Amanda bynes smoking a cigarette

Hello, please click the link below to take part in my Masters Health Psychology project if you are a cigarette smoker.
https://derby.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9u8lowRJvVmMDA2
This study aims to examine the impact of message framing and pictorial labels displayed on cigarette packaging and how this influences smokers' intentions to quit. The objectives are to:
-Explore how messages influence smokers’ intentions to quit.
-Investigate the role of images in conveying anti-smoking messages and their impact on smokers’ intentions to quit. Thank you in advance :)

Just purchased a Gold Certified 2022 RAV4 yesterday. Unfortunately, after coming home and leaving the car parked for about an hour and a half, I left to run an errand and could smell cigarette smoke. The previous owner must have been a smoker, unless one of the service workers who took it for a test drive had a smoke, but I'm pretty sure dealerships are very strict about not smoking. It's still a possibility so not ruling that out since I didn't really notice the smell on the test drive on Wednesday.
I didn't notice the smell when I went on the test drive on Wednesday, it has been in the high 90s this week and the AC was already blasting when we got in the car. I didn't get to pick up my car until today because they had just received it and still needed to complete the 160 point check to have it registered as Gold Certified.
I did kind of notice a strong odor today, but I thought it was possibly a cleaner that they used to clean the car to get it ready for me. But like I said earlier after coming home and then leaving again to run an errand I could smell cigarette odor.
Just pretty disappointed that I am experiencing this considering the fact that I am spending a lot money on this car and put more than 50% down on it. I didn't leave with the car on Wednesday after the test drive and paying a down payment since they still needed time to complete the 160 point check, do an oil change, replace the air filter, tire alignment, etc. They had 2 1/2 days to deal with the odor or like I said maybe a service worker had a smoke in it since I test drove it on Wednesday...?
I am planning on calling to speak to the service manager tomorrow morning so I just want to have a better idea on what to expect and have a better understanding so I prepare what to say.
Service workers- What is the protocol that you all follow when you receive a trade in from a smoker? Is there a typical cleaning procedure you do? Thinking it could benefit from a steam cleaning. I read a few previous post in the subreddit about a couple of treatments people have done on their own. For example, using a hydroxyl generator, cleaning the evaporator box with BG Frigi-Clean, an ozone treatment, etc. So might need a combination of the two to fully get the smell out of the carpets and seats.
Car owners - Has anyone experienced this and what did the dealership do?
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my post and have any advice given!

Hi all,
So I am 24(m). Used to smoke a pack a day cigarettes from 17 - 20. 21-24 I’ve been on vapes. Some with pods, cartridges, and most recently disposable. The problem with vapes was, it was morning to night and it went with me everywhere I went. For 4 years I forgot what life to not smoke at all. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and vape, vape in the car, plane, work, toilet, study, gaming. It controlled my life.
I had no idea how I was going to stop. I tried a couple of times to quit in the past but the temptation to vape again was insane and my thirst was insatiable.
The max I went without it was 2-3 days and I relapsed and so I gave up on the idea of quitting and would always put it off to in my head eg “once I get over this hump of life or after this diet”.
However, the past few weeks I really got quite close to myself. I was not happy with my habits with no intention to change in the near future. But I started to feel light pain in my chest and would start to get tight chested and just feel off. Waking up in the middle of night to vape. The thought I was hurting myself started to weigh heavy on my mind. I began to think my sleep is getting disturbed because I wake up to vape and also began to see that I never stopped vaping. I began to think about how everyday I was hitting a plastic Chinese made poison inhaler.
I stopped then and there at the middle of the night two weeks ago. I never even felt an urge to vape again. Feels like God or something touched me and woke me up and gave me the courage. Because I never thought I’d be here. It really hurt to think I vaped for this long and did that much damage already. I know two weeks isn’t too long but I DONT CRAVE IT AT ALL ANYMORE AND HAVE NO INTENTION TO SMOKE AGAIN. No charging the vape. No leaking vape. No dry mouth.
The benefits for men especially, your penis will start to get fuller and engorge better and more often. Your sleep will improve and mental health will improve. These are just a few benefits.
For all you struggling. You won’t quit just by thinking your way out of it. YOU MUST TRULY BEGIN TO LOVE YOURSELF AND GET CLOSE TO YOURSELF AND CARE FOR YOUR SELF. Only then will you actually stop and you wont even crave the stupid thing.
You need to want to protect your body and forgive yourself or you will stay in the cycle.
Peace and love.

