So last night I was just so irritable, I had many angry thoughts coming from nowhere it felt like since I don’t get them as often anymore, specifically I was having hatred thoughts towards my ex which I thought I had already overcame and was at peace with. I used to run from thoughts like these but been practicing on facing them so I did
During prayer this one was really intense, I was so angry and I wasn’t understanding why really because of how sudden it was, I thought I just had buried emotions or something but by the end of the night aside from the puffy eyes, a headache and runny nose I felt so much better letting it all out and felt at peace again.
Well later today come to find out it’s now that time of the month for me 😐
I know I’m emotional when it comes around that time and it’s a challenge I’m trying to face but this hatred felt so out of control, I tried remembering Bible verses, I tried remembering everything god has said and promised but that anger just threw it out the window and was screaming nothing but hatred and I knew I didn’t want this but I didn’t know what else to do in the moment until I was able to let it out.
Today I feel completely fine and like myself again but is this common? If so is there a way to control it? Because I know if I didn’t have my time to let it out it would’ve just waited until I let it out on someone who provoked me and I’m afraid of that happening since no one deserves that

My allergies haven’t been terrible but tree pollen is the only thing that’s been out around me so far. For me it’s just been puffy, itchy eyes, lots of sneezing, and a runny nose. The grass is gonna absolutely mess me up soon though, thank god the counts have been so low.

I YA F vampire am a mother to four children three of whom are very beautiful and one who well isn't. My eldest daughter was a cute kid, but when she aged to teen the proportions of her face were just off. Her ears stuck out stupidly, her nose and mouth were squished together and her face was excessively puffy.
When she asked me for advice, I told her the truth because I am an honest person, though I've been accused of being heartless. I'm not I'm just completely lacking in empathy. It's not my fault I can only feel what I feel.
Anyway instead of telling her some empty platitude I told her the truth. That she was ugly, but it was ok, she was lucky that her mother had worked hard and was rich, therefore she could have all the plastic surgery she wanted. She seemed shocked and I scoffed asking her what she expected. Did she want me to tell her that looks aren't important and it's what's on the inside that counts?
I explained to her that that was a lie they told to sims too poor to do anything about their looks. That beauty like money was a form of power and that even though she wasn't very attractive I still loved her and if she wanted I would pay for all the plastic surgery she needed to make her beautiful.
She accepted the surgery, but she seems distant since then. Idk reddit, did I mess up? Kids are smart. She knows what she looked like. I thought it would be better to tell the truth and I really did work hard to provide for my children so they could have whatever they needed in life.
I must admit a part of me enjoyed her tears. I'm evil after all, I can't help the way the Watcher made me. Still I wasn't trying torture my child, that's what my basement slaves are for. I just want her to be wise to the ways of the world, AITA?

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

WTH! Is wrong with her nose? The tip is all swollen, her bottom lip is red and cracked? Is she bleeding? Wowwwww! I’ve been at work all day so will have to catch up. She is so high she can’t keep her eyes open and her face is puffy. Wonder if someone bopped her in the nose Lol😂 I just watched the 3 min video on Nookie’s YT.

Hello, I don't make posts very often so I hope I'm doing this right. I wasn't sure whether to tag this as "product question" or "acne" so if this feels more suited for the latter category, please let me know.
I've been struggling with severe acne for a couple of years now. Last week I saw my family doctor, who prescribed me Benzaclin to use in the morning and Retin-A (tretinoin) gel to use in the evening. I've read that salicylic acid should not be used with tretinoin, so I stopped using my previous moisturizer (Clean & Clear Dual Action Moisturizer) to switch to one that I had previously used before and thought I might be able to use with both treatments, aka Garnier Skin Naturals Hyaluronic Aloe Jelly. I had previously never experienced problems with this moisturizer, however, upon applying it I immediately experienced an intense burning sensation. My mom pointed out that my skin was now very red and looked rather puffy, and my skin definitely does feel quite irritating. It's very frustrating because I just want something that WORKS!!!!
I've been using the Benzaclin a bit longer than the Retin-A due to the fact that our pharmacy had a bit of trouble with ordering in the original retinoid treatment that I was supposed to use (I don't remember the name, I apologize). I've only used the Retin-A two or three times so far, I'm thinking of only using it 2-3 times a week to start before going into it every other night and then eventually nightly. I'm not entirely sure what my skintype is, aside from being very acne prone (obviously) and a bit oily along my nose. Might be combination? I'm not entirely sure.
While my parents said that they are willing to pay more for a product that has good reviews and is going to help me in my current condition, ideally I would prefer to keep it under $20 CAD due to the fact that we are struggling and I am still in the process of trying to find a job (been searching for months now with no luck) whilst also trying to apply to college/university.
Any and all help is appreciated. Thank you!

