I am reaching out desperate for help as I was diagnosed last week by a physician assistant at a dermatology office. I don’t feel like she really listened to me or the progression of things and I am not 100% certain that the diagnosis is accurate however, if it is, I am pleading for your help. Back in November, I had an allergic reaction or what I thought was one to peppermint Chapstick was my guess. I saw a virtual dermatologist and two doctors and was put on an anabiotic, prednisone, hydrocortisone, and also an antifungal cream. Eventually, it went away, and I started developed this white line around my lips, which has progressively gotten worse. I will attach photos. I am currently on tacrolimus Skin around my lips is burning, red, itchy, any makeup or bronzer. I stand in front of people and speak for a living, and this has been incredibly anxiety, provoking and detrimental to my confidence.

Have you ever experienced something that shook you to your very core? Something that makes you remember every single little detail of your surroundings from that moment in time? Even years after? I can remember so vividly the moment I realized something was wrong with me. I was in my junior year of high school sitting in class, just like any other day. I remember the smell of erasers and cheap cologne that permeated off my classmate who sat next to me. I remember the scratchy tag on my t-shirt and how I was resisting taking it off in the middle of class just to cut it off. I remember what my teacher, Mrs. Brown, was talking about; 'the fall of Constantinople'. My mouth felt dry and I kept looking at the clock, counting down the minutes until I had lunch so I could get a soda. The sound of a pen clicking behind me was synchronized with the song that was stuck in my head.
All those things were going through my brain at once. My ADHD mind went a million miles per minute when it all came down to a cashing holt when I felt it at 11:23
I felt what I can only describe as a hand grabbing at the inner lining of my stomach. It didn't necessarily hurt, not at this point. That's not why I got so scared. You see, not only do I have ADHD. I also have OCD that manifests itself in the fear of anything growing or moving inside me. Even if I think about the concept of blood moving in my body or a heart that is beating in my chest, I have to think of something else. I've had full-blown panic attacks because of it. The closest term for this is 'Tokophobia'. That's technically the fear of pregnancy. I'm a guy, so it's not completely accurate but it's really the closest term. I mean, I also do have a huge fear of pregnancy. Not necessarily of me being pregnant, but even though I knew I could never get pregnant, the thought of it still made me feel sick
I bet you can imagine the terror that overcame me as I felt something moving in me. I made an audible groan and grabbed my stomach. My whole class turned to look at me. even my teacher stopped talking to ask if I was okay. I stood up and started to run to the nurses' office without even acknowledging my teacher. My first thought wasn't thinking that something was actually in my body. Even stomach aches and the feeling of gurgling in my stomach made me feel this way before. I didn't have anything on hand to help with a stomach ache, unfortunately. However, the nurse always did.
I sprinted across the school hoping and praying that my stomach wouldn't make that awful feeling again before I got there.
I turned the corner into the nurses' office with my tennis shoes squeaking in the process. I saw the school nurse, Mrs. Kennedy sitting on the couch in her office reading a magazine. She looked up at me with a sweet smile that quickly turned into worry.
"Sam, what is it? How can I help?" She said as she stood up and hurried over to me. Putting her hand over mine which was grabbing my stomach tightly.
"It's…It's my stomach. Something is wrong with it." I mumbled with a red face.
She shuffled her way over to her large medicine cabinet and she motioned for me to sit down.
She asked me questions about my stomach. Asking if it was pain, grumbling, cramps, nausea, etc. As she was asking me what my symptoms were and digging through bottles, The feeling happened again. However, this time was different. It felt like fingers grassing against the inside of my body. I screamed and wrapped my arms around my torso. Mrs. Kenneddy ran over to me to comfort me.
"This seems a lot worse than normal, maybe we should call your parents." She said as she put her hand on my back.
It felt like some days I saw Mrs. Kennedy more than my teachers. Any small ailment would distract me so badly from class that I had to go see her. Sometimes multiple times a day. She knew at this point when something was really wrong.
Within about 30 minutes both my parents were there with us. That may seem fast, but I'm an only child and my parents are very aware of my tendencies. They know I can spiral and like to be around if it happens.
They kept asking me where the pain was. I think they assumed by the way I wasn't responding to their questions the pain must've been really bad. The reality was that I just didn't know how to tell them what was going on.
I got so frustrated after they asked me over and over again that I just yelled at them.
"Something is inside me! Get it out, get it out, get it out!" I lifted my shirt and was ripping at my stomach. Leaving red nail scratches and cuts. My mom and dad ran to either side of me to grab my arms. Mrs. Kennedy had seen me go pretty crazy, but this was the worst I've ever gotten in front of her. My parents however had seen a similar situation before. Not exactly like this, but they didn't skip a beat on trying to help me.
"Sam. Breath, sweety. Just remember everything is in you for a reason. It's keeping you alive. Nothing is going to hurt you." My mom said softly to me. Trying to calm me down with the words my therapist gave her. "Ice cubes, get him ice cubes!" She said to Mrs. Kennedy as I started to hyperventilate.
Mrs. Kennedy grabbed a ziplock bag and started to fill it with ice cubes. My mom went over to her and grabbed an ice cube right out of the bag, opened up my hand, and put the ice cube in it. This worked in the past to distract me, I knew that's what she was doing, and trust me. I wanted it to work too, but this was different. I kept trying to tell myself that it was just a different feeling I hadn't felt before. That it wasn't possible something was physically inside my body. But I couldn't help it.
Everyone in the room could see that this was getting intense. I think they assumed it was just a mental breakdown and that nothing was physically wrong with my body but I didn't care. I just wanted help.
My parents got me into the car with my mom even sitting in the backseat with me. She kept trying to distract me with conversation but my mind was only on that awful feeling in my stomach.
We pulled up to the ER and my mom guided me in while holding both my wrists. It felt like she was walking me on a leash but I didn't fight it. I knew she was just trying to stop me from scratching my stomach.
We walked in and I spoke to the receptionist. All I said was that I had terrible pain in my stomach. I didn't want to sound too crazy. I just needed a doctor to look at whatever was going on.
After giving the receptionist my name and insurance information we went to sit down. I was sitting in between my parents and I could see my mom lean back to try and mouth something to my dad without me seeing. I didn't think much of it. I was way more worried about other things.
My dad then went up to the receptionist. He pointed over to me and she looked a little concerned. I saw her pick up the clipboard that had my information on it and she started writing something else on it. I asked my dad what he did and he just said to not worry and that he wanted to let her know it was urgent.
No more than 10 minutes went by and I felt a terrible moving sensation. I cringed and grabbed my stomach. Immediately followed by not just the feeling of a hand grabbing my insides but also scratching and pinching. I yelled out in pain as the other people in the waiting room looked at me mortified.
A doctor and a couple of nurses came running over to me and helped me up. But I couldn't stand up. I was in too much pain. They put me in a wheelchair and started to head for a room. However, they didn't take me through the normal big ER doors that went to the standard examination rooms, they took me and my parents through a smaller door to the side that had a padlock on it.
We walked through a white hallway that was very quiet. The doctor and nurses showed us to my room and helped me into my bed as I was wiggling and wincing. I had one parent on either side of me. Patiently waited to stop my arms from scratching.
The doctor was trying to ask further questions but he could tell it wasn't going anywhere. I knew that my dad probably told that receptionist about my OCD tendencies and that I needed to go to the psych ward. Not just to the stranded side of the ER.
I couldn't take it anymore and blurted out that something was inside my stomach and it was trying to get out.
The doctor just looked at my parents for a reaction and they gave him a sad nod. It was like they warned him that this could happen. The doctor didn't just think I was crazy, my parents did too. The doctor took a deep breath and came up to me. I knew I was about to hear some kind of dumb speech about how this was just my OCD and everything was going to be okay.
As he came closer to me, I pulled up my shirt and he gasped. Not only was my stomach scratched up like crazy, but we saw movement. It looked like when a pregnant woman can see her baby kicking. But this was so much stronger. It was stretching my skin.
My parents stood up and gasped while the doctor looked frantic and unprepared.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" The doctor said as he backed out of the room. "Hang on! We are getting this taken care of, just hang tight."
Just seconds later a nurse came in to give me some painkillers. I started to feel the pain slip away, but something so much worse started to creep in. I heard a voice. Not my own. Not some creepy-sounding creature, but the voice of a normal-sounding man that I'd never heard before. But that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was what he was saying to me.
"Get me out. Get me out. Get me out!"
It started in a normal tone, but slowly became more urgent and rushed. Then demanding.
The voice would coincide with the moment inside me.
It was getting so loud that I was having a hard time hearing the people around me. The doctor came in just a few minutes after I last saw him. He was red and sweaty. Like he'd just run a marathon. He told me they needed to do just a few tests on what was inside me before taking action.
I was trying so hard to pay attention to the words coming out of his mouth but all I could hear was the voice. The voice stopped for just a second and changed what he was saying. Now he started repeating,
"Cut me out, cut me out, cut me out, now!" I now knew this thing didn't just want out but it wanted out now. I begged the doctor to just get it out now but he wouldn't listen. The voice spoke up again.
"This is taking too long. Don't be afraid. Get me out yourself."
I think it could feel me resisting. Without realizing it, I was looking around the room for something. It was like I didn't even have control over my head or eyes anymore. I knew the voice was looking for a knife but I was trying to ignore the feeling. I knew there weren't any knives around. I was in a very safe place.
Just as I had the feeling I was safe, it was immediately taken away. The thought passed through my head that my dad probably had a pocket knife on him. My heart sank. I knew this thing could hear my thoughts. I knew what it would try to do.
The next thing I knew, I was on my feet, leaping for my dad. My body hit his. luckily, he's in pretty good shape for his age and had no problems putting me in my place.
He got on top of me and pinned me to the ground. All while I could barely hear my mom in the background. Yelling at my dad to be careful. My dad knew something was going on and that I just needed to be on the ground until I calmed down.
My body tried to flail but it wasn't successful. The whole time the voice in my head, now yelling and screaming. Not saying any distinguishable words, but just having what felt like a tantrum. What made my dad the most uncomfortable was the kicking feeling coming from my stomach.
After a couple of minutes, the voice calmed down and I felt in charge of my body again. My dad slowly got up and attempted to help me up. At this point with an audience of hospital staff that looked like they were getting ready to take me somewhere for more tests.
Just as I stood up straight, I felt the voice take over and I lost all sense of my own body. I felt like a shell of myself. My dad gave me a soft yet worried smile, and in that instance, I grabbed him and reached into his pocket. My heart sank as I felt his pocket knife. The room started to panic and about 5 people tried to grab it from me. The last thing I remember is plunging the knife into my stomach. I felt a blinding pain and everything went black.
Several hours later I started to wake up. Everything was extremely blurry and fuzzy. I could hear a very faint voice telling me to relax. As the minutes passed by, things started to become a little bit clearer. I looked around and saw I was in a large room with a few other patients. A nurse was going up to all the beds and checking in on them. I tried to sit up a bit to get more comfortable and noticed an incredible sourness in my stomach. I moved my hospital gown out of the way and saw a huge scare. About 6" across. Most of the scare looked very surgical. Like what I'd imagine a c-section surgery would look like. Except where I remembered the knife going in. It looked like a bunch of extra stitches had to be added where it went in. It also looked pretty bruised. I can imagine that a dull 10-year-old knife that was harshly shoved into a body really wouldn't cleanly cut through and leave some damage.
The feeling of shock from looking at my stomach was quickly gone when I realized that meant whatever was in me was now gone. I didn't hear the voice, I didn't feel a hand in my gut anymore, I didn't see that vile kicking anymore. I felt like I could breathe.
I asked the nurse what they found and she looked flush.
"Uh, that's something that you, uh. Your doctor will talk with you once you eat something and can speak clearly." She said as she scurried off looking upset.
Shortly after that, I was wheeled into a recovery room and my parents came to see me.
As they walked in they had a very similar look on their faces as the nurse did. They looked pale and didn't want to look me in the eye. I kept asking them questions about what was going on but they said the doctor needed to discuss it with me and he wanted to make sure I wasn't feeling high from the anesthesia while we had a conversation.
The doctor didn't come and see me for another 10 hours. Which felt strange. And to add to the strangeness, my parents were taking shifts hanging out with me. There was only overlap when they switched and the other parent took over while the other one left the room. I would understand if they weren't both with me for the whole time. I'm not that needy, but they were only both in my room together for about an hour. That was the hour before the doctor came to my room.
Finally, the doctor came in to talk to me. When he walked in, the room was cold and quiet. It was evident he didn't feel the same relief I was feeling.
He seemed awkward. Like he was talking way too long to get over to me. He grabbed a chair and scooted it close to me.
"Listen Sam. I know this last 24 hours has been very challenging. I apologize for not explaining what happened during your surgery sooner, but we all needed time to figure it out, and quite frankly, process what happened. We feel we have enough information to let you in on what is going on." A silence filled the room. It felt like no one was brave enough to break it.
"And?" I said with confusion.
"I think it'll be easier if we just show you."
The doctor along with my parents helped me into a wheelchair and we started to make our way across the hospital to an entirely different section. I couldn't believe all the things running through my head at what we were about to see. It felt like cruel and unusual punishment to leave me in anticipation and not just tell me what I was about to see.
When I went around the corner I couldn't process what I was looking at. I thought they were showing me a large tumor or growth of some kind, but why would a tumor be in a big incubation chamber with tubes connected to IVs and machines coming out of it?
As I got closer, I started to see human fetchers on it. It was mostly just a 6-pound lump of flesh, but I could see a hand sticking out of it. It was small, but what made it creepy was it looked like a fully developed man's hand. Just small. I could see a patch of hair coming out of what I assumed was its head. It had no discernible facial features. Just a few teeth scattered in one section.
As I looked at it with disgust, coming to terms with this thing that was just in my body, I had a realization. I wasn't feeling sick at the thought of something being in my body. Sure, I was grossed out that this particular thing was just in me, but the thought of the bacteria in my body didn't make me want to throw up. I thought about all the blood pumping through my veins and I felt… normal. Not only was the voice and kicking gone. But my OCD was gone too. I didn't have a mental illness. It was just this thing. Trying to find its way out for years.
As I was staring at the creature, the doctor came and put his hand on my shoulder.
"We believe this is your twin brother." I immediately looked up at my parents who looked very disturbed and upset. I let the doctor finish talking. "We believe that you absorbed him in the womb and that he has been living inside you your whole life. This is an extremely rare condition called fetus-in-fetu. It seems he didn't quite have the best opportunity to develop normally. That's why he looks the way he does. Despite his appearance, he has all the organs he needs to survive. Looks like he's missing a lung and his gallbladder. Also a piece of his liver but other than that, it looks like he will live for at least a few years. He won't be able to leave this room due to him needing a feeding tube and a few other things that his body can not do on its own. He needs lots of support just to live. What makes this situation extremely unique is that your twin is still alive despite your body not sustaining him anymore. Even though we have him hooked up to a few IVs and machines, It is unexplainable how he is living while outside of your body."
I was in complete shock. I didn't want to believe it. I asked my mom why she never told me I absorbed my twin in the womb, she said she had no clue. There was never a sign when she was pregnant with me.
He also mentioned that sometimes even in pregnancies women will go their whole pregnancy without even getting a belly. It's called a 'Cryptic pregnancy'. I've always had a bit of a gut but never anything big enough to cause suspicion. I guess in my case I had a fetus-fetu and an experience similar to a cryptic pregnancy. Even though it was in my stomach. At least that was the doctor's best guess. Although, it all sounded like BS to me.
The doctor and my parents kept trying to explain more and more details to me. I don't know why they didn't slow down a little bit for my sake. How could they not tell I wasn't processing any of this?
I noticed something while they were trying to explain things to me. They kept calling it a 'He'.
Now listen. I'm not some kind of asshole that won't respect someone who wants to be called a specific pronoun. I've never been that kind of person. But this is where I draw the line.
Not just that. But this thing had a name. My parents named it and said today was its birthday. While they told me all this information, they didn't look happy about it. It seemed like they were forced to do all this nonsense. And now it was my turn to be convinced. I could tell they were trying to force it.
The doctor told me despite it not having a high probability for a long life that we should still try and give it the love it deserves. Of course, the doctor referred to it as a 'He' but I refused to.
This disgusted me. This thing tried to kill me and ruined my quality of life for so long, and now we are going to treat it like it's some kind of prince? No, absolutely not.
Luckily, it seemed like it would never leave the hospital, but my parents planned on going to visit it daily. Visiting it? Are you kidding me? it has no eyes, no ears, it's probably miserable and has no concept of people even being around it.
I'm refusing to ever see this thing again or acknowledge its existence again.
I could get in trouble for even talking about this. The hospital or anyone involved has signed NDAs to not share any information about this until it officially dies. This is because it's a medical anomaly and the first of its kind. They want to do the proper research on how this all occurred before coming out with a statement. I just have to get this all off my chest. I feel like I'm the crazy one here when I know I'm not. I don't care if I get in trouble.
I am scared that the doctors are trying to force my parents into giving this thing a proper life. I think that's why it took them so long to tell me. I think they scared my parents into keeping it alive and guilting them or even forcing them into being its parent.
I'm all for every life being important and all that stuff, but I have a feeling my parents are terrified of this thing just like I am.
I am convinced they gaslit my parents into believing this thing is my brother. If there wasn't any sign of him while my mom was pregnant with me, could this thing be something else?
This all happened about two years ago. It's still alive and they are still researching it. My parents continue to visit it despite everything. My therapist told me that I'm probably just struggling with jealousy now that I'm not an only child anymore and so much of my parents' attention is on him now, but it's so much bigger than just jealousy.
Since this thing showed up and my OCD is pretty much gone, I've hardly seen my parents. I know I'm not just jealous. There is something more to this. I know it.
Something just feels so off about this whole thing. What is this thing? Where did it come from? And what does it want?

