2 years ago I caught my brother in law taking pictures of me in my bikini. We were hanging out as families (My sisters family , My brothers family and my husband and I). The day plan was to go boating, dinner at my sisters and then for my husband and I to stay over. On the boat My brother in law usually takes lots of photos so it wasn’t strange that he had his phone out snapping pictures. But he was leaning strange and seemingly taking photos of me beside him ( aimed at my boobs). At one point on the boat my sister said “ it looks like ( name of brother in law) is taking photos of your boobs”. I had felt that he was so her saying this confirmed it for me. But in the moment I brushed it off. I noticed many separate times that he was doing this. After we got off the boat and were packing up , I pulled my sister aside and briefly said to her that I felt like he was and her saying it confirmed it for me. It was a quick convo because we were packing up. On the drive to dinner I told my husband and he was shocked. We both agreed this was incredibly strange and out of character for my BIL. My husband said if my gut feeling was that he had done it, then it was probably true that he did and to trust my gut. We got to their place and my sister had asked her husband if he had taken pictures of me (she did this privately with just him). He denied it. I was feeling sick at this point because it was so uncomfortable for me. I liked my BIL and although we’re not super close , I’m extremely close with my sister. He had never put me in a position like this and it was hard for me to believe that he had sexualized me like this. The next day she had asked him again and he denied it. He let her go through his phone and she didn’t see anything. Fast forward a year and my sister found photos on his phone of their daughter’s soccer coaches boobs. She was extremely upset about it. She confronted him about it and then also brought up me on the boat. He admitted to it and said he was embarrassed and deleted them right away. She asked why he did it and he didn’t give a reason. My sister asked how I felt about it and I told her that I would support her however she wanted to deal with this because it is her husband and her marriage. They were already in couples therapy because he had given one of his female coworkers money ( something like $800). He said he had done this because she was in tough times and had a young child. The coworker had threatened my BIL to give her more money or would tell my sister “everything”. He said there wasn’t anything to tell and so the co worker started messaging my sister on Facebook ( that they had a sexual relationship) and commenting on her pictures (“ what a nice family”). The female coworker was apparently threatening another male coworker but was going to call child services on him if he didn’t give her money. Apparently thier HR was made aware of these threats but she was later fired because of her active cocaine use on the job. Anyway. They stopped going to therapy because they felt that this issue had been resolved between them. When I asked my sister what the therapist said about the photos she said that they didn’t talk about it before they stopped. Because they were already in therapy I had assumed my sister would work through this issue but she/ they haven’t… The visits after my sister found the photos- my BIL would barely make eye contact with me nor conversation. It felt to me like he was embarrassed. It was just awkward for me. I love my sister deeply. I do not want to do anything to hurt her and keeping this a secret is a way I feel like I am protecting her and giving her space to deal with this without having any social pressures from others. We are coming up on 2 years and I need closure. I told my sister this and we agreed to have a group conversation about it ( us and our husbands). She admitted she was ignoring this issue between all of us and would talk to her husband about it. She asked for some time and I agreed- I told her I’d give her a couple months ( end of summer). We are at the start of summer now and am feeling nervous for this conversation. My husband and I have talked about it lots. He thinks I should be blatantly honest about my feelings. I worry if I do this it will drive a huge wedge between my sister and I. My current thoughts: 1. I do not want him alone with my daughter. She is a baby but even now my husband and I both currently feel uncomfortable when he holds her. 2. I am his only “sister” . He has always said that he loves me like a little sister and was so happy to get one when he married into the family. But for him to sexualize me like this makes me never want to trust him again. 3. I think that he is / has done more than what he has been caught with ( ex. The co worker). And my sister deserves the full truth from him. When we all hang out as families , we act like nothing is wrong and it can be really nice! I love my sister and her family and it feels so much easier to just slightly recognize that this happened ( cause I haven’t acknowledged this with my BIL yet) and move on. Selfishly I want to be super honest to hurt my BIL. It currently feels like he is getting away with his weird selfish behaviour and I want him to hear how his actions have impacts. But I also feel like it won’t go well?
Any alternative advice for moving forward? Should we have the meeting? Should I put this story to my other siblings and their significant others?
TLDR; My BIL got caught taking weird sexualized pictures of myself and his daughter’s soccer coach. Trying to move forward with my relationship with my sister who I adore but cannot trust him anymore because of his behaviour and looking for advice.

I love reading these so wanted to contribute my own! I did not do super accurate tracking and I'm definitely missing all the misc costs (plus all the things I purchased and missed the return period on), but this should be the main costs. I wanted to stay between $25k - $30k and was pretty successful! First, a few detail shots and a summary of some of the things that went wrong with the day lol: Pictures!
The reason there are so few detail shots is because of RAIN and also a bit of poor planning/lateness. :( I had been looking at the forecast starting 10 days out, and there was no rain in the forecast - even when I looked at the forecast the morning of!! But of course, isn't it ~ironic~ (I know, it is not irony, but the song fits very well here) that it would start raining just 1 hour before the ceremony. Luckily we were able to get all our bridal/party/family pics done before it started raining, but we had to quickly pivot from our planned outdoor ceremony to a ceremony in the reception space. This, combined with the transportation of all our decorations being a bit late, meant that we were scrambling a bit right before the ceremony to move/set up everything and having all the guests then occupy the reception space so our photographer couldn't get too many detail shots. Also, we didn't have our photographer for getting ready pics so we couldn't really get pictures of my shoes and jewelry, his watch and accessories, etc since we were already wearing them. Overall not a big deal because honestly I'm not too concerned with photos and am more than satisfied with having photos of the people/event.
We had a total of 90 confirmed guests + 3 vendors, but 5 guests no showed on the day.
Now to costs - Mostly approximate, but comes out to somewhere around $26,000ish?
Venue fee: $4000. This included access to the venue from 1pm - 11pm (with 4 hours being for setup/photos, 5 hours of event time, and 1 hour for cleanup), all staff, tables, chairs, linens, and tableware. The venue is a restaurant that also hosts a lot of weddings which I loved because that meant everything was in-house and the staff are very experienced.
Food: $6,182.70. This included 3 appetizers for cocktail hour and an appetizer, salad, 3 sides, two mains (chicken + salmon), and 2 vegan entrees for the 2 vegans in attendance for dinner. This price includes 20% gratuity. I spent probably around $150 for dessert? I purchased a half sheet cake, 4 vegan cupcakes, and 1 gluten-free pound cake from a local bakery, and I baked a 9-inch round cake for cutting and two 9x13 cakes.
Beverages: $558 for non-alcoholic drinks (coffee, iced tea, lemonade, pink lemonade, and sodas). $2200 for open bar. Both prices include 20% gratuity, although I tipped an extra $100 on the bar tab because I was surprised it was so low lol. This was another benefit of having it in a restaurant because they had a full bar and a menu of signature drinks as well.
Florals: ~$800. I bought the pastels DIY package from Flower Moxie with a few additional a la carte flowers and also bought 100 stems from a local flower farm. This was enough for a bridal bouquet, 5 bridesmaid bouquets, 9 boutonnieres, ad 85 bud vases. Honestly I could have done even more with the flowers since I had soooo many extra flowers at the end, but story time: The flowers from Flower Moxie were supposed to arrive the Wednesday before our Saturday wedding. The plan was flower prep on Wednesday then arranging on Thursday. Well, about half of the flowers arrived on Wednesday as planned, but the other half didn't arrive until Friday at 11am due to shipping issues. Therefore we weren't able to make the bouquets until Friday, where we didn't have much time because our rehearsal was 12-1 (11:30 - 1:30 due to travel time) and our rehearsal dinner was at 7 (had to leave at 6:30 at the latest, plus needing time to get ready). This + flower arranging with sad stems since they only had ~1.5 hours to hydrate meant that we didn't have time to do anything but the absolutely necessary items. We could have made bigger bouquets, corsages, added more to the bud vases, etc. Our florals still turned out beautiful but I'm just bummed we wasted so many beautiful flowers :( (especially because we left on our honeymoon on the Wednesday following the wedding, so we composted all the extras). Even though this added extra work before the wedding, I'm glad we cut costs here.
Other decor: ~$250 for 85 bud vases, ~$200 for faux floral ground arch, $80 for votives, $200 for big mirror welcome sign.
Photographer: $2,350 for 7 hours and engagement session
DJ: $1,300 for 5 hours
Day of Coordinator: $800
Stationary: Approx. $150 for a printer, $50 paper + extra ink, $10 for invite template from Etsy, $30 for an address stamp, and $80 for postage. With this I was able to print 50 save the dates, 50 invitations, 100 programs, guest book sign, favors sign, and seating chart. I'm super glad I went the DIY route - I love how everything turned out and I needed a printer any way so it works out. The prints came out very high quality. I designed everything except the invites in Canva.
Favors: $312.50 for 125 customized chopsticks. These were a hit - even though we only had 90 guests, we only ended up with 15 extras that were the ones that I left at home because they didn't fit in the box lol. If I brought all of them, they might all have been taken.
Attire: $1,500 for ceremony dress + alterations, $40 for veil, $620 for reception dress + alterations, $250 for ceremony + reception shoes. $180 for groom's suit + alterations, ~$100 for shirt + tie + belt + socks + shoes.
Photobooth: Also DIYed this using the booth.events app. I already had an iPad, so I bought a ring light, backdrop, and Canon Selphy printer for prints. Booth.events lets you design your template. The printer prints 4x6 photos so I had a paper cutter out that let guests cut it into two photo strips. All in all probably ~$280 for everything, not including the things I already had. The photobooth was a big hit with the guests - it was used over 50 times, and all the pictures were saved on my iPad + on an online gallery for the guests. And now I have a photobooth set up I can whip out at other events!!
Guest book: Bought a cute vintage guest book off Etsy for $20 and I already had 2 instax cameras. Spent $40 for extra film which wasn't all used. I highly recommend doing a photo guest book, I got teary looking through all the pictures of the guests along with their sweet messages. I wish all the guests signed, some missed it.
Other costs: ~$900 for two nights in a bridal suite, $600 for wedding party attire, $500 for wedding party gifts, $140 for transportation.
I know I'm missing a lot but I think this is most of it. Overall everything turned out wonderfully even with the rain! I personally found the DIY stuff worth it and I enjoyed doing those things. I have more to say but at this point I've become a bit ramble-y so I'll just stop here! :p

