So I'm a dummy and ran a 26.8 post in a 27.2 seat tube (steel frame). I forgot I had it floating around in the parts bin from an old bike and assumed all my posts were 27.2. Threw it on a new build without measuring. I initial had some slippage and used some Park Tool assembly compound to resolve. Im about 260 and have had posts slip on another frame so it didn't immediately ring any alarm bells. I did feel like I had to really torque it, but it just kind of flew right out of my brain without a second thought. Dumb.
I ended up needing a post with some setback so grabbed a new post in 27.2. When I went to install it, I could not get it inserted. After some head scratching and breaking out the calipers I realized what happened.
Visually there is no buckling that I can see. Im figuring I ovalized it a bit right around where the bolt goes.
I did some googling and it does look like a solvable issue, but my anxiety is poking at me and Im looking for a little more confirmation. Good or bad. The frame is a New Albion Privateer. Nothing fancy but it's super comfy and I really have grown to love it while building it up. I've only put about 20 miles on it, as I just finished the build last week and have been dialing the fit in.
I'm pretty comfortable working on bikes, but feel like bending/tweaking steel is out of my wheelhouse. And I don't want to practice on something I love so much. Plan is to take it down to my local shop to resolve.
So, am I screwed? Totally cool? Somewhere in the middle? Thanks in advance for any insights!

Hi all,This year I moved to a new school after 7 years in a previous school (Catholic college - primary and secondary). I left due to 2 colleagues I once admired, respected, enjoyed working with and called friends either bullying, excluding and/or undermining me in front of my students and theirs across the whole school year.Moved to a new school (Catholic and systemtic) and am finding many of their ways of operating very foreign, adding to my work and time and am constantly frustrated by lack of consistency, lack of standards and zero acknowledgement of my noticeable student progression and improvement since my arrival.
A few factors that are frustrating and aggravating:
-Apart from myself and one other staff member, ALL other staff (teachers, Teacher Assistants, the Deputy, office admin, specialists) are ALL part-time in the primary campus. In and of itself this is not a problem, however it leads to a lack of consistency and stability for me as I am constantly playing catch-up due to the rotating nature of the year-level team. It affects student behaviour (not so much mine, but the other classes) due to no consistency with teachers. Seems to be a high level of rotating teahers on LSL (short stints) and staff on and off from parental leave. No staff nmeeting I have been to yet has had all staff there.
-Behaviour of students is atrocious when compared to other schools in the area and previous schools from my decade + experience. Students are verbally rude, cannot settle and focus and there are often physical altercations in the playground. I've spent a term and a half really breaking down behaviour expectations, routines and standards. I am making progress, but there is so much stacked against us.
-Parent copmmunity is INTENSE. Moreso than I have ever experienced. Teachers are consistently told their "tone"when talking to parents is rude/negative/insert critique here, parents are constantly emailing teachers to complain about other children and flat out ignoring any and all comunication about their own child. When I asked leadership about this, the reasoning given is either, "Parents at this school have always been like this" or "It's the culture of the area. We get families from all over"meaning the greater metropolitan area. I persoinally do not think this argument holds up as previous schools I've been at have accepted students from relatively large areas in terms of distance.
-EVERYTHING is done as a team." While this sounds great on the face of it, it adds so much to personal workloads when reporting, individual lesson planning, unit planning, NCCD work, resouirce development and/or sourcing, sending emails to parents, responding to emails from parents and more all has to be done as a committee of 7 people. Nothing gets done efficiently or within a desired timeframe.
-Classes - For each year level (double-stream), we routinely mix and match students. Not just for programs (e.g. Spelling) but for ALL subjects and curriculum areas. This means that in theory, I have a class of 31 (e.g. my roll call list), however in any given lesson I could be receiving students from the next-door class. Sometimes the classes stay the same (students) but we (teachers) swap. This makes assessing and reporting a nightmare, as it is unproductive, inefficient and there is no consistency.The reason for this has nothing to do with student learning, outcomes or development. It occurs "to stop parents complaining about which teacher they do/do not get for their child," "to stop parents emailing and complaining about if child x or y is in their child's class."It also means that due to the way the "team-teaching" works, I will never teach certain subjects (e.g. Science or Geography) this year. I have been given subjects the other teachers on Year 5 do not want: Religion, History for example
-Students miss out on opportunities for growth, e.g. in Science as we need to fill out risk assessments for items like using the school oval outside of lunch times and for simple, basic Science experiments (e.g. mixing two liquids - liquids that are not hot, cold). EVERY science experiment of any category needs a risk assessment.I came in so excited about subjects like Science... no more. Can't take the class outside for a brain break as we'd have to book the oval and fill out a risk assessment.
-Class sizes are 31+ and the school has a high volume of EAL and students with various diagnoses. In a class of 31, 20+ are either EAL and/or have a diagnosis (e.g. autism, ADHD, etc)-Zero autonomy. I have to go through 3 supervisors just to respond to a parent email (even if it is wholly positive), I am told what kind of visual aid posters I can/can't have in my room (e.g. a times table chart or a poster on English contractions).
-Release time a joke. I have to sit in my class cupboard as this is the only place in the school that is:--Free of gossiping staff--Free of staff talking in general--The only place staff and/or students will not interrupt me.-Staff are friendly (cheerfully greeting/seeing how my day is/was, seeming interested in me as a person and educator) but there is so much gossip about each other and parents/families. I could go to a staff member with a purely work-related question (e.g. planning or how a school process works) and the conversation almost always ends up being twisted to a poorly behaved student/complaining/gossiping. Even after I have point blank made it clear I do not engage in gossip and find it fractures teams/colleagues and do not have the time for it.
-Multiple duties each day of the week (as we are únderstaffed'' - same as every other school in Australia)-Duty roster (playground) changes every single week due to the high volume of absent staff, staff with multiple roles, etc So no stability or consistency there either.-Foced to pay money into a school social club each week for amenities (e.g. milk/coffee/biscuits) which I never use in a staffroom I never visit or for gifts of departing/retiring/staff going on parental leave.... Yet every time a staff member fits these categories, we get emails from leaders asking if we would like to choose to put towards a gift.... so unsure why I was told the social club goes to gifts. Tried getting out of it in writing (I pay more being one of the few full-time staff) only to be told, "In your contract, you signed that you will be paying money into the social club." Nothing in my contract at all, and I asked the state union to have a look just in case I am blind and having a man's look. They too clearly stated there is nothing in there.
My question is, after 7 years in a school I enjoyed (apart from the aforementioned 2 colleagues changing how they interact with me) is this the norm in Australian Catholic schools (primary and/or combined primary/secondary colleges). I used to be so effective, productive and built strong and positive student relationships. I am now ineffective, unproductive, my time and experience is wasted and my experience seems to be for naught.
*Is this the new normal?
*Is anyone else so utterly heartbroken, soul-crushed and demoralised (and I guess, angry and frustrated) by red tape/inefficiency/unproductiveness, etc?
Any thoughts? Cheers, legends.

