Hi all,
I am 25 and have been prescribed birth control since march. Ive been on it for 1.5 months and have started to bleed through it. Mostly its thick old blood and its not a whole lot. But its extremely painful. I feel dizzy, nauseated, low blood pressure, low blood sugar, very fatigued, heavy cramps that almost make me pass out.
So it feels like my regular menstruation but on birth control.
My gyno recommends to just keep holding on and keep taking birth control until our evaluation end of May. But this is intense for me and still impacts my life. Any recs for the symptoms? I take naproxen and tylenol.

This will be my first colonoscopy (32F) due to some rectal bleeding which I’m pretty certain is just from hemorrhoids but my doctor and I want to be totally sure. I followed a low residue diet 4 days before the liquid diet started (white toast, canned fruit, chicken, white rice). The day before all liquids, I had some applesauce and lime jello for breakfast and all liquids until a small meal for dinner (white rice and chicken). Yesterday I consumed only clear liquids which was surprisingly easy. At 3pm I started drinking the Golytely which I mixed with 2 bottles of lime Gatorlyte, two lemon-lime flavoring packets, AND the flavor pack you get with the Golytely from the pharmacy. I filled the rest up with water. I’ll be honest, I expected the taste to be way worse. It has a weird salty taste but I was imagining it to be much more nauseating. I refrigerated the mixture for about 5 hours beforehand which helped. After each 8 ounce intake, I took a sip of ginger ale with extra ginger (Reed’s brand) which cleansed my pallet and helped a LOT. I kept the mixture in the fridge between drinking. It was about an hour before I had to start going, before even finishing the first round of the drink. I had some bloating but it went away immediately after the first BM. I basically sat on the toilet for a full hour before I didn’t have the urge anymore. This wasn’t painful at all though like a stomach bug or upset stomach. I just had a lot of tummy rumbling. The sensation of liquid coming out was rather strange at first but not uncomfortable like I thought. I finished drinking all 68 ounces around 4:30 and had maybe 3 more trips to the bathroom after that before going to bed. I woke up at 5 this morning and was still passing only liquid but it was darker than last night. I started on the next round of the drink starting at 6:30a until about 7:30. It’s 9:30 now and I’ve spent a lot of time in the bathroom (similar to last night) but I think I’m done as I’m going clear. The urges have also subsided. Now I’m just trying to occupy my mind and plan my post-procedure meal (!!!) until I go into the facility at 11:45. I’m not a huge fan of anesthesia so I’m a little nervous but I know everything will be fine.
Overall, I found the prep process to be relatively easy which I know is the part most people loathe. My biggest worry at this point is that the hemorrhoids will be more painful from the scope afterward.
Hopefully this helps someone who has a procedure coming up!

I’m a 21F, 5’7 (170cm) and currently 68.7kg (151lbs). The only medical condition i have is Asthma and for the past few months i’ve been having a few weird symptoms that has scared me a bit so i wanted to share here to see if maybe i need to see someone or if im actively dying and i have no idea.
so the symptoms are :

• lost 11kgs ( 24.3lbs) in the past 2 months with no effort
  
• weird pressure headache on the left side of my head that feels like someone is pushing my head apart from the inside and also causes me to get extreme blurred vision and i “zone out” until i come to my senses
  
• loss of appetite
  
• vomiting, always feel nauseated and dizzy
  
• cold like symptoms such as runny nose, fatigue, sore throat
  
• intense sharp pains that appear either on the lower left side of my abdomen or above my belly button and sometimes it lasts for hours
  
• passed out on 2-3 occasions in the past 3 months
  
• extreme brain fog, memory loss, confusions
  
• sometimes it feels like my heart is beating so fast when i’m just laying down it give me chills and gets me so dizzy
  

those are the symptoms that i’m mostly struggling with for now but i don’t drink unless very special occasions, i don’t smoke and i usually just take edibles sometimes but it’s been a while since i’ve done any of those so i’m not sure what’s happening because it’s been going on for the past 2 months and i don’t want to go see a doctor unless it’s a cause for concern.
if anyone can help that would me much appreciated 💗

Since 11pm last night I’ve been super nauseous and throwing up. Threw up at least 9 times all just liquid. Been on the toilet as well. Haven’t slept at all and texted my boss I’m taking PTO to do urgent care.
Popped on virtual urgent care this AM and suddenly I feel much better. Nausea has subsided. Doc tells me prob just a bug. Ride it out. WTH. Ok great.
Wife feels fine and ate all the same foods I did. So I just freaked out and thought well heck maybe it’s the Mounjaro shot I took yesterday. I’ve never been this nauseated and thrown up that many times before. Been on 10mg for months now. Was worried about pancreas issues…goodness I wish I wasn’t such a worry wart. My anxiety makes my life 1000% harder. Every ache and pain is a failing heart/livepancreas/kidney in my eyes!
So if you’re like me and rush to reddit to look up your symptoms…take a step back and it might just be A stomach bug…