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
We pulled off I-51 a little after midnight, stopping at a truck stop which was couched between the highway and a large forest.
We waited in the van for ten minutes or so. Trent had increased the sonar radius to its maximum of 30 miles a little over an hour ago. Somehow the red pings had kept up with us, holding a steady distance of around 20 miles. Considering we were averaging around 80 mph, and a coyote's top speed is only around 40 mph, we figured they had been enhanced in some way. Either that, or they shape-shifted into something faster. Regardless, now that we had stopped, we waited to see if the demon spawn would try and close the distance. Luckily, or unluckily, they didn't. They kept their 20 mile buffer, but we noticed they were beginning to spread out along the circumference of that boundary.
"We're close. They know that, so they're trying to trap us in." Trent said.
"Trying to?—more like they have."
We considered whether we should stay in the van and keep watch, but we figured that would do us little good. At their speed, they could be on us in ten minutes, which means we would need to stay up all night and keep tabs on their positions. Trent offered to stay up, of course, but I shut him down.
"The demon doesn't want to kill us now. You said it yourself. Plus, we need our rest. If they come, they come."
Trent didn't like it, but he acquiesced.
The truck stop had all the essentials: a gas station and mini mart with showers and an attached McDonald's, a large parking lot for truckers to idle and sleep, and even a section with lodging for those who wanted a more comfortable night's rest. I told Trent that he should take advantage of the showers, and after a little convincing, he agreed. While he was cleaning himself up, I patrolled the dingy, half-stocked aisles of "Daisy's Quick Mart". I probably would have been appalled at the quality of the store had I actually been paying any attention to it whatsoever. But I wasn't. I was thinking hard about what awaited me tomorrow.
During the drive, I had asked Trent why the demon would want us to return to the crash site. What did he mean that I would be 'confronting a dark entity in a place he couldn't help me'? He seemed hesitant to answer, but my little stunt outside the storage facility seemed to have sufficiently motivated him.
"When I said I've never done this before, I meant it." Trent started. "I've never done this exact thing before—meaning I've never projected someone into the past."
"So, I'm time traveling?" I asked.
"No—don't think of it like that." Trent paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. "It's more like I'm opening a window for you to look through: not a door. You're going to see the past, but you can't interact with the physicalities there. But that doesn't mean you can't interact with anything."
There was a space of silence as Trent tried to let me work out his meaning for myself. "I don't get it. Are you saying there's something I can interact with? Like what?" And then it hit me. "The demon. The demon can interact with me? Meaning what? It can kill me?"
"Meaning… I'm not exactly sure. You're going to be in a kind of psychic space. If it does damage, it won't be to your body. It'll be to your mind—or spirit. But I don't know what the limits of that damage could be. I just don't have those answers."
"If you've never done this, how do you know any of it will work?"
"That's an easy one." Trent answered. "Because it's been done to me."
There was silence.
"Look, if I know anything, I know my tech. Don't doubt that this will work. It's my job to make sure it does. I just need you to be in the right mental for this. Just because it knows your coming doesn't mean it automatically has the upper hand. It won't be able to see you unless you make contact with it first. In other words, you have to initiate contact. As long as you remain a spectator, you should be okay. Trust me. Just don't make contact."
I started pacing faster—fast enough to catch the attention of the overnight shift worker, a young man whose name I can't quite remember. I know it started with a "J". Jake, maybe? Anyway, he asked if I was alright, to which I responded in the affirmative. He left me alone for another couple passes, but when I almost ran into one of the shelves, he stood up and said, "Uh—I'm going to have to ask you to stop running around. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
I must have stared daggers at him, because he recoiled from my gaze. What's gotten into me? I thought. Then, steadying myself, I apologized. I looked around and grabbed the nearest edible looking piece of merchandise: a bag of Swedish Fish, and placed it down on the counter. "Just this, please."
The cashier rang me up. It was surprisingly cheap.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the young man asked. He was tall with brown hair. He seemed tired—maybe even more tired than me. But he also seemed kind.
I smiled as best I could and said, "No, I'm not. But there's not really anything you can do. Hell, there might not be anything I can do." I furrowed my eyebrows at my own response, realizing that imminent death may have broken my verbal filter.
On the other hand, the cashier did not seem surprised at all. "Ah, I see. It's one of those problems." He responded. "Well, hey, for what it's worth, you seem like one of the resilient ones. I think you'll be alright."
I only smiled and nodded at his mildly cryptic comment. Looking back, the whole interaction was a bit strange, but I had way too much mental clutter to recognize that in the moment. I took my Swedish Fish and walked through the anteroom which led to McDonald's. I found an open yellow booth that wasn't littered with crumpled straw sleeves and sat down, chomping mindlessly on my little red fish until Trent returned. When he arrived, he took my place, and I went to shower. After we were both clean and fed, we returned to the van. The pings were still pushed safely out of harm's way. But that didn't mean we were out of harm's way. Trent asked me if I wanted to sleep in the van, saying that "it'd be the safest place."
I thought it over. He was right, obviously. The van was not only outfitted with weapons I couldn't even begin to understand, but it was also our escape, and it would be just as difficult, if not more difficult to break into than the studio-style motel rooms with their wood doors and big windows. Still, if this was going to be my last night on earth, I wanted to sleep in a bed. A real bed. Trent understood and said he'd stay parked right outside my room for the night.
After purchasing a key from the night attendant, I moseyed over to the cement walkways which connected the twenty or so rooms. Mine was room #56, which I thought was odd since, like I said, there were only 20 rooms. I lugged in my tomato plushie and dad's old book and placed them on the queen mattress.
"I'll be right outside." Trent said after I collapsed onto the bed.
"Trent," I called out, stopping him half-way through the door.
"Yeah?"
All the blood in my body rushed up to my face as I realized my unfiltered mouth almost reflexively said the word "stay". I stared at Trent, my heart beating, my face hot. I considered asking him to sleep on the floor like my dad, but that would be childish and impolite. The alternative was to share my bed… Or I could take the floor.
"I'll just be right outside." Trent said before my mind processed a solution. "Come by if you need anything. I'll be up most of the night anyway."
"Okay," I replied in a faint voice.
Trent shut the door.
I sat atop the bedsheets and acquainted myself with my new living space. A feeling of regret closed over me as I considered that even sleeping on a carseat would have been better if it meant I didn't have to be alone. With a sigh, I turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the book and stuffed tomato, using the tomato as a backrest as I slipped my legs under the covers and situated the book upright on my thighs. I cracked it open and was immediately blasted with a puff of dusty, old book scent. It was ripe at first, and I turned my head away to sneeze, but as I perused through the pages, the scent grew on me. It reminded me of the days growing up when I'd step into dad's study and read through one of the many volumes on cryptic topics which were at least two college degrees above my Lexile range.
I was only a couple minutes into browsing the collection of different scientific and philosophical works when I came across a page which contained highlighted text. This was unusual, as my dad would never mark up his books. He was a purist on that point. I rubbed my thumb over the yellow lines, and sure enough, it was highlighter.
The highlighted text was part of a small book by Carl Jung called "Synchronicity". There were a total of three pages that were marked, and they advanced like this:
Page 5:
The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is causality*. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes… That is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and require another principle of explanation.*
Page 19:
…there are events which are related to one another experimentally, and in this case meaningfully*, without there being any possibility of proving that this relation is a causal one, since the "transmission" exhibits none of the known properties of energy…a situation which does not yet exist and will only occur in the future could transmit itself as a phenomenon of energy to a receiver in the present…Therefore, it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity... "synchronicity"*
Page 22:
A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer… which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.
I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book. There was no more highlighted text, but there was a message on the last page which read:
Matthew 7:7-8
I'll meet you in the darkest place.
He also included his typical smiley face which had an ovular shape and three sprouts of hair which I now realized kind of resembled my tomato plushie. It was my dad's writing, of course. But why? And how? What did this mean?
The motel had a Bible stashed away in the nighstand drawer. I got it out and looked up the verses which read the following:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
I spent maybe an hour ruminating on all of this. The whole discourse on energy and causality and a "falling together in time" just seemed so right. It was clear that my dad definitely did know what I was going through, but for whatever reason, he made it seem like he was oblivious. Why had he hidden that from me? I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, my dad loved me enough to leave this note, maybe even knowing the exact moment I'd need it. But on the other hand, he had neglected my struggles throughout my entire childhood. He even lied at times. Was this really enough to make up for all of that?
And then there was the section about the future transmitting energy to the past. I read back through the whole paragraph and the original writer had meant it to say this as something that wasn't possible, but my dad's highlighting made it seem like he wanted to flip the meaning. The future does affect the past. I thought about where I was headed and wondered if I would soon discover that for myself.
Lastly, dad's message. The Bible verse reminded me of the first time I prayed; how I reached out to God and received peace as an answer to my prayer. Now I feel like I'm actively seeking… something, but I don't know yet what I'll find. And then there's knocking. At first that reminded me of the story with the beetle tapping on the window, but then I went back even deeper in my memory and dug out the monster tapping at my window, and the words my dad spoke to me in order to set my mind at ease: "you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is? Your greatest power is you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them…so if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story."
I was crying into my stuffed tomato now. I felt like all the blinking pieces of my life had finally been pulled together into a completed puzzle. This was all by design. My entire life, filled with so much chaos and confusion, was actually preparing me for this moment. And my dad thought I had the tools and strength enough to get through it. I flipped through the book one more time, thinking maybe he had left some other hidden comment—some formula to defeat this demon and return home. But there was nothing. Only that one comment: "I'll meet you in the darkest place."
What's the darkest place, dad? Is that where I'm going? Are you saying you'll be there, too?
With those thoughts in mind, my eyes became heavy shutters which, with a slight pressure on the pulley, winded shut. My swimming thoughts and firework-like fears dissipated, and I returned to a precious childhood memory. It was after an evening soccer practice. Summer. Dad was driving me to Dairy Queen. I got a cherry-dipped twist cone. I was happy.
So, so happy.
***
I woke up to sunlight blaring through my windows. Shit, I overslept, was my immediate thought. I threw off my covers and opened the front door. A glance at the clock showed 1:13 PM. I shouldn't have even been allowed to stay checked in this long. Damn, am I gonna get double-billed for this?
I heard a rummaging sound around the corner of my motel room. It sounded like a squirrel was trying to find an afternoon snack in one of the garbage bins. I stepped outside. The sun was extremely bright, to the point where I had to squint and put my hand over my eyes to even see the ground in front of me. I was trying to walk toward the van, but somehow I ended up in front of the trash bins where the animal's tail was sticking out from a turned-over, silver garbage can. Its tail was wagging excitedly, and I remember thinking that it was much too large to be a squirrel.
The animal bent down as if biting onto something, and I heard the sound of its growl as it struggled to tug whatever it was free from the barrel. Inch by inch, the creature backed out of the canister, and more of its sharp, sticky hair was revealed. I heard something snap, then the creature leapt back and I saw what it was chomping on. My eyes widened in horror as the pink tube of a human intestine was pulled taut like the end of a tangled hose. Blood and entrails were spilling out of the human's opened gut. And then, behind the canine, I saw the person's face. His face was pale white, his eyes closed, and his hair was slicked back… It was Trent.
Before I could react, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I whirled around and saw my dad. But—no, it wasn't him. It was someone wearing a paper-mache face mask that was painted to look like my dad. The forehead of the mask was already beginning to crack, white specks breaking off like sawdust. Through the cracks, I could see the figure's true form. I didn't know darkness had its own type of light, but that's the only way to describe it. It was as if malevolence itself was reified into a skin which was actually an amalgamation of millions of little, oozing parasites that leached into the nearby light. When it finally spoke, the demon's voice was a full octave lower than the old man's at the deli. And it had an earth-stilling gravitas.
"Today's the day!" He sang and reached into his pocket. His lips curled upward into a foxy smirk. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day." He said and held up a razor blade. Half his facade had already fallen apart, and now I could see the bugs up close, writhing in what was either horror or ecstasy. And his scent… it was somehow more rank than the rabid coyote rummaging through the trash can with Trent's cut open body inside. The demon closed in on my position, and in one, decisive motion, he brought the blade close to his chin, then sliced it across my throat. "Wake up!" He screamed.
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my throat, feeling the cold sting of its quick slice. Hyperventilating, I patted the area down, trying to hold the blood in, but when I removed my hands, I saw they were dry. It was only a dream, I thought. Gray light was only beginning to filter in through the drapes. I'm in my hotel room. I'm safe. I tried consoling, but the pragmatic mental massages weren't enough to hold the force of my knees buckling. I dropped onto the carpet and cried for a long while.
Outside, rain was beginning to fall.
***
By the time I met up with Trent, I had already composed myself and decided to keep my dad's message and the nightmare to myself. None of it seemed particularly productive from a logistical standpoint, anyway. And I wanted to focus on the mission.
We stopped by McDonald's and bought a couple cups of coffee. Trent asked if I wanted any food, and I declined. Black coffee seemed like the only thing my stomach could take at the present moment. I could tell Trent was hungry, but he tried playing it off (I guess to be respectful of me?) I told him to knock it off and get something to eat. I didn't need my Charon getting lightheaded and dropping the paddle before he finished rowing me to Hell. He didn't care much for my joke, but he ordered a couple Chicken McGriddles at the kiosk anyway.
There were maybe ten patrons spread throughout the restaurant. We sat down at the same booth from the prior night, this time across from one another. Trent spent the first ten minutes or so babbling about our fuel supply and the logistics of the trip from here on in. Practical stuff. I've come to realize that's how he deals with his stress. He talks it out in short, durable sentences. I mostly nodded and watched as what looked like a storm front closed in on the truck stop. The sky was overcast, and there were darker clouds in the distance. The rain was still only a patter, but a middle-aged man wearing a yellow bow tie on the wall-mounted TV confirmed that there would be heavier rain and thunderstorms very soon.
After the worker delivered Trent's food and he ate it in record time, I posed the one question that was still on my mind.
"How do I fight him?" I asked.
Trent finished a large gulp of his coffee, then looked at me. It was the first substantial thing I'd said all morning; Trent could tell something was off with me, but he figured there was no point in asking what it was. "By 'him', I assume you mean the demon?"
I nodded.
Trent licked his teeth clean. "You could try praying again."
"I'm serious," I responded.
"I'm serious, too. It worked before, didn't it?"
"You mean at my house?"
Trent nodded.
"I thought you weren't a religious man?"
"I'm not. Just a practical one. If praying worked before, maybe it'll work again."
"That's the best you've got? A maybe?"
"No, I've got a lot of shit better than a maybe." He answered. "It's just not accessible where you're going. Which is why I recommend not making contact on the first run."
"First run? So we're going to do this more than once?"
"At least," Trent answered. Then, seeing my expression, he continued. "What? You thought this was going to be a one-and-done? We have to conduct some research first. I did tell you this was new for me, right?"
Somehow Trent's response had set my mind at ease a little. I was going to have more than one chance. Of course, why wouldn't I be able to go back more than once?
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? It would have gone a long way in easing my mind."
Trent lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I just thought that was a given. I mean, what we're doing is dangerous, just like I said, but it doesn't mean we aren't going to approach this as safely and scientifically as possible. However, there is a different problem with running multiple trials."
"The Organization?"
"That's right," Trent said like a proud parent. "Our little experiment will be like a giant spotlight, and the longer we wait around after it's on us, the greater the chance we'll have unwelcome company."
"So, safe but speedy."
"Safe but speedy. Exactly."
***
We fueled up and were back on the road a little after 8:00. From that point on, Trent and I were absolutely silent. I had the distinct feeling of being in the eye of a storm. The pings moved closer commensurate with our progress toward the crash site. The cloudfront continued its advance. And I noticed a haze beginning to descend onto the road ahead of us. It was fog.
We meandered further inland, the forest thickening around us until the rain almost stopped entirely—the leaves drinking it up before it fell onto our windshield. I kept my eyes on the radar. We were approaching the large yellow circle which indicated we had arrived. As we pulled closer, I began to feel things. Fear. Eeriness. Doubt. Then happiness. Hope. Love. Normally feelings like these had a clear source to picture, but these sensations came on in waves without any discernible reason. It was almost as if they were blinking into existence inside me.
"Here we go," Trent said like an airline pilot readying his crew for turbulence.
I still recall the exact moment we crossed the boundary into the area of higher energy. It was like something just "clicked" in my brain, and all of a sudden everything felt so much closer. The sound of the rain against the trees was almost right next to my ear. The trees in the distance would oscillate between their position a half-mile out, then suddenly seem five meters away. If I focused on something long enough, it began to radiate those same ethereal particles as when Trent released Ava's "phase lock". I checked to make sure the shifter wasn't set to "TD". Sure enough, it was still in drive.
"Can you see them?" Trent asked. "The shifts?"
"Yeah," I said in a dreamy voice. I felt like I was driving through a wonderland.
"It's the energy. I barely notice a difference. A bit of movement in the trees, but not much else. But I'm sure for you, it's a whole experience."
"What is this?" I raised my hand and caught some of the pixel dust dripping off the sun visor. It disappeared when it made contact with my hand.
"It's a kind of radiation. Everything emits it, just in different quantities. I'm still not exactly sure how it relates to the other realms, but I'm guessing it's a kind of primordial matter that helps connect our worlds."
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed. "I wish I could see the world like this all the time."
"Maybe you will," Trent whispered.
As we arrived at the crash site, I began to get glimpses of the past. My childhood dreams and memories were pushing their way out from my subconscious. I noticed an increased number of blinks, which were validated by Ava who reported the following: "Currently detecting 14,350 novel emergences and 2,777 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 2,777."
"That's a lot of blinks." I remarked. "Why doesn't Ava include them in the net anomalies?"
Trent turned his head so I could see his smirk. "Because blinks aren't anomalies."
I thought about it for a second. Blinks aren't anomalies. "I never thought about it that way."
"It's hard to think about it that way when 'normal' for most people means not picking up on a fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't make it any less real."
We continued past the epicenter of the yellow circle. "Are we not stopping?" I asked. "I think we already passed the crash site."
"It doesn't have to be exactly at the site," Trent said. "Plus, we don't want to stop on the side of the road and risk getting some civilian involved. There's a field about half a mile up ahead. I'm going to pull off the road and set up camp there.
The "field" that Trent was referring to was actually a large clearing that dipped down into several trench-like troughs which were filled to the brim with fog like witches cauldrons. Further on in the distance, I saw open fields, probably used for farming, and then a large hill where the trees once again reasserted themselves. We had pulled off the road and up a small incline where the trees had already been broken down, leaving a trail for us to drive through. When we surfaced at the edge of the clearing, Trent pulled us onto a flat bed of dried mud which was maybe thirty yards long.
"Here," he said with a sigh.
We both sat for a minute, looking around at the field. We had finally arrived. The rain was beginning to pick up, and the dark sky made it almost impossible to discern the time of day.
"You ready?" Trent asked.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. In his blue eyes. Was I ready? Did it even matter?
"Let's do this," I said.
***
This was the first time I was really able to inspect the back of Trent's van. He had talked up his gear a lot, and honestly, I was impressed. Not in the way that a scientist is impressed by another scientist's lab—I wasn't any kind of expert—but it still seemed remarkably well managed. Now that I was in a state where my vision had been enhanced, I could actually see the enigmatic particles circulating through the pneumatic tubes which were coiled like the pipes and valves of an elaborate wind instrument. The walls of the van, itself, were glistening white, making it easier to make out everything else inside. Along the floor were five overturned columns. Each column was dark and had a vibrating quality, as if they were charged with energy. Then atop the center three columns was a small altar which supported an apparatus with two skinny, metal arms holding a silver halo. At present, the arms were folded and the halo was suspended a few inches above the altar, faced-down. I thought maybe I'd see particles exuding from it, but instead it was emitting visible waves which bent and warped everything they touched.
"That thing is emitting a lot of energy." I remarked, gesturing toward the halo.
Trent stepped in between the columns and started pulling out the packages he had stuffed in there yesterday. "Just wait till' it's on."
Most of the packages contained only a single piece of equipment, and were otherwise packed with foam peanuts. We carefully removed each box and set them on the ground outside. I asked if the rain would damage any of the stuff inside, to which Trent only laughed and continued lugging out the boxes. When they were all out, Trent removed a box cutter from his pocket and went one-by-one opening them. There were eight pieces in total.
"What is it?" I asked as we fished the first item out.
"It's another apparatus, like the one inside. Except it'll mount on the ground out here."
I pulled out what looked like a metal tripod.
"Good, that'll go on the bottom."
"Where are we setting it up?"
"Over here," Trent said and stepped five paces away from the van. He coordinated himself up so he was centrally aligned with the inner ring, then stomped a few times. "This is the spot."
As we continued to work, I asked Trent about how the whole contraption works.
"Do you remember the first time we were in the van? When we had to escape from the semi-truck?" Trent asked and connected a secondary mounting apparatus on top of the tripod. It had four spider-like legs that made right angles and stuck into the ground.
"Of course," I said. "The 'phase lock'."
"Yeah," Trent said and gestured toward the metal stick that was in my hand. I handed it to him. "The phase lock is a seal on the level of energy that the van is allowed to release. It also controls its dispersion pattern so that it releases its energy in a steady wave. This allows Ava to scan for anomalies without causing us to become an anomaly." Trent stuck the plank into the neck of the tripod.
"So when you released the phase lock, we started emitting more energy."
"That's right." Trent confirmed. "Enough to create an alternate route through a different realm."
"So we blinked into a different realm, then back, just to avoid that truck?"
"That's right."
"But why couldn't we just move out of the way?"
"Because it had locked onto us. It was tracking our motion and adjusting its course based on the amount of energy we were emitting. So in order to escape, we had to radically skew our potential energy and then use it to shift."
"Couldn't he have just followed us?"
Trent connected four more pieces to the device which now looked like an elaborate teepee. He was fishing in the last box when he spoke again. "Yeah, he could have. But it was highly improbable that he would have found us." Trent returned from the bottom of the box with another silver ring in hand. "Think of it like this. Let's say you're trying to escape from some bad guy who's coming after you, and you enter a new room you've never seen before. Would you prefer this room to have three doors to go through, or ten?"
I thought about his riddle for a second, then responded, "It depends where they go."
Trent fastened the ring atop the teepee. "Let's say they all lead to random places, or let's say they're all closets that lead nowhere. The key is that more is better, because the more doors he has to check, the less likely he is to pick the correct one. Make sense?"
"So we opened up a bunch of doors and escaped through one at random?"
"Hence the gear 'TD', for 'Trap Door'."
I marveled at the insights, but not for long. Trent hopped back in the van and pulled a lever that I hadn't seen until now. The two metal arms raised the inner ring until it was perpendicular with the altar. Then Trent clicked one of three red buttons along the back wall, and I saw what looked like a large, glass eye suspended in a magnifying glass protruding from the wall, aligned with the center of both rings. A couple seconds later, the glass eye began to focus the energy which was being fed to it from the pneumatic tubes, and a blue pyramid of light projected from it into the first ring, then from the first ring into the second ring. All three pieces were aligned at slightly diminishing heights, so the cylinder of light beamed through the second ring, into the ground.
"Alright, time for the first trial."
I felt the nerves starting up in my stomach. Trent sensed this and hopped out of the truck. It was raining quite hard now, though it was still warm. Both Trent and I were soaked, but that hardly concerned us. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you're feeling scared." He said. "But trust me on this. You're going to do fine. Just keep in mind what we talked about. Stay a spectator. Okay?"
I looked into his blue eyes, which seemed especially gray in the dark. Still, Trent's voice was reassuring. All I had to do was trust him. Trust myself. Trust my dad. And it was all going to turn out right.
"I'm ready," I said.
Trent was still for a second, holding my eyes in his. Then he guided me behind the outer ring and into the cylinder of light.
"I should step into it now?" I asked, afraid I'd be called away immediately.
"It's not on yet, so don't worry. I still have to press another button."
I followed Trent's instructions and stood in the blue light which was centered on my chest. Then I watched as Trent ran into the back of the van and posted up next to the glass eye. "Ready?" He yelled out. It was hard to hear him over the rain, but I yelled back. "Ready!"
The next thing I saw was a blinding blue light beam from the van. I heard what sounded like a laser, then saw the cylinder oscillate, expanding and compressing. When the energy reached the second ring, I saw everything around me light up—it looked brighter than noon on a cloudless day. Then the oscillations made their way to me, and I was swallowed up whole.
***
When I came to, I was in the backseat of a car. I felt my butt rumbling. Everything was dim and quiet. And then I heard a woman's voice from in front of me.
"Mark, please, not with Lauren in the back."
The man, who I now identified as my father, pulled the cigarette away from his lips and blew the smoke at my mom. He eyed the back seat where I was sitting, using one of five markers that hadn't rolled off my lap to color a rabbit in my animal color book.
"The kid's fine." he said and took another drag.
"Mark," my mom repeated.
I saw my dad raise his hand in a rapid motion. "I said she's fine, Cheryl. Now check the map and make sure we're going the right away. I can't see shit with all this fog."
I took a moment to make sure I was really in the back seat. I patted myself. I clearly had weight. Then I tried touching the car. At first, my fingertips met a solid surface, but when I tried to press through, my hand slipped into the car. I quickly pulled my hand away as if I had reached into a fire.
That's when I heard the little three year old next to me start crying. I turned and saw that little-me had dropped another couple markers onto the ground and was struggling to reach them.
"Hey!" my dad shouted. "What did I say about crying?"
"Quit it, Mark. She just dropped her markers." said my mom; she turned to help me pick them up.
"What did you say to me?" Mark spat with a voice full of guile. He reached out and pushed her back into her seat. "Don't," he commanded. "She has to learn how to deal with life."
"Deal…" My mom started in disbelief. "Deal with life? Do you hear yourself? What's gotten into you?"
"Sometimes shit happens. It doesn't give her the right to cry. You helping her is just going to reinforce her behavior."
"Her behavior? What about your behavior? You're acting like a total dick."
I didn't even have a moment to react before my dad's hand was across my mom's face. I felt the slap more than I heard it, my own face seeming to swell with the force of the blow. I saw my mom cover her mouth and lean away. Then little-me began to cry even louder, which only challenged my dad to step up his own volume.
"Everyone needs to get a fucking grip before I crash this car." My dad shouted and took another drag. The scariest part was I couldn't tell if he was warning us or threatening us. I felt the sudden urge to do something. There was no way this was real. I was definitely in some fantasy concocted by the demon. He wanted to turn me against my dad. That was the only explanation for something like this. My dad was a good man, not… this.
As I contemplated what to do, I saw a small, golden light appear behind little-me's window. Apparently she saw it, too, because her cries hushed as she traced the wisp with her eyes. After a second, the wisp transformed into a bunny rabbit, reminiscent of the one she was coloring. The rabbit hopped alongside the window, then did a couple circles in place. I watched little me let out a playful laugh and reach toward the window.
"What's going on back there?" my dad asked with a scowl. Apparently the only sound more disturbing than cries were laughs.
I looked back to the front and saw my mom wiping blood from her lip. Her expression was miserable. "Leave her alone, Mark."
"I'll do whatever I damn well want to do, Cheryl. It's my kid back there."
My mom was quiet.
When I looked back toward the rabbit, it was no longer a rabbit but a person. Or at least it looked like a person. The figure radiated pure gold, and atop his head was what appeared to be a King's crown. I recalled Allison's experience of seeing the sun-like figure in her moment of distress. Was that what was happening here? Was this really all true?
"Hey!" My dad shouted, eyeing little-me from the rear-view mirror. "What are you reaching at?"
I looked and saw the golden figure extending his hand toward the window, and little me's hand was reaching back. "Mom, dad, it bright." little-me said.
"What's bright, honey?" my mom asked.
"Don't encourage her, Cheryl."
"Someone there!" little me shouted happily and dropped the rest of the markers and the coloring book onto the ground.
"Who's there?" asked my mom.
"Cheryl, I swear to God. Sit the fuck down."
Everything from that moment on happened so quickly I barely had any time to process it. My mom lifted out of her seat to either get little me's attention or help me pick up my coloring book. My dad responded by grabbing onto her throat, letting go of the steering wheel entirely. He threw her back against the car door, and her head hit the window so hard, the glass cracked. My dad had dropped his cigarette, and I could smell smoke coming from under his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him at all. He turned toward little-me at the same moment my three-year-old hand reached out and grabbed onto the golden figure, whose hand diffused through the window. When my dad turned, I got a whiff of the most awful smell that I wouldn't have been able to place had I not had that nightmare last night. He grabbed onto little-me's shoulder and tugged her away from the golden figure that was trying to pull her the other way. My dad's facade began to crack, and I could see those dark bugs crawling out from the pores in his arms, marching down toward little-me.
I reacted.
I grabbed onto my dad's arm and pulled him off little-me. I heard the sound of my shirt ripping as she was torn from his grip and pulled out of the car, diffusing through it like a ghost. My brief victory was immediately overturned as I saw what was now clearly the demon smiling at me, his wretched fingers curled around my forearm.
"Caught you," He sneered.
Then the whole world once again diffused into countless numbers of particles, only this time, instead of riding through it, I felt like I was falling through an elevator shaft with each floor darker than the last. The further I fell, the less I became aware of my surroundings, and the more I felt a deep sense of loneliness. It was as if I was the only person in the whole world: and the whole world was a prison designed entirely for me. This went on for so long, I began to forget who I was. Where I was. What was.
And then I landed.
***
Source Used:
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity. Translated by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, 2010.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Content Warning: Domestic Abuse
***
We pulled off I-51 a little after midnight, stopping at a truck stop which was couched between the highway and a large forest.
We waited in the van for ten minutes or so. Trent had increased the sonar radius to its maximum of 30 miles a little over an hour ago. Somehow the red pings had kept up with us, holding a steady distance of around 20 miles. Considering we were averaging around 80 mph, and a coyote's top speed is only around 40 mph, we figured they had been enhanced in some way. Either that, or they shape-shifted into something faster. Regardless, now that we had stopped, we waited to see if the demon spawn would try and close the distance. Luckily, or unluckily, they didn't. They kept their 20 mile buffer, but we noticed they were beginning to spread out along the circumference of that boundary.
"We're close. They know that, so they're trying to trap us in." Trent said.
"Trying to?—more like they have."
We considered whether we should stay in the van and keep watch, but we figured that would do us little good. At their speed, they could be on us in ten minutes, which means we would need to stay up all night and keep tabs on their positions. Trent offered to stay up, of course, but I shut him down.
"The demon doesn't want to kill us now. You said it yourself. Plus, we need our rest. If they come, they come."
Trent didn't like it, but he acquiesced.
The truck stop had all the essentials: a gas station and mini mart with showers and an attached McDonald's, a large parking lot for truckers to idle and sleep, and even a section with lodging for those who wanted a more comfortable night's rest. I told Trent that he should take advantage of the showers, and after a little convincing, he agreed. While he was cleaning himself up, I patrolled the dingy, half-stocked aisles of "Daisy's Quick Mart". I probably would have been appalled at the quality of the store had I actually been paying any attention to it whatsoever. But I wasn't. I was thinking hard about what awaited me tomorrow.
During the drive, I had asked Trent why the demon would want us to return to the crash site. What did he mean that I would be 'confronting a dark entity in a place he couldn't help me'? He seemed hesitant to answer, but my little stunt outside the storage facility seemed to have sufficiently motivated him.
"When I said I've never done this before, I meant it." Trent started. "I've never done this exact thing before—meaning I've never projected someone into the past."
"So, I'm time traveling?" I asked.
"No—don't think of it like that." Trent paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. "It's more like I'm opening a window for you to look through: not a door. You're going to see the past, but you can't interact with the physicalities there. But that doesn't mean you can't interact with anything."
There was a space of silence as Trent tried to let me work out his meaning for myself. "I don't get it. Are you saying there's something I can interact with? Like what?" And then it hit me. "The demon. The demon can interact with me? Meaning what? It can kill me?"
"Meaning… I'm not exactly sure. You're going to be in a kind of psychic space. If it does damage, it won't be to your body. It'll be to your mind—or spirit. But I don't know what the limits of that damage could be. I just don't have those answers."
"If you've never done this, how do you know any of it will work?"
"That's an easy one." Trent answered. "Because it's been done to me."
There was silence.
"Look, if I know anything, I know my tech. Don't doubt that this will work. It's my job to make sure it does. I just need you to be in the right mental for this. Just because it knows your coming doesn't mean it automatically has the upper hand. It won't be able to see you unless you make contact with it first. In other words, you have to initiate contact. As long as you remain a spectator, you should be okay. Trust me. Just don't make contact."
I started pacing faster—fast enough to catch the attention of the overnight shift worker, a young man whose name I can't quite remember. I know it started with a "J". Jake, maybe? Anyway, he asked if I was alright, to which I responded in the affirmative. He left me alone for another couple passes, but when I almost ran into one of the shelves, he stood up and said, "Uh—I'm going to have to ask you to stop running around. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
I must have stared daggers at him, because he recoiled from my gaze. What's gotten into me? I thought. Then, steadying myself, I apologized. I looked around and grabbed the nearest edible looking piece of merchandise: a bag of Swedish Fish, and placed it down on the counter. "Just this, please."
The cashier rang me up. It was surprisingly cheap.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the young man asked. He was tall with brown hair. He seemed tired—maybe even more tired than me. But he also seemed kind.
I smiled as best I could and said, "No, I'm not. But there's not really anything you can do. Hell, there might not be anything I can do." I furrowed my eyebrows at my own response, realizing that imminent death may have broken my verbal filter.
On the other hand, the cashier did not seem surprised at all. "Ah, I see. It's one of those problems." He responded. "Well, hey, for what it's worth, you seem like one of the resilient ones. I think you'll be alright."
I only smiled and nodded at his mildly cryptic comment. Looking back, the whole interaction was a bit strange, but I had way too much mental clutter to recognize that in the moment. I took my Swedish Fish and walked through the anteroom which led to McDonald's. I found an open yellow booth that wasn't littered with crumpled straw sleeves and sat down, chomping mindlessly on my little red fish until Trent returned. When he arrived, he took my place, and I went to shower. After we were both clean and fed, we returned to the van. The pings were still pushed safely out of harm's way. But that didn't mean we were out of harm's way. Trent asked me if I wanted to sleep in the van, saying that "it'd be the safest place."
I thought it over. He was right, obviously. The van was not only outfitted with weapons I couldn't even begin to understand, but it was also our escape, and it would be just as difficult, if not more difficult to break into than the studio-style motel rooms with their wood doors and big windows. Still, if this was going to be my last night on earth, I wanted to sleep in a bed. A real bed. Trent understood and said he'd stay parked right outside my room for the night.
After purchasing a key from the night attendant, I moseyed over to the cement walkways which connected the twenty or so rooms. Mine was room #56, which I thought was odd since, like I said, there were only 20 rooms. I lugged in my tomato plushie and dad's old book and placed them on the queen mattress.
"I'll be right outside." Trent said after I collapsed onto the bed.
"Trent," I called out, stopping him half-way through the door.
"Yeah?"
All the blood in my body rushed up to my face as I realized my unfiltered mouth almost reflexively said the word "stay". I stared at Trent, my heart beating, my face hot. I considered asking him to sleep on the floor like my dad, but that would be childish and impolite. The alternative was to share my bed… Or I could take the floor.
"I'll just be right outside." Trent said before my mind processed a solution. "Come by if you need anything. I'll be up most of the night anyway."
"Okay," I replied in a faint voice.
Trent shut the door.
I sat atop the bedsheets and acquainted myself with my new living space. A feeling of regret closed over me as I considered that even sleeping on a carseat would have been better if it meant I didn't have to be alone. With a sigh, I turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the book and stuffed tomato, using the tomato as a backrest as I slipped my legs under the covers and situated the book upright on my thighs. I cracked it open and was immediately blasted with a puff of dusty, old book scent. It was ripe at first, and I turned my head away to sneeze, but as I perused through the pages, the scent grew on me. It reminded me of the days growing up when I'd step into dad's study and read through one of the many volumes on cryptic topics which were at least two college degrees above my Lexile range.
I was only a couple minutes into browsing the collection of different scientific and philosophical works when I came across a page which contained highlighted text. This was unusual, as my dad would never mark up his books. He was a purist on that point. I rubbed my thumb over the yellow lines, and sure enough, it was highlighter.
The highlighted text was part of a small book by Carl Jung called "Synchronicity". There were a total of three pages that were marked, and they advanced like this:
Page 5:
The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is causality*. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes… That is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and require another principle of explanation.*
Page 19:
…there are events which are related to one another experimentally, and in this case meaningfully*, without there being any possibility of proving that this relation is a causal one, since the "transmission" exhibits none of the known properties of energy…a situation which does not yet exist and will only occur in the future could transmit itself as a phenomenon of energy to a receiver in the present…Therefore, it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity... "synchronicity"*
Page 22:
A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer… which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.
I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book. There was no more highlighted text, but there was a message on the last page which read:
Matthew 7:7-8
I'll meet you in the darkest place.
He also included his typical smiley face which had an ovular shape and three sprouts of hair which I now realized kind of resembled my tomato plushie. It was my dad's writing, of course. But why? And how? What did this mean?
The motel had a Bible stashed away in the nighstand drawer. I got it out and looked up the verses which read the following:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
I spent maybe an hour ruminating on all of this. The whole discourse on energy and causality and a "falling together in time" just seemed so right. It was clear that my dad definitely did know what I was going through, but for whatever reason, he made it seem like he was oblivious. Why had he hidden that from me? I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, my dad loved me enough to leave this note, maybe even knowing the exact moment I'd need it. But on the other hand, he had neglected my struggles throughout my entire childhood. He even lied at times. Was this really enough to make up for all of that?
And then there was the section about the future transmitting energy to the past. I read back through the whole paragraph and the original writer had meant it to say this as something that wasn't possible, but my dad's highlighting made it seem like he wanted to flip the meaning. The future does affect the past. I thought about where I was headed and wondered if I would soon discover that for myself.
Lastly, dad's message. The Bible verse reminded me of the first time I prayed; how I reached out to God and received peace as an answer to my prayer. Now I feel like I'm actively seeking… something, but I don't know yet what I'll find. And then there's knocking. At first that reminded me of the story with the beetle tapping on the window, but then I went back even deeper in my memory and dug out the monster tapping at my window, and the words my dad spoke to me in order to set my mind at ease: "you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is? Your greatest power is you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them…so if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story."
I was crying into my stuffed tomato now. I felt like all the blinking pieces of my life had finally been pulled together into a completed puzzle. This was all by design. My entire life, filled with so much chaos and confusion, was actually preparing me for this moment. And my dad thought I had the tools and strength enough to get through it. I flipped through the book one more time, thinking maybe he had left some other hidden comment—some formula to defeat this demon and return home. But there was nothing. Only that one comment: "I'll meet you in the darkest place."
What's the darkest place, dad? Is that where I'm going? Are you saying you'll be there, too?
With those thoughts in mind, my eyes became heavy shutters which, with a slight pressure on the pulley, winded shut. My swimming thoughts and firework-like fears dissipated, and I returned to a precious childhood memory. It was after an evening soccer practice. Summer. Dad was driving me to Dairy Queen. I got a cherry-dipped twist cone. I was happy.
So, so happy.
***
I woke up to sunlight blaring through my windows. Shit, I overslept, was my immediate thought. I threw off my covers and opened the front door. A glance at the clock showed 1:13 PM. I shouldn't have even been allowed to stay checked in this long. Damn, am I gonna get double-billed for this?
I heard a rummaging sound around the corner of my motel room. It sounded like a squirrel was trying to find an afternoon snack in one of the garbage bins. I stepped outside. The sun was extremely bright, to the point where I had to squint and put my hand over my eyes to even see the ground in front of me. I was trying to walk toward the van, but somehow I ended up in front of the trash bins where the animal's tail was sticking out from a turned-over, silver garbage can. Its tail was wagging excitedly, and I remember thinking that it was much too large to be a squirrel.
The animal bent down as if biting onto something, and I heard the sound of its growl as it struggled to tug whatever it was free from the barrel. Inch by inch, the creature backed out of the canister, and more of its sharp, sticky hair was revealed. I heard something snap, then the creature leapt back and I saw what it was chomping on. My eyes widened in horror as the pink tube of a human intestine was pulled taut like the end of a tangled hose. Blood and entrails were spilling out of the human's opened gut. And then, behind the canine, I saw the person's face. His face was pale white, his eyes closed, and his hair was slicked back… It was Trent.
Before I could react, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I whirled around and saw my dad. But—no, it wasn't him. It was someone wearing a paper-mache face mask that was painted to look like my dad. The forehead of the mask was already beginning to crack, white specks breaking off like sawdust. Through the cracks, I could see the figure's true form. I didn't know darkness had its own type of light, but that's the only way to describe it. It was as if malevolence itself was reified into a skin which was actually an amalgamation of millions of little, oozing parasites that leached into the nearby light. When it finally spoke, the demon's voice was a full octave lower than the old man's at the deli. And it had an earth-stilling gravitas.
"Today's the day!" He sang and reached into his pocket. His lips curled upward into a foxy smirk. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day." He said and held up a razor blade. Half his facade had already fallen apart, and now I could see the bugs up close, writhing in what was either horror or ecstasy. And his scent… it was somehow more rank than the rabid coyote rummaging through the trash can with Trent's cut open body inside. The demon closed in on my position, and in one, decisive motion, he brought the blade close to his chin, then sliced it across my throat. "Wake up!" He screamed.
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my throat, feeling the cold sting of its quick slice. Hyperventilating, I patted the area down, trying to hold the blood in, but when I removed my hands, I saw they were dry. It was only a dream, I thought. Gray light was only beginning to filter in through the drapes. I'm in my hotel room. I'm safe. I tried consoling, but the pragmatic mental massages weren't enough to hold the force of my knees buckling. I dropped onto the carpet and cried for a long while.
Outside, rain was beginning to fall.
***
By the time I met up with Trent, I had already composed myself and decided to keep my dad's message and the nightmare to myself. None of it seemed particularly productive from a logistical standpoint, anyway. And I wanted to focus on the mission.
We stopped by McDonald's and bought a couple cups of coffee. Trent asked if I wanted any food, and I declined. Black coffee seemed like the only thing my stomach could take at the present moment. I could tell Trent was hungry, but he tried playing it off (I guess to be respectful of me?) I told him to knock it off and get something to eat. I didn't need my Charon getting lightheaded and dropping the paddle before he finished rowing me to Hell. He didn't care much for my joke, but he ordered a couple Chicken McGriddles at the kiosk anyway.
There were maybe ten patrons spread throughout the restaurant. We sat down at the same booth from the prior night, this time across from one another. Trent spent the first ten minutes or so babbling about our fuel supply and the logistics of the trip from here on in. Practical stuff. I've come to realize that's how he deals with his stress. He talks it out in short, durable sentences. I mostly nodded and watched as what looked like a storm front closed in on the truck stop. The sky was overcast, and there were darker clouds in the distance. The rain was still only a patter, but a middle-aged man wearing a yellow bow tie on the wall-mounted TV confirmed that there would be heavier rain and thunderstorms very soon.
After the worker delivered Trent's food and he ate it in record time, I posed the one question that was still on my mind.
"How do I fight him?" I asked.
Trent finished a large gulp of his coffee, then looked at me. It was the first substantial thing I'd said all morning; Trent could tell something was off with me, but he figured there was no point in asking what it was. "By 'him', I assume you mean the demon?"
I nodded.
Trent licked his teeth clean. "You could try praying again."
"I'm serious," I responded.
"I'm serious, too. It worked before, didn't it?"
"You mean at my house?"
Trent nodded.
"I thought you weren't a religious man?"
"I'm not. Just a practical one. If praying worked before, maybe it'll work again."
"That's the best you've got? A maybe?"
"No, I've got a lot of shit better than a maybe." He answered. "It's just not accessible where you're going. Which is why I recommend not making contact on the first run."
"First run? So we're going to do this more than once?"
"At least," Trent answered. Then, seeing my expression, he continued. "What? You thought this was going to be a one-and-done? We have to conduct some research first. I did tell you this was new for me, right?"
Somehow Trent's response had set my mind at ease a little. I was going to have more than one chance. Of course, why wouldn't I be able to go back more than once?
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? It would have gone a long way in easing my mind."
Trent lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I just thought that was a given. I mean, what we're doing is dangerous, just like I said, but it doesn't mean we aren't going to approach this as safely and scientifically as possible. However, there is a different problem with running multiple trials."
"The Organization?"
"That's right," Trent said like a proud parent. "Our little experiment will be like a giant spotlight, and the longer we wait around after it's on us, the greater the chance we'll have unwelcome company."
"So, safe but speedy."
"Safe but speedy. Exactly."
***
We fueled up and were back on the road a little after 8:00. From that point on, Trent and I were absolutely silent. I had the distinct feeling of being in the eye of a storm. The pings moved closer commensurate with our progress toward the crash site. The cloudfront continued its advance. And I noticed a haze beginning to descend onto the road ahead of us. It was fog.
We meandered further inland, the forest thickening around us until the rain almost stopped entirely—the leaves drinking it up before it fell onto our windshield. I kept my eyes on the radar. We were approaching the large yellow circle which indicated we had arrived. As we pulled closer, I began to feel things. Fear. Eeriness. Doubt. Then happiness. Hope. Love. Normally feelings like these had a clear source to picture, but these sensations came on in waves without any discernible reason. It was almost as if they were blinking into existence inside me.
"Here we go," Trent said like an airline pilot readying his crew for turbulence.
I still recall the exact moment we crossed the boundary into the area of higher energy. It was like something just "clicked" in my brain, and all of a sudden everything felt so much closer. The sound of the rain against the trees was almost right next to my ear. The trees in the distance would oscillate between their position a half-mile out, then suddenly seem five meters away. If I focused on something long enough, it began to radiate those same ethereal particles as when Trent released Ava's "phase lock". I checked to make sure the shifter wasn't set to "TD". Sure enough, it was still in drive.
"Can you see them?" Trent asked. "The shifts?"
"Yeah," I said in a dreamy voice. I felt like I was driving through a wonderland.
"It's the energy. I barely notice a difference. A bit of movement in the trees, but not much else. But I'm sure for you, it's a whole experience."
"What is this?" I raised my hand and caught some of the pixel dust dripping off the sun visor. It disappeared when it made contact with my hand.
"It's a kind of radiation. Everything emits it, just in different quantities. I'm still not exactly sure how it relates to the other realms, but I'm guessing it's a kind of primordial matter that helps connect our worlds."
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed. "I wish I could see the world like this all the time."
"Maybe you will," Trent whispered.
As we arrived at the crash site, I began to get glimpses of the past. My childhood dreams and memories were pushing their way out from my subconscious. I noticed an increased number of blinks, which were validated by Ava who reported the following: "Currently detecting 14,350 novel emergences and 2,777 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 2,777."
"That's a lot of blinks." I remarked. "Why doesn't Ava include them in the net anomalies?"
Trent turned his head so I could see his smirk. "Because blinks aren't anomalies."
I thought about it for a second. Blinks aren't anomalies. "I never thought about it that way."
"It's hard to think about it that way when 'normal' for most people means not picking up on a fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't make it any less real."
We continued past the epicenter of the yellow circle. "Are we not stopping?" I asked. "I think we already passed the crash site."
"It doesn't have to be exactly at the site," Trent said. "Plus, we don't want to stop on the side of the road and risk getting some civilian involved. There's a field about half a mile up ahead. I'm going to pull off the road and set up camp there.
The "field" that Trent was referring to was actually a large clearing that dipped down into several trench-like troughs which were filled to the brim with fog like witches cauldrons. Further on in the distance, I saw open fields, probably used for farming, and then a large hill where the trees once again reasserted themselves. We had pulled off the road and up a small incline where the trees had already been broken down, leaving a trail for us to drive through. When we surfaced at the edge of the clearing, Trent pulled us onto a flat bed of dried mud which was maybe thirty yards long.
"Here," he said with a sigh.
We both sat for a minute, looking around at the field. We had finally arrived. The rain was beginning to pick up, and the dark sky made it almost impossible to discern the time of day.
"You ready?" Trent asked.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. In his blue eyes. Was I ready? Did it even matter?
"Let's do this," I said.
***
This was the first time I was really able to inspect the back of Trent's van. He had talked up his gear a lot, and honestly, I was impressed. Not in the way that a scientist is impressed by another scientist's lab—I wasn't any kind of expert—but it still seemed remarkably well managed. Now that I was in a state where my vision had been enhanced, I could actually see the enigmatic particles circulating through the pneumatic tubes which were coiled like the pipes and valves of an elaborate wind instrument. The walls of the van, itself, were glistening white, making it easier to make out everything else inside. Along the floor were five overturned columns. Each column was dark and had a vibrating quality, as if they were charged with energy. Then atop the center three columns was a small altar which supported an apparatus with two skinny, metal arms holding a silver halo. At present, the arms were folded and the halo was suspended a few inches above the altar, faced-down. I thought maybe I'd see particles exuding from it, but instead it was emitting visible waves which bent and warped everything they touched.
"That thing is emitting a lot of energy." I remarked, gesturing toward the halo.
Trent stepped in between the columns and started pulling out the packages he had stuffed in there yesterday. "Just wait till' it's on."
Most of the packages contained only a single piece of equipment, and were otherwise packed with foam peanuts. We carefully removed each box and set them on the ground outside. I asked if the rain would damage any of the stuff inside, to which Trent only laughed and continued lugging out the boxes. When they were all out, Trent removed a box cutter from his pocket and went one-by-one opening them. There were eight pieces in total.
"What is it?" I asked as we fished the first item out.
"It's another apparatus, like the one inside. Except it'll mount on the ground out here."
I pulled out what looked like a metal tripod.
"Good, that'll go on the bottom."
"Where are we setting it up?"
"Over here," Trent said and stepped five paces away from the van. He coordinated himself up so he was centrally aligned with the inner ring, then stomped a few times. "This is the spot."
As we continued to work, I asked Trent about how the whole contraption works.
"Do you remember the first time we were in the van? When we had to escape from the semi-truck?" Trent asked and connected a secondary mounting apparatus on top of the tripod. It had four spider-like legs that made right angles and stuck into the ground.
"Of course," I said. "The 'phase lock'."
"Yeah," Trent said and gestured toward the metal stick that was in my hand. I handed it to him. "The phase lock is a seal on the level of energy that the van is allowed to release. It also controls its dispersion pattern so that it releases its energy in a steady wave. This allows Ava to scan for anomalies without causing us to become an anomaly." Trent stuck the plank into the neck of the tripod.
"So when you released the phase lock, we started emitting more energy."
"That's right." Trent confirmed. "Enough to create an alternate route through a different realm."
"So we blinked into a different realm, then back, just to avoid that truck?"
"That's right."
"But why couldn't we just move out of the way?"
"Because it had locked onto us. It was tracking our motion and adjusting its course based on the amount of energy we were emitting. So in order to escape, we had to radically skew our potential energy and then use it to shift."
"Couldn't he have just followed us?"
Trent connected four more pieces to the device which now looked like an elaborate teepee. He was fishing in the last box when he spoke again. "Yeah, he could have. But it was highly improbable that he would have found us." Trent returned from the bottom of the box with another silver ring in hand. "Think of it like this. Let's say you're trying to escape from some bad guy who's coming after you, and you enter a new room you've never seen before. Would you prefer this room to have three doors to go through, or ten?"
I thought about his riddle for a second, then responded, "It depends where they go."
Trent fastened the ring atop the teepee. "Let's say they all lead to random places, or let's say they're all closets that lead nowhere. The key is that more is better, because the more doors he has to check, the less likely he is to pick the correct one. Make sense?"
"So we opened up a bunch of doors and escaped through one at random?"
"Hence the gear 'TD', for 'Trap Door'."
I marveled at the insights, but not for long. Trent hopped back in the van and pulled a lever that I hadn't seen until now. The two metal arms raised the inner ring until it was perpendicular with the altar. Then Trent clicked one of three red buttons along the back wall, and I saw what looked like a large, glass eye suspended in a magnifying glass protruding from the wall, aligned with the center of both rings. A couple seconds later, the glass eye began to focus the energy which was being fed to it from the pneumatic tubes, and a blue pyramid of light projected from it into the first ring, then from the first ring into the second ring. All three pieces were aligned at slightly diminishing heights, so the cylinder of light beamed through the second ring, into the ground.
"Alright, time for the first trial."
I felt the nerves starting up in my stomach. Trent sensed this and hopped out of the truck. It was raining quite hard now, though it was still warm. Both Trent and I were soaked, but that hardly concerned us. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you're feeling scared." He said. "But trust me on this. You're going to do fine. Just keep in mind what we talked about. Stay a spectator. Okay?"
I looked into his blue eyes, which seemed especially gray in the dark. Still, Trent's voice was reassuring. All I had to do was trust him. Trust myself. Trust my dad. And it was all going to turn out right.
"I'm ready," I said.
Trent was still for a second, holding my eyes in his. Then he guided me behind the outer ring and into the cylinder of light.
"I should step into it now?" I asked, afraid I'd be called away immediately.
"It's not on yet, so don't worry. I still have to press another button."
I followed Trent's instructions and stood in the blue light which was centered on my chest. Then I watched as Trent ran into the back of the van and posted up next to the glass eye. "Ready?" He yelled out. It was hard to hear him over the rain, but I yelled back. "Ready!"
The next thing I saw was a blinding blue light beam from the van. I heard what sounded like a laser, then saw the cylinder oscillate, expanding and compressing. When the energy reached the second ring, I saw everything around me light up—it looked brighter than noon on a cloudless day. Then the oscillations made their way to me, and I was swallowed up whole.
***
When I came to, I was in the backseat of a car. I felt my butt rumbling. Everything was dim and quiet. And then I heard a woman's voice from in front of me.
"Mark, please, not with Lauren in the back."
The man, who I now identified as my father, pulled the cigarette away from his lips and blew the smoke at my mom. He eyed the back seat where I was sitting, using one of five markers that hadn't rolled off my lap to color a rabbit in my animal color book.
"The kid's fine." he said and took another drag.
"Mark," my mom repeated.
I saw my dad raise his hand in a rapid motion. "I said she's fine, Cheryl. Now check the map and make sure we're going the right away. I can't see shit with all this fog."
I took a moment to make sure I was really in the back seat. I patted myself. I clearly had weight. Then I tried touching the car. At first, my fingertips met a solid surface, but when I tried to press through, my hand slipped into the car. I quickly pulled my hand away as if I had reached into a fire.
That's when I heard the little three year old next to me start crying. I turned and saw that little-me had dropped another couple markers onto the ground and was struggling to reach them.
"Hey!" my dad shouted. "What did I say about crying?"
"Quit it, Mark. She just dropped her markers." said my mom; she turned to help me pick them up.
"What did you say to me?" Mark spat with a voice full of guile. He reached out and pushed her back into her seat. "Don't," he commanded. "She has to learn how to deal with life."
"Deal…" My mom started in disbelief. "Deal with life? Do you hear yourself? What's gotten into you?"
"Sometimes shit happens. It doesn't give her the right to cry. You helping her is just going to reinforce her behavior."
"Her behavior? What about your behavior? You're acting like a total dick."
I didn't even have a moment to react before my dad's hand was across my mom's face. I felt the slap more than I heard it, my own face seeming to swell with the force of the blow. I saw my mom cover her mouth and lean away. Then little-me began to cry even louder, which only challenged my dad to step up his own volume.
"Everyone needs to get a fucking grip before I crash this car." My dad shouted and took another drag. The scariest part was I couldn't tell if he was warning us or threatening us. I felt the sudden urge to do something. There was no way this was real. I was definitely in some fantasy concocted by the demon. He wanted to turn me against my dad. That was the only explanation for something like this. My dad was a good man, not… this.
As I contemplated what to do, I saw a small, golden light appear behind little-me's window. Apparently she saw it, too, because her cries hushed as she traced the wisp with her eyes. After a second, the wisp transformed into a bunny rabbit, reminiscent of the one she was coloring. The rabbit hopped alongside the window, then did a couple circles in place. I watched little me let out a playful laugh and reach toward the window.
"What's going on back there?" my dad asked with a scowl. Apparently the only sound more disturbing than cries were laughs.
I looked back to the front and saw my mom wiping blood from her lip. Her expression was miserable. "Leave her alone, Mark."
"I'll do whatever I damn well want to do, Cheryl. It's my kid back there."
My mom was quiet.
When I looked back toward the rabbit, it was no longer a rabbit but a person. Or at least it looked like a person. The figure radiated pure gold, and atop his head was what appeared to be a King's crown. I recalled Allison's experience of seeing the sun-like figure in her moment of distress. Was that what was happening here? Was this really all true?
"Hey!" My dad shouted, eyeing little-me from the rear-view mirror. "What are you reaching at?"
I looked and saw the golden figure extending his hand toward the window, and little me's hand was reaching back. "Mom, dad, it bright." little-me said.
"What's bright, honey?" my mom asked.
"Don't encourage her, Cheryl."
"Someone there!" little me shouted happily and dropped the rest of the markers and the coloring book onto the ground.
"Who's there?" asked my mom.
"Cheryl, I swear to God. Sit the fuck down."
Everything from that moment on happened so quickly I barely had any time to process it. My mom lifted out of her seat to either get little me's attention or help me pick up my coloring book. My dad responded by grabbing onto her throat, letting go of the steering wheel entirely. He threw her back against the car door, and her head hit the window so hard, the glass cracked. My dad had dropped his cigarette, and I could smell smoke coming from under his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him at all. He turned toward little-me at the same moment my three-year-old hand reached out and grabbed onto the golden figure, whose hand diffused through the window. When my dad turned, I got a whiff of the most awful smell that I wouldn't have been able to place had I not had that nightmare last night. He grabbed onto little-me's shoulder and tugged her away from the golden figure that was trying to pull her the other way. My dad's facade began to crack, and I could see those dark bugs crawling out from the pores in his arms, marching down toward little-me.
I reacted.
I grabbed onto my dad's arm and pulled him off little-me. I heard the sound of my shirt ripping as she was torn from his grip and pulled out of the car, diffusing through it like a ghost. My brief victory was immediately overturned as I saw what was now clearly the demon smiling at me, his wretched fingers curled around my forearm.
"Caught you," He sneered.
Then the whole world once again diffused into countless numbers of particles, only this time, instead of riding through it, I felt like I was falling through an elevator shaft with each floor darker than the last. The further I fell, the less I became aware of my surroundings, and the more I felt a deep sense of loneliness. It was as if I was the only person in the whole world: and the whole world was a prison designed entirely for me. This went on for so long, I began to forget who I was. Where I was. What was.
And then I landed.
***
Source Used:
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity. Translated by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, 2010.

