dating someone else. He’s jealous that you’re dating someone else.
[pause]
VA: No, it’s not the same way as what I just said. Joe’s jealous because someone has something special in their relationship that he doesn’t.
[pause]
VA: He doesn’t have you.
[pause]
VA: Look, every relationship is different. Whether it’s a dominant one, flirtatious, or even toxic… hopefully that doesn’t happen… Joe and other people don’t have you as their girlfriend.
[pause]
VA: Lemme also tell you something: I knew this person named Stephen, and he was dating this girl named Val. His friends found out, and they were jealous and constantly made fun of him. It got so out of hand that he was pressured to break up with Val.
[pause]VA: Look, you and I can tell them to stop making fun of our relationship. But if they’re gonna continue doing it, don’t break up like with what Stephen did. Don’t be pressured to listen to the mockery. Don’t listen to them. Move on, and walk forward, and just ignore them. I know it can be challenging, and I have been in those shoes before, but it’s okay to feel this way. You have me to take care of you, to cuddle you in times like this, and to make sure that you’re okay. I’ll be here every step of the way. If you need to hold my hand, don’t hesitate. I’m here for you, babe. And it’s all gonna be okay.
(The VA plays with your hair, and kisses you. You look up to him and kiss him in return.)
[pause]
VA: I love you too.
(You snuggle in closer to the VA, feeling his warmth and his beating heart. Eventually, the rain slowly stops.)
VA: Hey, the rain stopped.
(You look around to see the birds fly in to sing. You lean in to kiss the VA.)
[pause]
VA: You’re welcome, babe. Now come on, we gotta get back home. (begins to put his dry umbrella away in his bag)
[pause]
VA: Yeah sure, we can get some food on the way home. (he picks you up in his arms and helps you off from the table) Any ideas?
[pause]
VA: Yeah sure… ramen sounds good.
(As you and the VA walk away holding hands, the birds continue to chirp as the scene fades, ending the episode.)
THE END

I 24M, have been dating my NB22 boyfriend for a little over 1 year. We recently have both escaped abusive situations, and he is recovering from a particularly nasty break-up(we are poly, their bf dumped them on the street while they were struggling with unemployment and it REALLY messed him up), we currently live together.
Important information: I am DX AuHD, trying to get medicated for it, and I suspect I have some form of DID/OSDD. I struggle a lot with memory, it's just something I can't be consistent with. It's frustrating, and it makes remembering to do chores around the house agony. I've been trying to cope by asking for lists of things to do from my live-in bf, so I have a physical reminder of tasks to complete. I also ask for help from my headmates, and sometimes it works, but they are just as AUHD as I am and we're really sick and tired of it affecting people around us, which is why we're hoping getting medicated will help. The thing is, my bf doesn't always have the energy to write out lists for me and I don't want them to be carrying me, basically. I've asked for a permanent list that I can keep on my phone, so he doesn't have to keep reminding me, but he brushed me off.
When we first started dating, I wrote up a little manual for them, detailing how I learn and think and how my moods work and what to do in case of XYZ scenario. I know that my AUHD makes me a lot. I know it makes me a really bad and forgetful partner whos best doesn't meet the bar. I asked my bf if he could write a manual for themselves, so I can better navigate my relationship with them. They keep saying they don't have time or energy. I wanted to let them know what they were getting when they chose to date me, and they have told me that I've made it clear to them, but I don't know if they're saying that just to please me now. I don't expect them to be at 100% all the time, but I want to know that I can rely on them for the occasional reminder or push in the right direction when I lose track.
We've also been struggling with money a lot lately. I was able to finally land a part-time job, even though it's not nearly enough to cover everything. I'm looking for a second job while selling(or, trying to) my art on the side. Every month, my bf has a breakdown about not being able to cover rent. Naturally, I mirror his distress. He's told me I need to stop treating it like life or death, but they have panic attacks about the rent like clockwork every month. I don't know how else they expect me to react if they're always on the verge of a mental break every month, crying and shaking and repeating out loud "we're not going to make it. They're gonna evict us." I don't know what they expect me to say or do in that situation. I tried asking them about it and they didn't give me an answer that made sense. "Stop worrying" and "you need to be okay with me being okay eventually", which sounds like fucking nonsense.
In the past, they asked me to offer help more often. So I do, when I wake up I ask, "Anything I can help with today?" When they're distressed or upset I ask if there's anything I can do to change the environment or my actions so that they feel safer. I try cooking for them, something I enjoy doing, and I'll offer to cook for them and they'll say no.
After all this, they got angry with me because I'm sick and there was meat(that he took out) on the counter defrosting, he'd wanted me to put it away. I was sleeping and getting up to puke pure mucus, I never even knew he'd taken out the meat. He questioned me, asked if I was really that sick, and all I could do was nod. My voice is shot, my throat is sore and dry and sandpapery. I'm leaking snot by the bucketful and my eyes are puffy and gross from inflamation. They asked me why I hadn't been helping or cooking for them, and I told them. "Every time I offer, you say there's nothing I can do. I offered to cook for you these past few days and you rejected me. I'm trying to do what you asked of me, but you tell me no, so I listen to that no. What do you want from me?" And all they could say was "Sometimes I don't know."
I've never felt so fucking defeated. Six months of this, and I can't do anything right. I don't know if it's genuinely just me or if it's something with my bf. I'm questioning our compatability, I don't know what to do and I don't know how to correct things. I asked what I could do, and was told nothing, and now they're angry at me for doing nothing.
What the hell do I do? Sorry if this is long and rambly, I've stressed myself out to the point of a migraine, and I'm still sick. Any advice would be appreciated.
TLDR: My boyfriend asks me to do one thing, I do so, and he rebuffs me, then gets angry at me. What the hell do I do?