Hey now, I never said that there was only one more upload before the reveal, just one more chapter. Full disclosure, though, there will be two more parts at least, but only because so much is going to happen in such a short span of time that's necessary. Again, thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for creating this universe and to u/Acceptable_Egg5560 who's been a fantastic person to work and write with!
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Memory Transcription Subject: Vekna, Determined Investigative Journalist. Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 31st, 2136
Thank the Herd there are so many people around right now.
I never thought I’d ever think something like that, but even I can’t deny that the cover of others makes slipping by undetected far easier. Our approach was going well until, upon approaching the temple, we had found a security checkpoint blocking our path. Not wanting to risk detection, Sharnet had dragged me upstream through a small herd of people exiting, much to my internal displeasure. I had needed to keep myself stiff as people of all manners passed by us, their thunderous footsteps flooding my ears and their careless tails scraping along my body. Had Sharnet not been holding my paw, I’d have likely collapsed on the spot.
As if I need another reminder of my true nature.
Once we had gotten through, we had set our sights on the temple ahead of us. Sharnet postulated that Malcos would want to hide his operations from the normal goings on of the temple, and I had been inclined to agree. To start our search, we made our way around the three massive pyramids surrounding the main tower. Unfortunately, we had found nothing there except for loose rock and stone, so we had decided to redouble our efforts on the centerpiece of the temple: the Spire of Solgalick.
“We should check around the base for any hidden or guarded basements,” Sharnet whispers to me as we make our way up the stairs towards the Spire. Seeing it from a bird’s eye view doesn’t do the sheer scale of the building justice. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Stonebuilder himself constructed this place. “I haven’t seen anything of the like on the steps, which means our in must be inside the spire itself.”
“That could be dangerous,” I caution, grunting as I adjust my travel case on my back. I hadn’t wanted to wear them, but Sharnet had insisted that they’d help us blend in better with the other travelers making their cyclical migration to the holy site. By the number of people I’ve witnessed doing the same, I can safely say she had been right. “If we’re spotted before we can pop the cans, we’ll be taken away for sure!”
“That’s why we won’t be spotted,” Sharnet says as she starts drifting to the right. I follow suit upon seeing a Venlil guard looking over the crowd to the left, a bored expression on their features. “With all these people around, we’re essentially invisible to anyone not truly looking for us. All we need to do is get to a point where we can lob the cans into the crowd and cause an evacuation. After that, everything should go to plan. Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts about a plan you made now,” Sharnet ribs, giving a low whistle shortly thereafter.
“No no, I still think it will work,” I say to try and assuage both Sharnet’s concerns…and my own. “It’s just…what if something goes wrong? If the guards don’t disperse like we want? If Malcos doesn’t come out like we need him to? What if-” I was going to continue listing things that could go wrong, but a familiar shade of brown catches my eye amidst the sea of gray and tan. “...Hold that thought, actually. We might not need the distraction to lure Malcos out after all.”
Before Sharnet can ask what I mean, I begin to pull her through the sparse herd, walking perpendicular in pursuit of that shade of brown. As I finally get a clear line of sight on them, I can confirm that they’re the same Yotul that had left Vane’s manor earlier in the claw. I watch them make their way up the stairs just a bit behind us, and sign to them with my tail so Sharnet can see too. She scans the area for a short moment before her ears shoot up, telling me that she recognizes the Yotul as well.
“There,” I say as quietly as I can while still being heard over the noise of the herd around us. “He was with Vane before. If we follow him, he’ll lead us right to the drugs, and more importantly, Malcos,” I say as I track the brown Yotul through the crowd, zeroing in on his position.
Sharnet’s ears flick forward in approval. “He doesn’t know what we look like, either! We don’t even have to worry about getting too close! We should still keep an eye out for any potential guards or Exterminators. Don't want to tip them off.”
I signal my understanding, and we start to slowly move our way through the crowd closer to the Yotul. It’s a laborious process, sticking just far enough away to avoid drawing suspicion, but we manage alright enough. We only briefly lose sight of him as he crosses the threshold of the stairs, but we quickly regain line of sight once we catch up. He dodges around a massive stone pillar, and to be safe, Sharnet and I cross the other side. However, our target isn’t the only thing that catches our eyes once we’re in the open air of the spire’s ground floor atrium.
There it is. The Statue of Solgalick.
It’s honestly a wonder, a statue standing over two stories tall still supported by its legs and tail upon the ground. Externally, it doesn’t beget much consideration, but the internal forces acting upon it must be immense. The statue looks to be fashioned of a white marble that gleams as brilliantly as the sun shining behind it, the symbol of which shines silver in its chest. Ten arms are raised at various angles at its sides, grasping all the tools of Solgalick’s domain, at least from what I remember learning as a child.
{-ALERT: Multiple Untranslatable Words Upcoming-}
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{-For Further Context, Please Consider These Resources(funny link)-}
The shaalna [Closest Translation: Sickle] of harvest bounty and the ahboorh [Closest Translation: Hammer] of industry are held in the lowest pair, closest to the ground where they would be used. A sun-shaped uurkhiil [Closest Translation: Shield] to protect from predators and twin nihaant [Closest Translation: Scales] of judgment reside in the middle pair, to protect the worthy and judge the sinful. Two pairs of its hands are empty, the lower set just above the shaalna and ahboorh cupping around the symbol on its chest while the upper set above the uurkhiil and nihaant had their hands spread to hold the world. Finally, raised above its head, are the two suljiit [Closest Translation: Torches] Solgalick uses to guide people through this life and send them to the next. The beliefs of the Followers are similar enough to the Church of the Herd for my father to have taught me some of them before… I ought to visit him once this is all over.
Yet for some reason, the statue gives me pause. I can’t place a claw on what, but it feels… wrong somehow. I squint, trying to scrutinize what’s causing that tickle in my brain. The statue is magnificent, beautifully maintained despite its age from what I guessed was the tender care of the priests. I could even see the evidence of thorough polishing on his braziers and helmet.
Wait. Not both braziers. A brazier, and the helmet. Where one is carved from marble with a metal basin, allowing the endless flames to burn, the other, completely metal one looks… damaged, despite its gleam. As if parts have been worn down over and over from the removal of… rust, maybe? Upon closer inspection, the left side’s brazier appears thin and brittle, shining like glass and looking just as fragile. Not only that, but the helmet appears to be in even worse condition, scrapes and pits scattered across its reflective, but clearly rusted, surface. Sure, the statue itself isn’t perfect: the paws and tail have some damage where the Followers would rub them, and flecks of dust stick to the body, but the helmet gives the impression it would be eaten away at any second.
Heh. Maybe we’ll see Solgalick’s face if it does.
But I can’t let myself get distracted by the statue, no matter what may or may not have happened just recently. It’s a good thing that I did, too, as I see the Yotul crouched by the base of the statue. I brush Sharnet’s legs with my tail to draw her attention back on course, just in time to watch our target enter something into a numpad. A slight hissing can be heard as the Yotul slips from sight. I don’t want to take any chances with self-closing backdoors this time around, so I grab Sharnet’s paw and begin booking it towards where the Yotul had disappeared to.
As I round the base, I see an indentation in the stone with a cold, blue light coming from within. Just as the hidden door starts to close, I block it with my paw, hoping that it has standard safeguards installed. To my relief, and the relief of my paw, it stops as soon as it feels stiff resistance and opens back fully. I huff anxiously as I slip my travel pack off my shoulders and barricade the door with it. “Okay, we need to be quiet. Leave your pack out here, I’ll use mine as a doorstop. Once we get some cans of Sun Bliss, head topside and scatter them around. I’ll do my best to draw Malcos out in the open. From there? I’ll leave it to you to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
Sharnet lowers her head and straightens her ears, signaling her preparedness. I’m glad she’s feeling that way, because I’m certainly not. Once her bag is safely pressed against the base of Solgalick’s statue, she joins me in the cramped tunnel. I place my own case against the opened door, ensuring that it would remain that way until disturbed by Sharnet. Hopefully by Sharnet, in any case. We moved forward closer towards the edge of the spiral, and the tunnel became a descending staircase. We made our way down for several minutes, the passageway obviously new by the metal in its construction. As we pass one of the blue lights illuminating our descent, a realization hits me. “This is like the maintenance tunnels in Sidestar. These lights are too dim to have ever been in public use.”
“Hmh, maybe I gave Malcos too little credit,” Sharnet answers as the steps continue down. “If I had known that he’d be holed up in some underground bunker, I would’ve included a lot more places in my pool of initial searches.” As she says that, faint noises start to enter our ears. It sounds like when the warehouse in Dawn Creek was preparing to pack up shop, but more. Much more.
By the time the stairs become a level path again, I conclude we must have descended well below the base of the spire. As we approach the bottom of the steps, I hear the hiss of a door ahead of us, followed by a click as it shuts once again. I hold out a paw to stop Sharnet, investigating ahead. Far down the tunnel, I quickly find a single door in our path, and after checking it for any clearance locks, I open it to see what I find. All at once, the noises we heard hit my ears like a cargo hauler. It’s disorienting, spiking a quick pain in my ears as I struggle to adjust to the cacophony I thrust myself into. After a few nauseating moments, I finally manage enough to lift my eyes to the room and start to survey it.
Room is an understatement, this place could double as a spaceport in of itself! Chances are that’s exactly what this is, what existed prior to the sprawling complex that now flanks the temple on the surface. Multiple mobile landing pads hold shuttles being loaded with all manner of illicit substances, hundreds if not thousands of workers scurrying around the cavernous space below. Besides the old cargo shuttles, a couple of truly enormous dedicated freighter vessels rest dormant as they, too, are loaded with contraband. Slightly below us,, suspended monorails bring yet more supplies in to be loaded for transit, placing the cap on an immense and intricate underground network, quite literally in this case.
“This place is way bigger than I thought,” Sharnet says, gawking at the scenery from our elevated position on the catwalk. Before I can respond, she points at one of the personnel lifts, a brown form visible within it. “There he goes! You follow after him, I’ll get those cans of Sun Bliss from down below.” I flick my ears and start after him, only to have Sharnet firmly grasp my shoulder. I turn to look at her, confusion likely evident on my features. “And Vekna? Be careful.”
I lock her gaze for a single, eternal moment before I sign affirmatively. “I will.” With that, she releases me, and for the first time in a long time, we go our separate ways. As I speed towards the lift that would lead me towards Malcos, I glimpse Sharnet descending on a lift of her own, down towards the chaos of the bustling underground port. For a moment, I wonder if she chose her task because of my fear of crowds, but I dismiss that notion for concern over what it might entail. I’m…not ready to tell her yet. I don’t want to lose her friendship.
The lift I enter is as noisy as it is swift, causing me to stagger in place as it rockets me upwards a short distance. I come to a stop at the uppermost catwalk, the only thing between me and a [100 m] drop being a grated walkway. Thankfully, despite all the things I do have, I don’t possess a fear of heights. I’m careful to stay in the shadows as I trail behind the Yotul, making sure I’m as hidden as possible. As we go, I notice a small protrusion in the ceiling, a small room with windows looking down over the hangar. Of course, traffic control. Where else would Malcos be but looking over the progress of his operation?
As the Yotul enters the room, I know that I won’t be able to follow him without being spotted. I look around for a moment before I see a vent in the ceiling above me. It’ll be close, but I should just be able to reach up to it if I stand on the railing. Not wanting to waste a [second], I quickly find a corner to climb up on. Once balanced on the railing, I carefully slide my way towards the grate, careful not to let my paws slip. I almost fall once, only barely catching my balance as my heart hammers in my chest, but I manage to make it to the grate. I pop it out of its socket and pull myself up with some difficulty. I hurriedly replace the grate and start crawling through the shaft towards the room.
Thankfully, it’s basically a straight shot from my position to the control room, the sounds of conversation hitting my ears even as far as halfway there. “...glad to see that Vane actually heeded my instructions for once,” a harsh, gravelly, but distinctly Venlil, voice says, their words distorted by echoing through the ventilation shaft. Once I get closer, I can hear much more clearly. “I assume you come bearing tidings of good news, Clemmit?”
“Yes, Vane dispatched me to give you the all clear,” the Yotul says. I think I remember Vane also calling him by that name, which means it must be his. “I still don’t understand why I had to make it all the way here when a digital message would’ve been far faster. I know you’re worried about those journalists, but there’s no way they-”
“Them? No, I’m not concerned about them. Even if they booked the first flight here, they’d be too late,” the harsh-sounding Venlil wrongly assures Clemmit. Only now does it dawn on me who this has to be, shivers shooting down my spine. Malcos.
His fur is silver with age, though I can tell even from here that he hasn’t let that stop his physical prowess save from his left leg. That particular one was in a mobility brace, not dissimilar from Tarlim and Vane’s, albeit holding together far better than the latter example’s are. In addition, long, jagged marks scar his face, no fur growing back to cover the faintly orange flesh beneath. Someone injured him a long time ago.
“No, what I’m worried about is what happened after. The reason I instigated this comms silence is a far more tangible threat. When the Exterminators arrived on the scene, after some workers came running to them about it, they found the warehouse burned to the ground and everyone else dead.”
I couldn’t repress a soft gasp at that sordid realization, but Clemmit’s own was loud enough to cover mine. “You don’t think…?” Clemmit asked, his hackle fur raised in concern. “I mean, after what he did to you-”
“I need no reminders of what that mute freak did to me. I live with them every day,” Malcos explains, gesturing to his leg and facial scars. “The officers took it as the engines igniting a fire after the crash, but I know better. I fear he’s somehow caught onto our trail, likely by riding the tails of those nosy do-gooders. By the state the Exterminators found Kevros’ head in, there’s no doubt in my mind that if we do not leave now, none of us shall live.” I try to soften my breathing as much as possible so I can hear more about what they’re discussing and perform some reconnaissance of the control room.
Malcos gives an agitated huff and whips his head around towards the converted spaceport below, his tail lashing behind him. “I can barely believe how foolish I was to think I could turn that lardball’s bastard child into something more than the tainted man he received his genes from. I still remember how he tried so desperately to sound normal, begging me for that electrolarynx. The only reason I didn’t throw him in with the other diseased was to keep Vane in my good graces, but both that monster’s and his sperm donor’s priorities have since…shifted. I’m sure you’re acquainted with the latter’s alterations quite intimately.”
Clemmit shuffles uncomfortably on his feet as I process that information. Whoever this “mute freak” is that caused the deaths of all the people we left there, they’re also apparently Vane’s child. Given that Lervua didn’t mention him, that means that they’re likely older than her. I’ll need to fill in Sharnet about this afterwards. “Y-Yes, I have. He’s, uh, taken a liking to human foodstuffs. Those with…uh, with cheese especially.”
“I’m well aware of his taint, Clemmit, you have no need to convince me of it. Hopefully that last order of “been and…blugh, and cheese bureetos” will keep him occupied long enough for everything to be packed away. If those irksome journalists fall for the trap, all the better. That simply yields two starchbulbs from one stem.” Malcos’s tone is as cold as space itself, each of his words dripping with a palpable venom.
“Wait- you intend on leaving him here??” Clemmit asks, a confused tone in his voice. In between his words, I swear I can feel sporadic vibrations, but I chalk that up to the spaceport’s ventilation system. “But, what about the local office?? They’re under his payroll! If he catches wind of this-”
“He won’t,” Malcos interrupts, holding a finger up as he turns his head to look at the Yotul with his piercing gaze. I can now clearly feel vibrations through the vent and hear the rattling of the catwalks, along with what sounds like a dying conditioning…oh speh. “Nothing short of Vane coming here himself will change that fact, and even then only if you prefer a hole through your head, Clemmit. Besides, it’s not like that blithering fatass will be able to drag himself away from h-”
The door to the control room thunks open, and an all too familiar wheezing noise fills the room. Clemmit turns to the sounds surprised, whereas Malcos has a look of shock etched on his gnarled face. From the entrance, the bloated form of Vane waddles in, panting and wheezing profusely as he tries desperately to say something. Two guards come from the corners of the room to try and stop him, but Malcos curtly waves them down. “S-Sir!” Clemmit cries, rushing to Vane’s side to keep up appearances. He guides the obese Venlil to a couple of dusty control seats to sit him down, much to Malcos’ visible annoyance.
“You- What are you Doing Here?!” Malcos hisses at the panting blob, his own mobility brace whirring in a much more healthy manner compared to the puffs and sparks emanating from the ‘ambassador’s.’ “You are supposed to be at your manor keeping watch for the journalists!! What in the brahking Herd are you doing away from your post??”
Vane is unable to respond for a moment more as he continues to huff and wheeze, but understandable words eventually emit from his gullet. “S-Solgalick! Th-They -wheeze- they’ve damned me!! Y-You -haff- you have to get me -huff- off-world now!!”
“Wh-Solgalick?? Have you lost what little remains of your mind?!” Malcos questions incredulously before his ears perk up and he starts to whistle. “Oh my, it would seem that your diet finally caused you to have a stroke. About time, really. You made me lose a bet regarding its timing many rotations ago.”
“It’s -hrff- it’s real!!” Vane protests, Clemmit looking between the two uncertainly. “T-There was a voice and- and this light and everything! At the -puff- a-at the Governor’s Kitchen! I-I head Them! Everyone heard them! The whole restaurant!!” I barely suppress a whistle at how gullible Vane is, to fall for our ruse so easily. If it was one, anyways. However, Malcos doesn’t respond. He refuses to for a concerning amount of time, almost like he’s thinking. “H-Hello?!” Vane asks, waving his paw in front of his face. “Malcos, now is not the time to play statue!”
Upon that quip, a low, menacing whistle escapes Malcos’ throat, which grows into a hearty guffaw. Malcos and Clemmit look as confused as I feel, but I can tell that this laugh isn’t for any good reason. Once he settles, Malcos takes a long inhale before addressing Vane again. “...They’ve arrived, haven’t they?” Vane tries to respond, but Malcos slaps a nearby console with his tail to silence him. “That was rhetorical. If you’re here and ranting about Solgalick, that means you couldn’t enjoy your bounty for some reason, some reason I believe we all know.”
“But- that’s impossible!” Clemmit protests, standing from his inspection of Vane’s battered braces. “I left not even an eighth-claw ago, and the incident wasn’t even a full claw ago! Ther-” He’s about to continue, but Vane stops him, flicking his ears somberly to convey what he and Malcos both somehow know.
“That hasn’t stopped them before. They have a knack with arriving early, if you remember the readings from that old lumber mill. Somehow, some way, they’re in Scorched Sands, and you left them in your manor all alone, didn’t you Vane?” Malcos turns towards Vane, his mere presence sapping the warmth from my body. “You left them, unsupervised, when you’re well aware of the kinds of stunts they’ve pulled before.”
Vane tries to speak, but can’t get anything out from between his chubby cheeks. Malcos scoffs, and approaches him. “You do understand what that might allow them to do, yes?” He leaned in close to Vane, his eye mere [millimeters] away from Vane’s. “Escape, Vane. You have likely allowed them. To. Escape.” He then places his paws on Vane’s braces, and with a swift motion, does something to them. Whatever it was, the braces unlatch and quickly explode off of Vane’s compressed thighs with a stiff hiss. Vane yelps and Clemmit steps back as Malcos steps back, his tail swaying smugly behind him. “That is not a luxury I will afford you, Magister Vane. Clemmit, you are to keep watch over him, call the Exterminators, and ensure he stays here until they arrive. You will take the blame for this operation, Vane, as was intended from the beginning.”
“Wh- y- how dare you?!” Vane sputters, trying to stand but failing entirely without the aid of his braces. “I am an Ambassador! This is an outrage! Conspiracy! You have no right to speak to me in th-”
“Unless you wish for your pathetic life to be extinguished here and now, I would highly suggest you choose your next words very carefully, Magister,” Malcos says, a hint of glee in his voice upon finally telling Vane off to his face. “Heh, I wonder if this office will collapse like so many others once Tarva finally breaks the news,” Malcos whistles to himself whilst pacing around the room. “Perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to be incinerated along with the few containers of drugs we’ll leave. At least then you won’t be caught up in the madness about to swallow this planet. I anticipate the fires that will engulf the most fervent towns will make even Solgalick Themselves blu…sh…”
Malcos trails off and grows unnaturally quiet as Clemmit starts to quietly collect the separated halves of Vane’s mobility devices. I make sure that I’m as silent as possible as the weathered Venlil stares out the window to the cavernous expanse below. I can hear my own heartbeat as the [seconds] drag on, everyone present waiting for Malcos to return to life. Then, suddenly, Maclos turns to Vane, Clemmit, and his guards, the skin visible through his scars pale as he mutters two simple words that make my heart drop.
“They’re Here.”
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You sit shoulder to shoulder in the auditorium. Your scratchy black suit rubs against two arms wrapped in finer material. You shift in your seat, moving uncomfortably in the plush chair beneath you. Your leg is shaking; you are anxious for the show to begin. The massive room rumbles with murmurs of conversation—inquisitions about how the show will be, complaints of hunger, protests of too-tight clothing, and ties choking necks. You are silent.
September 6, 1981
Louise trudged up the dusty gravel path towards her home, a rotted trailer perched atop a steep hill. The bus driver never ventured up the path, leaving Louise to trek the quarter mile herself. She stopped momentarily and watched as the yellow bus sped away; the shadow of a lone hand waved her goodbye. She waved back, too late for anyone to see it, “Bye, Miles.”
Her house stank of cigarette smoke. The soft shag carpet collected to odor, spitting it out with every step. The windows and walls were yellowed with nicotine. The trailer was quiet; the constant droning of the radiator was the only thing to be heard. Louise set her backpack down and walked into the kitchen to make herself dinner. Her mother wouldn’t be home for several hours, and school lunch was never enough.
After Louise ate a measly bowl of microwaved leftover Kraft, she sat down to do her homework. She pulled out the math sheet they had gotten that day. Numbers shifted and combined; they peeled off the page and swam around her. Louise needed help. She dialed a number she knew by heart. The line rang.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered, her voice slightly distorted through the phone.
“Hi, Mrs. Wilson,” Louise said in a timid voice.
“Hi, Louise,” Mrs. Wilson’s voice softened, “I’ll get him for you.”
Louise heard her muffled yell, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Hey Louise! What’s up?” a boy's voice asked.
“Hi, Miles. Have you done your math homework?”
“I’m doing it right now.”
Louise stretched the cord to where she sat at the table, “Great.”
The lights dim, and silence washes over the crowd. The curtains part. Fifty people in tuxedos sit on stage, various instruments in hand. The conductor stands tall. He introduces the orchestra, lifts his gloved hands, and the music begins.
March 9, 1983
“You’re still coming, right?” Miles questioned nervously.
“Yes, Miles, I’m still coming,” Louise rolled her eyes before smiling at him.
Miles relaxed a little bit, “Okay, good.”
Miles had mousy brown hair that was cut short. His dad had served in the military, so he thought this boy should have a ‘man’s haircut.’ He was tan even in the wintertime. He had bright hazel eyes that glowed electric green in the sunlight. Louise was about an inch taller than Miles, a fact she was immensely proud of.
The pair walked down the school hallway. It was Friday. Wonderful, glorious Friday. Louise rejoiced in the days that she didn’t have to come into school and pretend she liked people— pretend she liked anything, really. She hated the teachers, her peers, the hospital grey of the walls. She liked Miles. He ignored the cigarette stink of her clothes and the rudeness of her tone.
Today was Miles’ birthday. He’ll be ten. Miles had invited everyone to the party; there would be a bounce house. He’s ‘going all out for the big one o’ as he kept telling Louise. She was nervous about the party; her gift was okay at best, and she dreaded the disappointed but polite smile she knew Miles would pull.
“My mom will be here right after school to pick us up. You know what my mom’s car looks like, right?” Miles asked.
“Yeah, I remember.”
Lousie walked out to Mrs. Wilson’s car, a sleek, silver Porsche; Louise felt like a celebrity when she rode in it—rich and important.
“Hi, Louise,” Mrs. Wilson smiled, “How was school?”
“Hi, Mrs. Wilson. It was good.”
Louise settled into the plush leather seats and set her backpack in front of her. They sat in silence for a moment, the soft drum of the radio filling the air. Miles ripped open the door, excitement lighting up his face. He sat down, his position mirroring Louise’s.
“Hey, buddy. How was your day?” Mrs. Wilson asked.
“It was great, Mom,” he smiled.
She smiled back warmly, “Well, that’s good.”
Mrs. Wilson pulled out of the parking lot, Louise and Miles chatted idly about school and the party. After a short while, they pulled up to Miles’ house—a two-story white house with columns in front. Louise loved it. Sometimes, during sleepovers, late at night, she pretended it was hers. She quietly walked down hallways, running her fingertips across the smooth wallpaper. She felt the soft carpet on her bare toes and imagined it knew the shape and weight of her foot. She opened the fridge and pretended not to be surprised at the selection of food that awaited her. Then, she would return to Miles’ room and lie down next to him in the sleeping bag he lent her, stare up at the tiny glowing stars stuck on his ceiling, and pretend it was her and her mom that put them up— that it was her mom that held the step stool for her so she wouldn't fall.
Louise and Miles hopped out of the car, ran up to his room, and plopped their bags down. They still had a few hours before their other classmates would arrive. They sat on the ground and leaned against the bed. Louise pulled out Miles’ gift from her bag and handed the small gift bag to him, “Happy Birthday.”
“It’s not time for the party,” Miles said, confusion evident in his voice.
Louise shrugged, “I wanted to give it to you now.”
Miles smiled at her before gently taking the tissue paper out of the bag and reaching in. He pulled out a light blue paper swan. Lousie had spent hours getting the folds just right so the paper was sharp instead of rumpled. It was beautiful.
“Louise,” Miles started, his face curved into a slight frown, like he was about to cry, “Thank you.”
“Do you really like it?” Louise asked nervously; she fidgeted with her fingernails.
Miles set the swan down gently and dove towards her, wrapping her in a hug, “I love it.”
The party was a hit. Louise nearly made herself sick from the combination of an ungodly amount of candy and jumping in the bounce house. Almost everyone from their class was there, shoving presents in Miles’ hands before running to the snacks and entertainment. Night fell, and Louise climbed in the Porsche again, though it was just her and Mrs. Wilson this time.
“Did you have a good time, Louise?” she asked, making eye contact through the rearview mirror.
“Yeah, it was awesome. Thank you for having me,” Louise responded, polite as ever.
“Oh, you are always welcome, sweetie,” Mrs. Wilson smiled.
Louise looked out the window for the rest of the drive, the stars blurring against the black night sky. They pulled up to Louise’s house; her driveway was empty.
“Are you sure you are okay until your mom gets here?” Mrs. Wilson asked.
Louise smiled fakely, “Yeah I’ll be alright. She should be home soon.”
“Okay, sweetheart.”
Louise climbed out of the car and walked to her door. She looked back before stepping inside—Mrs. Wilson’s face was a mirage of pity and sympathy. Louise waved and stepped inside, choking down guilt as she did.
The sweet sound of a violin fills your ears—a lone instrument bellowing a quiet tune. It starts slow—soft, like a warm hand caressing your face, a mother wiping away your tears.
You forget yourself for a moment; you are back in your childhood home, where your bed is indented with your shape. You smell your favorite meal being cooked downstairs. You hear your mother humming her favorite song from the kitchen. Your father isn’t home yet. You are excited to see him.
You wish it were real.
It is not.
June 11, 1984
Louise was having a terrible day. Her mother was off work and slumming around the house— she was like a ghost in her own home, and she had nothing to do. They didn’t have cable this month, so Louise’s options were to sit in her bed and do nothing or visit Miles. She chose the latter. Louise bid her mom a short goodbye, telling her where she was going and not much else, and peddled off on her bike. She was drenched by the time she arrived at Miles’ house. So she ditched her bike in the grass and ran to ring the doorbell. Mrs. Wilson answered.
“Oh. Hello, Louise,” she smiled.
Mrs. Wilson was a nice woman, and Louise absolutely loved her. She was as thin as a twig but had a motherly warmth about her that Louise itched for. Miles was the spitting image of her, matching her tanned skin and bright eyes.
“I’m afraid Miles isn’t here,” she continued.
“Oh,” Louise said, disappointment swirling around her tongue.
“I’m sorry, hun,” Mrs. Wilson gave her a sympathetic look, “He’s out with his dad fishing for the day.”
“That’s okay,” Louise lied and started to walk back to where she abandoned her bike.
“Wait a second, sweetheart,” she called, “Do you want some lemonade? I’d hate to just send you home after you rode all this way.”
“Sure, Mrs. Wilson. Thank you.”
Louise followed her into the kitchen and sat down at one of the barstools to wait. It wasn’t long before she had a nice tall glass of lemonade in front of her and a bag of chips in her hand.
“You can go watch TV if you want,” Mrs. Wilson smiled at her, “I’ll be out in the garden if you ever need anything.”
“Okay, thank you,” Louise said.
She wandered into the living room, and the plush carpet under her feet felt amazing. She flicked on the television and turned it to her favorite cartoon station. She did feel strange behaving like she lived there, especially when the house was empty, but her desire to relax in the air conditioning trumped the feeling. She mindlessly watched Jerry outsmart Tom in the comfort of a home that wasn’t her’s.
Louise finished her snack but didn’t feel like returning home; she knew her mother would be there, heating the house with cigarettes and sex. Mary had moved on from Steve quickly. So, she laid down and continued watching television. At some point, she fell asleep. Louise woke up to the soft voices of Miles’ parents talking in the kitchen. Someone had turned the TV off and taken her dishes. She could hear the shower running upstairs. Louise had no idea what time it was; the sun was now visible in the living room windows, the sky was orange. She was about to get up and ask Mrs. Wilson when she heard her name. Miles’ parents were talking about her. She got up as quietly as she could and snuck closer to the swinging kitchen door.
“Is there something we can do?” Mrs. Wilson asked her husband in a concerned tone.
“I don’t think so, Jenny,” Mr. Wilson responded, “She just has a hard life, that’s all.”
“I feel like we should do more for her.”
Mr. Wilson sighed, “We can only help her when she’s here. You know what Mary thinks about handouts.”
“Oh, poor Mary,” Mrs. Wilson said, her tone sympathetic, “I should call her and tell her Louise is gonna stay the night.”
Louise heard footsteps sound in her direction. She ran as softly as she could back to her position on the couch, feigning sleep. Mrs. Wilson swung open the door and picked up the phone that hung on the wall next to it. Louise heard the click-clack of buttons being pressed, the muffled ringing, and then her mother’s voice on the other line.
“Hey, Mary,” Mrs. Wilson said, “Is it alright if Louise stays here tonight? She passed out on the couch and I don’t think it’d be smart to have her ride home now.”
Lousie couldn’t hear her mother's exact words, but she must have said it was fine because the next thing Louise knew, she was being picked up and carried up the stairs. Mrs. Wilson set her down in a room she was unfamiliar with. She figured it was the guest room. Mrs. Wilson kissed Louise gently on her forehead and told her goodnight in a whispered tone. Louise missed her mother.
The room was bird-themed. The walls were painted a dark navy, and a thin metal peacock stared at her from where it hung. A copy of the NATO phonetic alphabet was hanging, too. It must have been Miles’ old room. Louise remembered when he came to school in second grade and told her he was moving into the attic. There was an opening to the roof up there, and Miles was in love with the idea of sitting up there and watching the sun set and rise.
Miles was in love with a lot when he was little— the sun and sky, the warmth of his mother’s hugs, iced tea on a hot day. Louise didn’t think she was in love with anything. She didn’t think she ever would be. Louise was almost asleep, the plush, silky sheets lulling her into another bout of slumber. Her door squeaked open. Miles’ small frame was a shadow in the doorway. He looked so small. He didn’t walk into the room, choosing to loom in the entrance.
“Goodnight, Louise,” he said in a small voice.
“Goodnight, Miles.”
When you were little, you thought everything was perfect. The world was alive with hope and magic. Everyone got along, and there was nothing wrong.
Of course, now you know that is not true. But a part of you, a little tiny part, wants to go back to when you didn’t know. When life was good, and you didn’t know better.
That’s how the music sounds. Like you are an innocent kid sitting on the front porch eating a red cherry popsicle. The juice runs down your face. It looks like blood.
July 15, 1984
Louise was once again sitting in the back seat of the Wilsons’ Porsche, but this time, she was without a backpack-- sans her school clothes. She wore the itchy Easter dress her grandmother had gotten her two years prior. Louise wore it to her funeral. She stuck out like a sore thumb, a pastel beacon amongst the waves of black. It was Sunday—the Lord’s Day, as Mrs. Wilson had told her. Louise hadn’t been inside a church for a good reason—she’d never been to a regular Sunday mass. But last night, she had stayed the night at Miles’, so she was on her way to church. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
They pulled into the parking lot, the ancient steeple looming over the car. Louise could recognize that it was a beautiful church, but the body of Christ hanging in the stained glass window did nothing to settle her nervous stomach. The pop of car doors sounded; there was no going back.
The wooden pew was uncomfortable, the kneelers even more so. She listened to Miles’ soft whispers of direction and did as he said. She fell and rose when she should; she crossed her arms instead of taking communion, she shook hands with strangers, and mumbled, ‘Peace be with you.’ And then it was over, and Louise was waking back to the car, her white flats cutting into her feet.
“What did you think, Louise?” Mrs. Wilson asked in a kind voice.
She shrugged her shoulders, “It was okay. I didn’t really know what to do.”
“You’ll learn,” Mrs. Wilson responded, a promise on the tip of her tongue.
Louise was silent on the ride back; she leaned against the window and watched as trees blurred together in a mirage of green. Louise didn’t know what it was like to believe in God. She thought she felt it there for a moment-- a quiet tingling in the back of her mind. But then she remembered that she wasn’t with her family; the Wilsons were not her parents. She remembered her mom was working a double today so they could have electricity. And what God would think that was fair? Not one Louise wanted to believe in.
The music sounds like the church hymns your mother made you sing. She meant well; she thought she was giving you the gift of her religion. You couldn’t tell her you didn’t want it. It was all she had ever known.
What child betrays their mother?
May 21, 1985
It was the summer after sixth grade. Lousie and Miles had biked to the pool in town, a desperate attempt to escape the heat. The air was thick and humid, and sweat sprouted from Louise's skin, dampening her shirt and shorts. The sun beamed down on her back; there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The pair parked their bikes out front and ran into the small building. A bored-looking teenager accepted their fifty cents each and let them in. The air reeked of chlorine, and the painted concrete was slick with warm water. Miles and Louise threw their towels down and began to shed their swimsuits. Louise’s hands were shaking with anticipation; she hadn't been to the pool in so long.
“Race you,” Miles said, darting towards the water's edge.
“No fair,” Louise groaned as she kicked off her flip-flops and ran after him.
Louise heard a distant whistle ringing and a call that running wasn’t allowed before she splashed into the blue depths. The cool water encapsulated her, and goosebumps formed on her skin. She bobbed to the surface and saw Miles climbing out and heading towards the diving board.
They stayed until the sun was beginning to set; Miles’ mom didn’t like him being out that late on his own yet, so they peddled back home soggy clothes and pruny skin.
When Louise returned to her house, it was dark. She could see the kitchen light shining out onto the brown lawn. Steve was home. Louise’s mom, Mary, had picked him up a few months back. He was a short, fat man. His breath always smelled like beer, yeasty and vile. He had dark hair and a beard to match. Her mother claimed she really liked him, but Louise knew she just needed someone to help pay the bills.
One of the few good things about having kids as young as Louise’s mom had her is that she never had a hard time finding a sleazy older guy to keep around. Being pretty also helped, and Mary sure was pretty. Mary was tall and slender, with long, curly auburn hair. She was covered in freckles and had eyes that glowed emerald green. When Louise was young, Mary would smile often, but as her eyebags grew, her smile faded. She could fake it when needed, but it was never like Louise remembered.
Mary and Louise could have been twins— minus the smile lines she didn’t think she’d ever have the chance to earn. Maybe that was why, when Louise walked into her kitchen in nothing more than a bathing suit, Steve forced himself on her.
You clutch the armrest on your chair, digging your nails into the fabric. The music is screeching, a distorted version of what it once was. You want to cry. You think your ears are bleeding. You bite the inside of your cheek, hoping to distract yourself from the perverted disgust mess of noise assaulting you. Your mouth tastes like metal. The urge to stand and walk, no, run, out of the theater is so strong you can hardly bear it.
You do not get up.
May 22, 1985
Miles called and asked if she wanted to go swimming again. Louise didn’t have the heart to tell him she never wanted to go swimming again, so she lied and said she was sick. Miles was at her door an hour later with a container of homemade cookies and Guess Who.
The two sit on the floor of Louise’s bedroom, the soft blanket she put down covering the scratchy carpet. Louise’s room was small and dingy. The walls were cracked and stained; she lived out of one small bureau that had been unceremoniously shoved into a corner of the room. Last Christmas, she begged her mother to help her hang lights on the ceiling. They were still up, casting a rainbow glow over the room. It was the only source of light she used. She had a small nightstand piled with pencils and markers; she had long since stained her light pink sheets while drawing. Cookie crumbles littered the floor. Louise was losing the game; most of her people were still up, while Miles only had about five people left to choose from. He chewed his lip in concentration. Louise usually laughed at him for it; he always seemed to take the board games they played too seriously. This time, she didn’t notice he was doing it.
“Does your person have brown hair?” Miles questioned.
Louise didn’t respond. “Louise? Are you alrigh—”
“Do your parents ever touch you?” Louise said, eyes trained on the floor.
Miles’ face scrunched up in confusion, “You mean like hugs?”
“No.”
“What do you mean then?” Miles questioned.
Louise’s eyes fogged up with tears, “Never mind. Let’s just play the game.”
Miles eyed her with sympathetic confusion before realizing what she meant, “Louise…”
He moved to hug her, but she flinched away from him. Miles sat back; he wasn’t touching her but was close enough for her to feel the heat radiating off of him. Louise sniffled, trying desperately to contain her emotion.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Miles whispered.
Louise turned to look at him, her face pale and puffy, “Please don’t.”
Louise and Miles sat like that for a long time. When the sun set, he got up and called his mom, begging her to let him stay the night. Louise didn’t hear the conversation, but Mrs. Wilson must have agreed because the next thing she knew, she was being guided to bed, and Miles was settled on the floor next to her, leaning against the bed and holding her hand.
The music turned sweet. It drifted through your ears pleasantly, passing over the cracked, dry blood. A chorus of flutes is playing, light and soft.
It feels like the pillow in your dorm room, childhood mixed with freedom.
You know this feeling won’t last. But right now, in this moment, you lay your head down and pretend the world is new.
May 17, 1986
Miles and Louise had biked miles to the movie theater. Miles had begged Louise to see the new movie coming out, one that Louise was less than excited about. He had been to the movies some months before with his mom and had seen the trailer. The next day, he begged her to see it with him when it came out, and she agreed, not knowing anything about it.
Miles was practically giddy with excitement. His eyes glowed with it. The theater was packed; they stood in the line shoulder to shoulder with what must have been every other kid in town. Louise clung to the red crushed velvet rope that segmented the line for dear life. The feeling of so many people pressed up against her was nauseating. She screwed her eyes shut, pushing down a wave of oncoming dizziness. Before she knew it she was being pulled along to the ticket stand. Miles produced them with a broad smile on his face, “Two for Top Gun.”
He then bought a giant thing of buttery popcorn and two glass Cokes. They made their way to their seats and waited for the movie to begin. Miles shoved popcorn in his mouth, salty yellow kernels going everywhere. Trailers for various movies played on the big screen— Miles leaned over nearly every time and asked Louise if she would go with him. She said yes every time.
The movie was beautiful. It was nothing like Louise had ever seen before; it made her yearn for the sky, the feeling of freedom unlike anything she would ever know. And then it was tragic, and she was crying in her seat, wailing over someone she didn’t know. Begging him to wake up.
They left in silence, walking to the bike rack to a chorus of shoes against pavement. They stalled for a moment before getting onto their bikes and parting their ways.
“What would you do if I died?” Miles said, his eyes trained on Louise’s.
“I don’t know,” her eyes were red and puffy, “I don’t think I could go on.”
“Me neither,” Miles agreed.
Miles stared at her for a beat before getting on his bike and peddling home. Louise imagined her life without Miles on the way home. Sharp metal against skin, blood seeping into water. She didn’t think it would be much of a life.
When you were in 6th grade, you played the clarinet. You always had a fondness for them.
They were the only ones playing, the dulcet tones of a wooden reed against black plastic. The song was picking up pace, like a heartbeat.
In 6th grade band, you sat next to a girl you liked. She was better at the instrument than you. You didn’t care. You remember taking her to the winter formal and carrying her shoes when her feet got sore. You remember your dad giving you the talk before you went.
You haven’t seen her in years. You wonder how she’s doing.
The clarinets are done with their solo. You forget about her again.
August 21, 1987
This year, Louise’s birthday fell on the first day of school. She dressed nicer than usual, an attempt at vanity that made her hate herself. Miles had given her a music box that played You Are My Sunshine. Louise had told him that she missed it when her mom sang it to her before bed. She cried in the bathroom.
At lunch, she stood in line with a group of girls in her PE class. Miles was a few feet ahead of her, and the kids in her school took cutting in line more seriously than she thought was necessary, so she stayed put. She stood silently while the girls talked about a teacher they didn’t like, choosing instead to eavesdrop on the conversations around her rather than contribute to the one she was in.
Brian Miller’s voice sounded broken and raspy, like a kid with money for cigarettes and not much else. He was a stereotypical bully, big and tall, with an ugly look plastered everywhere he went. He couldn’t stand the thought of someone not being in pain. He was talking to Miles, his voice loud enough for Louise to hear from where she was: “Why do you hang out with that poor girl all the time? Does she give it up easily?”
His lips were curled in a cruel sneer, showing off his yellow teeth. Miles looked at him, barely visible to Louise over the people between them. Then, suddenly, he wound up and punched Brian square in the face. Louise heard the crunch of his nose being broken— blood spurted on the floor and onto the onlooking students. Brian grunted in pain, bringing his hand to touch his bloodied face slowly before launching into a vicious returning attack. He only got a few punches on Miles before the nearest teacher pulled him away. Louise pushed through the crowd that had formed, leaning down at Miles’ side. His face was nearly unrecognizable; bruises were starting to form already.
“Why did you do that? Oh my god, Miles, why did you do that?” Louise choked out, tears fogging her vision.
“I love you,” Miles tried to smile, blood staining his teeth.
A teacher pushed Louise out of the way, assessing the damage. What felt like seconds later, an ambulance appeared, along with Mrs. Wilson. She was frantic; her hands were shaking with fear. Everything was silent. At some point, everyone had cleared out except Louise. She was standing here like an idiot, staring at Miles’ bloodied face.
Louise felt a strong hand grab her arm, a mother’s hand, “Come on, Louise. You can ride along.” Mrs. Wilson stood in front of Louise. Her eyes were red, but she had composed herself. Louise’s voice came out as nothing more than a whisper: “Okay.”
She let herself be pulled into the ambulance; the siren was the only thing she could hear. She watched as the EMTs worked, their skilled, gloved hands dancing over his body.
“Louise, he’s gonna be okay,” Mrs. Wilson whispered in her ear, “Come here.”
She pulled Louise into a hug, hiding her view of Miles. Louise closed her eyes against Mrs. Wilson, willing her breath to slow. They stopped abruptly at the hospital. Louise and Mrs. Wilson climbed out and watched as nurses and interns swarmed Miles’ gurney. They were ushered to the waiting room and sat down on hard, terribly patterned chairs. At some point, Mrs. Wilson called Louise’s mother to tell her where she was. A doctor brought them to Miles’ room after over an hour. His face had been cleaned and bandaged, and his nose was clearly broken.
“Louise,” Miles said, his eyes lighting up.
“Miles,” Louise responded, “Are you okay?”
“I’m right as rain,” he tried to smile but winced.
“Don’t lie to me, Miles.”
“I’ll be okay,” he reassured her, reaching up to squeeze her hand.
They stood like that until Louise’s mom came to get her. Louise crawled into Mary’s beat-up Sedan and slumped in the seat.
“Are you okay, baby?” Mary asked her.
“Mom, what if he died?” Louise ignored the question.
Mary sighed, “Sweetheart he’s fine. He’s just got a concussion and a broken nose.”
“I know,” Louise said, “I know he’s fine.”
The bags under Mary’s eyes seemed heavier today, and her face seemed more wrinkled. Louise looked more like her every day.
The music takes on a somber tone. Long, drawn-out notes fill the air. You think of your mother again, the way she looked sunken in her hospital bed— decaying before your eyes. You remember the feel of her bony, pale hands wiping away your tears in her final moments.
It was the first time you saw your dad cry.
The wail of violin chokes you.
December 17, 1988
Louise was lying on her back in Miles’ bed. He’s had the same one since they were kids; the box springs creak under their weight. Miles was above her, his eyes boring holes in hers. His parents were not home, the house was eerily quiet— the ambient creaking distracting Louise. His record player sang sweet music from his desk. His room was cluttered with dirty clothes and various knick-knacks. A blue paper swan sat on his bookshelf next to his worn copy of The Hobbit. His closet was open, casting weird shadows along the walls. The lights were off.
The soft touch of Miles’ lips trailed down her chest to her stomach. She tried to push down the nausea— make her body stop squirming. Her hand clutched his shoulder tightly. He had asked if this was okay. She had said yes.
Louise felt another article of clothing being slid off her body. She was cold. Her eyes shot to the ceiling. One glowing star was still stuck on the popcorn texture. Miles had taken them off the year before. He had missed one. Louise felt the heat of salty water run down her face into the soft pillow. She hated herself.
‘Dear God,’ she thought, ‘if you can hear me please, please just let me be okay. Let me want this.’
She didn’t receive a response. God wasn’t listening. It was just her and Miles in a house too big, in a world too small.
“Louise?” Miles said, his voice laced with concern, “Hey. Are you okay?”
All she could muster was an ‘I’m sorry’ before getting up, running into the bathroom, and emptying her stomach into the toilet.
The air stunk of sour yeast.
The music bounced up and down, building up to its crescendo. Excitement filled your chest, the entire orchestra almost all playing now.
A chorus of brass filled the air—French horns and trumpets battle for dominance on stage. Your eyes are wide in anticipation; you have waited the entire night for this.
You are sixteen, and you and your friends sit around a fire, passing a bottle of Jack around. It is the Friday before school starts. You wanted one last night of summer fun before your life filled with books and assignments.
The whiskey burns a path down your throat. It makes you nauseous. You get so drunk you can’t stand up. Your vision blurs as you stumble into the surrounding woods. You are alone. You vomit more than you thought was possible. You think you are going to die. You miss your mom.
You haven't drank since.
You don’t think you ever will.
August 4, 1989
The granite bar was cool under Louise’s fingertips. She sat in Miles’ kitchen, spinning nervously on the metal bar stool. She was chewing her lip; her mouth tasted like blood. Miles sat next to her, his demeanor the exact opposite of Louise’s.
“I mean, come on, Louise. What are you gonna do with your life?” Mrs. Wilson lectured her.
“I don’t know,” Louise mumbled.
Mrs. Wilson sighed, “Miles has wanted to be a pilot since he was eight. What do you want?”
Louise took a deep breath, “I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t be like Miles. But I’m not your fucking kid so leave me alone.”
Louise stood up and stomped up the stairs. She heard Mrs. Wilson yelling her name, but she didn’t turn around. She buried herself in Miles’ bed, wrapping herself in his soft comforter. Louis heard the stairs creak with weight and then a knock on the door.
“Louise, I’m sorry,” Miles said, walking into the room.
Louise sat up, her face dry, “Why are you sorry? You didn’t yell at me.”
“I still feel sorry,” he said as he sat down next to her.
Louise took a deep breath and leaned on his shoulder. Miles rested his head against hers, “She loves you, you know.”
“I know.”
“She just wants you to do well,” Miles said.
“She wants me to be better than my mother,” Louise corrected.
“Is that so bad?”
The music doesn’t matter right now. You are fifteen, and your father is yelling at you about your future. You don’t know what you want to do. You want to be better than him.
He backhands you.
The arm of the person next to you brushes against yours. You jump. The conductor's hands are blurry with movement. The theater is alive with sound.
You miss your dad.
February 14, 1990
Louise and Miles sat across from each other in a restaurant that was too nice for the amount of money they brought. Louise ran her fingers across the laminated menu, fidgeting nervously with the edge of the paper. The restaurant was packed, Miles had made the reservations months in advance.
“Do you know what you want?” Miles asked.
Louise pursed her lips, “I think I’m gonna get the chicken piccata.”
Miles eyed the menu, “That looks good.”
“What are you gonna get?” she returned the question.
Miles smiled, almost boyishly, “The steak.”
Louise hummed in response. She set her menu down and reached for her water glass, running her finger across the rim. Condensation dripped down outside the glass, her fingerprints marking the surface.
“Are you excited about prom?” Miles asked.
Louise laughed a little, “Do we really have nothing else to talk about other than a dance in two months?”
Miles rolled his eyes playfully, “I guess not. What did we talk about when we were kids?”
“I have honestly no idea,” Louise smiled, “I don’t think we talked a lot. We mostly played.”
“We did play an ungodly amount of Donkey Kong.”
Louise chuckled, “God, was that game even good? Or were we just kids?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Miles smiled.
The waiter came by and took their order, collecting their menus and refreshing their drinks. It wasn’t long before their food arrived; the plates were decedent and beautiful. They left the restaurant with doggy bags in hand and significantly poorer than when they walked in. Louise clambered into Miles’ truck and waited for Miles to start it. But he didn’t. He was staring at her instead.
“What?” she asked incredulously.
He smiled at her, “I have something for you.”
Her face fell in surprise, “Miles, you told me the dinner was a gift.”
“Well,” Miles shrugged. He reached into his pocket and produced a small velvet box. She took it gingerly into her hands, excitement boiling in her chest. She opened the box softly and found two silver rings. One was engraved with ‘Miles,’ and the other said ‘Louise.’ Miles picked up the one that said his name and handed it to her.
“This one is for you,” he looked at her with huge puppy-dog eyes, “And the other one is for me.”
“Miles…”
“Do you like it?” he asked nervously.
She melted, “I love it. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, leaning in and kissing her sweetly.
“Are your parents home?” she asked against his lips.
“No, they won’t be home in hours.”
This time was different than the first. No bile rose up into Louise’s throat; she didn’t have to repress her squirming body. The air smelled like clean linen— fresh and new.
You are crying, and you don’t know why. The music sounds more like singing now, wrapping you in lyrics and hugs. You feel warm and fuzzy. Like you are a little kid who just got home after swimming all day. You are tired in the perfect way. You sink into your blankets and fall asleep.
A humming noise wakes you up. You are in the theater. There is music playing. You aren’t a kid anymore.
You had a drink at dinner before the concert.
You swallowed it with ease.
March 20, 1990
The hum of the radio filled the sweet night air. Louise and Miles lounged in the bed of his beat-up pickup. It was his father's old farm truck, a janky, rusty thing that only ran when it felt like it, but Miles loved it. It was his pride and joy. Any weekend he wasn’t with Louise, he was fixing it up; he would spend hours under the body of that thing, coming into the house reeking of oil and exhaust. Mrs. Wilson hated it; she feared for the safety of her nice beige carpet and the cleanliness of his jeans.
It was freshly spring; it was dry and warm for the first time this year. They were laying on his mother’s old picnic blanket, something she probably wouldn’t care for if she knew. It was pitch black, the only thing that illuminated them were the stars and the faint light of Louise’s kitchen light. They had returned from cruising around town, and neither wanted to go inside yet. They had been lulled into a comfortable silence, their hands knotted together perfectly. And then, suddenly, Louise had a question.
“Do you hate me?”
“Louise…” Miles sighed.
Nervousness leaked into her tone, “I was just making sure.”
“That I don’t hate you? Even though we’re dating?” Miles scoffed, “Why would I be with you if I hated you? What would I gain from that?”
“What if you were using me?” Louise said, her voice small.
“Oh my god,” Miles sat up and put his head in his hands, “‘What if’ Louise, when have I ever, in our entire lives, used you?”
“I don—” she started.
“If you are basing your fear of our relationship on ‘what ifs,’ maybe we shouldn’t be together. You are so absorbed in your past that it's like you aren’t even seeing me, not now, not in the present,” Miles shot at her.
“That’s not fair,” Louise said, her voice breaking with emotion.
Miles took a deep breath, “I’m sorry for what happened, and I get that healing is a hard and long process. But, Louise, I’m tired, too. ”
Hot, stinging tears rolled down Louise’s face, wetting the blanket, “I know you love me. Sometimes I’m just scared.”
“Why are you scared?” Miles whispered.
“I don’t know,” she sniffled, “I am what I am.”
“You are what you are,” Miles repeated, “And I’m tired of pretendning I can change that.”
“Then stop.”
Louise wiped the tears off her face and climbed out of the truck. Her receding footsteps echoed in Miles' head, a pounding that sounded eerily like his heartbeat— fast and hard. Miles sat there for a long while. The radio was still on, blasting The Smiths.
Trumpets blast loud, then louder. You think your eardrum might burst. Then, the music lulls to a stop. The lights do not come on. It is like the entire world has stopped to take a breath. One big inhale. You fill your lungs. The air smells like honeysuckle.
You are a child running in the yard with your dog. You are barefoot. You step on a bee. You limp into the house and cry to your mother. She puts your foot on ice.
You will never feel the grass on your bare foot again. You do not need to learn the lesson twice.