So, pretty much as the title states. I was with my now ex-bf, J, for a year and a half and we were friends for a couple of months before that. I've known my bff we'll call him P, for about 2 and a half years. For context we all met on a soccer team where we played together, so I met P first then on the next season I met J. Important to note: P was in a relationship for about 6 years? they broke up around late September bc she was manipulative and cheated on him
My relationship with J was easy at first and then it got harder and harder and I was the only one who kept making an effort to fix things, so last year before Christmas I broke up with him. This was not an easy decision and it did not come out of the blue. I had tried repeatedly to get him to cooperate, to see how he was hurting me and in return I was hurting him, we talked and cried for hours, he begged and said he understood my point AND that he knew he was hurting me but didn't know why he kept doing it and in the end I stood by my decision to just break up. He suggested a break, but I said it was a break up, I thought i had made this clear, until a cpuple of weeks later after a game he asked to talk and he basically begged to not break up and I asserted my decision and that was that. We had 2 games left, saw each other at both, he was very rude to me at the last one but I did not think much of it.
After our breakup I started hanging out with P a lot, we were both single, lonely and still were friends so things developed from there and on late January he asked me out and I said why not? So we've been together since then and I've had people come up to me and ask me what happened between me and J? and I've been clear that it just wasn't working out and that's that. No details whatsoever.
J has been telling people that I cheated on him THE WHOLE RELATIONSHIP with P, I was flabbergasted and pissed tf off. I'd heard rumors, but it was just a couple of people that I wasn't sure if I could trust, until yesterday when I got confirmation from someone close to me and I snapped. I waited until the anger was gone but now I want to text him and set things straight and warn him to stop or else I'll take matters into my own hands (I'm kind of known for going nuclear) bc this has been about 10+ people talking about me and leaving me with a cheater reputation and that's not okay with me.
I've been alienated by so many so-called friends this past couple of months and now I know why. I've been as kind and understanding as I can but this is my breaking point.
Should I?