i'm working on a novel and would like to know if anyone could tell me any improvements i could make to the first chapter and prologue
Prologue
The day had started the same way it had for the past two years. The only difference was that I was going home. The hallway was crowded with people walking to and from their classes. Everyone was crowded next to each other so the halls were making the area feel claustrophobic. All the people talking mixed with the summer heat made me feel like I was locked in a sauna. I walked with Preston to the last class we would ever have together and as usual he was smiling. I never got why he always smiled even in situations where people should be sad he still smiled. He knew what today meant for me and he tried to keep light of the situation. I kept my head down away from what was ahead of me. My mind was too clouded about returning to see my family to notice anything in front of me. I walked into another student. It felt like I had walked into a wall. I knew immediately I had walked into tree. I stumble onto the ground and the commotion around me slows down to make room for us. He turned his bulky body around and apologized profusely without saying a word even though I had walked into him. He helped me off of the ground before hurrying down the hall.
“Alexandria, are you doing okay?” Preston said he had tilted his body downward so I had to look down to look him in his eyes. The way he was standing made him look like an idiot but he didn't seem to care. The way he acted made me laugh, which caused his smile to widen.
“I'm doing fine, just got lost in my head.”
“Thinking about how you’ll leave soon,” he said
“Was it that obvious?” He was the only person I told about me being an exchange student. I came to spend high school in Newkinawa and he was the only person I ever hung out with.
“I see what you mean,” he said “Newkinawa is a beautiful place with beautiful people to live in it…myself included”
“You wish,” I say with a smile we continue walking through the hallway “I'm just not excited to go back yet”
After I say that his smile grows wider “So you will miss me after all”
“I wouldn't say that much” I responded whilst smiling.
We had made it to our last class only to see it closed with a sign labeled “Uma incident” Uma was a student known for messing with the chemistry lab and destroying school property in the process. I've never actually met her but Preston says “She's a little weird but still nice”
“Guess class is canceled for today,” Preston remarked with a smile “Wanna go out to the court till the bell rings.”
“Sure let's go” I respond
The place we ate every day was outside. It used to be a tennis court before I moved in. Now they put trees and flowers all over the place. Preston really liked the blue color of the flowers but it just never clicked for me. I look over at Preston and he's staring up at the sky. There are a number of clouds in almost enough to block the sun but it still pokes its rays through and lands on Preston's face. The clouds swim in front of the sun till they block out the sun's light. Preston faces towards me.
“I'm gonna miss you Alexandria” he says
“You know you can just call me Alex,” I replied. I start to smile again. “I'll miss you too!" He smiles toward me again as we get up to leave as the clouds start to clump together and rain slowly falls. As we're walking back to the school there's a loud tearing sound followed by screams as the ground shakes.
The ground tears itself apart as the dirt and stone erupt from the ground. The sky blackens and a pale blue light escapes the earth. Then creatures erupt from the ground in a violent ejection from the earth creating a white pillar diffusing as they reach higher in the air. Some are clawing their way out of the cracks like maggots out of a corpse. People are swept into the updraft screaming for their lives.
The creatures descend like a tidal wave and tear apart any people caught in their path. They storm out of the crack in hundreds as more cracks in the earth form. Me and Preston started running away as people were screaming behind us. A girl running next to us has her legs slashed by a creature. The monster begins to tear open her chest as she chokes on her own blood. The monster shovels her lungs and innards into its decrepit mouth. Me and Preston keep running until we're met at the entrance of the school and we catch the attention of a monster as it begins to savagely rush toward us. The monster resembles ghosts my father told me about. But this one looks monstrously horrific. It floats in the air and opens its mouth so wide it nearly replaces its entire torso; its jaws hold savage teeth each the same old gray color of its body. Its eyes glow a rotten yellow color through the dark. It stretches out its arms showing its giant hands and claws like fingers. It swipes at us leaving a giant claw mark on the door behind us but Preston ducks my body down to avoid the attack. We run around it as the monster swaps its focus to another bystander. Screaming past us. Me and Preston run into the parking lot as people scream around us. We hide next to a car.
“What the hell is happening!?” I yell to Preston. More of the creatures fly over us and swoop down to people like vultures on roadkill devouring the fleeing people.
Preston starts to breathe heavily ”we need to get out of here and someplace safer”. As we were talking one of the monster phases through the car we were hiding next to forcing us to run into the street.
“Lets go to your house till things cool down” i say to Preston through panted breaths
“Wait couldn't we head to your house instead” Preston says.
“Why would that matter your house is closer anyways” i respond
“But-” Preston is interrupted by two creatures swooping above us to grab another person. The two monsters begin to pull the person apart while he writhes in pain before having his flesh be torn in half and having his organs be devoured.
“Come on lets go!!” I say as I grab his hand and run even faster.
By the time we reach Preston's house any living person is gone. On the street are just corpses laying torn and mutilated on the roads and sidewalk. The air in the neighborhood feels cold despite the season being summer. When I walk down the street I can still hear the occasional horrific wail the monsters give off. We move closer to Preston's house and I can see him sweating. He looked more worried than before when the creatures were chasing us and he kept darting his eyes away from his home.
“Preston, are you feeling okay?” he doesn't respond to my question and keeps darting his eyes. He walks slowly behind me and as I reach for the door handle and when I touch it it feels nearly freezing. I wrap my hoodie around my hand and slowly open the door. The house is quiet so me and Preston creep further into his house. The inside is cold and damp as if we were locked in a freezer. The further we move into the house the louder a subtle chewing sound is heard.
“It sounds like rats are eating a dead cow over there” I whisper. Preston continues to stay silent behind me. We slowly walk closer towards the kitchen and the sound gets louder and louder and louder until we reach the room.
We're met with a rancid smell of vomit and blood. My blood starts to run cold and every instinct in my body is telling me to run. I can feel Preston breathing get heavier as we get closer. We turn the corner and see Preston's mom lying on the ground dead with one of the creatures hunched over slurping her intestines. The sight causes me to vomit alerting the monster to our presence. The creature turns around and its mouth turns into a mortifying grin as it flies into Preston's moms body. The corpse begins to rise and spur splashing blood over the kitchen. When the corpse stops spasming it picks itself up from the ground and with glazed over eyes it holds its intestines in its hand and gives us the same grin it did when it was outside her body. The possessed corpse lunges at me and starts to chase me around the kitchen. The body is running into the walls and cabinets spraying its blood and other loose organs around the area as I'm avoiding its assault. The corpse leans over and ejects one of its loose intestines towards me, wrapping me in it. It pulls me towards it so fast I'm flung towards the ground. The corpse limbers over to me and raises its free hand aiming for my head. The creature's deranged smile causes the corpse’s cheeks to tear apart. It places both of its bloodied and demented hands on my face and starts to press my skull into the ground. I struggle to breathe. The room starts to get dark and blood escapes my head.
Until Preston jumps on top of his mothers corpse with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabs it in the head. The possessed body tries to shake him off but he keeps stabbing, blood gets in on his face and tears start to escape his eyes. The creature violently ejects from the corpse's mouth causing her head to nearly explode and Preston stops stabbing the body. The body falls over in a splash of blood and organs. The monster leaves phasing through the roof leaving Preston crying over his mother's body. As the blood mixes with the tears he collapses to his knees crying. I walk over and hug him as the air around us turns bitter and the chill of death leaves the room and us with it.
Chapter 1 Eclipse
It's been 2 months since the apocalypse started. We've kept ourselves alive by looting grocery stores and houses, we hide from the creatures as we have no way to fight back against them. Preston came up with the idea to call them glanter’s. He’s looking better since we left his family home but I can tell something is wrong with him that he's not telling me. Everytime I ask him about it he tells me it's no big deal. I asked him earlier today and he just told me
“don't worry about it, I'm over it” without even looking at me. Now we're walking through the street and I'm walking behind Preston, I can barely see his head past the giant bag we're both carrying on our backs we use to carry supplies. I look up at the sky and it's still pitch black except for the moon giving us any amount of light. Preston turns around to face me.
“Let's check out that house, it might have some cool stuff in it” he points to a white house to our right. The house is a two story building with steps leading to the front door. There's a generator poking out from the backyard. The driveway is empty save for a couple of dried blood stains and tire marks. It's similar to the other houses in the neighborhood except for a couple broken windows.
“Sure why not” We head over to the house and I see something shining on the side of the house in the corner of my eye. I turn my head to look at it closer but it quickly disappears before I can see it clearly.
“Probably squirrel or something” I mumble to myself. Preston walks up the stairs to the house and I walk up the steps behind him as a breeze blows past my face. Preston tries to turn the door knob but the door is locked. I start to pull out a lockpick I grabbed at the store earlier. I motion towards Preston to move out of the way as I kneel down to pick the lock. It takes me a couple of minutes to unlock the door so I walk inside the house and Preston follows behind me while closing and locking the door. The doorway of the house leads to a dark room so I take a flashlight out of my bag to illuminate the area. Were put into the living room and bookshelves are on the walls and a large TV sat in front of a large black couch with smaller chairs surrounding it. Dust is covering every surface of the room and spiderwebs litter the corners of the walls. The area smells like moth balls and there's a lack of blood anywhere nearby.
“Guess the owners got out before the Glanter’s got in, '' I say to Preston. When he doesn't respond I turn around and he's already looking further into the house. When I find him he's managed to find a flight of stairs that lead to a lower portion of the house.
“I'll check on him later,” I think to myself as I headed towards the kitchen to see if we could restock on food. I walk past a bedroom and remark on how childish it looked. The walls were painted with blue and green stripes and a bunk bed sat on the right wall. There's a chest at the foot of the bed so I walk over and lift the top off of it. The box is layered with children's toys, a multitude of dolls, bears, and figures all jut out of the box. I notice a small robot toy and inspect it in my hands.
The cold metal makes my hand shiver and the sharp body shape makes the robot bigger than my hand. There's red lining around the robot's buttons surrounded by the cold gray of the robot's “skin”. It reminds me of a toy my little brother had. My heart feels heavy as I worry about what happened to my family. If they're alive, dead, or worse…possessed. The thoughts send a chill down my spine but I push them aside for now. I put the toy in my bag and exit the bedroom.
I can see the kitchen is down the hallway so I walk down the hall and enter. The kitchen is pretty clean except for a couple of dishes in the sink and the dust. There's a table seated for 3 people in the center of the room. I start opening the cabinets in search for any food or water. There's boxes of cereal leftover on top of shelves and a mix of chip bags and cookies in neat boxes stationed in the cabinets.
“Score,” I say to myself as I begin to put the snacks into my bag. When the cabinets are empty I look inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge ran out of power so most of the food inside is rotted. There are a couple of bottles of water in the front so I shove those in my bag. There's also a bag of oranges that still seem to be healthy in the back. I grab them and toss them on the table. There's rotten sandwich meat hidden in the drawer of the fridge.it smells like a dumpster outside of a butcher shop. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. I look around the kitchen for any bread with no luck.
I continue to look through the fridge until I hear Preston scream from another room. Immediately I bolt out of the kitchen leaving my bag behind and run towards the lower part of the house. I run down the stairs and nearly trip on the steps. The stairs lead to a big room. There are posters to tv shows and movies I don't recognize. The walls are painted black and there's a bear skin rug on the floor. I notice Preston standing next to a really big TV hyperventilating. I walk over to him and ask him.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
He talks through deep breaths “I… saw a… spider.”
“What?!” I respond in confusion.
“It was really big and I had jumped at my face”
“Sure it was.” I say while laughing “Let's go upstairs there's some food in the fridge we can eat”
“Wait, I think you should check this out.” He says while pointing towards one of the walls. I grab Preston's flashlight off the floor and face it towards the wall. Hanging halfway off the wall is a large map labeled Newkiwana scavenger hunt of 76.
“I think we should take it,” Preston says “You can read a map right?”
“A little but I'm not the best at it,” I say to him “can you read a map?”
“it shouldn’t be too hard it’s mainly pictures any way I'm sure I can figure it out”
I walk over to the wall where the map is hung there are trophies covering tables and shelved in their own personal cases one of them reads “1st place 100-meter swimming competition for 1986 Zack Hemmingway” and another one reads “2nd place 100-meter swimming competition for 1989 Zack Hemmingway”
“Guess this guy really liked swimming,” Preston remarks while staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. All of them are about the same person in swimming competitions. All labeled different things like “a new record for Zack “the dolphin” Hemmingway”,
‘Zach Hemmingway our star plans for the future” all the newspapers are about this kind he has paler skin and a bulky enough build to swim pretty well. Most of the pictures have him coming out of the water in a pool, his long black hair soaked and sitting at his shoulders. Another one has him sitting at a desk over a pile of books and his hair in a knot , “vicious wipeout ends the Dolphins career”, and “ex-swim champ Zack Hemmingway found in a drunken stupor outside strip club.
“Everyone has their own hobbies I guess,” I say as I take the map off of the wall and fold it up. “Sucks what happened to Zack though” I walked over to Preston’s bag and put the rolled map in one of the pockets. I walk back up the stairs and Preston grabs his bag and follows behind me.
We make our way towards the kitchen and Preston starts looking through the fridge for anything to eat. I grab an orange from the table and throw it at his head. The fruit bounces off his head and rolls on the floor. He turns around and grabs the fruit from the floor
“Why did you throw an orange at me?”
“It's the only food we have unless you plan on eating spoiled a sandwich“ He starts to peel it while walking towards the table. We both take a seat and start to eat the oranges from the bag. He plants his feet on top of the table and bites into the fully peeled orange. I grab a water bottle from a bag and start to drink from it as Preston says.
“I saw a dvd player in that man cave downstairs we could watch a movie if it still has power”
“Sure it could be fun.” Me and Preston spend the rest of our time eating until the bag of oranges is emptied and we head back downstairs. Preston grabs the DVD player from under the table and blows the dust off the top of it; he plugs it into the wall as I plop myself onto the couch. He plugs the DVD player into the TV and sits on the recliner next to me. He presses a few buttons on the remote and the TV lights up. I squint my eyes at how bright it is. It's the most amount of light I've seen that didn't come from a flashlight. I notice there's a box filled with DVDs. I pull the box over towards me. I ruffle through the box and see movies like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, and Home alone.
“Dude some of these came out just before the world turned inside out” I say to him.
“Really? Let's play one.” He responds. I toss him Terminator 2 and he puts it into the DVD player.
We spend the next couple hours watching movies and laughing together. It's some of our only moments of peace we’ve had since the end of the world and to me it's the most fun I've had yet. We're putting in the next DVD when there's a loud crash outside and the TV shuts off. Preston goes behind it to see if it's still plugged in.
“I think the generator outside is busted” i say
“It seems that way” Preston replies while backing away from the tv” i'm gonna go check it out”
“Don't worry I got it” I say as I hop out of my chair. Preston waves goodbye as I head up the stairs. I make my way back through the hallway leading to the living room and front door. I reach the door and start to turn the knob. I open the door wide as a car speeds down the street. I step out of the door to see what had happened when I hear the screech of a glanter. It cuts through the sky like an unholy opera singer. A group of them fly by and chase the car as I rush back inside the house. I slam the door shut and look through the window as I see a couple of smaller glanters grab and shake the car violently looking for the driver. They tear at it, ripping off doors and breaking the windows. The driver screams as the seats cover with blood and he's ripped out of the car as multiple smaller glanters tear and bite off parts of his body like piranha's until his body is completely devoured. I run back to the man cave to warn Preston about what had happened. I spot him laying in his chair spinning a DVD disc on his finger.
“It's not safe outside right now”
“Why not?
“There's glanter's outside, they just ate a dude in his car”
“Did they see you come inside?”
“I don't think so , they flew off before I went inside.”
“well we're not dead so I'm gonna say they didn't see you. But let's stay here for a couple more hours just to be safe”
“Sounds good i'm gonna go find the master bedroom.” I start to walk back up the stairs to the house
“ Hold on why do you get the master bedroom” Preston says while walking after me.
“Because I'm gonna find it first” I say as I start to run to find the bedroom. He chases after me in pursuit of the bedroom. Me and Preston run around the house looking for the master bedroom. We look through room after room finding closets, the garage, a bathroom and a door leading to a balcony in the back of the house. I manage to run into the bedroom and yell out to Preston.``Found it!!”
He comes walking into the room breathing heavily from the running. We both check out the room. The walls are painted a cream yellow and the bed takes up most of the room's center. The bed has burgundy sheets poking out from its bottom and a quilt with multi-colored floral designs lay sprawled out on top of it. There's a wardrobe built into the wall and a black leather couch sits comfortably on the left wall.
“Dibs on the bed” I say as I jump on top of it. I stretch out on top of the quilt and search for a comfortable part to sleep in.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?” Preston complains
“You can sleep on the couch it looks soft enough” I respond while pointing towards the couch “I saw some spare blankets in one of the closets”
“Alright i’ll be right back” he mumbles to himself “why do i always get the couch”
“ I'll be right here if you need me,” i call after him. I sit up on the bed and start to look around the room more. I notice the entrance to the wardrobe is cracked open slightly. I hop out of the bed and grab a flashlight from my bag as I walk into the wardrobe. I turn on my flashlight and stare in awe at how many clothes are in there. The room is only half as big as the bedroom but it's still bigger than any closet I've ever had. The wardrobe is full of shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes for men and women. I immediately start to look through the shoes to see if any fit my size. I throw a pair of black high heels behind me as Preston finds me in the wardrobe. He looks around before asking me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a new pair of clothes to wear cause I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for waaaaay too long”
“Fair enough. Is there any guy stuff in there?”
“Yeah right there” I hook my thumb behind me to point to the other end of the closet.
“I'm sure they won't mind if we take a couple of things…they're probably dead by now anyways,” Preston says with a slight grin on his face. The way he said made me spin my head to look at him but he was already on the opposite end of the wardrobe looking at suits.
I shake away the thought and continue looking for any pair of sneakers in my size. 40 minutes pass before I walk out of the wardrobe holding a new pair of jeans and a black guns-N-roses t-shirt. I toss the clothes on top of the bed and check to see if the shower in the bathroom still works. I turn the dial and wait for a moment. The shower head chokes a little before water comes pouring out. I reach my hand under the showerhead to feel the water. The water is cold, it causes my hand to shiver when I take it out. I shake the water off and say to myself.
“Good enough” as I start to take off my old clothes and get in the shower. The cold water bounces off my skin, it sends shivers down my spine but I still get the old dirt from the last few months off of me. I step out and see a couple of dry towels hanging off of the door. I grab one and dry my body off and grab another to wrap around my head and dry my hair. I step out of the bathroom and Preston is still inside the wardrobe. I put on my new clothes while his back is turned and walk over towards him when I'm finished.
“Still haven't found anything,” I ask him
He turns around “Nothing yet, the only thing interesting was this coat.” He holds a leather coat up to me. The coat is made of black leather and has a skull covered with blue flames on the back. There's a black shirt inside the coat with a skeleton hand making a thumbs-up embroidered on the front.
“ That's pretty cool, it's better than what you're wearing right now at least” he's outfitted in a blue hoodie with holes on the chest and tears at the sleeves. He also has a shirt with a faded picture of a blue flower printed on it.
“I guess you're right” he gets up from the floor and exits the wardrobe. He lays the clothes on the couch along next to the blanket and pillow he brought into the room.
“The shower works so you can get yourself clean In there,” I say to him
“You know, a shower sounds really good right now.” He gets up from the floor and grabs a pair of pajama pants that were laying next to him. He leaves the wardrobe and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After a moment the water turns on and I hop on the bed to get ready to sleep. I squirm myself into the quilt and rest my head against one of the pillows. I shut my eyes and fall asleep listening to the passive sound of the shower like rain on a car.
I'm in a void. It feels like I'm standing in a puddle of water that reaches to my knees. I wade my way forward looking around for anything in the darkness. In the distance I can see 3 figures l. I moved closer to them and their silhouettes get clearer. I realize they are my dad and brothers. I start to run towards them kicking up water behind me until something grabs my leg. It pulls down violently forcing me under the water without a breath of air. I kick at the thing grabbing me until something grabs my other leg. I look down and see two glanter's each with a monstrous smile on their faces. They stare back at me and one of them tugs my leg harder than before and tears it off of my body. The water around me turns red as the glanter laugh's. The other smiles wider as it starts to fling me around the water forcing any air left in my lungs to be forced out as I scream in pain. The glanter throws me away and I can see my family slowly fade into the distance as I'm flown away.
I struggle to swim back to where I was, one of my legs is missing and the other is broken. The glanter's find me again and I try to get to the surface to escape them. I'm flapping my arms in any attempt to escape as one of the glanter's flies in front of me and grabs my arm. I look at the monster with tears in my eyes as it bites my arm and tears my body away from it. It flings my body away and with my remaining arm I clutch the wound as the water floods into my body leaving me in the void I started in. I look around and the glanter's seem to have left. I turn behind me and see my family again, this time I'm closer than before.
I grit my teeth and drag my body towards them slowly as I leave a trail of blood and tears behind me. I finally reach my family and grab one of my father's shoes. I stare up and he looks at me. His stare causes me to feel cold as a grotesque smile grows on his face. I stare in shock as my brothers each have the same look as my father.
I shoot up from my sleep panting heavily in a cold sweat.
“It was just a dream..just a dream…just a dream” I look at my hands as tears fall into them. I look around the room and see Preston sleeping peacefully on the couch. The room feels frozen in place as a chill runs down my spine. I get out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom. I make my way through the dark hallway and find the entrance to the balcony I saw earlier. I creak open the screen door and head outside. The Balcony is pretty large, about the size of the kitchen in the house. There are some chairs knocked over next to a table and I pick one up to sit on it. I look out into the expanse of the neighborhood, houses lined up next to each other, dozens broken apart by roads, and dead bodies scattered across the roads.
I look up in the sky and sit back in the chair. The sky looks empty except for the moon giving this world its only source of light. Without the moon, we’d be left in darkness. It hangs in the sky alone, no stars, no clouds, nothing but itself, and the void of the sky. I think back about the dream I had. My dad and my brother's all dead and possessed and then they kill me. I start to tear up thinking about it. I try to wipe away the tears but it’s no use. I'm too scared for my family. I don't know where they are if they're alive if they're worried about me I don't know anything! I start to quietly cry into my hands. I don't know how long I'm sitting there until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to face it and I see Preston. He was smiling and looking at me. I turn away to wipe my tears and he walks next to me.
“I heard you sneaking out of the bedroom so I followed you to see where you were going.” he says “but that's not my question.” he pauses and looks at me “my question is what’s got you feeling so down?” he leans over the railing of the balcony
“It's nothing, I just came out here to clear my head.” I say as more tears escape from my eyes in big slow drops that ride down the sides of my face.
“if you don't feel like telling me you don't have to but i'll be here if you ever change your mind”. He looks up at the moon before turning to face me and his smile widens “I'll always be here with you…trust me I'm not going anywhere”
I stare up at him and wipe away my tears as a smile grows on my face to match his. I get up and stare over the balcony with him. “So where are we heading next?” I say to him, Preston pulls the map we got from the man cave downstairs out from his pocket.
“After I got out of the shower I decided to take a look at the map for anything interesting we could see.”
“Ok did you find anything?” i ask
“I did,” he points at a spot on the right of the map. “We should head to the museum”
“I didn't want to go to a museum before the apocalypse why would i want to go now?'' I ask him.
“Well the best part of museums is the cool stuff right”
“Yeah what about it”
“The only problem is that you could only look at the fossils and armor but you could never take them.”
“So you want to rob a museum?” Prestons eyes light up at the question
“Exactly they might have a really cool sword I could use, or I could sharpen a dinosaur tooth and use that as a weapon, there might be a cursed shield that can summon the dead to fight for you. This opportunity is too good to pass up. We need to go!”
“That does seem pretty cool but wouldn't carrying that stuff weigh us down. What if a glanter is chasing us and we can't run fast enough because of the stuff we took from the museum.”
“We’ll only take things that are light. Even then I could just block the glanter with my newly acquired 2000 year old shield.”
“Fair enough we can go in a couple hours” I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Cause I'm feeling way too tired to walk all the way over there right now.”
“Alright i'm heading back to my couch and THEN we’ll head out to the museum” he leaves the balcony and heads back to the master bedroom leaving me alone on the balcony.
“Thanks Preston I'm not leaving either” I say into the sky. I turn around and walk back inside the house, closing the balcony door behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and Preston is hunched over and holding a flashlight looking at the map. He’s drawing lines through roads and marking X’s in different areas.
“What are the X’s for?” i ask him
“They’re places that glanter’s usually stay around. I'm marking them off so we remember not to go through them, or at least be more cautious.”
“Cool. Did you find where we are right now?” He points to an area where the lines all converge out of.
“Right around here is where the neighborhood ends. So if we follow this path we can make it to the museum in one piece” I pat him on the back and take the map from his hands.
“Get some sleep Preston, we have a full day tomorrow” he grins to himself before laying down on the couch. I put the map back into my bag and hop on the bed to get to sleep. I cover my body in the quilt and roll over facing away from Preston as he falls asleep. I nestle myself into the bed and slowly fall asleep to get ready for the next day.
I'm awoken by Preston shaking the bed I'm sleeping on. My eyes open and the room is foggy, I wipe away the sleep from my eyes and focus my attention towards Preston. He's practically jumping out of his skin with excitement, he's already fully dressed for the trip and shaking the bed with a wide smile on his face.
“Ok ok i'm up the air feels heavy as a groggy feeling fills my body. I wipe my eyes and the room starts to clear up. I turn to face Preston. He's still shaking my bed to wake me up, he’s already fully dressed and nearly jumping out of his skin in excitement.
“Ok ok, i'm up you can stop shaking the bed” i say
“Then get up we’ve got a long walk ahead of us” he says as he stops shaking the mattress. He grabs the map from my bag and points to one of the red lines.
“We're gonna follow this way to the museum. We’ll move past the hotel around the ice skating rink and around the park. We’ll mainly stick to walking through the streets, we might have to go rooftop hopping to avoid any glanter’s if we see them but i'm sure we won’t reach that point.” he explains
“Wait, wait, wait, why are avoiding the skating rink and the park” i ask
“ everytime we go near the park there's weird noises and light coming out of it”
“And why can't we go to the ice skating rink?”
“I didn't think it would be important”
“It couldn't hurt to check it out at least”
“Fine we could make a detour”
“Ok and how do you plan on getting on top of roofs?”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get to it”
“Ok man as long as you’re sure '' I yawn and step out of the bed. Preston starts to put the map in his bag. I walk into the bathroom with my clothes and change out of my pajamas. Minutes later I walk out and see Preston sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs.
“Finally you're out” he smiles at me before handing me my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. We took a last look inside the kitchen to see if we missed anything. Afterwards we leave for the outside. The cold air bites at my face but Preston walks down the stairs, his face buried in the map. I jog to catch up to him as we both head into the street.
“Hey Preston, could I see the map?”
“Sure” he hands over the map and continues walking. I look at the map and the numerous lines drawn on roads. I look at the corner of the map and notice a small map key with numerous symbols for different areas like a library, school, hospital, and more. There's even a way to tell how far away each location is. The text reads “1 inch=5 miles” I quickly count how far we are from the museum.
“Dude this museum is like 100 miles away.”
“Yep it'll be a long walk, it'll take us a while to get there”
“Did you plan on us walking there the whole time?”
“We might find bikes or something.” he pauses “well i did think we would walk the whole way”
“This is gonna take us weeks to get there!”
“Did you have anything else planned?”
“Well…i guess not but we should still try to find some bikes or something”
“Ok if we see any way to travel faster we’ll take it”
“Alright cool” I hand him the map back and he folds it back up and puts it in his bag. We walk further until we leave the gated neighborhood we started in. Preston takes the map back out and looks at it before he turns right and continues walking. I follow him staring forward at the expanse of the road. The outside of the neighborhood is surrounded by roads all leading to different parts of Newkinawa. We walk past a sign that reads “Coretown 20 miles ahead” I nudge Preston towards the sign and he checks the map again.
“Yep, the museum’s in Coretown. Would you believe the residents were pretty proud of it. Should be a fun place to explore” he says
“Yeah but it’ll take us a million years to get there.” i complain
“Lighten up, I'm sure it will be worth it”. We continue walking down the road slowly making our way to Coretown.

Edgiscript: Kimchi's a little under the weather, so I'll tell you that this is where you can find info on monetization An Introdu ction To The Book That Is Me : ASMRScriptHaven (reddit.com) and here's my library Masterlist for edgiscript : ASMRScriptHaven (reddit.com) . That's all.
Kimchi: HAAAAAAAA!!!!
Edgiscript: EEEAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!! Kimchi? What the hell?
Kimchi: It's not that easy to make that interesting and fun, is it?
Edgiscript: I... was... so concerned about your health, that I... couldn't... spend any time to... make this fun.
Kimchi: Awwwwww. That's so sweet. Utter BS, but still sweet.
------------------------------------------------
Part 6: [F4M] Play Time - 6 out of Checkmate [Kimchi Cat-Girl Speaker] [Hubby Human Listener] [Playing Board/Bored Games] [Rickety-Ass Stairs] [Colonel/Kernel] [You Sank My Battleship] [Give Me Back My Piece] : ASMRScriptHaven (reddit.com)
-------------------------------------------------

