Sleeping on floor sore throat

It's me again. I thought since my last story was a sad one I'll post another that's not sad but I may be the AH.
My parents foster sister and my brother all went on a road trip. We did a lot of road trips this is just one out of many. Zera will be the name for my foster sister and Leo will be my brother and of course my wonderful parents Jenny and Lee.
One summer when I was 13 yrs old we went to visit another brother of mine in Louisiana. They lived not to far from New Orleans.
We went to New Orleans for dinner at a seafood restaurant. But where we went was on a strip that absolutely no cars were allowed and only people walking with a few bars that had motorcycles parked out front. Zera said oh look at these bikes. She is walking right up to them putting a finger out to touch. I said DONT TOUCH.. she did and these things started to fall like Domino's and I yell RUN. We were falling a little behind the family group so we caught up and then bikers came out and looked around and were obviously very pissed. I don't blame them. We get to the restaurant and while sitting there the bikers came in asking if anyone saw anything of someone messing with there motorcycles. My throat dropped into my stomach. But they left cause no one saw or said they did at all.
The two days after that we went to Alabama to a Phoenix five hotel very fancy thanks to my oldest brother. He makes bank. We where on the 13th floor with a balcony looking out to the ocean and beach also could see the hotels pool. People looked like ants. So the next day I met a couple kids a girl around my age also with my same name but spelt differently and her brother. As I'm swimming in the outdoor pool with them Zera comes up to me and shows me this long red narly looking burn thing wrapped around her arm and says a jelly fish stung me so I grabbed it and threw it as it left a tentacle on her and she ripped it off. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I couldn't help but laugh. So that night was one where the blue craps were mating on the ocean and the boy I met asked if I wanted to go with him to see them. I said sure as long as it's ok with my mom. So I asked and of course she said yes and then asked how old the boy was he was 15 so ya she said ok have fun. As I waited in the lobby for him Zera is bugging me begging to come with me. Finally I broke down and said fine. She never liked the fact that boys would pay attention to me. Doing more stupid things to get there attention. Any who we were walking on the beach watching all these beautiful dark blue crabs all over the beach with our flash light. Zera decides she wants to pick one up and proceeds to pick it up from the front. She knows better then that due to us crawfish hunting back at home. He then stops her and she finally holds it after he picked it up. She puts him down and starts to walk away and he comes up to me and asks. Does she have problems. I just replied with yeah not the brightest of the bulbs.
The next day we head over the state border to Florida so my mom could get her collectors magnet from the state just to finish her magnet map. We are at this little beach like shop they was selling hermit crabs. On their cages it says don't not put fingers in cage. And what does Zera decide to do put her finger in the cage. I'm looking at a rack of t-shirts hoping to get one and I hear this blood curdling scream. I look towards the scream and see Zera running through the store with a hermit attached to her finger as she flings her finger around trying to get it to release. The greatest part was the employees chasing after her telling her to stop running and they can help. The employees got the poor little guy off her finger and it was all good after that. We left very promptly afterwards.
We go on the road again the day after that as my oldest brother went back home we proceeded to our home doing a big loop in the states making a stop in Memphis Tennessee due to my mom being a big Elvis fan she want to go to the Elvis museum. We are walking around looking at all this history. We come up to this huge bronze statue of him with a sign stating don't touch the statue. My mom wanted us to take a picture in front of it as Zera put her arm behind and around said sign. Loud alarms start to Blair and I put my hands up saying it wasn't me, I didn't do it.
We finally get home and I made so much fun of her and would laugh at her cause I know she is smarter then doing all that. Eventually she started to laugh with me. But when I talk about this road trip I laugh and people look at me and say I'm horrible for laughing at her.
AITAH for laughing at Zera's misfortune?

Hello. A buddy and I are hiking the Camino in June. How much sleep gear is required? I have a light small down quilt, a light sleeping bag liner, and an inflatable sleep pad if I get stuck on floor or overflow. I am thinking about ditching the quilt or the fleece liner for a lighter, small fleece blanket. Would a sleeping pad be useful or is it extravagant?

Hey y’all! Sorry to bother on here but I’m kind of going through it right now. I’m currently on day 6 (I’m writing this at 2 am because I can’t sleep because of pain/anxiety). I have to know. Does it get better? It feels like it’s getting worse. Day 4 wasn’t bad but now I have a massive earache, and my throat is killing me. There’s sharp pain in my eathroat every time I swallow. It doesn’t help that I’m a little anxious right now and my brain is refusing to turn off. (I’m convinced this pain is due to an infection or something crazy, even though absolutely nothing inside my throat has changed and there’s no blood.) Can anyone enlighten me to how these next four days are going to go? Is the pain going to get worse for a bit? I have absolutely no pain meds left and I’m afraid to get a refill. Please help me 🫠

38 Female.
Bit of a boring question but hopefully a quick answer for you :) would really appreciate your opinions.
Recent medical history: gallbladder-like attacks under investigation.
I’ve been having gallbladder like attacks for the last 1-2 years.These are increasing in frequency and severity particularly since January. Normal HIDA scan, normal CT, ultrasound only shows multiple polyps up to 9mm. No stones seen to date. Being reviewed for SOD. So basically, loads of attacks and no medical explanation for what’s causing the pain episodes.
I had a really severe attack on Sunday night. I can handle a fair amount of pain, but this was an easy 10/10 on the pain scale. I took myself to the after-hours doctors and asked them to run bloods. They gave me a form and I did the tests the following day (so, around 18 hours later I guess).
The liver enzymes have come back very mildly raised (my usual for many years has been between 10-16, my result this time was 50. The cut off of normal here is 43). My CRP is also extremely mildly elevated at about 8. More than my usual 0-1, but I know that’s still very low for CRP (I’ve had sepsis and seen massive numbers for CRP before).
Is it more likely the liver result is due to the attack I had the night prior? OR - At the time I was also on day 6 of a virus (sore throat and sinus), is it more likely due to that? I should add I get my bloods taken on a frequent basis and my liver is never elevated even when I’ve been sick in the past. I have little kids so I’m often struggling with a cold of some sort when having my bloods regularly done.
Anyway. I’d appreciate opinions. This has been ongoing for soo long, and it’s getting so bad and I just want some answers of what’s going on. I’d feel a lot better, and relieved, if the liver result was a clear indicator of a gallbladder issue so I have something more concrete to discuss with the doctors.
Thank you

This is long so please forgive me in advance. I just had my second baby, a son, 8 weeks ago. When he was about 2 weeks old we starting noticing signs of reflux, sounds of acid coming up his throat, slight spitting up, and nonstop crying. He would start crying at about 6pm and would not be soothed until 1 or 2 in the morning. After bringing this up to his pediatrician she was not convinced he had reflux because he was still gaining weight 🙃 we pushed and she prescribed him Pepcid and that seemed to slightly help along with switching him to a hypoallergenic formula but we were only allowed a 30 day supply of Pepcid so that’s gone now.
He still cries all the time. His pediatrician has just put it down to colic and said that he’ll eventually grow out of it. If he’s awake, he’s crying/screaming. We can still hear acid coming up his throat and he screams and writhes like he’s in pain constantly.
And at night we don’t know what to do. We bought a bassinet that tilts up for reflux babies and even added extra padding under the mattress to give a little bit of extra height. He will not sleep in it. We can’t get him to sleep anywhere but on us or his bouncer. I know this is not ideal but the only way me and my husband can get any sleep is by letting him sleep in his bouncer. We have it reclined as much as it will go so his head does not fall forward or anything so still not ideal but we’re desperate. He will not sleep on his back for anything. He can be dead asleep and limp and if we sit him in his bassinet he will wake up within a few minutes every single time with what sounds like reflux again.
We don’t know what to do at this point, whether that’s pushing for a new medicine to try and help or just wait it out. My first never had this problem. I go back to work in a few days and I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do it without him sleeping safely.

Hello, I (26M) recently noticed a small, painless, immobile lump on the right side of my neck. During my company’s annual medical exam, the doctor suggested it might be my body fighting an infection, although I had no symptoms like a cough, sore throat, fever, or colds at the time. The doctor advised me to observe the lump for two weeks to see if it would go away. Two weeks later, my AME results came back normal (chest x-ray, blood test, and urine test), and I had also tested negative for HIV, Hepatitis, and Syphilis two days before my AME schedule. During my AME interpretation with a different doctor, I mentioned the lump again, and this time I was referred to a specialist since it hadn’t gone away.
I visited an ENT specialist right after that and during the consultation, the specialist asked if I smoked (I don’t, but I drink occasionally) and then he performed a nasal endoscopy. The procedure revealed a Nasopharyngeal mass at the back of my nose, and I was advised to get a CT scan, ultrasound, additional blood tests, and a biopsy. I haven’t done these procedures yet, but I’m anxious about the possibility of it being something serious. And I know googling is not best thing to do but I couldn’t help it and now it increased my anxiety, making me fear it could be the c word.
What are the chances that this mass is not serious? I’m really scared and experiencing intense anxiety right now. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to provide as much detail as possible.
Thank you.

Per Sam and John’s request on Livestream… Background: My parents had been married over 30 years, they had gotten together in the late 80s and married when my mom (now 67) was diagnosed with cancer. This resulted in my adoption a few years later since mom couldn’t have kids after the chemo. Fast forward to 2019 and I (29f at the time) am getting ready to fully move out (i stayed home for a while bc after college I became my grandparents caregiver until they both passed). I had spent all day looking at apartments and was exhausted so I announced I was headed to bed early. My father (70 at the time) also announced he was going to bed too. Now it wasn’t unusual for him to go to bed early but I had noticed him taking his VR headset into bed several nights in a row after stopping in his office. I had had some suspicions of what was happening but also didn’t want to know bc…well ew! But that night as I laid in bed I could hear moaning coming from his office and was confused. I went in and saw an open to what I am pretty sure was an OF page or something to that extent with a bar across the screen reading VR active. I was already sufficiently grossed out and then head the woman on screen say my fathers name and knew this wasn’t just some downloaded porn but some kinda personalized video. No longer sleepy I went back downstairs and sat with my mom (who was sleeping downstairs bc of an injury) and gently tried to lead her in the right direction, “isn’t it weird that dad goes to bed with his VR set when the charger is not in the bedroom?” Mom kinda brushed it off at the time but now the cat was out of the bag for me and a few days later I not only heard the moaning again but earlier that day I was printing an application off his computer and I noticed a not well his folder labels XXX. Why I did this to myself I do t know but I clicked it and there were HUNDREDS of saved videos and chat logs with his favorite cam girl. When I heard him on the VR again I couldn’t handle it bc I could hear him too so I went downstairs and asked mom if she thought about what I had said days prior. She shrugged and said that whatever he is doing is his business. I then dropped the ball “even if he is paying for explicit videos from a cam girl?” Mom was obviously taken aback but again brushed it off. “Well…I guess that’s understandable. He hasn’t slept with me since I had chemo.” Meaning they hadn’t had any sexy sleep time since before I was born. I was floored but she told me to not mention it. But about a week later I found her sobbing. I asked her what was going on and she said that she felt betrayed at my dad sneaking these videos and paying for them without even attempting to be with her. I asked why she didn’t initiate and she said after chemo and everything it physically hurt to have relations. She tried several times over the years but eventually gave up trying and my dad just never tried after she told him it was painful. So I comforted my mom and she did eventually confront him about the cam girl and the video collection, which he denied and I had to tell him he didn’t mute the computer and I saw the video file and two videos at least. He got angry at me for snooping. Mom yelled at him to not try and turn it on me, and at some point asked “when did you stop caring about me and loving me” and the AUDACITY of this man to say “don’t ask me that because you won’t like the answer.” Mom now lives with me and my partner in our apartment. Father lives back in his home state near the kids that were actually his. His oldest daughter (from his first marriage) told me I was a bitch and entitled for taking my mom’s side (along with many other awful things but that’s for another post) and called my mother a bad wife for not standing by her husband. I am now no contact with my sister and ultra low contact with my father. We are struggling a lot, but mom is doing better (with plans for therapy now that her health care covers it finally), I am in therapy as well, and am happy with my partner whom my mom and two cats adore. Next step…set mom up with our favorite old man, John lmao! 😂