PART 3

Max woke in the night to a plinking sound. He had fallen asleep crying over Scat, treat bag and collar on the table in full view. His eyes were blurry and sore, his nose was runny and sore and the nature channel was his distraction. Ruth was letting off a lovely glow and it warmed him to think of Scat so lovingly curled around her, day in and day out. He let out an almost-sob. He didn’t want to give her back. Didn’t want to wake up.
Eventually Max pried one eye open and surveyed the room. TV still on, duvet still over him, the floor wasn’t wet and the ceiling wasn’t leaking, so where was the…
Plink.
Ruth.
Max sighed and rolled over, the duvet making a break for the floor before being dejectedly scooped up again and deposited back across his lap. The small cloud of Scat’s fur wafted off the floorboards and turned Max’s heart. He contemplated going back to the escape of sleep, but finally sat and rubbed his eyes, held his aching head in his hands for a moment and, dropping his hands and lolling his head back, Ruth came into focus. The central glass disc that she had made like a rosette for herself had grown, bloated out. It looked a bit like a tortoise shell, glittery and iridescent and very Ruth, except now, it had…
“Diamonds!” Max yelped, miraculously fully awake.
There, underneath the bulbous disc was a tiny pile of painfully perfect diamonds, so exuberant in colour they seemed almost alive. He could see clean through the pile itself each one was so clear, with a miniature rainbow refracted inside. They were scattered across the table and he realised they were dropping from all over the glass tubes, the largest ones plinking from the central disc.
“Holy cow! What the hell, Ruth! This is amazing! I mean, how did you do that?”
Ruth plinked another diamond from the disc, meanwhile the bobbing gyroscopic mass that had accumulated in the disc decided to bob itself towards Max and answer him with a spiral of flashes and disco lights.
“You really are a crazy, crazy little thing, you know that?” he asked, picking up a diamond and examining it against Ruth’s emitted light show. He threw his t-shirt across the table top and spread the diamonds out on it. There must have been fifteen of them, simply perfect and all different shapes to each other, irregular and yet symmetrical.
Max collapsed into the dining chair next to the table.
Why did they happen today? Why now of all days? It had been nearly a week since he was entrusted with Ruth and she seemed pretty stable up till yesterday. She had grown that diamond factory bulge that reminded him of a tortoise, yes, but now it almost looked like an expensive, old-fashioned sweet dispenser that you get in the bowling alley or in the shopping centres in posh areas. The kind they stuck between the raised beds of fake forest-looking plants in the food court, the kind that were there to tempt the kids after their unfulfilling and unappreciated fast-food dine-outs but used all your pocket money for one jaw-breaker.
Max tried to backtrack. What had he done differently? If he could figure it out, maybe he could persuade Ruth to make more diamonds… his friend would never have to know, he could get Scat a little headstone, and if he could figure out how it worked he could reverse it so there wouldn’t even be any evidence. No, his friend would surely know. Max could save a few diamonds and give them to him and say she just started… have to work out the details later. First things first.
“So, Ruth. Why are you giving me these little nuggets of joy, huh? What did I do to warrant this spectacle?” He talked to Ruth, but she didn’t respond. No movement, just the usual swirling around. Max watched the glass disc closely through his puffy eyes but couldn’t see where the diamonds fell from, nor anything that would suggest a factory line of compressed carbon was in progress. She seemed to be slowing down.
Max pressed his brows together, then slowly lifted the fern up onto the table again. This was the only thing different. The bamboo was outside and Scat was…
A wave of horror flooded over Max. He launched himself out of his chair and sprinted to the window and, ripping back the voile, he saw the bamboo had grown six feet over night. He knew it grew fast from watching that documentary about tropical rainforests but this was a stretch too far. Much too far. That damned thing hadn’t grown in years…
“Ruth,” he said turning to her, “what did you do?”

For the next few hours, Max observed Ruth from across the room. The discovery channel was on in the background, as always. Ruth didn’t seem to do much without it these days but for a hunk of glittery glass and brass Max supposed not much was interesting unless it moved or had nothing whatsoever to do with man-made things. Suited him just fine. Who needs politics anyway?
Apparently, Ruth had taken it upon herself to make the fern shrivel up and increase her diamond production, much to Max’s exuberant happiness and overwhelming horror. He shoved the sofa to the far end of the room and started putting all his household plants in the spaces between the table and himself. The kitchen herbs went first.
He had taken one of the diamonds down to the swanky precious stone and metal specialist at the posh end of town (his name was Horace, apparently,) and had it valued. He took extreme pleasure in watching the man’s face freeze in wonder at the rock placed before him. I’ve never seen such a stone, Horace said. Never seen such a clear, colourful, perfect stone in my life, Horace said. It’s phenomenal, Horace said. Where did you get it, Horace asked. I inherited it, Max lied. It’s worth a fortune, Horace said. Thank you, I’ll have it back now, Max said. He made sure to stop by the garden centre on his way home.