I wanted to share my experience in case anyone can make use of the info or if anyone sees this comment in the future. My symptoms seems to have progressed through oddly quick, so I'm not even sure what phase I'm in yet, or if it even is 100% a frozen shoulder. But I'd like to share anyways.
38YO Healthy Adult male here. No diabetes. BMI within healthy range.
Around April 18 I got acute injury in my shoulder while doing sports as an amateur soccer goalkeeper. I fell elbow first into the ground, and it caused pain in my right shoulder. I immediately felt pain in my shoulder joints after the fall. I simply thought I have sprained or strained my shoulder since injuries in this position is quite common. I didn't think much of it and took a few weeks off physical activities to let my supposed sprain heal. My shoulder didn't have any discoloration marks, swelling, or a constant thumping in my shoulder, so I knew it wasn't a broken shoulder. I ignored seeing a doctor and thought it would get better.
During this time, I had constant pain in my shoulder, but it wasn't too severe. It was very hard to sleep on the side of my injured shoulder, but I could sleep in other positions so it didn't affect my quality of sleep much. However, the pain has woken me up a few times at night when I wanted to change sleeping positions. I also thought it was part of the pain from my sprained shoulder, but in hindsight, maybe it was probably the freezing phase starting to begin? I hadn't checked my range of motion much since pain was going on and off and I didn't want to make it worse. But I had noticed when showering that my injured arm couldn't reach some parts of my body. But I thought it was just part of injury.
Around May 11 my friend invited me to play in a friendly match. It was already 3 weeks after my previous 'sprain', so I thought my injury should have gotten better now. I only felt a low intensity constant pain (Normally I go back to playing when the sprain is 70-80% healed.) so I got back to playing. During stretching I felt tightness in my shoulder, but my range of motion seemed perfectly normal so I didn't think too much of it. I made a few saves, but whenever I used my injured side to dive for a ball, it was excruciatingly painful. I had to leave the match after 20 minutes due to pain. It was a weird kind of pain though, the sharp pain wasn't constant, but only happened when I tried to stretch the arm.
I took more time off to give my shoulder more time to heal. This time I waited 5 weeks. During this time, at first I had sudden shooting pains when I move my arm a certain angle, and still had pain when I slept on my injured arm. But gradually over 5 weeks, the slight constant pain started to go away along with pain when sleeping on injured side, and I only had sharp pain when I tried to stretch my arms beyond a certain point. This started to become odd to me since my range of motion has decreased over 5 weeks instead of getting better.
Decreased range of motion isn't new to me since I've had broken bones and sprains before several times in other parts of my body, and it usually takes a few weeks to heal up, build back strength and regain ROM... But it's been almost 8 weeks since the original injury. I started to try to stretch my arms to regain ROM and trying to fight through the pain. I'm desperate to get back to physical activities and I've never been waiting so long after a sprain before, so I decided to video call my friend who's a doctor.
Although not a full examination, he had a look at my symptoms, had me show him how much I could move my arms and he concluded that it's most likely a frozen shoulder. Personally I think it might have started way before April but the injury could have fast tracked it. He suggested my do PT at home, and sent me some videos on home therapy. I looked up Frozen shoulder and I was devastated. I could be stuck like this for years being unable to play my favorite sport?
I did a bunch of research online, watched a bunch of videos and I finally came upon this subreddit. I found out that there are varying lengths to FS and it is commonly gone within 12-18 months, however there are mild cases that are usually healed in 6, and the shortest cases can settle within 3 months (although very rarely). I started to do home PT, at work, whenever I have free time and have gotten substantial improvements within 1 week. My range of motion has increased dramatically and I can raise my arm up now (although still painful) but I cannot lift my hand up my back yet (super painful), and rotating my arms in to wash my armpit is still a bit painful and tight. However every day I see slight improvements and I'm really hoping on being on the short end of the spectrum!