He broke up with me less than a month after I made that post… found out that he was talking to his friends and family about me, basically I am not good enough for him and my only redeeming quality is that I am pretty, he kept comparing me to his ex best friend and saying that he needs to find someone like her that’s attractive like me…
Right after I made that post he started avoiding me, refusing to sleep in the same bed as me so I was sleeping on the floor and couch, if I refused to not sleep elsewhere he would go sleep in his sons room in his bed.
Because of all of this I started trying to make arrangements to move out but then all of a sudden that wasn’t what he wanted? He practically begged me to not leave. He was still avoiding me though.
Around March he started to “warm up” to me again. He wouldn’t really talk to me about anything though, still single.
It’s now May, I am still single and he still is telling me “no” when I try to open up conversation to “officially” end things (we are basically a situationship, good enough to fuck but not good enough to be with romantically)
This whole thing has brought me so much emotional turmoil, I’ve tried to be understanding but I have a lot of resentment and I don’t think there’s any fixing that can be done.
Ya’ll, I’m so sad. Things were so perfect until they weren’t. I don’t think my self esteem has ever been brought this low by the hands of someone else. He hates everything about me and I got to read it all, he compares me to every non-family female in his life and guess what, they’re all better than me. But he won’t let go of me? Part of the reason I am still living with him and haven’t pulled the plug is because of how he is going to react. I can barely handle my emotions as of right now, I don’t know if I’d be able to follow through when he has a meltdown over it (I know he will, he’s done it before) I’ve honestly have thought about just leaving while he is at work, changing my number, and blocking him everywhere else so I can move on.
I have tried to get into therapy, places want a referral but then when I get one they aren’t offering what I’m needing (which is crazy to me, I was just seeking out basic talk therapy nothing specialized), if they don’t require a referral they aren’t returning my calls. Things are really bad right now.
I know this sub is for people with ROCD but I have no one to talk or vent to. Don’t feel obligated to respond either, it is welcomed if you choose to. I just need to get things out I guess, for some reason it feels better than just writing in my notes app.

Hey everyone,
I'm reaching out to this community in hopes of shedding some light on a bizarre post-procedure experience I had. Yesterday, after undergoing a colonoscopy at around 11 AM, I woke up to find my face severely swollen, filled with mucus, and my sinuses inflamed. My eyes were hemorrhaging, and I was coughing non-stop, needing to blow my nose repeatedly. Even my mom hardly recognized me due to the swelling.wheb I asked the doctor who performed the procedure he said I should look in to sleep apnea and then quickly left and before I knew it I was being wheeled out to the car
Just last week, I had an endoscopy with propofol and didn't have any adverse reactions, which makes this all the more puzzling.
Within two hours of leaving the clinic, I developed a fever and a sore throat, reminiscent of flu symptoms or past COVID experiences. I rushed to urgent care around 3 PM, where they tested me for COVID, flu, and strep – all tests came back negative, and I was sent home.
After taking 800mg of ibuprofen, I dozed off, and by 10 PM, the fever and sore throat had mostly subsided, but my face remained red with petechiae. Fast forward to today, both my eyes are hemorrhaged, and my skin looks like I've got a sunburn.
Has anyone ever experienced anything like this after a colonoscopy with propofol? If it was an allergic reaction, why was there no reaction during the endoscopy the week before? Could it be due to a different dosage? I stumbled upon some articles discussing an acute febrile reaction to propofol, but I'm still trying to piece everything together. As crazy as it sounds I believe I some how quit breathing
Any insights or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated. I did ask ChatGPT lol and it said these symptoms could be caused if I stopped breathing

believe it or not, i dont want to die sad. but how does one die feeling happy? feeling at peace? i too do not know how, but i want to try to find the answer today. i want to sleep forever, now. so i want to try my best to give you a brief recap of how ive been suicidal and depressed till now.
to be honest i didnt know how it exactly started. when did i feel depressed? no, scratch that. when did i feel sad for no reason? ninth grade. i cant remember the specifics now, but i do remember trying to drown myself, my first attempt of suicide, because of my grades. i was 13, i felt hopeless, my mom got mad at me, and we didnt have the closeness of our relationship that we have now. i became more sad when i reached my senior year of high school, grades 11 and 12. i had my first heartbreak (cliche as it sounds) and i sabotaged all my friendships. i was a bad friend, i was getting into smoking and drinking--i made both of them my coping mechanism. i spent my days lying in bed, crying in the mornings before school started inside the bathroom stalls, i skipped classes and traveled on my own and smoke and drink--people believed i was 18. but i was 16. i was 16, but i felt like my inner machinery was already tarnished. i chased love but turned away the second they showed me that they liked me. i ran away from my friends and used them for my own benefit because i was 'sad' and that they should 'know' that because they were my 'friends'. but no. nobody deserves that kind of treatment. i was never saved that time, never told anyone how i truly felt. but when i did tell i immediately regretted it because they never understood my weight of emotions; i felt invalidated.
freshman year of college rolled through and i thought i was doing fine, but i wasn't. i wanted to be so much that i ended up overexerting myself. when it finally became too heavy for me i stayed out late, drank again, spent the night with my friends and didn't come home. the next day i told my mom that i had this urge to be alone, to disappear, and that my emotions were all so heavy that i was becoming more sad everyday that even i didn't know the reason. before i could say i wanted help, she told me instead the opposites of what i have been saying. 'ah, this must be what invalidation feels like' i thought, and thats when i knew that really, no one will understand what im going through. its the pandemic now, 2020 and im turning 18, the age of adulthood. funny enough months before that i told myself that i wanted to die, and that there was a bleach ready in out bathroom for me to try out. i thought back then, dying at 18 would be nice because it would spare me the pains of adulthood. my birthday came, i felt heavy when i woke up; i finally decided, you know. my mind was made up. but then i woke up and i hear my dad calling my mom on the phone and asking her if i was already awake, my mom sounded giddy, excited, and told my dad that i haven't woke up yet and that there's too much food on the table she's excited on how ill react. i cried. they were downstairs celebrating my birthday but i was stuck in bed thinking of ways to unalive myself. in the end i came down, wiped my tears, celebrated my birthday normally, posed for some pictures, and called it a day. that was the day i started dreading having to celebrate my birthday. same year, october, i called the suicide hotline with pills in my hand, ready to end it all. long story short, more shit happened. called the hotline, texted my cousin i was gonna die, she then called her parents then said parents called my mom. mom caught me, we cried so hard, i told her everything. we became closer then. she was my best friend and still is, and it pains me that im not the best daughter and friend she has. i wanted to take a break from school then, i wanted to see a shrink, but guess what, nothing happened. i went back to classes like nothing happened. my emotions werent compensated. i was doing everything with a broken mind. no one around me talked to me about what happened, only i relived it. i preferred if they talked to me about it, i preferred if i took a break for a while, it would have been nice to talk to someone about, talk about this unending sadness that im feeling; if i did then maybe i could be a tiny bit better. but no. i gave every feeling i had for free.
4 years passed and im still here. what am i now? things were good two years ago, but how about now? i still sabotaged everything, while trying to fix things aside. i tried to live life, but my anxiety just got worse; heck i didnt even have anxiety before. i had everything planned out three years ago, now im lost again. i dont have someone to talk to, i ruined the friendships i built with trust. i ruined my relationships with everyone and i act like the victim in my head. im a fucked up person and i wonder if my sadness and melancholy justifies all this. everyday i live with a weight on my shoulder. id say i want to try my best today with a lump on my throat. i tell my mom im having fun but then i turn to a socially awkward girl alone. i tell her im doing fine but i really want to jump off our unit. im becoming a threat to myself, im becoming so lost that i need something to believe in again. im so lonely, im so alone, but i pushed away everyone else. maybe this is all im meant to be, really. i dont think the blues will ever me leave me, ive been accustomed to feeling sad and hurt all the time that im scared of being happy. does it even suit me?
i need help. i really need to figure out whats wrong with me. ive always yearned for help. i gaslighted myself a year ago that i didnt need it anymore, i still do. but what will i do when no ones listening to me? when my parents care about imagery rather than my wellbeing? when they care about other people telling them that their daughters 'fucked in the head', well i am. and to the people who tells me that i am, well i am, and probably you guys are and your children feels the same too.
what will the girl who dreamed of becoming a beautician think about the girl who i am now? what will my other selves say about me? ill forever mourn the girl who i wanted to be. the writer, the poet, someone who writes for a living and just sits down in her room with a view. i could also work in a library or in a museum, where i could stare at art and write about it. i want to write. and im sorry lola that i didnt get to finish the story i was writing for you. im sorry im not becoming someone you wished to be. im sorry to everyone who i let down. to my mom, you really are my best friend and im thankful to everything youve done for me, and the little things youve done to make me feel better. to my dad, thank you for the sacrifices you made for us, for my education, despite not being there physically. but you know, i had a lot of trauma growing up and carrying them now because of you two. my social anxiety, the way im afraid to speak up, when im asked about something i dont respond, because everything feels like a wrong answer. and a wrong answer always equates to screaming and shouting and punishing me physically for discipline. but dont worry, i guess, i tried to accept it with love. love equals hate, after all. the two of you did your best, but im sorry. i just want to sleep now.

I'm hoping someone can help... There's a neighborhood stray that I've been feeding occasionally for about 6 months. He's a sweet Kitty, but he's a Tom that is still intact and likes to be outside where the action is. I've let him stay inside in the utility room a few times, and he often comes in to eat. A few days ago I noticed he had a large lump on his face. Turns out it was an infected abscess, likely from a cat fight. I drained it and left him outside. The next day, it was worse. So I convinced him to come inside so I could try to help him, this was on Sunday night. His fur had matted over the injury so I soaked it with a warm cloth until I could drain it again. It was full of puss! Last night I went and got some iodine, diluted it and tried to clean it up some more. I was able to trim some of the hair but he wasn't really cooperating. Today he has not been happy at all! He wants out! I cleaned his wound some more then held him down with a towel and shaved some of the fur around the wound. A couple hours ago I returned from the store as he was pushing the screen out of the window and escaping. (I had 2 child gates covering the entire doorway to that room). I caught him and brought him back inside. I reminded him where the litter box is, he used it some before crapping a huge pile on the carpet. He also managed to scrape off the skin that was still attached to his wound. He now has an open Sore on his cheek a little bigger than a quarter. He is instant on wanting out. Has been very vocal! And honestly if he's going to shit on my floor, I'd prefer him to go out. I just don't know what to do about the gaping hole in his face. I called the vet, they want more money than I have. He's not my cat, but I've grown fond of him and don't want to see further harm come to him. Anyone know of a way to bandage his face so it would stay on? Will it eventually heal? Should I let him out and then clean it again when he comes for food again (1-2 days)? Sorry for the long post. Any help appreciated