So as the title says, i'm a 20yo female and i think i like my neighbour (32M) He lives in a house across mine, i usually see him almost every day from the balcony when he's going somewhere, coming home, sitting on the porch to smoke etc. he's extremely handsome and i can't help but fantasize about him sometimes. I can see his room from here and he can also see mine. This started like a year ago but i just kinda forgot about it and moved on. I even sometimes see him at parties i go to but that doesn't happen very often. These last few days i've noticed he's been staring at me (not in a creepy way but checking me out ig) when i'm on my balcony. When i go out to smoke he does it at the same time and we just kinda glance at each other when the other one isn't looking. I even chainsmoke sometimes just to have an excuse to stay on the balcony a little longer and look at him. When i go inside, he goes inside as well. If he doesn't and i go out again i'll see his eyes following me. I light another cigarette, he does it too, at the same time. I changed in front of my window a few times just so he could see me. I actually don't know anything about him, except his age which i found out through social media, but his parents and brother are all really nice . Idk guys maybe i'm just delusional and bored but i find this really hot especially the fact that he shamelessly looks at me while he's lighing his third cig. I know this probably isn't good but i just had to leave this thought somewhere because i'm going crazy and i can't stop thinking about him lol If anyone's had similar experiences let me know lmao.

Uncritically too. If I read it online, I'm gonna take it at face value. Google's AI told me scientists recommend smoking 2-3 cigarettes a day while pregnant, so it must be right.
AI doesn't have the same issues humans do, so it must be even more true.

I need help finding a book. So a year ago or so i was in juvenile hall and i was reading this book. I vividly remember it being called after BUT..the plot was very different compared to the one on netflix. So i don't remember everything but, there was this highschool girl who meets this guy at the gas station smoking a cigarette. Somewhere along the way they meet again at a party have sex and she later falls in love with him. He has this friend or brother who does shady stuff and they plan to do something shady, he ends up getting shot and dying, the ending is her celebrating her 18th birthday. HELP

Hey y’all, I just wanted to make a post about my experience as someone who has seen a decline in their (TW) mental health and self image as well as my experience with drug abuse. As an 18 M who recently just got through their freshman year of college (was much harder than I thought) I went through a huge plethora of traumatic experiences. First it started off in school with a lot of stress from my studies, and to cope if you will I ended up hanging out a lot with friends to distract myself and drinking/vaping and smoking (not cigarettes just vape). I actually started to enjoy drinking which I realize was such a disgusting habit, even though it wasn’t that often but still is something I’m not supposed to be doing. On exactly April 9th I had an extremely horrible experience with edibles (thc+cbd) where I ingested the entire bag which was 800mg this has got to be over exaggerated as I learned the sketchiness of these delta 9 companies. Needless to say I was hospitalized from freaking out, had all sorts of tests done, but ultimately my physical health is fine. I can still feel my heart pound very hard when doing simple things like walking around or taking a hot shower which I hope goes away or else it will be a trip to the cardiologist, but hospital tests say my heart is fine. Anyways, at around the time I had that experience, I crashed my brand new car my parents gifted me for graduating high school and it just felt like the entire world has taken a huge shit on me. Now I think I probably have anxiety, but is not severe enough to treat. Any tips or helpful comments would be appreciated. I feel like a piece of me is missing and I find it hard to enjoy things I used to do such as play video games, hang out with family, or even just playing/making music. It’s been officially two months since what happened, but since my birthday is coming up this month I want to focus on enjoying that. Just a piece of my mind.