Hey Pinball Fans, look at this note. Look at this work of art. (If art is about length and long lists for you) Our team went all out this time and it is our pleasure to present this list of fixes for you.
Tables added:
Pacific Rim Pinball
Super League Football (Free download on consoles for 7 days, on PC for 30 days. Get it now and keep it forever)
Universal Classics: TV Pinball:
Xena: Warrior Princess Pinball
Knight Rider Pinball
Battlestar Galactica PinballNew Features on PlayStation, Xbox and PC:
UI overhaul and upgrades
XP system
Notification system
New optional Pinhall, New optional music
General fixes:

• Fixed an issue where "An error has occurred while publishing your scores" could pop up frequently
• Fixed an issue where a start of a new season would unlock all rewards

Fixes for PlayStation, Xbox and PC:

• Nudge button hints are now displayed properly
• Williams Pinball: Volume 1 Questline - Mission 9 - Double Score powerup timer set from 5 seconds to 20

Fixes for PC:

• Fixed an issue where camera controls were stuck to ‘C’ even after setting a different key
• Fixed an issue where the game crashed when players closed a 2-player-hotseat table in cabinet mode
• Fixed an issue in Cabinet Mode - where players had to Reload Configuration every time

Table Fixes:
A Charlie Brown Christmas™ Pinball

• Fixed an issue when the ball could stuck in the left kickback
• Reduced the time of the ball being held by the saucer during the Mystery Animation, added manual eject option as well
• The “Collect Bonus” award no longer resets the bonus multiplier
• Fixed the typo in the song credits
• Fixed the typo on the display
• Music for the Pigpen Snowman mode no longer replaces the main theme after the mode ends

Crypt of the NecroDancer Pinball

• Fixed an issue, where the boss music can play alongside other tracks
• Fixed an issue, where the ball can leave the miniplayfield
• Fixed a typo on the bottom right of the playfield
• Adjusted the German translations at the ball launch
• Adjusted the ball kickout system in the bonus room
• Fixed an issue, where the Bomb lamp could stay lit after usage
• Fixed an issue where the ball could go ballistic after a weak plunge

Terraforming Mars Pinball

• Added rollover switches above the bumpers
• Fixed an issue where the instructions overlapped on the display

Exploding Kittens®: A Pinball Cat-astrophe

• Fixed an issue where the Jackpot status didn’t reset
• The pop-up score at Super Skillshot will display the correct score

Homeworld®: Journey to Hiigara Pinball

• Fixed an issue where the spin disk could drop the ball between the flippers
• The video display no longer freezes after the Return to Kharak mode
• Increased the speed of the research toy by 30% for a more dynamic gameplay

Brothers in Arms®: Win the War Pinball

• Fixed an issue where the bonus screen could appear when the ball is in play
• Fixed an issue where the ball could get stuck in the bumpers

Borderlands®: Vault Hunter Pinball

• The ball can no longer get stuck behind the green box
• Fixed an issue where the instructions overlapped on the display

Grimm Tales

• Fixed a soft lock occurrence at the end of the Cinderella tale
• Fixed the appearance of the transparent ball curse so it won't be invisible
• Crystal Multiball will no longer end after locking a ball at the Castle Gate
• Fixed the “Book of Tales” end of bonus description
• Fixed an error where the Magic Mirror award prevented further progress at the final battle
• Fixed an issue, when hitting the wolf last during the Wolf & Seven Goats followed by an immediate drain will prevent further completion of the mode
• Scoring a Jackpot during Crystal Multiball will release the balls from the Tower Locks to prevent any exploits
• Fixed an issue where the localized "More hits for your Multiball bumper" text had an overlapping issue

Verne's Mysterious Island

• Fixed an issue where the could stay on the volcano
• Adjusted the power of the kickback and sinkhole kickout

Jurrasic Park Pinball

• Fixed an issue where the ball could get stuck in the perimeter fence
• Fixed an issue where the first left orbit shot phases through the diverter

Peanuts' Snoopy Pinball

• Fixed the position of the right outlane post
• Fixed the speech bubbles remaining in 0-degree orientation when the screen is rotated
• The table no longer awards extra balls in challenges

Star Trek™: The Next Generation

• Adjusted View 8 in portrait mode
• Fixed an issue where the ball could balance on the tip of the flipper
• Reduced the power of the auto-launch during challenges

Star Wars™ Pinball: Han Solo

• Fixed an issue when the table can softlock after draining the regular ball in the “He Certainly Has Courage” mode in challenges
• Fixed an issue when the screen turned black in the TIE Fighter Attack mode

Star Wars™ Pinball: Masters of the Force

• Fixed an issue where the HOLD BONUS X and EXTRABALL flashing lights were offset
• Fixed an issue where the ball locked without having to spell LOCK
• Fixed a view issue when a lock happened

Star Wars™ Pinball: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

• Fixed an R2-D2 magnet issue
• Fixed a malfunction on R2-D2 kickback
• Fixed an issue where the TIE Fighter could appear invisible
• Fixed an issue where the magnet wouldn’t work on one charge at R2-D2 Bumpers
• Adjusted combo timers on the table
• Adjusted mission goals on Scene 1, Part 2

Star Wars™ Pinball: Darth Vader

• Fixed an issue where the ball could bounce out of the table from the middle of the playfield

Star Wars™ Pinball: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

• Fixed an issue with the Hyperspace multiball
• Fixed camera handling and planet alignment in Hyperspace mode
• Adjusted lighting on the AT-AT, Luke and Darth Vader

Star Wars™ Pinball: The Clone Wars

• Fixed an issue where the Super Skill Shot could be hit by simply holding up the left flipper

Star Wars™ Pinball: Droids

• Fixed an issue where the left kickback returned the ball to the right outlane
• Fixed an issue where the left target lead the ball to the left outlane

Star Wars™ Pinball: Starfighter Assault

• Fixed an issue where the Solo Fighter mission (and achievement) was unwinnable

The Machine: Bride of Pin·bot:

• Fixed an issue where if a ball drained with 1 lock (Partial Optical Link) activated, the optical sequence reset without considering how many balls are locked physically
• Fixed an issue with ball locking during Metamorphosis

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Pinball

• Fixed an issue where Levitation Save could fail to place the ball above the flippers.
• Fixed a Flips Challenge exploit: Ball could autoplunge directly into the bumpers.
• Fixed a physics issue with the ball travelling down towards the flippers

Williams™ Pinball: Medieval Madness™

• This crumbling brick effect is now present in all instances where needed

Williams™ Pinball: Black Rose™

• Davy Jones' Locker ramp texture is now moving with the rest of the ramp.

Williams™ Pinball: Champion Pub™

• Fixed an issue where the ball could get stuck on the elbows of the fighter during any match, Fisticuffs Multiball included.

Williams™ Pinball: Safecracker™

• The music and VO will now not be cut off by the end of game menu
• Tokens will now properly save between games
• Fixed an issue where an upwards nudge could stop the time if the player had a locked ball
• Fixed an issue where repeatedly nudging resulted in the clock stopping

Williams™ Pinball: White Water™

• Fixed an issue where Ball 1 lock on the table was showing as ball 3 locked

Williams™ Pinball: Red & Ted's Road Show

• Fixed a typo on the table
• Fixed an issue where the ball would be removed from the small flipper lane if 2 balls were stalled there
• Fixed an issue where the game could end with a ball stuck in Ted’s mouth in the 5 minute challenge

Williams™ Pinball: Hurricane™

• Fixed black textures on Carousel

Williams™ Pinball: No Good Gofers™

• Fixed an issue where the ball could hit a switch more than once
• Fixed autoplunger problems in challenges

Williams™ Pinball: Space Station™

• Plunger camera angle adjusted

Williams™ Pinball: FunHouse™

• Fixed an issue where the upper flipper rubber is interfering with the wall

Williams™ Pinball: Dr. Dude™

• Fixed a faulty effect on the backglass
• Fixed an issue where there weren’t any combos or ball saves in Arcade mode
• Backglass lighting will now be turned on properly

Williams™ Pinball: Twilight Zone

• Fixed an issue where the ball could fall under the right flipper after a drain and get stuck
• Left outlane adjusted
• Adjusted Skill Shot camera

Williams™ Pinball: World Cup Soccer

• Fixed the Williams logo shadow on the flippers
• Fixed an issue where the ball could stay behind the goal during multiball
• Fixed an issue where zhe upkick near the goal did not properly kicked out the ball
• Fixed a display issue in the Table Guide

World War Z Pinball

• Fixed an issue where the ball did not stay on the left ramp properly
• Fixed an issue where the ball could get stuck in the Loot sinkhole
• Fixed an issue where the ball could get stuck in the saucer during Flips Challenge
• Fixed an issue where the game could fail to exit out of the Skillshot phase
• Fixed an issue where the auto-plunge could hit the ball into the left outlane

Wrath of the Elder Gods

• Fixed an issue where the ball could exit at the middle of the ramp
• Fixed an issue where locking a ball while Mystery was lit at the right upper orbit denied a chance at a Skillshot
• Fixed an issue where tilting during Herald of its Word could result in the ball skin being applied for the next ball
• Fixed an issue in 5 minute challenge - The mystery extra ball award value could be multiplied by 4
• Fixed an issue where if Maw and Cult of its Arrival multiballs are started on top of each other the lane lamps could flash incorrectly
• Fixed resetting issues with the Skillshot if Skillshot power-up is used
• Fixed an issue where if Maw and Herald of its Word multiballs conflicting resulted in 2 balls on the playfield without any multiballs running
• Fixed an issue during multiball, where the Herald could keep the ball, juggling it indefinitely
• Fixed an issue where the Herald could be beaten in one shot, instead of several shots
• Fixed an issue where the Madness counter did not reset when winning a mode with ballout
• Fixed a display issue around Bumper Bonus
• Fixed several localization issues in Italian
• Fixed an issue where pictures did not appear properly on the right notepad
• Fixed an issue where the ball could fall off the rails if shot with the right power

I’m 31F, and I’m on the brink of losing my day because I’m so overwhelmed doing it all.
I got a fridge and dishwasher delivered/installed last Friday. I moved everything on the floor out of the kitchen, removed the bins from the fridge to wash them and made a plan to clean the fridge completely. The following day, I drove an hour to get my new car.
It’s now 6 days later and the bins are still on the floor, nothing has been moved back to the kitchen and my condo looks like a trap house. I can’t get myself to pick everything up and clean, I just start crying when I look at it all because I feel so tired. All I can seem to do is sit on the couch, pace around a bit, smoke cigarettes and go for a drive. Anything that requires thought causes tears to swell up in my eyes.
I’m also getting super overwhelmed about finances - and just frustrated how hard it is to support myself as a single female in her 30s. Paying for small things that make me feel good about myself (such as paying to get my nails done, hair done, acupuncture once a month, cleaning lady once a month to clean the floors and bathroom) are starting to overwhelm me. I do have a therapist I see twice a month that I pay out of pocket for as well. Having to handle all my finances myself, all the chores myself, everything by myself is overwhelming.
I used to dog walk and pet sit 10-20 hours a week outside of my full time job, since then I’ve gotten a few large raises and was doing it here and there but it’s not worth $20 to leave my house for 45 minutes anymore.
My bosses proposed one salary to me for the beginning of this year, but then told me they were going to deduct $7500 from it and give me that $7500 as a year end bonus. I didn’t speak up because I knew the reaction. I also had mentioned to them about them putting some of my salary toward my student loan (up to $5250) as they wouldn’t have to pay taxes, but they asked the accountant about other things they could pay for instead of that. When I asked the accountant about it, he said they can’t do that as I’m not currently in school. But I checked, and the accountant was wrong. Part of the financial situation is I’m trying to pay off my student loan by 2027 - so I’m out of pocket an additional $600 a month with this. I don’t know if I should speak up or just carry it around.
But now, I’m just overwhelmed and angry. And frustrated that I can’t do all of this. And wishing I had some help, especially with the cleaning. Just a rant, not meaning to sound whiny.

For some background, I have KP (keratosis pilaris) on my arms and thighs and have had it my whole life. When I was younger I developed the habit of picking and squeezing at the KP bumps. I also had the habit of biting my nails for the longest time, which I stopped a couple years ago due to it starting to warp my nails and file down my teeth. Along with me not biting my nails, I also toned down the picking on my arms and legs and turned to healthier ways of treating my KP. The only habits I had after that were occasionally picking at my scalp and chewing the skin around my fingers. I was happy with my picking progress up until recently.
In April of this year, I was involved in an accident that caused a fracture and compression of my tibia plateau. I had surgery for it where I got titanium implants to fix my leg, but the healing period is 3 months of putting zero weight on my leg. In other words, I'm wheelchair bound and unable to walk until mid July. Since my accident, my picking habits started all over again but worse. I've been picking at my stomach, my scalp, the KP on my arms and legs, and more. It's gotten to the point where I decided to trim my nails really short in order to prevent myself from doing further damage, but I don't like doing that. I think the cause of my "relapse" is the stress of going through a traumatic event and having my life turn upside down because of it. I also have diagnosed anxiety and ADHD, so the very little stimulation my brain is receiving from being basically bedridden probably doesn't help.
I've been looking into getting fidget toys or something to keep my mind and hands busy, but I wasn't sure if there was anything else I could do to prevent my picking problems? Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated! 💛

Good morning my witches and wizards.
I'd like to inject some very niche nuance into the discussion surrounding Supergiant's presentation of the Greek Gods in Hades 1 and 2. This will post will be a little long, but I believe context will be helpful when explaining my argument. If you need to get back to kicking [REDACTED]'s ass ASAP, there's a TLDR at the bottom.
I will preface this by saying Hades 2 may be my favorite game of all time, beating out the first by a wide margin (despite me logging over a hundred hours in the original). I've followed Supergiant since the original release of Bastion, played each of their games extensively, and I think I have a passable understanding of the studio's vision. As a result, I view their design choices in good faith.
That being said, I have a few very minor concerns. While they are nowhere near enough to sour the experience for me, I would like to express the thoughts that have been banging around in my head. Spoilers below.
Table of Contents

1. Why do you care?
2. What's your problem?
3. What does your smelly uncle have to do with this?
4. Giving props for the small details.

