TL;DR: I keep falling for toxic women, particularly ENFJs, and I'm not as attracted to healthier, more balanced women. Seeking insights into why this happens and advice on avoiding limerence towards the wrong people. Have you experienced this with ENFJs? What psychological causes might underlie this behavior? Any techniques, habits, or books to recommend?
Hi everyone! I'm opening this thread because after a few years of dating and actively pursuing girls I've noticed a pattern that doesn't look very positive: I seem to exclusively fall in love with women that are quite toxic and even sociopathic in some cases (an ENTP friend told me once: "the girls you like are usually quite sus lol"), These women have always been xNFJ. At the same time, I'm not so passionately attracted to other women that could be considered healthier and more balanced.
I would really want to understand what the explanation for this phenomenon could be.

• Below I'm giving more context and some reflections that I hope some of you will find useful, but for those who are unwilling to keep reading, I would like to ask you a few questions.
• Have you ever experienced this before (more specifically with ENFJs) and in a recurrent manner
• What do you think are the underlying ultimate psychological causes of this kind of unhealthy behaviour?
• Which techniques, methods, habits have worked for you to avoid becoming limerent towards the wrong person?
• Any books you think are worth recommending (preferably something practical and prescriptive, I already read Love and Limerence, but it was eminently descriptive)?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Conditions to Fall in Love

I've identified these characteristics in all the women I've considered as potential soulmates.

• Attraction towards Fe-proficient individuals. I'm not sure if this is the case for all INTPs. I don't remember having such a liking for xNFJs when I was younger; it seems to have begun after I started treating Extraverted Feeling as an area I really need to improve. I like when people show (an exaggerated) interest in my pastimes and ideas or when they put my needs first (e.g. pouring water in your glass first during a dinner). And I guess it makes sense. In Projection and Personality we can read that we can "idealize the opposite attitude, especially in the opposite sex, making partnerships in order that the partner will play a complementary role for us. Jung commented that this was fairly frequent in marriage and even necessary, but such idealizing biases are just as deluded as the negative biases. Each “attitude-type” projects attributes onto the other that are not rightly his or hers", and that the use of the inferior function can lead one to become "addicted to or infatuated by activities or individuals associated with the function." Personality Cafe's user Entropic wrote an interesting comment about this as well.

This might explain the preference for toxic, unbalanced individuals. A toxic ENFJ would be one that is an Fe-Se loop, which apparently entails being extremely consciuos and responsive to other people's needs and feelings while constantly looking for new stimulating experiences such as doing aerobic sports, partying, or travelling.

• Attraction towards Ni-Se Axis Users. Despite what Socionics proposes, I've never found our duals (ESFJs) attractive at all. Notwithstanding their command of Fe, they appear to me as shallow, uninteresting, and simple-minded (no offense intended, I'm just stating what I perceive). The same for ISFJs; in the last weeks I ran into a very beautiful ISFJ girl a few times, and despite finding her very physically appealing, no infatuation could take place there because her conversation was one-sided, superficial, and ultimately, unfulfilling. On top of that, they (and people in the Si-Ne Axis in general) tend to lack a fondness for touching, which I personally find very interesting in a romantic partner.

I believe these two conditions explain why INFJs and, particularly, ENFJs can be so alluring to me (and perhaps to other INTPs): they tend to have top-notch social skills, are great conversationalists and know how to touch people in the right moment and at the right place to create a sense of connection.

• Importance of physical attractiveness. Infatuation does not happen with every INFJ and ENFJ I encounter. I also need to feel the urge to mix my genes together with those of the other person. I know a slightly older ENFJ girl who is a good friend of an ENTP girl friend of mine Although she displays a lot of behaviours I know I would consider attractive under different conditions, I don't find her hot enough, so the spell does not work out, and I am able to impartially see how unhinged she is.

Why Limerence Keeps Coming Back

• Immature Fi. This is a bit speculative, but I believe if I still feel limerent every so and so despite being 28 it is because of an incapacity to control and structure my own strong emotions, which is the territory of Introverted Feeling (recently, I read a biography of Madame Curie and found super relatable her affair with Paul Langevin, during which she behaved in a complete irrational manner in spite of being over her 40s). There could, of course, be non-personality-type-related reasons (which is what I'm actually trying to find out), but Fi-doms don't seem to experience this state of anxiety that frequently. I discussed this with my ISFP mother, and she admitted feeling "butterflies in her belly" only once in her lifetime, when she was in high school. Never again felt that way, not even with my ENTJ father, but that doesn't prevent her from loving him. I also discussed it with an INFP colleague, and he also said that maybe he felt this way when he was a teenager but has never felt it in his adult relationships. To me that could point to an ability present in Fi-doms to quickly and intuitively learn how to self-adjust in certain situations that caused internal distress in the past. What makes me believe this could be true is that I know that, for example, ENFJs can also fall in love hard and can get depressed after a breakup. Another ENFJ friend of my ENTP girl friend broke up recently with a long-term partner and she seems to have been suffering from melancholy and a sentiment of meaninglessness and loss of direction. She said she has always believed that you need to feel infatuated to love someone, and I believe ENFJs also have Fi in a critical spot.

The Women I Have Fallen in Love With

I want to describe four women I've gotten to know well and who ended up being quite crazy despite having initially awaken very strong feelings in me. I hope to show with that that I'm not the problem and that there is a grounded pattern that involves different types of women that only share their psychological type. I also got infatuated with 2 other ENFJ women, but that was temporarily (after sleeping with one, and after seeing the other in a few social gatherings) and couldn't know them on a deeper level. And I pursued an ENFP an ESFP as well (which, in their way, are also quite proficient with Fe). I'm not including them because the ENFP, although she is very toxic, I met her first online and couldn't see the whole picture, and the ESFP is in fact a decent human being, and we are still friends.

• My ENFJ supervisor (+40). She looked quite well despite her age, and I found interesting the fact that she was independent and presumably hard-working. Thought intensely about her for a month. Then I knew she had cheated on her boyfriend of 3 years with one of my best friends, and then lied to the boyfriend to make him believe it was my friend who was obsessed with her, and manipulated my friend to support her version. Then, when the boyfriend knew the truth, she accused him of being responsible for the situation. She also dated a guy from a LatAm country when she was younger, made him accompany her to her home country in Europe, and asked him to leave because she was bored of him after a month.
• The INFJ who texted me through Instagram (28). She saw me on Tinder, but she is 2 years older, so she didn't appear to me because of the age filter. Then replied to one of my stories. First, she told me she didn't like me because I was too young (she knew that from the beginning). Then, after making out, she didn't want to have a relationship because she said the chances of me leaving the country were too high, and in the end, she would leave the country herself a few months later to pursue a degree that has nothing to do with her original studies.
• The sociopathic ENFJ colleague (31). Met her in a bar and talked for 2 hours; everything fine. A few weeks later, we go to a dinner with other people. After I suggest that all Ethiopian dishes taste the same and after saying that if someone is Hispanic and has a Chinese surname, it is very likely that they are Peruvian, she exhorts me to keep my biases at home, accuses me of breaking social harmony and basically implies in an incredibly aggressive manner that I say racist things. I had to take a 10-minute walk to calm down after that. We were supposed to talk privately so I could explain her why I didn't like that moment, but then she decides a week later to expel me from a work-related group chat without giving any explanation. Never talked again after that.
• The ENFJ without clear ideas (24). Met her a few times through mutual friends and she seemed interested, but then I was told she was in a long-distance relationship. I decided not to pursue her because of that, but even though I knew the fact that she had not mentioned her boyfriend for 6 months was a HUGE red flag, I found her super interesting. Confessed my feelings to her and asked her to tell me if I had 0 chances so I could move on; her reply: "you should act as if you had 0 chances." Went on 2 more dates, but then she got incredibly emotional because of a discussion we had on nature vs. nurture stuff (it had been quite amusing for me, only realized she was triggered when her hands started literally shaking), sent me the longest text message I ever received in my life describing me as a soulless monster, and asked me for "time, space and boundaries" before we could meet again. Didn't hear about her in almost 2 months, then she apologized and proposed to meet again, but that never materialized.

If you made it until the end, thanks for your time. I hope you enjoyed and also hope to read you in the comments 😊

TL;DR: I keep falling for toxic women, particularly ENFJs, and I'm not as attracted to healthier, more balanced women. Seeking insights into why this happens and advice on avoiding limerence towards the wrong people. Have you experienced this with ENFJs? What psychological causes might underlie this behavior? Any techniques, habits, or books to recommend?
Hi everyone! I'm opening this thread because after a few years of dating and actively pursuing girls I've noticed a pattern that doesn't look very positive: I seem to exclusively fall in love with women that are quite toxic and even sociopathic in some cases (an ENTP friend told me once: "the girls you like are usually quite sus lol"). These women have always been xNFJ. At the same time, I'm not so passionately attracted to other women that could be considered healthier and more balanced.
I would really want to understand what the explanation for this phenomenon could be.
Below I'm giving more context and some reflections that I hope some of you will find useful, but for those who are unwilling to keep reading, I would like to ask you a few questions.

• Have you ever experienced this before (more specifically with ENFJs) and in a recurrent manner
• What do you think are the underlying ultimate psychological causes of this kind of unhealthy behaviour?
• Which techniques, methods, habits have worked for you to avoid becoming limerent towards the wrong person?
• Any books you think are worth recommending (preferably something practical and prescriptive, I already read Love and Limerence, but it was eminently descriptive)?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Conditions to Fall in Love

I've identified these characteristics in all the women I've considered as potential soulmates.

• Attraction towards Fe-proficient individuals. I'm not sure if this is the case for all INTPs. I don't remember having such a liking for xNFJs when I was younger; it seems to have begun after I started treating Extraverted Feeling as an area I really need to improve. I like when people show (an exaggerated) interest in my pastimes and ideas or when they put my needs first (e.g. pouring water in your glass first during a dinner). And I guess it makes sense. In Projection and Personality we can read that we can "idealize the opposite attitude, especially in the opposite sex, making partnerships in order that the partner will play a complementary role for us. Jung commented that this was fairly frequent in marriage and even necessary, but such idealizing biases are just as deluded as the negative biases. Each “attitude-type” projects attributes onto the other that are not rightly his or hers", and that the use of the inferior function can lead one to become "addicted to or infatuated by activities or individuals associated with the function." Personality Cafe's user Entropic wrote an interesting comment about this as well.