I believe I was 10/11 years old when it first started - I would have nausea, vomited my dinner out and would have the most nauseating pain in my abdomens which eventually came out as diarrhoea.
I went to my general practitioner but was never considered for a referral for IBS cause 10 year old me could never describe what I was feeling - it was a stomachache. So I was just given diarreoah medication (which obviously never worked, cause I didn’t have diarreoah after my night episode.
This eventually led to countless IBS attacks over the next 10 years and I finally pushed for a referral when I was 20 cause this was such a shitty feeling. It always started out at 11pm/12am - about 3 hours after dinner, I would get queasy and nauseous. I would then vomit out my entire dinner which was then followed by sharp pains in my abdomen, starting from my right abdomen moving all the way through my intestines. I would sit on the toilet bowl for another excruciating 3 hours before it released as diarreoah - yucks. There was instant relief right after the diarreoah had passed but there was a lingering dull pain in my right abdomen, kinda where your gallbladder and appendix is.
My GI doctor ordered a bunch of tests, one which was an X-Ray that revealed tiny little stumps of poop lined against the walls of my intestines, which she then diagnosed as IBS-C. I never felt comfortable with the diagnosis of IBS-C, which meant I was generally constipated all the time, but when I had IBS attacks it was all coming out as diarrhoea… All other tests like colonoscopy, endoscopy, blood tests, stool tests, all came back negative for anything else so she kinda just left it as IBS-C, gave me domperidone (for nausea), laxatives (for constipation), antacids (for idk maybe it was the excess bile making me vomit) and like meteospasmyl (relive muscle spasms) - which tbh none of these medications really worked except for domperidone (sometimes…).
After just living with it for like a few more years and having one of the worst IBS attacks when I was holiday in Australia, my friend introduced me to BUSCOPAN my life saviour 🥹❤️ It was honestly the instant relief it provided that really really helped as those intestinal cramps were the worst - really makes you question life and existence. I do highly recommend anyone who has similar symptoms as me to check out Buscopan, I’ve tried medications that have Buscopan as an active ingredient, but I found the most relief with the brand BUSCOPAN FORTE which gave me relief in 15 minutes, although the usual dose works fine for those attacks that don’t seem that bad. I also looked into FODMAPS and found relief for my bloating - my main triggers for bloating were gluten and diary - which I’ve had for years and years, it just went away - ahhh life just seemed to be looking up.
I still have crippling IBS attacks, but I realised my triggers were fatty, rich, oily foods at dinner time - which would cause nausea and diarrhoea. Although I did have some outliers, but those seemed to be categorised by overeating? - which comes to I guess to… should I be looking at gallbladder issues? My dietician was also more concerned about the vomiting (although my GI doctor was saying it might be a case of a really sensitive stomach and with years of vomiting it just became more of a habitual expulsion). It seems that I’m only getting my IBS attacks when I eat oily foods but it’s more of a trigger as no one is able to digest foods after a mere 3 hours, what are your thoughts?