1 - Why do you care?

For context, I am a Greek man who was the first generation born and raised in the United States. Greek was my first language, I was raised by a Greek community, and I've been heavily involved in our customs since birth. While many people think ancient culture is completely disconnected from modern Greek beliefs, this is inaccurate. No, I don't pray to a shrine of Poseidon when I go fishing. However, many of the stories, beliefs, and morals that were described by the ancient Greek pantheon remained key parts of our culture throughout the transition into modernity.
For example, a common theme in ancient Greek mythology is that of a god secretly traveling on earth, being offered hospitality by unsuspecting mortals, and then rewarding them for their generosity. This is represented in modern culture by the term "philoxenia" which represents our value of being friendly towards strangers. Relationships like these represent the fact that we still value our ancient culture, albeit through modern representation of its ideas. I see many moral, theological, and literary threads that connect the time of the pantheon with the time of modern christianity. As a result, I am passionate about how our ancient culture is represented. In many small ways, it is still a part of me.

2 - Whats your problem?

I started thinking deeply after a recent post on the subreddit (rightfully) condemning racist remarks towards the characterization of Hermes. I think the general consensus of correct - the design of the gods are amazing, and they do a great job representing how many different cultures were involved in worshiping the Pantheon in ancient times. Ancient Greeks traded with others, spread their beliefs far and wide, and often praised the virtues of other cultures (such as Ethiopia) through art and literature. This is represented well by diverse design in-game.
However, despite the fact that the characters in Hades visually represent the variety of people who engaged with the pantheon, I sometimes feel that their traits and voices don't represent Greekness. To put it in other words, the gods are fantastic at giving off the aura of Greek mythology, but less so at giving off the aura of Greek culture.

3 - What does you smelly uncle have to do with this?

My primary complaint is Supergiant's approach when choosing character voices. To preface - THE VOICE ACTING IS AMAZING! There's not a single character whose voice doesn't fit their design and personality. I'm still amazed that Darren Korb managed to nail both Skelly and Zag. However, what interferes with my immersion the most is the choice not to use Greek accents at all.
Hephaestus in the sequel looks exactly like my immigrant uncle in real life. However, every time he speaks, I'm left wondering why he sounds Scottish. Judy Alice Lee did an amazing job voicing Melinoe, but when she speaks Greek (ie. Kataskion Aski) during her incantations, it sounds more like a British classics student practicing her Greek lines. Greek-speakers are a vast minority of the player base, and I get that this is something only someone in my position can notice and complain about. However, it feels like voices were chosen based on what Americans think sounds "regal and godly" as opposed to what characters would sound like in the context of the culture.
I don't think this was done intentionally, and there are definitely limitations when casting voices that don't come in common accents. However, I do think it is a missed opportunity to create a work of art that represents our culture far more deeply than other media has in the past.
Another small example is the use of Roman numerals when marking the doors in Tartatus and Chronos' clock attacks. In the context of the story, these symbols are being used a few centuries too early. Why not use Greek letters as the numerical system, counting down doors through ε, δ, γ, β ,α until the end? It may be confusing on the first run, but people learn quickly - they may even walk away understanding more about the Greek alphabet. I'm sure the creative minds at Supergiant could come up with other ways to represent "time" in a way that fits the cultural context.

4 - Props for the small details

I'd like to give props to some of the amazing tiny details that did make me feel represented in-game.

• Frinos and Toula are incredible names for familiars - if I don't get a dog named Osto next, I'll riot.
• The music, as usual, is magically done. Darren's use of culturally relevant instruments alongside his own flair proves that he is among the most thoughtful and skilled in the entire industry.
• Polyphemus' design is so Greek. The chest hair, the evil eye, his desire to eat and sleep, all of it.
• While pronunciation and accents can be bizzare, including Greek phrases when Melinoe is doing her incantations is an incredible touch. I would love to see more spoken Greek included in future updates.

Thank you for reading my rant. I understand that much of what I would have preferred is out of the scope of the team's vision, but I wanted to get my thoughts out so I can finally put them to rest. I hope my argument about cultural representation can be separated from the more negative and insensitive discourse about racial traits in character design.
Ν'αστε καλά. Θάνατοσ στο Χρόνοσ.
TLDR: The discourse around Supergiant's presentation of Hades characters has been bipolar - either "It's Perfect" or "It's Horrible". I think it is much closer to perfect than not, but as a Greek myself, I find myself begrudgingly accepting some very minor details (such as dubbing and pronunciation) that could have been executed a tad more thoughtfully. That being said, I think Supergiant did their best considering the resources available to them.

Part 1

The official story is that I hit my head. According to the lawyer I wasn't lucid enough to be a reliable witness, and honestly, I'm starting to believe that might be the truth. It's certainly easier to accept that everything was all just some nightmare.
But if my mind wasn't playing tricks on me, and those fuck-heads didn’t have anything to do with my friend’s disappearance, then there truly is no explanation for what happened.
My therapist and parents both agree. The best way to preserve my sanity is to chalk it all up to my imagination. But I see understanding in their eyes when I recount the events. They want to believe me, I know it. That alone is enough to fuel my doubt.
—
School had begun that September with mourning. I only knew the guy who passed away by face and name. It had happened a month after his graduation, and two months before his first year at Cornell.
During the intercom-ordered moment of silence, I looked out through the classroom. Some were bored, some cried. Many shifted in their seats and were glancing around, like myself, counting every second till the awkwardness would end.
It ended sooner than we thought when a kid with sports goggles a size too big bouncing on his face slammed the door open, obliviously clarifying his attendance.
I'm embarrassed to say that this kid, Aiden, was the only friend I had made in high school until this point. I have a hard time introducing myself to others, but being friends with a prepubescent outcast wasn't making that any easier.
After middle school, my family moved to the small village we live in now. It was a brainless choice because my Mom had found better work, my Dad wanted to be closer to his aging parents, and I desperately wanted out of my old school.
Aiden was the first kid to introduce himself when I transferred last year. I realized he was the token 'weird kid' way too late to make it into any social circles. I know it sounds like I'm a shit friend, but that's the way our relationship turned out. Sure, we told our parents and teachers we were friends, but in reality, it was more a tolerance than friendship.
After all, we didn't have anyone else.
For once, I was thankful for Aiden's lack of awareness. It gave me something to focus on instead of the depressing silence strangling the room.
After realizing his mistake, he whispered an apology, sat down, and pulled out an insect encyclopedia from his book bag. What a nerd.
I distracted myself by reading the book from over his shoulder, and before I knew it, lights were turned back on and class began in earnest.
—
I was able to learn what had happened by eavesdropping on hallway gossip between my classes.
Eight kids, six seniors and two juniors, had found a cave in a region of forest known as Skeleton Park. With that discovery, they decided to add spelunking to their pre-graduation bucket list.
Skeleton Park is the setting of countless local ghost stories, which made it a hot spot for rebellious teen antics. Kids would do everything there: party, drink, smoke, fuck, and everything in between. They even crawled around in caves apparently.
When I first moved, I was a skeptic with no intent of exploring the woods. But one creepy phenomenon always unnerved me. For some reason, animals completely avoided the area.
I initially dismissed this as fiction, like all the other folk tales, until I started walking my dog, Paddy, along the town's bike trail.
The trail runs parallel to the remains of a stone wall outlining Skeleton Park. The first couple of times I walked along it, I didn't notice anything peculiar. But after my Dad first told me about the rumors, I became aware that the area was unnaturally silent. No birds chirped in the trees, no flies buzzing, and no rustling from rodents or any other animals.
Even more surreal, on several occasions I saw deer stop at the wall and walk along it instead of passing through the area. It was like there was an invisible border they refused to cross.
With this context, I'm sure you can understand the reaction of the locals when eight kids entered, and only seven escaped two days later, traumatized and bruised.
Honestly, I was surprised to not have heard about the event over the summer, closer to when it happened. Even more strange though, was how unwilling Aiden was to talk about the incident.
He was the kind of kid who had a strong opinion about everything. On top of that, he was constantly bringing up horror movies, or Creepypastas he had found online. But when I asked his opinion on this summer's events during recess, he only shrugged. Despite the nonchalant response, the look on his face told me that it bothered him. So I didn’t press, and let the subject go.
At the time I'd guessed that he might've had some connection to the kid that went missing. In a way, he did.
—
After an exhausting day of attempts from teachers to console their students with speeches, candy, and exceptional lenience, I was ready to go home.
I expected to find Aidan at the usual spot by the bike racks, where we met each day to walk home. Instead, there was an audience next to the bikes, forming a ring around two disheveled figures.
The flying fists and shouting could only mean one thing, so I kept my distance. Then I heard Aidan yell center, “Fucker!’ and saw a glimpse of his face spitting from a bloody mouth onto the other fighter.
Even though his back was to me, I could tell Aidan’s opponent was easily 5 inches, and 60 pounds heavier than my friend.
Teachers didn’t arrive to break up the fight before the two were on the ground, Aidan mounted with arms up, desperately trying to block blows.
A whistle was blown, and people began running away as my math teacher desperately tried to pry the football player off of Aidan.
He fought back the grown man and was finally pulled away when two more adults rushed to help. The boy was screaming at Aiden with carnal rage.
"You're a fucking liar! How dare you, I'm going to fucking kill you if I ever see you again!"
Aidan was still screaming too, but backed away willingly.
"I'm telling the truth dumbass! You were trespassing! You should be lucky we didn't press charges!"
Aiden looked bad but waved the teachers off whenever they asked if he was OK. Blood poured from his forehead, mouth, and nose. He had at least one black eye.
The other guy, I learned from the crowd, was one of the two juniors who had gone to the cave. He didn't have as many cuts or bruises but was supporting his weight on one leg and his friend's shoulder. Multiple teachers forced him into a chair while they waited for a nurse to arrive.
While the crowd control was distracted, Aiden sneaked over to me and whispered that we needed to get out of there. A couple of minutes later, the two of us were walking home like nothing had ever happened.
It took me a while before I dared to ask Aiden for the full story. He didn't even let me finish my question, which let me know he was more or less his usual self.
"My family inherited the property everyone calls Skeleton Park. It's not haunted, it's not toxic, it's not the home of a satanic sex cult; it's just a piece of forest that's been in my family for a couple of generations."
He spat a dribble of red onto the sidewalk, and I realized I'd never seen Aiden get violent before. We had our share of bullying this past year, but he would always shrug it off and laugh. He wouldn't even try to fight back. We would just get pushed around a bit, and he'd make a quip afterward about the guys' weight or smell.
"Every summer, my dad and I drive around the perimeter putting up trespassing signs, and every year they get ripped down. We get police calls once a month during the summer that somebody came limping out of there with a broken arm or leg, and they have the balls to demand we do something about it. It's not our fault nobody follows the law around here. It's the fucking woods, and it's our private property. What the hell are we even supposed to do?"
To be honest, I hadn't even considered Skeleton Park could've been private property. Though I believed everything Aiden said, I had never seen any signs along the border wall. Embarrassed from being one of those trespassers, I looked away and stayed silent as Aiden continued.
"The area is just too big. There are too many places to enter, and there's no way to block it all off. Though it's not like that'll stop anybody. I feel bad that somebody died, but I'm also a little bit thankful. Maybe now, people will think twice before messing around out there."
We walked in silence until reaching the junction where we would have to part ways. I was tired and wanted to head home, but I also was worried that Aiden would be jumped by some of the seniors if he was alone. It had happened before, and his earlier brawl could've been seen as a declaration of war.
Instead of voicing these concerns, however, I asked if he wanted to play video games at his house. He was surprised by the request but agreed.
I was on edge with every passing car, and every blind turn, but thankfully we weren’t attacked. After a couple more minutes of walking, we made it to Aiden’s house. His Dad was outside watering the garden. He turned, noticing our approach in the corner of his eye, but his planned greeting died in his mouth when he saw the dried blood coating Aiden’s face.
"Holy Shit! what did you do this time?" he exclaimed, running over to inspect his son’s injuries. "Oh, hey Brian," he added, smiling briefly at me before returning to his analysis.
Mr. Eriks was cool for a dad. Aiden never had a bad thing to say about him, and the way he handled everything that happened in the following months would only increase my admiration for him. He'd raised Aiden by himself, and I would've considered him a second friend if he wasn't 40 years older than me.
After determining the damage wasn't all that bad: a cut on Aidan's forehead and lip producing most of the blood, the three of us went inside.
Aiden went upstairs to take a shower, and his dad privately thanked me for walking him home. It didn’t take long for me to cave, and ask Mr. Eriks about the park.
"Yeah, we do own it," he answered while preparing snacks for Aiden and me. " My wife, Aiden's mom, inherited it before she passed away, and then it was signed over to me. To be honest, I don't know too much about it, and she didn't either. We just used it to go camping there sometimes, back before Aiden was born. Now we go together because it reminds us of her."
"Did you ever run into people up there, when you're camping?"
"Yeah, though not in the fall and winter when we usually go. I have the police's local number on speed dial for when it happens. Usually, it's just teens though. Kids tend to run away as soon as they see an adult with a flashlight. Paranormal or not, they know they're not supposed to be there- You staying with us for dinner Brian?"
At this point, I was too curious about the truth of Skeleton Park to leave, so I nodded and said I just needed to check with my parents.
After a phone call with my mom, some pizza rolls, and a couple of rounds of Fortnite, the afternoon stress had mostly faded away.
Me and Aidan were sitting in his room, scrolling Netflix for a slasher film to watch, when I finally asked what I'd been dying to know the entire afternoon.
"So, why was that guy saying you're a liar?"
Aiden chuckled at the question.
"He refused to believe my family owned the property his friend died on."
"Why did you even say anything? You know that just makes them want to beat you up more, right?"
"I'm tired of everybody using our land like a public park, I'm tired of picking up condoms left by people I go to school with, and I'm tired of keeping quiet about it. I tried explaining it to people in middle school. Our first project in fifth grade was a presentation about something important to us, I did mine about the park. Nobody believed me, and it got me socially exiled for the next four years. "
I ignored the urge to explain that there was probably more to his social exile than a get-to-know-you presentation from four years ago.
"That's fair I guess," I said instead. "You're dad says you go camping there."
"Yeah, on three-day weekends, and sometimes longer on breaks. Mostly in the fall and winter when there are less trespassers."
"You don't find it creepy camping there? Even without the trespassers?"
"You mean because of the silence?" Aiden smiled and looked over at me. "Yeah, the rumor about the animals is true as far as I can tell. Sure. It's kind of weird, but in winter it's kind of beautiful too. After a blizzard, there's nothing to disturb the snow, and it's kinda like the whole forest has gone to sleep. With the snow and no animals, it can get so quiet that you hear your own heart beating."
He looked off past me with a feeling of nostalgia, but all I felt was chills.
"I can take you if you want," Aiden added. "I'll have to ask my dad, but I think it would be fun to have another person camp with us."
"I'll think about it," was my way of declining without saying no.
Aiden just shrugged. "Suit yourself. Offer still stands if you ever change your mind."
Much to my annoyance, we weren’t even able to finish the movie. My Mom called, saying she was outside to pick me up an hour into our viewing of The Blair Witch Project.
I went to bed wondering how anyone could feel safe camping in a place like that. After contemplating taking Aidan up on his offer, I concluded there could be nothing that would make me spend the night there. Ironically, it would be less than a week before I changed my mind.
—
Three days later, I was walking Paddy along our usual route when she stopped and looked up at something beyond the stone wall, into Skeleton Park. She stood like a statue, eyes wide and fixated on some invisible thing.
I tried tugging the leash, pulling out a treat, begging, and making all kinds of sounds, but she just stood there. Paddy was a six-year-old golden retriever who easily weighed as much as I did, so I couldn't do much more than wait for her to move.
Suddenly, she began barking wildly at the air.
I tried approaching, but she growled at me, a sound I had never heard from her before, and I was forced to back away.
Before I could even process what was happening. She leaped over the wall and ran at full speed into the woods. It all happened so quickly that I had no time to tighten my grip on the leash.
She sprinted straight into the woods, and I chased after her, but I didn't make it far without tripping on a root hidden among the leaves. My knee was split open by something as I fell, and it took all my strength, fighting past the shock, to get back up. After recovering, I looked in all directions, but couldn't see Paddy anymore. I could only hear the tossing of leaves and branches in the distance.
Then there was nothing. Not a single sound. I'm not sure why I didn't question the sudden silence back then. It wasn't the gradual fade into silence you would expect from something running away. It was as if somebody had just hit a mute button on everything but the wind through the trees.
I don't know, maybe I'm misremembering the details.
Patty's disappearance doesn't matter anyway. We never found her, and dogs don’t live for twenty years, so at this point, we never will.
After taking a moment to recover from the shock, I limped home crying and told my parents what had happened. My Dad called the police because it was the only thing we could think of, but all they did was apologize and recommend we put up posters.
They couldn't do anything even if they wanted to. After all, she ran onto private property.
After that, the last thing I could think to do was call Aiden. His dad promised they could search the park that night, and he also offered to take me for an extended search the following weekend in case they didn’t find anything.
Of course, they didn't find her, just half of a leash wrapped around a branch. At least, that's what my parents told me the Eriks had found, they never actually let me see it.
A day before the trip, the Forecast started predicting snow: Saturday night into Sunday, eight inches, wet.
I probably should've given up then. Instead, I told Aiden this would probably be my only chance to find Paddy, insisting she wouldn't survive in the snow. After making sure with his dad, we continued with the plan and headed out after school Friday night.
—
While it hurts keeping this story in, reliving the memories is almost as painful. So I'm going to take a break writing for now and continue in a day or two. If anyone has a scientific explanation for why animals were avoiding that area, or for my dog's behavior, please let me know.
Thanks for reading, B
Part 1