This might explain the preference for toxic, unbalanced individuals. A toxic ENFJ would be one that is an Fe-Se loop, which apparently entails being extremely consciuos and responsive to other people's needs and feelings while constantly looking for new stimulating experiences such as doing aerobic sports, partying, or travelling.

• Attraction towards Ni-Se Axis Users. Despite what Socionics proposes, I've never found our duals (ESFJs) attractive at all. Notwithstanding their command of Fe, they appear to me as shallow, uninteresting, and simple-minded (no offense intended, I'm just stating what I perceive). The same for ISFJs; in the last weeks I ran into a very beautiful ISFJ girl a few times, and despite finding her very physically appealing, no infatuation could take place there because her conversation was one-sided, superficial, and ultimately, unfulfilling. On top of that, they (and people in the Si-Ne Axis in general) tend to lack a fondness for touching, which I personally find very interesting in a romantic partner.

I believe these two conditions explain why INFJs and, particularly, ENFJs can be so alluring to me (and perhaps to other INTPs): they tend to have top-notch social skills, are great conversationalists and know how to touch people in the right moment and at the right place to create a sense of connection.

• Importance of physical attractiveness. Infatuation does not happen with every INFJ and ENFJ I encounter. I also need to feel the urge to mix my genes together with those of the other person. I know a slightly older ENFJ girl who is a good friend of an ENTP girl friend of mine Although she displays a lot of behaviours I know I would consider attractive under different conditions, I don't find her hot enough, so the spell does not work out, and I am able to impartially see how unhinged she is.

Why Limerence Keeps Coming Back

• Immature Fi. This is a bit speculative, but I believe if I still feel limerent every so and so despite being 28 it is because of an incapacity to control and structure my own strong emotions, which is the territory of Introverted Feeling (recently, I read a biography of Madame Curie and found super relatable her affair with Paul Langevin, during which she behaved in a complete irrational manner in spite of being over her 40s). There could, of course, be non-personality-type-related reasons (which is what I'm actually trying to find out), but Fi-doms don't seem to experience this state of anxiety that frequently. I discussed this with my ISFP mother, and she admitted feeling "butterflies in her belly" only once in her lifetime, when she was in high school. Never again felt that way, not even with my ENTJ father, but that doesn't prevent her from loving him. I also discussed it with an INFP colleague, and he also said that maybe he felt this way when he was a teenager but has never felt it in his adult relationships. To me that could point to an ability present in Fi-doms to quickly and intuitively learn how to self-adjust in certain situations that caused internal distress in the past. What makes me believe this could be true is that I know that, for example, ENFJs can also fall in love hard and can get depressed after a breakup. Another ENFJ friend of my ENTP girl friend broke up recently with a long-term partner and she seems to have been suffering from melancholy and a sentiment of meaninglessness and loss of direction. She said she has always believed that you need to feel infatuated to love someone, and I believe ENFJs also have Fi in a critical spot.

The Women I Have Fallen in Love With

I want to describe four women I've gotten to know well and who ended up being quite crazy despite having initially awaken very strong feelings in me. I hope to show with that that I'm not the problem and that there is a grounded pattern that involves different types of women that only share their psychological type. I also got infatuated with 2 other ENFJ women, but that was temporarily (after sleeping with one, and after seeing the other in a few social gatherings) and couldn't know them on a deeper level. And I pursued an ENFP an ESFP as well (which, in their way, are also quite proficient with Fe). I'm not including them because the ENFP, although she is very toxic, I met her first online and couldn't see the whole picture, and the ESFP is in fact a decent human being, and we are still friends.

• My ENFJ supervisor (+40). She looked quite well despite her age, and I found interesting the fact that she was independent and presumably hard-working. Thought intensely about her for a month. Then I knew she had cheated on her boyfriend of 3 years with one of my best friends, and then lied to the boyfriend to make him believe it was my friend who was obsessed with her, and manipulated my friend to support her version. Then, when the boyfriend knew the truth, she accused him of being responsible for the situation. She also dated a guy from a LatAm country when she was younger, made him accompany her to her home country in Europe, and asked him to leave because she was bored of him after a month.
• The INFJ who texted me through Instagram (28). She saw me on Tinder, but she is 2 years older, so she didn't appear to me because of the age filter. Then replied to one of my stories. First, she told me she didn't like me because I was too young (she knew that from the beginning). Then, after making out, she didn't want to have a relationship because she said the chances of me leaving the country were too high, and in the end, she would leave the country herself a few months later to pursue a degree that has nothing to do with her original studies.
• The sociopathic ENFJ colleague (31). Met her in a bar and talked for 2 hours; everything fine. A few weeks later, we go to a dinner with other people. After I suggest that all Ethiopian dishes taste the same and after saying that if someone is Hispanic and has a Chinese surname, it is very likely that they are Peruvian, she exhorts me to keep my biases at home, accuses me of breaking social harmony and basically implies in an incredibly aggressive manner that I say racist things. I had to take a 10-minute walk to calm down after that. We were supposed to talk privately so I could explain her why I didn't like that moment, but then she decides a week later to expel me from a work-related group chat without giving any explanation. Never talked again after that.
• The ENFJ without clear ideas (24). Met her a few times through mutual friends and she seemed interested, but then I was told she was in a long-distance relationship. I decided not to pursue her because of that, but even though I knew the fact that she had not mentioned her boyfriend for 6 months was a HUGE red flag, I found her super interesting. Confessed my feelings to her and asked her to tell me if I had 0 chances so I could move on; her reply: "you should act as if you had 0 chances." Went on 2 more dates, but then she got incredibly emotional because of a discussion we had on nature vs. nurture stuff (it had been quite amusing for me, only realized she was triggered when her hands started literally shaking), sent me the longest text message I ever received in my life describing me as a soulless monster, and asked me for "time, space and boundaries" before we could meet again. Didn't hear about her in almost 2 months, then she apologized and proposed to meet again, but that never materialized.

If you made it until the end, thanks for your time. I hope you enjoyed and also hope to read you in the comments 😊

Recently, I once again wanted to carefully study the disappearance of Anthonette Cayedito, but still did not find any useful new information. I would like to know the opinion of the people here. Do you think she could at least be alive? Or, at best, is it possible that her captor was not cruel to her and did not cause her serious harm? This means that: she was not sexually or physically abused by the kidnapper and was not seriously traumatized by this case. I remember how some people assumed that her abductor was a man who knew her mother and who gave her flowers before she disappeared, and also that the waitress at the cafe and other people saw probably her in different states of the United States in the next few years after her disappearance. Of course, I understand that this is just a hypothesis and unlikely, but I would like to at least hope in this terrible case that her abductor was kind to her and kept her in normal conditions. although even if he was, it does not make the case much better. Link to information about case: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/cold-case-spotlight/31-years-ago-anthonette-cayedito-disappeared-n743951

It was a cute book lol. I don't know how to go about describing this book so I'm just going to say parts I remember.
I remember that the guy's ex (before his current fiance) broke up with him because he didn't propose to her at all after dating for 10 years (i think?). I also remember the book having a side character which is just the guy's friend who is like a comedic relief character I think. Like he encourages the main guy to do a lot of silly stuff.
The stuff his fiance does before he finds out about the wedding plan really makes you think that she's cheating. Like the guy finds her talking to someone else in a cafe without his knowledge, and stuff.
The way he finds out about the wedding is that he comes home one day to find his wife in a wedding dress with another man who he remembers as the same guy he found her talking to in the cafe (I think, I might be misremembering things).
Now that I'm thinking more about this book, I remember a scene where the guy gets drunk with his friends as a "bachelor party" i think. And he wakes up in a random hotel room bed and thought he cheated, but turns out its just his wife finding out that he's drunk and bringing him to a hotel room lol

Hey everyone - so let me start off by saying that I didn't bring this Jenday home because I wanted one or because I was under any illusion that they were an ideal species for my situation. I brought her home because I was at the bird store getting supplies for my GCC and she was in a tiny cage with one perch and one scrappy toy and was clearly in a bad way, but seemed completely forgotten about by the staff. She's almost 6 months old and seems very delayed - physically and mentally - so I wanted to get her out of there, but I didn't really have a plan beyond that.
She's starting to make her... sounds... and wow. I knew they were loud, I've been in bird circles for years, but I've only ever spent time with aratingas at the store where it's already loud. I was told Jendays are either less noisy or lower pitched than Suns, and figured it was maybe sort of a safe bet that I could at least help her out of there. IDK, probably an individual bird thing. But wow, this is something else. And she's still maturing and getting used to us, so I'm sure she'll get louder. Luckily, so far she isn't *noisy* so the loud sounds are intermittent, not constant.
So, I live in a duplex. My living room (and the bird cages/stands) are on the far end of the building with no shared wall, so between them and the neighbor's wall is the living room, short hall, and bedrooms. I've never heard a peep from my neighbor on my side of the building, but she made a complaint about my dog two years ago. Nothing since. He barks constantly when I leave, so I just bring him with me most places now. From my bedroom with the door closed I can hear the Jenday, but it's about half as loud as being in the same room. On the lower level there are two cinderblock garages in-between my side and the neighbor, but it gets pretty cold down there.
I was riding the high of getting this girl out of that cage, but now reality is setting in and I'm so stressed that the neighbor will complain. My landlord knows I have a bird and is fine with it. I don't have to pay extra rent for my GCC, but I do pay for my dog. I'm not really sure how to bring this up to him - I think most landlords see "caged animals" as a moot point, so I don't know if I even should say anything about there being a second bird?
I plan to move in with my partner in November, and he lives in a house so this won't be an issue anymore at that point. But I need to figure out how to make this work until then.
Would you tell the neighbor or wait to see if it's a problem? Would you tell the landlord?
Any recommendations for sound proofing? I could cover the walls in the two bedrooms that split the building with panels or curtains, but I don't want to put up anything toxic (I have kids too) and there seem to be a lot of numbers involved in sound proofing levels and I have no idea what they mean. What "level" of sound proofing would muffle a Jenday enough that it could potentially pass as an obnoxious wild bird outside?
Thanks 😅
tl:dr - Need non-toxic sound proofing recommendations for a shared wall to muffle a Jenday's calls. Also wondering if you tell your landlords when you bring in a new (small) bird if they're already ok with you having one.