Part 7

Kimchi: (Singsong voice.) Hubbyyyyyyyy? Huuuuuubbyyyyyyyy? I’m coming to geeeeet youuuuuuuu.
(Snickers and giggles.) Ooh, you are so good at this. I love playing hide and seek with you so much. The park has so many good hiding spots, but out here, you don’t have the advantage of having everything smell like you. So… I can follow… your scent… to… HERE!
Hah, haaaaaah. I see you. You can run, and you can laugh, I love your laugh, but you can’t hide anymore. I’m almost on you. I’m going to POUNCE…
(Kimchi crashes in some leaves.)
Hubby, what are you doing? You came back to get me. You should have used that opportunity to get away. Now the hunt is over. That’s no fun.
(Pause.)
Well, yeah, I missed. That’s what I meant. I missed, so why didn’t you keep running?
(Pause.)
Yeah, I suppose I’ve never missed before, but, you know, it happens. Why didn’t you run?
(Pause.)
Awwww, you were worried about me. Did you think I’d hurt myself? Well, thanks, hubby, but you don’t have to worry. Cats are invulnerable. I’ve got nine lives, remember? That means I can’t get hurt.
(Pause.)
Does too mean that.
(Pause.)
That’s right, there’s no point arguing with me. Why would you try to correct me when I’m right?
(Pause.)
What d’ya mean, I don’t look so good?
(Sounding hurt.) I thought you thought I was pretty.
(Pause.)
(Brightening up.) Oh, you do think I’m beautiful. You meant I look a little off.
In what way?
(Pause.)
Why would you think that, silly? And why are there two of you all of a suddenly? All of a suggen. Sudden. Whatever.
(Pause.)
No, I didn’t hit my head when I landed. What would I have hit my head on. There’s nothing but leaves here. I just… (Sneezes.)
Sorry, hubby. That came out of nowhere. I just… (Sneezes.)
No, I don’t know. Maybe allergies.
(Pause.)
Nope, never had allergies before, but I can’t think of another reason why I might… (A few coughs.)
(Pause.)
Whaaaaaaat? Sick? No way. Cats don’t get sick. That’s a silly human thing.
(Pause.)
Cats do not get sick. I told you, cats are invulnertable.
(Pause.)
Right, that’s what I said. Invulnerable. Geez, hubby. You’re thinking I’m sick, but you’re the one not hearing things properly.
Now, if you’ll stop being so silly and doing things like spinning in circles, we could get back to our game.
(Pause.)
Don’t tell me you’re not spinning. You and the whole forest is doing it. I’m actually impressed. How did you manage to get the whole park to… ohhhhhh.
(Kimchi faints. When she wakes up, she’s in bed. She sounds a little groggy.)
Hubby? What happened? Why am I in bed? Where did the forest go?
(Pause.)
Yes, the park. The grass, the trees, the leaves. Where did it go?
(Pause.)
I did not pass out. I can fall asleep very quickly, but only when I’m trying. And I wasn’t trying.
I wanted to catch you. That’s our Saturday game. I get to hunt you in the morning and then I have the rest of the day to make you happy after I catch you.
I love being the hunter and you love being the prey. I love our Saturdays. You don’t have to go to work. I get to play with you all day. Now what happened?
(Pause.)
No, no, hubby. I think you’re confused. I carry you when I catch you. You don’t carry me. You couldn’t have carried me all the way home.
(Pause.)
No, hubby, it’s not that I think you’re not strong enough, it’s just that it doesn’t happen that way. I catch you. I carry you. I make you happy. Do you see the relationship here? Me to you. You’re getting it backwards. Now let me get up and…
(Kimchi tries to get up but stops right away. Sore, painful moans. Kimchi starts to sound a little groggier and now sounds a little stuffed up as well. If you want to cough at times, go ahead when you think it works.)
Ohhhh. Ohhh, OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH. My body hurts. Why does my body hurt?
What did you do to me? What did I do to me? Wait, did the forest do this to me? I didn’t know it could do that. I thought it liked me. What’s going on?
(Pause.)
A fever? Pfft. Cats don’t get fevers.
(Pause.)
No, I’m not dizzy, and I don’t have body aches. I’m a cat. We’re invulnershuble. Invernatable. Invlurt… We can’t get sick.
(Pause.)
Of course I can say the word. I’ve said it before, many times. You’ve heard me say it.
(Pause.)
I… just… don’t want to say it right now. That’s all. It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m dizzy and achy all over.
(Pause.)
Oh, drat. You tricked me. Ok, fine, I’m a little dizzy, but that’s probably just because I crashed into those leaves.
(Pause.)
Yes, those leaves. There were a lot of them. And they were really big. They ganged up on me. Why does the park not like me all of a sudden?
(Pause.)
(Kimchi sounds even more stuffed up now.) No, my nose isn’t starting to run. Legs run. Noses sniff. Hubby, I think you’re the one who’s sick if you forgot that.
(Pause.)
Oh, you mean I’m leaking. Yeah, you’re right. What’s this coming out of my nose?
(Pause.)
Ewwww, that’s disgusting. How could that be?
(Pause.)
What’s that? A Kleenex? What do I do with it?
(Pause.)
Ok. (Blows nose.) WOW! Hubby, look at this. That came out of me. What’s going on?
And why am I naked with the air conditioner on? It’s freezing in here.
(Pause.)
What? I can’t be in my pajamas and under the covers. It’s so cold, I…
Huh. I guess you’re right. Wow. How did I not know that? And why am I so cold?
Wait. What’s that? (Distrustful.) Hubbyyyyy, what is that?
(Pause.)
Yes, that filthy, disgusting, vomit inducing, nasty goop that smells like you pulled it out of the garbage disposal. And why are you pouring some of it into a spoon?
(Pause.)
You can’t be serious. There is no way I’m swallowing that.
(Pause.)
You humans do it all the time? What, in the literal hell, is wrong with you? No wonder cats are superior in every way when you’re sabotaging yourself as a species by eating that filth.
(Pause.)
You can call it medicine and good for me if you want, but I know better. And it doesn’t matter. I’m not sick.
(Kimchi gets a little panicky.)
Hubby? Where are you going?
(Pause.)
(Quietly, afraid to admit the truth.) Well… yeah… I guess some chicken soup does sound kinda good right now. I suppose I’d like some. But only because I always like your chicken soup. It’s nummy.
If… if you wanted to make me some, I guess I’d eat it.
(Pause)
(Panicky.) Hubby? Wait. Don’t… don’t go.
(Pause.)
Yes, I know the ingredients and the stove aren’t in here, but… I don’t want you to go.
(Pause.)
I know you’re not leaving the apartment, but I don’t want you to go… anywhere. I… don’t want you to leave me.
(Pause.)
No, please. I’m…
(Sweetly, tenderly, frightened.) I’m scared. Hubby… I’m scared. I’ve never felt like this before. I’m… sick. That means I could… I could die, right? What if you left, even for a minute, and I needed you. I think that… if you go… even for a little bit… I might…
(Long pause. Hubby walks to the dresser and opens a drawer to get something.)
Hubby, what is that? Why are you counting to ten?
(Pause.)
You’re tying a bow on my wrist.
(Pause.)
Yes, it is pretty. I like the color very much. You make a nice bow. I like it.
(Pause.)
What? There was no hunt.
(Pause.)
Oh, so that’s what the counting meant. You started a game, didn’t you? You caught me. You tied me… with this bow. And now you have to make me happy.
(Pause.)
That’s right. Those are the rules.
(Pause. From now on, Kimchi sounds more and more tired, and gets quieter and quieter until she falls asleep.)
Yes, please. Climb into bed with me and hold me.
(Pause.)
Thank you, hubby. You feel so warm. And your arms around me makes me feel safe.
I don’t like being sick. It makes me scared. I don’t want to die, hubby. I don’t want you to go away.
(Pause.)
Ok. I guess you’re right. I can’t die with you here now because you have to make me happy, and being apart from you would make me sad.
(Pause.)
Yes, that’s right. You have to make me happy. Those are the rules. And you are, hubby. You are making me very happy right now.
(Pause.)
Oh, yes, hubby. Stroking my hair feels so good. I always like it when you pet me.
(Pause.)
And scritch my ears. Just like that.
(Pause.)
Yes, I like laying on your chest. Is it ok if I squeeze you?
(Pause.)
Yes, that would make me happy.
(Pause.)
That’s good. If I hold on tighter, you’re even warmer. How is that possible? Am I squeezing warmth out of you?
(Pause.)
Hubby, thank you. You make me not scared. I love you, hubby. I love you. I’m so glad you’re mine.
(Pause.)
No, I’m not yours. You’re mine.
(Pause.)
Ok. I’m yours too.
(Pause.)
Yes, that makes me happy.
(Pause.)
No, I’m not going to fall asleep. I just like laying here with you.
(Pause.)
So what if my eyes are closed. That means I’m comfortable.
(Pause.)
Yes, I am a good hunter. I love to catch you and make you happy, because I love you.
But… I always wondered why you liked being the prey so much. Now I know. This is nice. You’re nice.
I like you taking care of me. I love you, hubby. I… love…
(Kimchi falls asleep.)
Part 8 next.

36 year old female,smoker(1/2 pack daily), do not drink & no drug use Diagnosed with: hypothyroidism, degenerative disc disease, lymphadema in both legs, tmj, adhd, depression, intercystial cystitis and had severe symphisis pubic dysfunction in one and only pregnancy
Please let me hear your thoughts on what could be causing all of this. I've seen multiple doctors & specialists & no one seems to have a clue as to what the diagnosis is as of yet.
A couple months ago I saw an endocrinologist bc I've been having lots of weird symptoms for many years, that I thought were just due to my hypothyroidism , but pcp said I shouldn't be feeling this way. Symptoms are: chronic fatigue, hot flashes, cold intolerance ( only sometimes & I can start shivering ) excessive sweating ONLY on the left side of my face/scalp & right side of face Is bone dry. This only happens when I wake up in morning or when I wake up from a nap. The sweat pours down my face into my eyes, & soaks my shirt & hair. Been happening since 2012 and has gotten worse. Chronic, severe constipation , thin nails( won't grow,split easily & have vertical lines ), knee pain ( cracking & pain ) , back pain, finger swelling, especially after waking in morning, dry & itchy eyes ( sometimes ), sugar cravings, very low libido ( like non existent ) , brain fog, forgetting words mid sentence, horrible concentration, low motivation, etc..
Endocrinologist did blood work. Came back low in iron, vit b12 & vit d. Cortisol at 8 am came back at a 4.7, so she had me do an acth stim test. Baseline 8 am cortisol was a 3.8, acth injected, and cortisol at 30 mins was a 14, at 60 mins was a 18. She doesn't know what's causing this & said cortisol is low but acth stim test showed I'm in normal range ( but on low end of normal). She does more blood work bc symptoms get worse, & I start having mild headaches. Ana panel comes back positive/abnormal. Ana antibodies come back at a 1:80 .I'm referred to a neurologist & rheumatologist, which are booked months out.
Then, a couple weeks later, the mild headaches turn into daily headaches, that are getting very painful, & lasting for hours. Start getting weird pressure in my eyes & behind my eyes. Very dry and irritated eyes. Ears popping. Dizzy episodes where the floor looks like it's moving back & forth & I start feeling like floor is vibrating beneath me. Headache won't go away for 3 days in a row, & eye pressue/pressure around my eyes & even behind bridge of nose is horrible.
I go to er. They do CT scan. Er doctor Says nothing emergency related, but I do see partial empty sella is notated on results. Er doctor refers me to an eye specialist.
Eye specialist dilated my eyes & says everything looks great. Says I might have thyroid eye disease & tells me to come back in 2 weeks for measurements without dilation.
Symptoms get worse. Nonstop headache/pressure in forehead, around / in eyes, dizziness & I'm seeing weird black things in bottom peripheral vision. Almost looks like I'm still looking through my glass frames, even when I take them off, but only the bottom sides/corner of my frames. Like dark areas.
Go to urgent care. Given steroid & toradol shot. Looks in my ears. Sees nothing. Tells me if shots don't help, go back to er.shots helped for maybe 2 hours & then symptoms are back. Also have salty liquid substance drop into my mouth from somewhere & it tasted like salty water.
I go to another er. Blood pressure not extremely high, but high compared to my normally perfect pressure. Er doctor says he's worried I have iih and does a lumbar puncture. Opening pressure is a 21. Drains csf down to a 15. Er doctor calls a neurologist & is told might not be iih bc a 21 is high but very borderline & says not to start me on meds for iih. Told I need to see a neurologist asap . Symptoms DO go away after lp, but day after lp I start having new type of dizziness where I have episodes of feeling like I'm on a spinning ride pushing me to left & nausea.
See new neurologist & she has no idea what's happening. Says doesn't sound like iih bc some symptoms don't match. Wants to do a mri of brain & orders pitutary protocol as well. Spinning feeling is horrid & I beg for a Stat mri & wishes granted. Have stat mri next day.
Havnt spoken to neurologist yet ( it's been about 1 week. ) I read my results on line. Everything looked normal except something about a concave superior margin and minimal foci t2/wave hyperintense periventricular and subcortical white matter.
Please..I need your thoughts. Thank you.

Hi there! I have a son (2M) who will be 3 in the fall. He currently is diagnosed with acid reflux, eczema, and has a some sensory stuff that affects what he will eat. We are working with OT and speech and are on a waitlist for a feeding program.
He takes famoditine, a vitamin with iron, and has recently begun Claritin. We use hydrocortisone occasionally when his eczema flares.
Recently, he’s been looking a bit paler to me. He’s pale to start out with, but his dark circles and veins seem more prominent at times. He gets marbling in his legs randomly, even when the temperature doesn’t seem to be a factor, and has been having more rashes and dry skin on his shins, low back, behind, and neck. The rashes come and go. We haven’t changed anything in his diet or soaps or detergents. He also started to get little dots that almost look like keratosis across his nose that spreads to under his eyes. It’s not super noticeable unless he’s in certain lighting.
He was sick in early April, and in mid May his finger tips started to peel. I fell down a rabbit hole trying to figure out why, and saw stuff related to vitamin B3. I have Crohn’s disease, and know it can be low with Crohn’s, so asked the doctor to run it. We got the results but they are super confusing:
NICTOTININIC ACID <20 ng/mL NICOTINAMIDE 21 ngmL
Under that, it says:
Due to the large variability in the metabolism of nicotinic acid, the dosing preparation used (immediate-release vs. extended release, and the mg doses used, the serum concentrations may range from less than 20 ng/mi to about 30,000 ng/mL. After oral administration of an immediate-release tablet, peak plasma concentrations occur in 4 to 5 hours. The plasma half-life of nicotinic acid is about one hour. In one study, fasting plasma concentrations were reported to be less than 20 ng/mL. In another study, it was reported that the administration of a single 1000 mg extended-release tablet resulted in mean nicotinic acid concentrations of less than 50 ng/mL.
Nicotinamide is a metabolite of nicotinic acid. Due to the large variability in the metabolism of nicotinic acid, plasma concentrations of this metabolite are variable. In one study, fasting plasma concentrations were reported to be approximately 40 ng/mL. In another study it was reported that the administration of a single 1000 mg of extended-release tablet of nicotinic acid resulted in a mean peak nicotinamide concentration of 400 ng/mL between 5 and 10 hours post dose, decreasing to about 100 ng/mL by 16 hours post dose.
I don’t get what any of this means, and I’m worrying given his food avoidance that he has low vitamin B3. Are these low?
He had a couple of other weird levels but this is the one I’m most worried about.
Thank you!