Hi, pretty long post, just want to share my story as reading all of yours has helped me these last few weeks, f(28). After Thanksgiving 2021, so early-mid December (I was 26 at the time), I somehow herniated a disc. Before this happened, literally right before, I was hurting with what I think was a pulled lower back muscle (hurt to sit and lay down but pain was only in my back right side and rest helped, something I dealt with several times in my life starting in like 7th grade, drs always said it was a pulled muscle). After about a week it was feeling better so I decided it was safe to roll onto my right side to sleep. Well, after that I started experiencing pain all down that side, I also had some tingling and slight numbness in my foot and ankle. It was bad enough that I wasn't comfortable for more than 20 minutes, standing was the least painful, lucky to sleep 3 hours at once even though I'd wake up in horrible pain, basically always in tears from the pain and discomfort. I went to the dr after a few weeks and was told it's sciatica and he referred me for an mri, gave me some kind of shots and ibuprofen. I don't remember what the shots were but they took away all of the pain for 8-10 hours and I was able to get some much needed sleep. One may have been toradol but I got a shot of it the day of my mri so laying on my back during the scan wasn't too uncomfortable, and it didn't help much.
About 2 months after my symptoms started, I finally got the mri and it showed a decent sized herniation. I don't remember exactly where it was in my low back, but I was then referred to a neurologist who evaluated me and suggested ESI, he was fairly certain it would get better on it's own and I wouldn't need surgery, he said it may or may not decrease in size as well. The ESI worked as far as I can tell, but at this point it had been about 3-4 months of healing on my own using heat, stretches, and ibuprofen and the pain was mostly gone, lingering around a 2 at it's worst, but 0 after the ESI. The tingling in my foot and ankle had gone away and I was slowly getting back to normal. Aside from the occasional leg muscle cramps and discomfort laying on my right side, I had been pain and symptom free for about 2 years. I went on vacation in June last year, we did a lot of walking and even a steep hike. I worked for a year and a half in a dispensary, on my feet a lot as well as bending, squatting or leaning down, lifting heavyish totes. I had no pain or symptoms from this. I was hopeful that it had healed up and I was going to be perfectly fine, but I was still mindful of my back. I quit working last year in September to go back to school, since then I had been generally sitting or laying most of the time doing homework, of course I still helped around the house and went out to do stuff. I just wasn't moving nearly as much as when I was working. I had also gone on a trip to Seattle in September where we walked almost everywhere. Again, no pain or symptoms.
That takes me to earlier this year, about late February or early March. I was doing alright, then I noticed my hips feeling a little sore, starting in the left then later on the right, like a toothache or a pinching feeling in the sides and sometimes front. I felt it most when laying on them at first. It also felt sore when I pressed certain areas on the side. It felt like my thighs or hips were a bit unstable, if that makes sense. I did stretches, no difference. One night, during a shower, I leaned down to move a bottle on the floor and felt a very slight twinge in my lower back. Still no back pain or symptoms down either leg though. I also had been randomly waking up with pain and stiffness in my right foot and ankle that would go away after walking on it. Naturally, all this scared me and I started sleeping only on my back with a pillow under my knees, no longer sitting cross-legged or with my legs tucked beside me on the couch, making sure I wasn't slouching and getting up every hour to walk for a few minutes, generally trying to take care of my back. I'm also sitting to get dressed right after most showers because of my hips and I'm nervous my legs will give out. I made a dr appointment early April and he suggested PT for my hips, he wasn't worried about my back or doing any imaging.
I started PT April 15th. She evaluated my hips, had me do some stretches (most were laying down with my knees bent, putting pressure on my low back, I'm wondering if this caused my situation) and gave me stretches to do at home 2x day, appointments 2x week for a month. I should also mention during her evaluation she pressed on my lower back and it sucked, no pain down my legs, just under her hand. The stretches helped my hips for the first week, then my lower back started getting stiff and sore when I would lay down for a few hours or more. I mentioned this to my PT, but she didn't say anything. I kept up with the stretches (on a thick mat on the floor at home, or on my bed) and my lower back slowly got worse each day. Finally, after about 4 PT appointments and 2 weeks of stretches I quit doing them. My back was in quite a bit of pain, I started occasionally getting tingling and slight numbness down both sides in my lower calves and feet (sometimes together, sometimes either side) and it was painful to lay and sit longer than an hour. Made another dr appointment, he suggested it was my muscles and told me to ice, take ibuprofen, and gave me Diclofenac 1% gel, assuring me that PT wouldn't likely cause or worsen a herniation. I was with a different PT for the next appointment and she tried a TENS machine with a heating pad for the pain after I did some stretches that didn't seem to bother my back. I didn't notice any difference. That same night I went to the ER because I got up from a nap and the tingling and numbness wouldn't go away so it scared me. They gave me a steroid shot, a steroid pack, a few T3's and 325mg Tylenols as well as an MRI referral. I don't know if the steroids helped or just the overall more aggressive and earlier treatment this time, but my pain and symptoms (despite being on both sides, not just the right side) aren't nearly as bad as the first time, yet. I'm still uncomfortable and having a horrible time, but it's been manageable. Hopefully I don't feel any worse after being off the steroids for a while. I finished them last Thursday (May 9th) and I've been taking the 325mg Tylenol as needed, making sure to take 2 before bed, I took all the T3's as needed. PT since has been focused on pain management, deep heat ultrasound, TENS machine and heat, also k-tape which seems to provide a small difference.
Yesterday morning (the 13th) I woke up to my back feeling a little stiff and sore but I'd been trying a few stretches the last couple days, maybe that's what's causing it so I'm gonna stop for now. I'm sleeping alright, thankfully, naps as I need or can. As my back has gotten better, my hips haven't. There's still a pinching toothache type of feeling in the sides and front and my thighs still feel unstable while I walk sometimes. I can't lean back on the couch, sitting in the car is uncomfortable so I keep the seat up straight, laying down I still feel pressure in my low back but it's been bearable enough to sleep so far. I haven't tried walking for longer than an hour at a time, slowly and carefully, it doesn't bother my back so much as it does my hips. I lay down for a break during the day if I need it, though I try not to lay down too much. I get up and walk around a bit every hour or so and I help with housework when I can. I use ice or heat for 15 min when I feel like it. I try to go to bed only when I know I'm sleepy so I don't just lay there. I sit outside in the Sun and try to distract myself from the pain the best I can by doing whatever. But lately, being up straight most of the day has been making my upper back a little sore and sometimes I feel what might be spasms along my back (a tense pain that goes away after a few seconds to minutes) and some cramping sensations in my legs.
My MRI is scheduled for the 20th, I'm hoping with all my heart that it's nothing horrible. I've been keeping a log of my symptoms and writing down questions for if I go back to the neurologist (which I would like to). Again, I apologize for the super long post, I just hope this helps someone feel less alone and scared. I know I've been feeling pretty awful the last three weeks, I can't imagine how you who have worse pain feel. I have so much anxiety and fear about this and all the possibilities and it makes everything so difficult. I'm 28, almost 29, and with luck, I have 50-60 years of living left and there's so much I want to do, without anxiety of injuring my back or being in constant pain. This is one of the scariest things I've ever gone through because it seems like it can get complicated really fast and really easy, no warning. I'm not giving up hope that I'll be alright, but it's hard when you get worn down through the day and feel so many different scary symptoms. Hopefully they make some kind of medical advancement in the disc herniation department that truly helps the pain or at least effectively reduces reinjury chances.
TLDR: Sharing my story, had a lower back disc herniation in Dec 2021 causing horrible sciatica all down right side. Had ESI a few months later even though pain was minimal at that point, got better and was generally pain and symptom free for about 2 years. Symptoms came back after a few weeks of PT for unexplained hip pain, this time it's effecting both sides. Been dealing with it for about 3 weeks now with various treatments, MRI scheduled for the 20th.