My dad just got moved into a much nicer and larger nursing home today. The first thing I noticed was how spacious it was compared to his last room. However, it's obviously very basic and sterile looking. Plain gray walls, a gray curtain separating the two beds, a tv, a small black nightstand, and a small black cabinet for clothing (this is in a hallway leading into his room, not in his actual room). He has ample space in the rest of the room, so I asked if I could get him a few things to make it feel more like home. I asked about a very small book shelf for under his TV and they said no because they can't have any extra things in there for belongings and that all his books and knick knacks can go in the nightstand. I asked about a small area rug and they said no because it's a tripping hazard (that I completely understand). I asked about bringing in a small armchair from his house and they said no they don't allow any outside furniture. I asked about a mirror where he can do his morning routine/beard and hair pomade etc. and they said no because a mirror is a safety hazard. They basically said the only thing I can bring in is a few pictures.
Any ideas on how to make the room feel less like a hospital room with so many regulations?

Hi Reddit,
I've been working at a cafe now for under 2 months to get some extra money to pay off debt and have some extra money in my pocket. I have a full time job that is WFH, makes just enough pay, and I work with the loveliest team! I've never served before so the industry is completely new to me. I have great customer service skills but I make mistakes from time to time (that are not major).
People at the cafe and one of the managers makes me feel like a complete dumb ass. There are some people who work there that are really sweet but they don't work the same shifts I do. Somethings in the industry I just don't know and it's not my fault because I wasn't trained. Ex: there are selections on the POS that we don't have so they end up getting rung up incorrectly and I get chewed out for it. Another instance is that I didn't know that you had to select "Titos" and "in margarita" and not "Margarita with titos". Chewed out for that one too because we lost money on it. It's gotten to the point where my anxiety has gotten debilitating and I feel like crying every time I get scheduled for a shift. I did cry after that manager I mentioned before said out loud (in front of everyone) that I messed up on two tables. I completely broke down and I am not usually like this. I can handle shit in my regular job which gets stressful from time to time. Handling two jobs at once is a LOT.
THere are some personal things going on that is making it worse. I got on more medications to cope with just being at the restaurant. I'm at the point where I just want to quit. I'm scheduled for a shift tonight and I told them I'd be there but I don't want to show up. I work evenings and am part time and make $100 MAYBE a week. I just don't think it's worth it. Worth it for the money and not worth it for my mental health.
I feel horrible for being a no-show. I've never done it but then again I'm on the verge of a meltdown here. Has anyone had a similar experience and can shed some comfort? I feel horrible for thinking about being a no-show. I don't know how to feel about this.

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Our interview with Omar Apollo is serving cnt. Omar—Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter whose new album God Said No is out June 28th—was kind enough to make time for us during a very busy Met Gala week to give us a scene report from fashion’s biggest night, a peek behind the Loewe squad curtain and tell his side of the story about that *one TikTok, being bros with Jonathan Anderson, his love of Full Metal Jacket, what it was really like growing up as a gay Mexican-American in Indiana, a personal history of sugar daddies and unrequited love, whether or not he’s a spiteful person, long distance relationships and the keys to fire FaceTime sex, what we can expect from his new music, how he measures success, the hottest bros and biggest fits from around the globe, what his friend Tyler, the Creator taught him about self-promotion, being a vet of the McDonald’s trenches, dating as his star rises, making music for yourself and much more on Omar Apollo’s interview with The Only Podcast That Matters™.

Thoughts?

Doesn't make any sense, every single person who wants to use the internet uses their phone. How do internet cafes in 2024 stay in business

Well. Tomorrow was the day. David was aware of the looming deadline over his head, but the fact that it was tomorrow felt more real. David spent most of the day taking a moment to himself. From the Cyclops, to the chimera, to his two quests, he never felt like he did enough. His quests were just glorified scouting expeditions, so he hardly had any Kleos from that. Every injury, every broken bone, every cut and scrape kept him up at night as he wondered if the oath would kill him or if his journey would be the one that would be his end. And at the same time, a question ran through his head, every single day of his time he was in camp.
Was David a hero? To be honest, he wasn't sure.
All his sweat, all his tears, all the times he fought through the pain of broken bones, the times he fought back his anxiety. He refused for it to come to nothing. Even when he felt like he would end up like he’d fail. That he'd end up a cautionary tale for campers to refuse to do Styx Oaths, he still carried onwards.
His mood soured even more as he remembered Alkis. Hm…he wondered what was up with his friend/mentor. As his oath got closer and closer, he saw less and less of the son of Dionysus. A part of him wondered if he distanced himself, in case that he would end up having to deal with David if his oath were to be broken. Whatever happened to him, he hoped that he was doing well. He heard he was doing better at Olympus, back when camp visited. A shame he couldn’t be there to catch up.
As David’s mind continued to muse, another uncomfortable part of him realized that the oath that caused him so much stress might not have been such a bad thing. He found friends, and a girlfriend on his journey. Even his body changed, his physique turning more into lean muscle as he grew to be well over six feet in height. Win or lose his little wager, one thing was for sure, David changed for the better at the end of it.
Well, it still wasn't hard confirmation, which was killing him. Self-improvement was great and all, but David really hoped his efforts were enough to not get eternal damnation. In the last week, David spent the last few days in a state of peace, more or less. Like when you finish a final exam. No matter what happened, David couldn't stop it now.
So, Was David a hero? Well, he did all he could to try. The rest was up to fate.
But, David was not the only one with their mind on the next day. To his surprise, both of his best friends, Cel and Jules worked on the beach to set up a bit of an early birthday party. They set up a good amount of streamers and balloons on the beach, David’ favorite music and set up lots of sweets, with David’s favorite food, al pastor. It was nice to know that, even if ths was his last day before damnation, he could enjoy himself.
Eventually, as the birthday party went on, David stood up to give a speech. He gave a somewhat awkward smile as the night went on, well aware of his time that may be coming to the end.
“So…almost eighteen years. If you told me when I came to camp that I'd make a dumb bet in front of my dad and risk my eternal damnation, I'd probably think you were crazy. And maybe run away. But yeah, uh. Word of advice: please don't do a Styx oath. It's not just a spicy way to say I swear. Trust me, the stress will kill you.”
He chuckled as he took a drink of water. Clearing his throat, he continued to talk.
“But, to my family, to my friends, to Ellie. Thank you all, for helping me. I'm so lucky to have all of you in my corner. I've done all I could to uphold my end of the oath.”
He took a shaky breath, giving a smile that he tried to be reassuring, but it came out as more nervous than anything else.
“To be honest a part of me feels that I could have done more. But, whatever happens, happens. I just wish I could have had more…ah. You know…this is getting really heavy and like, I'd rather not so uh. Ahem. Everyone, please. Enjoy yourself. There's cake still I think…”
As the night went on, the son of Ares opened presents. He wasn't sure how practical this was, if he was being honest considering there was a non zero chance he wouldn't be able to enjoy it. But, he appreciated the gesture so, he gratefully opened each one. A Mythomagic box set, some Yu-Gi-Oh cards, some celestial bronze weapons… as he opened and opened every gift, there was one more box he saw. It was the size of a shoe box, in bronze giftwrapping. It didn't have a tag, or any way to tell who it was from. Huh. Odd. David opened the gift, and in the box was a bronze survival lighter and two pieces of paper, one folded and one rolled up. David picked up the smaller paper and read it out loud which said:
“To [DAVID RUIZ], we have reviewed your Styx oath in full and have determined that the oath has been fulfilled. In this package is your contract, now null and void. As it is no longer eternally binding, we recommend for you to dispose of it, as to avoid identity theft. We here at Styx Legal Associates recommend the traditional method packaged in with it, but as it is no longer binding for all of the afterlife, feel free to shred, burn or dispose of it as you see fit. Sincerely, Styx Legal Associates."
David opened the other paper, and sure enough it was his exact words, written on the contract. Along with…huh. So the Underworld has his social. Honestly, should have seen that coming. Making sure Jules didn't catch a peek at that, he grabbed the lighter and held it under his contract.
The paper burnt slower than David thought, the fire slowly chewing the contract as it pitted and blackened. David didn't realize he was holding his breath, until halfway through he let his breath out.
Two years. He forced himself in this oath for two years, proving to himself and hopefully, his father that he could shape up. It was risky, but his mind recalled when his Conquistador ancestors arrived to the New World, how they burnt their ships. It was a declaration, no going back.
Well, they were bastards, but the gesture was a neat idea.
David's eyes fixed on the paper, as if it would magically grow back if he turned his face away. This was it. Decisive victory, over his father for thinking he was a waste of space. But most importantly, against himself. His cowardice, his weak will, his anxieties. He took the pressure of the oath and became much better for it. For all the sleepless nights, for all the broken bones and near-death experiences it caused. The strange thing was he wasn't sure that he'd take it back if given the chance.
He wouldn't have met Ellie, or any other of his closest friends if not for his binding oath. So, as strange as it was, he felt a bit bittersweet as he watched it go up, now only a quarter of the contract left. As horrible as it was, it was a chapter of his life that molded who he was. Without the oath, forcing him to push himself every day to his limits, to ensure his own survival he wasn't sure that he'd be the person he was today.
Yet, he was looking forward to this new part of his life as the flame ate away at the paper. He watched it start to engulf the last remnants of it, reaching up to his fingertips.
“Ah!”
He instinctively waved his hand, dropping the shreds of paper as it fell onto the ground below. It burnt the last remnants until nothing was left but smoking ashes that David quickly put out with his shoe.
Finally. David was free.
And so, the Son of Ares, brave hero, on the night before his eighteenth birthday, wept.
OOC:
And there we have it! The conclusion to one of my favorite story arcs I've ever done in RP. Thanks to all of you for following along, from start to end! When I made David, I was surprised that, what originally was a simple character concept quickly became one of my favorites. It was really fun to write a character go from a wimp to a true hero in every sense of the word. With that, the curtains close on a two year long story arc. If you wanna rp with David, or just have your character hang during the party, both are good! This is a celebration both IC and OOC!
That being said, I'm not completely finished with David, so stay tuned...