How I Wonder What You Are by Al Bruno III

I’ll know the time is right when the howling begins. It will be after sundown of course, the Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen only scream after sundown, and only on the clearest of nights.
There is no town of Jebsen listed on any map, even in its heyday of the 1940’s it was too small to be worthy of notice. It’s nothing more than a collection of buildings at the end of a dead end road. On one side it is bordered by long untended corn fields, on the other the swampy remains of Lake Campbell. The most noticeable of the town’s buildings is a red brick edifice with a wide domed roof of fractured glass. The rest is just barns and single story homes. Along the border of the swamp is row after row of barbed wire and bear traps.
I’ll let them scream for an hour or so, let them become tired. Even now it amazes me how I had learned to pick out the individual voices in the cacophony. The Widow Toth tires easily but the Garrets will be at it until dawn.
And what will I be doing while every able-bodied adult is on the rooftops? I’ll be slipping these pages into this mason jar and sealing it lid in place with the wax from a melted crayon. The Children of Jebsen won’t miss just one, especially not purple.
Twenty-five years ago a calamity befell the town of Jebsen. The authorities blamed it all on the after effects of an experimental insecticide but the Old Book the town elders read from every Sunday said otherwise. It told the citizens of Jebsen that a curse was carried by those twinkling dots in the sky. A malevolence traveling at 186,000 miles per second that would twist their Children into nightmares should a glint of it ever touch their skin.
That is why they scream at the starlight; hating it, cursing it, raging at it.
You can’t see what their Children have become and not feel the same way. The changes are heartbreaking and horrifying all at once but after you spend time with them you feel differently. There is mockery in the mis-set eyes that peer from those mollified skulls.
They know secrets. On quiet, cloudy nights I would put my ear to one families’ basement door or another and hear them murmuring and giggling as they writhe in their basement styes.
I think of their weeping mouths and soft teeth and remember that day half a decade ago the ill-advised shortcut and along the neglected county route 99. I remember approaching the train bridge and seriously considering turning around, it looked decades out of repair and I half suspected it would collapse as I passed under it.
But I didn’t turn back, my ego wouldn’t let me. I was right and the road was wrong so I drove under the train bridge, momentarily marveling at the strange and elaborate graffiti that covered it.
I was just past the structure when a small, bent figure ran out from the long grass.
The sounds are what I really remember; the squeal of the brakes, the thud of the body on the hood of my car, the thick crack of laminated glass.
I would later learn the name of the child I had hit was Julius McCarty but all I knew then was that there was an emaciated, bloodied shape lying halfway through my windshield.
Human instinct made me reach out, to see if the little boy was alive. When my fingers brushed his skin he twisted around to face me. His mouth lashed out proboscis-like and nuzzled into the flesh of my arm.
Pain bristled out from where the boy had latched on to me. I screamed, thrashed. I shoved the car door open and tumbled out onto the asphalt. The boy coughed once and died.
At first the wound held all my attention. How could it not? I had expected to see torn flesh and blood but instead the boy’s distended mouth had left behind a cluster of thick, festering ulcerations.
But then I became aware of the men making their way out of the tall grass. These were the Fathers of Jebsen understood immediately what had happened.
They had brought everything they might need to bring one of their Children back home to its basement; rope, bandages and cudgels. It was also everything they needed to make a captive of me.
They, dragged me away from the accident site, through the tall grass and over the collapsed remains of a chain link fence to leave me in the care of the Mothers of Jebsen. Those gaunt women had cudgels of their own and I was a mass of bruises and welts by the time the hole in the Earth had been made to their standards.
The menfolk returned carrying the child wrapped in a linen shroud. They dropped it roughly into the ground. There were no ceremonies, tears or headstone. It was well after dark by the time I had filled the grave back in.
Now here it is years later and I’ve had to dig a dozen more graves, one by one the Mothers and Fathers are dying out, it’s always a surprise when it happens. Every mother and father of Jensen is withered and white haired but every year a few more die in their sleep, or at work in the fields or at prayer in their red brick observatory.
The Children are dying too, not a one has ever lived past seventeen. One by one they waste away, except of course for the occasional accident like the one that trapped me here.
Despite these curse that has befallen them the people of Jebsen continue to reproduce, each mother convinced that this time she will give birth to the Great Redeemer as was foretold in the Old Book. Each time they fail and each time the result is locked away in it’s family’s basement.
You can’t imagine those basements, the smell of rotten meat, the ankle deep fecal matter and the perfectly clean toys. They draw equations on the walls, gold and silver crayons are their preferred color. Every Tuesday I have to visit each of those cellars and scrub the theorems and postulations away.
The youngest of the Children is a newborn, still angry from the womb, the oldest is seventeen and nearly rotted away. No matter the age they all taunt me as I work, sometimes with bites, sometimes with maledictions. Both have left unimaginable scars.
So many scars now, I’m marked, I could never walk among the people I’d known before. They’d refuse to recognize me and insist I was a stranger
The Widow Thoth says this is my penance for the death of Julius McCarty, she even went so far as to cite chapter and verse on the subject from Old Book itself. The Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen, base every aspect of their lives on that thick volume of prophecies and homilies.
I wonder if anyone will notice me as leaving. I doubt it, even when they’re not screaming their heads off a long dead suns they barely notice my comings and goings.
As I said before, the Mothers and Father’s of Jebsen have become so sure of me. Some families think I’ve become a true believer, the rest think the cinder block chained to my ankle is enough to keep me in my place.
I don’t know who you are or when you’ll find this message. My only hope is that you will believe me. If you do, please bring this document to the proper authorities. Don’t let my death be for nothing.
I go to the bottom of the swamp with two regrets. One is that I won’t be there when the town of Jebsen is discovered and burned to the ground.
The other is that six months ago I accepted Father Garett’s invitation to join in their celebrations. I went willingly with them to the old brick observatory. I prayed with them. I danced with them. I partook in all of their debasements.
And for a little while, perhaps an hour, I was happy.
They even asked me to give reading from the Old Book. I eagerly stopped up to the podium and began flipping through the thick volume.
Everyone waited for me to choose a passage and speak but all I did was shake and weep at what I beheld. My knees buckled. My mind shut down. I had to be carried out and put to bed.
You see, the Old Book was blank from cover to cover. You’re even holding some of those pages in your hands now.
I used them to write my story.

How I Wonder What You Are by Al Bruno III

I’ll know the time is right when the howling begins. It will be after sundown of course, the Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen only scream after sundown, and only on the clearest of nights.
There is no town of Jebsen listed on any map, even in its heyday of the 1940’s it was too small to be worthy of notice. It’s nothing more than a collection of buildings at the end of a dead end road. On one side it is bordered by long untended corn fields, on the other the swampy remains of Lake Campbell. The most noticeable of the town’s buildings is a red brick edifice with a wide domed roof of fractured glass. The rest is just barns and single story homes. Along the border of the swamp is row after row of barbed wire and bear traps.
I’ll let them scream for an hour or so, let them become tired. Even now it amazes me how I had learned to pick out the individual voices in the cacophony. The Widow Toth tires easily but the Garrets will be at it until dawn.
And what will I be doing while every able-bodied adult is on the rooftops? I’ll be slipping these pages into this mason jar and sealing it lid in place with the wax from a melted crayon. The Children of Jebsen won’t miss just one, especially not purple.
Twenty-five years ago a calamity befell the town of Jebsen. The authorities blamed it all on the after effects of an experimental insecticide but the Old Book the town elders read from every Sunday said otherwise. It told the citizens of Jebsen that a curse was carried by those twinkling dots in the sky. A malevolence traveling at 186,000 miles per second that would twist their Children into nightmares should a glint of it ever touch their skin.
That is why they scream at the starlight; hating it, cursing it, raging at it.
You can’t see what their Children have become and not feel the same way. The changes are heartbreaking and horrifying all at once but after you spend time with them you feel differently. There is mockery in the mis-set eyes that peer from those mollified skulls.
They know secrets. On quiet, cloudy nights I would put my ear to one families’ basement door or another and hear them murmuring and giggling as they writhe in their basement styes.
I think of their weeping mouths and soft teeth and remember that day half a decade ago the ill-advised shortcut and along the neglected county route 99. I remember approaching the train bridge and seriously considering turning around, it looked decades out of repair and I half suspected it would collapse as I passed under it.
But I didn’t turn back, my ego wouldn’t let me. I was right and the road was wrong so I drove under the train bridge, momentarily marveling at the strange and elaborate graffiti that covered it.
I was just past the structure when a small, bent figure ran out from the long grass.
The sounds are what I really remember; the squeal of the brakes, the thud of the body on the hood of my car, the thick crack of laminated glass.
I would later learn the name of the child I had hit was Julius McCarty but all I knew then was that there was an emaciated, bloodied shape lying halfway through my windshield.
Human instinct made me reach out, to see if the little boy was alive. When my fingers brushed his skin he twisted around to face me. His mouth lashed out proboscis-like and nuzzled into the flesh of my arm.
Pain bristled out from where the boy had latched on to me. I screamed, thrashed. I shoved the car door open and tumbled out onto the asphalt. The boy coughed once and died.
At first the wound held all my attention. How could it not? I had expected to see torn flesh and blood but instead the boy’s distended mouth had left behind a cluster of thick, festering ulcerations.
But then I became aware of the men making their way out of the tall grass. These were the Fathers of Jebsen understood immediately what had happened.
They had brought everything they might need to bring one of their Children back home to its basement; rope, bandages and cudgels. It was also everything they needed to make a captive of me.
They, dragged me away from the accident site, through the tall grass and over the collapsed remains of a chain link fence to leave me in the care of the Mothers of Jebsen. Those gaunt women had cudgels of their own and I was a mass of bruises and welts by the time the hole in the Earth had been made to their standards.
The menfolk returned carrying the child wrapped in a linen shroud. They dropped it roughly into the ground. There were no ceremonies, tears or headstone. It was well after dark by the time I had filled the grave back in.
Now here it is years later and I’ve had to dig a dozen more graves, one by one the Mothers and Fathers are dying out, it’s always a surprise when it happens. Every mother and father of Jensen is withered and white haired but every year a few more die in their sleep, or at work in the fields or at prayer in their red brick observatory.
The Children are dying too, not a one has ever lived past seventeen. One by one they waste away, except of course for the occasional accident like the one that trapped me here.
Despite these curse that has befallen them the people of Jebsen continue to reproduce, each mother convinced that this time she will give birth to the Great Redeemer as was foretold in the Old Book. Each time they fail and each time the result is locked away in it’s family’s basement.
You can’t imagine those basements, the smell of rotten meat, the ankle deep fecal matter and the perfectly clean toys. They draw equations on the walls, gold and silver crayons are their preferred color. Every Tuesday I have to visit each of those cellars and scrub the theorems and postulations away.
The youngest of the Children is a newborn, still angry from the womb, the oldest is seventeen and nearly rotted away. No matter the age they all taunt me as I work, sometimes with bites, sometimes with maledictions. Both have left unimaginable scars.
So many scars now, I’m marked, I could never walk among the people I’d known before. They’d refuse to recognize me and insist I was a stranger
The Widow Thoth says this is my penance for the death of Julius McCarty, she even went so far as to cite chapter and verse on the subject from Old Book itself. The Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen, base every aspect of their lives on that thick volume of prophecies and homilies.
I wonder if anyone will notice me as leaving. I doubt it, even when they’re not screaming their heads off a long dead suns they barely notice my comings and goings.
As I said before, the Mothers and Father’s of Jebsen have become so sure of me. Some families think I’ve become a true believer, the rest think the cinder block chained to my ankle is enough to keep me in my place.
I don’t know who you are or when you’ll find this message. My only hope is that you will believe me. If you do, please bring this document to the proper authorities. Don’t let my death be for nothing.
I go to the bottom of the swamp with two regrets. One is that I won’t be there when the town of Jebsen is discovered and burned to the ground.
The other is that six months ago I accepted Father Garett’s invitation to join in their celebrations. I went willingly with them to the old brick observatory. I prayed with them. I danced with them. I partook in all of their debasements.
And for a little while, perhaps an hour, I was happy.
They even asked me to give reading from the Old Book. I eagerly stopped up to the podium and began flipping through the thick volume.
Everyone waited for me to choose a passage and speak but all I did was shake and weep at what I beheld. My knees buckled. My mind shut down. I had to be carried out and put to bed.
You see, the Old Book was blank from cover to cover. You’re even holding some of those pages in your hands now.
I used them to write my story.