im new this is my first post. i could use some support in more ways than one. i remember the first time i miscarried back in 2019; circumstances were an accident, father of child blocked & dumped me and my living situation on top of that caused me stress. i had no family to take me to the hospital at the time but a friend saved my live. so now heres a difficult part for me. i wasnt 100% sure if this experience i went thru WAS a miscarriage but i remember being in 2022? the worst menstrual pain imaginable, lots of blood on top of vomiting & such. i went thru it alone bc the father at that time was soooo incredibly f’ed up from drinking that he didnt remember my name and started treating me like i was someone else. he thought i was pregnant, maybe i was but i must have lost it in that time.
now to this year. so im not sure the length if my most recent pregnancy but this month i found out me & my bf were goin to have a baby. we been plannin for one, but this week i been in the hospital 3 times for it 1st: blood test to confirm pregnancy 2nd: abdominal pain on one side - which i never experienced before. last night 3rd (yesterday) was the worst day of my life. i was in terrible cramping pain and. i was super nauseated. my dad took me to hospital and i got all my tests to find out that i had lost our baby. i tried to hold in my tears, i couldn’t look at my dad as i silently wept begging to go home. and this morning i got woken up at 2 am with cramping pain coming on, getting worse as i tried to use the bathroom. then i felt i was going to be sick. it got worse. i was sweating up a storm and needed to fan myself as to not pass out or worse. i felt like i was dying and i ran to my family begging them to help me and they supported me the whole way thru when my chest was so tight i couldnt breathe when i threw up all the meds i took for pain and food i ate. and could not stop shaking they told me i was cold to the touch. i was absolutely terrified. i know they wasnt really sure what was happening to me except a terrible menstrual cramp. i didnt have the heart to tell them.
but i just realized as i woke up this morning, i have now had 3 miscarriages in my entire time trying to get pregnant. im so devastated & feel like my body & its a sign that im not meant to have children. i feel anger and sadness, so much sadness. especially with what happened last night - i really wanted this baby so bad but it all just came & went way too soon. its breaking me emotionally & im not sure how i can cope. i was considering fertility treatments since this has not been the 1st time for me…im not sure what else to do. every time i visit a dr. they tell me every exam that everything is normal & fine.
i so desperately want children of my own. i dont know how to make it happen tho…

I’ve never told another person this, but my quality of life has gone downhill so quickly in the last 2-3 years, that I really think of taking my own life. I don’t think I will. But I am due for the A-Lif and P-Lif back surgeries in a month. I’m dreading the surgery, the post op, the pain, the pain, the pain. I went through so many horrific surgeries in 2022. I was the healthiest I had ever been. I was barely taking any narcotics. I was working out every day. My weight was great. Then I started having more frequent episodes of severe back pain and leg numbness. My bf of a year got freaked out over my diagnosis’s and broke up with me. I moved back to my hometown, got a new place and started over. Then I developed sudden constipation. No warning. This had never been an issue before. After 10 days, I had the most severe abdominal pain I’ve ever felt. My daughter rushed me to the ER. After many tests, they said I was “just constipated” and go home and start Miralax. I did and nothing worked. I tried Laxatives, Magnesium Citrate, hot coffee, hot water with salt, enemas, glycerine suppositories, etc. Nothing happened. My belly became more distended. I was so nauseated 24/7. I called my GI dr and was told the soonest they could see me was 8/4/22. On 7/28/22, I went back to ER. The doctor there was awful. He said I was just constipated. He refused a GI consult, a Neuro consult and refused to admit me for even 23 hours. I told him something is wrong with my back and it’s made my colon stop functioning. He didn’t believe me. Finally he sent the nurse in with an enema kit and said the dr said I could “give myself an enema” to get the poop out. I was escorted to the bathroom down the hall that had a toilet, shower and a bench. I was given the kit and told that it should work. 4 times she came to the door and asked if I had any results. Nothing came out. I was instructed to keep doing them until they worked. It was a soap suds enema so basically just use the soap and water in there to refill the enema bag. After 2 hours, multiple attempts and no results, the nurse came to the door and told me to stop trying. She gave me fresh towels and a clean gown and told me to shower and return to my room. I went back, absolutely drained and in pain. The doctor came in and said he couldn’t do anything for me. I begged for another consult with Neuro or GI and he said no. I got up and took my IV out. He told me I couldn’t do that. I left. I went home and collapsed. My parents found me, took me to another ER and I was admitted. The GI doctors made 3 attempts at colonoscopies but said it was like dried cement. They finally removed my colon which “had stopped functioning due to nerve damage from my back”. I spent months in and out of the hospital. I was septic 3 times, almost died several times. I had an Ileostomy for 7 months which was hell. I fought constant infection and dehydration and malnutrition. I had to fight to live and was in agony 24/7. Now I am supposed to have this back surgery in a month. I don’t think I have it in me to fight anymore. I know the drill. You ask for pain meds, they give you the bare minimum and then always question if you’re really hurting. I stay at a 6-8 all the time. But when I hit that 8-9 and it’s quickly going to 10, I hate fighting for relief and being treated like I’m just trying to get high. I’m just wanting relief so I can move. I’m just unloading. I’m sorry. I don’t think anyone will read this and that’s ok. I just don’t know if I will come out of this procedure this time. The mind fu*k nurses play with you about your pain meds is horrible. It breaks you mentally. I’m not addicted. I just suffer 24/7 and dread what’s coming.
For context, my left leg used to be the one that was weak and numb. Now my right leg has started losing complete feeling without warning, leading me to fall often. That’s the reason for the back surgery. Without it, I’ll lose the ability to walk.

I went for mine yesterday. I was overdue by a few months and was low key worrying about it as they're pretty uncomfortable. I'm glad I did it though because with any luck that is me sorted for another three years. The nurse who did mine said that the number of women attending theirs is really low. The youngest women now old enough for routine smear tests may not remember Jade Goody whose well publicised cervical cancer catapulted the issue to national attention and brought the numbers of women attending their screening back up.
Other than another well recognised person being so public with with cervical cancer, what else could bring those numbers back up? It is worrying to me that lots of women are either too emabrasssed or too scared to have it done.
ETA: I'm so happy this has blown up the way it has and I hope it reminds some of you to book/attend your smears. I think it is evident from reading some of the comments that some people have really horrible experiences. I have been lucky as the discomfort I experience is manageable and more of a sicky "nails on a blackboard" nauseating type sensation rather than the agony other people have had to deal with it. I also had no clue that in other countries you can self test for HPV - why the hell are the NHS making low risk women undergo what can a painful procedures with no pain relief when there is the option to self test at home? If they can give men a blood test for prostate cancer instead of a rectal examination I don't see why there is an excuse for not rolling out HPV self testing.

Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16hw52t/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16k0p69/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/
While conditions seemed bad right now, with the truck stuck like it was, I gave thanks that at least the engine started without issue. At times, it got so cold in Siberia that the engines would fail to start. The temperature had started to increase, however, and outside the wind had died down. The snow had stopped, and looking at the thermometer I kept on the outside of the truck, I saw that it was “only” -5 degrees Fahrenheit now. I cursed, putting on many layers while I sat in the truck’s driver seat, the little girl sitting between me and Yakov on an empty bucket she had turned upside-down. She didn’t seem affected by the cold at all. She had probably grown up in far worse.
“What are you doing?” the girl said with widening eyes, watching me. I looked at her, shaking my head.
“Obviously, we have to go get your sister,” I said.
“No!” she said. “I’m not going back there! Never! I will never go back to that place!” She started to cry. “The legs… the fence… the ovens… the cages… you have no idea how horrible it is!”
“Calm down,” I said. “You have to lead us back towards the hut. You probably won’t have to go in. We just need to get your sister and come back, then we can leave. What’s your name?”
“Irina,” she said.
“That’s a very pretty name,” Yakov said. “My name is Yakov, and this is Nikolai. We’re the good guys. We can fight off that witch and bring your sister home. If we do nothing, your sister will die. You know that.” Irina nodded, wiping her eyes. Bundled up in her layers of clothing with a fur jacket on the outside, she looked almost like a little eskimo sitting here in my truck. I repressed the crazy urge to laugh at the image, remembering what was happening.
“Let’s do this,” I said, getting out of the truck. I grabbed more ammo from the glovebox, and saw Yakov grabbing some bullets from the satchel of random goods he carried around with him in a leather skin. He left the rest of his possessions in the truck, folding the leather carefully back over them and tying it with a cord.
It felt eerie, like the dawn before a major battle. I had goosebumps all over my body, and not just from the cold. The idea of going up against an infamous witch, an ogress, a child-eating monster- well, it didn’t raise my confidence. Though this happened years ago, I still remember that terrible feeling- as if everything had been leading up to this point, and now everything stood still, watching.
I had heard legends of Baba Yaga growing up, how Satan had taken twelve women who were murderers and criminals, thrown their bodies in a pot together, mixed it up- and out came Baba Yaga. Of course, I scoffed at such myths now that I was older. But seeing her there had made me question many things.
Irina went out first, not minding the cold at all, her breath coming out in steamy plumes. Yakov and I had flashlights from the truck, jumping down behind her. Their light came out dimly, but it gave enough lumination on the white snow to see. The clouds had started to part, and the Moon had come out in the sky, looking down on us like a single blind eye- like the cataract-ridden eye of Baba Yaga I had seen earlier.
As we started walking across the M56 and into the woods, that shrill, gurgling shriek came ringing out again. I knew Baba Yaga was close, likely even watching us. She might attack at any moment.
We walked further down the trail, a winding deer trail only a couple feet wide, with branches that would smack me in the face and rocks to trip over every few steps. Just as I turned to Yakov to say that we may have lost her, she attacked.
I saw a blur, then an intense pain in my side as she tackled me, knocking me quickly to the snowy ground. I kept a death-grip on my gun, smacking my head against a tree trunk- and the world went white. I drifted in and out of consciousness for a few moments, or perhaps it was longer. Time got strange. As if from a great distance, I heard gunshots and more screaming- then my vision started to return, and I focused.
I saw Yakov crouched on the ground, holding his left hand tightly. I saw a fountain of blood running over his gloves, staining the snow in strange droplets and splotches, like a Rorschach inkblot made by a serial killer.
I tried to sit up, but a lightning bolt of pain seared my brain. I groaned, raising my hand to my head. I felt something sticky on my scalp, and pulling my hand back, I saw it covered in blood. It felt warm and wet, running down from the right side of my scalp and showing no signs of slowing. I felt nauseated and weak for a second, seeing all that blood, how it stained my clothes and the snow below me. I took a few deep breaths, in and out, slowly concentrating and steadying myself. My hand still trembled, and my legs felt like jelly as I tried to stand, but I leaned against the tree and let the waves of weakness and nausea pass by.
Yakov wasn’t doing much better. He was hyperventilating, staring in shock at his spurting hand. His left thumb looked like it was mostly or entirely gone.
“We’ve… got to put pressure…” I said slowly, gulping air. “...on the wound. And ice and snow.” I began to tear a strip from one of my shirts, then walked slowly over to Yakov on unsteady legs. I looked into his eyes. They looked dark and tortured, and he quickly looked away, tears forming in his eyes from the shock and pain. Irina sat next to him on a log, and she watched in horror, looking away whenever she noticed the blood.
“Let’s do this,” I said. “Ready?” He nodded weakly. I pulled the strip of cloth around the hole where his thumb used to, running it around his hand in circles, tightening it. He screamed. I gave him a piece of wood to bite down on, and pulled it even tighter. I saw teeth marks forming deep in the wood, a solid branch one inch in diameter I had snapped in half. His breath came in and out so fast, I thought for sure he would pass out. But he kept with me. Soon I had pressure on the wound, and the bleeding had slowed considerably.
I repeated the process with my head, wrapping more strips of cloth around the bloody scalp wound and pulling. I gritted my teeth, but the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, except for the crushing migraine. More than anything, I just felt weak, and waves of nausea kept assailing me. Splotches would rise in my vision, black dots that seemed to precede passing out, but I would sit down quickly and, after a few minutes, I had regained most of my strength.
“Let’s keep going,” I said weakly. Irina stood next to Yakov, looking petrified.
“I don’t want to go,” Irina said stubbornly. “Please don’t make me go.”
“Irina,” I sighed. “Your sister might die if we turn around. We have no choice.”
“I’m too scared,” she said. “You have no idea how bad it is there. You can’t imagine.” But after a few minutes of convincing, she continued to lead us- a ragtag group of injured men and a child, limping through the thick snow in the freezing cold.
We walked for an hour in silence, the little girl following her tracks, looking for landmarks she had passed when she had escaped the first time. She had grown up in the woods, most likely, and her family must have taught her much. I was worried about freezing to death, but then I started to notice my body growing warmer. I thought, perhaps, it was simply the first sign of hypothermia.
And yet, as we walked, I noticed changes in the forest. It actually had gotten warmer; it wasn’t just in my mind. Soon the snow had all gone. I looked around and noticed the trees were all dead, their naked arms extending up to the sky. I had to take off a jacket, then a sweater too. I saw the others doing the same, sweating as it warmed up. A fog began to roll in, covering the whole area.
“This is the space between the world of the living and the dead,” Irina said in her sweet child’s voice. It made the statement all the more horrible. “The hut is near here. This is the border of her home.” Through the mist, I swore I could see faces appearing and disappearing, the horror-stricken visages of children and eternally grinning skulls.
Soon, we came to a clearing. All the trees stopped in a large circle, a few hundred feet in diameter. In horror, I looked at what lay beyond.
A fence surrounded the property, made of children’s bones. It extended high up, at least twenty feet, countless arm and leg bones stacked one on another, bound together with twine and braced with more bones attached vertically against the others. I saw no gaps bigger than an inch, and no way to climb it. Looking at the top, I saw pieces of sharpened bones sticking up, like some razor wire from Hell. Irina shook at my side, and she grasped my hand suddenly, her small body exuding a strength that seemed beyond her physical abilities. I smiled down at her, smoothing her long, black hair with my right hand. I felt almost entirely recovered from my earlier concussion, though my head still pounded in time with the beat of my heart. I wished I had brought some aspirin.
“How do we get in?” Irina asked, taking off another sweater and hanging it over her shoulder. I had absolutely no idea.
“Let’s look around,” I said. We began to circle the fence, walking along the circumference of the clearing. I could see a hut beyond through the small gaps.
After a minute, we came to the gate. It stood twenty-feet-tall, like the rest of the fence, and would be almost impossible to scale. Unlike the rest of the fence, the gate had been fashioned entirely from skulls. I saw all the small skulls stacked one on top of another. As I imagined how many children had died to build just this macabre gate, a feeling of sickness and dread washed over me.
Sticking out of the front of it, in the exact center, I saw a larger skull. It looked like that of a man. In its open mouth, I saw a silver keyhole. In anger, I tried shaking the gate- and it came swinging open, totally silent.
“It’s open,” Yakov said, amazed. I looked at him.
“This feels like a trap,” I said. He nodded. Irina hid behind Yakov now, not wanting to look at the eternally grinning skulls stacked in front of her, bound together with some sort of invisible glue.
I looked through the gate at the hut beyond. My breath caught in my throat.
It stood on two massive legs. The feet looked like those of a chicken, but the legs loomed ten feet above the ground, where they somehow attached to the hut, holding it up suspended in the air. They were skeletal, all the flesh and muscle long ago wasted away.
“Are those chicken legs?” Yakov asked, his voice low. I felt eyes on me. I looked back into the forest, but I saw no one.
“Who the hell knows?” I asked. “But where do you get a chicken that’s the size of an elephant? Or bigger?”
“From Hell?” he asked. I laughed.
“You think they have massive chickens in Hell, just going around pecking at the Hell grains?” I said. He smiled.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Let’s do this.” We began to walk forwards into the clearing. I could see the circular hut more clearly now. An inner light burned, sending out a fiery, red glow through the windows. Unlike the rest of this horrible place, it looked like the hut was actually built of wood and stone. It had a quaint look, like the hut of an ancient serf. The top of it met in a point, with thatch and twigs carefully aligned to form a rounded dome. The windows were lined with stones. Trunks of dead trees formed the main construction material, pressed one against the next, stacked vertically in a perfect circle. They had their branches cut off, their bark stripped, the wood ground down to a smooth, uniform texture.
“My sister is in there,” Irina whispered. “Please don’t make me go back. Please. You don’t know what they do in there. What she does in there.” I grabbed her hand.
“Irina, we can’t leave you behind,” I said. “I think we’re being watched. I’m sorry, but you have to come with us.” She put her head down, looking like a beaten dog. She trudged alongside us slowly as we examined the property. But we saw no sign of anyone. I sighed deeply.
“Alright, let’s go inside,” I said. “Let’s find out what horrors await us in that hut.”
As we walked forward, I heard the gate click closed behind us. I turned and looked, but I saw no one. It seemed as if it had closed on its own.
I saw, to my horror, that I would need a key to get out as well as in. Another skull, its mouth open and filled with a silver locking mechanism, stuck out on this side as well. The metal in its mouth made it look like it was choking, the eternally gaping mouth like it was screaming.
I turned away, focusing on the task at hand, hoping I would survive the next few minutes.
Part 4
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16nl7hj/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/

Backstory, so I don’t have a lot of problems with my teeth but a few years back I was having some tooth pain in the back molar that’s on the left side in this picture, I told my dentist about it and they didn’t end up doing anything, and by the next time I went back one of my molars was broken (from a French fry!) it was only broken off a little bit at the time but they didn’t do anything about it or give me any real advice for what I should do, then around 6 months later I break the tooth that is on the right side in this pic off nearly entirely, I really thought that would be the tooth to be causing me the most pain but it never really hurt, the one on the left side however continued to break more and more over time to the point where it broke off at my gum line the other day and I know if I chew on that side it’s almost bound to break more. My tooth hurts so bad and I have a mind splitting headache from it and I know I really need to see a dentist as soon as humanly possible and I’m extremely worried but what can I do about this pain in the meantime, it’s nauseating 😩

abortion advocates often try to add a veneer of scientific literacy and legitimacy to their arguments by asserting that consciousness is what makes a person. however, from what i have observed, they can't even define consciousness, let alone explain why it is a defining characteristic of a person.
more often than not, their views are grounded in conceptual confusions. i always found it incoherent that they value consciousness, but not the being that is conscious. but as it turns out, many of them don't believe that the unborn child is the one and the same entity that later becomes conscious. for example, they'll claim that they are a "mind" and not an organism (e.g., a human being), and that abortion isn't actually killing "someone," but rather it's just killing a clump of cells that will later become inhabited by "someone," i.e., that the body is simply a "vessel" for the person that later emerges. similarly, they argue that impairing a fetus is wrong only because it affects a future being, which they identify as the person. perhaps this is a comforting lie that abortion advocates like to tell themselves in order to justify the killing of unborn children ("we're not really killing anyone, it's just flesh and bones!").
the existence of another being co-located with each human animal would be a remarkable discovery in all of science and natural history. but what exactly is the evidence for this? it's all unsubstantiated. over 100 billion humans have lived and died on earth, yet no one has documented any evidence of another material being with us apart from the human animal itself. and if the being is immaterial, who's to say that the being wasn't there from the moment of conception, just in a latent form?
these views can rightly be called fairy tales because, in addition to them being unsubstantiated, those who hold such beliefs think persons like them are special and for some reason they cannot be something as crude as animals. but the truth is that we are bodily beings. to deny that we are animals is to deny several empirical findings in biology, including evolution. the empirical sciences tell us that we descended from animals, and that we are animals. why should anyone reject this? has there been an astonishing new finding contradicting evolutionary theory that we are not aware of? they want to us to believe that the human being (an animal) that has all the sense organs (eyes, ears, brain, etc.) is not the actual being that is conscious and senses the environment around him. rather, it is another being, the "person," who comes into existence at the onset of consciousness, that is conscious. you see, forget evolutionary theory! the human animal has no use of its sense organs, for it is the magical person that is the one who actually senses what is around him!
the idea that a second being, the "person," comes into existence at the onset of consciousness is no different than various "ensoulment" arguments offered by the clergy. the only difference is that an omnipotent god laser beaming a soul into a soulless body has more explanatory power than a second being coming into existence once the fetus gains the capacity for mental acts. and isn't it interesting that many of those who hold such fairy tale/unsubstantiated beliefs about a "second being" are often subscribed to various "atheism rules!" blogs? those that are embarrassed by the notion of a soul instead have replaced the clergy's argument for ensoulment with the sophist's consciousness argument: that our bodies are simply vegetables, or "vessels," for the real us, the person, to inhabit. call this view "emergent dualism"—that the person "emerges" once the body, which is separate from the person, gains the capacity for consciousness. unfortunately for abortion advocates that try this sophistry, mind/body dualism is just as much derided as the concept of soul in philosophical and neuroscience circles and ridiculed as the belief that we are little persons that control and ride around in animal bodies.
it should not lost on us that abortion advocates want to impose their fairy tale beliefs on the unborn. nonetheless, if we are to persuade people to stop killing innocent babies, we need to clear up the conceptual confusions in matters related to personal identity.