A/N: This incorporates a new build, with additional drawbacks and perks. I added a few gamer functions, as well as Lightning Quick, Brute Strength, DPS, and Rogue. More details are available over on Spacebattles (I also edited the original chapters there to reflect the changes).
Within minutes of entering the building and clocking in, I'm speedily typing away at my computer. There are stacks of papers on my desk that I am dedicatedly transcribing and digitizing.
This is my job, at least on most days. I have to take sheets of paper, invariably assorted forms related to insurance, and digitize them. In minutes I have already done this to a few different types of forms, from applications to the paperwork regarding claims and investigations into claims. "Speed Typist" mixed with "Lightning Quick" allows me to easily breeze through even dense forms and shift between the programs I need to use for each type of form. My job is hilariously, almost offensively, easy and I have already heard that we have a backlog so I have plenty of stuff to go through.
As I type I begin to think about each of my gamer perks as well as my system. Every few minutes I'll "mistype" thanks to "Buggy" and I'll spend a split second going back and fixing my mistake but between "The Devil's Own Luck" and "Lightning Quick" I'm able to fix my mistakes in a span of milliseconds. While I type I use "Observe" every instance I can, throwing in a tiny burst to the overall amount of experience I gain.
I use my enhanced mind's passive ability to follow two trains of thought while I work. As far as anyone can tell I'm diligently doing my job, but in actuality I'm exploring my system. Through passive, almost imperceptible gestures, mostly due to how fast they are, I am messing around with my rather system.
I whittle away the hours I need to spend at my job doing this. During this time I get a few of my skills to level up a few times, thanks to my decision to faithfully and diligently hone some of my other abilities like "Observe". Eventually lunch rolls around and Amy sneaks up behind me so she can surprise me and draw me away from my work. I feign surprise when she reaches me up and taps on my shoulder, and this is a perfect chance for me to try something out.
I make small talk and I silently activate my ability to pause reality while I'm in the middle of a sentence. The world freezes around me and I get to see Amy freeze as she reacts to what I'm saying. I have a reason for doing this, it's all for the sake of experimenting with some of my more intriguing abilities.
I focus on Amy even as I interact with my system's UI and I activate my "Gacha" mechanic. In my mind's eye I can see a logo representing a capsule machine beginning to stir to life and spin some of the capsules containing various awards, and I think about two enormously powerful perks: "The Face" and "Silver Tongue".
These two charisma enhancing perks are incredibly valuable tools in my repertoire and I have yet to meaningfully use them. One of them, "Silver Tongue" is not as directly powerful as "The Face" but it offers me broad knowledge of psychology, enhances my charismatic intuition, and makes me incredibly attractive. The real powerhouse of a perk is "The Face". By focusing on people and thinking of something I want them to believe or persuade them to do I have a supernatural intuitive sense that allows me to know the best sort of argument I could make to achieve that goal. To test this I study Amy while wondering if there's any way for me to convince her to go on a date with me, and after a split second of thinking I begin to feel vague intuitive senses of what I could say and do that would make her see me as a potential romantic interest, and I know that doing that before I ask her out would guarantee success if I wanted her to go on a date with me.
I immediately shift tactics and try to see if I could persuade her to give me 100,000 dollars, and I am unsurprised when I do not gain any vague sensations about how to make that happen one way or another. "Worth a shot..." I tell myself, and if I could smile more I would. Both of these perks are strong, but I'm clever enough to recognize that they become even stronger when I add "Beautiful Mind" and "Well of Wisdom" to the mix. WoW is especially handy in a combination like this, since it allows me to pick and choose the most efficient route to my desired outcome. This is especially true if I mix it with my ability to pause time, since I can give myself breathing room and contemplate how to most skillfully word my arguments and present my positions.
The gacha machine, or some abstraction of one, in my head slows to a stop. When it does a symbol of a capsule pops out and I am delighted to see that I've won a mundane iPad like device, a handy thing I can use as a computer for the time being! This is quite handy, and I can see this particular mechanic becoming something life-saving in a moment of desperation with the right amount of luck. The decide immediately fills a slot in my inventory, and I make a mental note to pull it out and use it later.
I unpause time and over the course of the next few minutes I use my skills, mixing all of the aforementioned perks and functions of my gamer skills as Amy and I walk over to the cafeteria. It is only when we're sitting through the door into the cafeteria that I sense an opportunity to ask my friend something.
"Hey, do you want to try a soup I made? I like it but having a second opinion is always good." I remark, causing her eyes to brightly light up. I grin at her and we walk over to the same table we ate at yesterday. I hand her the small container I'm holding my soup in, and she looks at it. I see her inhale and watch as her eyes light up. We're the first of the people to arrive at our table so no one else sees this. The container I gave her also has some silverware which she uses to go ahead and take a sip of the soup. I am delighted when time freezes and I get a notification alerting me to the acquisition of a new class: that of a chef. I immediately equip it even as I click through the drawback that appears before me. This also confirms that at least in some cases what is needed for me to get a class is for me to do stuff in front of others or at least involve them in some way.
As time resumes I see Amy's face light up.
"This is delicious!" She states with a delighted and sincere grin. I light up as she tells me this and I lightly cheer. This is excellent news, and my acquisition of this class is very fascinating. When it comes to classes I have a unique ability to get them to "Prestige" once they reach a high enough level, and given my current build's focus on support, buffing, and healing, if I can master a class like that of a chef I can do a lot.
"I'm so happy you like it!" I exclaim, sincerely. It really does taste quite good, but my whole body is enhanced and I'm superhumanly sensitive to things like taste so there's no guarantee that what I taste will be what others taste. That said, cooking is an absolutely incredible skill so if I can master it... Well, I'll always be able to prove my worth in almost any situation involving other people. Cooking... is a cracked skill to have in real life.
Our friends join us and as they do Amy turns to them and hands one of the women the container. Mary looks at us quizzically and Amy pantomimes for her friend to try the soup. Mary's look of confusion only becomes more apparent, but she still dutifully does as she's been asked, using her own silverware to do so. Her eyes light up as well and I feel how much experience I have as a cook slowly increase, which brings a smug smile to my face.
"This is delicious! What is this?!" Mary asks, and I grin and point at me. She smiles, impressed, before handing it back to me.
"I made this soup last night. I liked it but I didn't know if I was going crazy or not." I remark, and that gets a laugh out of Amy.
"Well, if working at an office ever gets boring you could make a living as a chef. This is amazing!" She states, and I can hear the honesty in her voice. It's kind of nice how much she likes the stuff, and a part of me wouldn't mind making more food for her if she's gonna be this enthusiastic about what I give her to eat.
It's hard not for me not to beam at my companions in passive delight the whole time we're eating lunch. The lunchroom conversation is kept simple and we simply inform each other about upcoming plans and light gossip, all of which I've heard before thanks to my enhanced, and growing, senses. Super Sensory is a strong enough perk by default but because of my ability to expand every facet of myself, coupled with the universality of "Master of All" I am just passively growing in my ability to hear stuff. Seeing as I am uncapped I could see myself someday hearing every conversation in this building, almost certainly by the end of the year given how all of my growth is linked together and builds on each other.
Lunch comes and goes in a blur and in minutes I'm back in front of the computer. In front of the computer I'm a blur, my fingers strengthened by Lightning Quick and Speed Typist. I whittle away the hours diligently doing my job, distracting myself and minorly doing other things by making use of my dual trains of thought, and even when I overcome instances of "Buggy" every few minutes I still find myself grateful that I took the drawbacks I did. This work would be... less than fun otherwise. By the time my workday comes to an end and I find myself outside of the office I've filled out hundreds of forms and diligently pushed various skills of mine to new levels. Colleagues of mine are walking around me and also leaving the office. I casually pause time. making use of my pause ability again, and I begin to think of what to do and where to go next.
"I suppose now's as good a time as any to go and see about volunteering..." I eventually realize as I think about the various things I can do from here. I momentarily wonder where I should go to try and do that before I remember what I told Amy and the others yesterday about how I volunteered at a clinic. WIth Healer volunteering at a hospital would be good for me, even if I couldn't do as much good as I'd like too since I am not a doctor. I unpause time and smile as I reach into my pocket, use "Inventory" and retrieve my cellphone.
"Where is the nearest hospital?" I ask aloud, into the phone. Some of the people walking past me glance at me curiously and I smile sheepishly as my phone begins to tell me where to go. I begin to walk in the direction the phone indicates, happy to have a chance to begin to do some good.
The walk isn't terribly long. It turns out that the hospital is in a part of downtown that I didn't explore last night, and I reach it less than five minutes after I start walking, just in the opposite direction of where I was going before. The hospital isn't huge, which surprises me since I don't seem to be living in some small town but in a decently sized city. I walk into the main entrance and step into a large lobby where a decent amount of foot traffic seems to happen, judging from the footprints I can faintly see on the floor beneath me. I walk up to a receptionist desk and the man behind it doesn't bother looking up and instead taps the clipboard in front of him. I glance at it and laugh when I see that it's a standard questionnaire for people who are visiting a hospital for normal, health-related reasons. My reaction surprises the man, and to be fair it's definitely odd for someone in a hospital to laugh at the sight of a hospital questionnaire.
I am laughing at the questionnaire because it's amusing to think about the possibility of getting sick, I'm a gamer, and while normally that'd conjure images of nerds and geeks in my case it means that my health is protected. I have two very powerful perks/features that wildly mitigate the dangers of sicknesses: "Tough As Nails" which guarantees that it'd take something supernatural or almost supernatural to stand a chance of even slowing me down, and "Gamer Body". Gamer Body is interesting in this context since it gamifies negative conditions and allows me to, quite literally, sleep them off. Even something like losing a limb can be cured with a night of sleep thanks to my abilities which feels radically overpowered given how little it cost. I have other perks which further lower my odds of being negatively affected by sicknesses, such as "The Devil's Own Luck". I also have my magic, which includes spells that completely heal and purify the body, and would work on me just as readily as they'd work on other people.
"I'm actually here to learn how to volunteer? I'm new in town and I used to volunteer at a clinic in my home town so I wanted to see if I could volunteer here." I explain, which causes the guy to look up at me. When he does his eyes widen, and I smile awkwardly. I consider feigning ignorance, or perhaps innocence, but I know what's going on. He wasn't expecting me to look the way I look.
My new looks are something it is taking me a beat to get used to. I was only okay looking before, but now my looks are hyper idealized, and I am a conceptually handsome version of the very best I could have ever looked, and it is a bit jarring. It's more jarring for me, knowing that before I was an at best average-looking guy before coming to this world and gaining this new form. I allow the man a beat, before I clear my throat and the sound snaps him out of the daze he was in.
"Oh! Sorry, man, I just assumed you were sick. Umm... Yeah, let me give you a packet." The man says, before reaching under the desk in front of him. I smile lightly as he rummages around the interior of the space that separates us.
My powerful senses allow me to easily notice all sorts of stuff occurring around me. I can hear the vital processes in the bodies of the people closest to me, such as heartbeats and the smells of sweat, as well as other bodily fluids. Many of the people in this area of the hospital are sick, and truthfully if I could I'd heal them all.
One of my reasons for coming here today is to give myself a means by which I can help and heal people. This is, mildly, altruistic but more than anything else I want to master the power to heal people before I leave this setting. In the right setting, being a healer is absolutely a pivotal method of interacting with my environment and also getting allies, as well as staying alive.
The man eventually hands me a packet, along with a pen to use to fill out parts of it, and I smile at him as I take it. It is filled with information, including an application to fill out, and I thank him as I walk over to the waiting area and begin to fill it out. The questions are simple and ask for basic information about me. I fill it out, though a part of me is curious how this'll mesh with my drawbacks...
When I finish filling out the form I hand it to the man and he gratefully takes it. He explains that I'll be contacted by someone named "Ms. Jimenez" soon, and that she oversees the volunteer program. I delightedly thank him for that information and begin to head out of the hospital.
In minutes I'm part of the way home. I am a decently fast walker, though that's something I'd like to work on more in the days to come. The sun is quickly descending, and the moon is already visible in the night sky. I'm approaching the row of apartment buildings that include the building I live in. As I draw nearer and nearer to it I spot a lone homeless man sleeping next to one of the apartments. He is clearly asleep and my observation ability only confirms this. It also reveals that the man is sick, and when I glance at his hit points I see further confirmation of that, as he's down a few of them. I am walking towards him, and as I move I see a nice opportunity for me to try something.
I silently activate "Rogue", one of my more odd perks, and I feel my presence become much more subdued and difficult to notice. I approach the man, and I shut my eyes. As I walk towards him I allow myself to be guided by Super Sensory and only stop when I'm right in front of the man. I kneel and I focus on my spellbook icon, allowing me to see my list of spells. My senses allow me to be confident that the figure is still asleep when I gently move my hands so that they are in front of him. Time freezes as I gain a "Stealth" skill, and while time is frozen I swap my class and become a mage so I can gain valuable experience before I deactivate "Tutorial Sprite". I allow time to resume and smile as I trigger a spell for the first time, one of healing.
For me to activate the spell requires nothing more than for me to have enough magic points and an applicable target. This particular spell is my more advanced spell and it can work on all sorts of living targets. It is named "Intermediate heal" and the fact that I have it is a sign of one of my purchases; Healer. I feel my points of arcane energy be converted into sacred, restorative energy and I open my eyes in time to watch my hands begin to glow as energy leaves me and enters him. I look at his hit points and watch them begin to slowly increase even as I hit him with another instance of "Observe". I do so just in time to feel time freeze as new notifications appear in my mind's eye. One of the first notifications is that I have just earned experience for the "Mage" class, which becomes experience for everything thanks to Master of All, while another indicates that I've just unlocked a quest to become a healer! I study these notifications with a proud grin as this marks an important milestone in my journey. The fact that the class I want is locked behind a quest is interesting and I make a mental note to study the quest as I head home.
I unfreeze time, notice that the man is already visibly healthier, and turn to make my way back to my new home. It takes only about six minutes before I find myself stepping into my apartment. Now I can play with my new toy from earlier!

*for possible context, i have a branchial cleft cyst on the left side (slowly growing) with a heterogenous thyroid but have yet to see an ENT (in the process of recieving a referral, though). perhaps that has something to do with what's been happening,.*
as the title says, i've (19F, 220Ibs) had something akin to a cold for over two weeks. the first week of infection, i went to the doctors that monday to get tested for the flu (since i had been exposed a few days prior). test came back negative, but that tuesday i began feeling incredibly sick. i was basically bedridden, so i assumed i had a false negative/got tested too early. however, after my exam on wednesday, my condition worsened, thus kickstarting the odd neurological symptoms. the best way i can explain it is i forgot how to speak/type (roommate had witnessed this, paramedics witnessed some of it), my left arm/spine felt weirdly numb, and i had a tickle/heaviness in my chest. *to add, i wasn't really dehydrated, so i wouldn't attribute what happened to that.* i went to the hospital, had my blood taken, and got given haldol and benadryl simultaneously via IV (i had a bad reaction, became extremely paranoid/fearful. hospital staff did not care), and then got told everything was due to low magnesium/anxiety (i don't doubt it, just giving more details about my prognosis).
the following week, while my "cold" symptoms seemed to improve, AKA my throat wasn't as sore (forgot to add that the left side of my throat was/is swollen) and my ears didn't hurt as bad, my fatigue/lightheadedness/almost-fainting-thing worsened, so i went to an urgent care to get tested for COVID, the flu (again), and strep. everything came back negative, and after i told the urgent care provider what i was experiencing, they highly recommended i go back to the hospital. so i did. they gave me an EKG and another blood test, both coming back mostly normal. some of my levels fluctuated (not totally concerned since fluctuations are normal), but was then discharged and diagnosed with lightheadedness (my discharge papers say that's my diagnosis). i wasn't given any prescriptions or instructions on how to proceed with said diagnosis.
now, a week later, i still feel very week and lightheaded. i've always had feelings of fainting/tunnel vision/everything associated with losing consciousness, but it's been progessively bad. i feel like i have no stamina, and even felt exhausted from walking to the grocery store entrance from my car today. i also still have a lot of drainage/leaky sinuses (which isn't usually normal for me, even with allergies), and the left side of my throat is still swollen/tender on the outside (which could be from the cyst).
i'm unsure where to go from here. i made an appointment with my PCP the first time i went to the hospital this month, and the earliest appointment is the 27th. if nothing comes out of that, i won't know what to do. regardless, i just wanted to hear other's opinions/advice/etc.