PLAYBOY Interview With Conan O'Brien Interview by Kevin Cook For Playboy Magazine February 1998
A candid conversation with the preppie prince of "Late Night" about his rocky start, his show's secret one-day cancellation and how David Letterman saved the day.
He was polite. He was funny. He gave us a communicable disease.
At 34 Conan O'Brien is hotter than the fever he was running when we met in his private domain above the "Late Night" sound stage. A gangly freckle-faced ex-high school geek he is "one of TV's hottest properties" according to "People" magazine. The host of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" has become his generation's king of comedy.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Congested too, but O'Brien has far more to worry about than his head cold. A perfectionist who broods over one bad minute in an otherwise perfect hour of TV, he worries he might be anhedonic, "I have trouble with success," he says, "I was raised to believe that if something good happens something bad is coming." Sure things look good now "Rolling Stone" calls "Late Night" "the hottest comedy show on TV." Ratings are better than ever, particularly among 18- to 34-year-olds, the viewers advertisers crave.
But O'Brien only works harder. Despite his illness he taped two shows in 26 hours on three hours' sleep. He smoothly interviewed Elton John then burst into coughing fits during commercials. Later in his crammed corner office overlooking Manhattan traffic Conan the Cool gulped Dayquil gel caps. He coughed spewing microbes.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. Of course O'Brien can't complain. He came seriously close to falling to being banished behind the scenes as just another failed talk show host.
At his first "Late Night" press conference he corrected a reporter who called him a relative unknown, "Sir I am a complete unknown," he said. That line got a laugh, but soon O'Brien looked doomed. His September 13, 1993 debut began with O'Brien in his dressing room preparing to hang himself only to be interrupted by the start of his show. Before long his career was hanging by a thread. Ratings were terrible. Critics hated the show. Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" called it as "lifeless and messy as roadkill." Shales said O'Brien should quit.
Network officials held urgent meetings discussing the Conan O'Brien debacle. Should they fire him? How should they explain their mistake?
In the end of course he turned it around. The network hung with him long enough for the ratings to improve and the host of the cooler-than-ever "Late Night" now defines comedy's cutting edge just as Letterman did ten years ago.
Even Shales loves "Late Night" these days. He calls O'Brien's turnaround "one of the most amazing transformations in television history."
O'Brien was born on April 18, 1963 in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, a doctor, is a professor at Harvard Medical School. His mother, a lawyer, is a partner at an elite Boston Law firm. Conan, the third of six children became a lector at church and a misfit at school. Tall and goofy, bedeviled with acne, he tried to impress girls with jokes. That plan usually bombed, but O'Brien eventually found his niche at Harvard where he won the presidency of the "Harvard Lampoon" in 1983 and again in 1984 - the first two-time "Lampoon" president since humorist Robert Benchley held the honor 85 years ago.
After graduating magna cum laude with a double major in literature and American history he turned pro. Writing for HBO's "Not Necessarily The News." O'Brien was earning $100,000 a year before his 24th birthday. But writing was never enough.
He honed his performance skills with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improv group. There he worked with his onetime girlfriend Lisa Kudrow, now starring on "Friends." But Conan was not such a standout. In 1988 he landed a job at "Saturday Night Live" - but as a writer, not as on-air talent. In almost four years on the show O'Brien made only fleeting appearances, usually as a crowd member or security guard. His writing was more memorable. He wrote (or co-wrote) Tom hanks' "Mr Short-Term Memory" skits as well as the "pump you up" infosatire of Hanz and Franz and the nude beach sketch in which Matthew Broderick and "SNL" members played nudists admiring one another's penises. With dozens of mentions of the word that hit was the most penis-heavy moment in TV history. It helped O'Brien win an Emmy for comedy writing.
In 1991 he quit "SNL" and moved on to "The Simpsons" where he worked for two years. His urge to perform came out in wall-bouncing antics in writers' meetings. "Conan makes you fall out of your chair" said "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. O'Brien's yen to act out was so strong that he spurned Fox's reported seven-figure offer to continue as a writer. He was driving for the spotlight.
By then David Letterman had announced he was turning shin - leaving NBC taking his ton-rated act to CBS. Suddenly NBC was up a creek without a host. The network turned to Lorne Michaels, O'Brien's "Saturday Night Live" boss. Michaels enlisted Conan's help in the host search planning to use him in a behind-the-scenes job. But when Garry Shandling, Dana Carvey and almost every other star turned down the chore of following Letterman, Michaels finally listened to Conan's crazy suggestion, "Let me do it!" Michaels persuaded the network to entrust it's 12:30 slot which Letterman had turned into a gold mine to an untested wiseass from Harvard.
O'Brien was working on one of his last "Simpsons" episodes when he got the news. He turned "paler than usual," Groening recalled. The Conan moseyed back to where the other writers were working, "I'll come back with the Homer Simspon joke later. I have to go replace Letterman," he said.
NBC executives now get credit for their foresight during those dark days of 1993 and 1994. They snared the axe and now reap the multimillion-dollar spoils of that decision. In fact, the story is not so simple. We sent Contributing Editor Kevin Cook to unravel the tale of O'Brien's survival, which he tells here for the first time. Cook reports:
"His office is chock-full of significa. There's a three-foot plastic pickle the Letterman staff left behind in 1993 - perhaps to suggest what a predicament he was in. There's a copy of Jack Paar's 'I Kid You Not' and a coffee-table book called 'Saturday Night Live: The First 20 Years.' His bulletin board features letters from fans such as John Watters and Bob Dole and an 8" x 10" glossy of Andy Richter with the inscription: "To Conan - Your bitter jealousy warms my black heart. Love and Kisses Andy."
"Of course it's all for show. From the photos of kitch icons Adam West and Robert Stack to the framed Stan Laurel autograph, from the deathbed painting of Abraham Lincoln, to the ironic star taped to Conan's door - they're all clever signals that tell a visitor how to view the star. Lincoln was his collegiate preoccupation: stardom is his occupation. Somewhere between the two I hoped to find the real O'Brien.
"As a Playboy reader he wanted to give me a better-than-average interview. I wanted something more - a definitive look at the guy who may end up being the Johnny Carson of his generation."
"Here's hoping we succeeded. If not I carried his germs 3000 miles and infected dozens of Californians for no good reason.
O'Brien: Yes, this is how to do a Playboy Interview -- completely tanked on cold medicine. I'll pick it up and read, "Yes, I'm gay."
Playboy: We could talk another time. O'Brien: (coughing) No, it's OK. I memorized Dennis Rodman's answers. Can I use them?
Playboy: You sound really sick. Do you ever take a day off? O'Brien: No. The age of talk show hosts taking days off is over. Johnny Carson could go to Africa when he was the only game in town -- "See you in two weeks!" But nobody does that now. I will give you a million dollars on the first day Jay takes off for illness.
Playboy: Do you ever slow down and enjoy your success? O'Brien: If anything, the pace is picking up. Restaurateurs insist on giving me a table even if I'm only passing by, so I'm eating nine meals a night. Women stop me on the street and hand me their phone numbers.
Playboy: So you have groupies? O'Brien: Oh yes. And other fans. Drifters. Prisoners. Insomniacs. Cab Drivers, who must watch a lot of late night TV, seem to love me lately. They keep saying, "You will not pay, you will not pay, you make me happy!"
Playboy: How happy did your new contract make you? O'Brien: Terrified. The network said, "We're all set for five years." I said, "Shut up, shut up! I can't think that far ahead." Tonight, for instance, I do my jokes, then interview Elton John and Tim Meadows. We finished taping about 6:30. By 6:45 my memory was erased and my only thought was, Tomorrow: John Tesh. And I started to obsess about John Tesh. Sad, don't you think?
Playboy: Not too sad. You got off to a rocky start but now you're so hot that People magazine recently said, "that was then, this is wow." O'Brien: I try not to pay much attention. Since I ignored the critics who said I should shoot myself in the head with a German Luger, it would be cheating to tear out nice reviews now and rub them all over my body, giggling. Though I have thought about it.
Playboy: Tell us about your trademark gag. You interview a photo of Bill Clinton or some other celeb, and a pair of superimposed lips provide outrageous answers. O'Brien: We call it the Clutch Cargo bit, after that terrible old cartoon series. They saved money on animation by superimposing real lips on the cartoons. I wanted to do topical jokes in a cartoony way -- not just Conan doing quips at a desk. TV is visual; I want things to look funny. But we're not Saturday Night Live; we couldn't spend $100,000 on it. Hence, the cheap, cheesy lips, You'd be surprised how many people we fool.
Playboy: Viewers believe that's really the president yelling, "Yee-haw! Who's got a joint?" O'Brien: It's strange. You may know intellectually that Clinton doesn't talk like Foghorn Leghorn. Ninety-eight percent of your brain knows the president wouldn't say, "Whoa Conan get a load of that girl!" But there are a few brain cells that aren't sure. When Bob Dole was running for president we had him doing a past-life regression: "My cave, get away." And then back further, "Must form flippers to crawl on to rocky soil," he says. There may be people out there who believe that Bob Dole was the first amphibian.
Playboy: Do you ever go too far? O'Brien: The fun is in going too far. It's a nice device because you get Bill Clinton to do the nastiest Bill Clinton jokes. We'll have Clinton making fart noises while I say "Sir! Please!"
Playboy: Are you enjoying your job now, with your new success? O'Brien: Well, there are surprises. I hate surprises. Like most comics, I'm a control freak. But I am learning that the show works best when things are out of control. Tonight I ask Elton John if he likes being neighbors with Joan Collins. He says he isn't neighbors with Joan Collins. He lives next door to Tina Turner. So I panic -- huge mistake! But Elton saves the day. "Joan Collins, Tina Turner, it doesn't matter. Either way I could borrow a wig," he says. Huge laugh, all because I fucked up. Later he surprised me by blurting out that he's hung like a horse. The camera cuts to me shaking my head: That crazy Elton. What can I do? Of course, I'm delighted that he went too far.
Playboy: That "What can I do?" look resembles a classic take of Jack Benny's. O'Brien: There's an old saying in literature: "Good poets borrow; great poets steal." I think T.S. Eliot stole it from Ezra Pound. Comics steal, too. Constantly. When I watched Johnny Carson, I noticed that he got a few takes from Benny and Bob Hope. When a comedy writer told me how much Woody Allen had borrowed from Hope, I thought, What? They're nothing alike. Then I went back and watched Son of Paleface, and there's Hope, the nervous city guy backing up on his heels, wringing his hands and saying, "Sorry, I'll just be moving along." Now look at early Woody Allen. You see big authority figures and Woody nervously saying, "Look, I'll just be on my way." Of course Woody made it his own, but he must have watched and loved Bob Hope.
Playboy: Who are your role models? O'Brien: Carson. Woody Allen. SCTV. Peter Sellers. When Peter Sellers died I felt such a loss, thinking, There won't be anymore of that. There's some Steve Martin in my false bravado with female guests: "Why, hel-lo there!" And I won't deny having some Letterman in my bones.
Playboy: You were surprise as Letterman's successor. At first you seemed like the wrong choice. O'Brien: I didn't get ratings. That doesn't mean I didn't get laughs. Yes, I had a giant pompadour and I looked like a rockabilly freak. I was too excited, pushed too hard, and people said, "That guy isn't a polished performer." Fine! But it isn't my goal to be Joe Handsomehead cool, smooth talk show host. Late Night with Conan O'Brien is supposed to be a work in progress, and now that we've had some success there's a danger of our getting too polished and morphing into something smoothly professional. Which would suck.
Do you know why I wanted this show? Because Late Night with David Letterman played with the rules and it looked like fun. Here was a place where people did risky comedy every night for millions of people. We had to keep this thing alive. There should be a place on a big network where people are still messing around.
Playboy: How bad were your early days on the show? O'Brien: Bad. Dave left here under a cloud: his fans and the media were angry with NBC. Then NBC picks a guy with crazy hair and a weird name. And the world says, "Harvard? Those guys are assholes." I sincerely hope that the winter of December 1993, our first winter, was the worst time I will ever have. I'd go out to do the warm up and the back two rows of seats would be empty. That's hard to look at. I would tell a joke and then hear someone whisper, "Who's he? Where's Dave?"
Playboy: You had trouble getting guests. O'Brien: Bob Denver canceled on us. We shot a test show with Al Lewis of The Munsters. We did the clutch cargo thing with a photo of Herman Munster. Unfortunately, Fred Gwynne, who played Herman, had recently died, and Al Lewis kept pointing at the screen, saying, "You're dead! I was at your funeral!"
Playboy: For months you got worried notes from network executives. What did they say? O'Brien: They were worried. The fact that Lorne Michaels was involved bought me some time. But Lorne had turned to me at the start and said, "OK, Conan. What do you want to do?" Now television critics were after me and the network was starting to realize what a risk I was. Suggestions came fast and furious. I kept the note that said, "Why don't you just die?"
Playboy: Did they suggest ways to be funnier? O'Brien: They were more specific and tactical. The network gets very specific data. Say there was a drop in ratings between 12:44 and 12:48 when I was talking to Jon Bon Jovi. I'll be told, "Don't ever talk to him again" Or they'll want me to tease viewers into staying with us: "You should tease that -- say, 'We'll have nudity coming up next!'"
Playboy: You did come close to being cancelled. O'Brien: We were cancelled.
Playboy: Really? You have never admitted that. O'Brien: This is the first time I've talked about it. When I had been on for about a year, there was a meeting at the network. They decided to cancel my show. They said, "It's cancelled." Next day they realized they had nothing to put in the 12:30 slot, so we got a reprieve.
Playboy: Were you worried sick? O'Brien: I went into denial. I tried hard not to think, Yes, I'm bad on the air and my show has none of the things a TV show needs to survive. We had no ratings. No critics in our corner. Advertisers didn't like us. Affiliates wanted to drop us. Sometimes I'd meet a programming director from a local station where we had no rating at all. The guy would show me a printout with no number for Late Night's rating, just a hash mark or pound sign. I didn't dare think about that when I went out to do the show.
Playboy: Are you defending denial? O'Brien: How else does anyone get through a terrible experience? The odds were against me. Rationally, I didn't have much chance. Denial was my only friend. When I look back on the first year, it's like a scene from an old war movie: Ordinary guy gets thrown into combat, somehow beats impossible odds, staggers to safety. His buddy say, "You could have been killed!" The guy stops and thinks. "Could have been killed?" he says. His eyes cross and he faints.
Playboy: How did you dodge the bullet? O'Brien: There were people at NBC who stood up for me. I will always be indebted to Don Ohlmeyer, who stuck to his guns. Don said, "We chose this guy. We should stick with him unless we get a better plan." He was brutally honest. He came to me and said, "Give me about a 15 percent bump in the ratings and you'll stay on the air. If not, we're going to move on."
Playboy: Ohlmeyer started his career in the sports division. O'Brien: Exactly, his take was, "You're on our team." Of course, it wasn't exactly rational of Don to hope I'd be 15 percent funnier. It was like telling a farmer, "It better rain this week or we'll take your farm away."
Playboy: What did you say to Ohlmeyer? O'Brien: There wasn't time. I had to go out and do a monologue. But I will always be indebted to Don because he told me the truth. Wait a minute -- you have tricked me into talking lovingly about an NBC executive. Let me say that there were others who were beneath contempt -- executives who wouldn't know a good show if it swam up their asses and lit a campfire.
Playboy: Finally the ratings went your way. Hard work rewarded? O'Brien: Well, I also paid off the Nielsen people. That was $140,000 well spent.
Playboy: Ohlmeyer plus bribery saved you? O'Brien: There was something else. Just when everyone was kicking the crap out of the show, Letterman defended me.
Playboy: Letterman had signed off on NBC saying, "I don't really know Conan O'Brien, but I heard he killed someone." O'Brien: Then I pick up the paper and he's saying he thinks I am going to make it. "They do some interesting, innovative stuff over there," he says. "I think Conan will prevail." And then he came on as a guest. Remember, this was when we were at our nadir. There was no Machiavellian reason for David Letterman, who at the time was the biggest thing in show business, to be on my show.
Playboy: Why did he do it? O'Brien: I'm still not sure. Maybe out of a sense of honor. Fair play. And it woke me up. It made me think. Hey, we have a real fucking television show here.
Of six or seven pivotal points in my short history here, that was the first and maybe the biggest. I wouldn't be sitting here -- I probably wouldn't even exist today -- if he hadn't done our show.
Playboy: The Late Night wars were hardly noted for friendly gestures. O'Brien: How little you understand. Jay, Dave and I pal around all the time. We often ride a bicycle built for three up to the country. "Nice job with Fran Drescher!" "Thanks, pal. You weren't so bad with John Tesh." We sleep in triple-decker bunk beds and snore in unison like the Three Stooges.
Playboy: You talk more about Letterman than your NBC teammate Leno. O'Brien: I hate the "Leno or Letterman, who's better?" question. I can tell you that Jay has been great to me. He calls me occasionally.
Playboy: To say what? O'Brien: (Doing Leno's voice) "Hey, liked that bit you did last night." Or he'll say he saw we got a good rating. I call him at work, too. It can be a strange conversation because we're so different. Jay, for instance, really loves cars. He's got antique cars with kerosene lanterns, cars that run on peat moss. He'll be telling me about some classic car he has, made entirely of brass and leather, and I'll say, "Yeah, man, I got the Taurus with the vinyl." One thing we have in common is bad guests. There are certain actors, celebrities with nothing to say, who move through the talk show world wreaking havoc. They lay waste to Dave's town and Jay's town, then head my way.
Playboy: You must be getting some good guests. Your ratings have shown a marked improvement. O'Brien: Remember, when you're on at 12:30 the Nielsens are based on 80 people. My ratings drop if one person has a head cold and goes to bed early.
Playboy: Actually, you're seen by about 3 million people a night. Your ratings would be even higher if college dorms weren't excluded from the Nielsens. How many points does that cost you? O'Brien: I told you I'm an idiot. Now I have to do math too?
Playboy: Do you still get suggestions from NBC executives? O'Brien: Not as many. The number of notes you get is inversely proportional to your ratings.
Playboy: What keeps you motivated? O'Brien: Superstition. We have a stagehand, Bobby Bowman, who holds up the curtain when I run out for the monologue. He is the last person I see before the show starts, and I have to make him laugh before I go out. It started with mild jabs: "Bobby, you're drunk again." Bobby laughs, "Heehee."" Then it was, "Still having trouble with the wife, Bobby?" But after hundreds of shows, you find yourself running out of lines. It's gotten to where I do crass things at the last second. I'll put his hand on my ass and yell, "You fucking pervert!" Or drop to my knees and say, "Come on, Bobby, I'll give you a blow job!"
"Ha-ha. Conan, you're crazy," he says. But even that stuff wears off. Soon, I'll be making the writers work late to give me new jokes for Bobby.
Playboy: Did you plan to be a talk show host or did you fall into the job? O'Brien: I was an Irish Catholic kid from St. Ignatius parish in Brookline, outside of Boston. And that meant: Don't call attention to yourself. Don't ask for too much when the pie comes around. Don't get a girl pregnant and fuck up your life.
Playboy: Were you an alter boy? O'Brien: I wanted to be an alter boy, but the priest at St. Ignatius said, "No, no. You're good on your feet, kid," and made me a lector. A scripture reader at Mass. He was the one who spotted my talent.
Playboy: What did you think of sex in those days? O'Brien: I was sexually repressed. At 16 I still thought human reproduction was by mitosis.
Playboy: How did you get over your sexual repression? O'Brien: Who says I got over it? My leg has been jiggling this whole time.
Playboy: What were you like in high school? O'Brien: Like a crane galumphing down the hall. A crane with weird hair, bad skin and Clearasil. Big enough for basketball but lousy at it. My older brothers were better. I would compensate by running around the court doing comedy, saying, "Look out, this player has a drug addiction. He's incredibly egotistical."
I was an asshole at home, too. My little brother Justin loved playing cops and robbers, but I kept tying him up with bureaucratic bullshit. When he'd catch me, I'd say, "I get to call my lawyer." Then it was, "OK, Justin, we're at trial and you've been charged with illegal arrest. Fill out these forms in triplicate." Justin was eight; he hated all the lawsuits and countersuits. He just cried.
Playboy: Were you a class clown? O'Brien: Never. I was never someone who walked into a room full of strangers and started telling jokes. You had to get to know me before I could make you laugh. The same thing happened with Late Night. I needed to get the right rhythm with Andy and Max and the audience.
Playboy: So how did you finally learn about sex? O'Brien: My parents gave me a book, but it was useless. At the crucial moment, all it showed was a man and a woman with the bed covers pulled up to their chins. I tried to find out more from friends, but it didn't help. One childhood friend told me it was like parking a car in a garage. I kept worrying about poisonous fumes. What if the fumes build up? Should you shut off the engine?
Playboy: For all your talk about being repressed, you can be rowdy on the air. O'Brien: The show is my escape valve. When I tear off my shirt and gyrate my pelvis like Robert Plant, feigning orgasm into the microphone, that shows how repressed I am -- a guy who wants to push his sex at the lens but can only do it as a joke.
Playboy: Aren't you tempted to live it up? O'Brien: I always imagined that if I were a TV star I would live the way I pictured Johnny Carson living. Carousing, stepping out of a limo wearing a velvet ascot with a model on my arm. Now that I have the TV show, I drive up to Connecticut on the weekends and tool around in my car. I could probably join a free-sex cult, smoke crack between orgies and drive sports cars into swimming pools, and my Catholic guilt would still be there, throbbing like a toothache. Be careful. If something good happens, something bad is on the way.
Playboy: Yet you don't mind licking the supermodels. O'Brien: At one point a few of them lived in my building, women who are so beautiful they almost look weird, like aliens. To me, a woman who has a certain approachable amount of beauty becomes almost funny. It's the same with male supermodels. They look like big puppets. So while I admire their beauty I probably won't be "romantically linked" with a model. I'd catch my reflection in a ballroom mirror and break up laughing.
Playboy: The horny Roy Orbison growl you use on gorgeous guests sounds real enough -- O'Brien: Oh, I've been doing that shit since high school. It just never worked before.
Playboy: Your father is a doctor, your mother an attorney. What do they think of their son the comedian? O'Brien: My dad was the one who told me denial was a virtue. "Denial is how people get through horrible things," he said. He also cut out a newspaper article in which I said I was making money off something for which I should probably be treated. So true, he thought. But when I got an Emmy for helping write Saturday Night Live, my parents put it on the mantel next to the crucifix. Here's Jesus looking over, saying, "Wow, I saved mankind from sin, but I wish I had an Emmy."
Playboy: Ever been in therapy? O'Brien: Yes. I don't trust it. I have told therapists that I don't particularly want to feel good. "Repression and fear, that's my fuel." But the therapists said that I had nothing to worry about. "Don't worry Conan you will always be plenty fucked up."
Playboy: When a female guest comes out, how do you know whether to shake her hand or kiss her? Is that rehearsed O'Brien: No, and it's awkward. If you go to shake her hand and her head starts coming right at you, you have to change strategy fast. I have thought about using the show to make women kiss me, but that would probably creep out the people at home. I decided not to kiss Elton John.
Playboy: Do you get all fired up if Cindy Crawford or Rebecca Romijn does the show? O'Brien: I like making women laugh. Always have, ever since I discovered you can get girls' attention by acting like an ass. That's one of the joys of the show -- I'm working my eyebrows and going grrr and she's laughing, the audience is laughing. It's all a big put-on and I'm thinking. This is great. Here is a beautiful woman who has no choice but to put up with this shit.
But it's not always put on. Sometimes they flirt back. Sometimes there's a bit of chemistry. That happened with Jennifer Connelly of The Rocketeer.
Playboy: One guest, Jill Hennessy, took off her pants for you. Then you removed yours. Even Penn and Teller took off their pants. O'Brien: Something comes over me. It happened with Rebecca Romijn -- I was practically climbing her. Those are the times when Andy and the audience seem to disappear and it's just me and this lovely woman sitting there flirting. I keep expecting a waiter to say, "More wine, Monsieur?"
Playboy: Would you lick the wine bottle? O'Brien: It's true, there's a lot of licking on the show. I have licked guests. I have licked Andy. Comedy professionals will read this and say, "Great work, Conan. Impressive." But I have learned that if you lick a guest, people laugh. If I pick this shoe off the floor, examine it, Hmmm, and then lick it, people laugh. I learned this lesson on The Simpsons, where I was the writer who was forever trying to entertain the other writers. I still try desperately to make our writers laugh, which is probably a sign of sickness since they work for me now. Licking is one of those things that look funny.
Playboy: Johnny Carson never licked Ed McMahon. O'Brien: We are much more physical and more stupid than the old Tonight Show. Even in our offices before the show there's always some writer acting out a scene crashing his head through my door. A behind-the-scenes look at our show might frighten people.
Playboy: One night you showed a doctored photo of Craig T. Nelson having sex with Jerry Van Dyke. Did they complain about it? O'Brien: I haven't heard from them. Of course I'm blessed not to be a part of the celebrity pond. I have a television show in New York, an NBC outpost. I don't run with or even run into many Hollywood people.
Playboy: You also announced that Tori Spelling has a penis. O'Brien: I did not. Polly the Peacock said that.
Playboy: Another character you use to say the outrageous stuff. O'Brien: Polly is not popular with the network.
Playboy: You mock Fabio, too. O'Brien: If he sues me, it'll be the best thing that ever happened. A publicity bonanza: Courtroom sketches of Fabio with his man-boobs quivering, shaking his fist, and me shouting at him across the courtroom. I'm not afraid of Fabio. He knows where to find me. I'm saying it right here for the record: Fabio, let's get it on.
Playboy: Ever have a run-in with an angry celeb? O'Brien: I did a Kelsey Grammar joke a few years ago, something about his interesting lifestyle, then heard through the network that he was upset. He had appeared on my show and expected some support. At this point my intellect says, "Kelsey Grammar is a public figure. I was in the right." Then I saw him in an airport. Kelsey didn't see me at first: I could have kept walking. But there he was, eating a cruller in the airport lounge. I thought I should go over. I said hello and then said, "Kelsey, I'm sorry if I upset you." And he was glad. He looked relieved. He said, "Oh, that's OK." We both felt better.
....See my other post with the last third of the interview