chronic vegetative state and brain death

why do people believe in such fairy tales in the first place? more often than not, it's due to conceptual confusions involving cases of patients who are in persistent vegetative state. to truly understand their point of view, it's important to recall the likeness of the clergy's ensoulment argument with the sophist's consciousness argument. they believe that in cases of a patient who is in a permanent vegetative state, the "person" is gone, and what remains is just a body. according to them, the person "dies" when the animal body loses the capacity for consciousness. the animal that is kept alive on artificial life support persists, but the person has perished. due to the differing persistence conditions, the person and human animal must be two different entities, so they argue. but this is a confused account. the proper way (i.e., the objective, scientific way) to look at such cases is that that the human animal that comes into existence at fertilization gains and loses the capacity of consciousness and is the one and the same being that is conscious. there is no "second being" that comes and goes at the onset of consciousness. such fairy tales would have strange implications. consider the case of the woman who woke up from a 16 year long coma. did the "person" leave the animal body to go on a vacation for 16 years and then return? or was it the same person who simply lost the capacity for consciousness for 16 years and then recovered? in 2018, the american academy of neurology got rid of the concept of "permanent vegetative state" altogether and replaced it with chronic vegetative state because lots of people were waking up from their "permanent" comas.
this conceptual confusion is compounded by another conceptual confusion: equating persistent/chronic vegetative state with brain death. chronic vegetative state is a consciousness disorder. you can have repeated instances of consciousness disorders (e.g., becoming unconscious for extended periods of time after multiple different traumatic brain injuries), but that would not be brain death, which entails the irreversible cessation of all brain activities, not just the cessation of brain activities related to consciousness.
because low information debaters confuse a conscious being with the person, they often conflate total brain failure (i.e., brain death) with what they call "higher brain death," or loss of consciousness in general. this idea is based not only on more conceptual confusions, but also on scientific illiteracy. the "higher" part refers to the upper brain, the cerebrum, which they incorrectly believe is the "seat of consciousness." the cerebrum is responsible for many of our advanced cognitive abilities (self-reflective awareness, thinking, etc.), but not all of our mental activities. the brain stem (the lower part of the brain, and perhaps the most important part) has been shown to regulate our consciousness and emotions, and likely our senses too. studies of humans born without their "upper brains" show that they are very much conscious and alive. but to return to the confusion, they believe that the animal can be kept alive with a minimal functioning brain stem that regulates the autonomic nervous system, which can keep the cardiovascular and respiratory systems functioning, but the person is gone after the loss of consciousness.
the "higher brain death" criteria is not taken seriously by anyone other than low information philosophers. scientists and physicians and, more importantly, legal jurisdictions, all use the whole brain death criteria, i.e., total brain failure. the whole brain death is a more refined criteria since it involves total brain failure, including failure of the brainstem. this is what all medical practitioners go by, and, i believe most, if not all, countries use this criteria in their laws. the standard justification given for using total brain failure as a marker of death is due to the loss of the organism's capacity to function in an organized and integrated manner and the loss of its autonomous vital functions. it has nothing to do with the loss of consciousness. total brain failure leads to an irreversible loss of consciousness, but the opposite is not true; loss of consciousness doesn't mean brain death. you can be unconscious for a prolonged period of time and still have a functioning brain for the most part. there are lots of disorders of consciousness, but no actual doctoscientist equates them to brain death.
this conceptual confusion then leads to the sophist's symmetry argument. according to this argument, if our deaths are marked by brain death (which they wrongly equate with loss of consciousness), then the beginning of our lives should be marked by a functioning brain (and by that they wrongly believe the brain's only function is to generate consciousness).
the symmetry argument fails on more than one count. the comparison of the unborn with the braindead is outright silly. brain death entails the irreversible cessation of all brain functions, including functions of the brainstem. that is not the case with the unborn, whose brain is still developing and functioning as it should be. it's the difference between "not yet" and "no more." the immature brain begins to form as early as 3 weeks post-conception (or 5 weeks gestation) and is actively developing in utero. the only true symmetry with the brain death criterion and the beginning of life corresponds with the loss of the organism's capacity for organized and integrated functions—a capacity the organism had since the moment of fertilization. moreover, the unborn child at those early stages is healthy. comparing withdrawing care from a completely healthy child is a completely different matter than withdrawing care from a patient in a chronic vegetative state or a terminally ill patient.
moreover, not everyone accepts the brain death view. neurologist alan shewmon, who is one of most influential critics of "brain death," had observed patients whose bodies were functioning normally even with total brain failure. such patients were exhibiting metabolism, repair, proportionate growth (including "brain dead" children undergoing puberty), etc. he even came across cases of "brain dead" pregnant women who ended up giving birth to live children; but how can someone that is "dead" be capable of giving birth?
shewmon's findings were influential to the white house's council on bioethics, but he still disagrees with the brain death criteria that the council agreed upon because he does not believe the brain is an "integrator" of the human body. shewmon asks us to consider the case of people who who have high cervical spinal cord injuries. they are conscious but cannot control any part of their body because the brain cannot properly send signals to to the rest of the body to make movements. it's essentially as if the brain is "disconnected" from the rest of the body, which shewmon argues is functionally equivalent to a brain dead body under the standard justification of brain death. though the brain is not integrated with the rest of the body, the patient is still clearly alive. so how can one claim that a brain that is unintegrated from the rest of the body be the marker of death?
there is also a big problem diagnosing total brain failure. shewmon pointed out the case of jahi mcmath, who was declared "brain dead" in california after meeting all the diagnostic criteria. her parents, who rejected that diagnosis, took her new jersey, where they were allowed to make religious objections to the brain death determination. they knew their daughter wasn't dead, but seriously incapacitated. later, more neuroscientists (including shewmon) evaluated mcmath and saw that she was in fact minimally responsive despite meeting all the criteria for brain death. mcmath eventually died of liver failure. she was issued two death certificates, one in california in 2013, and another in new jersey in 2018.
but there certainly is debate over this. for a defense of the standard view of total brain failure as a marker of death, neurologist maureen condic has an outstanding article. she argues that what remains after total brain failure is simply coordinated activities between cells and tissues, but no genuine organized organismal integration. condic further argues that the whole brain death criteria meets two conditions that together satisfy the death of a human being: the cessation of autonomous regulation of one's own vital functions (especially cardiorespiratory functions) and the cessation of the one's mental functions. if a patient did not meet both conditions (e.g., a patient who is conscious and kept alive through artificial interventions because of other failing vital functions, or a patient who is unconscious but still has functioning and self-regulating vital functions without the need for artificial interventions such as ventilators), then, it would not be appropriate to declare death.
would shewmon's somatic criteria of death imply that we are obligated to keep patients with total brain failure on life support indefinitely? not at all. the question of whether we can withdraw extraordinary medical interventions from patients is a different question altogether. often times we withdraw such extraordinary medical interventions even from conscious patients. and whether or not one can take someone off life support, e.g., withdraw what may be extraordinary care, is irrelevant to what someone is. you can take a conscious person off life support as well, but that does not tell us anything about the moral status of the person.

circularity and infinite regress

some abortion advocates claim that we were never embryos, fetuses, or, even infants, and thus there is "no one" being killed by abortion. peter singer (in his book "practical ethics") claims that he was never an infant because there were no "mental links" between him and the infant from whom he developed:

I am not the infant from whom I developed. The infant could not look forward to developing into the kind of being I am, or even into any intermediate being, between the being I now am and the infant. I cannot even recall being the infant; there are no mental links between us.

according to peter singer, our identity, and what it takes for us to persist through time, consists of "mental links" between our conscious states. our identity is not dependent on biology, i.e., us being being human beings, but instead on psychological relations through various points in our lives, i.e., psychological continuity. since there is no psychological continuity between the persons we are now and the embryo, fetus, or infant, from which we developed, we were not identical to those nascent human beings.
well then, whatever happened to that embryo, fetus, or infant? did it perish once the "person" came into existence? it seems silly to suggest that a living thing perishes once it gains the capacity for some mental acts. if the unborn child still exists, then either it must be the one and the same person that you are now, or if it's not, then this implies there are actually two beings seated exactly where you are: the human animal that the embryo matured into, and the person.
suppose for a moment, as peter singer argues, that we are indeed streams of consciousness that flow from one experience to the next. this leads to a glaring circularity issue that joseph butler pointed out back in 1736 when he wrote that "consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity, any more than knowledge, in any other case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes."
memories, and conscious experiences in general, presuppose identity, and thus they cannot ground one's identity, as peter singer attempts. conscious experiences are had by the person. a substance first needs to exist in order to have conscious experiences and form memories. what we remember are the experiences that we had, but this already presupposes that we are identical to the person who had those experiences. we could not know whether one's memories are veridical without first establishing that they belong to the very same person who had those experiences. saying you remember being in new york city last week implies that you were in new york city last week, which then implies that you are identical to the person who was in new york city last week. but note that the last part presupposes the very thing being defined: personal identity. as harold noonan notes (in his book "personal identity"), the concept of personal identity is epistemologically prior to that of memory; one can't have the concept of memory without the concept of personal identity. that's what's makes the memory criterion (and the psychological continuity views in general) for personal identity circular and uninformative.
one example that highlights the issue at hand is the case of false memories. suppose one day you wake up with false memories and now think that you fought in the second world war even though you didn't because you weren't even born at that time. on what grounds can we show that these are false memories? we can't know whether or not these memories are genuine unless we first knew that you were in fact the person who fought in the second world war. it is not that you remember fighting in the second world war that makes you the person that fought in the second world war, for you were not physically present then and there to have those conscious experiences. genuine memories presuppose that one who remembers is identical to the one who experienced. you can only genuinely remember fighting in the second world war if you are identical to the person who fought in the second world war.
here are some other examples that highlight the issue at hand and also undermine psychological continuity views in general:

1. suppose a person loses all of his episodic memories. if our identity is dependent on "mental links," then this implies a "new" person comes in to being and the "previous" person goes away at the onset of total amnesia. consider the absurd implications that this has. why should this "new" person have any claim to any and all property (house, car, bank accounts, etc.) held by the "previous" person? additionally, on what grounds can this "new" person claim any ties to the people the "previous" person had relationships with? in other words, even though the "previous" person had a father, mother, siblings, and children of his own, this "new" person, who is not psychologically continuous with the "previous" person, is not a relative of theirs. that "previous" person no longer exists. consider another scenario: suppose that detectives are finally close to solving a few cold cases and identifying a serial killer. they were finally able to match the dna samples from multiple victims to an elderly man. as the detectives interview this man, they learn that the man suffered a traumatic brain injury 20 years ago and lost all his memories. should the detectives arrest this man or should they let him be because he is no longer recalls being the person who committed those murders?
2. another excellent argument comes from bernard williams. suppose a mad scientist tells you that he will soon begin to torture you. upon hearing this, you obviously become fearful and apprehensive. suppose he then tells you not to worry, because he will first wipe all of your memories and replace them with the memories of another person. yet, you will still be fearful and apprehensive of being tortured. why? because you know that it will in fact be you that will be tortured and be in extreme pain in the near future. we know that there are times that we forget things and also times that we misremember things, but these mental links do not ultimately change what we are: bodily beings.
3. the idea that we are simply mental links between various stages of our lives violates the law of transitivity. here's an example from thomas reid: suppose a schoolboy is flogged during class for stealing. this student later becomes a soldier, and then finally a general at a more advanced age. suppose that when he was a soldier, he remembered being the schoolboy. and when he became a general, he remembered being the young soldier, but not the schoolboy. the old general remembers fighting wars in his younger days, but does not remember being a schoolboy. does this mean, because he does not recall his days as a schoolboy, that he was never that schoolboy? reid's example has been modified several times. suppose the general does remember being a schoolboy, but he does not remember being the young man who fought in wars. in other words, the general is psychologically continuous, i.e., identical, with the schoolboy, but not the young fighter. according to the psychological accounts of personal identity, the old general was never the young man who fought the wars.

of course, this circularity and violation of transitivity could all be avoided by abandoning the idea that psychological continuity defines your identity, e.g., that your memories (and conscious experiences in general) literally make up who you are.
a person who is self-aware is aware of something—himself. there is someone or something that is conscious, thinking, remembering, aware, has memories, and has a mind. there is someone or something that is experiencing, but what exactly is this being? the sensible answer is that the human being that came into existence at the moment of fertilization is the one and same being who is conscious, thinking, remembering, seeing, and feeling, etc. the human being of course has the brain and sense organs necessary to experience the environment around him.
the nonsensical answer given by abortion advocates in order to avoid certain unsavory implications of abortion is that we are not human beings, but instead we are "minds." it should be emphasized that saying "i am a mind" is just as senseless as saying "i am my eyesight" or "i am my ability to think." a mind isn't a conscious agent, but a set of mental faculties and powers. as peter hacker and max bennett note (in their book "philosophical foundations of neuroscience"), a mind does not make up its own mind; a mind does not have a mind of its own. but rather it's the human being that has a mind, perceives, thinks, has desires, makes decisions, and form intentions. the most prominent arguments for mind/body dualism came from rené descartes, who thought that the mind and body were two separate substances. descartes was a brilliant man, to be sure, but he did not have the knowledge that we have now. no contemporary neuroscientist or philosopher considers the mind to be a separate, conscious agent, or as gilbert ryle derisively called it, "the ghost in the machine." unfortunately, descartes' erroneous mind-body dualism is still very much pervasive, and so it too needs to be disentangled.
confusing the mind with the person, or a conscious agent, leads to the belief that there is a homunculus (latin for "little man") in our heads that senses and perceives and controls the body, and that we are this homunculus. are abortion advocates even able explain the physiological processes involved in the creation of this second being, like how we can explain the creation of an organism (e.g., fertilization)? surely they can point to studies about how the brain produces a separate substance—presumably, another material being, since science can only observe and explain the material. or are we supposed to pretend that it's just like the magic we see in harry potter movies?
nonetheless, this view leads to an infinite regress. consider the following:
i) the animal body ("vessel") is necessary to generate consciousness and produce a new being—the person.
ii) we are the person and not the animal.
iii) we are conscious.
iv) but just how can we persons be conscious? how are we able to sense the environment around us? there must be some necessary causal mechanism for persons themselves to be conscious. wouldn't we persons also need bodies of our own, with brains and sense organs, to be conscious of our environments? and don't persons have minds of their own?
this is what philosopher anthony kenny calls the homunculus fallacy: a "postulation of a little man within a man to explain human experience and behavior." dualists have stipulated that the mind/person is the real subject of experiences, and not the human being, which is actually just a vessel for us minds/persons to reside in. but this just merely shifts the problem instead of actually explaining it. if the human animal's cognitive functions are explained away by another being, the mind/person, and persons like us clearly have minds—we're able to sense, perceive, act, and think—then we can ask whether our own cognitive functions also produce homunculi in our own heads. this leads to an endless regress of little men residing inside the heads of little men.
now, one could say that the person uses the same animal brain, eyes, ears, nose, mouth to experience, but then what's stopping the human animal itself from using its own brain and sense organs to experience? why can't the animal, who has the brain as a proper part fully integrated with its entire central nervous system, use that brain to think? we also know through empirical sciences that other animals are conscious, are emotional, and can perceive the environment around them, so why would human animals be incapable of doing the same?

star wars "minds uploads"

proponents of dualism will ask us to consider situations in which "we" can be separated from our bodies. if the person can be separated from the animal body, then abortion advocates (and dualists) can properly show that we are not human beings. they will bring up "mind uploading" experiments that they might have seen in a star wars episode. the gist of the idea is that "you" can be separated from your animal body/"vessel" and be "uploaded" onto a computer where "you" can still persist. this persistence would obviously be based on psychological continuity and not biological continuity. however, abortion advocates never actually give proper explanations as to how this would all work. how would this possible? you aren't moving a person. if a person is a material thing, then, once again, what exactly is this being, and how can you "upload" this being? you can't send a banana over the phone, so how can you upload a material being into a computer? if the person is immaterial, then how can a material machine interact with an immaterial being?
to reiterate, consciousness, and the mind in general, are capacities. the mind and our consciousness are not objects that can be moved from once place to another, but powers. saying you can "upload" a mind is just as senseless as saying you can upload someone's ability to see or their ability to do recall what they did last summer. at most you can say that it might be possible to copy and digitize the contents of your brain into a machine, but this isn't moving "you." whatever is in that machine would be just a copy of whatever contents were in your brain. and it is certainly possible to make copies of copies. so even supposing star wars "mind uploads" are possible, how can you say that the "mind" in the machine would truly be you? (we can also ignore the need for substantiation that machines could be conscious just like us; it's not relevant to this discussion.) if i write a message on one piece of paper, erase it, and then write the same message on another piece of paper, i haven't simply moved the original paper. so "you" would not be whatever is that is on the computer, nor is it clear that such a being would ever be conscious.
see olson's article the metaphysics of transhumanism for more debunking on "mind uploads."

riding around in animal bodies

descartes' mind/body dualism has several issues pertaining to interactions between the immaterial and material. for example, how could the immaterial mind interact with a material body? such interactions are difficult to explain with our current understanding of the laws of physics.
but we can suspend our understanding of modern science for the sake of argument—science certainly isn't a strong suit for abortion advocates anyway. suppose it were in fact possible for the immaterial person to interact with the material body. there would still be other interaction issues, namely, issues with interactions involving volitional acts.
here's an argument from peter hacker and max bennett:
suppose for a moment that we are in fact little persons and that the human animal is simply just a vessel for us to inhabit and ride around in. how does one exactly operate an animal body? to keep with the vehicle analogy, consider driving a car. before you can drive a car, you need knowledge of how the steering wheel, brake, accelerator, gearshift, turning signals, etc. all function. we need conscious knowledge of these parts and their functions as we are driving.
but then how do self-conscious "persons" or "minds" operate the animal bodies without any prerequisite knowledge of the specific neurons, cerebellum functions, spinal tracts, and the overall nervous system that is responsible for most of our motor activities? in other words, how do we move our animal bodies without knowing exactly which neuron cells to fire up and knowing the specific pathways to send signals to the limbs, etc.? if you want to speak, how do you know which neurons to fire to open up your mouth and move your vocal chords? if you want to turn your head, do you know exactly which buttons to press to move the head? if you want to pick up a book and read it, do you know how to control the animal body to pick up the book and lower the head to read the words?
a dualist cannot adequately explain how one operates an animal body.

against the constitution view

being little persons that ride around in animal bodies sounds ridiculous (it is). so instead abortion advocates will utilize an analogy involving a statue and the lump of clay it is made of to make their views seem more plausible than they actually are. suppose you have a clay statue of a horse. we can say that this statute is constituted by the clay. you could smash the statute into pieces and what would remain is the lump of clay. the statue would be destroyed, but the lump of clay would still persist. the different persistence conditions of the statute and the clay imply that they must be two distinct objects that merely coincide with one another.
accordingly, defenders of the constitution view say the person is constituted by the human animal. like singer, they claim that we were never fetuses, and that we, the persons, only came into existence once that fetus gained the some capacity for mental acts (e.g., having the capacity for self-consciousness), much like how the lump of clay exists prior to the statue, which only comes into existence once the clay is shaped in some particular manner. under the constitution view, animals and persons each have different properties that they share with one another. for example, the person has the property to think nonderivatively, while the animal only thinks derivatively in virtue of the person thinking. the animal has the property to digest food nonderivatively, while the person only digests derivatively in virtue of the animal digesting food. moreover, they claim that the human animal and person can also have differing persistence conditions. for example, it's possible that the human animal could be kept alive in a permanent vegetative state while the person would "disappear" for good once the capacity for self-consciousness is gone. it's important to note that self-consciousness is mastery of reflexive language. it is not that a person comes into existence once the human animal becomes self-conscious, but that the human animal has learned reflexive language.
but the constitution view is begging the question. they are presupposing that 1) there are even two objects in the clay/statute analogy, and that 2) this analogy extends to living beings, i.e., that there are two distinct beings (the person and the human animal) co-located with one another.
with regards to the lump of clay and statue analogy, we easily say that there is only one object here: a lump of clay with the property of being shaped like a horse. the lump of clay can gain or lose this property, i.e., gain or lose its shape, but it would still persist as the one and same lump of clay. for example, we can take the same lump of clay shaped as a horse and then reshape it into a statute of dog. similarly, i can gain the property of being able to walk (think of a toddler learning how to walk) and lose the same property later on (i could become paralyzed); but that doesn't mean there were two distinct beings co-located within me (the walker and non-walker). i also have the property of shape—i can go from being scrawny to having a bodybuilder's sculpted figure to being fat—but it would be silly to suggest that i was "constituted" by several distinct beings from my transformations from skinny to built to fat.
moreover, a statue is an artifact. we can't generalize what might be true of artifacts to living things. even supposing we had two distinct objects (the statue and the lump of clay), what's the argument to show that this constituting relationship applies to living things as well? i can smash the clay statute into pieces, moisten up the clay rubble, and use the same clay to build a new statute. or, alternatively, i can add even more sculpted lumps of clay to the original statute. can you do the same with a human being or any other living being? no. you cannot smash me into pieces and put me back together, for i'd be dead. on the other hand, a human being could lose all of his limbs and still persist, while a statue that loses all its "limbs" ceases to be a statue and becomes rubble. statues do not grow 1,000 times their size. nor do the particles of the statues constantly turnover like the particles of living organisms due to their metabolism. lumps of clay and statues—artifacts, in general—are not comparable to living things. what is true of the inorganic can't be generalized to the organic.
defenders of the constitution view want us to believe some extraordinary—that somehow there are two distinct objects coinciding in the same exact space and the two objects are somehow also indistinguishable down to very last atom. if the same atoms can compose two different objects at once, why would we not say that the objects are identical? this is why i put "fairy tales" in title—they want us to believe this without any explanations, substantiations, or empirical observations. it's no different than me asserting that there are fifty different beings seated exactly where i am, without any empirical substantiation or explanatory power as to why anyone ought to believe that in the first place.
this is what eric olson (in his book "a study in personal ontology") calls the indiscernibility problem:

How can putting the same parts together in the same way in the same circumstances give you qualitatively different wholes? If the same atoms can compose two things at once, what could make those two things qualitatively different? What could give them different mental properties, or different persistence conditions, or different modal properties? If atoms really could compose more than one object at once—if numerically different objects could coincide materially—should we not expect those objects to be qualitatively identical?

what is it that makes us persons non-animals? what gives us different properties despite being indistinguishable from the human animal? so when one claims that "animals" don't think, they'd actually have to argue why animals are not capable of thinking, but we non-animals (the persons) are capable of thinking despite being indistinguishable from the animal down to the very last atom.

the too many thinkers objection

lastly, no dualist account can overcome the too many thinkers objection.
here's the standard argument given for animalism (the view that we are animals): there is a human animal sitting in your chair and that human animal is thinking. if you are the thinking being sitting in your chair, then you are the human animal seated in your chair. if you don't think you are the human animal, then there is another being that is thinking.
suppose that there are indeed two beings seated exactly where you are: the human animal and the person. this leads to an epistemic problem: how do you know you are the person, and not the human animal? they are thinking the same things and are sensing the same things (whether derivatively or nonderivatively). both of them have a shared history and appear to recall the same exact memories. both of them are reading this exact passage at the exact same time. if you think you are the person, then the human animal is also thinking he is the person. the problem isn't just that are two beings sharing the same thoughts, but also that you can never know which of the two beings you are: the human animal or the person.
to get around this problem, dualists often try to deny that animals, including humans, could think at all. according to them, only "persons" are capable of thinking. in order words, there is only one thinker, the person. but why should anyone accept this? if the human animal has all the neurological and anatomical structures required for one to think, then why can't it also think?
now suppose, for argument's sake, that human animals can't think, and only persons can think. we can replace the too many thinkers objection with the too many feelers objection. when the person is in a sad mental state, the human animal cries. when the person is angry, the human animal shakes with rage. when the person is embarrassed, the human animal blushes. when the person is anxious, the human animal feels butterflies in its stomach and its heart starts racing. when the person is disgusted, the human animal becomes nauseated. here, once again, we have a "too many candidates" problem. you can never know which of the two beings you are: the person who is sad, angry, embarrassed, anxious, and disgusted, or the human animal that is crying, shaking with rage, blushing, has knots in his stomach, and is nauseated.
so even if star wars "mind uploads" were possible, you could never know whether you'd be the magical mind that gets moved or the human animal that gets left behind.

I’m a 40yr Female, 5’7” 120lbs with well managed Hashimoto’s, heavy periods, but no other health issues until after I had Covid. Dr’s think I have ibs, maybe SIBO, but haven’t responded to their treatments. December 2022 - COVID January- tachycardia. Had EKG, stress test, echocardiogram, blood work to check for heart attack, blood clots, cbc, metabolic panel. Everything normal. Tachycardia suddenly resolved by March. April - Started taking iron for low ferritin. Couldn’t tolerate the supplement, had constipation, upset stomach. Started having reflux, upper GI problems. Discontinued. Week later I suddenly felt profoundly exhausted and nauseated, then had diarrhea. Thought it was food poisoning. Felt better next day, had breakfast, then same thing happened. This continued for a week so I went to the dr. They ran stool tests- all negative. It continued for another week so I returned. They did metabolic panel cbc, all normal except elevated bilirubin (1.8) They told me I should try a naturopath, because gut stuff is their thing. I also asked for GI referral. GI did colonoscopy, found nothing, said it’s IBS and sent me on my way. Strangely my symptoms mostly resolved for 2 months after the colonoscopy, but then came back. I discovered my symptoms improved, but didn’t resolve following a low FODMAP diet and eliminating gluten. I have been following this diet since. I have upper right pain on and off. My doctor referred me for an abdominal ultrasound. They found fat on the liver and nonspecific heptocellular disease. Then saw a heptologist who did a fibroscan. He said he was surprised to see my liver is very fatty, since I’m thin. He diagnosed NASH. He said it doesn’t seem like I have any scarring yet. He will rescan in 1 year and had no recommendations since I can’t lose weight being only 120lbs. I have had liver panels a few times and bilirubin remains slightly elevated. Dr. Says it’s Gilbert’s, but I have never had elevated bilirubin before I was sick, and neither of my parents ever have. My ferritin is lower now and I’m anemic, because of the diarrhea. My eyes look slightly tinted yellow on days I have diarrhea. I can tell by my eyes in the morning that I’m going to be sick feeling that day. I have had a GI map from the naturopath. He said I have gut imbalances, h. Pylori, and candida. He had me take supplements: uva Ursi, mastica gum, NAC and Nystatin. The only thing that improved was the reflux, upper gi pain. It’s totally gone. I still can’t tolerate fodmap foods or gluten. Supplements were switched to berberine, mastica gum, NAC. Still no improvements. Now they would like to try antibiotics. I’m worried there’s more going on with my liver that’s maybe causing this, as sudden as it came on. Like maybe a duct is clogged, or there’s inflammation and I’m not releasing enough bile or can’t detox properly or something. The naturopathic Dr. is surprised I haven’t responded at all to the herbal anti microbials. Not sure what direction to go next. My diet is extremely restricted. If I have the smallest trace of something like garlic, or a piece of apple I get sick for days. The list of food I can tolerate is smaller than the list of food I can’t tolerate.

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/m__voz
Originally posted to tifu
TIFU by accepting a $50 dare.
Trigger Warnings: spinal injury, self-injurious behavior, self endangerment
Original Post - March 24, 2024
This happened last weekend, but close enough. I (21M) am a college student, and a homie invited me to some frat party. Having not much better to do, I went.
I arrived fashionably late and it was crowded already, I started drinking a lot and socializing a bit. For some reason the topic of gymnastics came up, and I mentioned that my mom had me in gymnastics until I was 14. The group I was talking with got excited about that. They cleared a path and I did a back handspring, followed by a round of applause. Felt like an elite athlete, despite having sat on my ass for the past couple of years. Had a few more beers then went out on the balcony to have a smoke. There, I was talking about my sports endeavors with some guy I had spoken to earlier; he used to be a swimmer.
He asked me if I thought I could do a backflip off the balcony and land on my feet on the table. There was a set of sturdy, wooden lawn furniture on the grass right beneath the balcony, and it wasn't that high of a drop. I figured I would probably end up fine even if I missed the table. I told him for 50 bucks I probably could. I guess bro really wanted to see me pull that off, so he said sure, we shook hands on it and I got up onto the railing. I had some minor doubts at that point, but I couldn't let down the people watching me.
So, I jumped backwards... with slightly too much force, which caused me to do 1.5 backflips. I didn't land on my feet on the table, or even softly on the grass, but instead wrapped my spine around the backrest of one of the chairs. Absolutely knocked the wind out of me. Briefly thought I had broken my back in like 7 different places and was now paralyzed. I genuinely couldn't move, and had to have some guys lift me off and put me on the ground.
That's when the pain actually hit me, followed by a wave of relief because that meant I was, in fact, not paralyzed. People were arguing about whether or not to call an ambulance, and once I was able to fill my lungs with air again I told them not to. I felt like a stupid jackass for failing at this simple task, and I stood up to prove I was fine. My back still hurt so fucking bad, like a weird sharp but also radiating pain, quite nauseating. With a lot of effort I went inside and sat my ass down on a couch, where I was served beer by a few homies who thought my miserable stunt was entertaining regardless.
Well, the next day wasn't much better. The middle of my back formed a nice line of a perfectly symmetrical, 2-3 inch wide bruise. Bending forwards, backwards or sideways hurt, so did breathing in a bit too deep. Pretty nasty. And turns out my neck also took a bit of a beating from being slammed backwards, it feels like I just rode every rollercoaster at Six Flags without bracing myself whatsoever.
A week later, I feel like I've been hit by a car rather than a truck, so that's an improvement. And I probably gained a solid reputation of an overconfident loser, so that's something.
There might be a great lesson to learn here, like, don't get drunk and do stupid shit, even if offered money for it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
TL;DR: failed gymnast tries to relive his youth, almost shatters his spine on a stupid chair.
Top Comments
soakedace: Listen mate. Its been a week, you feel better.
You need to do what you should have done night 1 before even moving.
Go to the doctor.
If anything has fractured, you could have it fuse back in place incorrectly causing life long damage or pain. Get to the doctor, tell them what happened. If you're 100% fine you are lucky and can rest easy, if not - early and they might be able to fix.
Remember this for the next time you end up in such a predicament. Internal bleeding or hemorrhaging may not be visible and could be deadly. Any serious fall like this:
Do NOT move. Call an Ambulance. Follow the instructions.
GibsonMaestro: You still need to see a doctor. Deciding not see one, is a bad decision. It's a stupid decision. How many bad decisions have you made in your life, and how many more do you want to regret making?
 
Update #1 - March 27, 2024
I posted here the other day with my fuck up of taking a bet to backflip off a balcony, miserably failing and landing on my back on the backrest of a chair. I had been lazy as fuck since that day, but yesterday, I genuinely felt better and decided I would be fine to go into the city's center and interview people for a project all day.
Throughout the next couple of hours, the pain went from somewhat tolerable discomfort to agonizing deep pressure. I thought, whatever, I'll just sit down. But nope, no position or stretch or anything even slightly alleviated it. Getting into my car caused an overwhelming "pinching" sensation in my spine, and it was like my legs didn't work as well as they should. I could barely exert enough force to properly operate the pedals.
I had previously convinced myself that this situation would just go away on it's own if I stopped being a baby about it, but at this point I realized something was very much fucked. So, in the late afternoon I drove myself to the nearest ER. Getting out of the car was even worse, it felt like my entire back just... locked up, and every step sent a "shock" through my body. I straight up puked in the hallway from sheer exhaustion and pain the second I walked through the door. Luckily I was seen pretty shortly and given something for the pain so they could examine me.
Welp, turns out I literally walked around with a broken back for over a week. Compression fracture in 8T, for the smart people here. Got scolded a fair bit for not coming in sooner. Shifted two discs in the same area too, doctor told me I'm really fucking lucky I didn't severely jack up a nerve or anything. Said all the standing/walking I had been doing put crazy strain on my spine. The stiffness was caused by muscle spasms.
Figured I'd post an update. Like I said, I fr thought I would just heal on my own. Anyway, just got home from the hospital, they did so many different scans on me I might grow a third arm. My doctor said I have to take it really fucking easy until my next checkup and I'm already lowkey bored not being allowed to do shit lol. But feeling better on some meds so that's all good.
But yeah nah I probably could've saved myself some pain if I had just gone to the hospital immediately like my buddies - and a few dozen people on here... - advised me to. I also doubt I'll be setting any deadlift PRs anytime soon, which sucks because I was getting hella strong.
Live and learn, or something.
TL;DR: got dared to do a backflip off a balcony, jacked up my spine, and got treated way too late because I'm stubborn
Top Comments
Azzbolemighty: One thing I've always been taught. If the injury is to the head or the spine, then get to the hospital even if you feel fine.
aerin104: You were told repeatedly that this would happen. I am glad you finally sought treatment and I hope the delay didn't cause anything worse to happen. I know from personal experience that you can have a rush of adrenaline and endorphins from an injury so you don't initially realize how badly injured you were. I broke my leg and sprained my other ankle so badly I was still non weight bearing 6 weeks later while doing flying trapeze for the first time. I did realize I was injured and that it was best to go get it checked out, but I drove myself to the orthopedic urgent care and walked into the clinic.
I also had concert tickets for that night that I was determined to still go to even after I got the news about the break and my boots to stabilize my injuries. However after I got home and sat for a while I knew there was no fucking way I was gonna make it there since I could barely hobble with crutches. It just took a long time for the pain to really set in.
I also had a spinal injury as a kid and while I did get emergency care immediately, that injury from when I was 12 still has my back screwed up and I am 39 now. The real pain is long lasting and possibly forever depending on what you did. I hope you heal up, dude. Keeping my fingers crossed
 
Update #2 - April 20, 2024
Almost a month ago, I thought it would be an awesome plan to do a backflip off a balcony at a party because a guy offered me 50 bucks for it. I missed the table I was supposed to land on, and instead came to a full stop with my spine essentially wrapped around the backrest of a chair. Following that incident, I made the even dumber decision of not going to a doctor. I remember my homies arguing about whether or not to call an ambulance after that whole thing happened, and I kinda wish I had let them. Maybe my situation would suck less now if I just got checked immediately.
But no, I instead lived with a literally broken (compression fracture, 2 shifted discs) back for a week, until literally agonizing pain caused by muscle spasms forced me to go to the hospital. There, I was given a bunch of pills and basically told to lay in bed until my following appointment a little more than a week later, to avoid shifting anything in my back. That was a fucking awful week. Painkillers every couple of hours helped, but fuck that shit still hurt so bad. Hellish stiff radiating aches, stabbing/throbbing pain whenever I tried to slightly change positions. Couldn't stand or sit upright because of the pressure.
Anyway, then I could finally start moving around a tiny bit again after being forced into laziness for over a week. I started going to physical therapy every couple of days around that time as well because my range of motion is absolutely shit. But yeah, some rest and slowly reintroducing physical activity is working. Pain levels are manageable-ish. Whiplash got a bit better. Still can't stand for a long time without the "pressure" sensations though; pretty difficult to ignore towards the end of the day.
That's it for my update. Doctors are semi optimistic about my whole healing thing. When I asked about it I was told going back to lifting weights "isn't in my near future", though, so that sucks as that's a big hobby of mine. Maybe I'll become a runner or some shit once I'm allowed to do everything again. Regardless, definitely not worth that $50, as that's not even a tiny fraction of my pending medical bills...
TL;DR: messed up my back over a dare last month, hopefully my shit will be better in a few weeks now
 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

Content warning for descriptions of severe injuries
I posted this last night and just found out it was removed by NoSleep’s mods because it violated the “Unacceptable Horror” rule. I read through the rules before posting and again after being removed and I’m not sure what the problem is, I know it’s kind of gory but I don’t think it would count as excessively gory? What am I missing here, any advice would be appreciated! Here’s the story in full, unedited after being removed:
I used to hate cold showers, but I'm used to them now.
Moving back to my hometown wasn’t exactly my post-graduate plan, but halfway through senior year I became an orphan and a homeowner in one fell swoop. I bought one ticket for graduation and crossed the stage knowing one of the empty seats I couldn’t make out from the podium was my mother’s. The next day my fiancé Jeremy and I drove for eleven hours straight, back to the small farming town in Washington that I hadn’t called home in years.
Jeremy did make an effort to be there for me, I think I can see that now. It was a lot for him, being there with me, away from the city, friends, his career. My mom’s house was not the downtown loft we had toured that spring, but he told me he thought it was adorable anyway.
The house was built in the 60s and bought by my grandparents in the 70s. I can still remember the way the house looked when my grandma lived in it. Paisley wallpaper and potted plants behind the sink, Simon & Garfunkel’s “I Am a Rock” playing from a cassette tape. When my grandma died, my mom painted over the wallpaper and threw out her tapes. I saved the album with that song on it, Sounds of Silence. I’ve never played it.
After a few months that wallpaper from my childhood decided it’s time being glued was over and it was taking mom’s beige paint job with it. Jeremy wanted to fix it himself, I didn’t want anyone other than my mother painting her walls. I ended up tearing the wallpaper down and painting on the bare walls myself. I felt like I was a corpse splashing ‘Mallard Green’ paint on the inside of my coffin. I wondered how my mother felt doing the same actions a decade earlier. Jeremy didn’t talk to me until I was done with the bedroom. He said it looked terrible and I told him to eat shit.
I was scrubbing the paint flecks out of my hair when the water temperature started to fluctuate. I preferred my showers as hot as possible, and for the first few months the ancient water heater obliged. Jeremy complained about lukewarm water but kept forgetting he needed to shower until the exact second after I headed to the bathroom with a towel. I told him if he wanted a hot shower he could go to his parent’s house, and say hi to them both. That usually shut him up.
The hot water would usually last long enough for me to sing along to five songs, sometimes as many as eight. So, when the water started turning cold during the middle of song number three, I was suspicious. Jeremy said he hadn’t showered recently, but I didn’t believe him. I finished rinsing conditioner out of my hair with the cold water and tried to ignore my chattering teeth. Somehow sitting on the bed in a towel after felt even colder. I shortened my showers to four songs after that.
The next week, Jeremy drove out to see a friend from college who had moved to a city near us over the summer. That day he actually remembered to shower without the pavlovian prompting of me getting a clean towel. I heard him yelp at how hot the water was and he got pissed at me laughing at him. He said he didn’t know it could get so hot because he’d never ‘been allowed’ to shower with a full water heater. Like it was my fault I was the only person who remembered to bathe regularly.
I was determined to not give him an inch, so I bit my tongue when the water in the sink burned my hands the next day. The day after that my shower oscillated from ice cold to scalding hot, bringing actual tears to my eyes. I didn’t say anything about that, either.
Jeremy didn’t like the neighbors, the new paint color, or the way the floors creaked at night. When I asked him what he did like, he said the house has ‘good bones.’ I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean and I didn’t ask. He explained anyway. Apparently ‘has good bones’ is code for ‘needs to be torn down to the frame and rebuilt.’ He had been thinking about it for a while, and an open floor plan would really liven the place up. I reminded him that the house was mine, and he was technically my guest since we weren’t married yet. I didn’t want any remodeling, that was final. I said if we ended up having kids maybe I would reconsider then. I guess that bruised his ego, because he slept on the couch for a few nights after that. He spent the weekend with his old friend doing god knows what. Girlfriends weren't invited. I spent the weekend scraping wallpaper off the kitchen walls and replacing it with a pale yellow color called ‘Grapefruit.’
I was forced to break my silence about the water heater when Jeremy came back from his weekend out. That morning I got out of an especially volatile shower, wiped the fog off the mirror, and saw that my shoulders and neck were deep red. I had gotten as used as you can be to ignoring my nerves while showering, taking the hot and cold mostly in stride. This was different, worse than any sunburn I’d ever had. Even the towel touching my skin was too painful. I let myself air dry, laying gingerly on the bedsheets. Jeremy wouldn’t be home for hours, and I knew we didn’t have any aloe. I couldn’t stop myself from crying, and the salt made the burns worse. I was in my own house, my mother’s house, my grandmother’s house, and I felt completely alone. I am a rock, I am an island, Paul Simon sings on that song on my grandmother’s cassette in my memory.
Jeremy came back late, refreshed and ready to be angry at me again. How can time apart make someone so much more bitter? He probably thought I was pitiful, feeling like a lobster boiled alive and looking the part.
I told him we needed to fix the water heater, and he laughed.
“So, once it’s something you want changed it’s allowed?” he said.
I didn’t respond.
“That tracks, since it’s all about you isn’t it. Your mom, your house, blah blah blah. No thought for me, my needs, my fucking life.”
I still didn’t respond.
“What, nothing to say? Nothing about how you dragged me out to the middle of fucking nowhere to live in this shit-hole of a house?”
I couldn’t get any words out past the anger, so I just stood clenching and unclenching my fist. He stared at me for a minute then went to the kitchen for a drink.
“Jesus Christ. This color is fucking hideous,” he said from the other room. I got up, red skin cracking as I walked to the bedroom door.
“Get the water heater fixed or leave,” I said. He scoffed at me and raised an eyebrow to say really? I didn’t blink and stood my ground.
He rolled his eyes, shut the fridge, and said “Fine, whatever.”
“Okay, good.” I shut the bedroom door and locked him out.
I put in headphones to tune out the noises coming from the living room TV and tried to sleep. I was exhausted but the pain of my burns kept me up. I put some washcloths in the sink and tepidly turned the handle to the coldest setting. When the water appeared to not be steaming hot, I grabbed the damp fabric and held it to my neck to ease the pain. I swallowed some Tylenol and held the cold glass to my skin. It helped some.
When I finally did pass out, I had awful dreams. I dreamt I was peeling back the burned skin on my shoulder and finding not pink flesh underneath but dried paint, the green color I used in the bedroom. The layers kept going, my mother’s dovetail paint, my grandmother’s paisley wallpaper, a pastel floral pattern I didn’t recognize. I was frantically digging into myself, scraping back the layers until I hit a layer of rough wood and had to stop. I stared at the gash I had made in disgust, the layers of paint and wallpaper looking like the cross-section of a jawbreaker.
I jolted awake. I inspected my body and didn’t see any injuries other than the burns which looked slightly less red-hot. The pain came back, of course, but it was improving with the meds and sleep.
I got up and almost started making a pot of coffee but decided I’d better not tempt my fate with more hot water so soon after my burns. I was halfway through a bowl of cereal when I realized Jeremy wasn’t around. Had he actually left, I wondered? I felt like I should feel sad at that thought, but I just felt hollow. Hollow at the thought of him leaving, worse at the thought of him coming back. I pushed the feelings down and checked my phone, surprised to see a text from him saying he was looking at the water heater.
I finished my cereal and headed to the door in the kitchen that opened to the garage. The garage light was on. I called out to Jeremy but didn’t get a response, so I walked down the steps and around the corner to where the water heater was.
He was kneeling in front of the water heater, his hands outstretched, touching the sides of it. I called his name again, but he didn’t move. I took a step towards him and noticed the concrete was slick with water, pooling out from under Jeremy’s legs. My heart dropped.
As I got closer I saw that his hands weren’t just touching the metal. They were fused to it. The skin was bubbled and popped like crispy pork rinds. The weight of his hands was pulling at the skin attached to the water heater and it was starting to tear apart, revealing the red meat underneath. I gagged, my stomach screaming at me to vomit.
I didn’t want to look at his face, but I forced myself to. I had to know what had happened. It was scalded to the bone, a drooping bloody wax candle of fat and muscle. His jaw was frozen half open in a death mask of surprise.
I observed myself from a distance as my hands felt his arms and—once I could tell his body wouldn’t burn me—pulled his hands off the water heater. They came free with a nauseating sucking sound. Some chunks of his fingers stayed glued to the metal. I lowered him backwards to the wet concrete floor in a pose somehow more unnatural than how I found him.
I found his phone in his pants pocket, still functioning. I deleted the most recent text he sent me and texted myself a nasty, hateful text that summed up his feelings for me. I went through his contacts, texting them goodbyes and fuck-you’s as I saw fit. I turned the phone off before anyone could call. Nothing they could say would help him.
I put the phone in a ziplock bag to contain the glass and hammered it into sand. Jeremy went into two overlapping garbage bags since he was too big for only one. I drove off in Jeremy’s truck, leaving my phone at home just in case my location was being watched. I pinned my hair up into a baseball cap to hide its length and drove through the small downtown fast enough to be remembered.
I buried Jeremy in the forest a few miles outside of town. His truck went over a cliff a few more miles down the road. It took me four hours to walk back. The fresh air was delicious.
When I made it back to my mom’s house I scraped the rest of Jeremy off of the water heater. I couldn’t identify any leaks, cracks, or broken valves. I’m no plumber, though. I threw away the final bag in the regular trash. It was unidentifiable.
I took a shower that night in the coldest water the tap could manage. The temperature stayed steady and the frigid water on my burns felt like heaven.