So (17M), my mom (37F) and dad (42M) broke up because my mom cheated on my dad with a coworker. My mom moved back in with her parents and my dad into a cheaper apartment. They were not married, so there was no divorce or anything like that. Both my little sister (12F) and I decided that we would rather live with our mom than with our dad. We're both way closer to her than to our dad.
Growing up, my mom was the one we spent more time with since my dad works a lot as a manager at the company he works at. She was the one who would take us to the movies, amusement parks, and also the one who went to my soccer games or other school events. She was also way more affectionate, constantly hugging and kissing us and telling us she was proud of us and loved us, while our dad was more reserved and colder. And she was also the one who would take care of us when we where sick .Well I can't remember the last time he hugged me or told me that he loved me.
He’s Hispanic and he just says that's how he was raised by his dad. He also admitted that part of him thinks showing too much affection is, and I quote, “for women and sissies.” I am a guy, so we have been able to bond somewhat over shared interests like sports or classic cars. But he never even attempted to bond with my sister in a similar way. She's a pretty traditional girly girl who likes rom-coms, romance books, Disney princess movies, Taylor Swift, and stuff like that, which my dad has never once even pretended to take an interest in. My sister once told me she feels like she doesn’t even know him.
He was also not that great of a boyfriend/partner either, from what I can tell. He never took my mom on dates or did anything for Mother's Day or her birthday, while my mom would make sure to buy him something for his birthday. So I can't really blame my mom too much for hooking up with someone else. They separated three months ago and since then, we've only seen my dad a couple of times for a few hours over the weekends.
I was talking to a friend about my parents' separation and they told me that it was really messed up that I “sided” with my mom when she is the one who cheated. First of all, I can’t help that I love my mom, I'm not just gonna stop loving her. And also her cheating does not erase the last 17 years of her being a great mom., Also my dad was a pretty shitty dad and boyfriend, so my mom cheating is partially his fault. So AITAH?