Hey guys! So I actually quit drinking 5 months ago. It first started off as me drinking socially with friends on weekends, and then it turned into having a glass of wine during daytime at cafes, and then drinks at the movies, and then drinks at concerts, and before I knew it, I could no longer function socially without alcohol or weed. I ended up quitting two years after I started drinking because I noticed that I low key had a problem and I wanted to quit while I was fairly young before I became a full blown alcoholic. I’m 23 now and I’ve just been reflecting lately on three occasions where I blacked out: two of them, I could barely walk and ended up embarrassing myself in public and in front of friends, and the other time, I threw up on myself 😭. The shame still haunts me ngl. And I just remember what had led me to those states was taking one drink, and not feeling buzzed, and then taking another, and not feeling quite satisfied, and continuing to drink to chase that euphoric feeling I got the first time I drank (spoiler: I never ever got that feeling again!). And I’m just curious if this is a common experience for addicts? It must be, right? Anyway, I completely stopped taking all substances and instead became medicated for my anxiety and started exercising, meditating, and going to therapy. I don’t even smoke anything with nicotine anymore because I value my health that much (not even the cheeky hookah!). I’m completely steadfast on my sobriety because I’ve seen how these substances affected me in just that short amount of time. I want to live a healthier and longer life and cherish the body I have. Ngl, I noticed the alcohol, coupled with the late nights, was taking a huge toll on me and making me look ugly and sick. That shit ages you! Anyway, I’m finally starting to feel like myself again. I feel content and happy and I enjoy my reality now. I don’t need any recreational substances to have fun. I literally enjoy every single day because I do so much inner work and I try to stay disciplined in my healthy habits. I’m like a grandma now, I go to bed at 9 am and wake up at 5am. I go for a run every morning, I journal, I eat healthy, I spend quality time with friends and family. It’s crazy because I couldn’t imagine myself at peace sober. I remember going to the dispensary every single day and buying a shit load of edibles, or pregaming before literally anything 😩. But getting treated for my anxiety helped a lot. I really used alcohol and drugs as a crutch, does that make sense? And now I don’t need to anymore because of my medication and lifestyle change. I feel soooo much better and healthier now! I feel lighter and younger and more energetic and relaxed! Anyway, wishing everyone good luck on the sobriety journey because it’s hard in the beginning but ya just gotta bite the bullet and do it! Each healthy habit leads to the next one being easier and before you know it, BOOM! Discipline and consistency.