The front room was a sea of plants. Max waded through them, deciding that a walkway to the door would be a vital escape route that shouldn’t be compromised, in case Ruth decided she had been on her vegetarian stint for long enough. Max had toyed with the idea of getting a fish tank or some other living creature to put next to her as a safeguard but he promptly remembered Scat and nearly broke down on the shop floor in front of the display tanks. Besides, the plants were working! There was already a multitude of stacks of plastic pots and trays next to the front door ready for recycling, and all the withered remains of whatever the pots had housed was scattered along the borders amongst the dog daisies and tulips. Ruth was putting out a considerable amount of stonage these days. Max bought an old bank safe online. It was currently sat in the hallway because that’s as far in as the two couriers could lift the thing, and there was no way on god’s green earth that Max was going to let them into the front room and risk them getting curious. The safe was only waist-high and wasn’t too ugly, so the hallway it was.
Max carefully spun the dial clockwise, anti-clockwise, clockwise again, on and on, muttering under his breath as he read from the bit of paper he guiltily kept in his pocket alongside his friend’s contact details. He used his whole bodyweight to wrench open the door and deposit the load of diamonds in a mason jar, nestled it in next to its siblings that were already full and stacked up there. He had set up a system of small tubs under the hotspots for diamonds drops and his favourite whiskey glass under the place where the large diamonds fell. He emptied them regularly, always aware that someone might knock on the door, he might need to pee or Scat might need to go outside (no, poor thing, he was there already). His kitchen was full of boxes of new mason jars and his lounge was full of plants, like some weird meth lab. A thrill of fear swept down Max’s back and up through his throat looking at all those jars, heavy with precious stones. He knew the smallest one alone would make him a disgustingly wealthy man. Horace had confirmed it.
Two days later, and there was no more space in the safe. Nowhere else to put those little rocks. Max decided to give Ruth a break, let her rest while he decided what to do next. He couldn’t have a house full of safes, his friend would already think it was weird that the one in the hallway appeared out of nowhere. Max put a coffee table over it, covered it with a tablecloth and some old bank statements, throwing on a phone charger for authenticity.
He had taken to talking to Ruth while the documentaries were on, she seemed to like that. He had been taking daily trips to the garden centre and leaving with a fully loaded car, right up until they looked at him suspiciously (he was a renowned leave-it-to-the-bugs kind of gardener; after years of failed attempts at keeping his plants alive and fruitless efforts of the garden centre employees to dispense advice he could keep to), so he started frequenting other nurseries as well.
Today, he was going to figure out how Ruth did it. He had to know. In his mind it was the equivalent of finding out how the Egyptians built the pyramids (because it obviously wasn’t aliens,) and the fact that even his friend didn’t know what this thing could do was something altogether more impressive! He may well have created it, but it was Max who had realised Ruth’s full potential, it was Max who had figured out the process, it was Max who had discovered the balance of life and death. Nobody could take that from him. But to really put the boot in, he wanted to know how.
“Come on, Ruthy, tell me how you do it. Let me see you do it, just once.” Max waited for a response. There was none. Then…
Plink.
He had seen! He knew now! Ha!
“Yes! That’s it! That’s the ticket! I knew it, old gal, this is going to be such an epic day! I can’t wait to see their faces, suck on THAT!”
Max jumped, air-punched and whirled around the front room, ecstatic in his discovery. Never again would they look down on him! Never again would they look at him like he was an idiot because he couldn’t get the printer to print on both sides of the paper, they wouldn’t reject him, the girls would think he was funny, he was going to be filthy rich, he could save the world! He, Max, was all powerful.
Oh yes. That’s what I’m talking about.

I think im slightly allergic to it since every time I use it my arm (correlated to what nostril i use) gets a little puffy and splotchy. I get an incredibly dry nose during spring/allergy season.

Reddit Request: AskDocs
Can someone please help me with questions I should make sure to write down and ask at my rheumatology appointment?
I am in so much pain, and I’d like to be as thorough as possible with this new doctor from the get-go in order to help me get a diagnosis. I know I will panic and/or forget what to ask. Any help/guidance would be much appreciated!
I’m having a “good” hand/wrist day, so here we go…
38F, 5'4", 185lbs, South Asian, very little drinking, no smoking or recreational drugs.
Currently experiencing the following symptoms:

• SEVERE joint pain - has been continuously present for two weeks as of today.
  • Will reach the point of not being able to stand/walk some days or use my hands/wrists. It starts as a deep ache and then spreads to other joints until finally I’m just on fire. Will get worse if I’m touched, jostled or have to move when it’s that bad.
  • Present everywhere, and I really mean everywhere: fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck/back, hips, knees, ankles, feet.
  • Sometimes bilateral, sometimes not.
  • No joint swelling or redness
  • Seems to get worse at night
  • Joints are also cracking much, much more than usual.
• Severe fatigue and exhaustion. Sometimes I need more than one nap in a day in order to keep going.
• Some intermittent muscle weakness
• Hair loss (scalp and lashes mostly, a little bit eyebrows.)
• Facial swelling and puffiness:
  • Eyelids/brow bone
  • Front of my cheeks along sides of nose.
  • Around my mouth
  • Around outer sides of face and under chin/on my neck.
• Random feeling of chills/shivers, sometimes accompanied by low-grade fever (around 99 or thereabouts.)
• Difficulty losing weight, honestly near impossible.
  • Even when eating well (getting enough calories, protein, fiber, hydration, etc. to properly fuel a grown active woman’s body) and exercising, I have netted out at gaining weight over time instead.
• Nail ridging
• Brain Fog
• Libido: dead and sorely missed.
• Mood in the shitter, but maybe because I’m just sad/anxious about all of this.
• Most recent blood test results from end of Feb, no active flares at that time:
  • https://ibb.co/Hg6q3TK
  • https://ibb.co/t8Byk5T
  • https://ibb.co/phsfHpS
• Is this a malar rash?…
  • https://ibb.co/R7sj3n8

Current diagnoses and related medications:

• ADHD: 15mg adderall, 3x/week.
  • I haven’t been taking these during this flare up because there’s nothing in the tank for them to work with and it would be a waste.
• Perimenopause/early-atrophied ovary: Junel Fe 1.5/30
  • This will likely change to a different medication with an increased hormonal dosage as this isn’t really working well.

Family history (that I’m aware of…):

• So. Much. Hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s on mother’s side. At least one person with Sjogren's.
• Heart disease on father’s side.

Are there any specific tests I should make sure to ask for? Any symptoms I need to expand on/track further?
Again, any help at all is extremely appreciated! Thank you in advance!