The saga continues. Apartment above me being very disruptive from 5 am to 2 am and smoking illicit substances.
Relevant legal outline of my lease: there is a strict no smoking addendum and a clause that states others are responsible for your lease terms and vice versa. There is a clear no disturbance policy that is punishable by eviction.
There have been some developments since I last posted. For starters, I finally had enough and emailed my property managelandlord and politely outlined that the people above me are loud and smoke marijuana that seeps into my apartment a month ago. No response. Emailed again after they came home and started smoking a week later, no response. Finally I called them and the assistant picked up and told me the landlord was handling it. Note, she’s very new so she sounded like she genuinely cared I’m going through this. She advised the landlord was in the process of giving them lease violations. This was the beginning of this week. I thought it would get better, but everything continued. Maintenance cleaned out my AC filter and yet I still smell it when they smoke.
I went in person to the leasing office yesterday and showed them irrefutable proof they’re smoking through my ring camera. It doesn’t matter if it’s drugs or cigarettes, you’re not supposed to smoke within 25 feet of the units. And here my neighbor was, smoking what looked to be marijuana. Showed them proof with time stamps before and after they “gave them violations.” I showed them videos where you can hear my neighbors yelling past noise ordinance with time stamps. The assistant called them and then told me the neighbors were never contacted by the landlord. So she told them to keep it down. She said she wants me to meet with my landlord in person Monday.
It’s clear they were given concrete evidence of violations that imposes on my health and well being and yet they still are not taking action. I pay them a hefty amount to do their job, per the lease agreement. What are my options? What are my legal rights if violations are allowed?