The Letter With the Silver Seal
Hooves drummed on the hard-packed dirt of the road.
The rider’s cloak streamed back in the wind of his running, and dust rose in his wake.
After months of searching, riding town to town, dawn to dusk, Finn finally had a lead on the wayward elf. The letter rested in his satchel, slung diagonally from shoulder to waist under his travel cloak. It was wrapped in oilcloth and sealed with silver wax bearing the intricate sigil of House Fyndrael. The letter was urgent, make haste, Lord Brynwell had said. And Finn had rode like a madman ever since.
People flashed past in both directions, the occasional ox-drawn cart or a courier on horseback kicking up dust in their haste. Some cursed his breakneck speed, turning to shake fists. Finn just grinned and spurred his horse faster. The road curved ahead through a thicket of trees and wound off into the countryside like a dusty ribbon dotted intermittently with the dark shapes of carts, wagons, and riders.
In the distance, the faint, cloudy silhouette of Suncrest Hold beckoned him. Almost there. A few more hours, he would put the letter in the elf’s hand and be on his way. A smile split his dusty face, and he leaned low over Dett’s neck, urging the horse on, eager to be quit of this mission and on his way back to Kaelos and all the comforts the sprawling mountain city had to offer. Wine and dancing, dicing and women, taverns and inns and brothels enough to drown a man in pleasures, that’s what waited in Kaelos. But first, he had to deliver the letter.
“Alright, Dett, show us your heart,” Finn put his face against the horse’s neck and the wind snagged his hood away, streaming his long honey-kissed hair out behind. “A few more miles, and you can rest. All the oats and water you can stomach.”
Trees flashed past. Dogs barked sharp challenges, then fell away. Dett thought this was a race, strained to go faster, legs and neck stretched out, mane and tail whipping in the wind. A group of caravaners cursed him as he thundered past. Finn laughed, called back his apologies and raced on, laying about with his reins.
Hours passed, the road transitioned from hard-packed dirt to the dark gray of flagstones and traffic deepened. Suncrest Hold rose before him in all its gray glory; slate-roofed towers and spires reached for the sky behind the silver-gray teeth of battlements. People, carts, farmers with wagons, merchants, and caravans crowded the road. Finn slowed Dett to a trot, skillfully weaving through the crowd with the desperate urgency only a man months gone from home could muster. He was ready to see this mission done.
He passed under an arched portcullis and came abreast of the guard house on the other side.
Soldiers in steel ring mail worn under red tabards slashed with black and embroidered with the royal coat of arms waved him through when they saw the silver glint of a courier’s badge pinned on his leather tunic.
“Make way,” they growled at the crowd, shouldering into the people and shoving them aside so Finn could pass. “Make way for a courier. Move it, you country kelps!”
People grumbled and cast dark looks Finn’s way, but they moved. None wanted to be the one who delayed a royal courier.
A figure in polished platemail worn under her tabard, and the transverse crested helm of an officer, stepped out of the guard house. Finn brought Dett to a halt.
The officer approached.
“May the sun favor your roads,” she greeted. Finn noticed the four golden knots of a captain embroidered on her tabard’s left breast. “May I offer the courier an escort?”
Finn’s mind went blank. This lady wasn’t just pretty for a guardswoman; she was unbelievably striking by any standard across the land. Breathtaking. He wanted to get off his horse and propose marriage on the spot. Heat began to rise in his cheeks, and he covered it by bowing in his saddle and giving his cloak a little flourish. A thick layer of dust broke free and danced around him.
“Gracious of you, my lady,” he said, cuffing his brow. “I am looking for an elf named Aberiel. I was told I could find him here in Suncrest Hold. Heard of him?”
“Captain Aurelume,” she said, looking off down the main road at all the buildings and structures crowding up to the walks. “Not My Lady. I'm not noble blood. Aberiel, you say?”
Finn gave a nod and patted Dett’s neck to calm the restless horse.
“Can you describe this man?”
Finn dug into his saddle and drew out a piece of parchment enchanted with the elf’s likeness. He handed it to the captain. She studied the portrait.
One of the other guards came up and peered over her shoulder, his face crisscrossed with old scars inside his open-faced helmet. “Damn, looks like the one what got back-knifed over dice a few nights gone. Remember? Almost died and the Count was all in a fury. Had us knocking down doors and cracking heads for three nights til we got the ones what did it. Darkhand gang, it was.”
Captain Aurelume studied the picture, her lips pursed. Her eyes were cerulean jewels dancing with sparks of sunlight.
She drummed a gauntleted finger on her sword hilt, and the sun glinted off her pauldrons. “Yes,” she said after several moments. “I remember him. Young and reckless, fair hand with the ladies, I’m told.” She glanced at her guard. “Which I suspect is the true reason for the knife in the back. Men have killed for far less.”
The guard shrugged, and his ringmail made soft clinking sounds. “Only said what I was told, Captain. Dice, they said it was.”
The captain returned her attention to Finn.
She returned the picture. “Try the Medi toward the center of the city. Beside the Basilica.” She nodded at the guard beside her. “Harker will show you the way. Good luck.” She turned and disappeared back into the guardhouse.
Harker came up beside Finn. “Alright then,” he grumbled, obviously irritated with having to play babysitter. “This way.”
Finn followed him down long streets that turned and twisted through the city. Every few seconds, he would holler for the crowd to give way to a courier. After a time, they came to a sprawling structure of soaring turrets, tiled roofs, tall arches, and windows filled with ornate traceries and colorful glass. A central dome gleamed silver in the sun.
“The Medi,” he said, and without so much as a by your leave, turned sharply on his heel and waded back into the crowd.
Finn eased Dett over to a tie post on the side of the road and swung out of the saddle, his legs filled with a deep ache from months on the road. He took a moment to stretch and stamp his feet before climbing the marble steps to the fluted columns flanking a set of tall doors rounded at the top and standing open to the public.
Inside, it was dark and subdued; carpet in blue and silver with fancy tassels flowed down the corridors. Tapestries hung the walls and the air smelled of herbs and incense. After getting directions from one of the healers, he stood at the entrance to a private room.
The door stood open, and a gentle breeze whispered through tall, arched windows. The room was small, modestly appointed with bookshelves on the walls and a small brazier across from a four-post bed on which lounged a figure wrapped around the midsection with clean bandages.
Finn knocked on the door frame and stepped inside. The elf on the bed stirred from his reading and set the book aside, fastening his eyes on the visitor. “Who are you?”
Finn approached the bed and gave a slight bow. “Finnton, my lord,” he said, digging into his satchel. “You are Aberiel of House Fyndrael?”
The elf’s eyes hardened with suspicion. His hand slipped under the sheet covering him to the waist. “Who sent you? What is this?”
“I was dispatched from Kaelos five months ago, my lord,” Finn produced the letter. The elf’s eyes locked on the silver seal, and the coiled readiness in his posture melted away. “That is my house seal. Give it to me.” The elf snatched the letter from Finn’s hand, gave the seal a cursory inspection, and broke it off with his thumbnail. His eyes moved over the words. He stopped at one point, drew in a deep, ragged breath, and glanced at the ceiling before continuing.
A single tear broke free from one of Aberiel Fyndrael’s lavender eyes.
The hand holding the letter slowly sank into his lap. Another tear streaked his cheek. Redness gathered in his eyes, across his face. “They have found her,” he said. His voice was a quavering whisper. “She…” he broke off with a sob. “She…I can’t believe it…she…”
Whatever the elf was going to say, Finn would never know. The words were drowned in anguished cries.
Finn turned to go, but thought he caught a glimpse of a smile breaking through the elf’s tears. Was Aberiel smiling? Finn couldn’t tell and it would be rude to stay. Whether tears of sorrow or joy, he would never know. Nor did he care.
“Good day, my lord.”
He left the elf lordling to his letter and his tears and silently wished him all the best. It was time to see to Dett and lodging for the night. A hot bath to wash away the dust of the road and a hearty meal to fill his belly, that was what he required. Then sleep. Dawn came early this time of year and he wanted to be on the road with the first rays of sunlight.
He stepped out of the Medi and took Dett’s reins in his hand. Music drifted to his ear from a lively tavern down the street. The sounds of raucous laughter and a dozen conversations sang in the air.
A grin crept onto his face.
A bath, a meal and maybe just one game of dice before he found his bed. He turned toward the tavern.
A man had needs.

I'm all up to date on my vaccines, so was hopeful I'd not get Covid again. The last time I had it I ended up in the hospital for a couple days with pneumonia.
This time I had initial symptoms that I didn't think were anything important. Started with some nausea, then I had what I assumed was an allergy flare. But, after a day of sneezing and runny nose I started getting worse. Last night I had a fever, so I decided it was worth testing. And I'm positive. Ugh.
Symptoms now are fever, body aches, watery eyes, headache, sinus congestion, cough, fatigue and loss of smell and taste. I'm hoping I don't end up with a secondary infection like last time. It's not good.
Hard to know for sure where I contracted it, but we were at a huge concert venue in Seattle on Friday, so that could've been it. I know a lot of people don't test anymore. Not sure why not, but we get the tests free, so I figure I may as well know what I'm sick with. I wish there were free at home tests for flu and RSV as well.

Hello everyone,
I come to Reddit which I’m surprised about, I didn’t think I’d end up here asking!
I think my friends in an abusive relationship, we’ve been friends for a longgg time - since high school. Back track to 5years ago, she escaped a horrendous relationship which she told me was extremely physically and mentally abusive. I felt so bad for not noticing but she talked about her relationship throughout as the best thing ever. She never got the help she needed from therapy as she refused to go after a bad encounter with one.
Shes now been in a new relationship with another guy for 4years now. It has felt like we’ve stopped talking that much and we meet less often now. I didn’t really think much until one of newer friends who has known her for a year (who she talked highly of a lot!) messaged me asking to talk about her wellbeing.
We talked and he broke down whilst telling me how he thinks she’s in another abusive relationship. Now, she never really tells me much about her new relationship and she didn’t tell me much about the past one either but this newer friend told me that she’s told him everything.
He said the worst part was that she said to him “you’re the only person I’ve told this much to” and “you are the only one who listens to me” before pushing him away and cutting ties with him. He was such an emotional mess and he asked if I could help.
I knew they were extremely close and he’s a lovely person - it’s shocking the information he told me. He also mentioned that he has had this thought for a long time but has been scared of talking about it to her worried that she won’t have anyone to talk to about it if she ended things (which happened anyway).
These are the things he informed me of:

• how incredibly harshly she pushed him (friend) away (in order over a year)bland texts, ignoring texts, cancelling plans, calling him names, blaming him for the friendship failing and ultimately cutting ties. All whilst telling him he was the only one who listened…
  
• her boyfriend is extremely clingy and always texts and calls her a lot even during work hours
  
• her boyfriend doesn’t treat his parents or strangers nicely (shouting, threatening and demanding)
  
• he apparently gets a moody with her after a long day at work
  
• he told her that no one else knows her stating “everyone thinks you’re this energetic, brave and courageous person but you’re not, you’re actually nervous, shy and anxious” - me and her other friend completely disagree. She is the most bubbly and loving person but her trauma has completely broke her.
  
• he has told her that he doesn’t understand why I’m friends with her and that she shouldn’t be (although, her friend told me she was complaining about my behaviour which wasn’t meant to be offensive, I know she has a tendency to perceive things incorrectly)
  
• he got her to move workplace to cut off her other friend
  
• her sister doesn’t like her boyfriend, we don’t know the reasons
  
• He gets annoyed when she’s late or if she ever did overtime at work
  
• that he lives with her and her parents so bad intentions may be concealed to a degree
  

There were some other things, slightly minor but I think these were the main ones he was most worried about. The fact that she’s vulnerable because she never healed, the friend recommended therapy and offered to help but she declined.
He told me that she has been extremely down recently, depressed, suicidal and stressed possessing a low self esteem.
I do believe what he says, I met him a couple months back and he was the brightest and joyful soul but here, he looked completely shattered in front of me. Eyes sunken, skin dry, obviously unwell from the burden he was carrying.
We just don’t know what to do now. Because she seems to not like him anymore for whatever reason, it’s like I’m not allowed to know this information. We believe that he’s using her trauma against her, it’s the way he almost forces her do something knowing it’ll upset her then when she’s upset, he comes in with the comfort talk.
There’s so much more to it that I’ve come to realise and her friend has told me.
Please help us! Thanks :D

Hello everyone. This will be a long post.
Just got back from my rheumatologist appointment and he decided to start me on low dose naltrexone (0,2 mg daily -- yes, it's VERY low, but I'm sensitive to meds). Just wanted to know if and how it worked for anyone with any of these conditions: - chronic pain (duh) in neck, knee, feet, hands, with no apparent reason - brain fog, executive dysfunction, being mentally tired - extreme fatigue, post exertional malaise - "flares" that are similar to fibromyalgia - dry eye syndrome
Also I'd like to hear experiences from people taking any these meds: - bupropione (wellbutrin) - hydroxychloroquine - ritalin - rozerem
I have some other conditions (hEDS, POTS/dysautonomia, sleep disturbances, bipolar type 2, ADHD, autism, endometriosis under control) so if anyone with these can comment on their experience too it would be valuable to me. I guess it's important to say that my doctor doesn't know what is wrong with me, all the tests for autoimmune things came back negative (except HLA-B27, this one I couldn't do yet), but my fatigue did get a little better with hcq.
Also if anyone took this for long covid I'm interested in reading about it. I'll probably cross-post this on other subreddits too. Thanks in advance!