First and foremost, i am not a luck denier and the final panel of 265 goes insanely hard. However I am a Kaiser denier and if He was meant to score he would have done it this chapter. Which leads me to believe that hes not scoring.
Just based on player positioning right now Isagi is right in front of one or two defenders, and Kaiser is getting double pressed by Rin and Charles.
https://preview.redd.it/isn491t1vj5d1.jpg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be66a2b5429ab0ce0e3df1f192c6b4937de04d97
Rin has pretty much stopped every shot from Kaiser thus far and he and charles were smart enough to read the backspin on the ball. Luck hits everyone on the field not just Kaiser. What could have happened is that rin and charles were pressuring Isagi and then Kaiser would have had an open shot, but he does not, and because of this the two major defensive threats for Isagi are now behind him.
We also see that Kaiser is not going for the impossible shot anymore. he comepletely ignores it.
https://preview.redd.it/scc9p49svj5d1.jpg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c03a680d43cfda17c8085c87def9a95d13c014f5
https://preview.redd.it/uanfwzptvj5d1.jpg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2440ede3d81c5a9cd08671aecf0bf1a4b8fc6a52
Old Kaiser would have taken a kaiser impact shot but new kaiser is waiting for something. We havent quite seen the 0 of his play yet. We are starting to see the similarities in His and Isagis thinking however theyre also very different, Isagi is targeting positions where hes free to take a shot and Kaiser is trying to move through his discomfort to make a goal. Kaiser also has not really learned anything because he also immediately defaults to stealing in this chapter. he even mentions it when kiyora gets a hold of the ball.
Theres also the matter of chemical reactions in this match. I dont think Kaiser currently is able to form chemical reactions with others quite yet. This is the first time we see him get his fire ego eyes, so something is lighting off inside himself. but I wouldnt quite call this a chemical reaction from Kiyora and Kaiser just yet. If Kaiser doesnt see himself as good enough then how can *HE* or others be good enough to clash visions with. For his soccer career he had Ness and the rest of BM funnel passes into him. and He starts to pass to the blue lockers but his immediate response to that is please give the ball back. Then again when kiyora gets it his reaction is to steal it.
Now going into this shot a lot of things could happen, Isagi intercepts the magnus, Kaiser passes to Isagi, Rin enters destroyer, Charles gets ahold of the ball and looks for shidou again. Given that Kaneshiro likes to make the characters in the background important, Id say that Isagi getting a hold of the ball and going for a shot is likely to happen this chapter. This next shot is Isagis monarchy vs Kaisers evolution, and I dont think Kaiser has evolved quite enough to make a dent in Isagis play. Everything is still banking off Isagi here. Kaiser is not making his own plays and is still playing off Isagis system. Isagis playmaking has been the bane of Kaiser since barcha. And he has gotten more and more upset the better Isagis plays have gotten. For Kaiser to score I believe he would require his own playmaking and to form a chemical reaction, be it ness or kiyora or both.

To preface I had played Downpour when it came out. I played it on PS3 when I had a subscription to GameFly (good old days) but I never finished it and, in the lead up to 2 Remake I wanted to amend that.
I want to say first thing that’s on my mind. I truly do believe that Downpour is underrated and overhated but I also think that the reception it got in 2012 makes sense. I’ll explain.
The Combat: The gameplay is beautifully clunky. It reeks that old school Team Silent feeling of making the main character seem like an average joe who can barely hold his own. It’s weird and doesn’t always make sense but once you get the feel for it it’s not that bad. Starting out I would try to interrupt the enemies mid swing which often didn’t work, then I moved to defending all their flurries before getting in a couple hits, but I finally learned how to bait the enemies and put them down in seconds. Combat actually has options despite it feeling so hollow on the surface. It’s not some deep mechanical system or anything but I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn’t doing the same strategy the whole game and, yeah, running away was a viable strategy as well which is always nice. I do believe the combat is where 2012 players got fed up though along with two others I’ll talk about next. It’s rudimentary in comparison to games coming out around the time and it’s not exactly satisfying. Yeah I learned to enjoy it but it didn’t stop me from getting tired of fighting the same 3 enemies and I often just started trying to avoid them.
The Graphics: Straight up, the game isn’t pretty. At all. As a matter of fact it’s downright ugly most of the time. Character models aside from Murphy suffer the most they just look wooden and like they’re constantly jittering like they’re barely still attached to the earth. I think this somewhat benefits the game when it comes to the monsters, the screamers in particular, and gives the town and locations this grungy feel to them. This is one of the other sticking points for 2012 players. This was the era when all that mattered was ma graphix people often writing off really good Wii games because they were ugly. Gamers in 2012 were relentless with this. If it wasn’t the most groundbreaking graphical leap it wasn’t worth $60.
The Town: In all honesty the exploration of the city is the very best part of the game, in my opinion. Running around Silent Hill finding Easter Eggs and searching for secret entrances was always a blast to me (The Room Easter Egg is truly special). The last time I’ve played a game whose atmosphere was so thick, so haunting, and so fitting was honestly probably Silent Hill 3. Walking around the city making your way through dilapidated buildings and alleyways just felt so right. The Radio’s you can find around town that play some of the most beautiful and haunting licensed music with the quality you’d expect from a radio like that always made me feel something. My personal favorite was If I Had a Boat in the Bank. My biggest complaint about the city is what I imagine everyone’s complaint is. It’s labyrinthian but it doesn’t have any shortcuts aside from the Subway unlocking which was convoluted to say the least. It could’ve REALLY benefited from a Dark Souls like take on the town where you could open up shortcuts to previous locations but considering Dark Souls was only a year prior that seems unfair. This is where I think 2012 players found their other issue. Traversal is long and tedious. Especially without the subway and with monsters roaming the streets.
The Sidequests: One of the stronger parts of the game for me but one that I only loved because I had a guide to tell me which building was which. If I were trying to remember which specific building held Painting sidequest, or ribbon sidequest ending I would have been roaming for hours. With a guide, not for the puzzles, it’s a breeze and a blast to uncover the many sidequests lying about and the tragic stories that they often tell. One of my favorite parts of the game honestly, the point that I was pretty sad when I ran out of sidequests to find. The fact there are 13 is surprising though as that’s a hefty amount for such a small town.
The Story: The story has a relatively strong hook. The opening to the game is a clever twist on the James archetype but it shows you from the beginning that Murphy isn’t a good guy. He’s not a hero. Sewel is the worst and that’s great. He really is a character that you despise from the get go and is the true villain of the story because of his coercion. Frank is solid but I wish he was present for more of the story since he’s such an integral part of it. The character interactions you have are depressing and weird like they should be. And you’re introduced to the “monster” that will haunt Murphy for the entire game and it’s not what you would expect. While a wheelchair bound monster is unsettling it’s not scary and I liked that. It’s not about the monster marching around trying to kill you like Pyramid Head. The journey from the cable camines to the town is one of my most memorable set pieces from this era.
The Endings: I think this is the one place where the game truly falters. The endings just do not satisfy in my opinion. Especially given the fact that depending on the ending the… past… changes somehow.
Ending A: it’s nice and all that Murphy didn’t kill Frank but the fact he didn’t even kill Napier and Sewel had to finish the job makes the accusations pointed at Murphy for the whole game about him being a murderer makes this ending fall apart.
Ending B: this is the best one. Murphy still doesn’t kill Napier for some reason but he doesn’t kill Frank and Anne, Franks daughter, presumably get her revenge on Sewel
Ending C: Murphy kills Frank and then offs himself which puts him back into a loop that find him in the Lakeside Penitentiary from the end of the game. Basically saying that this ending doesn’t even matter.
Ending D: The Execution one is weird. You randomly show back up at the prison from the beginning and Murphy is blamed for killing Charlie, randomly calls Sewel a cupcake, then fucking dies. What a lad.
Ending E: Just a beautiful farewell in all honesty.
Ending F: seeing Murphy take on the role of Sewel and Anne take on the role of Murphy feels like it could’ve been a whole NG+ moment of its own. It’s neat but it goes nowhere.
So yeah! I quite enjoyed it. Obviously I had my gripes with it but overall it’s definitely worthwhile and worthy of the Silent Hill title. I played it on Series X so I didn’t really experience any glitches like I did on my PS3 in 2012 so I can’t speak on those.
Solid 8/10 for me.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my long winded review. :)

Hello people, I am 25 y/o Physicist(not at all like Sheldon Cooper lol), looking to make some long term friends. I have got some free time at my hand from work, so I thought why not use it to make some new connections that may end up lasting for life.
Anyway, when I am not busy unravelling the secrets of the universe, I like to draw, sketch and paint. Just love anything related to art. I also like to read books, watch movies and TV shows, with my favourite genre being sci-fi and psychological thrillers, and listen to music, play football(soccer for my American friends) and video games on my PC. I have started learning guitar recently as well.
I try my best to make people smile and laugh and provide a safe, non-judgemental space for them to open up at their own pace. You can talk to me about anything. Your day was good? Tell me all about it. Your day went bad? Vent all you want. Saw a cute person that you instantly had a crush on? Share what you liked about them. Had something nice to eat? Tell me how good it was. Have some problems in your life? Share them snd we'll try to find solutions together but no compulsion if you only wanna vent. Just be yourself!!
So, if any of this rings a bell, you can send me a chat or comment here and we can connect and get in the process of knowing one another. I have no preferences over gender but I do ask that you be atleast 18+. Hope you all have great day!!