All of them isn't a possibility

I am going through an extremely difficult period with my husband and I desperately need help and advice.
It all started in my postpartum period when he insisted on having visits from his family, something I absolutely did not want.
When our daughter was born, I allowed his family to visit at the hospital because I wanted him to be able to introduce the baby to his family and to avoid the constant barrage of messages asking, "When can we visit the baby?"
As soon as we got home from the hospital, we didn’t even have two hours of peace before his mother and sister were back. That day, I thought the visit would be short, but they stayed until late at night. My husband made dinner for them, and they only left around 10 PM. I felt invaded and disrespected, but I still thought that would be the end of the constant visits and that we would finally have some time just for us, me, him, and our daughter.
I desperately needed that time. I had a vaginal delivery, better than expected, but still resulted in a 1st-degree tear requiring 11 internal stitches. I needed time to rest and heal, but also to get to know my daughter without interruptions, to adapt to this new and challenging phase of motherhood.
However, I was completely wrong. In the weeks that followed, his family wanted to come to our house every week. I tried to say no to my husband, but he simply wouldn’t respect me. I was in despair.
It’s important to note that neither his mother nor his sister are the type to come over to help. Every time, even when I was pregnant, we had to cook for them, and they didn’t even wash the dishes. They would sit on the couch, waiting for us to serve them coffee, tea, or dinner. They never offered to help with my daughter’s clothes or any other household task, and I never asked because, honestly, I didn’t want them here.
When my daughter was 8 days old, they wanted to come over at 9 PM. From that point on, the disagreements became unbearable. That day, I stood my ground and said it wasn’t a time for visits, that I was resting on the couch with my sleeping daughter, and I didn’t want anyone there. My husband didn’t respect me and even told me to go to the bedroom because they were coming anyway. That was the last straw for me. I tried to explain to him what I was going through, that even though our baby was waking up 2-3 times a night, I was exhausted, my breasts were full of milk, and he saw the whole process of my stitches.
Even so, he didn’t respect me. The following weeks were a real hell, and I started making excuses, but he always argued with me. Once, he even cursed at me, and his mother came over anyway. That day, I was already drained, exhausted, and couldn’t take it anymore. On top of all that, when our daughter was born, I didn’t post any pictures on social media and asked no one else to. I informed my family, who understood immediately, but his mother posted personal pictures of our daughter on Facebook without our permission. She said she tried to call us, but since we didn’t answer, she just posted them.
I felt tremendously disrespected and invaded again. The inconvenient visits, the smell of cigarette smoke, passing my baby from hand to hand without asking me how I felt, it was all too much. My husband said he talked to his mother, but I never received an apology and the photos were never removed.
I didn’t want to see her anymore. We never had a good relationship. When I got pregnant, it took her weeks to congratulate me, and she even sent messages to my husband calling me horrible things. She said he was raised to take care of needy people, and that’s why he was attracted to me.
She showed up, and we had already been arguing for two days about her visit. When I saw her car pull into the driveway, I simply snapped and told him, "I don’t want her here, and I don’t want her staying late as she always does. Tell her, or I will. Enough!"
She arrived at 2 PM, my baby was sleeping, and I was lying on the couch. I didn’t want any dialogue with her, I couldn’t even look at her. She made comments like, “You’re not tired, right? She sleeps well at night.” “You’re very lucky, the second one is never this calm.” Hours passed, she started bringing up her problems, began to cry. It was already 7 PM, and I hadn’t eaten all day, refusing to use my rest time to prepare any meal for her.
I told my husband it was time for her to leave, that I needed to rest. He started making dinner, but at the same time, he had to console his mother outside, who was smoking and crying about problems from over 10 years ago.
At 9 PM, my daughter woke up crying, they were outside smoking, dinner hadn’t even started, and I decided to make dinner with my 20-day-old daughter crying in my arms. I called him in front of his mother, handed him our daughter to soothe, and told his mother that I wanted her to leave, that it wasn’t the time or place for this, that I needed to rest. I even mentioned the Facebook photo, exploding with rage and exhaustion. All I heard was, “Thank you for letting me know.”
She left. I made some pasta, gulped it down, and put my daughter to sleep. I couldn’t look at my husband’s face.
After that, he began to understand because he had never seen me lose my temper like that. But at that moment, any respect for him started to die inside me. When I thought they would finally understand and give me some space, I was wrong again. The next week, they started messaging me directly, asking about visits. I made countless excuses because I didn’t want to deal with them. My baby wasn’t even two months old...
They came over other times, all horrible. They would take my daughter without permission, doing it quickly out of fear of my reaction. When his sister brought her 3-year-old son over, without asking, she placed my 1-month-old daughter in his lap. I watched, feeling like dying inside, asking my husband to intervene, and he simply did nothing. He just asked them to put a pillow in his lap. It was extremely distressing.
So many violations seriously affected my relationship with him and his family, which was already not good. I told him I was feeling bad and didn’t want any more visits, that I was almost falling into postpartum depression and needed rest. That’s when he started to respect me. A friend of mine said she would visit me for a weekend, coincidentally on my husband’s birthday weekend.
I asked him not to have a celebration at home because our daughter would be only two months old, and I thought it would be too much to handle a party at home with her. Once again, zero understanding. He arranged a family lunch. He worked a few days before his birthday and couldn’t buy anything, so there I was with a two-month-old baby buying everything for his birthday. As if buying everything wasn’t enough, I also had to cook on the day. I woke up early, and thank God my friend was here to help me cook and take care of my daughter, while he cleaned the house to receive his family.
Detail: He scheduled the family to come at 12 PM and woke up at 10 AM when I called him, I was already completely stressed out.
After cooking all morning, with no time to shower and get ready, the family arrived. My daughter’s naps were totally messed up, and I was desperate because I didn’t want anyone from his family holding her. Unable to escape, his sister took her, passed her to his mother, who started with comments like, “I think she’s too hot.” “I think she’s not feeling well.” I was losing my patience.
He noticed, took our daughter and tried to put her to sleep. She slept, we set the food on the table, and she woke up. I went to get her, try to put her back to sleep, and everyone started eating without waiting for me, celebrating his birthday without me and our daughter. My friend, embarrassed, got up from the table and said she would wait for me to eat and came to keep me company.
I was hurt, as if all that wasn’t enough. When I went to eat, I exploded, saying that it was incredibly disrespectful. I told him in front of everyone, causing a huge argument and ruining his birthday.
After that, it became clear that I was at my limit. He stopped forcing the situation. Now, instead of receiving messages about them coming to our house, they started messaging me to go to their house. I had already made enough excuses, I told him I didn’t want to go anywhere, I just wanted peace.
And yet, here we are, in this cycle of disrespect, sadness, anger, and disappointment, trying to find a solution to a problem that seems never-ending.
When things finally started to settle down and our daughter turned 3 months old, he came with another demand: he wanted his sister and nephew to sleep at our house. Detail: they live only 30 minutes away. I said no, suggesting he go sleep over there with them, since our daughter was starting to establish a routine and I didn’t want to disrupt that. I can't stand serving his family anymore, and it gives me chills to think about doing it for an entire weekend, with no need, and still having to take care of our daughter and maintain her routine.
The arguments continue. Now, with our daughter 3 months and 3 weeks old, he still insists on asking if they can come over two weeks ago, we went to my sister-in-law’s house to celebrate my nephew’s birthday, just us, because the party wouldn’t be appropriate for a 3-month-old baby.) Even so, I suggested that he visit them instead of bringing them here, because I didn’t want to deal with this situation anymore.
I am completely traumatized. My mother even quit her job to come help me and meet her granddaughter, but I can’t have a civilized conversation with him anymore. I am full of anger and can’t forgive him for not respecting my time with our daughter.
There is much more to this story, but this is just a summary. I am at my limit. The only solution I can see is asking for a divorce.
Please, I need some advice. Am I overreacting? I am completely alone and desperate. My support network is zero, and I don’t know what to do.