27 female - 5'3 - 175lbs - not a smoker. I got sick over a week ago with presumably covid. Fever, body aches, skin sensitivity, chest pains, laryngitis(still is going on, my larynx is tender to the touch). And a horrible cough that started out dry but has become very productive with copious amounts of thick, green and yellow sputum. Sometimes with streaks of blood if I've been coughing hard enough.
Yesterday I coughed up a couple mouthfuls of a watery substance, no idea what it was. It looked kind of "dirty" for lack of better explanation. The cough is a bit better during the day, nights have been a complete nightmare. I've been laying elevated on a mountain of pillows but it isn't really doing anything at all. Once I settle into bed the coughing starts in and will not stop, I'm usually gasping in between fits. I usually don't fall asleep until daylight and it's only in 1-2 hour stints before I wake up coughing.
As of today I feel like my breathing may be slightly more shallow but I'm honestly not sure if I'm just psyching myself out. I also feel generally more sick again. I'm seeing a ton of conflicting information about how I should treat my symptoms, some say hospital and some say it's normal for covid and to wait it out. I've been doing everything I've been reading, taking cough suppressants/anti-inflammatories, drinking a lot of hot teas, baths/showers, deep breathing.
I don't have health insurance so I've been trying to avoid visiting the hospital, but if I do have pneumonia then I'd rather have it treated then it get worse.
Edit: New fun symptom, I have some weird body/hand tremors going on right now, along with a strange "floaty" feeling when I'm up out of bed. I don't feel cold, no fever. If anything my body temperature is a little low, around 96F compared to my normal 96.8(still on the low end I know)

Chapter 4
Aria's heart hammered against her ribs as the cultists closed in, their blades thirsting for her blood. The avatar's crimson eyes bored into her, stripping away her defenses, her will, until she felt like a fly caught in the web of some abyssal spider.
But even as terror threatened to overwhelm her, Aria's gaze darted desperately around the chamber, seeking some means of escape. There! A narrow alcove, half-hidden behind a drape of moth-eaten velvet. If she could just reach it...
Summoning every shred of courage, Aria lunged forward, ducking beneath the grasping hands of the nearest cultist. She wove between the shadows, her cloak billowing behind her like the wings of a desperate bird. The cultists howled in outrage, their footsteps pounding after her, but Aria did not dare look back.
She flung herself into the alcove, pressing her back against the dank stone. The cultists raced past, their cries echoing in the vaulted chamber. Aria held her breath, not daring to move, hardly daring to think.
But then a hand clamped down on her shoulder, and Aria nearly screamed. She whirled, her heart in her throat... and found herself staring into a familiar face. Liam.
"What in the hells are you doing here?" Liam hissed, his eyes wild beneath his hood.
"I could ask you the same thing!" Aria shot back, her fear boiling over into anger. "Liam, this is madness. These people, this... this thing they worship... can't you see it's evil?"
Liam's gaze flickered, and for a moment, Aria glimpsed a profound terror in their depths. "You don't understand," he whispered. "The Crimson Abyss... Khor'zul... he sees into the very heart of you. He knows your darkest desires, your deepest shames. And he promises to fulfill them, to elevate you. All you have to do is give yourself to him, utterly."
Aria shook her head, horror and revulsion knotting in her gut. "Listen to yourself! This isn't you, Liam. You're not some... some thrall to a bloodthirsty god. You're my friend. And I'm going to get you out of here, away from these... these monsters."
But even as the words left her lips, Aria knew it was futile. The look in Liam's eyes, that fevered, fanatic light... it was the gaze of a man possessed, body and soul. The friend she had known, the bright, vital boy she had grown up with... he was gone, devoured by the insatiable hunger of the Crimson Abyss.
Liam's grip on her shoulder tightened, his nails biting into her flesh even through her cloak. "I can't let you leave," he said, his voice quavering. "You've seen too much. Khor'zul demands a price for your trespass. You must be... consecrated. Anointed in blood and shadow."
Aria wrenched away from him, bile rising in her throat. "No. I won't let you drag me into this nightmare. I'm leaving, Liam. And if there's any shred of sanity left in you, you'll come with me."
She turned to go, but Liam's hand shot out, seizing her wrist in an iron grip. "I can't let you—"
But his words choked off as Aria drove her elbow hard into his solar plexus. Liam doubled over, wheezing, his grip slackening. Aria did not hesitate. She bolted, plunging back into the main chamber—
And found herself face to face with the avatar of Khor'zul. The towering figure loomed over her, robes reeking of blood and shadows. Those crimson eyes flayed Aria to her very soul, and she felt her will, her very identity, beginning to unravel like a skein of mouldering yarn.
"Foolish girl," the avatar hissed. "Did you think you could escape the gaze of the Blood God? All who look upon his Crimson Majesty are forever marked, forever... his."
The avatar's skeletal hand shot out, faster than thought, faster than fear. Aria tried to twist away, but she was a minnow caught in the jaws of a shark. Those fingers, cold as the grave and strong as iron, closed around her throat, lifted her off her feet as easily as a child's doll...
Aria kicked and thrashed, black spots exploding across her vision. She clawed at the avatar's wrist, but it was like gouging at marble. Her lungs screamed for air, and she could feel her pulse slowing, her struggles weakening.
Through the closing tunnel of her darkening sight, Aria saw the obsidian blade rising in the avatar's other hand. The edge glinted like the blood-drenched fang of some eldritch beast. It hung suspended for a moment that stretched into eternity... and then, almost gently, the avatar lowered the tip to the skin of Aria's chest, directly over her thundering heart.
A shock of cold, so intense it burned, radiated from the point where the cursed blade touched her flesh. Aria convulsed, her mouth opening in a silent scream. The shadows seemed to coalesce around them, thickening into a cloying, syrupy miasma that poured into Aria's nostrils, her lungs, her pores.
"Now," the avatar intoned, their voice resonating from the very walls, the very foundations of the earth, "you shall be consecrated in the Blood of the Abyss. You shall bear the Mark of Khor'zul, and through the Curse of Crimson, you shall be irrevocably bound to Him."
The blade pressed forward, parting skin, drawing forth a beading of blood black in the guttering torchlight. And as the first drop welled and fell to anoint the stones, Aria felt something within her shatter, a wall crumbling, a floodgate opening to allow the eldritch tides of Khor'zul to come pouring in...
She was drowning, she was burning, she was being flensed and flayed and filled, the blood of the Crimson Abyss replacing her own, the tenebrous thoughts of the Blood God entwining with the fibers of her being. The Curse etched itself into her marrow, her mind, her soul, branding her irrevocably as Khor'zul's own.
When the avatar released her, Aria crumpled to the floor, shuddering, retching bile and shadows. She lifted her shaking hands and saw, to her uncomprehending horror, that her veins pulsed with a bloody, eldritch light. The Mark of the Maw burned on the skin over her heart, pulsing in time with the slowing thunder of her pulse.
"Rise, Aria Vorn, Chosen of the Crimson Abyss," the avatar commanded. "Rise and take your place among the faithful. For you belong now, body and soul, to Khor'zul... and His Hunger shall be sated."
And though every fiber of her being screamed in silent horror and negation, Aria felt her blood-soaked body rise, an awful sense of purpose, of dark exultation, flooding her hollowed mind and heart...
For she was Chosen, anointed and awash in the blood-tides of her God's glorious purpose.
And that purpose would drown the world.

Hello all!
I am kinda new to skincare but am looking to properly care for my skin. For background, I am mid 20s, have sensitive but combination skin, frequently experience breakouts and hormonal acne, have scarring and redness.
After doing some research, I just recently purchased a skincare routine. I am not sure about how to order the products or what should be in the AM/PM. Below is what I’ve done the last couple days.
Any advice is greatly appreciated! I am open to other product suggestions as well.
AM: 1. rinse with water 2. cosrx low ph niacinamide micellar cleansing water 3. beekman 1802 milk shake hyaluronic acid and squalane facial toner mist 4. cosrx snail 96 mucin power essence 5. good molecules discoloration correcting serum 6. cerave eye repair cream 7. neutrogena hydro boost water gel
PM: 1. la roche posay toleriane purifying foaming cleanser 2. beekman 1802 milk shake hyaluronic acid and squalane facial toner mist 3. cosrx snail 96 mucin power essence 4. good molecules discoloration correcting serum 5. cerave eye repair cream 6. neutrogena hydro boost water gel

Hello all!
I am kinda new to skincare but am looking to properly care for my skin. For background, I am mid 20s, have sensitive but combination skin, frequently experience breakouts and hormonal acne, have scarring and redness.
After doing some research, I just recently purchased a skincare routine. I am not sure about how to order the products or what should be in the AM/PM. Below is what I’ve done the last couple days.
AM: 1. rinse with water 2. cosrx low ph niacinamide micellar cleansing water 3. beekman 1802 milk shake hyaluronic acid and squalane facial toner mist 4. cosrx snail 96 mucin power essence 5. good molecules discoloration correcting serum 6. cerave eye repair cream 7. neutrogena hydro boost water gel
PM: 1. la roche posay toleriane purifying foaming cleanser 2. beekman 1802 milk shake hyaluronic acid and squalane facial toner mist 3. cosrx snail 96 mucin power essence 4. good molecules discoloration correcting serum 5. cerave eye repair cream 6. neutrogena hydro boost water gel
Any advice is greatly appreciated! I am open to other product suggestions as well.