Here we are again in the shit stew that is the Fallowveil trailer park. We’ve got soul eating strippers, jobs that kill us, and plenty of weirdos, both the trailer trash and the potentially paranormal variety. It’s the place where even your own computer sometimes threatens to kill you. I can’t tell if I should be worried, or annoyed that all my neighbors have such irresponsible web habits. I know it’s not me that brings in all these machine wiping viruses.
So even though I got a system error that literally said “you’re useless and you should die” I’m less interested in that. Stupid thing. Like I don’t already know I’m useless. That’s not what I’m depressed about.
Well… I suppose it's tangentially related.
I hope anyone reading will forgive me. I’m feeling the sting of rejection right now. It was really stupid of me to ask. Especially now. Nobody here really likes me. They’ve only been nice to me as a courtesy because I was almost involved in a god damn shootout. And my idiot self decided that was the perfect time to push one of my few friends all the way away. Never ask your friends out on dates. It ruins everything.
So there’s this woman. I’ve talked about her in the past. Trista Ramone. She lives in the far back corner of the trailer park. You can instantly tell which unit is hers because she’s covered every square inch of the property with gardens and a rabbit hutch. The place usually has beads and colorful flags hanging on its walls as well. She’s kind of a right winger’s nightmare. I know some of those flags represent various lgbtq plus communities.
She and I have been friendly in the past. We’re both night shift workers. We crossed paths quite a bit going to and from work so we struck up a friendship over the years.
Let’s just ripped the band aid off. Recently I’ve started thinking I had… stronger feelings for Trista. I got stupid and decided to tell her about them. She wasn’t interested. I get why. We have very different lifestyles. I like meat, and she thinks the meat industry is murder. I’m not willing to give up meat, and she’s not willing to give up her beliefs. It's as simple as that. Now things are incredibly awkward with one of my closer friends and I’m still spiraling into self loathing, where I belong.
She swore up and down that she absolutely still wants to be friends with me, but I’m not sure I believe her. The look she gave me when I told her I’d like to ask her out. It looked like sadness, but a small part of me is convinced it was pity, or worse, disgust and loathing, and that small part gave me ever shuts the fuck up. But anyway, she gave me permission to write about her.
She is one of the creepy fixtures of our little neighborhood after all. She told me to make her seem as insane and scary as I possibly could and that she should get to kill me at the end. She also handed me a few of her high school yearbooks, advised me to chat with another neighbor of ours who she went to school with, and to only use creepy rumors for the rest.
Part of me is really willing to describe her as awful, but that’s just my anger. I don’t like that part of me. Trista’s not a bad person at all. She’s just weird and she doesn’t want to date me. God damn it, Petunia’s right. I need therapy.
So, I’ve told the story of the sexy, scary lady living in a polycule here in the trailer park. I think she’s got a bigger heart than she lets on. I’ve talked about the stories surrounding the Schroeder Slaughterhouse. Now let’s talk about the hippy everyone thinks is a vampire.
She’s a taller woman, maybe five-seven or eight, and she’s skinny. Her typical wardrobe is… interesting. Try to imagine your typical new-age hippy/stoner girl, wearing colorful sarongs, crop-tops, beanies, baggy sweaters, T-shirts with colorful sayings on them, sandals, boots woven from some sort of exotic plant, beaded necklaces, bracelets, a few too many piercings and some intricate tattoos. Can you picture that kind of person? Well, take that and dip them in “goth” dye. Everything is black, and contrasts to her pale white complexion, her eyes are this unusual violet color, and then make the woman wearing all that seem kind of depressed about something. That’s the look Trista has going on. Like if Wednesday Addams was forced to dress up for Hippy Day.
I’ve heard people call her an emo vampire, but as a former emo myself, she doesn’t fill out all the criteria. She doesn’t typically wear any super tight pants or cake on the eyeshadow. I guess she’s just Trista. It might sound weird (and it is) but the whole thing suits her. Her style, tattoos, and complexion all create this image of skinny vampiric waif with a mysterious past and a freaky sarcastic attitude and I found the whole thing… kinda hot.
Trista keeps to herself. She’s made the most out of her little corner of the trailer park. Like I said, she decked out her unit with garden squares, and a Rabbit pen. No idea why she’s allowed to do that. A lot of these places don’t allow pets. I heard she was also trying to put in a beehive too, but her neighbors are fighting her on that one. Our park is a bit too condensed for bees. She has a permit to grow hemp, but of course it’s not for recreational use. She treats it and uses it to weave things like handbags, clothes, and other stuff. There’s a consignment store in town that sells all kinds of things Trista has crafted herself. So she’s handy and self sufficient too. She paints, she carves wood, she weaves, she crochets, she sews, and who knows what else. She’s so good at her little crafts that apparently she’s able to support herself just selling them and working part time at the Moonlight Inn outside of town.
She’s also relatively friendly. I almost feel bad calling her weird, but here’s the thing, I’ve seen some REALLY weird shit. People jokingly call her a vampire, and she seems to embrace that, but part of me seriously wonders. The big clue is, like I mentioned, she’s completely nocturnal. She’s always asleep during the day, and every blind and curtain is drawn tight. The one time she came out during the day, she had on this full body suit with a helmet with UV glass and everything. Even then, she only showed up to give Petunia a hug, before leaving again.
That was the first time I saw Trista, come to think of it. I was kind of intrigued. It was kind of hard not to be when someone shows up to a community cookout in a freaking astronaut suit. I approached Petunia after she left.
“Who the heck was that?” I wondered.
“MASON! I’m so glad you could make it! You’ve been here about three months now! How’d that job interview go?”
“Oh. It went well. I might be doing janitorial work soon.”
“Night shift?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“If it’s the night shift, you’ll definitely meet the person who just left. That’s Trista. She’s the girl with the rabbits in the far corner. Poor girl. She’s got a really bad skin condition. Can’t let sunlight touch her.”
“Oh. Is she like… albino or something?”
“No, she’s got pigment. I don’t remember what the condition is called. I guess it started in high school or something. You’d have to ask her. And hey! If you work the night shift, you’ll probably get to chat with her!”
Petunia wasn’t wrong. I started working as a nighttime janitor for a number of local businesses. That was when I first started noticing the pale goth hippy. She rides around on a moped, with her dark hair and her sarong barely billowing behind her. I couldn’t see her face through the helmet, but she waved to me as she passed by.
The next time I saw her, she was jogging, but here’s where it gets weird. When I first stepped outside, all I saw was a blur. It actually startled me as I whipped toward it, but then there was this skinny tattooed pixie, somehow still looking like a stonehippy/vampire in jogging gear. I swear she was moving inhumanly fast when I first noticed her. That was when we introduced ourselves. She actually jogged over to say hello.
“Hey! You’re the new guy right?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. My name’s Mason!” I reached out to shake the pretty girl’s hand, like an awkward loser. She smirked and shook my hand. Her grip was weirdly strong, and a bit cold.
“I’m Trista. I’m the weirdo in the back with the rabbits.”
“Trista… oh, are you the one who has a thing with sunlight? I think Petunia mentioned you.”
“Yup! That’s me. Xerodoma pigmentosum. Sunlight hurts. I hate that it hurts.” She lamented.
“That’s gotta be rough,” I said sympathetically.
“You get used to it. You work at night?”
“Yeah. Works better for me.”
“I get that.”
And so on and so on. She’s pretty cool, with a bit of hilarious snark in there. And she secretly procured recreational weed she was willing to share. I kept working the night shift just hoping for another chance to talk to her and possibly buy a joint. Eventually she invited me over to share a joint. The inside of her place was actually pretty sparse and spartan compared to the outside. Though she was a fan of hanging beads. Most of the main room was taken up by her various crafting projects and supplies. Hemp weaves, some paintings, and even a wood carving of what I think was a rabbit, but it wasn’t anywhere near complete.
I followed her to her kitchen where she reached into the very back of her pantry and pulled out a shoebox. Inside was her stash, but there was something else which I found very strange. It was a pack of syringes and a thing I assume is to sterilize syringes. I know what you’re thinking, and that was my first thought too. It’s a poor neighborhood, the woman already smokes weed illegally, it’s not that big a shock that maybe she was involved in other drugs too. I decided not to ask at the time. We shared our joint, and we laughed, a lot. She made fun of me for being a lightweight, while I got completely hypnotized staring at the patterns of a shawl she had woven.
Months went by and we got closer, but I couldn’t forget those syringes. After a while I got worried. I’ve seen what heroine does to people. So the next time I went over to smoke and eat (vegan) pizza with her, I asked.
“Trista? Are you using anything other than weed?”
“Drugs?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Why?”
“You can tell me if you are.”
“Mason, sweetheart, I’m a stoner. I don’t fuck around with anything else and I never have.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay. Can I ask what that set of syringes are for?”
“Oh. In my stash box? Those are… part of my condition. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh. Is it like… embarrassing?”
“Yeah. So don’t ask. Can we just watch a movie?”
So I don't ask anymore. But I still have no idea what she does with those syringes. Based on what I read about that Xerodoma Pigmentosum thing she says she has, I have no clue what she would need to inject herself with.
Another time she asked me to check on her rabbits for her during the day, as her usual “sitter” had something come up. All I had to do was chop up the lettuce and carrots she left out. As I was enjoying the adorable fluffy faces, one of Trista’s neighbors, a woman named Bridget, poked her head outside her door.
“Hey. Do you know what Trista injects those rabbits with?”
“I… what?”
“I’ve seen her use syringes on those rabbits. She said she was just giving them medicine, but I swear I see her inject them every week.”
“I… I wouldn't know. She just asked me to feed them.”
“I love Trista, but that always seemed so weird. She has to know vaccines are a hoax!” I tuned the woman out after that one. My mind was on that set of syringes. Why would she be using them on rabbits? These things were her pets.
I was starting to crush on her by then. But I couldn’t help feeling weirded out by that. I was actually going to confront her, but the next time I came to visit, she was literally inside the Rabbit hutch, on her back, squealing with delight as her rabbit friends nuzzled and played with her.
“Bonnibelle! That tickles! Marcy! No chewing. Finn? Watch where you’re sticking that foot! Jake? Where are you? EEEEE Lumpy! Not the neck!”
It was as silly and adorable as it sounds. She was forced to whip herself upright when two of her little friends tried to burrow under her dress. She finally stood up with a laugh, cradling a rabbit in her arms and cooing at it.
There was just no way in hell this woman was doing anything that would hurt these animals. Bridget is a paranoid antivax weirdo anyway. If Trista was using syringes on the rabbits, I was convinced it was only for their benefit.
So life went on. I got more and more reclusive over the years. Petunia, Trista, and my next door neighbor Fred were the only things keeping me remotely connected to the outside. And so we get to now. So let’s see. What are the stories about the weird vampire woman?
Well, there’s the fact that she jogs at night, solo, in a poor neighborhood. Petunia keeps the shitty people contained and behaving for the most part, but I still wouldn’t exactly call it safe, especially for a young skinny woman. But she does it without a care in the world.
There’s one strange event that some people like to connect to this. I never knew this guy, but from what I hear he was a total weirdo who leered at anyone even remotely female. And this is despite the fact he was married. His name was Josh.
I remember him a bit. He’s the guy that Petunia chased away from one of her barbecues. Supposedly he was heard saying inappropriate things to the groups of ten year old girls that were playing in the bounce house Petunia rented. Telling them how pretty they were. Trying to coax them to take off their jackets. Police reports were filed but ultimately nothing could be proven. The guy's wife, Carole, always defends him for some reason.
But anyway, I remember hanging out with Trista one night a little over a year ago. She hadn’t gone jogging like she normally did. I asked her what was up with that.
“That weirdo, Josh has started catcalling when I pass his place. It weirds me out.”
“There aren’t other people who do that at night? I’m still shocked you jog alone.”
“Not like this. I can flip off a wolf whistler. But this guy… he keeps trying to get me to stop and talk to him, and when I don’t? He shouts about my ass. I’m gonna have to talk to Petunia about that shithead, if anybody can reign him in, it’s her.”
I’m gonna guess she never got a chance. Two days later, the whole town was awoken by sirens. I was getting ready for my shift when I heard them. I walked down the road a bit to see if I could figure out what was going on. The cops were heading toward the other side of the park, so I couldn’t see much. But I did notice Trista, in her jogging gear, skulking in the shadows. I wondered if she was in trouble. But before I could call out to her, she sprinted straight to Petunia's house and banged on the door. Petunia welcomed her inside, and that was all I saw. I still wasn’t sure what was going on, so I just shrugged and headed to work, figuring I’d text Trista later.
I didn’t learn till later that Josh was found dead. He was lying prone, face down, partly hidden by bushes at the edge of the park. His neck was cut open. He’d bled out rapidly. He had a knife in his hand, and officially it’s believed he fell on it and accidentally killed himself. There was a cocktail of drugs in his system so most people accept that explanation. But others swear they saw Trista out for her jog around the same time Josh would have been bleeding to death. She got questioned, and she swore she didn’t see anything. Without evidence, there was nothing else that could be proven.
Trista’s a friend. I know that guy was being creepy to her. So I’m happy to take her word for what happened, even if my seeing her going to Petunia’s pokes a bit of a hole in that. I can’t be sure it was Trista though. So I’m not saying a word. But if a certain creep attacked a certain lady who is rumored to be a vampire, it’s not that surprising to me that he ended up dead after bleeding to death. I’m not all that broken up about it.
I’m not the one spreading that story. Josh’s wife was the one who started the rumor. So now some people are even more convinced that the weird nocturnal hippy chick is secretly a vampire.
She’s no killer. No matter what they say. She would only have defended herself.
So that’s all the stories I’ve heard that have any credibility to them. There’s more people who swear she and Petunia perform weird rituals, and people who saw her moving “inhumanly fast” and such.
But now I have to share what I found in the yearbooks Trista gave me. I wasn’t really expecting much. I checked her senior yearbook out first. She looks about the same. Pale, goth, hippy, and sort of sad. She kind of looks even sadder in these photos if I’m being honest, but that’s high school for you. She graduated in the top half of her class, no sports or extracurriculars. I’m left wondering how she managed to go to school at the time of sun was so bad for her. I’ll have to ask her about that. So nothing really new there.
It was the yearbook from her junior year where things got really interesting. I was in shock when I found her. Trista is somehow impossible to miss, but unrecognizable all at once. She’s full of color! She wore more typical tie dye hippy attire. Bright vibrant pinks, reds, blues, greens, and yellows, in every photo, and holy shit was she busy. Captain of the soccer team, first chair flutist, president of the “green living” club and the “vegan alliance,” top ten in her class, it was all incredible. I think the main reason I didn’t recognize her was her skin. It was tan, as though she were out in the sun a lot. Furthermore there were photos of her playing sports and standing outside in bright sunlight.
It was like her disease wasn’t there, which confused me. She told me it was something called Xeroderma Pigmentosa. But that’s a genetic condition. She would have had that from birth.
I sent her a text, wondering about this.
- Hey! Just went through your yearbooks. What happened? You had color? Did you discover Linkin Park?
- My disease happened. Right at the end of Jr. year. That’s why I wasn’t there for the final class photo.
- But your disease is genetic… isn’t it?
- I guess it was dormant in me.
- So it just… happened?
- Pretty much.
- I’m sorry.
- I got over it. Mostly. It was hard. My parents were both hardcore vegan naturalists and we lived in a place that was all natural light and such, so I had to live in a shed for a bit while they built a space for me. But in my family? We kinda lean into whatever life throws at us. It took months of depression to come to terms with it. All of a sudden I couldn’t be out in the sun, and I had new dietary needs that absolutely required non-vegan sources. So I leaned into it. I was a vampire now. I can dig dark colors and “vampire style.” I could make it my own by avoiding leather. And I’d be as vegan as I possibly could.
- You’re kind of awesome.
- Damn straight. So I learned to love the night too and now, here I am.
I gained new respect for her after that. Frankly I feel kinda shitty about making fun of her for being a vampire. There might not be anything paranormally weird about her after all.
She sent me one more text telling me I should talk to a guy named Frankie. She’d gone to school with him. He’s a decent enough guy. Works in the Bicounty mall in town.
I had to wait a day or two for another of Petunia’s get togethers to talk to him.
“Hey!” I said awkwardly as I tried to figure out how to strike up conversation with someone I haven’t really spoken to in a long time. “Frankie, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. Been a while. How are you Mason? You okay after that whole thing at Red Nights?”
“I’m trying to be. Look, I’ll cut to the chase. You went to school with Trista Ramone, right?”
“Ol’ Boho Ramone? Yeah. We were sort of friendly. But I was a jerk to vegans back then. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been hanging out with her. She’s being all mysterious.” He chuckled at that. “She said I should talk to you to learn more about her… weirdness? Everyone thinks she’s a vampire now.”
“She’s totally a vampire. I have no idea what else to call her?”
“Why do you say that?”
“What did she tell you about school?”
“Nothing. She just showed me two yearbooks. Between Junior and Senior year she went from colorful club president, to lonely vampire, because of her disease.”
“Nah man. I don’t want to talk bad about her. But she was kind of a bitch, junior year. She wasn’t just a colorful vegan. She was one of those “holier than thou” types who scoffed and talked down to anyone who dared to eat meat. Her “hippy” thing meant she never hung out with the popular girls but still, she acted like she owned the place at times. I was friends with this weird guy named Steven Jones. He was just kind of a weirdo. Skulking around in the background, you know? He HATED Trista. For a while I totally understood. I thought she was kinda stuck up. But this guy was like… irrationally enraged by that girl’s existence. I guess he tried to ask her out when he was a freshman and she politely declined. But he took that shit personally.”
“Huh. So like… why’s that matter?”
“Because Steven kept saying to anyone who gave him a second look, that he was gonna ‘ruin’ her. Never elaborated. But then the last month of school rolls around, Trista gets assaulted by an unknown assailant and a week later she’s got this new disease. Meanwhile, Steven spent a week strutting around the school looking smug, and saying ‘she got what she deserved.’ Then he disappears too. Teachers said he moved away.”
“She was assaulted?”
“Yeah. Someone in a face wrap tackled her while she was at one of her protests at the meat factory. The dude freaking BIT her.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. I was there. I came to the protest. I’ll admit I was trying to hit on Trista or one of the other girls there. But yeah. Dude dressed in all gray with a face wrap just charged in and went right for Trista. Knocked her down, bit her like a freaking zombie, then ran away before anyone could stop him. Didn’t even take his face wrap off. It was freaky, man.”
“What the actual fuck.”
“That’s what we all said. Trista needed a stitch. But while she was at the hospital, I guess she started getting more symptoms. She was out for the rest of the year. From then on, she was like she is now. Total vampire.”
“Was Steven a vampire?”
“I dunno. Probably. Little dickhead is what he is. Must have been him that attacked Trista, but nobody could prove it. Bite mark didn’t match or something. So why are you asking? You hang out with her at night right? You asking her out or something?”
“Oh. No. Just a friend.”
That was all I really learned from Frankie. It’s quite a story, and it’s full of unknowns that Trista refuses to explain. So I guess I’ll let readers be the judge. Is she a “real” vampire? Or just a weirdo? All I know is, she’s totally standing behind me right now and now I’m dead. Bleh.
I did come back to life to talk to Trista once I finished writing this. She enjoyed it. I may as well include that interaction.
I went to her place on my night off. She read my take on her and what the neighbors thought and she grinned. “Ha! I’m a total monster!” She chuckled. “So. What do YOU think, Mason? Am I a vampire?” She cocked an eye and playfully gnashes her teeth at me, making a pleasant little click.
I sighed. “No idea. You’re Trista. And… you’re my friend. I’m sorry if I made things awkward.”
She looked surprised by that. “Aw. Thanks Mason. You’re my friend too. It’s okay. I’m flattered.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“So we’re cool?”
“Absolutely not. We’re both weird shut ins.” She laughed. It was good to hear her laugh. It made me happy.
“Yeah but I got the ‘mysterious vampire’ thing going.”
“You have dirt in your hair from rolling around with bunnies. And you’re a vegan.”
“Bite me.”
“Says the vampire.”
“You know, if I were a vampire, I could have bitten you when we both went to the slaughterhouses a few weeks ago.”
“That just makes me stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, Mason. You’re not a loser either.”
“So. You know of any other good spooky town stories that I can do next?
“Oh, sure. You ever heard the tale of Salome? She was a witch who would mash up the seeds of a Sinapis Alba plant to make a diabolical potion she’d dump on herself. They called her the ‘Witch of the Sands.’”
I’m embarrassed to admit it took me four days to realize Trista was just fucking with me. I only figured it out when I looked up Sinapis Alba and learned that mashing the seeds just makes mustard. “Salomi the sand-witch.” Well played, vampire hippy…
Sexy Neighbor
Haunted Slaughterhouse