What I mean is that for example, what good is just saying smoking cigarettes is a sin? It's complicated. It's highly addictive because of nicotine. I see people smoking cigarettes outside. So, what's the good, in just saying it's a sin? We have idolized the idea of "sin" instead of having reasonable discussions.
Jesus said whoever sins is a slave/servant of sin.
So, a person who smoking cigarettes is a servant to smoking cigarettes?
The Bible says whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
So, even not having faith and doing something is sin.
Much more complicated than we thought huh?

This is interesting observation- notice 2 new cigarette/liquor stores opened on university street- I’ve always think Berkeley being health conscious not a place to proliferate smoking.
Store : University & MLK - had awning with Morty name inflatable cartoon in front.
Another on University & California.

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

Hi All,
I have searched and read so many posts on this subreddit and really appreciate all the great recommendation and tips you all share with each other. I was hoping you could recommend hotel spots for a couple to stay at. I checked out all the business hotels and just when I think I found a good spot, I read a review that says something that's a deal breaker for me. Feeling super lost and overwhelmed. Please help with your recommendations.
Looking for hotels within the $80-120 a night. Unfortunately I'm a super light sleeper so any hotels with thin walls wont work (unless I have no other choice). I also have a super smeller nose (it's a curse) so I get migraines from cigarette smoke or even some mold. We dont mind a small room or anything like that as long as the above are not issues. Thankfully Japan bathrooms seem to be larger than some of the hotels we have stayed in other countries!
Our itinerary is the below so any hotel recommendations you have is greatly appreciated!!! We are traveling in Nov.
Day 1-3- Tokyo (Kamakura day trip during one of these)
Day 4 -leave Tokyo stay at Nagoya
Day 5- Nagoya - hope to get tickets for Ghibli
Day 6 -leave Nagoya early stay at Kyoto
Day 7-10- Kyoto (Nara day trip during one of these days)
Day 11- leave Kyoto for Osaka (stay at Osaka)
Day 12-15 Osaka (Day trips to Himeji and Kobe)
Day 16-17 Hakone (already booked an hotel with a nice onsen in Hakone)
Day 18- Leave Hakone for Tokyo (stay at Tokyo)
Day 19-22 Stay at Tokyo until end of trip
Thanks so much! Appreciate the help.

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

this one is long and complicated so buckle up. all names are fake for privacy. sorry for the formatting, i’m on mobile.
relevant info: I am 22, my husband is 22 and a navy veteran.
i gave my brother my old iphone 11 when i upgraded in 2022. i cant remember if i factory reset it or not.
Selena lives in Grant County, OR. My father lives in Walla Walla, WA. My parents got divorced in Oct 2023, and my mother and sister (9)came to live with my myself, my husband and our daughter in Hampton Roads, VA.
the 5 of us are currently driving back from va to wa.
My brother is trans. (FTM)
in summer 2023, my brother, Jaxon (16m) asked if he could go spend a school year with my moms (Liz, 40F) best friend at the time (Selena, 41m). He wanted to do this so he could work on Selena’s dad’s farm and save money for a car. My mom thought it would be good for him, so she signed a power of attorney agreement that expired when the school year was over (june 7, 2024), meaning at that time she relinquished guardianship back to my mother and father, and Jaxon would be driven back home to my parents.
During the school year, i received many middle of the night calls of him sobbing and saying he “couldn’t do this anymore.” he vented to me, sent me videos, and told me these things:

• she misgendered and deadnamed him constantly, forced him to dress femininely
  
• she didn’t pay him for the work he was doing on the farm (from 4 am until school (8AM), then after school (4pm) until 11pm, forcing him to stay up extra late (1-3AM) to complete homework.) i should also note that i have access to his bank account and i have not seen a single deposit for over a year.
  