Not finished yet but nearly done just need to know if it's decent.
Spider-Man VS The Punisher
A man walking his footsteps sounds like mini explosions as a row of computers with people typing on them. The man stops upon a window looking down to a glass cage with yellow electricity emerging from it.
“He's here, he's taking us all out. We need back up. Noooo.” The man looks at one of the scientists saying “wait for him to get here.” The man cleans up his suit and tightens his tie.
“Ohhh you're getting dressed up just for me. I shoulda brought flowers.” The man looks up where he sees a man in a red and blue webbed suit. “I should have killed you years ago. Well after today you will be.” “We both know that's not going to happen Willy. I'll arrest you and you'll escape, Rinse and repeat, it's always been like that.” The man grinds his teeth and grips his hands. “Unleash him.” the scientist looks at him and then at the computer pressing a button.
“Unleash him Fisk are you cheating on me with another hero.” as he says this a bolt of lightning strikes through the glass levitating in front of him. “You must be Spiderman. I'm electro, the man that's been tasked to kill you.” Spider-Man whispers to himself. “This guy's making my spider sense go crazy. I don't think this will go well.” he coughs then says. “Shouldn't you be at the circus.” Electro looks at Fisk and says “Leave Mister Fisk now.” Fisk and the scientists walk out into an elevator. “Don't disappoint me Max.” The elevator goes up with Spider-Man and Electro looking at each other “So electricity man are we gonna start.” He looks down to his hands where they start to glow brighter with electricity shooting out. BANG electricity shoots out his hand Spider-Man just dodging it. BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG Spider-Man narrowly dodges the bolts. He creates a continuous line of lightning towards Spider-Man. Cracking Peter tries to dodge it but fails on the ground Peter feels his muscles shut down. Electro walks over to him, shocking him again. “Ahhhhhhh.” He stops Spider-Man trying to crawl away BANG “AHHHHHH.” An alarm goes off as sprinklers also go off hitting Electro causing him to grunt.
Spider-Man using this crawls up a wall into a vent leaving the building Spider-Man takes off his mask feeling the rain hit his face. He hears Fisk talking to Electro below. “Is the job done.” “No, he escaped. The sprinklers set off burning my skin.” “You let him escape. I gave you one job and failed me." Electro looks at him sternly saying “Mister Fisk you gave me these powers and you want me to kill Peter I will. You know where he lives, I can go over there and kill him and his family.” “You will do no such thing. He will not try to kill us if we just go after him he won't understand.” Electro nods and walks away with an umbrella.
Spider-Man looks at his web shooters. “Great, they're gonna have to get the train. May's gonna kill me when I get back.”
Brooklyn, New York, 21:32
“PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T DO IT. I HAVE A FAMILY LOOK. PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING. WHAT DO YOU WANT MONEY, POWER.” A man shouts breaking down in fear of whoever is trying to kill him. “I want to know why you do it. Why commit crime when there's hundreds of heroes. I think I know why though. They won't kill, they won't just take the godam leap and end you scumbags. So I chose to do it myself.” The man says in a deep voice wrapping a cord around his neck. He picks him up, showing him a fifteen floor drop. “No, no, please don't do this.” He starts to cry as looks at him blankly, throwing off the building with him screaming for about three seconds till the man hears a snap. “Good Riddens.”
Queen's, New York, 9:29 pm
Walking into a house a teenager walks in “Peter where have y- My god what happened to you?” Peter looks at his aunt and says “Some people tried to rob me, it's alright May.” “Did they take anything? Did you call the police.?” “No and no May I'm fine May.” He looks at May. “I'll call the police.” “DON'T. I never saw what they really looked like, you'll just waste their time.” She looks at him saying “From now on you'll be back before it gets dark.” Peter nods “Now Peter time for your cake Happy Eighteenth Peter.” Peter looks at a cake with candles on it. He blows them out “Thanks May I'm just gonna go to my room I've had a ruff day.” May looks at him. “Are you sure you don't want some cake I've made? It's your favourite.” “I'll have some tomorrow really.” Peter walks up to his room turning on the TV playing the daily bugle. “Today Spider-Man failed to capture this so-called Lizard. I think he's just too lazy to put in any work. When the police lose a suspect their back on the streets trying to find him but Spider-Man swip swap swoops his way down and destroys peoples properties.” Peter looks at it in a rage “People would have died if i wasn't there yet I don't get thanked but hated. Why do I do this?” He looks at the picture next to his bed of him and uncle Ben. The time when he didn't worry if Aunt May would see him tomorrow. If she'll be targeted by villains. “Ben would call me stupid for doing something like this. Even more stupid I was responsible for his death. I couldn't just tell him where I was, I just had to storm out. He goes looking for me and ends up getting shot. I'm sorry Ben.”
Manhattan, New York, 06:34
“What will it be?” “Coffee, milk and two sugars.” She turns around and the man looks at his watch as he checks the time. “06:36 still have seven.” “It's ready. Have an amazing day.” he hands her a ten and leaves. He walks to an old burned building. Walking in he goes up five floors and goes towards a sniper pointing out a window. He takes a sip of his coffee checking his watch. “06:42 one minute.” A minute later a limousine drives up to a small building. A man dressed in a white and gold suit walks. “Gotcha.” BANG, a single bullet from the sniper shoots the man in the head obliterating the back of his head. He walks away with screams of people running and people shouting. “It's him, Punisher, he's here.” Pointing their pistols in the air looking where the shot came from.
Queen's, New York, 7:45 am
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BE-. Bang Peter hits his alarm destroying it. “Uhh, great way to start the day.” Peter goes to the bathroom brushing his teeth. He leaves the bathroom getting changed into his new clothes then goes to check on his web shooters. “Thank god for the science lab.” Checking his costume he sees it burnt and destroyed. He messages MJ to ask her to bring his spare costume she's working on. He gets his bag and web shooters going downstairs. “Hey Aunt May I'm off to school.” “Not so fast, I've got some cake for you to take.” Petter goes up to May and takes it. “Thanks May love ya bye.” Peter walks out to the school bus.
On the bus he sits next to his girlfriend Mary Jane. “My god Pete what happened to you. Also you suits in my bag.” Peter looks at her saying “New villain in town calls himself Electro.” “You've got to stop doing this Peter really you're going to kill yourself. How many villains do you have?” Peter looks down and says “Well Theirs the lizard, Shocker, Electro, Fisk, Otto Octavius and sin eater. Don't forget about the small time.” She looks at him saying “God why do I put up with you.” “Because I'm irresistible.” She smirks.
A couple hours later Peter only had two lessons left. Peter in the back of his English class looked at his web shooters making sure they still aren't broken and that he fixed them during science. Peter looks at his phone where he sees a notification from the daily bugle saying that sandman is robbing a bank. “Can I go to the bathroom?” Peter shouts. “Sure Mister Parker uh just take the pass.” Peter takes it and leaves. He goes to the janitor's closet putting on his Spidey suit and web shooters jumping out of the window. He looks at his phone while swinging. “Sometimes I wish I had a GPS in my suit instead of needing to use Oscorpe maps.” He swings wondering why sandman is robbing a bank. “He's stupid but not this stupid to rob a bank, especially during the day.” He swings across Queensboro into Manhattan.
When he arrives the swat team surrounds the area with Captain Stacey on standby. Spider-Man drops down in front of him. “Hey.” Looking up Captain Stacey talks to Spider-Man. “Spider-Man good thing you're here we need your help. Sandman has taken over the bank and he has three hostages.” Spider-Man looks at him saying. “Guess you can say things are getting out of sand.” “Sure just when you go in don't destroy much will you.” “I won't captain you know me, just get your officer's to sand back.” Spider-Man does finger guns at Captain Stacey swinging in. “Everyone shut up. I'm gonna pay it off with this score.” Spider-Man slowly swings down “It's ironic that you're named Flint. You know because flint and steel create fire and fire turns you into glass.” “WHAT.” Spider-Man sighs as he launches a kick towards him. He kicks him with Spider-Man going straight through him as this happens he webs his feet and pulls causing him to fall. He goes to punch sandman but punches him through the glass into a police car. CRASH, the police start firing at him but they do nothing. “SPIDER-MAN GET UP.” Captain Stacey shouts at spider-man. Spider-man jumps in slingshotting himself into sandman. He goes straight through him knocking sandman back as well. “Stop this Flint, think of all the good you've done.” He jumps onto the wall looking at a fire hydrant. “Like you've no that won't cut it. Ok you haven't done anything good but that doesn't mean I have to kick your ass again.” Sandman gets up. “You think you can kick my ass again. Not happening.” Spider-Man sighs. “Ok.” Spider-Man jumps down and grabs the fire hydrant and pulls. CRACK, the fire hydrant breaks splashing water all over sandman. “I told you Flint, I always win.” Flint starts to turn into a pile of wet sand. Spider-Man webs the hydrant to stop the water then walks over to Flint. Barely able to keep your normal form. “Screw you.” Spider-Man looks over at the captain. “He's all your captain enjoy.” Spider-Man jumps onto the side of a swat van. “Where do you go when you finish?” “School, besides I'm only missing one class.” Peter says this jumping and swinging away. “About ten minutes getting there. HEY I'M SWINGING HERE. Five minutes there and ten back is enough to miss english.”
Last lesson goes pretty boring for Peter. He's thinking about the lizard and how he escaped yesterday.
Bronx, New York, 15:45
“Nah he'll be here soon. The boss says after today's shipment the police are going to leave the Bronx alone.” An unknown man, clearly a gangster in a suit, is talking to another man in a suit. “Yeah, isn't he worried, though I mean what happened yesterday? You know Freddy.” One of them says “Nah, his new guy almost killed Spider-Man yesterday. He was talking about how he was crawling to escape only got away because of the sprinklers.”
BANG, BANG, The Punisher walks into a restaurant with seven men in suits in it. “HEY WHO LET THIS GUY IN.” The Punisher grabs his M4 and start to spray into a crowd killing three of them. Two of them pull out micro uzi's shooting at him. The Punisher grabs a grenade and throws it at the bar. BANG, The grenade goes and kills the two of them. The other two put their hands up and surrendered. Frank drops his AR. BANG, BANG, He shoots them with his pistol. He walks upstairs where five line a wall of AK's. The Punisher pulls out a stun grenade throwing it at them. BANG, they all drop their guns blind and staggering The Punisher walks in picking up one of their guns firing on them all. He walks to a door with the dead piled up next to it. He kicks it open to see a man in a suit. “I wondered how long it would take for you to find me, Frank. Now I have some you want and in return you'll let me go, unde-.” BANG, “No deal.” Frank starts to pack a duffel bag with money. Once he's done he lights the office on fire and leaves.
He walks to a van getting into the driver's seat. He drives for about thirty minutes to a small house. Walking in he puts the money in the pantree where about fifteen of the same bags are. He puts on the TV playing the news and works on making bullets. “Spider-Man today was responsible for the destruction of one bank. One I go to, when i wanted to go there today I realised I COULDN'T BECAUSE SPIDER-MAN HELPED SANDMAN DESTROY IT AND WHEN THE COPS SHOWED UP HE THREW HIM UNDER AND PRETENDED TO BE THE HERO. Now why do I have to pay for it? Why doesn't he? We know who Captain America is and he destroys a bank because he's civilised and not a maniac.” Frank looks at the TV turning it off and continues working.
Manhattan, New York, 4:21
“PARKER, PARKER, these photos are blurry I'll give you fifty.” Peter looks at him “Mister Jamerson I need a hundred and twenty.” “I need better pictures.” A man walks in “We need pictures Jonah.” He looks at Peter. “Ok one twenty.” He sighs a check giving it to Peter.
Peter leaves and goes to the woman working at the desk in front. “Hey Betty.” Peter gives Betty the check to Betty who gives him the money. “Thanks.” Peter leaves the daily bugle checking phone. He sees that he's missed a call from Captain Stacey. He calls him. “ you at the station up town.” “Ok but which one?” He runs into the alley next to the bugle changing into his costume swinging away. “So which one.” “You won't miss it kid really.” The call ends. “Ok, quite weird but he didn't even say why he needed me.” It takes him about thirty seconds to realise what he's about. In the distance he sees a giant ball of electricity. “Oh no.”
“Where is it?” CRACK, BANG, Electro kills three police officers. Captain Stacey tells all the police officer's to get into the building. “YOU CAN'T HIDE.” Spider-Man swings down checking the pulse of one of the dead police officers. “no. SURRENDER NOW.” Electro flies in front of him. “Or what. At least I'll get to kill you now. Peter.” Peter feels nervous looking around and Captain Stacey shouts for him to get in. “STAY INSIDE CAPTAIN.” The captain goes to one of his men. “Is it ready?” “yeah” Electro shoots electricity at spider-man. BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG. Spider-Man webs a man hole throwing it at him. Electro catches it, Spider-Man using this moment slingshots himself punching Electro multiple times. “I'M DONE PLAYING. YOU KILLED COPS I'M NOT GOING EASY.” Electro smirks at Peter creating an emp knocking Peter down. Electro drops to the ground, shocking him. “AHHHHHHH. BANG, AHHHHHHHH. BANG, AHHHHHHHH.” Electro walks up to Spider-Man who is crawling away. “Poor little Peter Parker. Once I'm done with you I'll deal with the ones you love. Rest in piece Peter Parker.” Electro charges his hands then. BANG.
Manhattan, New York, 16:23
Punisher loads his sniper talking to himself. “Really, they would kill me immediately. At least I'll kill this freak.” He toggles with the scope. “SURRENDER NOW.” “He won't do that kid” he waits for a clear shot. “YOU KILLED COPS I'M NOT GOING EASY.” he waits for his moment. Bang “AHHHHHHH.” Electros hands start to charge he lifts them. “bang.” BANG. A single bullet goes through the chest of Electro. Frank picks up his sniper and walks downstairs.
Walking down he sees Electro holding his chest on the ground and Spider-Man next to him barely alive. The Punisher walks up to Electro with a knife. “No please d-dont do this.” He gets close to Electro as tries to crawl away. The Punisher grabs him and turns him around. Fear in Electros eye's “Once I'm done with you I'll deal with your loved one's.” “No please.” The Punisher stabs him in the throat, killing him. “You know kid stay away from fisk for the next couple of days you understand. Deal with that giant lizard terrorising the city. Got me Parker.” Peter just looks as he starts to lose consciousness. “Good.” Gorge Stacey and his men leave the building telling The Punisher to surrender. He walks away as no one dares goes to arrest him. Gorge gets his men to help Peter.
Manhattan, New York, 7:32 pm
“You've got to take it easy kid. The doctors said you could have died.” Peter listens to Captain Stacey saying. “I know but with this guy out there, bloods gonna spill in the streets.” The Captain sighs. “So what are you going to do.” Peter coughs “I'm going to try and find the lizard first.” “Stay safe kid.” Peter jumps of the empire state building swinging through the city calling MJ to tell May he's staying at hers tonight.
Thirty minutes Later Peter hears on the police radio that a giant lizard is destroying Oscorpe. Swinging over he feels the stitches in him starting to rip.
When he arrives he sees a fire and a chunk of the side of the building gone. He swings in where fire and dead security guards are. “W-who is he?.” He hears a continuous clicking sound. “There aren't any alien space hunters down there, ha ha.” He laughs nervously. Suddenly a human sized lizard runs towards him trying to eat him. He dodges jumping on a wall “Hey I'm from the zoo, they said a lizard needed to be put down. That doesn't make sense. I don't kill. Hey no bitey.” He sees on the lab coat he's wearing it says Dr Connors. Still dodging “Connor's wait Curt Connors how did you. AHHH.” The Lizard scratches Spider-Man across the chest leaving a claw mark. Spider-Man looks up and sees him jumping to bite him. Spider-Man cartwheels backwards into a jump webbing his head and face planting him. “If you chill out I'll give you a box of insects to eat.” The Lizard gets up. “AHHHHHHHH.” Spider-Man looks at him. “Uh I don't know what to say to that. Raw maybe." As Spider-Man gets ready to attack, the Lizard's left arm starts to turn grey. It looks at it and runs away. Spider-Man swings after him through the streets of Manhattan “YOU MIGHT UGLY BUT I'M FINE WITH IT YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUN.” As he swings the lizard throws a hotdog stand at him. He webs it to a wall and keeps swinging. “SERIOUSLY A HOTDOG STAND IF YOU DON'T STOP I'LL TURN YOU INTO A LIZARD DOG. WELL I THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY.” The lizard goes into an alley into a sewer. Spider-Man follows him slingshotting himself in shouting. “YEAAAAH.”
Inside of the sewers Peter looks around and sees only one way forwards. He crawls ol the walls seeIng the destruction Connor's did. “UH MISTER CONNOR'S, CURT, LIZARD, ANYONE. AM I JUST TALKING TO MYSELF, YES, why did I shout that.” He keeps crawling till he hears shouting. “PLEASE I DIDN'T HAVE CONTROL PLEASE DON'T DO THIS.”
Manhattan, Sewers, New York, 19:28
“Where is this freak? This vermin to society.” The Punisher walks through the sewers trying to find the rat killing innocent people. “HISSSS.” He hears a hiss and feels something watching him. “SHOW YOURSELF YOU FREAK OF NATURE.” A black figure crawls out from the shadow. “Tries to hurt me, hurt Edward. AHHHH.” He hisses and screams at him. He goes to attack him but The Punisher unloads bullets from his M4. Vermin shouts in pain “AHHHHHHHH.” Frank slowly followed him. “YOU CAN'T RUN VERMIN. I'LL KILL YOU MATTER WHAT. I'LL DO WHATEVER, YOU'RE COWARD THAT PREY ON THE WEAK.” “Vermin doesn't prey on the weak. I DON'T HAVE CONTROL, AHHHH. Vermin needs to eat, Edward needs to live.” he scurries away. After a minute of walking he arrived in a circular area where Vermin threw him in. “AHHHHH. Vermin will kill you now.” Frank picks his M4 up again, shooting him. He screams crawling up the wall. The Punisher pulls the trigger when vermin is above it and doesn't do anything. He checks the mag to see it's empty. Vermin drops down Scratching Frank across the face. He pulls out his pistol shooting him in the eye. “AHHHHHH, AHHHHH.” Frank goes up and shoots him on the head, killing him.
He hears a scream further down. Going down the tunnel he sees lab equipment and a lizard transforming into a person. “The Lizard, perfect timing.” Limping, he goes over to The Lizard waiting for him to transform. “AHHHHH, AHHHHHHHHH, HELP PLEASE, AHHHHHHH.” Frank just stands there till he transforms. He pulls his pistol out and points it at Connor's. “You're the lizard. What's your name? WHAT YOUR NAME?” “Connor's. Dr Curtis Connors.” Frank starts to pull the triggers. “PLEASE I DIDN'T HAVE CONTROL PLEASE DON'T DO THIS.”
Peter drops down in front of him webbing his pistol. “We don't kill people, understand.” The Punisher grits his teeth “Back off kid really.” “So you can kill him. Like you did Electro. You told me you were going against Fisk, why are you going for The Lizard.” The Punisher smirks at Peter, making nervous. “I wasn't here for him. It's just a coincidence.” Peter stands there wondering what's next. The Punisher runs towards him Peter jumps over him kicking him in the back. The Punisher hits his head knocking him to the ground Peter uses this to web him up.
“Ok we need to get outta here understand.” Connor's nods and starts to pack his stuff. “I won't kill you kid.” Peter looks at him. “Good because neither will I.” “I'm ready Spider-Man.” Curt says to Peter “Alright let's get outta here.” Peter swings Curt Connors out of the sewers
Manhattan, New York, 8:53 pm
“Ok you need a cure. Uhh, I've got it. I'll take you to the Baxter building. Reed can help you.” Connors thinks. “What if he finds me?” Peter sighs. “It's probably got more security than the raft and it's got four of the best heroes in the world in there.” Connors agrees and Peter swings him there.
When he gets there they walk in. Peter shouts. “REED YOU HERE. REED RICHARDS.” “Peter.” They turn around to see Sue. “Hey Miss Richard's I need your help.” She looks at Peter then at Connor's “What's wrong Peter are you in trouble.” Peter looks at her then Connors. “Not me. Have you ever heard of The Punisher?” She looks confused. “Uhh no why.” “He's trying to kill him. He needs a secure place to stay. And he needs a cure to stop him from turning into a lizard.” She looks. “What about you? Will he kill you?” He sighs “No he won't. He just wants to kill villains.” She looks at Connors saying “Reed is out but he'll be back soon he can make you a cure. Be safe Peter this stuff doesn't end well.” Connor's looks at Peter “Thanks Parker I would never expect you to be a superhero. Miss Richards, can you get my family?”
Peter leaves, going to the top of the Baxter building for some peace. “I'm too tired. I just want to go home but I need to find Fisk.” He checks the wound Connor's left. “I'm losing too much blood. My costume is destroyed and I helped the guy escape death. How am I going to explain this to May my wounds? I can't believe it. First day as an adult and I might not live to see the second. Uncle Ben must think I'm stupid.” He shakes his head. “I've got to go to Fisk tower and warn him.” Peter swings to Fisk tower.
Manhattan, New York, 9:01pm
Spider-Man arrives feeling light headed. He swings up to the office where Fisk and his men are sitting. He opens the door, his men immediately pointing their guns at him. “DROP YOU WEAPONS.” Fisk tells his men. Reluctantly they do Peter Limping towards him. “I need to warn you. A guy, a guy is uh is uh going to kill you.” His voice started to slur and he was barely able to keep his eyes open.” Fisk walks towards him. “You two get the medics now.” Peter falls unconscious.
Waking up Peter wonder's where he is looking around and he sees medical equipment. He gets up and walks through a pair of doors into a room full of men and Fisk working at a desk. “You're awake. You've been out for nine hours.” Peter realises that his face is exposed and Fisk notices this. “We all know who you are, Parker.” Peter walks up to him. “Why did you save me? You're goon tried to kill me yesterday.” Fisk calmly got up saying. “Yesterday you came to warn me. I knew why because of the Punisher. When you came here you were close to death. I saved you because. I need you to defeat the Punisher. I've asked every mercenary in this city and it's the same answer. No before Punisher was a myth but now after the men he's killed. The only one who can defeat him is you.” Peter looks at him. “Who's to say I'll stop him.” “Because yesterday you came here to warn me. The only one who wants me dead that can do anything is him.” Peter looks at him. “Where's my stuff.” Fisk clicks his Fingers and one of his men comes over to Peter giving him his phone, suit and web shooters. Putting them on Peter goes to the window telling Fisk. “Thanks Fisk. You really should leave the city.” Peter swings away.
Queen's New York, 6:09 pm
Peter swings through Queens arriving at his girlfriend's house. He goes to her window knocking on it. She wakes up opening it. When Peter enters he takes off his mask. “I can't do it anymore Peter last night you never showed up. I thought you were dead. This Electro almost killed you and the lizard. Peter I ju- AHH.” She screams seeing Peter's face covered in stitches. “I'm not that ugly.” Peter jokes but MJ says. “What happened yesterday.” Peter sits down “It's a long story.”
Manhattan, New York, Sewers, Time Unknown
“DOWN HERE, THERE'S A LAB.” Two police officers walk down the sewers seeing a lab. They both walk into Connor's lab looking around. “What the hey Chris, what is this place? Chris.” Click the police officer feels a gun to the back of his head. “I'm going to take your gun and handcuffs. And Chris is alright just incapacitated.” Frank takes the cop's gun and handcuffs him to a metal pole.
Leaving the sewers Frank feels the cold air on his face. Checking his watch he realises it is broken. He goes to his van and drives off to his house.
When he gets inside he goes to the kitchen checking the clock. “Wasn't down there for long.” He puts on the TV while he makes shotgun shells. “Breaking news this morning we have word that Spider-Man and the Lizard destroyed Oscorpe hours ago, fleeing in the sewers. They also found the cannibal serial killer known as Vermin dead. They say it's a man dressed in black wearing a white skull on his chest. Now I don't condone murder but I want to personally thank this heroe for dealing with someone Spider-Man probably thinks isn't worth his time.” Punisher looks at the TV and at his shotgun loading. “That's all for now J, Jonah, Jamerson signing off.”
Frank goes into his pantree grabbing a bag of cash. He looks in it seeing about hundred and fifty grand. He takes it to his van with him driving off.
Manhattan, New York, 04:41
Frank walks into a small café and enters. “Mister Castle, quite a busy night was it.” Frank walks up giving him the bag of money. “Do you have the thing?” the man clears his throat. “Yes, your coffee is ready. Hot, two sugars and no milk. That'll be one dollar fifty cents.” Frank looks at the bag and at the device he's buying. He picks it up and leaves. “Keep the change.”