How I Wonder What You Are by Al Bruno III

I’ll know the time is right when the howling begins. It will be after sundown of course, the Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen only scream after sundown, and only on the clearest of nights.
There is no town of Jebsen listed on any map, even in its heyday of the 1940’s it was too small to be worthy of notice. It’s nothing more than a collection of buildings at the end of a dead end road. On one side it is bordered by long untended corn fields, on the other the swampy remains of Lake Campbell. The most noticeable of the town’s buildings is a red brick edifice with a wide domed roof of fractured glass. The rest is just barns and single story homes. Along the border of the swamp is row after row of barbed wire and bear traps.
I’ll let them scream for an hour or so, let them become tired. Even now it amazes me how I had learned to pick out the individual voices in the cacophony. The Widow Toth tires easily but the Garrets will be at it until dawn.
And what will I be doing while every able-bodied adult is on the rooftops? I’ll be slipping these pages into this mason jar and sealing it lid in place with the wax from a melted crayon. The Children of Jebsen won’t miss just one, especially not purple.
Twenty-five years ago a calamity befell the town of Jebsen. The authorities blamed it all on the after effects of an experimental insecticide but the Old Book the town elders read from every Sunday said otherwise. It told the citizens of Jebsen that a curse was carried by those twinkling dots in the sky. A malevolence traveling at 186,000 miles per second that would twist their Children into nightmares should a glint of it ever touch their skin.
That is why they scream at the starlight; hating it, cursing it, raging at it.
You can’t see what their Children have become and not feel the same way. The changes are heartbreaking and horrifying all at once but after you spend time with them you feel differently. There is mockery in the mis-set eyes that peer from those mollified skulls.
They know secrets. On quiet, cloudy nights I would put my ear to one families’ basement door or another and hear them murmuring and giggling as they writhe in their basement styes.
I think of their weeping mouths and soft teeth and remember that day half a decade ago the ill-advised shortcut and along the neglected county route 99. I remember approaching the train bridge and seriously considering turning around, it looked decades out of repair and I half suspected it would collapse as I passed under it.
But I didn’t turn back, my ego wouldn’t let me. I was right and the road was wrong so I drove under the train bridge, momentarily marveling at the strange and elaborate graffiti that covered it.
I was just past the structure when a small, bent figure ran out from the long grass.
The sounds are what I really remember; the squeal of the brakes, the thud of the body on the hood of my car, the thick crack of laminated glass.
I would later learn the name of the child I had hit was Julius McCarty but all I knew then was that there was an emaciated, bloodied shape lying halfway through my windshield.
Human instinct made me reach out, to see if the little boy was alive. When my fingers brushed his skin he twisted around to face me. His mouth lashed out proboscis-like and nuzzled into the flesh of my arm.
Pain bristled out from where the boy had latched on to me. I screamed, thrashed. I shoved the car door open and tumbled out onto the asphalt. The boy coughed once and died.
At first the wound held all my attention. How could it not? I had expected to see torn flesh and blood but instead the boy’s distended mouth had left behind a cluster of thick, festering ulcerations.
But then I became aware of the men making their way out of the tall grass. These were the Fathers of Jebsen understood immediately what had happened.
They had brought everything they might need to bring one of their Children back home to its basement; rope, bandages and cudgels. It was also everything they needed to make a captive of me.
They, dragged me away from the accident site, through the tall grass and over the collapsed remains of a chain link fence to leave me in the care of the Mothers of Jebsen. Those gaunt women had cudgels of their own and I was a mass of bruises and welts by the time the hole in the Earth had been made to their standards.
The menfolk returned carrying the child wrapped in a linen shroud. They dropped it roughly into the ground. There were no ceremonies, tears or headstone. It was well after dark by the time I had filled the grave back in.
Now here it is years later and I’ve had to dig a dozen more graves, one by one the Mothers and Fathers are dying out, it’s always a surprise when it happens. Every mother and father of Jensen is withered and white haired but every year a few more die in their sleep, or at work in the fields or at prayer in their red brick observatory.
The Children are dying too, not a one has ever lived past seventeen. One by one they waste away, except of course for the occasional accident like the one that trapped me here.
Despite these curse that has befallen them the people of Jebsen continue to reproduce, each mother convinced that this time she will give birth to the Great Redeemer as was foretold in the Old Book. Each time they fail and each time the result is locked away in it’s family’s basement.
You can’t imagine those basements, the smell of rotten meat, the ankle deep fecal matter and the perfectly clean toys. They draw equations on the walls, gold and silver crayons are their preferred color. Every Tuesday I have to visit each of those cellars and scrub the theorems and postulations away.
The youngest of the Children is a newborn, still angry from the womb, the oldest is seventeen and nearly rotted away. No matter the age they all taunt me as I work, sometimes with bites, sometimes with maledictions. Both have left unimaginable scars.
So many scars now, I’m marked, I could never walk among the people I’d known before. They’d refuse to recognize me and insist I was a stranger
The Widow Thoth says this is my penance for the death of Julius McCarty, she even went so far as to cite chapter and verse on the subject from Old Book itself. The Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen, base every aspect of their lives on that thick volume of prophecies and homilies.
I wonder if anyone will notice me as leaving. I doubt it, even when they’re not screaming their heads off a long dead suns they barely notice my comings and goings.
As I said before, the Mothers and Father’s of Jebsen have become so sure of me. Some families think I’ve become a true believer, the rest think the cinder block chained to my ankle is enough to keep me in my place.
I don’t know who you are or when you’ll find this message. My only hope is that you will believe me. If you do, please bring this document to the proper authorities. Don’t let my death be for nothing.
I go to the bottom of the swamp with two regrets. One is that I won’t be there when the town of Jebsen is discovered and burned to the ground.
The other is that six months ago I accepted Father Garett’s invitation to join in their celebrations. I went willingly with them to the old brick observatory. I prayed with them. I danced with them. I partook in all of their debasements.
And for a little while, perhaps an hour, I was happy.
They even asked me to give reading from the Old Book. I eagerly stopped up to the podium and began flipping through the thick volume.
Everyone waited for me to choose a passage and speak but all I did was shake and weep at what I beheld. My knees buckled. My mind shut down. I had to be carried out and put to bed.
You see, the Old Book was blank from cover to cover. You’re even holding some of those pages in your hands now.
I used them to write my story.

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

Long ago the world was besieged by demons and the Gods having pity on the beings below bestowed upon the world magic. They had emplanted in the earth like a seed and from that sprang forth the power to beat the demon hoards. But this power had unforeseen effects on the children of the gods, the elves. When they received this gift it mixed with their godly blood and gave them the ability to call upon the ancient magic only available to the gods. The High Elves were bestowed with the ancient magic of Light. The Dark Elves were given the ancient magic of darkness. Lastly the Forest Elves were given the ancient magic of the forest. Soon the Demon king was defeated, sealed away and peace reigned. Over the centuries many conflicts arose thanks to this power, the hunt for magical creatures began with the elves being at the top of the list. The elves tried to fight back but because of the mingling with other races they had lost their connection to the ancient magic. With the atrocities committed by these power hungry monsters they were named sorcerers and both them and magic were labeled as evil.
As far back as you can remember you were always treated as scum with no parents or home. You were slave to your own people since you were very little and you didn't know why. Was it because your dark gray skin, almost sut black, that didn't match the light color of theirs, your snow white hair, your red eyes that seem more vibrant than everyone else's, or could it be the fact that your shadow was your only friend. For a long time your shadow would stretchand shrinkand shape itself in various ways. At times it seemed that other shadows would do the same around you. When the other villagers caught wind of what you could do you were locked in a basement filled with light and not a single shadow to call your friend. You only came out during the day to work around the house then go back. You were fed table scraps and stale food if they remembered. Years go by and you longed for the smell of fresh air, cool shade under the trees, and the shadows that use to dance around you.
One day you were suddenly ripped from your bright hole in the earth and brought before a robed man. You were so numb to everything that you just stared blankly at the ground the whole time. You never paid attention to the conversation only hearing stuff like "cursed child" or "she will be an excellent sacrifice" and feeling a collar clamped around your neck. Suddenly as you were being pulled to the sorcerer’s side you see a red glow in your vision. You look up to see the village on fire and Elven bodies everywhere. As soon as you saw this horror the only thing you could feel was joy and delight as the demise of your abusers but it was soon replaced with guilt and horror at the realization that you could ever feel such a way towards another's death.
After the slaughter you were ushered into a carriage and sent through the forest. With weeks of travel and barely anything to eat, you finally arrive at an old mansion outside of a small town. You are elated at the scenery but this doesn't last long as you are rushed into the building and down to the dungeon. You are put in a bright cell and chained to the wall via your collar. For the next few months you are put through hell as you are carefully dissected and experimented on. It is worse than the village and it leaves you begging for death.
One day, after a series of loud bangs, the sorcerer rushes in as a magic circle appears under you. Too tired and in too much pain to move, you just watch as he grabs a knife and kneels over you. Understanding what's about to happen, you resign yourself to your fate. Just as he is about to plunge the dagger into your chest, the door gets blown off its hinges and a robed figure steps through. Your captor tries again to sacrifice you but the figure clears the distance in and instant and tears off his head. In your final moments awake, the last thing you see are two cold blue eyes staring down at you.
You slowly gain consciousness as you feel yourself laying on something soft and warm. Thin fabric is tightly wrapped around your painful wounds as a you feel a heavy cloth against the bare skin of your naked body. Soon the pain builds waking you from your sleep. Your eyes slowly open to find a round stone ceiling above you. To your right a wooden door and to your left a stone archway leading out to a balcony. In front of the bed is the glow of a fireplace with two chairs facing it and a table between them. When your strength starts to come back you sit up, a single chain link taps against the collar you still wear, and you stare at the door wondering who brought you here and what might happen to you.

Long ago the world was besieged by demons and the Gods having pity on the beings below bestowed upon the world magic. They had emplanted in the earth like a seed and from that sprang forth the power to beat the demon hoards. But this power had unforeseen effects on the children of the gods, the elves. When they received this gift it mixed with their godly blood and gave them the ability to call upon the ancient magic only available to the gods. The High Elves were bestowed with the ancient magic of Light. The Dark Elves were given the ancient magic of darkness. Lastly the Forest Elves were given the ancient magic of the forest. Soon the Demon king was defeated, sealed away and peace reigned. Over the centuries many conflicts arose thanks to this power, the hunt for magical creatures began with the elves being at the top of the list. The elves tried to fight back but because of the mingling with other races they had lost their connection to the ancient magic. With the atrocities committed by these power hungry monsters they were named sorcerers and both them and magic were labeled as evil.
As far back as you can remember you were always treated as scum with no parents or home. You were slave to your own people since you were very little and you didn't know why. Was it because your dark gray skin, almost sut black, that didn't match the light color of theirs, your snow white hair, your red eyes that seem more vibrant than everyone else's, or could it be the fact that your shadow was your only friend. For a long time your shadow would stretchand shrinkand shape itself in various ways. At times it seemed that other shadows would do the same around you. When the other villagers caught wind of what you could do you were locked in a basement filled with light and not a single shadow to call your friend. You only came out during the day to work around the house then go back. You were fed table scraps and stale food if they remembered. Years go by and you longed for the smell of fresh air, cool shade under the trees, and the shadows that use to dance around you.
One day you were suddenly ripped from your bright hole in the earth and brought before a robed man. You were so numb to everything that you just stared blankly at the ground the whole time. You never paid attention to the conversation only hearing stuff like "cursed child" or "she will be an excellent sacrifice" and feeling a collar clamped around your neck. Suddenly as you were being pulled to the sorcerer’s side you see a red glow in your vision. You look up to see the village on fire and Elven bodies everywhere. As soon as you saw this horror the only thing you could feel was joy and delight as the demise of your abusers but it was soon replaced with guilt and horror at the realization that you could ever feel such a way towards another's death.
After the slaughter you were ushered into a carriage and sent through the forest. With weeks of travel and barely anything to eat, you finally arrive at an old mansion outside of a small town. You are elated at the scenery but this doesn't last long as you are rushed into the building and down to the dungeon. You are put in a bright cell and chained to the wall via your collar. For the next few months you are put through hell as you are carefully dissected and experimented on. It is worse than the village and it leaves you begging for death.
One day, after a series of loud bangs, the sorcerer rushes in as a magic circle appears under you. Too tired and in too much pain to move, you just watch as he grabs a knife and kneels over you. Understanding what's about to happen, you resign yourself to your fate. Just as he is about to plunge the dagger into your chest, the door gets blown off its hinges and a robed figure steps through. Your captor tries again to sacrifice you but the figure clears the distance in and instant and tears off his head. In your final moments awake, the last thing you see are two cold blue eyes staring down at you.
You slowly gain consciousness as you feel yourself laying on something soft and warm. Thin fabric is tightly wrapped around your painful wounds as a you feel a heavy cloth against the bare skin of your naked body. Soon the pain builds waking you from your sleep. Your eyes slowly open to find a round stone ceiling above you. To your right a wooden door and to your left a stone archway leading out to a balcony. In front of the bed is the glow of a fireplace with two chairs facing it and a table between them. When your strength starts to come back you sit up, a single chain link taps against the collar you still wear, and you stare at the door wondering who brought you here and what might happen to you.