Hello, I (31F) tested positive for covid thinking it was Strep Throat. I have 4 covid Vaccines and these are my onset of Symptoms.
May 7: unusual Sleepiness, and fatigue, slight head and Face Pressure May 8: unusual Headache, feeling Tired start of a sore throat on the left side, face feels puffy May 9th: hurts to swallow, angry looking throat, headache and light sensitivity. Went to Emerg thinking I had Strep throat. They checked my throat, nose and ears, waited 20 mins before they decided to swab my throat. (Mind you on right side and not left where the pain first started) Asked if I am still able to work, (paycheck to paycheck living) May 10th: decided to take an at home covid test for the hell of it, watches as the test turns positive right away, takes 2 more just in case. Same results. Decided not to work. (I work with the older population). Throat feels like swallowed glass and Sand. Gargling throat numbing spray and Bactine Throat gargle and taking Tylonal. May 11: Glass Like Sore Thorat feeling, small coughs here and there, sneezing and stomach Pains. But felt fine enough for spring cleaning until I felt out of breath and Shaky. May 12: Left Nose Stuffy, couldn't breath properly, feel likes I need to sneeze but can't. Test this morning, positive. Sandpaper throat is an improvement to glass throat. Had a good sleep (after prescribed sleep meds)
Will update!
Update: May 14th Good Morning Yall, May 13: no sore throat, face felt stuffy though. Went to work (wore a mask at all times and stayed in my office mostly). Still tested Positive after nasal swab. Felt sweaty around 8:00pm and small headache (could have been the seat warmer and heater while driving) May 14: Sand paper throat feels like 200 grit, heading to work as I have a staff meeting and taking my group to a social ( mask and avoidance will be worn)
I know I shouldn't be working during this time especially in my field of work but I live paycheck to paycheck to survive and taking any lengthy time off means that a bills do not get paid.

I (20F) got out like 2 weeks ago of a horrible manic episode thanks to my psychiatrist upping the dose of my antipsychotics.
Anyway, is it normal that I feel ugly while 2-3 weeks ago when I was manic I thought I was a walking goddess ? Is it normal that I feel like people don’t look at me anymore ?
I used to feel like everyone was staring at me because I was so unbelievably gorgeous and now I can’t even look at a picture of myself…
I deleted my instagram because I feel like people are laughing at me for posting pictures of myself because I look so weird and stupid, I’m so weirdly embarrassed by the way I look and when I dress up I don’t feel that « proud » and « confident » feeling anymore. My hair looks frizzy my nose looks puffy idk i didn’t see my face like that at all 2 weeks ago.
I used to think I was chosen by god to be this gorgeous and now I hate myself so hard, is it really what bipolar is supposed to feel like ?

Some days the clinic is full. People stream in, dealing with the chronic issues of aging, basic stuff like urinary tract infections, and sinus/throat pain.
Occasionally we see a senior for shortness of breath. They often recall months and months of symptoms, without an initial understanding of what the origin was. By the time we see them, they are so far gone that the hospital is the only place where they can be treated.
Similarly, we see patients who walk in with puffy ankles - lymphatic drainage indicative of severe cardiac complications/severe infection/cancesurgery. Off to the hospital they go, with a silent prayer. PS: Folks, if your mom, dad, granny or grandpa suddenly has fluid buildup in the legs or arms (you can test this by applying steady pressure with the tips of your fingers (no nails, please) and then observing the tissue when you lift your fingers away. If there are dimples in the tissue that remain...Whelp...time to go to the ER to get a full workup. Do not wait, do not pass go, just run them to the hospital.
We saw only one positive COVID case during the past couple of days, who had tested and was seeking a note for work. Fortunately the patient had very mild symptoms. It's a reminder that COVID is still out there. The patient had no mask - so be aware - positives can be found at your local supermarket and pharmacy. Being safe by wearing a good mask when in public indoor spaces is always the best way to prevent COVID infection.
......
The bad news: Our moment of being relatively "COVID low" has passed. Numerous counties are seeing a slight uptick, including:
Alachua
Bay
Bradford
Broward
Calhoun
Charlotte
Clay
Maimi-Dade
Hardee
Lake
Manatee
Marion
Martin
Orange
Osceola
Pasco
Pinellas
Putnam
St. Johns
Seminole
Washington
Most have only a few new cases detected in hospitals, but some like Pinellas and Pasco have jumped by 100% unexpectedly.
The totals for Florida are still reduced because all the other counties have the same or less positives:
4/26 05/03/24
2,406 2,280 ...........................
Lastly, I'd like to inform you that I have finally, officially contracted COVID.
I knew it might be inevitable considering the activities that I was persuaded to do, including:
Travel via airplane masked with goggles
Travel via car service for more than 1 hour, windows closed (masked)
Travelling via crowded Subway (masked)
Dining indoors (no mask)
Dining outdoors but in a crowded area (no mask)
Observing plant life in an extremely enclosed humid environment - a hot house with numerous tourists (masked)
Strolling in a park full of tourists (masked)
Attending a museum and exhibits absolutely stuffed full of tourists for more than 3 hours (masked)
Shopping indoors for more than 15 minutes, (masked).
My symptoms are very similar to allergies (which is what I thought it was until the fatigue and fever set in): stuffy nose, body aches, then fatigue, fever of 99.9 degrees, and now a sporadic cough. I am a little concerned that my heart rate is significantly elevated (100 when my normal is around 60-80), but this is common as the body fights viruses. My O2 is great, around 98-99.
I'm managing it well with pain relievers and nasal spray. Certainly hoping to kick it soon.
My relatives (whom I was visiting) are all very upset, considering that I had avoided a symptomatic COVID infection for more than 4 years. They knew how important it was to me, and are kicking themselves for asking me to "go out on a limb and be free for a while". I hope none of them contract it again, and that my coworkers didn't get it from me. We'll see.
The only plus from this is that I have probably contracted variant J1 or KP2, and will have some small amount of additional immunity for this year's summer spike.
Take my example as something not to do, and:
Stay Safe!