Recently I moved out and away from my boyfriend of 7 months. I moved in with a friend about an hour away. During the 7 months, it felt like a giant roller coaster. There were an insane amount of highs and lows. When things were good, they were really good, but when they were bad, they were really bad. It became very exhausting over time. On top of it, there were a ton of miscommunication, unresolved conflicts, him refusing to apologize or take accountability, him cutting me off constantly in conversations, not having my basic needs met, and resentment developing due to all of it. I spent months trying to communicate anything to him which always led him to being very defensive and shutting down. I was accused of creating problems and a bunch of "I didn't start anything so nothing was wrong or my fault" statements from him. If an issue was brought up and discussing it turned into an argument, he would physically become cold and distant from me for a couple of days after. In arguments he always spun it around about his abuse growing up, his abandonment issues, his ego problems, etc. It always made me feel worse for even trying to bring anything up to him. I always felt sorry and sad for him to have experienced so much pain in life. I eventually gave up on trying to communicate and shut down for the last 3 months of living with him.
Some other things that went on:
I am a full time student and I work on top of it. Finding time to do my school work without him pestering me became difficult. If I tried to do any homework at home, he would play a game or music loudly, ask me what I was doing, attempt to show me videos, etc (he worked from home so he was constantly there.) It felt like it was more than he could stand I couldn't give him attention 24/7. If I took my laptop to a cafe or the library, he was texting me asking me where I was and getting upset if I ignored him. It would blow up into arguments later on so I stopped doing that.
My job I worked second shift as a manager at a local store. He would constantly criticize it and say it wasn't a good job, the pay wasn't good enough, it wasn't giving me the relevant experience for my degree, I should change it, I should get a work from home job instead, I'm constantly gone at night, etc. I enjoyed the job because it got me out of the house and interacting with people.
He rarely cleaned. Dishes with food caked on them always left in the sink for me to clean up later. If I didn't, he would let them sit for days or even weeks. I would mention for him to do them but he never would. I always washed my own dishes and put them away when I was done. He would live out of a laundry basket mixed with clean and dirty clothing. He never vacuumed, mopped, picked up after himself, and constantly forgot to fill the water bowl for the cat and dog.
There was a bunch of other things too but those are just a couple.
The day I moved, I didn't tell him I was moving. I listened to my family and friends to not tell him anything. He was incredibly mad and upset with me. I was a monster, normal people don't just move out, a liar, a cheater, must be some other guy, etc. The person I moved in with is a female friend. I moved everything on my own into a moving van.
Since I moved, he has been making attempts to keep the relationship going. I feel vulnerable, tired, and exhausted. My brain has been extremely foggy since then. I feel confused and like I am having "withdrawal" symptoms from him. I have talked to to him on 2 occasions on the phone regarding everything since. He tells me he is changing and becoming a better person. He recognizes all the mistakes and wants to work stuff out. He even said he would see a couples therapist, even after he made multiple statements about how therapists give bad advice in the past. Part of my brain keeps holding on to him and I don't know why. It makes me feel sick. I have attempted to break things off with him and talked to him about how everything has made me feel but he refuses to take no for answer. He's like a totally different person.
I am not sure what to do I feel stuck, tired, vulnerable, and cloudy. I have never experienced someone like this before. My previous relationship were very different and ended on fairly amicable terms. Part of me wants to find out if he truly is willing to change and step up but part of me says don't do it.
I feel so torn on what to do?

So I live in Alaska and since summer is approaching it doesn't get dark until almost midnight and the sun rises at 5 am. It's only going to progressively get lighter for longer until the summer solstice.
Because of this, I rely on black out curtains to sleep. My cat will bat the curtains as soon as the sun starts to rise every day. So at 4:30-5 am everyday she is on the window loudly hitting the blinds to open them.
I can't just keep the blinds open so she stops because I won't be able to sleep then due to the sun. I also can't just ignore her because then I can't sleep either. So how do I get her to stop?! I know for cats any behavior is good behavior so picking her up to put her out of the room or telling her to stop only makes it worse but I don"t know what else to do!
Please help lol

Hey all. For those unaware, I was in Colombia from early March until a couple of days ago. I've posted a few times about my experiences there. If you're interested, take a look at this post. For those who feel I've posted too much about one trip, don't worry; I plan on this being the final post about the country until I return in November.
I noticed that something was wrong when I returned to the UK; everyone was speaking English! This is clearly normal. What I realised was that my brain had been defaulting to Spanish. I'd noticed it occasionally while in Colombia, but it was abundantly clear when I went to a supermarket today. All those conversations in English felt wrong. Alien, somehow. I had been thinking in Spanish and talking to myself in Spanish, too. I realise that a lot of people consider that a weird habit, but I find it helpful. Anyway, that was happening almost entirely in Spanish for a couple of months, too.
I've not chosen to watch or listen to anything of significance in English since Christmas 2023, as I feel immersion helps me. However, being in the country took that to another level. My target language was there every time I walked into a supermarket or heard a conversation at a cafe. It's a little thing, but it greatly helps immersion. In my case, I taught English for a couple of hours a day, so there was that "break" from the language.
I can now almost feel my ability to think primarily in Spanish slowly slipping away every time I have a conversation in English or have to hear others speaking my native language.
We can obviously learn anywhere thanks to Pablo and the team. However, it seems clear to me that being in a country where Spanish is spoken for a couple of months makes a huge difference. I only wish it were permanent.