Doing it for the quirkless? Nope.
Heroes bad because yadda yadda corruption whatever? Doesn't matter, a good Villain needs a good Hero. Who cares what they do in their spare time?
Fix society in his own way? Nah.
Izuku is essentially comically evil. He is the guy who wakes up in the morning and goes "Yeah, I'm evil". At whatever point he wanted to start his villain career, his first villainous act is to sedate his mother and cut off all her limbs until she's just a head who can somehow still survive, and put her in the fridge with an ipad detailing his villainous deeds on the news.
He has no "standards", whatever those could be.
Overhaul is torturing some kid to make his bullets? BASED. How can I help?
That grape kid on TV latching onto some girl with a lecherous look on his face? Oooh, that has potential.
Moonfish and his cannibalism? Gross, not something he'd do himself, but pretty cool.
There are things he wouldn't personally do himself, like cannibalism, sexual crime, very icky torture like stabbing eyeballs with needles but he feels no disgust for the thought of the acts themselves, the "How can someone do this to another human being!?" that most normal people have. If he were to watch a person commit any act that might be defined as "bad", from saying the N word to genocide to kidnapping, as long as he isn't personally affected by it, he'd watch, take notes, make idle commentary and ultimately not care.
Basically his only redeeming trait is the ability to play nice with others. He doesn't want to get backstabbed and so the thought is that the other guy doesn't either.
At some point, he gives shelter to Muscular after he killed the Water Hose Duo. They quickly got along like a house on fire, essentially a very cursed Yuji/Todo dynamic. At some point, they recruit Moonfish before the LoV can, and Izuku has a weird ability to be able to control Moonfish. Muscular finds himself being in the very peculiar position of being the "sane" one in the trio, between Midoriya experimenting with a new atrocity every now and then, like sewing 2 babies together into a soccer ball and getting Muscular to play with him and Moonfish's cannibalism.
Izuku is oddly cheery, and looks too happy, which contrasts with the vile acts he does. He doesn't try and be edgy, give grand speeches, nothing like that. He's quite similar to his canon self around season 4 to 5 in that regard, except a bit more confident. His favoured villain clothes are a shirt that has the kanji for "villain" written on it.
He gets an alliance with the LoV around canon. He likes Tomura initially, but as he starts to get a "righteous cause" going on, he loses interest.
He kill steals from Stain by killing Iida first.
He gets to Kota first and kicks him around before letting Muscular get the total family wipeout, a proud tear in his eye.
Ironically, his attempt to deliver a "You and I aren't so different, Mineta" to try and get him to become a villain results in Mineta getting a wake up call and slowly becoming a great Hero.
He doesn't exactly betray the Hassakai directly, but he slightly greases the wheels for the Heroes to rescue Eri. Why? To kidnap her from her sanctuary at UA and deliver her to his good friend Kyudai "War Crimes" Garaki as a birthday present of course!

I had a few weird segments of dreams today. In my first dream, I was in a room with people, a few classmates showed up before I left. A german guy took notice of me, enamored. I thought about how I must ethnically look to him, wondering why he found me attractive. He let me go, giving me permission to leave the building. I saw a spanish girl who was one of my old classmates, about to give her a makeover. She asked me to give her one. I was already eyeing the orchid lipstick next to her, wanting to try it. I wanted to use it on her, wondering about what color nail polish was here. After talking with the man, I gave him a embrace, feeling his bald head against my arm. He also had a black leather coat/jacket. I asked if he liked david cross, to which he responded eagerly, amused.
I then found myself in a room with pedophiles, with other young people there. I was unsure if I'd get to escape or not. I made friends with a blonde girl that was there. She didn't seem to like me that much. I was able to convince a fat guy who was one of the pedos, to leave. I grasped his attention, somehow being too attractive or not for him. I don't remember if he liked me or not. He let me go. I found out while talking to the girl that Ben Savage had raped her in the ass back in the '90s. He tweeted about it, owning up/admitting to it. It was surprising for an actor to do that. I took off, finding the corridor in the mall that I always see in my dreams. It leads to a hall that I take, where all the '90s stores are. In the lobby, I took my favorite hall, running through it. I tried to get as far away from the nightmarish environment I came from, yearning to be safe in this safe place. I've done this before in past dreams. The mall is usually where I go if I need somewhere safe to hide.
I couldn't believe that I was dreaming, it felt so real. I thought about how I spend too much time at the mall, like a millennial/xennial. How often I can go to the mall. I don't do this in real life, the mall is one of the only good things where I live. I ran some more, nearly lucid. I don't remember how I transitioned to the next segment.
Back home, I was leaning against the wall. There was a pipe at my side. I was probably pressed up against the metal armrest on my bed. I vaguely remember a bowl of water next to me in the dream, worried about my collection of food getting stolen. I had a couple boxes of little debbie cakes. The newest one was a vintage looking box of valentine cakes or cupcakes. I recognized it from online, seeing it on google before. Late '90s - y2k era. It had pink iced on the cakes. The sprinkles were red, white, and purple. Maybe pink too. My mom gave it to me. 'Those are rare. That's the one from the late '90s..' I told her. She nodded, agreeing with what I was saying. She knew that the boxes she saw and wanted to buy were harder to find, like the brownies and cordials. This has happened in real life, except the cakes weren't a vintage formula. My brother tried to take some, after I even covered the boxes with a sheet. The icing on some of the cakes were wrinkled imperfectly. Just then, a volleyball style net took over the room. I leaned against the piping, dodging what felt like a spider on my hand. Tarantula. The room was now just me and my brother. A group of guys included, that I did not know. I ended up killing it, smacking the spider to the ground. Before I even knew what creature it was. I felt it's thorax slightly, picturing it's bottom as white with red square specks on it. I aggressively beat it away like a volley ball, killing the spider. I was shamed for it. It turns out, it was an ancient spider. A young version of my man approached me, sympathetically. I wrapped my arms around him, gently. He mentioned a list of animes to me that he liked. I saw blue popup bubbles form in the air. I don't remember what all happened. We sat and talked, until he got up and ran back towards his friends. Almost immediately, a guy that looked like a fushion of my partner and ex/my abuser, came up to me. He had very light blonde hair and glasses, like a typical nerd in a '80s movie or sitcom. He was domineering, making this the most uncomfortable segment of the day. I saw one of my old classmates again that was in one of my last dreams, who loves michael jackson. '90s makeup was placed around, lipsticks. Vintage. I grabbed at one that was in a clear tube, reading the number on the bottom. It was probably silver. So a maybelline tube. Frosted and brown colored.
I looked into a vanity that was infront of me, a full and wooden one. I think it was wood. I was looking for some liquid lipstick, hearing the guy who seemed like my partner say the words 'liquid lipstick' to someone behind me. I picked up a green lipgloss, liquid and in a small thin tube. I already had a blue-green lip stain on, satin finish. I applied the green to my lips, ruining the lipstick that was on before. And it was barely covering my full lips. It was subtle. The green streaked over my natural lip line, looking liquidy. One of of the two pictures ontop of the wooden dresser, a few feet away, was a photo of madonna. It had the words, 'natural beauty' on it. Her red lipstick was also liquid and overdrawn, clownish. Both ads had women with the same forehead length. Martian looking. There was a miniature figurine on the floor, along with wrapping papers and plastic underneath it. I was wearing a futurism outfit, with footy boots. Barberella vibes, I was getting. I heard the guy explain that he was a feminist, trying to virtual signal to the other women in the room. He mentioned creating something to spread awareness on endometriosis. Which I actually have. I took notice of the tiny figurine, unaware that he was approaching me. I immediately flipped onto my back, seeing my boots change. From futuristic and footed, to clear and translucent boots. With laces on them. He tied my boots for me, which embarrassed me. We made eye contact as he tied my boots. I laid on my back, looking at the miniature figurine, unable to get any look at it at all because it got wrapped up. Right as I turned my head to look. Across from me was another girl. I was not able to react, placed in a plastic seal. I got zipped up inside it, looking at the girl in front of me. In her own plastic sealed case. A bed inside it. Brown and 1960s era. It was like we were dolls, ready to be shipped and packaged for the toy store. I woke up after this.

It's difficult to find someone who doesn't have strong opinions about which of the different types of cake flavors is the best. Each of us has a favorite type and flavor.
It may be a mile-high, rich and sweet layer cake with lots of frosting for some. Others prefer a lighter cake with a dollop of whipped cream and fresh berries, such as angel food cake.
Some people will only eat homemade cakes when it comes to birthday cakes, but a few of us enjoy a good old-fashioned grocery store cake or even a cookie cake with a letter scribbled in tube icing.
Whatever your preferences, knowing the facts about different types of cake flavors is beneficial. Cakes are ideal for sweets, gatherings, celebrations, and pretty much everything else.
There are many distinct cake flavors, and You can combine them in many ways, such as red velvet and vanilla cakes.
Nowadays, you can make cakes in almost any flavor and shape. There is a great cake flavor out there for whatever occasion or craving.
However, not all flavors complement one other. Some flavor combinations are simply superior to others. Cakes are a delectable and traditional part of any celebration, and it is your responsibility as a baker and host to provide the best options available.
Without much ado, let's discuss some of th different types of cake flavors available.

1. Yellow Butter Cake

A sheet cake variation of this delicacy, covered with billows of chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles, is served at many kids' birthday parties.
Also, c the butter and sugar together (with an electric mixer in modern times) is a standard method for making yellow butter cakes, then adding dry and wet ingredients.
There are also "dump" variations, in which all of the ingredients are simply combined in a bowl.

2. Red Velvet Cake

A chemical reaction between cocoa powder and acidic buttermilk turns red velvet cake scarlet, but a drop of red food coloring makes the bright cake shine.
The delectable cream cheese frosting is an absolute must. This is a true Southern classic and a great favorite. The color of red velvet cake derives from the reaction of buttermilk and cocoa powder when made with either butter or oil.
Also, modern variations often use red food coloring, or in the instance of the raspberry velvet cake shown here, pink food coloring.

3. Pound Cake

This cake doesn't rise much when baking and has a dense texture. It's named after the fact that it's made using a pound of each of the key ingredients (flour, butter, and sugar).
Matcha and cocoa powder is used in our version, although vanilla essence is used in traditional recipes. Bake one of these in a loaf pan or a Bundt pan. This is one of the different types of cake flavors.

4. Carrot Cake

Carrot cake is a shorter cake leavened with baking soda and baking powder and utilizes oil instead of butter as its primary fat.
Also, The inclusion of grated carrots adds moisture to the cake. Warm spices flavor the carrot cake, topped with a luscious cream cheese frosting. Walnuts or pecans are optional!.
Furthermore, Carrot cake recipes vary in the quantity and amount of spices used and the addition of nuts and fruit.
Still, tender chunks of sweet carrot, an ideal dosage of cinnamon, and a fantastic frosting are what make a perfect carrot cake. Try our Carrot Cake Cupcakes recipe.

5. Sponge Cake

This foam-style cake has no artificial leaveners (baking powder or baking soda). It is entirely made up of whipped eggs, either whole or just whites.
This cake can be soaked in flavored syrups (try lemon syrup with a dab of lemon curd) or stacked with whipped cream and smashed berries.
Sponge cake can be rolled with fillings when baked thin in a sheet pan, like Buche de Noel's Christmas classic.

6. Genoise Cake

In Italy and France, a sponge cake is known as Genoise. Egg yolks, egg whites, and sugar are mixed together until mousse-like in this dessert. The flour, oil, or butter is then folded in. This cake is moister and more delicate than its sponge cake counterpart.

7. Chiffon Cake

A chiffon cake is a sponge cake and an oil cake hybrid. It has the richness of a shorter cake thanks to the addition of oil, and it's light and airy thanks to whipped egg whites and baking powder.

8. Angel Food Cake

Angel food cake is the lightest of the light, created with only beaten egg whites for leavening and no extra fat. It's traditionally made in an angel food cake pan and then cooled upside down in the pan to keep the light texture. Its high sugar content in an angel food cake gives it a chewy, sponge-like feel.

9. Funfetti Cake

Funfetti is a joyful and fun dessert that has received a lot of love from its fans, earning it the eighth slot on this list. Also, Funfetti is a delightful birthday cake with colorful sprinkles both inside and out. This is one of the different types of cake flavors.

10. Vanilla Cake

Vanilla is, believe it or not, the third most popular and well-liked cake flavor. It's flexible and goes well with various flavors, including chocolate, lemon, and strawberry.

11. Coffee Cake

They're tasty and come in various coffee flavors, including Irish and Mocha. Also, this cake is ideal for coffee enthusiasts as a treat.

12. Banana Cake

The banana cake is the cake flavor that makes you go bananas. It has a juicy texture and an overpowering flavor. This is one of the different types of cake flavors.