Hello, I'm a 20f who just got a septoplasty, bony spur removal, turbinate reduction, polyp/cyst removal, and then pretty much every reduction possible in all my sinuses, all the total -ectomys or however you spell it. Thought I'd make kind of a big surgery recovery post that I'd keep adding to as seeing some other similar posts set up like this have really helped me before and after the procedure! Also I kind of just want to complain to a space with people who fully understand my suffering / I also really need something to do lol.
Day 0 pre-surgery -
Blergh. It was daunting to say the least going in to the surgery clinic knowing the not-fun-at-all recovery process that laid ahead of me. Was so anxious I didn't sleep and then had a full mental breakdown by the time I was in all the full hospital gear laying down on that uncomfortable patient bed. If you suffer from health anxiety much like me I'd recommend asking for some anti-anxiety meds before going in because I was a nervous wreck. After the IV was in and I was calming down thanks to the cocktail of drugs they gave me, both the anesthesiologist and my ENT surgeon came in to do a final run through of everything. The anesthesia kicked in and I was soon knocked out.
Day 0 post-surgery -
Woke up what felt like a minute later with burning pain everywhere in my sinuses and throat. Not fun! Begged for pain meds and took my first oxy pill. I couldn't keep my eyes open because the bright light in the hospital room really hurt my head. Once I was at a more comfortable pain level, I was sent home. I kept my head back in that passenger seat with my eyes still slammed shut super sensitive to light. My family tried to show me some of those medical pictures the surgeon took of the nastiness he removed but my post-anesthesia nausea was NOT having it lol. I pretty much laid in my bed the rest of the day, towels over every single part of my bedroom windows where light was coming through. I just sat there, sleeping in 20-minute increments because I was sitting upright in the dark and waiting for my next dosage of painkillers. Nothing painful after leaving the hospital, just uncomfortable and boring.
24 hours after, Day 1 -
Woke up (didn't sleep much.... by "woke up" I mean sat up in bed around 6 am) feeling not terrible. Much like yesterday, nothing really painful, just uncomfortable. Like many others have said, mouth breathing makes the throat hurt and my lips are so dry. It's hard to eat/drink because not only do I have a reduced appetite, sipping or chewing anything is kind of suffocating when you can't breathe through your nose at all. I've been able to smell and taste just fine though, so that's a win. This was also a slow, boring day. In the increments of time where I wasn't actively super sleepy on painkillers, I was just kind of laying around watching videos on my phone with low brightness thanks to my eyes still being kind of sensitive to light. My day slowly passed me by as I used all my antibiotic alarms as little checkpoints as well as changing the gauze under my nose every two hours or so. As I used to joke pre-op during my countless failed sinusitis antibiotic courses, life is just what happens in between amoxicillin doses.
Day 2 -
Didn't sleep at ALL during the night. Woke up feeling pressure in my nose because scabs/clots/something is starting to form in there. It's SO annoying I just want to blow it out, but per the doctor's instructions, I can't do anything about it. While the active bleeding out of my nose has stopped, today has just experiencing different unfortunate symptoms. I've been coughing up gross bloody mucus stuff. Every time I swallow my ears pop because of how clogged my nose is. Kind of gross, but my nose has been popping and making liquid-y bubbling noises all day... In terms of pain, I haven't felt any really *knock on wood*, just the obvious discomfort of nastiness backed all the way up in whatever they packed my nose with post-op. The only thing that can get me to sleep is honestly the painkillers just to get me to ignore the annoying sensation of what feels like water balloons up my nostrils, so I'm only going to take them at night if at all anymore. Kinda wishing there was a time travel option to skip past not only this boredom and discomfort, but the debridement post-op appointment which I hear can be painful😓. My sensitivity to light has pretty much gone away now, so I've been at least passing time quicker with movies and such. Man I wish I had an edible right now.
Day 3 -
Started off pretty promising. Woke up after considerably better sleep I've gotten the past few days. Drainage is still annoying, nastiness bubbling in my nose still, and there's still a feeling of gunk in the back of my throat, but overall painless. Towards the end of the day I got an AWFUL headache. Took some Tylenol and I'm currently hoping it goes away, if it continues getting any worse I will definitely be a little concerned as I believe my dr. told me to look out for horrible headaches. Other than that, I'm still just waiting around for the post op appointment. I suspect by the time Tuesday rolls around I'm gonna be so over the stuff in my nose that I won't even care about the pain of removing it anymore lol.
Day 4 -
Woke up with a little blood on my pillow. Gross. Apparently leaked through my gauze when I was sleeping because it fell off halfway through the night. In other news, I'm not bleeding as bad and I'm able to remove the bandage from under my nose for most of the day. I've noticed my cough is picking up too, half of the time it's normal congestion/phlegm, and then bloody variations. Feeling MUCH better compared to day one and two though, and again, eagerly awaiting stent/packing removal. Honestly feeling quite normal.
Day 5 -
Very much so up and moving today, pretty much back to feeling exactly how I was before surgery, save the stuff draining in my throat and coming through the little holes of the dried bloody nastiness stuck inside my stents 🥲. I left the house today for the first time since surgery, so that was great, too. Not much to report today thankfully! I'm feeling much much much better. I've got plans to load up on painkillers before my slightly nerve-wracking post-op appointment tomorrow, but honestly, thank GOD it's here. I can not only see the dismal state that is the inside of my nose, I can absolutely feel it all, too. My nose squeaks and bubbles with every movement and I'm extremely over it, as well as curious to see what's gonna be sucked out ...
Day 6 (post op)-
took a painkiller before going in for the appointment today as advised by my dr, and honestly, thank GOD for that because it helped with my nerves too keeping me pretty calm. my dr removed surtures from my nose (ouch) and it felt like getting a piercing, but it was over pretty quickly. the stent removal was weird, just uncomfortable. MAN those stents were huge no wonder my nose was so puffy! I also got blood and mucous vacuumed out too which didn’t hurt at all, very comparable feeling to when they scope you with that long tube going up your brain. kinda like everyone says, more uncomfortable than painful, but then again i was on a painkiller lol. definitely take pain meds before going whether it’s tylenol or something similar. alright when i tell you i RAN out of that office like the lepers after jesus had healed them….. this is the clearest my nose has felt in years. there’s SO MUCH AIR it hurts it’s wonderful!!!! cried tears of joy a little bit, partially because the worst is now behind me lmao. anyways I’m feeling SO GLAD i did this. still can’t smell anything but I can still taste, apparently it should come back soon once swelling goes down.