I apologize if my grammar and punctuation is non existent I’m too in shock to care
So today I found my dad hunched over on his knees near his bed clutching his chest cold and dead today I’m assuming he had a heart attack cause that’s what it looked like from how he was positioned back on Wednesday night he wasn’t feeling too hot he was throwing up and I thought he was just sick but the next morning he collapsed and me and my grandma called an ambulance for him but he refused to go since he’s hard headed but anyway we believe he essentially went into cardiac arrest cause he has high blood pressure and his diet is awful and he drinks like a fish but moving on he basically had all the telltale signs of cardiac arrest such as being super sore and he could barely see anything along with chest pains but last night i was taking care of him and he was complaining again about his chest and I begged him to let me take him to the hospital and he denied again that’s the last time I saw him alive I was then woken up by my grandma at 2 in the afternoon coming home saying she hadn’t seen him all day so I went to check on him fearing the worst and found him dead next to his bed he’d been dead a few hours by then he was cold and his face was blue and the worst bit is he died in pain he didn’t even get to go in his sleep which kills me I tried to give him CPR just hoping it might somehow work but Rigor Mortis had already set in so I knew he was dead I wasn’t the closest with my dad but he was the only parent I had left and now he’s gone I’m super angry at him for denying us getting him healthcare and leaving me and my siblings alone like this my grandma only has so much time left on this earth and now my little siblings are not gonna have a father figure in their lives anymore I just don’t know what to do or how to even begin to try to get over his death any help would be appreciated sorry for typing so much I just tend to ramble.

I don't come to reddit often and I'm probably going to delete this later but if anyone has some advice on hope to cope I would really appreciate it.
My cat is 17 and recently his health seems to have been declining out of nowhere. He's eating less, drinking less, constantly cleaning himself to where he's wet after, responding/walking slowly, and a few hours ago, he was meowing super loudly. At first I thought this was him about to throw up because that's a regular thing he does before throwing up, but he didn't and was wobbling a bit when walking. He's been laying only on the floor (during the day he does jump up onto the beds and couch and was sleeping perfectly fine on my bed earlier today, purring and everything) and hiding under beds. Not purring either and his nose is dry. He seemed so happy and peaceful earlier in the day I don't know what happened. I'm wondering if this is just temporary and he's going to be fine in the morning, or if one of these nights I'm going to go to bed and wake up with him not there.
My mom hasn't been helping either, she's constantly telling me how she thinks he's gonna pass soon and it's stressing me out even more. My last day of school is in 2 days and I'm graduating in a week, I know he's just a cat and doesn't care but I want him to be here when I graduate. Though I fear that's not gonna happen. I just feel like a mess. I love him so unbelievably much, words alone aren't enough to express how much he means to me, and I hope he knows that. I already lost one cat a few years ago and that was probably the most painful experience I've ever been through. I've healed but I don't wanna go through it again, even though I know I will.
I wasn't mentally prepared the first time because one moment I was happily sitting in my room, and the next my parents called me into the living room with the worst news ever. I want to know if there's anything I can do for myself to calm down and for my cat so he isn't hurting physically or emotionally either. Sorry I'm just rambling at this point, my heart feels like it's going to explode out of my chest. I love him so much.