13. Pineapple Cake

The pineapple, like the cake, is a beautiful element for desserts. The cake has a refreshing flavor and a stunning appearance.

For reference, I am diagnosed Level 1 autistic and my friend/acquaintance suspects she is autistic. I am very bad at reading people, even fellow NDs, so I wanted some outside perspective from other autistic women. My social anxiety is pretty bad, but I really do try to make friends when I have the energy.
I (35) used to work with person in question (code name: Alice, 44). We got along pretty well at work, and I attended a Friendsgiving she hosted last year. She seems to be a warm, positive person. Over the winter break, when our workplace shuts down for the holidays, she texted me asking to hang out. We agreed to meet up to bake macarons (her specialty) and drink nice tea (my specialty). I was excited, if a bit nervous, and followed up the night before for confirmation, because I get having to cancel. No answer.
The next day, I went to the gym and texted her like 2 hours before. She finally responded and gave some vague answer about the holidays being hard for her, and she canceled. I told her it was fine, even if I was bummed, and moved on. However, I saw that this same day, she had gone hiking all week with her husband (we're both active on social media). It was like she totally forgot she even agreed to do something with me and gave a weird excuse.
Alice suddenly quit our workplace at the beginning of the year and eagerly texted me about her new bakery she was going to open. I was excited for her, and she asked me to taste-test some of her recipes. I agreed, and twice she swung by our work, saying she'd meet me to say hi when she was dropping off her baking. Both times, I went to meet her and she was already gone. Just dropped the cupcakes and left. When I asked about it, she said it was weird to be at her former workplace (but her husband still works there). Then, she decided to suddenly drop the bakery idea entirely and get another job similar to what she was doing before.
I posted on the social medz about some things I cooked, and Alice always said "Omg, we should cook together!" Only to no longer follow through. I gave up on her for a while, when she texted me again this past week. I had posted about how I'm struggling being autistic, and she wanted to go hiking with me to help with the burnout I've been experiencing. I tentatively agreed, and we talked a bit back and forth. Just like a repeat of next time, I followed up the day before to no response. We're supposed to go tomorrow morning, but she never responded to me, and there she is again, posting about hiking with her husband.
Should I give up on this? If so, what should I say next time she reaches out to me? It's been nearly 7 months of this. I really want to make some female friends, but it seems impossible. I know we're both ND, but this seems really weird behavior from a 44-year-old.

Hey, this is my first time posting here.
I don't even know where to start since this shit has been going on for over 30 years, surprisingly I'm 36, which means this cancer has been eating my soul since I was a little kid.
One of my earliest memories was me lying in my bed and crying like a dog because I realized that my grandmother was going to die one day. It didn't seem fair and I didn't want to accept that fact. She made it until the beginning of 2020, when a strange Chinese flu ended her life. This woman had to die alone in a crowded and restricted hospital, she lived through a world war, raised 5 children, lost 2 of them and never gave up. She continued to give her best every day. It was a shame to let her go like that.
Another memory was me lying in bed crying again. My mom noticed and ran into my room angrily yelling at me why I was still awake. My response: "Why did you bring me into this world?"
She just left the room without saying a word, leaving me alone in my room where I continued to sob silently so as not to cause any more trouble.
Death was a big topic in my head, while other people in the neighborhood were playing soccer, chasing each other, or generally having a good time, I was sitting at home on hot summer days, thinking about death, searching for the meaning of life. Why live if you are going to die? What's the point of trying to achieve anything if it doesn't matter? Questions that have never been answered.
I was sent to therapy quite early in my life, it was the early 90s, so the doctors usually said that I just needed to do more exercise and leave the video games alone and then everything would be fine with me. When I had my breakdowns, it was okay to casually yell at me or hit me, that would do the trick, they said. After all, we have to be "normal" and fulfill a purpose in life, there is no time and space for "thinking", we have to work and live our lives.
As I got older, I realized that my parents and grandparents were just overwhelmed and kind of embarrassed to have a kid like me. "Why can't this boy just be a normal kid?" were sentences I heard a lot back then.
As I write this, I somehow lose motivation because it is all the same blablabla as usual, yes, I was excluded in school, I was bullied, beaten, laughed at, rejected by girls as a teenager. Blablabla, it's the same story as everyone else's, nothing special, just the standard life that happens to millions of other people out there every fucking day.
I had some success as a young adult, about 18-25 years old. I looked pretty ripped from my construction job, even without going to the gym. I had played guitar for a long time and played in bands, toured Europe, relationships and sex were not a problem at all, I just did what I wanted to do. I was the young rebel. I even managed to convince a girl from the USA to travel 5000 miles across the globe just to see me. Yes, I was quite successful with women, had a large social circle, an international touring band, worked very hard, had good money and was a respected and well-oiled machine in society.
Later I realized that it was just because I drank ridiculous amounts of alcohol every day and just didn't give a fuck about anything. I was literally drinking myself into a stupid state of mind where I just "functioned" and didn't think about anything else. Apparently, that was the winning formula for a fulfilled life. Just do it, don't think about it.
That all stopped when I went to a clinic to get sober, they checked my blood alcohol and it was 4 per mille. The strange thing was that I talked to the doctor as if I had just had a beer in a pub or something. I wasn't stuttering or mumbling, I was standing straight as a post with no weird movements at all. The doctor noted that the amount of alcohol in my blood could be considered lethal for "normal" people. That was the day I stopped drinking once and for all. It's been 8 years now and I haven't touched a drop of alcohol since, not even a piece of cake with alcohol in it or anything else.
It made me a total introvert, shy, insecure, even more depressed. I had time to think again. To the point where, in addition to my depression, I developed an anxiety disorder and had panic attacks as soon as I left my house. They called it agoraphobia. Lost my job. Lead to a point where I isolated myself at home, ordering food, never went outside. It got so bad that I started getting paranoid about anything health related. If I had a twitch in my little finger, I would call an ambulance because I was afraid of having a stroke or a heart attack. If I felt a little dizzy, had a headache, or whatever, I drove to the hospital because I was afraid it was a serious medical condition that could kill me. I once choked on a piece of pasta and that caused severe dysphagia. I can't even eat mashed potatoes when I'm having a bad day because I'm scared to death I'm going to choke again.
So this is my life today. I'm 36, single, basically completely isolated from society, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, depression, severely overweight (which is ridiculous considering I have trouble swallowing even small amounts of food, but hey, soda and candy bars exist, right?).
My mother committed suicide in January of this year, 6 weeks later my father had a new partner and expected me to go on with my life as if nothing had happened. I didn't want to, so he left me. Now I don't have any parents.
My mental health is fucked up, my body is fucked up, I feel lonely but at the same time I'm socially awkward and I don't know what to do with other people at all, I get super stressed pretty quickly. Most people annoy me and I want to be alone.
I failed to start a family myself, so I just accepted my fate and wait for my first heart attack to eventually kill me from the amount of unhealthy food and lack of exercise I do every day.
I fucking hate my life and I don't see the point in changing anything because it doesn't matter if I'm depressed in a nice house or in my shady apartment. Achieving something feels the same as failing. To be honest, I can't feel anything but sadness, anger, hate, jealousy, fear... whatever emotion you choose, it's a negative one. I can't feel positive emotions, yes, I laugh when I see "funny" things, but inside I am dead to positivity. If I get a gift I feel bad, if something good happens to me I get paranoid because there must be a downside and I spend the rest of the day trying to figure out what the catch is.
My apartment has no hot water, my radiators are broken, the windows are leaking, I haven't had a working washing machine in years. I am too insecure and depressed to call my landlord to fix my shit. I fear the words "Wait, you've been living like this for 3 years?" or "Why didn't you call before?"
I am afraid of being judged or even laughed at. I fear having to justify myself.
There is no way I can accept things like love, passion, joy... I don't even know what it feels like anymore because it's been decades since I embraced positive feelings. Now they just seem like a strange concept to me, a concept for stupid people who just lie to themselves to try to forget the inevitable (death). Like a mask, like a little kid putting his fingers in his ears and screaming "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU". I get angry when people try to be positive around me because I think it is all bullshit. I can't remember the last time I committed to something, when people talk about good things in the sense of "life is so beautiful, look at the flowers, the sun, hehe I love life" I think they are crazy and just close their eyes because they don't see the reality and how fucking stupid and meaningless life is.
Being so bitter annoys the fuck out of me, but I can't help it. I have to destroy any positivity, it's almost like I want to suffer because I think that's the only way this life works. That I deserve this. Seeing people on the internet making millions of dollars every year just by jumping around on TikTok while stupidly imitating some degenerate music is the total state of humanity for me. Why should I get up in the morning and work my ass off for a company that doesn't give a shit about me if I can just collapse and die on the spot? Just so my stupid fucking boss can drive his Porsche at the end of the month? To pay my taxes so some rich ass corrupt politician without a degree can sit in parliament and get paid 10,000 bucks a month to be there and tell people like me that I need to pay more taxes and work harder?
This planet sucks ass! Excuse me for getting more and more profane with every sentence, but I have managed to write myself into a state where I desperately want to have the big red button that destroys the entire Earth in front of me and just push it so that this whole planet just blows up with all the assholes living on it. I gave life a lot of chances, always got back up after falling down, worked hard, cared about relationships and friendships, always paid the full price, never broke the law. In short, I did everything this fucking society wanted me to do, and what did I get back? A kick in the ass.
I have to pull myself together right now. To be honest, I have no idea what I even wrote here as my hands took over and it just poured out.
I'm trapped between the worlds. Too afraid to die but too tired to want to live. I just don't want to exist at all.
I'm exhausted and want peace.

My (16) brother (M23) is an incredibly selfless person from a age he was the one protecting us from our drug and alcohol addicted parents on good days they'd just leave us alone which meant that my brother would be forced to take care of me and my eight siblings but on the bad days they'd find any reason to be mad and beat us, my brother would stand in front of the door way nake sure they would beat him instead of us. They'd use irons, bats anything to make us feel pain but my brother protecting us he would get the worse of it all, he still has a lot fo scars from it all but he has some tattoos that cover them up.
He never got any chance to have a childhood. And even now life hasn't gotten any easier, this last year has been crazy. He lost his best friend of ten years to a drug overdose, and only a month later we lost my little brothers both (M13), my cousin (F16) and my younger sister (F10) car accident a
All three of them ended up in a coma but eventually passed away one by one during this time my brother wouldn't leave their side, he never slept, didn't sleep or drink water. He'd only drink coffee and enegery drinks to stay awake.
And finally we lost our grandmother. She and my brother were always super close, and she passed away. After her passing things quickly went downhill from there. He couldn't sleep, he would've eat and I'm pretty sure he didn't take his meds that are meant to help him with his bipolar.
One day I came home from school and I found out that my brother tried to kill himself so he was sent to the psych ward.
We got to visit him while he was there but he wasn't like himself, he isn't really happy go lucky he can sometimes be like Wednesday Addams but he just looked so drained and dead inside. The nurse said that he had signs of burnout, a mental breakdown and psychosis.
He's been home for about a week now and there is no difference in his behaviour. He is still cold, distant and sometimes I catch him starring off into the distance. I can tell he feels very vulnerable position but he won't let any one of take care of him.
I'm gonna get to the point now today I came home from soccer practice to my uncle and aunt trying to get me to talk to my brother because they got into a fight. I don't wanna get into to much detail but it started over coffee and developed into them blaming him for the car accident.
When I went upstairs he was in a ball crying telling me he's sorry and that I shouldn't have to see him like this. When I bent down to try and comfort he moved from me quickly begging for me not to touch him saying that he doesn't want to hurt anyone and that he is tried of hurting people. I told that it was okay but before I could say more to comfort him he just screamed to leave him alone.
I'm not sure what to do from here. I called my godmother and she left about thirty minutes ago. She managed to calm him down with some herbs.
Do you guys have any advice or tips on how I can help him? Please please help me. Thank you

My (16) brother (M23) is an incredibly selfless person from a age he was the one protecting us from our drug and alcohol addicted parents on good days they'd just leave us alone which meant that my brother would be forced to take care of me and my eight siblings but on the bad days they'd find any reason to be mad and beat us, my brother would stand in front of the door way nake sure they would beat him instead of us. They'd use irons, bats anything to make us feel pain but my brother protecting us he would get the worse of it all, he still has a lot fo scars from it all but he has some tattoos that cover them up.
He never got any chance to have a childhood. And even now life hasn't gotten any easier, this last year has been crazy. He lost his best friend of ten years to a drug overdose, and only a month later we lost my little brothers both (M13), my cousin (F16) and my younger sister (F10) car accident a
All three of them ended up in a coma but eventually passed away one by one during this time my brother wouldn't leave their side, he never slept, didn't sleep or drink water. He'd only drink coffee and enegery drinks to stay awake.
And finally we lost our grandmother. She and my brother were always super close, and she passed away. After her passing things quickly went downhill from there. He couldn't sleep, he would've eat and I'm pretty sure he didn't take his meds that are meant to help him with his bipolar.
One day I came home from school and I found out that my brother tried to kill himself so he was sent to the psych ward.
We got to visit him while he was there but he wasn't like himself, he isn't really happy go lucky he can sometimes be like Wednesday Addams but he just looked so drained and dead inside. The nurse said that he had signs of burnout, a mental breakdown and psychosis.
He's been home for about a week now and there is no difference in his behaviour. He is still cold, distant and sometimes I catch him starring off into the distance. I can tell he feels very vulnerable position but he won't let any one of take care of him.
I'm gonna get to the point now today I came home from soccer practice to my uncle and aunt trying to get me to talk to my brother because they got into a fight. I don't wanna get into to much detail but it started over coffee and developed into them blaming him for the car accident.
When I went upstairs he was in a ball crying telling me he's sorry and that I shouldn't have to see him like this. When I bent down to try and comfort he moved from me quickly begging for me not to touch him saying that he doesn't want to hurt anyone and that he is tried of hurting people. I told that it was okay but before I could say more to comfort him he just screamed to leave him alone.
I'm not sure what to do from here. I called my godmother and she left about thirty minutes ago. She managed to calm him down with some herbs.
Do you guys have any advice or tips on how I can help him? Please please help me. Thank you