Long post ahead.
I apologize if anything is badly written, english is not my first language. Like title says, me and my family lived in a haunted house. We had lived there for a few years before my sister started saying she kept seeing things. She is older than me, about two years older. So she was a child when she was seeing these things.
I call them things, because i don’t know if they can be classified as ghosts, demons, entities? I’m not sure, maybe someone can help me get some clarity as to what they were. At first my parents didn’t believe her but with how serious and scared she was when she would say it they started believing her. After a while, I started seeing things too. One of the things she would see (and see the most, as in many, many, many times) was a floating goat head (it looked like baal). She would see it randomly throughout the whole house in different occasions, staring at her. Neither me or my family would ever see it. Sometimes she would see it at school too. She only saw the head, never the whole body. As she described it, she would see it on a random wall at the house. Or a random three at school. Another time, she got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and to go to the bathroom from my room you had to walk past our parents room (we would sleep together in my room because we would be scared to sleep alone). As she was walking back from the bathroom to my room, she saw a big red eye above my parents bed looking at her. Scared, she ran to my room and got to bed, the next morning she told my parents. Another time, I woke up in the middle of the night (i was sleeping on the side of the bed facing the door) and in front of me was a siren, floating, with red eyes and piranha teeth. She was smiling at me, swaying her body side to side as if she was floating or underwater. Her hair was moving as if she were underwater too. I was so scared, I’ve never been able to let go of that. I closed my eyes and eventually fell back asleep.
Every time I would walk through the hallway, when I looked behind me there was a shadow figured following me with a 2-3 feet distance. It was every time, didn’t matter if it was bright as day, when I looked behind me it was right there. It only followed me, it never happened to my family. One time as I was walking through the hallway, I looked back to see it walking behind me. I decided to stop and see if it stopped too, but noup, it kept walking and as it kept getting closer i ran to the end of the hallway to the living room and it went away. My sisters room was in that same hallway that i always saw the shadow figure. My family always said that her room was the most active one, even though they never saw anything in the house, that room always felt really heavy.
Wanting to get a break from what was happening in the house, we spent the night at our grandparents house. It was my sister, my little cousin and me, sleeping in one room with 2 beds and the bedroom door was open. My sister was the one that woke up first, at first she just looked out the room to my grandparents sofa, that was in front the door to the room we were sleeping at. She saw a dog on top of the sofa and while her vision hadn’t adjusted yet, she thought it looked a lot like our grandmas dog so she didn’t think munch of it. A few minutes later my cousin woke up and joined my sister in looking at the dog, then i woke up. The three of us were looking at the dog and calling it over as we thought it was our grandmas dog. The ‘dog’ heard us and turned around and just looked at us with red eyes and its head tilted. We realized it wasn’t her dog and something was wrong. We were all so scared, but me and my sister felt so hopeless because we left our house to have a break from what was happening over there just to see it follow us here. The real grandmas dog was sleeping with them in their room. We got our stuff and ran to our grandparents room and told them everything. They didn’t believe us but we know what we saw. As we were getting ready to go to bed we realized we left our blankets in the room so one of us had to go back and get them. Eventually my sister volunteered to get them and the dog was still there on top of the sofa, watching her every move (while my grandmas real dog was in their room just chilling). We had people from church come and bless the house, and pray for whatever was in there to leave and leave us alone. That didn’t work, it just made whatever is in there worse. So eventually we moved out of the house and haven’t had too many things happen since. I must say, when we were in the process of moving me and my mom were cleaning out her closet and i was on a ladder going through the little space that is above where the hangers go (i don’t know the name sorry) and i couldn’t see up there because i was small so i was using my hand to feel for things that were up there that were ours, so i could put in a box. I felt something that felt different, and it was a picture. I grabbed and looked at it, then gave it to my mom to see. It was a family picture. It was black and white picture of a man, a woman and two children in what looked like the backyard of that same house. She was surprised, gave me a look then gave it back to me. I looked at it again and put it away. Part of me thought that they were the past owners of the house, or they were the ones that did something to it.
Other experiences I’ve had since: This was another house. I was shampooing my hair and had my eyes closed and i felt a hand shove me. I thought it was my sister playing a prank on me until i opened my eyes and i was alone. So i put a towel around me and ran out the bathroom. At another house (we moved quite a few times), i was sitting on the floor in my room and my sister was sitting on the bed (my bed was on the floor) and i heard someone whisper my name and i turn to my sister and say “yeah?” and she says “it wasn’t me but i heard it too” i just looked at her, looked around the room and to the hallway, looked at her again and just kept scrolling on my phone (we were home alone). I wasn’t gonna find out anything. Hell no.
To this day we know and remember everything we saw and sometimes talk about it, and how we wish we had answers. Sometimes we think there might have been some voodoo or some rituals going on in that first house, because to this day it’s haunted and apparently has gotten worse. The new owners has told us some stories. Ever since living there i’ve been scared i’m gonna run into something of that kind again. I did get sleep paralysis one time and saw a shadow figure walking towards me. And before that happened i would always wake up at exactly 4:44 am sometimes 3am.
I’m more than happy to answer any questions and maybe get some answers as to what this could’ve been?

A story of a boy immersed in deep despair. Zein has been living alone for quite a long time. He was abused when he was young and his body, filled with scars. He is emotionally sensitive and has a bad temper. As he continues his depressing life, he meets a young man two years younger than him, Rain. His life began to change. He started feeling emotions that he had never felt before, happiness, belongingness, and love. Is Rain the light he needed to finally realize his worth?
Zein, a 21 year old, living in a dark apartment all by himself. He's now in college and is currently working as a part-time in a small mini mart.
Mini mart bell rings
"Welcome, please pick whatever you like and pay up" Zein's deep rusty voice greeted the customer. His gloomy emotion seems to be affecting the customer. "Do you have a box of cigars?" The customer asked. "Sorry but we ran out this morning. We're still restocking" Zein replied. "Seriously? Why build a mini mart when you can't sell what customers want?". The tone of the customer suddenly changed. "How about you get the fuck out of here before I cut your throat open" Zein glared at the customer which exited the building angrily. "I hate this shitty life".
Zein's shift finally ended and he went back to his apartment. His neighbors could feel the dark aura emitting from the room. "What are you weirdos looking at?!" Zein glared at the neighbors like how he glared at the customer. He entered his apartment and went to the kitchen to grab a knife. He pop open a box of cigarettes and started smoking while slowly cutting shallow cuts on his wrist. He has been doing this for a while. "Ugh!" Zein groans looking at the bathroom mirror.
Crash!
He threw the knife at the mirror breaking it to a million pieces. He hated his appearance. He was filled with scars. He had red eyes and slightly edged teeth. His hair was soft but rustled. He was tall with white pale skin. Many people would mistakenly think of him as a goth. At school, girl would flock around him asking him for something or sometimes even confessions. He always got confused how he got these confessions even with his appearance.
The morning came and he started to change to his uniform. He started his bike and went to school. He could answer any question at school but he is really a bad tempered person. On a specific event, he shouted at a teacher which gave him detention. His grades were always high but one specific subject, Moral, was always low. Well, it's obvious why.
Ring
The school bell rang which means class was about to begin. Their teacher, Mr. Ordoniez entered the classroom with a new student with him. "Class, before we start off, we have a new exchange student from Tokyo." The class was filled with murmurs as most of them haven't went to Tokyo yet. It's a seven hour ride from Ishikawa to Tokyo. "Quiet class. Sir Hakari, please introduce yourself." The teacher signalled the student to go in the middle of the classroom. He was slightly short with light and soft skin. His eyes were orange and brown, it looked like ambers in the sun. He had medium brown hair that we're a but curly but also tidy. He looked around the classroom and started to introduce himself smiling. "Good morning everyone. I'm Hakari Rain. I'm here as an exchange student. My parents work at the Kori.corp nearby so I requested to be an exchange student here instead. Nice to meet all of you and I hope you would take care of me" Rain's soft voice brightened the room and his smile lit up everyone's faces. "Ok Sir Hakari, please sit beside..." The teacher paused searching for an empty seat. "Beside Sir Iwatani." The teacher pointed the seat beside Zein. Everybody was shocked as they know Zein's behavior. His bad temper might spill out again. "Sir, why does he have to sit beside me. He can move his chair somewhere else you know" Zein was surprisingly calm about this but still, his glare darkened the room. "Ok, if you wish. Sir Hakari, you can move you chair anywhere you like." Rain dragged his chair away from Zein and he stole a glimpse of him. "Your eyes are so pretty" Rain accidentally said those words out loud. He blushed out of embarrassment as Zein glared at him. The room went silent as everyone looked at Rain blushing. "SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN IT". Rain apologized and hurriedly sat on his seat. The class continued and he could see Zein sleeping during class. "Psst, psst." Zein looked up to see who was calling him. "PSSST!!" Zein looked at Rain calling him. "What do you want?" The teacher suddenly went silent and called Rain. "Mr Hakari, you seem to already know this since you're talking something that isn't connected to my topic so I'll ask you a question. What is the capital of the Philippines which I mentioned while discussing?" Rain went silent thinking about the answer "Manil-" Rain was about to say his answer when Zein interrupted. "Manila sir" Rain looked at Zein saying the correct answer before him. "Hey! That was my question" Rain pouted as he looked at Zein angrily. "Maybe because I'm better than you" Zein smirked. "EXCUSE ME? Sir, please another question". Rain demanded. "Ok? What is the most famous mountain here in Japan"? The teacher asked "MOUNT FUJI!" Rain shouted his answer. "Guess I am the better one heh" Rain smiled proudly and Zein's smirk slowly faded. "Another one sir" Zein demanded next. "Ok? What continent does Japan belong to?". "Asia of course." Zein immediately replied. Rain's face could be seen and he looked very annoyed. Both of them kept demanding more questions until the class finished and in the end, Zein answered the most questions while Rain was one point behind.
Ring
The bell rang signalling everyone to go to lunch. "Who's better little mouse?" Zein smirked and went out to lunch. "This isn't over." Rain whispered to himself and sat down at his table. Zein exited the classroom and everyone started to crowd around Rain. "Wow you're so smart! I can't believe you stood up to Zein like that!" A student excitedly complimented Rain. "What's with Zein anyway? He's not that bad." Everyone went silent. "He's feared by everyone because of his bad temper. Rumor has it that he killed a student once" Another student replied. "Pfft that's just rumors. Turns out that student transferred to another school." A blue haired boy abruptly gave info about the rumors. "Hey there! I'm Nikko. Can we be friends?" Nikko went all out to greet Rain and it seemed a bit overwhelming. "Oh? Not much if a talker? Don't worry it's ok!" Nikko smiled and patted Rain's head.
-Zein's POV-
Heh. He thought he could answer more questions than me. Pathetic. I've been going over and over to that class for two years. I know the questions and the answers. Even if I don't study, I can answer any question. He was very competitive. I like it.
--Disclaimer-- This is my original story please don't repost unless if you ask permission.
Comment if you liked it and chapter 2 comming soon

My husband loves me, and he loves Sadie. But mainly, he's tired. And so eventually Sadie got her rat. Honey lived happily in Sadie's room in his 3-tiered Rat Palace, and every day I would take time out from soothing the infant and wrestling with the 3-year-old to play with the rat, something the pet store warned I had to do if I wanted to socialize him. 

Are you a gamer? Want to take out on normies, sexhavers, and foids that infest what used to be OUR hobby? Those of us born in the 80's will remember a time when being a gamer was scorned. We were bullied, chastised, and shunned from our peer groups for enjoying video games. This would last up until the mid to late 90's when the media finally started pushing games to "dudebros" and eventually women in the early to mid 2000's. Finally in the past 10 years we've seen an infestation of shitskins and third worlders completely flooding everything. I refuse to lay down and die. I will stand and fight till the bitter end.
It's time to turn the tables and make them suffer as they made us suffer, both in life and the virtual world. (Legally and within the confines of the game, this is NOT a guide to IRL ruinate or anything of the sort.) Some of this stuff isn't allowed if you're an EU gamer.
First off, you're going to have to let go of playing video games to "win" or acquire virtual greed. You're going to need a new mindset. The mindset of a sadistic psychopath hellbent on extracting keks from anyone and everyone deemed not one of us. No more giving a fuck about your KDA, w/l ratio, or "following the rules" or the "meta" of what other players expect you to do. You are a gamer going your own way, regardless of what the groupthink expects or wants. If the game is F2P or you're a richfag or jewtuber who can get free games from devs then being banned is part of the fun, and is expected of you. If you cannot afford to buy back into games or are too technologically retarded to change your IP and spoof your hardware to get around bans in F2P games then you'll have to tread carefully.
Here's the part where I instruct you on how to fuck over these sexhavers for your own sadistic pleasure. After all they've denied us a life worth living in the real world and treat us like lepers. It's time they feel uncomfortable in OUR space. Feel free to add to any of these methods or pitch in ideas.
Foid infested "cozy" games
Shit like "Animal Crossing" or "Palia." Anything that lets you decorate and grow shit is a "cozy" game and women infest these games more than any other. It's literally a containment game of sorts to keep them out of other shit. To fuck with women in these games all you have to do is steal resources, build ugly and annoying things within the game world, be rude via emotes and text chat, and use emotes to make it look like your character is grabbing their tits or eating them out. I once did /eat to some slag girl gamer in WoW Vanilla 20 years ago and when I reverse searched my name she was bitching about it on reddit and remembered my characters exact name 4-5 years ago. She's STILL SEETHING about it 15 years later. This is what you want. Virtual RAPE. Many foids stream these types of games, and it's incredibly easy to get under their skin. Make the ugliest characters you possibly can and always stand in their camera. Stalk them in-game. Uglify the world around them. Spam emotes. The world is your oyster.
MMORPG's
World of Warcraft, or anything else really. Gank them. Corpse camp them. Dispel their world buffs. Emote spam sexually assault them. Use a high level or highly geared character to camp low level quest zones and steal mobs, resources, and kill low level players. Stream snipe them till they hide their screen with nothingness. Join their guilds and steal their resources after faking being a Chad. Get the entire guild wiped, blame it on the women healers. Play a vital role and underperform / disconnect at pivotal moments and blame a thunderstorm. Make everyone wait on your actions, but not enough to get gkicked. Openly challenge sex havers lifestyles in discord voice calls and call them out on their privileged bullshit. (Genetics, riches, went to a nice school, raised by good parents, etc.) Use every underbelly evil shithead tactic that these fuckers used towards us during our childhoods and young adult lives. Roleplay it up and lie about your IRL self to make them feel inferior. Exploit early and often, and cash out via RMT before you get banned or when you quit for some NEET bucks. If the game has a "random queue" system you can wipe endless groups or refuse to participate and hold entire game lobbies hostage.
FPS
Overwatch, Counter Strike, etc. Simply play terribly in ranked matches. Don't assist the team. Mic spam. Play vital roles like tank or healer then simply don't heal and tell them openly on the mic to beg if they want heals. Refuse to play at all if a woman is in voice chat. Verbally accost every white knight that defends her. Remember, they're most likely wagies who have to go to work tomorrow and you're most likely a NEET who has infinite free time. Remind them of this. (Even if it's not true.) In FPS with one life, openly tell the enemy team where your team mates are camping. Use aimbots, wall hacks, and other cheats to make both sides pissed off. If you're doing well gloat. If you're playing shittily, then call them a loser or a nerd. Flashbang your own team. Drop objective items as far as possible. Die with expensive guns (Auto sniper in CS triggers normies.) and make sure the enemy acquires them. Acquire or goad team mates into team killing you to 2 week ban them.
MOBA / RTS
League, Dota 2, Age of Empires, and other slop. Never go to the "meta" lane. (AD carry / support normally go bottom lane, but you're gonna always go middle, and steal your own teams jungle.) Never build the right items. Feed the enemy team, kill steal your own. Never push lanes or objectives. Ping spam. Keep text chats very "safe" to avoid bans. When a team mate dies, some ping spam and a "?" goes a long way. Never agree to surrender, unless your team is winning. Always report everyone who rages on you. Play characters that have statistically low win rates or are extra annoying. Use a lag switch to delay and hold entire lobbies hostage (RTS). Wall in your own team. Use retarded high risk low reward build orders. Be completely useless all of the time and never join team fights except after everyone's dead then schizo gaslight them that they were the ones not helping.
Survival, Crafting / Building Games
Minecraft, and shit like it. Become insanely super godlike good at the game. Learn all the metas, muscle memory, speed run tech, and master PvP. Join reddit servers and ruinate months of "cozy crafting" with max enchanted equipment and masterful grief tactics. Construct server destroying redstone machines. Completely ruin spawn and active players bases while they're offline. Destroy their VIP / pay 2 win "donation" special items. Join their discords and spam anti-vax, anti-pitbull, and black people violence webms from rekt threads on 4chan to get their servers shut down. Literally use modded hacked clients to ESP radar hack and dupe your way to victory, kicking down reddit twerps virtual sand castles and record the seethe in their discord voice chats while pretending you don't know what's going on. Abuse and exploit anything you can to the detriment of other players (Shittily coded cash shops and stores. RPG elements that are 100% broken, like a "health swap" spell that you can use on any god-geared player to swap your 1/2 heart health with their full HP then 1 shot them naked kinda shit.)
Indie slop
None of these games have any cheat protection. Cheat Engine even the most basic shit. I once played some slop card game and was able to set my opponents HP at the start of the game to 0 and win immediately. You can pretty much speed hack on all of this shit and most hack sites will have a few dedicated cheat bros that can do the wildest shit like gain access to admin panels and other destructive things. Even without cheats most basic exploits can really break these games. If a dupe method worked on one shitty survival Unreal 5 sloppa game, chances are it works on the other 7,000.
VR / Roleplay shit
Fondle titties. When the white knights run up and shout "back off" loudly point and laugh at them. Force feed slags coconut drinks. Put your arm around everyone and get really up close in their face. Make fun of their furfag outfits. Call them trannies. Take a right wing stance on everything. Use cheats to spam gore and porn everywhere. Use mod menus (Cheats) to force other players to emote or spawn giant laggy objects and explosions. Always talk shit in VOIP and spam soundboards. Be as annoying and as insufferable as possible.
Single Player Games
Okay, so this one's hard to "troll" but there's still ways to do it. You gotta share stuff in normie spaces that will offend and upset them. There was a guy that played Red Dead 2 and brutually murdered and tortured the "women have a right to vote" NPC to the point where he got banned off jewtube for it cause it pissed off so many redditors. You're gonna have to be real creative with this one. If you're a jewtuber you can intentionally kill off all the gay NPC's in Baldurs Gate 3 or something during your streams or playthroughs and watch the seethe roll in. Or make misleading and untrue guides or push a narrative you'd prefer to see and post them to normie sites to really stick it to 'em.
Please, feel free to share your ways of griefing and trolling foids and sexhavers within the confines of the video game. Since we can't be happy in real life, the least we can do is make their virtual lives closer to ours. Give them a taste of their own medicine. The only joy I have left in life is making others seethe in video games, because what the fuck else is there to do?