“Ready to make history, baby?”
I looked over toward Sheila as she stood on the gangplank leading up to The Burger. I still couldn’t believe she named our research ship ‘The Burger’... emotional relevance be damned.
“It's not exactly history,” I corrected.
“Oh come on! If your survey is right, this trench might run even deeper than the Challenger Deep, and you’re gonna be the first person to explore it! How is that not exciting?”
“Might be deeper, we only have a limited amount of topological data. And even if it is deeper, we’re talking only a few hundred feet at most, it’s really not that im-”
Sheila silenced me with a kiss.
“Nerd.” She teased, and I found myself too flustered to reply. After five years of marriage, she still could leave me speechless with just a kiss. God… how did someone like me end up with a woman like that?
Then again, how did someone like me end up where I was in general? It was honestly a little overwhelming. Standing on the dock, getting ready to board that ship and join the ranks of Jacques Piccard and James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) as one of the few people to take a manned submersible down to the deepest parts of the ocean. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared too. Diving down that deep could easily be a one way trip if even the slightest thing went wrong. My submarine would be experiencing between 600 to 1100 atmospheres of pressure and while we’d tested it over and over again to make sure it would actually be up for the challenge, there was still a lingering iota of doubt in the back of my mind. All that needed to go wrong was one little thing, and that would be it for me.
The scariest part is that I probably wouldn’t even know what had happened… I’d simply be gone… and Sheila would be alone. The thought of that caused a momentary spike of panic in my chest that almost made me want to call this whole thing off.
Almost.
But, then I felt her hand close around mine. I looked up into her bright blue eyes, and saw her gentle smile.
“You’re gonna be okay, hun,” She promised. “You and your team have been running the numbers, right? It’s gonna go just fine!”
I nodded slowly.
“It’s gonna go fine…” I repeated, before she leaned in to kiss me, and gently pulled me by the wrist up onto the deck of the Burger.
She was probably right.
It probably would be fine.
Probably…
The trench I’d be exploring was a fairly recent discovery, located south of Greenland, in a vast stretch of water situated directly between Newfoundland and Iceland. It’d been uncovered during a topological survey in the area, and my team had taken an interest in investigating it further. At minimum, it was believed to descend to about 35,000 feet deep (over 10,000 meters), although the current theory was that it might have run even deeper. Determining the exact depth of the yet unnamed chasm was just one of the intents of our dive. The rest was studying the organisms that might be found down there, and how they might have differed from the ones found in other deep ocean trenches (some variation being expected given the isolated environment they were developing in.)
I had to admit, it would be exciting to see what new life might have developed in a place such as this, especially if it ran even deeper than our predictions… and that excitement was enough to make me chase the fear of the risks out of my mind, even if it was only briefly. While Sheila went to make sure we were ready to embark, I caught myself wandering out toward the rear of the ship where my submarine, The Tempura, waited for me. Did this submarine deserve a better name than The Tempura? Probably. But, this was my project, so I got to name it and since Burger was already taken, Tempura was the next best name I had. I liked to think that the subs namesake might approve… if she hadn’t died fifteen years ago. Shrimp don’t live very long.
As the ship began to depart, I caught myself reminiscing on how I’d ended up here… it really was all because of those damn shrimp, wasn’t it? Well… maybe not all because of the shrimp. But they were certainly part of it. Back when I was a lot younger, I never really gave much of a shit about anything at all. I guess I did have a thing for the ocean… the great, romantic vastness of it. The sense of adventure that it beckoned with. The endless mysteries that lay within its dark depths. I used to read about it all the time when I was a kid and I especially loved the classic adventures: Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and Melville’s Moby Dick… but that love was just confined to my books. I didn’t really have any interest in actually going out and seeing the ocean. Hell, the idea of going to a beach and standing in the sun with my toes in the sand seemed miserable to me. I was happier (although calling myself happy might’ve been a little disingenuous) alone in my room, enjoying the company of books as opposed to people.
Then came the shrimp.
One of my online friends kept them as a hobby. He used to post pictures of his tanks all the time, and I always thought they looked kinda cool. He said that if I was interested in them, I should try keeping some for myself, and during a particularly bad bout of depression, I figured that maybe it might be worth a shot. So, I bought a cheap tank and some cheap decorations, bought myself some shrimp… and promptly watched them die over the next few weeks. That… that bothered me. I don’t know why but… it really bothered me. I’m still not entirely sure how to describe what it was that I was feeling. Guilt? Defeat? Shame? Here I was, trying to set up a habitat for these creatures just to have something to do to keep the suicidal ideation at bay, and I’d failed almost right out of the gate.
Was I just that bad? Was I just that much of a failure? Was this just going to go to shit just like everything else in my life did, because I was just such an abysmal piece of shit who barely deserved the life she had? Had I just not tried hard enough? Was I too apathetic? What had happened? What went wrong?
It bothered me.
It bothered me enough that I made up my mind to just dump the remaining shrimp down the toilet and toss everything. Forget about it. Move on. End of story. But… that wasn’t fair, was it? The shrimp didn’t all deserve to die just because I couldn’t be bothered, did they? Sure, they were just shrimp, but they were alive too, just like me. They deserved to be alive.
I owed it to them to try and keep them alive, didn’t I?
So… I didn’t dump the shrimp.
Instead, I started doing some reading. Started looking into what I was doing wrong and how to do it all better. I actually got really into it and a few months later, I had a nice planted tank. Looking back, it was amateur shit… but it made me happy. I’d even picked out names for my two favorite shrimp. Burger and Tempura. They’d been the last survivors of my original batch, and they were the ones I ended up caring about the most. Caring for Burger and Tempura gave me a purpose. It became an obsession… and that little obsession drove me to finally start turning my life around.
Like I said, shrimp don’t live for very long. Burger and Tempura were long dead by the time I graduated with a degree in Marine Biology. But they were the ones who inspired me to finally get my life in order. Hell, the shrimp were half the reason that I met Sheila. She was something of an aquarium fanatic too… we’d met on a forum, and gotten to talking. I found out that she just so happened to be studying Marine Biology at another school, and we bonded pretty quickly after that. After graduation, I moved to California to be with her and after that, the rest is history. She was my rock. She was the one who always pushed me to be the best possible version of myself… and I loved her more than I ever knew I could love someone.
A glance back at the shore, fading into the distance tore me out of my reminiscing, and I shifted my focus to the present, going over The Tempura to perform some quick checks. My colleagues and I would be checking and rechecking the submarine over the next two days as we made our way toward the dive spot. Considering the danger that descending that deep posed, I didn’t want to take a single unnecessary risk.
I had too much to live for, after all.
***
The day of the dive, I couldn’t notice how excited the rest of the crew seemed… well… Sheila’s usual crew seemed excited. I guess to them, this was just another research expedition, no different than the ones Sheila usually took this ship out on. Lately her research had been focused on the analysis and study of whale calls. Her recent voyages had involved following their pods, recording their calls and playing them back to see how the whales reacted. It was fascinating stuff, but my research was admittedly a lot different than that.
My obsession had drawn me to the denizens of the deep sea. I’d used The Burger for expeditions before, although none of them had been on quite the same scale as this one. Up until today, the most ambitious thing I’d done was send down unmanned submersibles with cameras. Those submersibles had typically returned. We had lost a few early on due to technical glitches, but the past few years had been blissfully uneventful. Logically, this dive would probably be uneventful as well. But it was still hard to get the jitters out of my head.
My team and I did the final checks necessary to make sure that The Tempura was good to go, before setting up the crane to begin lifting it up. In less than an hour, I’d be inside of that thing, descending to the darkest depths of the ocean.
It didn’t feel real.
I felt Sheila’s hand on my shoulder, and looked over at her.
“Moment of truth, huh?” She asked. She probably meant it to sound encouraging, but it just sounded ominous.
“Moment of truth…” I replied.
“You’re gonna be okay, honey. I know you will.”
She reached out to gently squeeze my hand and gave me a reassuring smile that I meekly returned.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be okay,” I agreed, although there was an element of a lie in it. Statistically, yes. It probably WOULD be okay. But there was that lingering anxiety in the back of my mind that just wouldn’t go away. I looked quietly out at the submarine before me and couldn’t shake the thought that it sort of looked like a giant coffin. Unconsciously, I found myself squeezing Sheila’s hand tighter than normal. She just held me close and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, before gently rubbing my back.
“You’ll be okay,” She promised.
“Dr. Jenner, we’re ready for you.” I heard one of my colleagues say.
Moment of truth.
I took one last look at Sheila, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips for luck. She smiled at me, and I smiled back anxiously at her before heading over toward the submarine.
The crew helped me enter the cockpit and get myself situated inside. The cockpit of the Tempura was fairly cramped and not particularly comfortable. Space and comfort aren’t really luxuries you can afford in a submarine like this. The instruments I needed took up a lot of space, leaving little room for me in there… and I am not a very big person.
Once I was inside, they sealed the hatch. Then the diagnostics checks began.
“Grayson, can you hear us in there?” I heard Sheila say through the radio.
“Loud and clear,” I replied.
“Great. We’ll keep in constant radio contact, just to monitor the signal. In the meanwhile, how’s everything looking in there?”
“Green across the board so far,” I said, although I hadn’t finished running all my final checks yet. Ultimately, nothing was out of place.
This submarine was as good to go as it was going to get.
“I’m all good in here,” I said once I was done. “You can drop me when you’re ready.”
“You got it, honey. Let’s get you in the water, run one final round of tests and start lowering you down.”
A short while later, I felt the submarine begin to move as the crane lifted it off the deck and lowered it into the water. The Tempura honestly resembled its namesake in a way, being long and cigar shaped, only vertically oriented instead of horizontally oriented. We’d admittedly taken more than a few design cues from James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger. Why fix what isn’t broken, after all?
Once I was in the water, a 1000 pound releasable ballast weight would cause the submarine to sink. Releasing that weight was also my ticket back to the surface, and I could either trigger it from inside the cockpit, or, in the event that the release failed for any reason, it would trigger automatically after roughly 12 hours of exposure to salt water.
Ideally, this would be the first of a number of dives I’d be undertaking… and if all went according to plan, the Tempura could be the first of many similar submarines that would allow other researchers to safely and effectively descend to extreme depths. If all went well, this could be a massive leap forward for researchers like me, allowing us to better explore the deepest depths of the Hadal Zone and learn all we could about the ecosystems down there via direct observation.
If all went well.
If.
Through the viewport, I watched as I was lowered into the ocean. A few of the other crew members had donned diving gear to escort me down, and after they did their final checks and I did mine, we were fully ready to go.
“All’s green across the board,” I said into the radio. “You can start my descent.”
“I hear you, honey,” Sheila replied. “We’re letting you go. Have fun down there.”
“Yeah, I’ll try…” I said quietly as finally, my submarine began its descent.
I took a deep breath, and told myself again that everything would go fine. We had checked everything on this submarine. We’d tested it rigorously. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to set foot inside of it if I hadn’t personally assured that it was safe. But anxiety never really goes away, does it? The crew couldn’t accompany me far. After only a few meters, they fell behind me as I sank deeper and deeper into the infinite, empty blue of the ocean. Soon after, the tether was released.
I was officially on my own.
“60 feet,” I heard Sheila say over the radio. “How are you doing in there?”
“Good,” I replied. “Doing… doing good.”
The submarine continued to descend. Through the viewport, I could see a few stray fish, but nothing particularly eye catching. I almost felt alone down there… almost…
“120 feet…” Sheila said.
“Still doing good,” I replied.
The descent continued, as the waters slowly grew darker and darker.
“400 feet…”
Everything around me just kept getting darker and darker. Only a fraction of the light from the sun ever reached these depths… and I’d be lying if I said that darkness didn’t feel a little… oppressive.
“800 feet… still feeling good?”
“Yeah, still feeling good…” I said, although it was a bit of a lie. If anything, I was second guessing all of this, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud.
“1000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…” I murmured. “I hear you loud and clear.”
Deeper… deeper… deeper.
“1500 feet…”
Three miles. I was three miles away from home. Three miles away from Sheila.
“2000 feet…”
Still a ways to go.
“3000 feet…”
By this point, it was fully dark outside of my cockpit. Outside, all I could see was inky darkness. Even the submarine’s lights didn’t really cut through it. And the kicker? Relatively speaking, I wasn’t that deep. Fishing trawlers reached deeper than this. Better to conserve power until I was at the bottom. My descent continued.
“6000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…”
The check ins were becoming less frequent. My descent still continued… deeper… deeper… deeper. By now, I’d entered the Hadal Zone. But there was still so much deeper o go.
“8000 feet…”
This was past the depths that most whales would dive to… and I still had a ways to go.
“10,000 feet.”
This was close to where the ocean floor usually bottomed out… and yet there was still so much further to go. No. I was really only a third of the way there. How long had it been?Not much had happened beyond my descent and a few sightings out of my viewport, but time had been passing. A glance at my watch confirmed it’d been almost an hour since I’d started to sink… and I knew I wasn’t even close to the bottom yet. The submarine continued to descend, sinking ever deeper as I dropped into an infinite darkness that few had ever dared to witness.
“15,000 feet.”
This check in came later than the others. At this point, Sheila and the crew must have figured that no news was good news, and they were right. I just continued to sink peacefully, down into the crushing depths of the ocean.
These were the depths that one might normally find deep sea fish… and yet I was going somewhere even deeper than that.
“20,000 feet…”
So close…
I continued to sink.
“25,000 feet.”
Soon… and finally…
“30,000 feet. You still doing alright, honey?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m doing good,” I assured her. I was so close…
By this point, my real work had begun. I’d engaged the lights and begun documenting what little I could see using the on board cameras. Granted, there wasn’t much life at these depths and what little there was, was scarcely documented. Most of what was down here consisted of invertebrates and microscopic life that seemed to float past my viewport.