I remember I tried using a CeraVe foaming gentle cleanser months and months ago and immediately stopped because I realized my "suddenly I feel and look really ugly and my face looks terrible for some reason?" was just my face puffing up directly after using the cleanser.
I stopped using it, and have since tried a korean oil cleanser and a la roche posay cleanser, both which didn't puff my face up. But I went to see a dermatologist the other day because my acne has not improved at all despite tons of treatment attempts and among differin and a prescription spot treatment cream, he told me to get a Cetaphil gentle cleanser for sensitive skin.
I'm sitting here again today with a very puffy face feeling quite insecure about it. I even noticed last night I couldn't breathe very well through my nose, like I was very congested, but didn't connect it together til today.
Anyone else ?

First Previous
Milek was sitting in a wide grassy field on her home world along with Emily, her two children and those two brutish animals called dogs. The King Charles Spaniel was content walking around, smelling various plants, rocks and anything else it could place its nose against. The gigantic one, the Irish Wolfhound, was curled up and fast asleep. The two children were using the Wolfhound as a pillow and were also taking a nap in the comfortably warm air.

Milek tilted a rocking basket in a gentle rhythm that held four white spun cocoons. Her children had just exited the larval phase of their development and would now spend the next few months developing in the safety of their silken homes.

It has been nearly a decade since the Humans came onto the galactic stage and Milek was becoming more accustomed to their strange animals. She snorted at the memory of first seeing Arthur and his King Charles Spaniel. She and Fessin were so terrified that the pair of them froze up.

Now, she was becoming accustomed to the smaller animal. The dog, compared to the various creatures that the Humans had a knack for demonstrating at the Intragalactic Pet and Garden Show, had become harmless in Milek’s eyes.

As for the Irish Wolfhound, Emily explained that the animal was nearing the end of its natural life and was considered elderly for the animal. The advances in longevity Humans had discovered for themselves hadn’t filtered down to their pets. Knowing how the Humans loved their animals, this wouldn’t be a deficiency for much longer.

The broader galactic community was also becoming accustomed to the strange new species that joined their ranks. After a boost in popularity when the Humans came to the scene, the IPGS had begun to decline back down to its usual attendance. The floating space station, once needed to accommodate the two million attendants that had arrived by the fifth year, now felt cavernous now that the attendance had dropped down to one million.

The upside was the regular crowds had become ardent followers, which moved the IPGS from an annual event to four times a year. Still, Milek knew it would only be a few more years before it returned to the normal half-million crowds. Even with the wild species that Humanity had to showcase, there was only so much that could be displayed before it became dull again.

Milek was fine with it. The crowds were becoming stifling and the Garden show was getting too big to sample everything without risking her stomach exploding. The novelty of Humanity also wore off here when they realized the Garden Show operated more like what they called a “Farmer’s Market” and ceased bringing dangerous plants. It didn’t make much sense to transport begonias and water lilies just for aliens to look at them.

“Carrot?” Emily asked as she handed a long orange root vegetable to Milek.

Milek gripped it and crunched it in her mouth. The bright orange root was a wonderful treat. “Thanks. What is he doing?”

Milek had gestured over to Arthur standing a ways off in the field. He was whistling and clicking at five fluffy grey and white dogs. Two of the animals had so much puffy hair that their eyes were obscured. Milek wondered how they could see.

Emily had referred to them as Old English Sheepdogs. They were bred to do something called herding. Milek had never heard it used as a verb before. She knew that Humans consumed meat, so it made sense that they would develop a way to maneuver large populations of herbivores around and needed a means to protect them from predators.

Milek shuddered at the thought that the unassuming woman with blond hair tied up in a bun was carnivorous. Had the Zilian people not developed intelligence, she could imagine the Humans driving her people around with dogs.

Emily had been polite and not brought along any meat on the picnic, much to the Human children’s dismay. Arthur was also not happy with the impromptu vegetarian day, which he tolerated with something he referred to as a “stiff upper lip”.