Huge shout out to u/ryguy637 & u/-Eterox for helping with Brainstorming and Co-Writing this.
As always, all credits for the original Nature of Predators and it's content goes to Space Paladin15, thank him for allowing artist and writers to use his original work of art for their own uses.
Gaian Ref Sheet-Here, Done by the artist u/Roddcherry
As well as a *Huge* thank you for Julian Sky's for filling in for being an editor again for this chapter! This chapter will be pulling away from the subject memory transcription, instead exploring one of the new regions within the Venian Commonwealth. The "Dark Corner"
[FIRST] [PREV] [NEXT]
"This program is a special update to the Thafki Advocacy’s situation on their new home world, Ayzife. Originally we here at WTWN had done a piece a couple of years back towards the last days of the War, and now we wanted to send one of our reporters to find out- has anything changed? With that, we'll let Rux Limpbut take it away for this one. And please do be aware, user discretion is advised.”
The date of my arrival to Ayzife, the new Thafki homeworld, had arrived. It was a part formally called by our government the “New Re-Seeding Sector”, but It had gained a painful nickname as quickly as it was given its government one. “The Dark Corner”.
A group of Thafki, listless and confused, is shown, as a small group of Gaians seem to herd them back into a recently finished project. A Gaian man is showing us around, telling us of the hardships, his face has been blurred for their safety.
“What am I to do?” The thick Mountaineer accent rang out from the man’s scarred face. He was one of the first officers that had come across the cattle ranches and the true extent of the horror that laid within them. “The adults can't speak, they can't learn. The children are really the only hope…” his accented voice trails off as he checked within some of the residences, some of the seemingly adult Thafki, stunted and confused, are being hand fed. They do not respond to any orders, at least not to ones in any other language except that of the prey killers, or that of our Horned and able bodied Sister species.
The children are crowded around their parents, speaking in a mix of Thafki and a Piggish- like squealing imitation of Arxur. One approaches me and the cameraman, asking us a question.
“Savageness?” They eek out. Compared to the parents, the children seem blissfully unaware to what they or what their loved ones went through, their eyes shining brightly, even if they're glazed over in a mountain of unrealized horror. Our guide calls over a shabbily dressed Thafki, in an overly large uniform. Hand-me-downs from our sister species. It has been hemmed to solgalik and back, but it was still painfully apparent that it barely fit comfortably.
The Thafki, as I was to learn later, “Guzifi” or police, takes the child away and back into the building we peered into. Our cameraman zooms into the back of their necks, a painfully visible barcode and scratched in number can be seen. I stand aghast, before our guide comes back to us, his eyes sullen and shrunken into his head, hammered with fatigue.
“As I was saying…*most* of them can't do anything. But the ones like Curzix there-” he gestures to the man, who is now knelt down, stroking the child's hair, a faint giggle echoing in the sparse abode “-He escaped early into his stint, it hardened him. He was one of the first to sign up once we finished the terraforming process at the beginning of this year.”
We are hurried on, “Curzix” soon rejoins us as we continue to inspect and report. Only months ago this entire section we were in was a barren wasteland, only recently finished terraforming. Now? It's crammed with tightly knit buildings, services, and other amenities. But it's not enough. “Reservists” from our Sister species, as they called them, are the majority of people dealing with the Thafki here, only a handful of Guzifi are to be seen amongst the crowds and herd of broken.
Soon we find ourselves in a “rehabilitation” facility, so to speak, the local baker is the first to greet us, head to toe in traditional thafkian garb, and a small basket of baked goods they had made earlier this morning. She gestures for us to take some, which me and the cameraman do.
“And this-” the Provincial-Governor who had been tailing with us begins, before the Thafki finishes for him
“I'm Zaifi.” She sticks her hand out, and I do the same in kind. I quickly noted that she seemed to be the only light in this icker of dark, bitter sadness that assuaged us. She turns around and begins to wander through the halls as we begin to trail behind her, questions outpouring.
“Are you one of the Free Thafkis that came here?” I ask, she nods in response while clearing her throat..
“Yes. I might be one of the few to even go so far as to say my life's been better since I came here.” She responds. I nod along, taking her words in as I take a bite of the customary “Cionn” bread.
It's one of the signs of the Thafki Advocacy's-now Thafki Republic-Efforts to Re-Seeding their culture and themselves. I'm later told it's an offshoot of a more savory dinner bread, softer and less sweet called Uniffin'Dath, although I'm also told that that type of bread is used in conjunction with Striou (not Strayu) soup.
While I do so, however, I take glances behind me and to the sides of me. Behind me, the Gaian Sector-Governor, Halim and the Thafki Republic’s first Councilor, Ralikenn are having a heated discussion. Something our camera notices as he increases the sensitivity on the recording equipment.
“...I can't believe you all….a junta that…” are the words picked up from Ralikenn, as Halim begins to frown heavily, and begins to speak back.
“... Can't you… supplies arrived…” The discussion continues as Zaifi grabs my attention, the cameraman I'm with peering into the doors we pass by.
The camera pans to Thafki children, in various states of appearance, are sat down in school desks. At the front of their rooms either a Gaian or Thafki teacher can be seen, teaching anything from their language, their dress code, etiquette and more. Soon the camera pans back to Rux and Zaifi.
“So while I serve the food here, I also try and show them the history of us and our resilient culture through it. The background of it, how it came to be and how it weaves with us.” Zaifi continues as we walk down the hallway, she veers off into one of the rooms, and hesitantly I follow.
The inside was quite well worn for how new the building was, already indentations, marks, and other scratches and scuffs could be seen. Signs of hard work and labor, something that is unsurprising considering Zaifi and her duties. As she begins to work, it's time for me to ask her about her thoughts on the situation.
“Compared to the last couple of decades, where do you think your species is at now? I mean, a lot has changed. From being a species with the large portion of your population being cattle to now having a government and world handed to you, it's got to be a bit jarring?”
Zaifi nods, the trademark pearls on a brooch around her neck click and clack gently together, the synthetic pearls a sign of what the Advocacy group had been able to hold on to throughout the centuries.
“Well-” she starts off, as she begins to knead a greenish-blue dough on the distinctly brown work surface, the faint smell of Saltwine being smelt from where I was standing. “I wish we got a welcome, as good as the Paltans and the Gaians gave us. I mean, they split half and half on things here and there around the village!”
The camera pans around the room, bits and baubles of Zaifi’s own life being dotted around it. A bottle or two of sea wine, a basket of synthetic pearls, hints of oceanic theming bedazzle the room.
Zaifi begins to portion out the Bread-a serving of Cionn. A serving of the more savory Uniffin'Dath. Both are seasoned with a spice that is only rarely mentioned in some cookbooks, “Izuzdath.” The process is lively, a stark contrast to last year's report at a holding world as they finished terraforming here.
If you were to have told me that a Thafki would be smiling while knee deep in this grime that is misery, I would've called you a liar. But apparently…
“So how long have you been around here? Or rather should I say, with the herd?” I ask. It causes Zaifi to stop and look at the basket of pearls. Each of them are inscribed with a loved or close one that died, and the date on which they did so. Many of them aren't her relatives, rather they are the few Thafki she has bonded with while staying here.
“Physically? Only…a year or two. But mentally-” The dull sound of the bread being put upon a pre-oiled stone, an smoothed coral stone no less, echoed softly while the grinding of such a stone sliding into one of the waiting ovens as it did so was a stark contrast. The clasp of the oven door closing caused her to turn back to us. She sighs as she pats down her apron.
“Centuries. I guess we grew accustomed to being the odd ones out. Now that my herd- my people, have a place to call their own…” She is sullen for a moment, before her eyes meet the window, overlooking a courtyard. The smile reappears just as quickly as it disappeared.
“Ya know. I'll take this for now, the funniest thing ya know-” she gestures to me to come over and look. The courtyard has a simple watery filled pit. A “pool” as our sister species had dubbed it, seemed to be the eye and star of this little facility, at least for the attendee's. A whole gaggle of Thafki children, in a wardrobe of mismatched, shabby clothing suited for the water could be seen as they ran about it. What I could only assume was their teacher watched over them.
“Your saplings are quite the good match. Even they seem to want to bring the water to themselves sometimes.” She says to herself now in a far more reassured tone. As I begin to smile myself, just a little, a tap is felt on my shoulder. It's Curzix, the Guzifi that has been assigned to us.
The camera now zooms out from the pool and the other recreational activities happening in the center of the U-shaped facility, and turns around quickly, now focusing on Rux and Curzix.
“We'll we're ready to go when you are, you all wanted to get the full experience yeah?” Curzix stuffs his paws into the oversized and hemmed coats pockets, the armband with the symbol of Guzifi. He meanders off as we begin to follow him, I say my goodbyes to Zaifi, and she returns them in kind as we are led back out of the hallway.
We start off now checking the facility in depth, taken into one classroom in particular. It is here that our cameraman points out something peculiar. The extreme range of coloring in the Thafki children here. Looking past numerous ranch markings, numbering, and a word inscribed on the arm of each in the Ruinous Lizards language, the Thafki children are striking.
The camera makes cuts to each of the Thafki children in the room. The variety of blues is numerous. Some are in a vibrant luscious blue, other ones have a dull, greyer one. And yet these are the least eye-catching ones. Some have sporadic spots. Some have a sickly greenish blue hue. And yet some are completely devoid of their regular blue, replaced with a dull brown. The camera now returns to overlooking the entirety of the room from the doorway.
As I entered the room the teacher, who had requested that their face be blurred, comes to me and shakes my hand. They gesture to the Thafki pupils, who are in varied state of affairs. Some of them are paying attention, while others are far more focused on their desks or some portion of the wall.
“You came in at a good time, we're trying to teach them Thafki. It's been a bit of a struggle, but we've been making some slow and small progress.” the teacher comes alongside one of the brightly colored pupils, resting their hand gently on their shoulder. The child flinches for a bit, expecting something as they tense up, before they relax.
“Are they a handful?” I ask to the teacher as they themselves point onto a piece of paper in front of the pup, pointing something out
“From time to time. But whenever the horned fellows come along they calm down quite a bit.” the Thafki’s eyes dart occasionally from the paper on the desk to the doorway behind us, looking back shows the Sector-Governor that has been with us this entire time.
The last time we had visited a rehabilitation center-albeit it was just after the war had wrapped up-the facility was in a far more ramshackle situation compared to now, but while the situation is improving, there's still more to do.
With our little visit to the center done our entourage made our way outside. As we did so a rumbler, an armored vehicle used by our other half, came rolling by. A gaggle of Thafki on it, a Gaian within the group giving us a glance as they went by.
It's here where the uncomfortable nature and scandalous portion of the Re-Seeding comes in. The Laborer gangs, seen as a solution to perceived laziness on Ayzife from some of the Ex-Cattle. The concept is basic and rudimentary both in premise and execution, anything simple is offered up to the gangs first, before giving up to the more general labor sections assigned to the planet.
We keep trudging along, the plethora of buildings being assembled or constructed is numerous along the trail we're taking. Along our way, Ralikenn begins to talk about how far they've come in such a short time span. He gestures to the buildings before he begins to speak.
“All of this-” Our cameraman moves and angles his camera to the row of unfinished buildings, in various states of construction. “In just about a year, it's nearly unbelievable to be honest. I had, tearfully, resigned myself to a forgone conclusion to our species. But now?-” They begin to tear up clearly overwhelmed at this point, they attempt to speak but all that happens is their mouth staying agape for mere moments, before closing and just shaking their head.
And yet there's still more to see. More to do and more to make right. I only hope we can do it in time, as a herd.

Hi, 20m
I have chronic GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) and that brings a chronic amount of physical symptoms. Around two weeks ago I started to take lexapro, but only at 2.5mg. I started getting these disturbing side effects, some that I've never dealt with and so brought an awful ordeal of anxiety, stress, two urgent care trips and in the end a trip to A&E
The side effects are more vision based, more head issues. Firstly it started out very subtle, I could carry on and ignore it basically, then it one day just blew completely out of proportion. I have DPDR too, so I couldn't pinpoint the symptoms or see what symptom matches what. However, in the last week I've been dealing with the following listed below:
Shaking vision - vision moves and shakes up and down, left right

• Dizziness - moving up and down
• Cloudy vision - like a cloud in my vision, worse at night
• Head pressure, pressure in and around eyes
• Eye discomfort ie. Dry eye, blepharitis
• Bad balance - linking onto the dizziness
• Visual distortions - things look wonky and out of shape
• Struggling to focus eyes - literally can’t focus my eyes on anything
• Pallinopsia - This is severely impacted by the Ssri
• Pain behind eyes - it’s usually a dull, but aggravating ache. Like brain zaps. Feel it more when I move my eyes
• Visual snow increase - lines and intense flickering, constantly noticeable
• Peripheral vision weird, shaky sensation and can’t see very well in the corners
• Head pressure and a weird head aching sensation behind eyes, sometimes behind jaw, teeth and nose
• Weird head pressure - like brain zaps. Not sure if it’s withdrawl from lexapro, but feel it around eyes or when I move them
• Unable to focus my vision, literally can barely focus on anything
• Quite blurred, glasses aren’tt even helping that well at this stage
• Nausea, feel sick every hour of the clock at the moment
• Double vision - but this is on screens like text on a black background
• Body/head tremors
• Haloes and eye glare, this is very intense
• Eyes feel "hard and like they're going to pop out of my head"
• Jabbing eye pain, comes and goes.

So I went to the emergency eye clinic for an eye exam, he didn't need to dilate my eyes as he could see my eye anyway. He said inside my eye looks great, eye health looks brilliant and that it could be anything from migraines so on. As I'm dizzy/bad balenced quite often, I know it could be a different issue but I just can't pinpoint as mentioned above? It just hurts to open my eyes and I don't know why. Always had healthy eyes, only glasses to sharpen up close items like a laptop etc.
My doctor has done blood tests today to see if there is anything we're missing, had some the other day in hospital with an ecg - all clear.
I just can't pinpoint onto anything, theres that many similar things to this. The anxiety aspect is making me feel so much worse, I just don't know what to do at this point. It's just very overwhelming. I've got it in my mind that I'm going blind or something, and I need convicing that I'm not. It's eating my thoughts away. The second I wake up it's just automatic worrying over this ordeal.
My physical anxiety is literally chronic to the point I worry over it, I'll get the dedicated symptoms for it. It's horrible. I took lexapro to get rid of this, but it turned this way instead
The eye pressure pain and blurry vision..its too much
If anyone has a shed of light on this, let me know. thanks!

F20 I’m writing this for anybody who may b experiencing anything remotely similar to what I did because these last few months have been extremely fucking rough for me, and if I can help one person feel less alone it’s worth it.
I started fearing I had herpes Dec 2023. I was raped by a now ex boyfriend and he’s the only “sexual partner” whose status I was unaware of.
This scared me because he didn’t use a condom and I’m very diligent when it comes to my health, regular condom use, and I’ve always made my exes show me their results as it’s very typical that men will never get tested unless they experience SEVERE symptoms.
I never planned to have intercourse with him at that time, so this just threw me for a loop as everything was very unplanned. No knowledge of his status, no condom, no consent.
I experienced immediate issues during the act, I’ve never had lubrication issues EVER, quite the opposite (tmi ik but I want to give perspective of the immediate sexual changes that followed) but this time I was DRY like sandpaper rubbing inside me ugh I was so uncomfortable, and I’m really sorry and I want to hug anyone who knows exactly what I’m talking about. I had never experienced pain like that from intercourse before this, he refused to stop till I was actually screaming and writhing in pain and clawing at him.
I planned to never talk to him again, but not knowing his status was rlly eating at me, I asked him if he had ever got tested before and he told me no.
INSTANT PANIC
My vagina did not feel the same from that point onward. I was sore and swollen for a few days after, I later went to a clinic to get an STI full panel test (ik that’s too soon, but understand I was in a haze of confusion I was trying to do damage control) The results for that initial test came back completely negative.
I had a crawling sensation on my mons pubis and labia area as if something was moving through the hairs, I also felt like the hairs were moving themselves. I started being itchy all the fucking time, it was all I could think about, I didn’t get a break from it, my lower region was so uncomfortable and all these sensations were so foreign to me. I also would get very dry, like uncomfortable as fuck, this was also new, I couldn’t stand my panties rubbing against me, or even the skin touching itself or AIR. I would literally have to put a wad of wet toilet paper for a tiny bit of relief but nothing could relieve me mentally. I also would slather Vaseline all over my lower region for the tiniest bit of relief. At this point I was waiting for the 6 week mark so I couldn’t get retested literally counting down the days. One night I went out for drinks w my friends ( I don’t drink normally) and my vagina was on FIRE like itching burning all of it, not the lil scratchy dry I was feeling before. I was starting considering maybe I had a yeast infection, I had only ever had one before this (not diagnosed by a doctor) and I treated it w canesten so I ran to Walmart to get a tube and didn’t even wait till I got home, I used their washroom and slathered it all over me. I remembered the first time I had done this for my previous presumed yeast infection I felt some sort of immediate relief, but this time I did not. On my way home I was antsy and squirming in my seat, nothing was comfortable, sitting, standing, lying down.
I tried using the canesten for a couple days following but it just seemed useless, crawling sensation was still there and now I was feeling this popping sensation. Like the skin of my labia were sticking together cause of moisture then spreading apart and creating kind of like a pop, that’s the best way I can describe it idk. I hated leaving the house because I felt like I constantly had my hands down my pants to scratch or literally cupping my vagina, adding pressure, applying Vaseline, whatever I thought could bring relief. I started to notice bumps. This is when my STI research rabbit hole really took off. Initially they started on my pubic area, I assumed they were pimples or even boils but I have had pimples in my pubic area before and they either had a yellow top or a white head, these were shiny hard bumps that definitely looked like blisters. They would come and go…in the same spots. Some of them I would squeeze out of frustration and thick blood OR white or clear fluid would run out. Of course there were concerns coupled with the sensations but initially I wasn’t assuming these bumps were coming from any STIs (specifically herpes) because they were on my mons pubis and my research told me me that herpes likes to live in most areas although it was possible. I wanted to book with my family doctor, but honestly I was so scared because I was ashamed plus my doctor is a male and the icing on the cake was the receptionist are fucking rude pricks, one of them I knew their daughter (I hate that bitch) and I wasn’t willing to willingly open a potentially awkward ass situation like that.
Now I had sores to add to my symptoms, like raw skin on my labia, the hood of my clit and yes they burned and hurt but mostly when touched faintly when left alone. I was so sure I had herpes, I would be only every subreddit related to herpes, reading my exact symptoms, seeing outbreaks that strongly resembled what I had. I even a few times would post the pics of the sores and would always get a handful of comments telling me that they looked concerning and I should get them swabbed ASAP and a few saying they were nothing concerning. A couple times I had burning pee, but I honestly can’t remember if this was before or after the sores started to appear. I’m a working student who has no car so it’s not rlly the easiest thing for me to find time to go to a walk in and get swabbed and honestly the sores wouldn’t last longer than a week and they mostly seemed to occur right before my period, clear up with it only to appear a few days after. The itching and tingling were almost always there with maybe an occasional day of relief. I would take pics of almost every numb and sore that was irritating so I could bring to my appointments, at the 6 week mark, I tested again at the same walk in and everything was negative, I showed the doctor the pics I took and she said they don’t look like anything concerning as in herpes. Every time I got a chance to go to the doctor it would always be when I didn’t have a sore which was really unfortunate
Doctors rlly operate off their OPINIONS so I booked an appt w my university clinic and unfortunately, again, I had no sores to swab and I just had my red sores and bump pictures to show and my symptoms. This doctor was male so I won’t necessarily say I held him opinion in low regard but he almost seemed like uncomfortable? Idk
When I say I convinced myself I had herpes in telling u I was doing everything, lysine, diet changes, all of it. My symptoms and sores/bumps were soooooo fucking similar to everything I was seeing. Nothing rlly was alleviating my turmoil long term so I rlly thought I was one of those ppl who just had a bad case.
At this point I had sworn off sex, I was going to go celibate and never date for the rest of my life and was rlly working towards just making myself as comfortable as possible, scanning subreddits for advice, literally doing everything ever recommended with rlly not much luck. I was rlly hanging on to the “it gets better” that everyone was swearing by.
Over the months I’ve debated texting him and asking him to actually get tested just so I’m aware of his status but I literally can’t because there’s a no contact order unless there’s a lawyer involved, although this order applies to him, I believe I can’t initiate contact because him responding would equal him breaking the order (I reported the rape).
I spent my birthday crying and scratching and sleeping cause that was the only time I wasn’t thinking about it.
I tried everything, no underwear, loose clothing, changing soaps, more water, more exercise, more sleep, no stress (lol this was impossible), no certain foods, EVRYTHINGGGG, by now I had the nerve pain, the shocks, the zap, I had it all over my lower body sometimes upper. Numbness was there, as well as the static ans pins and needles
I had no idea what the “normal” state of my vagina was like. It was like my memory b4 December of that area was wiped. Discomfort was my new normal. I also couldn’t rmr what my discharge was like, during this time I experienced diff types, thick white discharge, watery, it was hard to track. My vaginal smell also got stronger, not a bad smell but the smell was STRONGER. Like immediately I took of my panties I could smell my vagina another symptom I had read about
Last week, I had sores and bumps that itched and burned outside of the “prodrome symptoms” I reg experienced and begged my boss to let me leave work early to go to the same walk in clinic I needed her to say yes bc I FINALLY had sores to swab.
I once again did a full panel STI test (this was my third time, I went again at the 3 month mark before this) blood, urine, and this time, a swab.
She said for sure there were bumps but she didn’t see any ulcers but she’d swab for both yeast and HSV. She asked me if I wanted to b on anti virals while waiting for the results and immediately I said yes (I had basically accepted it at this point and was working on just coping and I was looking at this appointment being final confirmation for me) and she advised me to drink lots of water and gave me the valacyclivir prescription.
Taking the prescription brought zero relief to my symptoms. Again, I thought I was one of those w people who had a bad case and was gonna finish the 10 days and wait till I got the results back before taking any other action.
Finally, this week I was called in bc my results came in. I came to the appt w the mindset that was finally gonna get the type of HSV and was gonna let her know that I wanted to try gabapentin and a diff antiviral.
GUYS. It was negative. BUT YEAST WAS DETECTED. My jaw DROPPED. I was so floored. I was prescribed clotrimazole but I haven’t even bought it yet cause I’m broke tn lol. But listen, when I say my symptoms basically disappeared overnight without it… I’m not kidding. Everything suddenly HALTED like EVERYTHING. All of it was psychological, and yeast (I’m still picking up the script when I get paid)
This experience did also educated me on HSV, the stigma, the experiences others have had, those who had it transmitted to them intentionally or carelessly, the immune system, healthy lifestyles, so in a way…I’m kinda grateful? HSV stigma needs to end. More ppl need to b educated on this it’s honestly disheartening knowing I knew virtually nothing about an infection as common as herpes. I used to think oral was the least riskiest sexual act but now idk if I could ever again knowing what I know now, and most people will never know their status if they’re carriers of the virus. Even now I’m not sure if I can ever have sex or date ever again but that’s not bc of the HSV. My point? Don’t assume, get swabbed, no matter what anybody says or what you think, looking back the alcohol probably flared up the yeast.