The light seemed to draw a few creatures in search of food. Small, hardy things that resembled shrimp.
“How’s it looking, Grayson?”
“Dark,” I said, half joking. “We’ve got some life… shrimp. They’re translucent. Can’t get a great look at them… but we’ll see what the cameras pick up.”
“They’ve recognized you as a friend,” Sheila said. I could almost see the smile on her lips as she said it.
“Yeah…” I replied, “Tempura sent them a message, told them I’d be down. How am I looking on depth?”
“35,000 feet… you seeing a bottom yet?”
“No… not that I would until I was there.”
“Damn… how deep does this go?”
“It can’t go that deep…” I murmured, although I really wasn’t so sure about that.
The submarine continued to sink…
36,000 feet…
37,000 feet…
38,000 feet… and then finally, just past the 39,000 foot mark, I finally saw solid ground below me.
Looking through my viewport, I could see a familiar dark brown diatomaceous sludge, covering the seafloor. Microscopic life, likely similar to what had been observed in other deep sea trenches, such as the Challenger Deep.
I needed to gather a sample.
As my submarine reached the bottom, I extended the mechanical arms, pressed flat against the surface of the Tempura, and opened the collection port near the bottom of the ship. Slowly, I sifted some of the sludge into the port. My disturbance of the seafloor kicked up a cloud of the microbial colony, and I could’ve sworn I saw something wiggling through the debris. A pale, white thing, perhaps some sort of sea cucumber? I hastily angled my submarines camera to try and catch a glimpse of it, before returning to my collection. Even in this forlorn place, there was still so much to see! And here I was… completely forgetting my fear as the excitement took hold of me! Few people had ever been down to these unfathomable depths… and yet here I was.
It didn’t feel real but it was! I had reached the deepest part of the ocean!
“How’s it going down there?” I heard Sheila ask. Her voice was a little garbled. The connection down here was faltering.
“It’s beautiful…” I said. “I can’t wait for you to see it!”
“I’ll bet…”
“I’m going to do a sweep of the area, see what samples I can gather,” I said. “What’s my time right now?”
“Three hours. You’ve got nine before your connection to the weight deteriorates and you start to ascend.”
“I’ll make the most of it,” I said. The plan was only to stay down there for six hours, and I didn’t want to push that limit. Life support would only last me for so long, and one little error was all it would take for the ungodly pressure down here to crush me.
I began to move the submarine. Mobility was limited. This thing wasn’t built to travel far. But I still had some limited movement. I recorded all that I could, filming the shrimp that investigated my light, and the things that slithered and crawled through the muck, likely feeding on the carpet of single celled organisms that populated these depths.
The first two hours were… well… I hesitate to call them uneventful, they were actually very fascinating, but little of note happened beyond my recording of a few specimens.
Midway through the third hour though, as I was reaching one of the rock walls of the abyss, I noticed something just above the edge of my viewport swimming away from the light. I could’ve sworn I saw slender, pale tentacles of some sort. Was that a squid? Were there squid down this deep? I wasn’t aware of any species of known squid who could reach these depths… but in this unknown place, what use was the known?
I moved my light and my camera to try and catch another glimpse of it, but whatever it was, it seemed to be gone. Maybe I’d see another one. I still had plenty of time.
“You made a noise. What’d you see?” Sheila asked.
“Something big… I think,” I said.
“Down there? Like a fish?”
“Squid. You wouldn’t find any vertebrates down this deep… the pressure would crush their bones.”
“Jeez…”
I didn’t reply to that, still searching for the thing I’d seen. I shone my light up along the walls of the chasm and angled my camera up as far as it would go. I could see a few volcanic vents, spewing dark clouds into the darkness, and more diatoms. But not much else. Strange invertebrates crawled along the walls. Small creatures, no bigger than an inch long. Related to isopods, perhaps? If I could collect one as a sample, I would have… although taking any of those back to the surface would surely kill them. They were built to live under the impossible pressure of these depths. Taking them to the surface would rip them apart.
I went back to my research, and it wasn’t long until I saw something in the darkness, just on the edge of where my flashlight reached. Trailing white tendrils, snaking their way through the darkness. My eyes narrowed as I moved the submarine forward, trying to catch whatever it was in the light. I saw the shape move, its body turning… I saw its tendrils unfurling. Whatever this was, it was big. It was almost as big as The Tempura… although it was also slender. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought I was looking at some sort of floating debris, but this far down? No. And debris wouldn’t move like that.
This had to be a deepsea squid… or perhaps some other type of cephalopod? Something that preyed upon the various invertebrates down here, perhaps? It seemed to float, just out of sight for a bit, as I tried to get closer. I angled up my light to get a better look at it. The light seemed to shine through it, like some sort of ghost… but I did manage to get a look at it.
Although that look…
That single look made me freeze up.
This things slender tendrils certainly resembled a cephalopod of some sort, but the rest of it… the rest of it looked like something else entirely. Its body was thin, emaciated and translucent, yet despite that it still had characteristics that almost seemed… human. It wasn’t human! Not by any stretch of imagination, but the resemblance was there. It almost reminded me of an exhibit I’d seen in a museum once, depicting a preserved, fully removed human nervous system. I could see a similar shape in its translucent body. Its head seemed almost human as well… albeit with no eyes, and a lamprey like mouth I could only describe as fleshy yet crablike.
Still, despite having no eyes I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was looking at me. And that was when I felt something hit the submarine.
I felt a sudden jolt of panic in my chest. For a moment, I thought that the pressure had started to crush me, but no… no, everything was still fine. Something had just hit me. But what? It didn’t take long before I got my answer.
Another pale creature floated past my viewport, swirling gracefully in the cold dark waters. I watched it for a moment with wide eyes, before noticing its ‘head’ turning slightly toward me. Then, almost instantly, it launched itself at the submarine, darting toward me with blinding speed.
I heard a distinct THUD as its body collided with me, and I could see its pale tendrils pressing against the viewport, twisting and writhing violently. It was trying to attack me. The first creature that I’d seen lunged as well, pounding on my submarine with another THUD. And moments later, I could hear more impacts against the hull. There were more of them… and they did not like having me down there.
“What’s going on?” Sheila asked.
“Somebody doesn’t like me…” I said. “One of the animals down here… some kind of squid, it’s just started attacking the hull.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“Not sure… could be nothing, could be-”
I felt the submarine shake as I tried to move it. The thrusters that pushed me forward weren't responding. Had something gotten caught in it? One of the creatures perhaps?
“Grayson?!” Sheila asked.
“Lost propulsion…” I said. “Fuck… I can’t move.”
“Then drop the weight and come up!”
“No, it’s fine, there’s no other damage, I can still use the port and starboard thrusters to-”
“Grayson!”
I paused. There was genuine panic in her voice… enough to make me realize that even if these things stood little chance of actually breaching the hull, taking the risk would be a fatal mistake.
“I’m on my way up…” I finally said, before reaching out to disengage the ballast weights.
Immediately, I felt myself beginning to rise, although the tentacles clinging to my viewport didn’t disappear.
“We’ve got you…” Sheila said. “Rising up to 38,000 feet.”
The submarine continued to rise, but the creatures clinging to me went nowhere. In fact… I was sure I could see more of them. More pale shapes coming up through the darkness, and these ones filled me with dread. I thought I had been looking at some sort of eerie undiscovered life. But seeing what was coming up toward me now… I knew that I was looking at so much more. The creatures swimming up toward me through the darkness carried weapons… makeshift stone spears and daggers. Primitive tools… but tools all the same.
Signs that these were more than just undiscovered animals.
Much. Much more.
The word: ‘Mermaids’ crossed through my mind, but these were something far different than the ones I’d heard of in folklore. These looked like they’d swam out of the depths of hell itself. Boneless pale tendrils reached for me… and they were getting closer. The pale shapes reached my submarine as I rose higher. I kept praying to whatever God may be listening that the dropping pressure would force them off. The air in a submarine is pressurized, so during normal operation, there should have been no danger of decompression sickness for me.
For them… well… normally I’d feel a little guilty about subjecting an undiscovered species of deep sea mermaids to the horrors of the Bends. But given my circumstances, I didn’t have a lot of other options.
They didn’t let go, though.
They should have. But they didn’t.
What were these things?
I saw a splayed hand press against my viewport. Or… it somewhat resembled a hand. It had suckers on it, like a tentacle and the ‘fingers’ curled open like tentacles. The creature crawled over my viewport, clinging to The Tempura as it rose, and I could see the folds of its crablike mouth opening and pressing against the glass. I could see some sort of bile rising up through its translucent throat, before it secreted it all over my viewport. Was it trying to digest me? Was that how these things fed? How strong were its stomach acids? Were they strong enough to-
The window cracked.
My heart skipped a beat.
“No… no, no no…”
“Grayson, what’s wrong?!”
“They cracked the window… S-Sheila they… oh God… oh fuck, they just…”
“THEY DID WHAT?”
“It’s secreting some sort of enzyme… it’s on the window, it’s… FUCK… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die…”
“You’re not gonna die, baby! Just… just keep ascending, okay? You’re at 30,000 feet… just keep going…”
I nodded, and kept on rising, although the question of whether or not the rest of the creatures were trying to digest the other parts of my submarine floated through my mind. How much damage could The Tempura take before it imploded? How much longer did I have? The submarine still continued to rise… 25,000 feet… almost halfway home… almost… almost.
The creature outside of my viewport slithered along the glass, searching for a better area to try and digest. Past him, I noticed a few of his companions dropping off. Maybe the change in pressure finally was getting to them?
From the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a flashing light. A warning. The hydraulics on one of the Tempura’s arms were shot… what else was damaged?
I checked my oxygen levels. 32%.
I should’ve had at least 14 hours of air. I’d only been down there for about 6 hours… I shouldn’t have been this low.
31%.
No… no, no, no, no… they’d damaged the air tanks!
30%.
29%
“20,000 feet!” Sheila said. “You still with me, baby?”
“Y-yeah…” I said. I didn’t mention my air situation. I didn’t need to worry her further.
The submarine continued its ascent.
15,000 feet.
24%. I was running out of time.
The creatures still clung to the Tempura. How had the pressure change not killed them yet? My oxygen was dropping faster than before. I was hemorrhaging air. Another crack formed across my viewport. I let out a little, involuntary gasp before trying to force myself to stop hyperventilating.
“Grayson, what was that?”
“I-it’s fine…” I stammered, “It’s fine!”
“Grayson what the hell is going on down there?!”
“They’re still on the submarine… they’re still…” I paused, looking at my oxygen levels. “19%...”
“19% of what? Grayson what’s going on!”
I paused.
18%.
“Air… I’m… I’m losing air…”
“That’s fine, you’re going to make it!” She said, although I heard her voice cracking a little. “You’re gonna make it!”
I didn’t answer.
12,000 feet.
11,000 feet…
My oxygen level continued to drop.
15%.
14%.
12%.
9,000 feet.
The creatures still clung to me, as the submarine continued to rise. The one on my viewport was still there, slowly crawling along the glass again. I stared into its eyeless face and swore I was looking at the face of my killer.
7,000 feet…
Oxygen had dropped to 9%. It dropped to 8% before I even got to 6,000 feet. I was going to die here…
The viewport cracked again and I squeezed my eyes shut. The submarine rocked. I was sure one of the thrusters had been damaged. My ascent slowed.
“Grayson, what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry Sheila…”
Another crack spread across my viewport.
“I’m… I’m not making it back up…”
“YES YOU ARE!”
“I’m sorry…” The tears started to come as the reality of my death became clearer and clearer… this was it.
“YOU’RE COMING BACK UP, YOU HEAR ME! GODDAMNIT, I’LL BRING YOU BACK UP!”
“I love you…”
That creatures face pressed against the glass. It vomited more of its stomach acid onto the cracked glass, and I wondered if this might finally be what broke it. Part of me hoped it would be… the one good thing about dying this deep was that at least I’d die quickly. My suffering would be over. Then, the creature suddenly pulled back, twisting and writhing violently. I saw other shapes moving past it in the water, other ‘mermaids’ that had been clinging to the submarine.
Something was agitating them.
Something was scaring them off.
Then I heard it, over the radio… whale songs.
“What the hell…?”
“Grayson, are you still there?!”
“I… they’re finally breaking off. Sheila, what did you do?”
“I’m broadcasting some of the orca recordings we’ve been using. Are they still clinging to you?”
“No! They’re backing off! I… whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
The submarine kept rising.
5,000 feet.
4,000 feet.
4% oxygen.
I could still do this, right?
The submarine continued to rise.
3%.
3,000 feet.
2,000 feet.
2%.
1,000 feet… so close… I was so close…
I could almost see the surface through my viewport, rushing up toward me. I tried not to breathe. Tried not to move. All I did was hope.
500 feet.
I closed my eyes.
“Grayson we have your signal, we’re coming to pick you up!”
Sheila’s voice sounded so far away as my submarine finally breached the surface of the water… and with the last of my strength, I pulled the emergency release on the hatch, and threw it open, taking in lungful after lungful of fresh salty air.
I didn’t dare so much as touch the water beneath me… but I was topside again, and in the distance, I could see The Burger!
“We see you!” Sheila said, “We’ve got you baby… we’ve got you…”
“I see you too…” I said through the tears. “Thank you… thank you…” I didn’t have any words left in me after that.
As soon as I was back on the ship, I collapsed into Sheila’s arms, breaking down into tears as I clung to her, terrified that at any moment, some sort of unspoken other shoe would drop and I’d lose her all over again.
“Shh… it’s alright baby… I’ve got you… you’re safe… you’re safe…” I felt her fingers running through my air and I knew that what she said was true.
I was home.
I was safe.
***
I left my colleagues to review the data that the Tempura gathered during its short expedition. As far as I know, they haven’t published anything. I have a few ideas as to why, but I’ll keep those to myself. Let’s just say that some people would rather this information not become public.
I have a feeling that the Tempura may not be diving again for some time, if ever. I will confess that I do consider that a bit of a shame. Despite everything… I would consider it a success. It endured far more stressful conditions than I had expected, and from what I heard, required fewer repairs than I’d thought it would. But, even if it was approved for another dive, it wouldn’t be me piloting it. No. I will never be setting foot inside of that machine again, nor will I ever be returning to what my colleagues have been quietly referring to as ‘The Jenner Trench’.
I can’t.
Every night, I wake up crying after dreaming of pale shapes outside of my cracked viewport, clinging to Sheila and sobbing. I can’t put myself in that situation again.
I can’t.
Instead, I think I’m going to spend the next few years on solid ground. There’s a teaching position available at a local university. I think that might be the best place for me right now. Who knows, maybe I can help some other deadbeat discover a passion for marine biology.
After everything, my love for the sea remains unchanged… I’m just a little more wary of it, these days.