“I understand the concept of herding, but why are you using it on an egeru? They’re predatory animals,” Milek commented. She was surprised at how calm she was in the presence of one of her planet’s predatory species. The Zilians traveled in large herds and evolved to their large size to protect themselves from the animals.

Yet here was Arthur and his five Old English Sheepdogs driving four of the egerus around the grassland. The reason they were doing this was the year before, the Human family had come to visit Milek and decided to go on a safari. Which meant driving a vehicle through the wilds and looking at dangerous beasts.

Unfortunately, the egerus were also mildly endangered. The Humans had to get special permission from the Zilian authorities to evaluate the animals. They were going to evaluate how to create a breeding program to improve their numbers, something the Zilians recognized only Humans were crazy enough to do. No one else wanted to get near the dangerous animals.

At least dangerous to Milek. The prior year on their holiday, Emily squealed loudly and called the egerus cute. Arthur, having observed the small family dynamic of the predators, thought they could make a good candidate for selective breeding, which as another motivation for their trip. Milek’s head nearly burst when he heard the Human say that the Zilians could have their own version of dogs in a few generations. Her mate, Kaini, was concerned about associating with the Humans at all.

Kaini didn’t have any input on the matter and Milek squashed it. After making plans with Arthur and Emily, who also took the opportunity to train some working dogs for a client, they returned the following year.

Milek felt bad for the egerus. While their volume was about 20% greater than the Sheepdogs, the dogs had a substantial mass advantage. Earth’s high gravity necessitated evolving significantly sturdier physiques. After some initial aggressive posturing, the dogs quickly asserted their dominance. The egerus were unable to match either the physical strength or the coordinated intelligence of the dogs.

“How are things going over there?” Emily shouted at Arthur.

He had been running around for a solid hour at this point, something that astounded Milek. That was at the upper bound of how long a trained Zilian athlete could run. Arthur was only breathing moderately heavier than usual.

“Oh, I’m terribly out of shape. I’m thinking we need to make a few more days of the week vegetarian,” Arthur called back.

The Human kids jeered the concept of taking meat off the menu more frequently. Milek shook her head. Arthur was complaining about being unhealthy while already performing better than most of the runners in the galaxy.

“Not that. How are the dogs and the, what was it called again?” Emily asked Milek.

“Egerus,” Milek replied.

“Yes. Those. How do you evaluate them?” Emily called over to Arthur.

Arthur’s hand went up to the lower part of his head, the part under the mouth they called a chin. “Promising. The dogs are all showing excellent herding instincts. We shouldn’t let them get too used to this low gravity though.”

His eyes tracked the egerus, which were now huddled in submission between a circle of the panting dogs. The tongue flopping out through the sharp teeth was, as Milek learned, not a means of intimidation but of cooling down. Not that the egerus knew the difference.

“I think these creatures show promise as well,” Arthur commented when he peered at the predatory animals.

Milek’s mind thought to Fessin. She had met Fessin through Kaini’s work. Unfortunately for Fessin, he and Kaini were off on a job constructing a space station in Earth’s orbit to provide embassies for various galactic races. They couldn’t survive on the planet so a special arrangement had to be made.

It was unfortunate because Milek just observed another one of the Human’s strange behaviors, something she knew Fessin would have loved to witness. Arthur began to approach the egerus slowly, bent over with the back of his hand presented.

Fear rose up in Milek as she watched the Human creeping toward the predators. She wanted to collect her offsprings’ cocoons and retreat back to their vehicle for safety. Yet Emily, their two children and the two other dogs showed no signs of distress or concern. Because of this, she decided that Arthur must not be in any real danger. Not that it would quiet down Milek’s own instincts.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Milek asked Emily.

Emily shrugged. “As safe as anything else. Have to take chances to get a reward. Arthur has a way with animals, especially dogs that show aggression.”

If the creeping man in the outfit his Human compatriots consider “dorky” is able to face down an aggressive dog, then the egerus shouldn’t pose much of a risk at all.

The egerus huddled closer when Arthur approached. The largest, the family matriarch, let out a low growl to warn the Human away. He cooed at the sound and commented how cute it sounded.

The matriarch then suddenly lunged at Arthur. Milek froze in terror, thinking she had just witnessed the end of her friend.

Instead, Arthur responded with reflexes that made the egeru look like thick adhesive dripping down a wall. His powerful hands, surprisingly gentle, readjusted the lunge off to the side. The Human then pinned the egeru down and, to Milek’s shock, flipped it over on its back.

The egeru tried to thrash and escape Arthur’s grasp. The Human had pinned the animal to the ground in a firm yet surprisingly gentle grip. The predator struggled to throw off the man’s fleshy shackles. All the while, Arthur was using his other hand and gently stroking the egeru’s underside.

After a few minutes, under the terrified gaze of its mate and offspring, the egeru began to calm. Arthur was making a gentle hissing noise with his mouth, which Milek found oddly soothing. Soon, the predator animal ceased thrashing and went still, its breathing beginning to calm.

After the animal ceased fighting, Arthur released it and backed away. The egeru matriarch calmly flipped over to its legs and then backed away from Arthur, keeping an eye on him. While it still didn’t look friendly, the animal didn’t show aggression. It had enough faculties to recognize the Human wasn’t something to trifle with.

Emily smiled at the interaction. “Ah! That’s promising!”

“That? The egerus look terrified,” Milek said as she watched the shaking animals stare at Arthur, no longer showing any behavior she was used to seeing in the predatory animals.