• she screamed at him constantly, telling him he was a failure (his grades had started slipping from a Bs to a Cs), that he needed to suck it up and quit being a crybaby (he was exhausted and depressed because of poor sleep, being overworked, not being allowed to have friends)
  
• she constantly took away the only phone he had (his only line of communication to myself and my mother) whenever she felt like it. (usually just when she was pissed off)
  
• shoving him, destroying his art projects (he’s a clay sculptor), throwing away his homework if he left it on the table overnight, and much more.
  
• my mother and i both have recorded phone calls of Jaxon secretly calling us while she was screaming at him about something or other
  
• she forced him to detail her truck and he found coke and meth in the truck. he called me, telling me he thought he found drugs. i asked him to describe it to me, and it turned out to be a bag of meth and a bag of coke. i had him send me pictures, which i still have.
  

being across the country, my mother and i couldn’t do anything to help him get out of that situation. every time we offered to buy a plane ticket for him so come to VA, Selena would say “(he) needs to finish school” and my father was out of the country for work until May this year, so he couldn’t do anything either.
we did call the sheriff of grant county for a welfare check (multiple times) and they told us they couldn’t do anything unless there were visible marks or Jaxon’s life was in imminent danger. we called DHS/CPS (in december, when the problems started) and they told us they’d look into it. nothing ever came of that.
The day before school was officially over, Selena searched Jaxon’s backpack and found weed in it. (she had previously told him she didn’t care about weed because it’s legal in oregon) but she flew off the handle, screaming at him for HOURS. (he called me during her rant and some of the things i heard made my blood boil.
She then decided to STRIP SEARCH MY 16 YEAR OLD FTM BROTHER. this was his breaking point. he waited until about 2 AM, when he knew she was in bed, on June 7, then called one of his friends. they drove him back to my fathers house. (from john day OR to Walla Walla, WA.) when Jaxon told me he was with my dad, i relayed the info to Selena. She said “ok good”
about 2 hours after Jaxon had returned to my dad’s care, Selena texted me this:
“(Jaxon) has 24 hours to get (his) ass back here before i go to the police to charge (him) with minor in possession.”
i ignored her, not wanting to engage with her rage baiting. she sent more texts, all threatening to charge my brother (in Oregon) with a MIP (he doesn’t have drugs on his person currently, there is no video/photo evidence that the weed was even Jaxons, and he is back with his legal guardian in WA.)
when she got no response from myself or my mother other than “he’s with his dad”, she switched tactics. and texted me this:
“Please have (Jaxon) call me so i know he is safe”
i replied “ok” and relayed the info to my brother. he refuses to call her because she was horrible to him and he doesn’t want to be screamed at.
when he didn’t call her yesterday, she texted me, telling me she would call CPS on my father, the police, anything she could think of to try and scare me.
i texted her this yesterday at 8 AM after she tried calling me 10 times and texted me over 50 times with no reply.
“(Jaxon) is safe, he's with his parent (which trumps your power of attorney, which is over anyway. boo hoo.) thank god i don't have to pretend to like your snake ass anymore. go ahead and call cps, (Jaxon) has said (father) makes him feel safe, especially from you. so yeah!! go ahead, call CPS, and when they do nothing, go cry. sorry that you can't use my BROTHER for slave labor anymore, guess you'll have to actually HIRE someone at the farm now (boo hoo again). this is your official notice that any further contact with (father), my mother, or (Jaxon) will be documented for a harassment case and restraining order. have a fun life doing meth and being crazy, but don't involve us in it anymore. toodalooo!!!”
she then began texting my mom, threatening me with CPS for videos of me smoking weed (that i sent him on snapchat) and me talking about my struggle with cocaine addiction. (i’ve been clean since Halloween 2020). i haven’t replied to anything, simply screenshotting the messages and call logs, adding them to a folder to turn into police once we get to washington. harassment charges and restraining order.
after no replies, she once again started BOMBARDING my mother with texts. i’m copy/pasting some texts but changing names. my mother also didn’t respond, simply screenshotted and sent the pics to me for the folder.