I’m not too sure if this is the right place to post this. Hell, I don’t know if anyone’s even gonna see it. I want to start this off by saying that this story isn’t to be taken lightly. I don’t want you to read this and try to copy what is done, instead take it as a warning. A warning to never play this game, a warning I wish I had gotten before I made that mistake.
I lived almost my entire life in the middle of Delaware, if you forgot that was a state I wouldn’t blame you. In my neighborhood there were 3 kids I always played with everyday. Kyle, Jimmy, and Seth. Our houses were close enough to each other that we played together whenever we had the chance.
We did all the typical things a couple 13 year old boys would do. Swimming in the local pool, going to the Walmart and buying nothing, or just hang in one of our basements and being jack-asses. It was almost a Disney-like childhood. Sleepovers were nothing new for us, I think we had one almost every weekend. What was new was not having any parents there to watch us.
Seth offered to host the next one and included that his parents were gonna be gone for the night. They were staying down at the beach and told Seth it would be fine for him to invite us over. Fine for him, not so much for the rest of us. I think me and the other guys pleaded and begged our parent’s multiple times to let us go.
Our parents knew each other and trusted us but the idea of 4 pre-pubescent boys being alone in a house was any parents worse nightmare. Somehow, by the grace of god, they agreed the night before. After all this time, I still wish they had denied us. Maybe things would have ended differently.
I wanna tell you about the events that happened that night that changed me into who I am. It changed my life and every families that was involved in it. This is the night I played Hide and Seek with my friends.
“Hide and Seek? Won’t that get boring with just 4 of us?” I asked suspiciously as I took a handful of Doritos from the bowl on the table. It was about 10:30pm when Kyle suggested we play a game so we could try and stay up later.
“Yeah man and besides, we have an Xbox.” Jimmy pointed out. Seth came walking down the basement with some sodas in hand, almost dropping the cans
“What are you guys talking about? You better not be thinking of touching my controller with your greasy hands Jimmy, not after last time.”
“It was an accident! I got you a new one.” Jimmy responded before chuckling a bit.
“No guys, I saw this on the internet a few nights ago. We have to try it.” Kyle said. He almost sounded like he was pleading with us.
Kyle was always the kind of kid to believe in spooky things. Ghost, werewolves, demons. You name it, Kyle probably believed it. I remember one time he somehow got us all to go in the woods with him during the winter to look for dog people that a YouTuber said was out near us. We all got the flu after that.
“Oh god, another one of these? Is it gonna be like that dog thing again?” Seth chimed in.
“It’s not like that, this one is real. I promise dude.” Kyle seemed genuine about it. I almost felt bad as the other guys called him stupid for it.
“Alright man, we try your game for a bit. Then if it’s a bust, we play Xbox.” I suggested. Kyles face lite up as he got some paper out of his bag.
“Who said you were in charge of deciding when to play my Xbox?” Seth questioned. I just shushed him as Kyle got some more stuff out of his bag. Candles, lighters, a knife. I would have hated to see what would happen if we said no to his idea.
“Alright, first. We gotta turn all the lights off. Not a single one can be on during the game.” We looked at each other before we went off to get the house started. I had been in Seth’s house almost as much as mine but there’s strangeness to it when the lights were all off. We got back to the basement where we found Kyle lighting the candles and placing them on the ground around the paper. As we sat around him I could see some words on the paper. “Ready or Not, here it comes”
“What’s that for?” I pointed as Kyle placed the last candle down.
“That’s to start the game. I saw these Indian guys play it and they said you have to start the game just like this or it doesn’t work.” Kyle answered as he slowly pulled the knife up and turned to face us.
“Now, we have to cut ourselves.”
“Like Sarah from home room?” Jimmy chuckled
“I thought that was a rumor?” Seth remarked as he leaned towards Jimmy
“Guys! Focus! Just a small prick on your finger. Then you put it on the paper.” Kyle demanded as he slowly pressed the knife tip into his finger
“This feels very, extreme. Is this safe to play?” I asked, seeing Kyle whence as blood slowly pooled on the top of his finger
“I think so, the guys seemed like they were having fun when they did it.” He held the knife towards me next, the guys watched as I reluctantly took the knife and plucked my finger. I did encourage us to play this for Kyle sake, I couldn’t chicken out now. The other two did the same, Jimmy had more tears then the rest of us but when he finished he handed the knife back to Kyle.
“Now?” Seth asked, rubbing his finger on his Pokémon pajama bottoms.
“Now, repeat after me.” We all listened to Kyle and repeated
“ 1, 2, 3. Ready or not, come find me.” We stared at each other. Silence filled the basement as our eyes kept darting to see if anything happened.
“Do you hear that?” Seth whispered We listened as the most quiet fart escaped him. He fell on his back and laughed. Jimmy joined him and so did I. We laughed and laughed, I looked to see if Kyle found it as amusing but was met with sadness. He looked almost heart broken, I knew he lived for these kinda things and for it to not work most have broken him. I moved to him and smiled
“Hey, at least we didn’t have to sit out in negative degrees to get results this time huh?” He smiled slight back
“Yeah I guess you’re right. I don’t know how those guys made it look so convincing.”
“CGI probably, my dad says that’s how most things are done like that.” Seth said as he got up to go turn the light back on. Before he hit the switch, a loud thud filled the room. I’ll never forget the look on his face as he rushed back to the floor where we were all sitting.
“W-what was that?” Jimmy whispered to me. I didn’t know what to say until Kyle reluctantly chimed in.
“It’s him, the seeker.” We sat still as another thud could be heard. Like it was right above us.
“What the fuck dude? S-Seth? Did you invite someone else over? Duncan or Josh maybe?” Jimmy was frantic with his questions as his eyes filled with tears.
“No, it’s him.” Kyle answered before Seth could respond.
“Who?” I asked
“The seeker. The person who plays the game with us.”
“Well tell him we don’t wanna play anymore.” Seth demanded, making sure to keep his voice down.
“We can’t, they said he plays until everyone is found.”
“What do you mean until we’re found?” I asked, I kept looking at the stairs. My brain was trying to wrap around what was happening while also trying to keep reason in it.
“It’s like hide and seek. We play until we’re all found or he can’t find us.” Kyle answered
“Ok, let’s go get found so the game can be over.” Seth tried to stand before Kyle pulled him down.
“No, we don’t wanna be found. Bad things happen if we’re found.” Kyle looked at the carpet as he said it. The thud got louder, almost like it was searching the house.
“Ok, ok. Then we should just stay down here right? If we hide down here it won’t find us….h-how long do we have to hide man?” I stuttered as I waited for Kyle to answer.
“I…I don’t know.”
We sat there in silence, thuds and crashes from upstairs made the silence somehow louder. I had wished it was all a prank. Seth and Jimmy loved pulling those and Kyle was usually the target for them. But I knew it wasn’t that, I knew this was real. I don’t know how it was but at that moment there was something upstairs, tearing the house apart trying to find us.
We stayed like that until Seth finally spoke “Let’s run.”
“What?” Kyle mumbled out, his face covered by his hands. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“Let’s run, the doors not to far from the basement entrance. We unlock it and run to a neighbors.” Seth looked for nods or any sign of agreement. Jimmy nodded and I slowly shook yes. I looked at Kyle, grabbing his leg and squeezing it.
“Come on man, we’re definitely faster than it. We’ll be out before it even sees us.” I smiled at him.
He looked up and slowly smiled, nodding. We all slowly moved to the base of the basement stairs. Looking down into a dark basement is scary, but looking up into a dark house is another whole kind of fear. I don’t know how long we took going up those steps but it felt like ages, we were slowly ascending into what could be our end. Seth held the doorknob and just stared at it. I knew he didn’t wanna be the one to open it, to potentially be the one to see what ever it was that was on the other side. I scooted around Jimmy and slowly turned to knob.
The door silently opened, the house was almost pitch dark. The only light we had was from the moon herself, shining into the windows and illuminating the destroyed house. He quietly but quickly moved towards the front door. I peered into the living room to see the chairs and couches turned upside down, some side table doors ripped off they hinges.
“Hurry up man.” Jimmy urged Seth on as he fumbled slightly with the deadbolt. I looked to see Kyle slight behind, close to the basement door. I moved over to get him ready to run
“Let’s go Kyle, we gotta get-“ I almost finished my words as I watched his face turn from scared to horrified. I turned slightly to see Jimmy on the floor crawling away from the door.
I’m not sure even after all this time how to describe what we saw that night. I had wished it was just a man. Some man that was in the house with us but it sadly wasn’t. The best I can try and give a description is to think of a Picasso painting. It had a crookedness to it. Its arm jagged and legs crumbled as it towered over Seth. Seth didn’t move, he didn’t try and fight. All he could do was stand there and look up to see its eyes peering down at him. It picked Seth up and like a rag doll threw him into the living room. A mean and disgusting noise came from his body as he hit the wall of the fireplace. I quickly got Jimmy to his feet and Kyle to snap out of his gaze. Me and Kyle ran to the bathroom as Jimmy made his to the kitchen. I locked the door as I tried to catch my own heart from jumping out my chest. “J-Jimmy? Where-“
My question was shortly answered as I heard Jimmy whimpering and crying outside the room. I unlocked the door and peaked out the crack. I watched “it” linger its way towards him and all I could hear was wet sounds. I quickly shut the door and relocked it. My mind didn’t really process what had just happened in what couldn’t have been more than 3 minutes. My two friends I had been with almost my entire life were gone, just like that. I sat on the cold tile floor as I listened to the thudding from outside. My breathing was dull as I looked to see Kyle shaking by the toilet. I slowly moved my self over and gave him a hug. I knew what he was thinking, I knew the horrible things he was saying to himself in his mind. I didn’t know how to tell him that what was happening wasn’t his fault. I’m not sure that even now I could find the words to tell him that.
“We’ll be fine, we just gotta stay here. It won’t find us.” I tried to reassure him.
“No, it will find us. We can’t stay here.”
“Kyle, Seth and Jimmy are dead. We can’t go back out there and run. I don’t know why we thought it would work.”
“No we…we…I need to get to the basement.” Kyle said, he looked up at me.
“Why? It’s a dead end there. It will-“
“Maybe, I can try and end the game. Rip the paper up…something, I don’t know.” I didn’t know what to say.
On one hand it was the only idea we had besides hiding and waiting to be found. On the other, I couldn’t bring myself to put that hope in his mind. To encourage him just to watch as it fails, He knew this as he came to his own conclusion.
“I’ll go down there, and you head for the coat closet. If it doesn’t work I’ll run back up and I’ll head there to hide with you. Ok?” He nodded to himself. I just stared at him as I nodded back slight. We stood up and slowly unlocked the door. It wasn’t anywhere we could see, which made it all more frightening. We slowly made our way to the basement door
“Good Luck” I whispered to him. He smiled and went our separate ways in the house. I quickly got in the coat closet that was almost directly in front of the basement door, and Kyle made his way down stairs.
That was the last I saw of Kyle, it wasn’t long after I heard loud thudding outside the closet door that quickly went down the stairs. All I could do was sit there, and listen as I heard the silent screams and the pounding of flesh over and over and over again. Soon the hits became more wet, and the screams became more silent.
I sat in the closet and accepted my fate. I slight covered myself with a fallen coat as I heard the thudding move around the house. It was only a matter of time before it got me, before it ripped the door open and I would be met with its horrifying figure. I looked out the slits of the closet door and saw the moon light shining through the windows.
I’m not sure when I fell asleep or even how I did. My body must have been so exhausted that it decided sleep was more important than survival. My eyes slowly opened to see daylight peering though the house. The night was gone and the day had come to save me. Although I was relieved I still forced my eyes shut. The small amount of what I saw was enough to make me do it. I saw the closet door was open, I didn’t wanna have them open as it might slowly peer from the corner and look at me. I didn’t want my last image to be that. I just kept them closed and covered my ears. And then I felt it. Thuds.
I could feel the thudding get closer, closer, closer. Two hands grabbed me, this was it. My flight or fight kicked in and I started to fight. Kicking, hitting, screaming. Anything I could think of I was doing.
“Calm down son, calm down. You’re safe.” Those words hit me like a wall, a calmness I hadn’t felt since the day before came over me. My eyes slowly opened to see the face of a young man kneeling in front of me, his hands holding my arms. He was a police officer.
“It’s gonna be alright.” He reassured me again as he slowly brought me to my feet. He walked me out of the closet and faintly said “Keep your eyes down kid, I’ll lead you out.” I think he said it more for himself, cause I knew what he didn’t want me to see.
Seth was laying in the living room, he’s body bruised from the impact with the wall and his bones broken.Jimmy was on the kitchen counter, multiple wounds and slashes were found on him. Kyle…I’m not sure what really happened to him. The reports on his body never came out. I just know I’ll never forget those sounds from when I hid in the closet.
Seth’s parents moved away almost immediately after the incident. Just left, didn’t take a single thing from that house. It was later taken down, I guess no one wanted to live in a house where something like that could happen.
I saw Jimmy and Kyles parents every once and awhile when I walked around the neighborhood. They would give me small smiles and waves and I would return them back. No more, no less. After high school I moved away for college, my parents knew why and never argued that I should stay closer.
That was a little more than 15 years ago. Few weeks back my dad called to tell me mom had passed away. He offered if I wanted to stay at home for the funeral, stay in my old room. I hesitated. I thought of that night every day for the past 15 years, never really bringing myself to wanna be back in that neighborhood. I refused and opted for a hotel a few miles away in town.
And that’s where I am now, in my bed writing my tale. I want you to take it as a warning, cause as I write this I know I’m not alone. It’s here, it’s in the closet of the hotel room. I can just make out its outline. It’s crooked legs crouching to fit inside, its arms slight poking out from some clothes, and its eyes staring at me. It knows I see it, and it knows I’m writing about that night. I’m not sure why now it decided to finish the game from all those years ago but here we are. Once I finish and close my laptop, it will kill me. My father will have to bury his son just moments after burying my mother.
I say this again, this tale is a warning. If I could I would go back and tell myself to never play that game. I would tell my parents to never let us have that sleep over. I would do everything in my power to stop that night from happening, to be able to save my friends. So please, I beg and plead to you, don’t play this game. Cause if you do, whether your ready or not…
He’s coming to find you