This is almost a month late! It's taken time to reflect and collect my thoughts, as well as rewrite this 50 times over*! There's a blog post about it with pictures and maps for those interested. Apologies if I'm not allowed to post links!
* see one of my lessons further down about over thinking of things!

TL;DR

This is THE race I have been trying to run for years, and when it finally came, it didn’t disappoint despite a sub-par performance on the day. I accomplished most of what I set out to achieve, and had an amazing day.

Goals

1. 3:20:00 - Fail
2. 3:30:00 - Fail
3. 3:40:00 - Pass
4. Bonus: Experience it - Pass
5. Bonus: Raise money for WWF - £800+

Results

Time: 3:38:21
Position: 12,670/ ~50,000+ (masses)

Report

It was a bright and sunny, but bitterly cold morning. Wind chill was around 0°C. As I threw off my warm layers, and approached the starting gate, I was at the peak of my anxiety. It had been building for days, probably weeks. Finally, I was only metres from the London Marathon start line and everything I had been working towards over the last 4 months was finally being released. The emotion was palpable. Tears moistened my eyes briefly . I could feel the stress starting to evaporate as I crossed the start line. I knew that this was it. Everything I had trained for, everything I had read and learned all needed to be implemented to the letter if I was to get my marathon PB.
3 hours, 38 minutes and 21 seconds later, I was crossing the finish line without a PB. My anxiety and nerves had been replaced with elation and exhaustion. There was pain and nausea mixed with joy and pride. I had a London Marathon medal around my neck finally! There was a tinge of regret that I didn’t get my PB, but after the last few hours, I was more than happy to have made it to the end, and done it in a good time.
The last few hours had been a rollercoaster of emotions. The whole of London had come out along with my family. This was London on one of it’s best days. But it hadn’t all been smooth sailing.
As I had stumbled over the finish line the first thing I wanted to do was stop, lie down and try not to be sick. I’d spent the last 10km struggling hard when my legs just ran out of energy. I hadn’t been topping up with gels since around 25km after getting at stitch, whilst simultaneously feeling sick and hungry. I didn’t have any reserves left in my legs and kept having to stop, stretch and walk. The support kept me going. Incredible crowds kept me going. “Go on Carl. Keep going!”. High fives kept me going! Knowing I had family out there supporting me kept me going, and having people who had made charity donations on my behalf to the WWF kept me going.
But where did my energy go? This all comes back to the anxiety that had been building over the last few days and weeks. From the Wednesday my appetite had just fallen off a cliff. When I did eat, it was just butterflies and they have next to no carbs! I always get race nerves, but that’s normally on the race morning so it doesn’t really affect the carbo-loading during the previous days.

Let's go!

The start went perfectly. I had said to myself, run the first third with my head, the second with my legs and the third with my heart. I didn’t go off too fast, in-fact I had stuck almost exactly to the 4:44/km pace I needed despite the long downhill in the first few km.
I was actually having fun. High fiving all the kids! Enjoying the atmosphere. It was busy on and off the course. there was almost a fun run atmosphere. It didn’t feel like a race, and my legs felt really good. By the time I arrived at the Cutty Sark, 10k in, I felt like everything had bedded down and I was just gliding along. The only issue at this point was my vest starting to rub, but that wasn’t anything to worry about. Somewhere in the crowds was my wife, Shadia, cheering me on but it was that busy I didn’t see her.
At almost the half way mark, is one of the iconic landmarks on the course, Tower Bridge. I got my phone out to take some photos and was surprised to find myself heading up hill. It’s probably the first uphill on the course that’s noticeable and by the time I was halfway across my HR was in the red zone, but I didn’t really notice until after because the crowd here were electric, and the backdrop was incredible. The course narrows over the bridge as you pass under the iconic towers, and on each side there’s people 5 deep cheering everyone on.
Then before you know it, you’ve crossed over and started towards Canary Wharf. I hit the half way mark with a 1:41:55. I was a little behind target, but my pace was good and I had just ran one of my top 5 half marathon paces. On the other side of the road, the pros flew past which was awesome to see and really makes it feel like a big event being on the same course as olympians and world record holders. They have a head start, so it’s not really fair!
It had all being going well, until it wasn’t. As I got towards 25/26km I started to get the sense that the easy bit was over. It started with a stitch, which meant that I just couldn’t keep up the pace. I put this down to 2 things. Coke, and shortbread. Since I hadn’t managed to carbo-load due to the anxiety over the previous days, I had decided to nibble some shortbread all morning before the start in an attempt to gain some energy. Likewise, before the race I’d needed a drink, and my thoughts went straight to something with sugar. Coke. Now a combo of carbonated sugar, and Scottish biscuits were enacting their revenge!
After backing off the pace somewhat, the stitch mostly went away, but I didn’t want it back, and made the mistake of stopping eating my energy gels or drinking much water. About 5km later, in the low 30km range my pace started to fall away from me. People say that the halfway point in a marathon is about 30km. I now understand why. The last 12km felt like more effort than the first 21km. Every time I looked at my watch I could see my pace dropping and felt my PB attempt slipping though my fingers. I would slow, then a dinosaur or a seagull would overtake me and it would spur me on for 500m, then I’d slow and someone would yell “Go Carl” and it would be another 300m or so.
Even when I arrived at Big Ben and I knew it was 1km to go, it felt like an almost insurmountable task. Flashing back to October last year and the Chester Marathon, the last 1km had been hard, but I still had something in the tank. This was just running on fumes. The only thing I didn’t want to do was to walk that final bit. I could see my time was now looking nearer to exceeding 3:40 and if I walked then my final target would have been missed. I just had to grit my teeth and slog on.
400m to go and it was “just one loop around a track”. That felt like a big ask, but I forced myself with all my remaining effort not to slow or walk. Finally rounding the corner in front of the palace with about 200m to go, the finish line appeared into sight. Can I summon up a sprint finish? No. not even a slight uptick in pace. That’s how empty my tank was. Just put one foot in front of the other and reel it in and try not to trip over the timing mats at the finish line. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. LonDone! Someone placed a medal around my neck and I finally the magnitude of what I’d done finally struck home “I’ve got a London Marathon medal. I’ve actually got one. Wow.”
Almost immediately as I finish, Shadia called me to try and meet up. I’m trying to explain where I am and how we can meet but my brain just doesn’t have the ability. It’s a mess.

It’s hard to describe to someone how f**ked you feel when you finished something like a marathon. It’s not like being tired from doing a 5K when you start out running. It’s not like your first 10K either, or even a half marathon. Your body is just exhausted. Every muscle aches. You have no energy. After 30km your energy supplies have dwindled and you are left tired and broken.

Eventually Shadia gets some sense out of me and we try to figure out a place to meet. A bit dazed and confused I shuffled off towards blankets, Lucozade and the exits. It’s busy, so we change the plan a few times, finally ending in Charring cross for a celebratory beer, before heading back to base. And with that, the London Marathon is done.

Route

It's a pretty well known route (see my linked post for the route map)

Kit

• WWF Vest
• Salomon Running Vest
• INOV-8 Race shorts
• Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% 2
• Darn tough socks
• Garmin HR Pro band
• Garmin Epix 2
• Shockz OpenRun headphones
• Salomon 500ml bottles (water)
• SiS energy gels (various flavours)

Lessons

Post race I jotted down my thoughts in a mind-map so I could quickly explore how things went. This isn't something I have tried before, but it worked really well to quickly surmise the whole event, training and experience of the London Marathon.

Nutrition and energy

My fuelling pre race, was s**t. I know this. I should have been aiming for 600-700g of carbs a day from the Wednesday onwards and failed hard. This hit me hard in the race. that was the fabled wall. There’s nothing more to say about this.
There’s 2 things I’m looking at to fix this. Other types of gel. Energy drinks on the days leading up to it. I think I can handle them despite the anxiety and it’s a good way to load up some carbs at least!

Training plan and goals

I set out in January a goal to beat my Chester PB of 2023. 3:32:36. For Chester I had done no specific training, although I already had a regime with a lot of base (Z3) runs, ParkRun’s ran as races most Saturdays and a long run each week, with a few bing half marathons. There were about 2 30km+ runs over the 4 months before. I was probably averaging 50km per week.
For the London Marathon I started training on the first of January, following my Garmin Epix’s suggested runs. This pushed me pretty well, and was a good mix of long, hard and easy runs. The problems with this arose when Idris went back to nursery and the germs got him! That meant rubbish sleep, and the suggested runs tried to be nice, which meant it was all short and easy.
I started looking at a range of plans which could push me hard enough, whilst also not taking up every waking hour with running. I can’t remember now, because I didn’t write it down, but the closest I got was Jack Daniels advanced or Pfitz 12/50, but both of these still weren’t quite a good enough match, so the only option was to roll my own.
This boiled down to a simple plan:

• Monday: Z2 / Recovery
• Tuesday: Sprints / hills
• Wednesday: Z2 / Recovery
• Thursday: Threshold or intervals
• Friday: Z2 / Recovery
• Saturday: Long run at base, increasing to 33km
• Sunday: Base

Most runs ended up being around 10k in length apart from the long runs. I also dropped ParkRuns on a Saturday so that I could focus on the sprints/intervals and long runs without being too knackered. From February my long runs were around 21km, but during March I started to push these to 33km. All the time this was going on, my predicted Marathon time was improving from low 3:30s towards the low 3:20s. So far so good.
Because of this shift in my predicted time I changed my goal from beating my PB, to going for 3:20. This was probably a mistake, and I should have looked at RunAlyze’s predicted time which takes into account weekly mileage and longest runs over the period. It turned out to be more accurate. I think if i’d gone out of the gate slower, or dropped my pace and continued fuelling when the stitch arrived I wouldn’t have hit such a wall and missed my PB. Lesson learned.

Anxiety and stress

I over think. A lot. Not being at home the lead up added to my stress. Travelling down a few days before and trying to incorporate sightseeing really didn’t help. Add into the mix, trying to do sightseeing with family and help coordinate where to watch was probably the another nail in my PB attempt.
One other aspect around this event was the historic significance of it to me. My previous job, starting 15+ years ago, had revolved around the London Marathon like the earth around the sun. It was seen as one of the pinnacles of the road race calendar. Back then I didn’t even run, but a large part of me started running due to this. Because of Realbuzz I ran my first half marathon and for years I have tried, and failed, to get on to the London Marathon, so to finally be able to run it, and to be in a position where I can run it well (pushing for a PB) was a lot of self inflicted pressure.
My solution is to more races of a big nature. Keeping me out of my comfort zone can only help me get used to it. Mixed in with better planned travel/sightseeing and I might just be race ready. I hope so, because I’m signed up to Chester and Yorkshire marathons in October already!

Fundraising

Remember when you were a kid and did charity fundraising for 5p a length of the pool, or something like that! Well, I hadn't really done any since then. When I signed up for the London Marathon to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund it was always something I kept pushing back to do later. I was a little nervous to ask for donations. When my WWF vest arrived, I knew it was time to grow up and just ask.
The reality is that you have to pester people. Some will love your cause, or your dedication and other’s not so much. You’ll get something from someone and then the ball is rolling. The lesson is, do it ASAP so you have time to ask again, and again in different ways.
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Carl-Topham
Thanks to every who donated, liked and shared my campaign. As one UK supermarket says… every little helps.

Miscellaneous

I’ve always been worried about running out of water. That was never going to happen if I’d looked at the route maps. Every 5km is plenty. I ran with a vest so I could carry 1 litre of water! That’s excessive and caused my running vest to rub and then bleed. This wasn’t a show stopper until a few days after, but unless I’m out on the trails, or self supporting, then a smaller waist pack should be enough.

It’s not all bad

Family support throughout my training and accommodation for my long runs especially from Shadia. They’ve been flexible and allowed me to have time to do what I needed to do which has massively helped.
In the last month or so I started to add in some strength training. Mainly press ups and sit ups with some stretching also. Unlike last years Chester marathon, it may have contributed to me being able to continue running only days after. Chester crippled me for over 2 weeks.

Final thoughts

I’m doing it again, somehow, some day. While it was a very hard day, especially the second “half”, the sheer atmosphere and emotion just made it epic.
This was THE race for me. While I didn’t get the result I wanted to, it was an incredible, enjoyable experience that I already look back on with fondness and pride. I think there are some valuable lessons to take away from it which I can apply already so hopefully this will be a notable stepping point in my running achievements.This is THE race I have been trying to run for years, and when it finally came, it didn’t disappoint despite a sub-par performance on the day. I accomplished most of what I set out to achieve, and had an amazing day.