“If she (referring to me) wants to continue to run her fat mouth....I have no issues releasing the videos I have to the police. Videos that she has no idea I have....from (Jaxon's) phone! I have 2 notebooks full of writing from (Jaxon) and countless screenshots as well as....this is the best part....the entire storage of (his) iPhone. Backups from every social media platform (he) has!!!”
(i know for a fact the backups off the iphone are bullshit bc he’s part of my iphone family and i would be notified if she tried to download anything from the cloud onto an unrecognized device. not to mention that she doesn’t have the icloud password. but that is neither here nor there.)
“"I want you to get the message across to (father) that I'm not playing. (Jaxon) needs to contact me....NOT (father) ....so that I know (Jaxon) is.... SAFE Mentally Stable /not suicidal Not on drugs I'm actually amazed that you and (father) think having her contact me after I have been the one caring for her is to much to ask. It screams dishonesty and feels like you guys are hiding something. There is no reason whatsoever (he) can't speak to me on the phone! If (he) is mad...to bad. If (he) is crying and claiming (he) don't want to talk to me for whatever reason.. oh fucking well. (Jaxon) has always been safe in my presence and in my care so I know for a fact (he) can not claim otherwise.”
“So again armed with enough shit to not only have everyone facing a bunch of charges, but to be garunteed that cps will be knocking at your door in Virginia as well...you might want to have (him) give me a call so this will end before it really truly begins.”
“I'm headed to the police station now. Done playing games. Couch Lusco is also willing to testify in my favor. As is two other teachers that (he) has made claims of abuse to.”
at this point i called my brother, and asked him to just text Selena to get her off my moms back.
this is their entire conversation:
J: I'm safe, mentally stable, not on drugs, and looking to further educate myself over the summer as well as apply for a job or two to pay my way.
S: Call me. Or I'm going to the cops with all the videos. Simple. You don't think I don't know your sister cant access your fb page
J: My sister has access to literally everything on that phone because of the cloud backup. She could wipe it all clean with the press of a button, not to mention a cop isn't gonna take me in for an mip of a cigarette or a blunt. It's not that deep.
(he is referring to the iphone Selena supposedly “backed up”)
Jaxon sent mom the screenshot of their convo, and she sent it to Selena. the following convo ensued:
S: Lmao that was (kyber) on (Jaxon’s) account! IM NOT GOING TO STOP UNTIL I KNOW THAT CHILD IS SAFE (Liz)!!
L: No it was not. I got those DIRECTLY from Jaxon. (mom didn’t reply to any texts after this)
S: I'm going to make everyone lives a giant fucking mess until (he) contacts me....PERIOD Pretty fucking simple. I'm going to take all the information (he) has given me that supports my reasons to be concerned and let the authorities do the rest.
S: Whats funny in all of this is that there is no reason (Jaxon) can't contact me. What am I going to do? Hurt (him) through a phone? Don't be dumb (Liz). Ypu are the only level headed person enough to see the bullshit games this kid will play as well as a good enough mom to understand why I am worried.
S: And (Jaxon) is right...they arnt going to take (him) for an MIP....but they ARE going to investigate the videos further I garuntee that! (He) is a minor and I promise you that they won't take any of it lightly!!!
S: You need to understand that (Jaxon) has already told me what (kyber) does. I know that wasn't (Jaxon) on Facebook because (he) wasn't caught with a fuckkng blunt.
S: What I don't understand is why you guys are acting like it's to much to ask to hear from (him)
S: If (father) does not have the ability or control to make his child behave then why is (he) in his care? Actually It don't matter I have been more then patient It's now a matter of (his) safety! Im going to the police!!!
S: I have never hurt that child or put (him) in a situation to be hurt. I'm perfectly content with (him) staying in walla...but I want to hear (him) say that so I know (he) is safe! If that makes me a bad person....I'm fine with that!!
S: (Liz)...l'm begging you! Please don't make me turn all of this in just because (Jaxon) has made up a bunch of bullshit to play the victim and make everyone look bad!
S: Understand something....I GAIN NOTHING FROM DOING THIS!! (He) either calls me or I spill all (his) secrets and not because I gain a damn thing.....but because I need to know (he) is safe and if (he) refuses to contact me then the only other person I will allow to validate (his) safety is going go be a police officer.
after this text she tried to call my mom more than 20 times in 10 minutes. all of which were declined, screencapped, and sent to me for the folder.
i’m just wondering what to do in this situation? she is threatening to call CPS, the cops, whatever she can do to try and intimidate me, mother, and father.
please help.