Does anyone who followed mother bus when she had her other babies know if she treated them the way she’s been treating her newborn? I wasn’t following until she was pregnant with Boone. She was obviously always very narcissistic and a terrible parent, but JFC, her parenting (or lack of) since having this baby is nauseating.
My heart breaks for this poor baby. The pain you go through as an infant and young child of neglect can leave emotional and physical scars that may stick with you chronically. I hope all the best for him. These people should not be parents.

I took a dose of 100 mg generic Colace last night, I was able to go this morning. (I have IBS-M but tend toward the D side.) I had been backed up for a bit due to pain meds/ovarian cyst. Can a single dose make you feel sick? I was nauseated a little and had a bunch of trapped gas for a bit this afternoon. I've gone two more times, almost normally. I'm sure it's just the medicine but my anxiety is making me doubt 😅

Hi! I am trying something a little different. This is the first chapter of a longer story based on a previous 2SH story of mine. It is still a work in progress, but I am going to try and post new chapters here when I can, and if anyone has any thoughts, I would be happy to hear them.
Thanks for reading!
****
Chapter 1: No one is an island
“Do you ever think about killing people?”
“What?! No! Why would you even ask me that?” I was momentarily too surprised to be offended.
“You know why I have to,” the therapist crossed her arms and leaned forward in her chair, fixing me with an inscrutable gaze. “It is my job to monitor your mental state and maintain the safety of the colony. I know it may be hard for you to understand our feelings in this matter, but…”
“I’ve told you before, I do understand how you feel. I’m not a sociopath.”
“We don’t like to use those labels for people, Carter” she chided me, gently. “And I know you think you understand, but it isn’t the same. I am sorry if that upsets you.”
Her stylus skittered across the tablet screen, making special note of my responses. Honestly, paper probably would have worked better for her purposes, but people were very proud of owning any ‘high-tech’ devices these days. I couldn’t be sure if she was trying to show it off to me, or simply wanted to use her newest gadget for her own sake. It didn’t really matter.
“You think I am a danger to the people here?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that. It is just one of many questions I use to assess your state of mind. Does that make you angry?”
I sighed. That was one of those questions that was impossible to answer correctly.
“I just… I don’t understand what prompted that question.”
“We have received reports that you have been fighting with the other colonists,” she frowned slightly, as if even saying it was unpleasant to her.
“It wasn’t a real fight. We were just fooling around, Smith.”
“Doctor Smith, please,” she corrected. “And that is part of what concerns me. The fact that you injured another person does not upset you?”
“Nobody got hurt, not really. We both got a couple of bruises,” I raised my arm, showing a dark mark on my bicep, already beginning to turn green. “It was nothing. We were having fun.”
Smith flinched, turning her eyes away, as if it physically pained her just to look at my minor injury.
“You find violence to be amusing?”
“No. That isn’t…” I trailed off.
I couldn’t explain it to her. I knew that from experience. The staff here didn’t understand. To them, even the idea of causing minor, accidental pain to another person was abhorrent. It frightened them that the residents didn’t always feel the same.
“Look, no one got seriously injured. We both consented. This isn’t something anyone needs to be disciplined over.”
“I didn’t say you were being disciplined.”
“No, I just got ‘randomly’ selected for an extra therapy session, for no reason.”
“I never said it was random. But this isn’t a punishment, either,” Smith clarified. “We are trying to help you.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. This wasn’t getting me anywhere. If I wanted to mollify her, I needed to play the game, same as always.
“Of course. I apologize. You want to know why we did it, then?”
She nodded; stylus poised to write.
“It wasn’t about the violence. It was about… the skill. The challenge. We wanted to see if we could do it. Nothing more significant than that.”
“What skill were you trying to learn?”
“We found some old self-defense guides in the library. We just wanted to try out some of the techniques.”
“Why, though? There is no need for self-defense in the modern world. No one would ever try to hurt you.”
“I know that. It just seemed interesting. Think of it as an anthropological experiment.”
Smith nodded slowly, that seemed to be an explanation that made sense to her, at least. Which was the point.
“So, you are saying this was driven by your interest in human history?”
“Exactly,” it wasn’t entirely a lie, though it wasn’t the complete truth, either.
“That seems more reasonable, then. I know that you enjoy studying the culture and technology of pre-Fall human societies, and we try to indulge that. But remember, that world is gone for a reason. And emulating it is not appropriate. Do you understand?”
“Of course. I apologize if I caused any distress.”
“It is alright. We appreciate your curiosity and drive. And we acknowledge that history must be understood, so that we may learn from it and avoid repeating its mistakes. But, please make sure you get proper clearance for any future experiments of a similar nature, Carter.”
I nodded, trying to look appropriately contrite.
“Very good. Now, we still have 45 minutes for this session, so what else would you like to discuss?”
I stifled a groan. I hadn’t expected my weekly therapy appointment for another 3 days, so I didn’t have any easy topics picked out to discuss, to make Smith feel like I was ‘participating’ appropriately. All I could do was wing it.
“Have you heard about the geomagnetic storm happening this weekend?” I asked, grasping for a safe topic of discussion.
“I have. Is that something you are interested in?”
“Of course. It is supposed to be the largest geomagnetic storm in centuries, maybe millennia. It might even rise to the level of a Miyake event. Based on my research, the auroras should be spectacular. I am really excited to see it.”
“As long as you don’t violate curfew, I am sure that will be an excellent activity.”
“Curfew? Oh, come on! Surely, they can relax the curfew for one night?”
“You know the rules. Until you are 25, you are under our charge. You only have 3 years left, don’t be too impatient.”
I scoffed in spite of myself,
“What changes when we turn 25, exactly?”
“You know what. You are allowed to set your own schedules, choose a partner, get a job…”
“But we can’t leave the island.”
“No,” her eyes flickered briefly in a way that could be interpreted as sadness. “You know that isn’t possible. I realize that this solution isn’t perfect, but we are all trying our best to give you, and everyone here, the best life possible, while not risking anyone else’s safety.”
“I am not a risk to anyone’s safety!”
“It isn’t personal, Carter. Are you still struggling with that?”
“Of course I am! It isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I am still a prisoner, have been since I was a little girl. I was raised here, and I will die here.”
“That isn’t necessarily true. They are making advancements in the implants all the time. Fewer and fewer babies are incompatible with the technology every year. It is possible that your own incompatibility will be solved, someday.”
“Come on. Have you ever seen that happen, even once, for an adult here?”
Dr. Smith looked down at her tablet, avoiding my eyes.
“I didn’t think so,” I shook my head. “I don’t understand why you don’t just kill us all as babies.”
“That isn’t fair!” the doctor’s composure cracked, her face revealing how much the statement wounded her. “We know that this isn’t your fault. And everyone here has sacrificed a lot to make sure you are all able to have the best lives possible.”
“Yeah, you are all really hard done by. I am sorry that my existence causes you so much trouble.”
“That isn’t what I meant…”
“Forget it. I’m done for today. I’m going back to my room,” I rose from my seat.
“Alright, Carter. I am sorry that today was challenging for you.”
“Yeah, me too.”
I left the office. In the waiting room, I spotted Lockwood sitting in one of the plush chairs and strolled over.
“You’ve got next, eh?” I asked him. “I figured.”
“Yup,” he smiled crookedly. “How was it?”
“She might need a few minutes before she is ready for you,” I was torn between feeling bad about that and a little bit proud. When we were younger, it had sometimes been a game, to upset the therapist, even get them to cry, but we had mostly grown out of that, by now.
“Carter! Were you being cruel?” he feigned surprise.
“I was being honest.”
“Is there really a difference?”
I chuckled,
“Fair enough, Lock.”
“How about we meet when I am done here? Pick things up where we left off?”
“Well, we are apparently supposed to get approval before we do any more… anthropological experiments.”
Lockwood laughed,
“Is that what we were doing? I thought I was kicking your ass.”
“In your dreams,” I scoffed.
“We’ll see. Rematch?”
“Fine, you’re on. But we need to hide it better. One of these a week is already more than enough for me.”
“Deal. I’ll come find you when I get done with the good Doctor, alright?”
I nodded and turned to leave as Lockwood headed into the interrogation room. I stepped outside, into the early afternoon sun.
The road leading from the clinic to the apartments wound its way down a steep hill overlooking the ocean. The view was probably breathtaking, but I had spent so many years associating it with mandatory therapy that I couldn’t really appreciate it. Trudging down the hill in the heat, I wiped my brow and looked out over the water. I couldn’t quite see the dock from here, but I could vaguely see the trees of the mainland in the distance, about an hour away by boat. We didn’t get to make that trip very often, and only under intense supervision. In fact, I could count on one hand the number of times I had been on the mainland since the day my parents dropped me off at the dock. I had only been 6 at the time, so my memories of that day were a little fuzzy. Lost in thought, I almost collided with the woman making her way up the hill in the opposite direction. I spun to the side, avoiding her by centimeters.
“Oh! I am sorry, Rivera,” I apologized. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Are there pirates out there or something, Carter?” she asked with a small smile.
“Who knows?” I forced a chuckle, dragging my thoughts away from darker musings. “I was just trying to pick out a spot on the beach to watch the storm this weekend. Are you going to come?”
“Of course!” she answered eagerly. “You’ve talked it up so much, how could I miss it?”
“Have I been that bad?” I blushed slightly; I hadn’t realized I had been talking her ear off about it.
“No! It’s not like that. I like hearing about it,” Rivera clarified, quickly. “Did you get permission for us to be out past curfew?”
I cleared my throat uncomfortably,
“Not in so many words. But that’s fine. It won’t be the first time we’ve snuck out, will it?”
Rivera shifted awkwardly,
“I mean, sneaking into each other’s rooms is one thing, Carter, but if a whole group of us gather on the beach, someone might notice.”
“Relax, Vera, they’ll all be asleep by the time it starts. It’ll be fine.”
“Right,” she replied hesitantly, rubbing her knuckles as she looked down at the beach.
“It’s alright if you can’t make it, though. No one is going to be upset.”
“I-I’ll be there. I want to see it, too,” she insisted.
Rivera had always been the type to follow the rules. I gave her 50/50 odds of showing up.
“Oh, and Baker said he’s been working on a new batch of moonshine that should be ready in time,” she continued. “He wants to bring it.”
I cringed,
“That’s… nice of him. But he didn’t have to go to all that trouble. We can just grab a bottle of something from the mess hall.”
“It would break his heart if we did that. He has been working on this for weeks.”
“I mean, I care about his heart, Vera, I really do. But I also care about my own internal organs. The last time he tried this it was…”
“Nauseating?” she offered.
“Poison,” I finished. “Lockwood was sick for a week.”
“Baker swears he found a better recipe, and he’s got all the bugs worked out. He said this time for sure it will be great.”
“If anyone goes blind from this…” I shook my head.
“They won’t. He’s a very good chemist and he’s been working really hard on this, you’ll see,” she looked up at me, imploring.
Rivera had always been a soft touch. She never wanted to see anyone’s feelings hurt. Sometimes it was easy to forget that she was one of us, and not the staff.
“Fine,” I relented. “But he has to drink it first. Preferably today, so we can see if there are any long-term effects.”
“That’s great!” she brightened instantly. “I’ll let him know after my session. Speaking of which, I should hurry, or I will be late.”
“Don’t mention this to anyone else, Vera. The more we bring it up, the more likely someone is to catch us.”
Rivera nodded hesitantly, and then jogged the rest of the way, back up the hill. I shook my head and continued down the road to the living quarters. I hoped she could keep this a secret.