Wonderful start, I made my character, tested around with controls, I died to boss, fell in hole, entered tutorial, died to spear guy only three times before beating him! Mad proud of that! This is where the true game started, or so I thought. Apparently the fellow I thought was the first "boss" fellow that called me maidenless and took a while to kill was apparently a "friendly" npc. I found out because of how I flexed to my friend about how it only took 17 tries to beat him. My friend told me it was better to restart because of some questline. (once I complete the game I vowed that I will make a new slot and kill every humanoid npc except for Kale, he gives me arrows.)
Anyways so I made a new game, soloed tutorial knight guy first time! Felt proud, I went Samurai class because I've been reading Chinese cultivation novels recently, I named him Seo after Seo Eun-Hyun. After tutorial, I skipped the guy that called me maidenless because he's rude n stuff. I went down and saw some guy on a horse and was like "Woah that guy looks friendly". He ran me over with his horse, didn't appreciate that, he's on my hitlist now.
I then met Kale my beloved, he gives me arrows from the shop, this reminds me I have a bow! I check my bow damage with the critical, NICE, VERY NICE! I was planning my revenge on the man in the yellow armor, then I saw it. Abuseable wildlife!
Being the absolute PVE demon that I am, I spent a few hours killing sheep and birds and stuff. By the end of it I had like 6k runes so I was feeling pretty good! I went back to Kale and bought a lot of arrows and a torch because I wanted to see if I could burn things to death, I forgot about the torch but I had a lot of fun with the arrows, and that's what matters!
By then I had been eyeing the little outpost with knights in very jolly colored armor, red and green. So I attacked the guys, it went great until one of them blew a horn, that didn't go well. I then adapted a more stealth themed approach to this, I crouched, assassinated some people to get some space. I then used my bow to quickly kill the man with the horn before he could blow it. W strategy right? Well apparently not because some guy probably named Igris is an absolute unit of a knight and ruined my good expedition. I vowed to come back and cheese him in the cheesiest way possible in respect.
I went to go retrieve my runes, which had increased a lot because of all my attempts and the fact that I never die before retrieving them. On the way of running away from the knight that I now dub "Blood-Red-Tree-Green Commander Igris"(Igris for short), I found a new grace to touch! I was pretty excited because that meant I could teleport from Kale to here each time I needed more arrows to snipe the blow horn guy. Instead I was met with a surprise.
There was this cool animation and I'm intoduced to this person who's name I can't spell. For the sake of my time because I don't want to search it up and get spoiled about her lore or something, I'll call her Mellon. Anyways Mellon is a very important npc. She gave me a horse, very epic. She said something about leveling up but why spend runes on levels when I can just spend runes on arrows? Is she stupid?
Horse is great, I ran around with horse until I saw a bridge, on that bridge was something that will probably give me nightmares for a while. I dare not speak about what happened that night, the night rider will find me. Honestly I'm too scared of that to even try to shoot arrows at it, it's too scary :(. Creature on bridge chased me for a while, I realized I could attack on my horse, (future plan to beat man in yellow armor?!)
I went back to Kale on horseback because when you have a horse who the heck wants to fast travel. I sat at grace to recover my runes and when I got up.. wow oh wow I met that BLUE woman! Blue woman my beloved. I forgot her name so I'll call her Blueberry for now. Blueberry gave me dogs. Dogs are important, therefore she is important.
By now the urges were getting to me, I wanted to shoot Kale just to see if I could one shot him. The problem was, Kale was my only source of arrows, and he's pretty chill. So I decided now is the time I beat Igris. So I went to the grace, tested around with dogs and realized how perfect of an opportunity this was. So I did it, I killed every npc except for Igris while still having HP leftover, i summoned the dogs and watched as they mauled him to death. When he was low HP I just had to go for the cool Katana finisher, he ran me through with his spear before I could finish him off and I died. I'm going to finish him later.
By then I was getting curious about what was behind that gate, that the people in the fortress were guarding, and wow oh wow was this the discovery of a lifetime! This introduced me to GIANTS! They give SO many runes! They're VERY slow and practically can't fight back if you have torrent. So anyways I brought the giant outside because I'm not fighting him in an enclosed area with soldiers sniping at me like cowards. After leading him outside I sniped him a lot with my bow while my dogs fought for me till the giant died, he shoot some sonic scream things at me but those were easy to avoid. 1k runes per, I grinded this giant a LOT till I had 10k runes. I spent 3k of the runes on arrows because I was going to explore. This, this was where I truly feel I started moving on the right track!
After a while of searching, I went to the bridge where the horror guy at night was. This time it was day so I was certain he wouldn't be as scary, on the way I found some of )what I believed to be) zombies. After killing all but one of them I found out they're just really really starving civilians. Dang... Anyways I put the last one out of his/her misery and moved onto the bridge. On the bridge was some guy on horseback and I was like "HAH, NOT SO SCARY AT DAY ARE YOU!" And proceeded to show how much better at fighting on horseback I was by dying thrice to him before deciding to just snipe him from a distance with my bow.
After finishing him off I expected a better reward but I guess you should only get the good reward if you beat him at night. Moving on I found it. My glorious grinding method that brings me an endless amount of joy. Just beyond the bridge there are giants. Giants give 1k runes per kill. Normally they're a lot of work but these ones, these ones were special. Special because they are chained up and defenseless!
At first I walked up to them to attack them with my sword, then they stomped on me. Sadge. Then I sniped them from right infront of them, the army fellows helped them. This was where I developed my killer strategy, climb a mountain and shoot their heads till they die! Climbing a mountain so they can't stomp on me OR have army fellows attack me! It was truly foolproof! I saw one of the giants charge up some super attack when it got close to dying, shame it never had iframes because I would never let it charge an attack like that smh my head. Anyways first Giant down, one left.
After killing the other giant I decided why not snipe the guys below me, I had plenty of arrows. and so I did. This, this was where my eyes were opened. I was tryna destroy the cart to spite the army guys because they have Igris on their side, this was where I saw the "Open" button or something. Apparently there was a chest in there. I opened it and wallah! A GREATAXE!!! I was a bit hesitant to stop using my katana, but then I realized, in Elden Ring... there is no Severing Mountain Swordsmanship (단악검법/斷岳劍法), Beyond The Path To Heaven (월도입천), Qi Mountain, Heart Heaven (기산심천/氣山心天), Endless Mountains Beyond Mountains (산외산부진/山外山不盡), Foolish Old Man Moves Mountains (우공이산/愚公移山), and definitely not any Record Of Surpassing Cultivation and Martial Arts (越修越武錄). Therefore I gave up on the blade.
OR SO I THOUGHT! Turns out I need STATS to equip it! 30 Strength and 16 dexterity? This is where all my runes came in. Now I had to split my runes into buying arrows AND stats from Mellon. I already had 16 dexterity, so that's nice. 30 strength is a long way away but I was able to quickly get up to 24 strength.
With my newfound stats and new discovery of the bow critical attack, I went to go fight the man in the yellow armor. You can guess how that went... Actually you can't because I killed him first try, Hah. All it took was climbing a small boulder and yellow armor guy was defenseless, sure he teleported away because he was scared sometimes but I just held right for extra accuracy and sniped him from a larger distance and he ran right back. Then when he had 62 Hp remaining I finished him off up close because I needed the screenshot to show to my friend to make it look like I killed him fair and square.
Well who would have guessed it I got his bisento or something. Apparently I need the same stats for it that I need for the axe, except now I need 12 faith. To be honest I'm still on the edge if I wanna use it, the weapon certainly LOOKED big when the boss used it, I haven't seen the greataxe but I'm sure it's big, but as big as the yellow fellow's? Only time will tell.
Nearing the end of my day I went back to the giants to spawn kill them for more runes, I ran out of arrows and decided to go down there and finish them off with my shield. Shield combat is nice, better than Katana since I don't have Severing Mountain Swordsmanship (단악검법/斷岳劍法), with Severing Mountain (단악/斷岳) as a critical. or Severing Vein Saber Technique (단맥도/斷脈刀) with Returning Home (환향/還鄕) or Saber Tomb (도묘/刀墓) as a critical.
After finishing off the giants I ran off because I'm not fighting the soldiers without arrows. I then found some flowers that summoned divine judgement on me. Of course since I'm a video game character I didn't have to reach Beyond the Path, Treading Heaven(超越踏天之路) to overcome the will of the heavens and just pressed c to dodge. Why didn't Seo Eun-Hyun do this? Is he stupid?
I then found a npc that told me about a dragon before finding grace to touch again. Now I rest for tomorrow to fight a dragon.
Wow what a long rant, writing takes more time than I thought. Even more respect to authors like G3 and Cuttlefish who come out with multiple quality chapters a day.
Why would automod think I am asking for technical support? Are they stupid?

Old peasant legends tell of a magnificent treasure at the peak of Firetop Mountain in the realm of Titan. This treasure is sought out by many adventurers, although few make it back out of the mountains in one piece, and none are able to find the two-locked chest containing the prize. The treasure is guarded by an enigmatic warlock who commands terrible beasts to guard the chest’s keys. Some say he's old, some say he's young, some say his cards are his source of power, others say it’s his black gloves. The only thing that the peasants can agree on was his name; Zagor.
The terrible warlock would fight three different adventurers on their quests to claim his treasure. Each time, if the reader makes the right choices and defeats Zagor in combat, he manages to crawl back from the blackness of death using another morbid spell. Upon his third incarnation, he even made the jump from the realm of Titan to a new world called Amarillia. It's here that the sorcerer would finally meet his end, burned to ashes in the mystical Heartfires.
Feats come from three books, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Return to Firetop Mountain and Legend of Zagor. Hover over a feat to see what book it’s from. Since they’re Choose Your Own Adventure books, they aren’t distinguished by chapters but rather by paragraph numbers, which are included in the images themselves.

General

Human Form

• He has a Skill stat of 11 and a Stamina stat of 18. This makes Zagor more skilled than a Vampire, who can catch the player’s sword, and tougher than a Giant.
  • If the player burns his magic cards, Zagor physically shrinks, his Skill stat goes down to 7 and his Stamina stat goes down to 11.

Resurrected Form

• After resurrecting into a patchwork body, he maintains his stats of 11 in Skill and 18 in Stamina
• If the second adventurer kills him a second time, they return to identify the corpse a few days later. Zagor’s body is completely dead, but he’s grinning and his skeletal left hand is missing, something the adventurer worries will lead to a third encounter down the line.

Demon Form

• In another realm called Amarillia, a war with a Bone Demon ended when the Casket of Souls was created, which allowed the humans to banish the demon to another plane. However, Zagor’s pernicious spirit felt this event in the realm of Titan and used the Casket to manifest himself in Amarillia. By crossing into the parallel world, he bonded with the trapped Bone Demon, and Zagor’s third physical form is a demonic/human hybrid. This incarnation grows stronger as Zagor spends time in the demon’s lair, Castle Argent, and can only be killed for good by the Heartfires below the castle.
• Zagor’s Demon form is four meters tall and visibly strong. He fights using a rune-covered staff.
• As his Demon-Thing form, his stats go up to 16 in Skill and 20 in Stamina. He uses a variety of attacks in combat, like a Thunderbolt spell, a Fireball spell, a Life Drain spell that lowers an adventurer’s Skill and Stamina stat, a Poisoned Dagger, and melee attacks with his Taloned Fists. If the Zagor Demon reaches critical health without dying, it will become Frenzied and thrash around violently.
• After beating the Zagor Demon, the adventurer must throw his body into the magic Heartfires to completely destroy him. If he’s not thrown into these flames, he will revive himself and slay the adventurer with his claws.

Magic Abilities

Immunities

• He cannot be harmed by non-magical means. Attacks like arrows do no damage to Zagor.
• Zagor is immune to the magic paralysis spell used by a genie
• He can see through the effects of invisibility-granting garments
• If an adventurer attempts to use offensive magic against the Zagor Demon, his reaction depends on if he has a higher Attack Strength than the opponent. If his stat is higher, his Magic Screen spell cancels the offensive spell and damages the adventurer.
• He’s immune to instant Death Spells
• A master thief’s flowing cloak allows the wearer to confuse enemies, lowering the hit rate of their attacks. However, Zagor sees through this technique and is unaffected by the distracting garment.
• If an adventurer uses a handheld catapult on Zagor, and Zagor has a higher Attack Strength stat, the projectile misses and the adventurer is injured

Combat-Related

• He’s capable of teleporting around the room as well as levitating
• If the player shoots an arrow at Zagor, he lifts a hand and halts in mid-flight, centimeters away from his chest
• Shoots a plume of blue flames from his hand
• Magically slows the adventurer as they climb up some stairs. As this happens, Zagor magically summons a mid-level, poisonous monster to duel the adventurer. Damage done by this creature is transferred to Zagor himself. This spell can be neutralized by an adventurer’s protective spell.
• He can form invisible barriers, useful for creating obstacles to knock flying adventurers from the air

Control Over Life

• While he initially appears as a withered, ancient man, he quickly assumes a younger form in opulent clothing when preparing to fight the player
• Right before his defeat in the fist book, Zagor cast a dark spell on himself called Raise Dead, preventing his spirit from fully dying
• Coming back from the dead was not a perfect process, and most of Zagor’s body is decomposing. He must have his minions claim body parts from living victims in order to replace his failing body, piece by piece.

Curses

• He uses a curse to raise deceased residents of Firetop Mountain as his Undead servants
• He’s cursed the land around Firetop Mountain. The once red rocks have turned black, and livestock who graze around the mountain die sickening deaths shortly afterwards.

Other Abilities

• He has a hypnotic gaze and his voice seems to come from the walls of the cave rather than his mouth
• If the player finds and uses an Invisibility Potion, Zagor can still sense their presence and track them through scent
• Zagor personally rigs a trap with a spell called Demon’s Breath. If the adventurer stands too close to a wall, a puff of gas is released that continually poisons them until they eat orc fleas.
• Zagor can draw his monsters from other planes of existence. This is how, upon his jump from Titan to Amarillia, Castle Argent is already full of his minions.
• When an adventurer opens a casket, Zagor casts a spell that further decomposes and animates the corpse within to attack the adventurer. This spell is performed over a great distance.
• He can sense when his name is uttered in Castle Argent and dispatch monsters to that location

Magic Artifacts

Zagor's Portrait

• The adventurer can come across Zagor’s painting in Firetop Mountain, a frightening portrait that lowers their Skill stat through intimidation
  • If the adventurer draws their sword against the artwork, the blade is telekinetically grabbed and dropped on them, wounding their face
  • If the adventurer draws a wooden stake against the artwork, their wrist is suddenly wracked with pain and they drop the weapon. They also lose one more Skill point before fleeing.
  • If the adventurer throws cheese at the painting, Zagor laughs at them
  • If the adventurer produces the jewel found in the Iron Cyclops, the painting is defeated and the adventurer receives two Skill points
• A different painting found in Castle Argent uses a telepathic attack to frighten an adventurer and lower their Luck stat

Elementals

• As a tradeoff of using the Raise Dead spell on himself, the powers that be placed brought Elementals to his lair in Firetop Mountain. These supernatural beings are the only thing that can truly harm Zagor and must be summoned by using a dragon’s tooth along with an awakening word. However, Zagor can also subjugate these forces under his rule after he gathers his own summoning artifacts.
• If at any point, the adventurer fails to produce the right dragon tooth during the duel with Zagor, then Zagor’s Elemental will pick them up and throw them at a wall, rendering them unconscious. If they fail to say the right magic word, they also be magically rendered unconscious by a telekinetic backlash.
• Upon encountering the adventurer, he first summons his Demonic Air Elemental with a yellow crystal and magic chants
• If his Air Elemental is defeated by the adventurer’s Earth Elemental, Zagor summons a Water Elemental
• If the Water Elemental is defeated by the adventurer’s Air Elemental, Zagor summons an Earth Elemental
• If the Earth Elemental is defeated by the adventurer’s Fire Elemental, Zagor will summon an identical Fire Elemental
• If the Fire Elemental is defeated by the adventurer’s Water Elemental, Zagor will finally get out of his throne and fight personally

Other Items

• Zagor has complete knowledge of the secrets of Firetop Mountain and controls all of the beasts within. This information has been collected in his spellbook.
• A silver earring is found on a Cave Troll. If the adventurer puts it on, it turns into a living earwig that attempts to enter the person’s ear and attack their brain. This Brainbiter is described as one of Zagor’s enchanted assassins.
• A silver necklace is found on a Goblin. Upon contact with human skin, it turns into a feral rat with poisonous bites. The charm is said to have been created by Zagor.
• Magic cards from his magic set offer a variety of positive and negative effects for those who manage to collect, on, including: one that turns into a magically terrifying face, one that lowers the holder’s Skill and Luck stats, a blank card, one that confers Stamina and Luck into the holder and one that can turn into a silver dagger that can weaken Zagor himself

Weaknesses

• A jewel found in an Iron Cyclops can easily kill Zagor. If the player can find and produce this item during the last battle, the Warlock is aged into dust.
• The adventurer can collect Golden Talismans in Castle Argent, which can reduce Zagor’s Skill stat