Well, here I am. I've avoided sharing this for over a year, but I'm finding myself trapped - even though it seems like the strangeness has ended or gone covert - I can't seem to get past the experiences I had last year. I've held this all in since then, and it has to come out somehow.
It's really long. TLDR at the bottom.
February 2023
I picked a foolish battle with my employer - a large corporation known for poor ethics, corruption and crony capitalism. I went after them hard, determined to expose their wrongdoing, and got other ex-employees involved too. We went to the media, appeared on podcasts, but I was the one who took it too far. I flew too close to the sun and got myself in deep. My juvenile attempt at being some kind of brave robin hood hero got my colleagues and I tormented by private investigators. Everyone got followed, but only two of us seemed to have anomalous experiences, and I got the worst of it. They left my friends alone when they realized I was the one facillitating everything.
After being tailed home at 4am one morning, I immediately bought security cameras and set them up. You'd think I would've got the message and backed off, but I was angry over my privacy being invaded, and felt security with the support of my colleagues. I was determined to defend what I believed in, and I resented their brazen harassment and intimidation; it was clear they didn't mind using resources to spy on me. Maybe I shouldn't have spied on them.
There's a whole lot more to that nightmare, but I'm not posting this on ; I'm here for a reason. Because I can't think of anywhere else to get the answers I'm seeking. I need help, and I want to talk to experiencers who can help me make sense of what happened, hell, I'll even settle for advice on moving forward, and getting the past shit out of my head.
March-April
I started noticing anomalies on the cameras I set up. It was strange and got my attention, but very subtle at first; it was more confusing than anything. I should mention my lifelong interest in aliens and UAP, quite literally as long as I can remember; but that interest dwindled after my teen years. I'm almost 30 and have real life shit to worry about, clearly.
Not even a month later, things were getting weird. I saw orbs split in two and three, merge back together and go right through solid objects. Right in front of my house. This kind of activity began happening more frequently (or I became more aware), until one night I noticed a drone-like object following my car. I went home, and sure enough, it stopped over the street in front of my house. I realized this must be something supernatural, as it was similar strangeness to what I saw on my cameras. Splitting apart, dramatic color shifts, and just plain bizarreness.
I left for work the next morning, it was still dark, and the orb was still following me from a distance; it wasn't too close, but it definitely wasn't far either - it just seemed like it was continuosly locked onto me. By this point, I'm getting concerned, and as a heroic whistleblower committed to getting to the bottom of anything and everything, I investigated. I realized these things really were following me. So I started documenting. They would come out of nowhere and into my field of view. I'd be laying in bed, watching TV, and an orb would float between a small gap in the curtains where it was obvious and I couldn't ignore it.
By now I'm pretty worried about these ongoing events, but my curious cosmic side was intrigued. I didn't like what was happening, but I definitely found it fascinating and kind of cool. So I filmed. Every single day. I was followed by strange lights for six months straight, and it wasn't only happening at night.
I started seeing figures of light beings outside my house. Gray-type beings that looked like they were using magic or casting spells. I had never considered or believed in beings like this. I didn't really believe in demons, but that's the closest thing I can describe them as, like shapeshifting Jinn. But multiple types of entities, my house became a hotspot for strangeness I couldn't even fathom.
Many of the beings I filmed I noticed later when analyzing my videos. I would be filming one anomaly, focused on that, completely unaware of any activity right next to me. But I got better at picking them out over time. I was committed to studying my videos over and over, trying different color levels, shadows and contrast to better pick out the anomalies.
August
By now I had taken hundreds of videos on both my iPhone and security cams. I learned that my iPhone 14 had trouble capturing these things, even when they were stationary or nearby. My camera struggled to focus, and when I tried zooming in on an orb or entity, it would shoot my camera out of focus. I have some pretty cool shots of this happening. Whatever it was, it probably didn't care to be filmed. It was far too difficult to get a good shot. I have a solid phone model and was shooting in 4K; I would get a clear image, then try to focus on orbs/NHI, but end up with glitchy artifacts and static noise in my videos
September
I'll never forget the feelings and emotions I felt the next month. I was looking back at videos from April, and I found something I hadn't noticed from April 26-28. It looked like I was abducted. I filmed what looked like an arm come down from the trees, and it appeared to take me, or maybe take my 'astral' body? Then half of a gray's face briefly appeared in frame; it looks like the Gray on the cover of Communion.
The next video on my phone I didn't remember taking. Mere minutes later, it looks like I'm approaching a door I've never seen in my life, and my body goes right through it. Then I'm back in my house. Its a short three second clip, but it was definitive proof to me that I experienced high strangness, I just couldn't understand why. I still can't get it out of my head. Since then I've gone back and found more anomalies I had never noticed, and I'm really struggling with making sense of what may have happened. I don't get spooked easily, but I can't come to grips with this; I feel like I've been victimized, and I'm honestly traumatized just off the videos I took. I have no recollection of being taken or anything traumatizing happening. All I have to go off is what I captured, and the feelings I get every night when I go to sleep.
The blatant strangeness slowed down and had seemingly stopped by October, shortly after I retired from my whistleblower antics. The effects of whatever happened are with me every day. I think about it every day and night and fear it coming back. I wish I could have some level of closure, even if it isn't realistic.
Somebody here can help me. I'm certain the right person can make some degree of sense of the videos, and even a little bit of clarity would go a long way for me. What's more likely? Negative NHI harassing me for exposing corporate wrongdoing, or any NHI all of a sudden taking an interest in my everyday life? Is it possible for someone to weaponize paranormal forces against you? I truly don't know. I'm not satisfied with any of those possibilities.
The biggest thing I've grappled with is understanding the origins. Is it negative NHI being used against me? Could it be nefarious humans using advanced technology against me? Psychotronic weapons? How can you even differentiate?! I just can't tell. If you're an experiencer with an open mind and educated in different types of beings, please have a chat with me and look over my videos. I'd post them here but my house and my neighbors homes are visible in most of them. If you're just interested and want to take a look, I'll share a drive link with anyone, I just don't feel right posting these publicly yet.
TLDR;
Potentially harassed by negative NHI or advanced tech. Both are equally terrifying to me. Can't understand how or why this would happen. I'm seeking other experiencers with knowledge on different types of high strangess, anomolous beings/interdimensionals.
Need guidance on moving forward if I can't find answers.
I have a bad feeling that somehow people did this to me. I really want to know if thats even possible. Thank you for reading :)

I'm 48. I just got laid off and will be competing for jobs in a creative + youth-oriented field (advertising) with people who are a good 10-20 years younger. I'd love suggestions on how to look cooler and more youthful. I get told I look too serious quite a bit. Resting bitch face and all that. I walk into restaurants and servers always think I'm going to give them a hard time even though I'm actually pretty silly and ridiculous if you know me.
I really appreciate everyone who's going to say "just be yourself" and "own your age and experience" but the truth is grandma really needs to make some dough.
Any suggestions? Bangs or no bangs? Shorter or longer? Lighter or darker? I have two cowlicks in my bangs so sideswept/curtain bangs are pretty difficult to do but open to anything, really.