Credit to Blue on the Discord Server for the wonderful art of Trilvri
Thank you to:
u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the Nature of Predators universe.
u/EdibleGojid, author of Dark Cuts, for proofreading.
EmClear, aspiring author, for proofreading
You, the reader, for your support. I love reading your comments.
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Memory transcription subject: Sawvek, Junior Extermination Officer
Date [standardised human time]: October 4th, 2136
“You're pushing the kid too damn hard!” Vaesh jabs an accusatory claw at Intalran, the feathered fanatic remaining unruffled as he looks down at the offending digit with disdain. “Just look at him! He’s practically swaying on his feet!”
Weary eyes, obscured by the fog of fatigue, blink and the scene in front of me gradually shifts back into focus. I stand at attention in the training hall, only vaguely aware of the argument raging around me, about me, content to simply stand by and let the storm work out its wrath. It seems there's always someone shrieking in the Guild Hall, someone fighting with someone else about something, but so long as I’m not the target of that fury there's nothing stopping me from simply retreating into the empty space of my own mind. Somewhere I don't have to think about it, don't have to engage with it. Maybe it isn’t healthy to zone out quite so much, but it’s the only peace I get anymore, and I’ve become quite adept at tuning out the screams.
“Last I checked, Vaesh,” Intalran perches himself imperiously, trying to physically embody the authoritative high ground he claims as his own, “Sawvek was my trainee, not yours. It's my responsibility to prepare him for the rigours of duty and I’ll see him trained up to my standards. There's no room for incessant coddling in this Guild Hall and I won't have you working against me! Your heretical drivel and endless nest-tending are going to dull his edge! If he gets killed out in the field on account of this constant interference with his training then I’m blaming you! I won't let his death be on my head!”
“Damn it Intalran!” Vaesh raises his voice another octave and the pain in my ears increases proportionally. “We’re on garrison duty, assigned to protect an established city on Venlil Prime itself, not front-liners on a damn frontier colony or a war fleet! No one is dying anytime soon! Not unless you intend to kill Sawvek in training that is! So stop fighting me on this! It's not coddling to see that the kid needs more rest! You can sharpen your talons all you like but there comes a point when you need to stop! A blade ground too fine will chip and shatter the first time it's used!”
Vaesh is a good officer, a type I didn't think this accursed city even employed, but it's true. His arguments with Intalran had been increasing in both frequency and intensity of late. I could practically set a clock to it. In fact, that was probably the only means of keeping a measure of the paws anymore. Time for me lately seems a blur, devoid of meaning beyond momentary interludes of precious sleep. Every paw was exhausting and the constant arguments only made it worse. While I appreciate Vaesh's support, even if he had just inadvertently relegated me to the level of a mere killing tool, I couldn't help but hate it at the same time.
I don't deserve his sympathies for one thing, as the voice is oft to remind me. Everything Vaesh does for me is out of a misplaced sense of obligation, borne of a misguided notion that I’m a better person than I really am, but I’ve been lying to him the entire time. I am predator diseased, I can’t even deny it myself any longer, and if Vaesh really knew who I was on the inside, if anyone knew, then they would burn me then and there. I don't know if I would even blame them.
Every time he’s helped me, every time he's stuck up for me or risked his neck; every time I’ve felt the guilt of it all gnawing away at me like a predator trapped in my guts, frantic to carve its way out. And yet… I’ve accepted it every time. Because that's what I am. A selfish predator, a parasite that feeds off of others to survive. Wicked. Insidious. Pathetic.
“Don't pretend like you don't know the truth Vaesh!” Intalran squaks with his typical self-righteous fury. “You’ve seen the state of this city! You’ve seen how the enemy are already past the gates and in our homes! Spreading their evil with every passing paw, infecting our entire society with their blasted taint! If I’m so wrong then why is it that even you, stubborn old blasphemer that you are, stopped responding to calls in the Human District, hmm?”
Vaesh looks away, no words issued in his own defence, a look of shame falling upon his face. Intalran is not one to let such an opportune moment of vulnerability go undefiled.
“It’s because deep down you know I’m right. Deep down you're scared of the Humans no matter what nonsense you prattle on about. ‘Peace’, ‘Coexistence’, ‘Tolerance’. It's all a sham and you know it!” Intalran goes quiet, a rarity for the radical Exterminator, and leans in towards Vaesh. “You should have given up those notions a long time ago, after those apes invaded your Cradle…”
“No.” Vaesh’s eyes rise to challenge Intalran, an unquenchable fire contained deep within. “I won't give up. It's true, I might be scared of the Humans. Who in their right mind wouldn't be? But, they’ve done me no harm despite the many transgressions we’ve made since they first arrived. They've had ample opportunity, and yet here I stand, proof that coexistence, as tenuous as that may be, is possible.” Vaesh places a paw on Intalran's chest and gently, yet firmly, pushes him out of his personal space. “The only ones looking for open conflict are people like you Intalran, because deep down I think you're scared of what a lasting peace would do to you. You live off of your war, it's what fuels you, and if you were forced to give it up then I think it might just kill you.”
Intalran narrows his eyes and I can see his talons flex, grasping at air as their razored tips dig into the floor. Vaesh simply stands with his paws clasped down politely in front of himself, turning ever so subtly as to expose Intalran to a shoulder full of sharpened quills. I can see the madness raging against reason in Intalran's eye as the two glower at one another, until finally, Intalran blinks first.
“You're not worth it Vaesh.” He says, tired and defeated. “I’m done with you. I’ve got better things to do.” He ushers me forward with a wing. “Come on Sawvek, Prestige Commander Glagrig is conducting a training exercise for the PRED Team today. If we're lucky we might be able to convince him to let us watch, or even better, to let us join his class!”
A starstruck look of glee shines out from Intalran as he speaks of his hero. I don't understand it personally. I try to avoid the new PRED Team Commander as much as I can. Something about that look in his eyes, the way he almost seems to dissect you with a glance, tearing into every facet of your being to expose the parts of you that are never meant to see the light of day… I find it deeply unsettling.
“He’s just a man, Intalran,” Vaesh says softly, “not a God. I don't care what his accomplishments are. You shouldn't worship at his altar.”
“It’s not worship, Vaesh,” Intalran replies with an edge of irritation, “it's called respect. Something you should have more of for a Prestige Exterminator who did more to fight the predators as a junior officer than you have in your entire career. I suppose it's too much to expect for someone like you to understand that though.” Intalran turns around and grabs me by the shoulder. “We’re leaving, Sawvek. Now.”
I begin to walk, pulled along by Intalran, when I’m stopped by a gentle paw on the opposite shoulder.
“You don't have to go with him, Sawvek.” Vaesh says softly. “The work claw is over. He can't keep you here any longer if you don't want to.”
“Stay out of it Vaesh!” Intalran snaps back. “Of course he wants to. Isn't that right, Sawvek?”
This is the other part I hate. Being stuck in the middle of these two. Protector above, I swear it's like being a child caught in the crossfire between a pair of parents who hate each other. Thank the Protector that was one strife my family didn't have to contend with. It was one I’d seen others experience plenty of times growing up and one I’d hoped to never deal with myself, yet somehow it seems I’ve found myself there anyway.
“I… I think I’ll stop for this paw and rest…” I finally say, preying on Vaesh's kindness once again, guilty but relieved to finally put an end to the paw. I'm certain that I’ll be worked by Intalran even harder tomorrow to compensate.
“Really Sawvek?” Intalran seems genuinely befuddled, almost hurt that I would turn him down. “This is a great oppor-”
“The kid made his choice.” Vaesh cuts him off, earning a vengeful glare, and turns to me. “How about I drive you home? You look beat.”
“No thank you.” I say reluctantly. “It’s not too far to the train station and I think I’d prefer to walk for a little bit actually. Clear my head a little.”
I really wouldn't. My whole body is in a constant state of pain, aching from paw after paw of intensive exercise, painful incentivising shocks, and exacting oversight from Intalran. The last thing I want to do right now is move. Almost. The one thing I’d rather do less is abuse Vaesh's hospitality one more time. I’d taken advantage of him too many times this paw already.
“I can certainly understand that.” Vaesh acquiesces, buying into my bold-faced lies. “I’ve been there myself once or twice. Get home safe and recuperate. I’ll see you next paw.”
My departure is swift and uneventful, purposefully so as I do my best to avoid anyone else in the department who might find reason to detain me. Ducking through the locker room I narrowly manage to avoid Bikim and Turlid as the obnoxious pair of brahkasses make their way to the break room, stowing my gear in the process and slipping out the rear exit. My feet move me along down the sidewalk mechanically, devoid of intent or conscious thought, trusting fully to the ingrained muscle memory of my route home. Free to wander, my eyes take in the sights of the city centre.
Sleek and austere towers jut up from the pavement, monuments of steel and glass to the unity of corporate and governmental power, meticulously serviced and shined to showcase a projection of strength and dignity I know them to be lacking; a holdover from more prosperous times. The city itself seems to glow with a multi-coloured rainbow halo of neon, its signs and storefronts reflecting artificial illumination from the mirrored polish of skyscrapers to blot out the stars above, holding back the encroaching darkness of twilight in stark rejection of nature's laws.
The entire display strikes me as a sign of hubris, of our dogged insistence to replace the natural with the manufactured, and I can’t help but wonder at the wealth wasted on such vanity projects. This dying and dreary city will never be my home, never compare to the soft green grasses and resplendent sunlight native to the dayside, and yet as I walk through its streets I must concede that it possesses a certain kind of dreamlike, almost ephemeral beauty all its own. A shame that such beauty is as false and hollow as all the rest.
I arrive at the train station and embark, fighting my way through the dense throngs of people to arrive at one of the windows near the back of the cabin, hoping to continue my melancholy musings in relative peace. Crushing hordes of commuters fresh off of their shifts pack tightly into the confined cabin space, increasing in number with every stop along the way. The foul taste of noxious bodily humours given off by the unwashed masses suffuse the air with vile, nauseating gases that fill my lungs with sickness. All around me people poke and prod, jostling and fighting with one another for even the smallest hint of breathing room and I find myself pressed up against the window. The background is overlaid with dissonant whispers, fragments of dozens of different conversations all vying to be heard, while the tearful cries of unhappy children and loud, grating music adds to the chaos and disharmony. It would seem my search for peace would be denied.
As the train plods along ever slowly on its track I can feel the atmosphere of it all getting to me, wearing down on my last remaining nerves. The walls seem to almost shrink down around me while it becomes harder and harder to breathe. My heart beats rhythmically in my chest, slowly growing with intensity as a disquieting sense of unease settles over me. I need to get out. I need to be free, but I find myself trapped. I can barely move. “I just need to hold it together.” I tell myself. “I just need to wait until my destination.”
In the recesses of my mind I can almost hear the voice rubbing up against me, waiting with anticipation, pushing me, pressing. I just need to hold it together a little longer. Just a little bit longer so I can get off at my stop, so I don’t make a scene.
The train turns sharply on the track, sending its inhabitants swaying with the shift in momentum, crashing into me and once more bringing me into full-body contact with a gaggle of strangers. I can hear my rapid breathing aloud now as my blood pressure continues to rise. The whispers grow louder and louder, yelling and screaming for sweet release! I can feel myself drowning in the sapient tide of bodies! I'm struggling as hard as I can, but I Just. Can't. Breathe!
From behind someone shoves me, selfishly fighting tooth and claw for just a little more room to themselves, stabbing me in the back with an errant quill… and I snap. “Get the Brahk away from me!” I turn around, openly snarling at the other passengers with teeth bared and claws drawn.
The sea of prey surrounding me recedes in fear. Compelled by the sheer vitriol of my malevolent presence they somehow manage to compact themselves even tighter into the far ends of the cabin, and for the first time since I embarked… no one is touching me.
Everything goes deathly silent as they stand petrified of the predator in their midst, and at last my breathing starts to calm. Hushed whispers of ‘Predator Disease’ ripple through the crowd, abruptly silenced as I swing my gaze across the offenders and they squirm to hide themselves away. Not one dares to look at me. Surrounded on all sides as I am, somehow I’ve never felt more alone. In the back a child begins to cry, unable to be soothed by its elderly grandmother for even a moment longer, and I turn back to stare out the window in shame.
“Great job, Killer!” The voice echoes in my mind with a snicker. “You really showed it to all those brats and little old ladies! They’ll have to respect you now won’t they? Wouldn’t your mama be proud to see you now! Eh, Killer?”
There’s nothing to be gained from arguing with my own twisted thoughts and I elect to ignore the insinuations.
“I bet it feels good to let some of that pent up frustration out, huh?” the voice continues. “You might as well. No one can stop you now. What are they gonna do? Call the Exterminators on you?” The voice cackles malignantly. “No, no, of course not. You’re one of them now. One of the big-shots. You’re in this whether you like it or not, so you might as well enjoy the perks of privilege. After all, why not?”
I smack my head firmly against the window with a thud, eliciting a small measure of pain and wondering if the minor impact would be enough to dislodge those unwelcome thoughts for the time being. Briefly, I ponder the idea of getting off at the next stop, of walking the rest of the way home, or perhaps catching the next train so that the other passengers don’t have to stomach the sight of me any longer. In the end, I don’t have to. The other passengers beat me to it, quickly departing at their first opportunity, leaving me isolated as the indifferent train ferries me onward to my destination.
Stepping off, I find myself back in the low-income slums I’ve been living in since we moved here. Old and tired, the architecture itself seems almost sad and downtrodden, slowly degrading and falling into disrepair as its inhabitants struggle to upkeep it. Still though, at least it’s better than the Human District, but if trends continue I imagine it won’t be long until the two become indistinguishable.
At the end of my long walk I reach the tenements, spotting a light through the window to our apartment. It would seem that Quinlim is home and awake. I had been hoping to end the paw without burdening him with my continued existence, but it seems the Protector has other plans in store for me. Reluctantly, I make my way up the stairs to our floor and enter.
My brother sits at the table, absentmindedly tapping away at an envelope as he waits, presumably for me. He looks good; Healthier lately, with a renewed strength and vitality I hadn't seen from him in cycles, perhaps ever. The deep bags under his eyes that once seemed an almost permanent fixture upon his face are slowly beginning to recede and it seems as though he's taken up his wool-care routine again. His beloved, soft coat is as fluffy, white, and pristine as it ever was, albeit a good deal shorter than it used to be. I still can't fathom what would ever make him shear off so much of his pride and joy, but it seems as though he's finally elected to start growing it out again. Certain portions of it anyway…
He's still wearing those disgusting black human-style pelts and an orange noose around his neck. I hate it. I wish he’d never started wearing them. It's wonderful to see that quarantining myself has allowed him to recover somewhat from the effects of proximity to my taint, but if he's going to keep insisting on wearing those… those… ‘clothings’ that are no doubt contaminated in every stitch and seam, then just how much good am I really doing?
“Oh, Sawvek, you're home!” Quinlim stands up at the sound of the door opening and waves his tail at me, sounding genuinely thrilled to see me. “Look what came in the mail! I’ve been just dying for you to get home so you can open it!”
He holds the envelope outstretched for me to take, practically forcing it into my paws with excitable glee. I can't help but be intrigued by the prospect of what could have come in the mail for me. What could possibly make Quinlim this giddy? I feel a cold, hard pit develop in my stomach as I turn over the envelope to see the seal of Twilight Valley University embossed across the front.
“Oh, yay!” The voice mocks me. “This IS exciting! You finally get to find out just how badly you failed AND your brother gets a front row seat to learn just how stupid you are, Killer!”
I look up at Quinlim's expectant face and place the envelope face down on the table. “I’ll open it later. I just don't feel like it right now.”
“What do you mean?” My brother’s expression is one of concern mixed with disbelief. “This is what you’ve been waiting for isn't it? Don't you still want to go to college?”
“Of course I do,” I sigh heavily as I lean against the refrigerator, “it's just…”
“Please, Sawvek,” Quinlim implores me with big blue eyes that shame me almost as much as Ma’s, “I know you're nervous but you need to open it eventually. I'm sure you did great.”
“He's just saying that.” The voice cuts in to knock me down once more. “You're brother knows you're nothing but a useless brahking wretch. Everyone knows it. He's just too nice to say it to your face.”
I sigh and look at the envelope, proffered once again by Quinlim, earnest and loving in every estimation. Slowly, and with great trepidation, I seat myself at the table, taking the envelope in shaky paws. Quinlim looks on, over my shoulder and dangerously close to someone as contagious as me, but there's little I can do to shoo him off as I slowly rip open the top with a claw and extract a decoratively made letter. My eyes scan over the lines of text, not quite believing what they see.
“We here at Twilight Valley University are proud to accept your application for enrollment and invite you to join the ranks of our esteemed scholars…”
They had accepted me. Despite all my struggles and failings, despite my lack of connections and credentials, despite the intensity of the competition I had still made it. I’d still passed. I should be happy, thrilled even. This was what I had worked so hard for and yet…
I couldn't feel anything but bitter resentment. This was the dream of the old Sawvek, the aspirational dream. The new Sawvek didn't have the luxury of aspirations, of dreams. The new Sawvek was a monster. A useless, tainted creature who’d had his dreams stolen from him the day he’d become a predator in full, the day he'd become a killer. There is no going back. Not now. Not ever. The possibilities that once were are nothing now but an illusion, a spiteful spectre of the old Sawvek's life come to taunt and menace with whispers of what could have been. Whispers that now could never be.
“Keep reading, Failure.” The voice drives me forward mercilessly.
There had to be some kind of catch, some kind of mistake. Good things don't happen to people like me. At the very bottom of the letter I found it, past all the meaningless pomp and platitudes, just where I expected it to be.
“Unfortunately, at this time you are ineligible for a merit-based academic scholarship and we are unable to offer you any financial aid...”
I slump back against the chair, defeated and gripped by shame. So I’d failed after all. They may have accepted me, for all the good that would do, but I’d failed in my real goal. At actually earning my way into the university itself, at proving that I was good enough. Of course I wasn't good enough. Why would I ever think I would amount to anything? What a worthless dream…
“You made it in!” Quinlim jostles me ecstatically, practically jumping with joy as he reads over my shoulder. “I'm so proud of you, Sawvek! This is wonderful! Ma’s gonna be so happy when you tell her!”
“It doesn't matter…” I manage to groan out dejectedly.
“What are you talking about?” My brother slowly ceases his celebrations and looks me in the eye. “This is huge!”
“Read the letter.” I say, rising to my feet and shoving the letter into Quinlim's paws. “Actually read it. I didn't get the scholarship! I'm a brahking failure…”
Quinlim laughs at me. Actually laughs, as though my shattered dreams are nothing but a brahking joke.
“Is that what this is about?” He asks, resting a paw on my shoulder. “The scholarship doesn't matter! All that matters is that you made it in! You passed! You're not a failure. We can figure out the finances, I promise. I'm gonna do everything I can to support you all the way!”
“I don't want your help!” I callously brush aside his paw and turn away, feeling the irrational anger of the beast bubbling up inside of me. “And I'm not going to college! I can't! It's too late for that!” Far, far too late…
“Is this about your new job?” Quinlim seems incredulous. “Just quit! It doesn't matter. You can always just get another one. You’ve been working towards this for a long time! You can't just throw it away for a job you’ve only had for a couple of weeks!”
“It's not just something I can quit Quinlim!” I snap back, knowing that no good can come of giving into the anger, but also knowing that I have no choice in the matter.
“Why not?” Quinlim is merciless in his inquisition. “It’s just a job! I’ve had tons of different jobs! Just quit! Go to college and get a better one later!”
He just doesn’t get it. How could he? He still doesn’t know just what I’ve gotten myself into. He doesn’t know that I’m a danger, to myself and to others. This is the only path left for me. This is the only possibility I even have left to try and get better. The only way I can stop myself from hurting people. The only way I can try to protect him and Ma. I’m doing it for them! Why can’t he just let it go!
“I… I need it. I can’t quit…”
“Yes you can!” Quinlim is shouting now, angry with me for failing him yet again.
“No!” I yell back, giving some small part of myself over to the predator inside. “I can’t!”
Quinlim goes quiet, a heavy, simmering kind of quiet.
“You know Sawvek,” he says at last, “you’ve been acting differently ever since you got this new job, and honestly… I don’t like the new Sawvek. You’re angry and miserable all the time. You lock yourself away in your room, on the paws when you even bother to come home, and you seem to do everything you can to avoid so much as speaking to me anymore! What did I do to deserve that huh? What did I do that made you so mad at me? And do you know what’s worse? You haven’t even been in to see Ma lately! You gave me no end to grief the one time I was late, but here you are skipping entire paws! When was the last time you were even in to see her? Do you even remember!”
Quinlim’s every word is a stab to the heart, made all the worse because I recognize the truth in his words. It may be a necessary evil, but I’m still hurting Quinlim, still hurting Ma. He doesn’t deserve the things I say and the things I do, so why then can’t I stop doing them! I’m a despicable, rage-filled, hypocritical predator! Every word he says is truer than he knows, but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel nothing but hate hearing them come from someone I love!
“Ma’s been asking about you Sawvek.” Quinlim continues to rant whIle I brood silently. “She’s worried about you and you’re breaking her heart. I’m worried about you. Going to college was your dream. The first in our whole family to have the chance and you’re throwing it away over a stupid job. This isn’t like you. This isn’t the brother I know and love! Please,” Quinlim goes quiet, “ just talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. I just want to help you.”
Why did he have to be so insistent? Why does he feel the need to hound me at every opportunity? It’s not his concern! It’s mine and the further away from it he stays the better! Why can’t he just understand! Why does everything have to be a question! An inquisition! I have had a LONG paw, an AWFUL paw, and all I want is to go to BED and SLEEP! I am just so sick and tired of EVERYTHING! Why can’t he just leave well enough alone and let me handle it!
“THERE’S NOTHING GOING ON!” I scream, unleashing a pent-up fury that had been building for the entire paw onto the most undeserving target imaginable.
In a fit of rage my clenched fist slams into the wall, punching a hole straight through the drywall, and as I pull back my paw I can see blood flowing from my knuckles. I’m shaking as I look down at my paws, and as I look up at Quinlim all I see is horror. Terror at the glimpse of the monster lurking just beneath my skin.
“Admit it, Killer,” the voice echoes in my mind, “it wasn’t the wall that you felt like hitting just now was it?”
“Sawvek!” Quinlim finally breaks free from his shock with a panicked cry. “What is wrong with you!”
And there it is. The confirmation I needed. I can’t stay here any longer. It isn’t safe. I’M not safe! For anyone! I need to get away! Far away! Now!
“I’m moving out!” I declare, storming off towards the front door.
“Wait!” Quinlim calls out behind me, desperate and apologetic, but it’s too late. “Sawvek, wait! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please! There’s no need for you to move out! Where do you think you’re even going?”
“Somewhere else.” I reply as I slam the door behind me.
Somewhere far away. Somewhere you won’t follow me. Somewhere I can go where I won’t be a threat to anyone, where I won’t hurt anyone ever again.
“I’m sorry Quinlim…” I repeat to myself over and over again under my breath, the tears flowing freely as I slowly begin making my way back to work. “I’m so sorry… so sorry…”
Memory Transcription End.
Begin Memory Transcription.
Memory transcription subject: Quinlim, Suspected Capozzi Family Associate
Date [standardised human time]: October 4th, 2136
“Damn it!” I shout as Sawvek leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
I fall back onto the couch, emotionally exhausted, and my eyes look over at the letter before drifting to stare solemnly at the newly made hole in the wall.
“Protector damn it,” I sigh heavily, “I really fucked it up this time…”
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A/N - Hello everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the story! Today was a bit more quarrelsome than last time, but sometimes things need to get worse before they get better.
In case you’ve missed anything, since last time I’ve released some Memes, some Lore on the Federation Military, received some rather impressive new Art courtesy of Gecko, had another brief guest appearance in Nature of a Homeless Musician (or two), and released a whole new One-Shot that I think fans of the series will really enjoy. With the growing list of… well, everything, I’ve also assembled everything Nature of Family into one place! The new “Master List”, featuring all the one-shots, crossovers, side story, art, everything! All in one place and featuring new descriptions to really help explain and “sell” the story. If you’ve missed out on any of the side content I’d certainly advise you to stop by and give it a look!
On a bit of a personal note, sorry that this chapter took so long to come out. It was originally meant to be just a small split off from the last chapter but got way too long. I’ve also gotten suddenly and unexpectedly very busy with work again as seems to happen with some regularity. I’ve actually decided to start looking into finding a new job, something more regular and less stressful, so maybe this won’t be as much of a problem sometime in the near-ish future. I hope so anyway.
Fair warning, there might be a bit of another gap until the next mainline chapter. I’ve decided to sign up for the Ficnnapping again, so I expect that will be my next major project and I’m also looking to write another one-shot crossover as well. Time will tell of course what releases when, but just know that I’ve got a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline for all of you so I hope you’ll stick with me!
I post somewhat sporadically due to an erratic schedule IRL, so if you’re interested in staying up to date I’d highly recommend using the “!Subscribeme” function to be alerted to all new posts.

Age 24 Male BW 280lbs 6’2 Essentially a few weeks ago i got what i can only explain as a migraine that lasted for a week. It was a dull feeling at the back left of my skull that just constantly was there. I chalked it up to my bad sleeping habits and eye strain because there would be times that pain would go around my eyes. I was told by a friend of mine in med school that it was most likely tension headaches and i dont have to worry.
Eventually this went away after taking migraine relief otc pills.
Fast forward to today. I had a weird almost cluster headache above my left eye. Just slightly diagonal to my eye. It was a piercing sharp pain that throbbed almost. I took some tylenol thinking it was just a headache now i feel absolutely nauseous and i feel almost like I cant fully feel my body because of it. Not numbness more like a weird feeling throughout my body. (Im assuming caused by the nausea)
I have huge medical anxiety and everylittle issue makes me go “oh wow i guess im dying 😅”
Is it common to get this nauseated feeling after tylenol where i feel like my body is non existent almost. Should i be more concerned about whats going on?
For context as well i work in IT so always staring at a computer and i get poor sleep avg is 6 hours usually less

Hi all, I was wondering what your recommendations are for painkillers. GERD makes my stomach get irritated from painkillers really easily and leaves me really nauseous for a long time. I’ve found extra-coated tylenol that kind of helps but doesn’t get rid of the pain even at 1,000 mgs. What are your tips for the best painkillers for cramps, or even ways to take painkillers that make them less nauseating?