“Of course. We can, at the very least, ensure a proper breeding program with that behavior,” Emily replied. “Had they immediately fled or attacked after Arthur’s show of dominance, we would have had to come up with a different plan.”

Milek processed the words as she watched the dogs, upon invitation from Arthur, approach the egerus. The dogs were smelling the huddled animals, something she had recognized as a sign of friendly curiosity. With the dogs no longer showing their herding behavior, the egerus, to Milek’s shock, started to calm.

“Does this mean they’re tamed?” Milek asked as she watched Arthur again close in and carefully inspect the egerus, running his hand over parts of their body.

Emily laughed musically. “Oh, no. Not in the slightest. I wouldn’t suggest you go over there. At this stage, they show all the signs of recognizing Arthur and the dogs as something they can’t fight. Taming is harder and, even then, we still wouldn’t want Zilians anywhere near one. That would be after we domesticate them, which is a rather lengthy process.”

“So, what now?” Milek asked, starting up the rocking of her cocoons that she realized had stopped during the fascination with Arthur’s actions.

“We are going to request some land and set up a breeding facility. Then we’ll go out and find more egerus with similar temperament. We need to isolate and amplify the temperament genes needed for domestication without causing significant inbreeding. We lost a few breeds, like the German Shepherd and the French Bulldog, to poor genetic management,” Emily explained, a slight sadness in her voice when mentioning the last two dog breeds.

“Do you know how long it will take?” Milek asked as she observed Arthur applying a local anesthetic to the egerus’ ears before clipping a tracking device to it. They had the system set up to track candidate animals should they be needed for capture after the facility was completed.

Emily crossed her arms and looked to the sky. “Oh, hard to tell really. It depends on how fast we can isolate the gene. There’s no guarantee domestication will even work. Still, the upside is we can at least produce a healthy population of egerus that will pose lower risk to the Zilians when we’re finished.”

Arthur, finished with tagging the egerus, let out a shrill whistle. The five Sheepdogs obediently converged on him as he walked away from the egeru family. After a distance, the egerus realized they were freed from their ordeal and slinked away in silence.

“We had a few victories today. We have a beginning of a good candidate for egeru breeding and, even better, these five are coming along nicely. I’ll get them trained up on some sheep and our client will have some excellent working dogs,” Arthur said with a clap of his hands, the sharp sound dissipating in the grassland.

Emily stood and stretched her back. “Unless you have any objections, Milek, I think we’ll call it a day.”

“None at all,” Milek replied as she pressed a few buttons on her cocoons’ basket. When the anti-gravity unit was activated, she prepared to move her offspring back to the vehicle to bring home. “It was an interesting day.”

“Quite,” Arthur replied. “It’s a shame Fessin wasn’t able to come. He would have loved to see this.”

Milek was sure he would have. He would have also requested Arthur to visit his planet to see if there were any predators that he could test as well.

As the Human children and the other two dogs made their way to the vehicle, Milek took one last turn and looked over the grassland at the forms of the retreating egerus. It was hard to believe that there was a chance that, some day in the future, those animals could be domesticated. That her children or grandchildren could lounge against a tamed egeru, safe in the knowledge their pet would keep them safe.

Milek also imagined the Humans going around the galaxy taming and domesticating even more of these animals. Interest in the IPGS may be waning now, yet Milek suspected there would be a new resurgence of attendees when the other species began showing off their newly domesticated home world predators.

The Human impact on her favorite pass-time was not yet over.
Author's Note: Thanks everyone for reading. When I initially came up with this silly short story exercise, I wasn't sure it was worth posting for the world to see, let alone getting the reaction it received, especially from an unknown writer. I honestly wasn't even thinking of writing more than the first one. I appreciate the time everyone has taken to read the story and the comments made. It really helped with my confidence to see people enjoy what I've written. It also is what sparked me to write up Part 2 and the Finale.
After finishing up the final part of my other little story experiment, I'll need to get back to finishing up a full-length novel I had started for publication. After that? I have another, full book length idea that I think will resonate well here. I'll probably start that later in the year.
See you all soon. I hope I bring you smiles in equal measure as you have brought me.

I am torn on the privacy/bodily autonomy argument re: plastic surgery. My own bias is that I think it’s wild that we have decided that people shouldn’t look like humans with wrinkles, fat, hair, small boobs, etc. At the same time, I understand the idea of someone feeling like their - for example - unusually large nose is really impacting their day-to-day interactions, and wanting it to be less distinctive. No judgement there.
My issue is when celebrities - usually women - completely change their features and then take the position that people shouldn’t discuss it because it’s their own business. Yes, it’s their prerogative to do whatever they want to their faces, and, this is a much much larger cultural issue that we should talk about. It’s a continuation of the old rule that men can get old while women should just disappear. Women who were once universally recognized as being drop-dead gorgeous are refusing to be gorgeous women with normal human faces (shout out to Naomi Watts for bucking this trend); they are now becoming formerly gorgeous women with extremely puffy faces, eerily stretched-out lips, and tiny eyes.
And then the young celebrities with plastic surgery are a different issue. I wish that someone would explain their reasoning for changing their faces. I have a feeling it would be something like “it’s incredibly debilitating to read online comments about how ugly you are when you work in an industry that’s so heavily based on looks.” I feel like that could really start a conversation about both online behavior and unrealistic beauty standards. But the current practice seems akin to dying your hair blue and then being offended when people mention it. It’s so dishonest and it doesn’t help deepen our understanding of our world.