So we live in a subdivision and we have a neighbor on one side and they were on the other side so the neighbors who moved in because we were here first and it's a brand new subdivision they are pretty cool they keep themselves they are kind of private just like us, the other neighbors beside us they from the start have been very adamant and in your face kind of neighbors
But that's not the issue the issue is how we ended up on meeting and what's been going on ever since
Usually my family we go ahead and we take my children myself and my husband to go knock or ring the doorbell and introduce ourselves and strike up friendly conversation etc, this is how we see it appropriate or just meeting everybody so we're not going back and forth then doing that whole thing we just want to get it out the way and have everybody meet everybody
So I'm working from home in my home and my husband is outside playing basketball with my children and the neighbors who are kind of in your face are home but the husband and the wife are home and the children the woman next door sends her children inside and then walks over to my husband and just loudly just waves him over and she's like always your wife home and he's like she's busy, and she just like oh I wanted to meet all y'all and all this other stuff and she just said that her children have been trying to meet my children and it was kind of odd because she sent them in before she came over to say hello to my husband and didn't bring her children to say hello to my children who are out there playing basketball with my husband also she didn't make it a point to go inside and get her husband who was also in the home to come outside so they can all collectively say hello which was kind of off-putting.
But nothing else was thought of it so it had been a while since any interaction, me and my children ended up bumping into her husband on our way to the mailbox and we had a conversation and said hello and a few things and my children met his children they started to play because they actually wanted to meet them just like she said and what not so we let them play for a little bit we only just talked for a moment and then I left went back home and then shortly later in the day the whole family comes and shows up to our home I guess he told her that we had a conversation and the children played so I guess she then wanted to come and meet me.
So they show up to the door they come at dinner time and we're just kind of in a rush and so we all say hello and this is when the red flag weird stuff starts to happen is after her husband is standing in front of her she's lightly kind of behind him so he can't really see what she's doing but she's just like back and forth staring down my husband like a piece of meat, giggling and trying to catch his gays repeatedly, and then looking back and forth at her husband trying to see if he's looking or not she didn't look at me one time while she was standing on my porch and then I made a comment and said that I had met one of her relatives when I was going on a bike ride and she said that she likes my hair and my outfit and she said oh okay and then she continued to glance back and forth at my husband and her husband and she had no interest in me and having any kind of conversation or real meeting of hello or anything.
So after that it left a bitter taste in my mouth because people like that they tend to have it all but they need more and they need like attention from the outside even though they have everything right in front of them they can't really see it. but anyway she struck me as this attention seeker and it turns out she actually is.
so her whole family came to the door, we were eating dinner, and they wanted to know if our children could come out and play and I said we just sat down to eat and you can tell that she was bothered by that and bothered by the fact that I answered the door because before she came up she was primping herself on the doorbell camera,
So I let her know that we would be coming out later after we're done so we go over and then I have her children come out and play with my children for a little bit.
We end up having a conversation while they were playing and at first she did seem kind of genuine but then she started to get over the top and just started saying I was so funny and she kept hitting me and trying to be buddy buddy and over and over again putting her hands on me laughing and it was very off putting and very fake feeling like she was trying to get bloody buddy with me somehow very quickly.
She referred to my husband as Daddy and it was kind of off-putting the way she had said it and then because I didn't like the way she said, what about daaaadyy is what she said when she asked about my husbands involvement in our day today which was kind of weird.
So I went ahead and when we were talking I said it back to her yeah your children probably need daddy too and I said exactly how she did and hopefully she got the head but nope and also she was asking me for advice about staying home and needing to be out just needing to be doing something because her husband was taken care of her too much and working but he wasn't even working a lot he work from home and in the office but he said she didn't have to and that he takes care of her but she doesn't want him to she wants to just be out there in the streets essentially doing something and being seen.
Her words not mine.
And she said she can't help it because she had her children she doesn't want to be just cooped up in the house everyday or something like that.
And so that was kind of off-putting and then I mentioned focusing on your family like being present with them and focusing solely on them reaps really good benefits because you create a closer Bond and you don't need outside anything to feel complete essentially what you have is inside of you and I just kind of reference that when she kept saying that she needs to just be on the go when she can't sit still and she said her husband always says that he's got her and that their mom needs them and things like that and I said I agree because I know how I am with my children and I have my children all the time and my family works really great because of the way our dynamic works and I tried to like give some knowledge and information to her but she kind of wasn't hearing it and didn't seem interested really in that dynamic.
So after that day she text me and wants me to go to the park with him but I'm in the shower and I never see her text message till I'm done and I have like this whole routine so it takes about an hour or so until she's just like in the park and I finally text her back the park is up the street and I text her back and she's just like kind of upset that I didn't show up and that's understandable but I did let her know like hey I was busy and I didn't see your text message can we try and do something else and so I let her know that we can have the boys hang out and we hang out tomorrow and then the next day me and my kids went for a walk and she was also on a walk with her child, we briefly passed each other cuz I'm coming out of my house and she's entering up the sidewalk to the driveway to her house she sees me and I just kind of stand there waiting so I can wave her and she just like looks through me and continues to walk
So I didn't think anything of I just kind of laughed to myself because it was kind of a petty cuz she clearly saw me but whatever but I texted her when I got back from the walk and said hey I saw you on our walk a few minutes ago I don't know if you saw me, but I just wanted to let you know that the boys are available at this x amount of time, she text me back later lets me know the time works out so the boys and I come out there later on that day at that time then this was before our dinner time so I tried to accompany and accommodate, my children are out there playing basketball and this woman literally at the exact time at her children are supposed to be out there text me and said one of her children were in trouble and can't come out there we'll catch you all next time
And I said thanks for the courtesy etc and so the next time we saw her was when my husband was cutting the grass I was inside doing some housework he was outside cutting the grass with my children running back and forth doing everything like they usually do and so during that time she makes her way outside and she's got this really short pink dress on and it's like really cold outside and it was just like really alarming to me and she's just like out there walking around sweeping her front porch and then like while my husband is cutting the side that's closest to their house she's like back to back with him and she just makes it a point to be like hey how you doing and just other stuff even though earlier in the day when we got home we both wave to them from the car and said hey and so it was kind of odd that she made another appearance to try and speak to my husband, he brought this to my attention and he said that he was very brief about it because he knows how things are between me and her and how we revives were between us and so he just briefly said Hi and then turn back around and kept cutting the grass and so I guess that wasn't enough attention for her
So after he was done cutting the grass I never took myself outside even though he said that she was out there and was trying to strike up a conversation, after that and he started to do the wrap up , but the hose away put the gutters back on and all that stuff blow the grass away.
And so basically I get a notification on my phone from the doorbell camera and the garage camera went off as well and I'm like okay someone has been spotted that's what it says and I look and I see this person standing there in a pink dress mini dress she's right there in front of my house sweeping the grass out of my driveway and sweep in the grass almost basically to the other side of the neighbor's house she's directly in front of my house sweeping my grass up going back and forth essentially waiting for my husband to come out there and I don't know what have an interaction talk I don't know look at me I'm cleaning up your grass I have no idea
And so I let my husband know like I see this happening right now on the camera and then he's just like I'm about to go cook dinner he goes to go cook dinner and I let him know I'm going to handle the cleanup and then I go out there with the broom and I walk out there I don't say anything to her and I just started sweeping and then she looks shocked to see me cuz I don't even think she knew I was home because the car wasn't in the driveway and then she just walks past and she's just wiping her nose and has her head down and she just walks back up to her driveway, her husband was cutting the grass on the other side of the house by the way her children were running around but she was in front of my house and in my driveway back and forth sweeping my grass instead of over there helping her husband with his yard work she was in my driveway and the other side of my yard sweeping the grass
And then she just after she gets back to her side of the house she's just like hey how you doing? And I say good and then I keep sweeping and then like she got this like grin on her face and she's just like see that I'm like visibly like annoyed with her and so she just keeps it moving, and so after that I went to the house and got the leaf blower and just started blowing the grass out so I can get back in the house cuz I was just like I was just really irritable, I'm blowing the grass and then I hear her come up right behind me and say hey hey where did you get that leaf blower at and I turned around and I said I don't know it's old and then I continue to blow the grass away and I guess she took the hat because I was pretty Stern with it and I think she came back to say something to me to see if I was in a good mood or to see if I was still like angry essentially because she got caught doing what she was doing
I didn't sugar coat when I spoke to her and I'm thinking okay she got the hint. And then a few days later she tried to make a playdate and then I said my children are unavailable at that time then, we were going to a nearby Creek and taking my children they wanted to go and we ate before we left we were going to leave around like 4:30 and so we didn't leave at 4:30 we ate and then we were going to leave now as we are eating I get a notification on the doorbell camera and the garage camera yet again and it says person has been spotted I checked the camera and she's out there walking back and forth back and forth back and forth with her children trying to see if we're going to come out trying to see if she can wave at us in miraculous and any kind of way I don't know but she's in front of our house her house on the complete other side and she's just back and forth walking with them
And we ended up leaving a close to 5:00 p.m. so by that time she already went in the house
And after that I just was done with any kind of interactions with her because she is very off putting and she gives off this vibe and energy of I am being fake. And I have an ulterior motive and I need to Garner attention from Men even though I have one.
Even the guy next to us was outside cleaning his car and then her husband was in the house yet again and after he went inside I guess he was like busy , So she took it upon herself to scream across the yard and say ooh that looks good. Referring to his car and so he comes over and then starts talking to her across from our yard and and her yard and she starts complimenting his car ridiculously and was just asking a bunch of stuff about his car and his pain and and what he does and how does he get it to look like that and just a bunch of stuff and what crossed my mind was the whole married women complimenting another man's car perfusively was kind of off-putting.
And so they carried conversation for a while and then to the point that he ended up getting his phone and trying to show her something about his paint job and then he actually paused before he actually had her come over and like look at the phone and she goes oh you can send it to me and I don't know if they have each other's numbers or whatever but I heard her say that and then he actually paused and said I sent it to your husband actually and then she was just like oh okay and then she stopped the conversation and went in the house
Just yesterday because we haven't had a moment to cut the grass in a while my husband cut the grass after he got off of work so me and the children were outside and we were all doing yard work like we usually do I was trimming and the boys were trimming and picking things up in the yard and she pulls up. Usually she picks up her kids and then goes in the home closes the garage and we don't see her the rest of the day, but since we are all out here and my husband's got in the grass she made it a point to pull up leave the garage open open trunk and just bring her kids out and have them running around in the driveway which I knew was going to happen, because whenever my husband's out there she makes it a point to be out there but when I hop out she flies inside of her house
So I'm out there packing up my grass and I was done because my mom had called and so I'm on the phone with her and my husband is starting to cut the side of the grass closest to her house and so, I say on the phone and I'm just like talking on the phone while looking into her driveway and garage knowing that she's going to pop out at any second to try and get some kind of attention from my husband because she's been doing that, she actually came out when I was right there just waiting and then she briefly raised her hand and waved while my husband didn't see her so he's over pushing the mower back and forth back and forth and conveniently she's in the garage going from one side of the car to the next side of the car from one side of the car to the next side of the car she did this about eight times
And he never looked her way didn't give her any kind of attention so eventually she went ahead and close the garage cuz I guess she saw me actually noticing what she was doing so she closed the garage and went house so my husband stops or is finished cutting the grass on that side of the house so he pushes it to almost the back of the outside of the fence now they don't have a fence, so her kids ran out and were right there while my husband was cutting the grass I'm guessing she was all so back there as well to try and say hello to my husband from the back of the house because she knew I was in the front of the house
And he said he didn't actually see her he was just focused on cutting the grass but I'm sure she was back there since her children were running around back and forth back there as well.
So that was pretty long but that's what has been happening since she moved in here, I am not sure how to go about anything her children seem very kind her husband is very nice and not red flaggy at all she on the other hand has the need to go up to every single neighbor and talk up people but specifically because I live next door to her it's like a game to her because she finds every moment to speak to my husband I haven't even mentioned the other times that he was out there just like cleaning out the car and she just hopped out it would just stand there and try and get his attention and then he would not give her any attention I wouldn't even look her way, it's like she can hear when we're out there or here when he's out there doing something and she can find a way to speak to him and it's really off putting and I'm not really sure what to do I've been closing all of my curtains and blinds because when she first got here she was actually looking and standing straight across looking straight. Into my house for a lot of good 5 minutes while I was vacuuming and so I close all my stuff up.
I would love some recommendations on how to peacefully handle this situation I am not sure what is going on mentally in this woman's head or why she needs to Garner this attention and I just want to be kind about it because I actually tried again and wished her a happy mother's day but then this incident happened after that so I am just done with the situation I feel like, I don't have any desire to try and be friends with her or even just be neighborly.
I would love some feedback or advice on how to peacefully go about this, the only time we are really out there is to cut the grass and do yard work which is pretty rare so I guess we don't have to really see them.
All feedback is welcome, I am close to pushing 40 so I really don't have the mental energy to deal with this kind of situation anymore I'm feeling like it's beneath me and very childish to actually do any kind of intentional situation as far as ignoring and things like that or being unkind I don't want to get roped into drama and things like that and I just wish that woman healing to be honest.
But I would love some feedback on this scenario thank you.

Ok I know the title may come across as a little conceded or self absorbed but hear me out before judging please.
So I'm a 27 year old woman, most people think I'm 18-20 years old, I have a baby face. Since I turned about 19 I started getting a lot of attention from men/boys. I know some people will think "oh poor you, you are sad because you're too beautiful." That's not what I'm trying to get across here. I am unconventionally attractive. And I've spent a long time building up my self confidence to be able to look at myself in the mirror and feel beautiful. And I don't think it's bad for anyone to know they are beautiful. And at times I do dress provocatively, I'm comfortable with my body, I'm happy with how I look and I'm not scared to show off. But here is where I have a problem.
I like to feel beautiful and I don't mind compliments from men, but I've gotten to a point where I'm very depressed about how people see me. I've been sexually harassed by so many men and it's starting to get to the point where I'm like can't you see past how I look and treat me like a living creature that's equal to you? I've been sexualized since I was a kid, my sister's spread rumors in the family that it was weird me and myale cousin were best friends. His parents even forbid us from seeing each other when we were teens. If I hung out with any guys my age my sister's had to bring up that it was inappropriate in some way. When I was 17 my sister's 30 something boyfriend said my Facebook pictures looked like pinup model photos and my sister thought this was a sweet compliment while I was disgusted. The same guy later sexually harassed me on Halloween when I was dressed as Harley Quinn, I was 19 then, I won't get into specifics, I've already shared this story, but this led to my sister physically fighting me, she was 30. Not to mention my other sister is still friends with this guy and let him be around me again.
Basically, I'm so scared now of men being attracted to me I'm afraid to talk to my male professors because I had one be a little to touchy with me, I'm scared to even hang out with male family members because I'm afraid even they will be creepy to me. And just recently I came to the realization that my old therapist was being creepy to me as well, always telling me I was sexy etc. Like I'm scared for a man to even talk to me, and if a man is being creepy to me I always tell myself I'm overthinking it so therefore I'm at risk more because I don't even know what's real anymore.
All of this has severally affected my dating life. I've never dated at all actually. Despite the fact that men have told me they think I'm some kind of wild sexual creature, I'm still a virgin. And when men find that out they either get even more creepy or aren't interested because I'm not the sexualized object they had fantasized about.
Now I either get men who aren't into me at all and ghost me, or men that can't stop talking about wanting to be with me, probably just for a night. And it's all really affected my self image lately.
I'm mostly just ranting here but I don't know, there's this character in a book called Bailey's cafe, her name is peaches and she cuts her face to make men leave her alone and I always really related to that tbh. I want to feel and be beautiful but I also want people to know there's more to me. I don't want to have to be suspicious of every man who talks to me, I wish other women would quit treating me like shit. Like what's so bad about just existing as a woman? Can't I just get some peace at some point.
I know someone will tell me to get over it or that I'm just trying to get attention. That I'm complaining about attention others want. I get that but I just wish I could let my feelings out there without being judged sooooo much by literally everyone. Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll probably delete this if the hate becomes too much for me lmao (oh also I forgot to add, the reason I mentioned I look younger, it makes things worse cuz most like 50 year old men creeping on me think I'm like 18 so that freaks me out.)
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There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.