Hi,
For the past year or so my wiper blades have been scratching my windscreen. It wasn’t dramatic at first but has started to build up and is doing my head in.
From what I can remember, this problem started after I put the hood down whilst the wipers were up, causing the driver side wiper to buckle ever so slightly After taking it to a mechanic they said they’d managed to bend it back into place.
Since this, I have replaced the wiper blades, the wiper blade arms, and washed the window. All of which seem to fix the problem for about 5 minutes before it starts scraping again.
It looks as though the part of the drive shaft poking out to connect to the wiper arm has been pushed and distorted the rubber circle it’s supposed to be seated in onto a sort of oval (if that makes any sense). Is it possible this could be causing the problem? From what I can see the wiper is still flush with the window and looks totally normal
The car is a 2010 Renault Megane
Appreciate any help, I’m at a bit of a loss..

By what means the papers out of which I have made a connected story came into my hands is the last point which the reader will learn from these pages. But it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them a statement of the form in which I possess them. They consist, then, partly of a series of collections for a book of travels, such a volume as was a common product of the forties and fifties. Horace Marryat's Journal of a Residence in Jutland and the Danish Isles is a fair specimen of the class to which I allude. These books usually treated of some unfamiliar district on the Continent. They were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. They gave details of hotel accommodation, and of means of communication, such as we now expect to find in any well-regulated guide-book, and they dealt largely in reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers and garrulous peasants. In a word, they were chatty. Begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers as they progressed assumed the character of a record of one single personal experience, and this record was continued up to the very eve, almost, of its termination. The writer was a Mr. Wraxall. For my knowledge of him I have to depend entirely on the evidence his writings afford, and from these I deduce that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means, and very much alone in the world. He had, it seems, no settled abode in England, but was a denizen of hotels and boarding-houses. It is probable that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future time which never came; and I think it also likely that the Pantechnicon fire in the early seventies must have destroyed a great deal that would have thrown light on his antecedents, for he refers once or twice to property of his that was warehoused at that establishment. It is further apparent that Mr. Wraxall had published a book, and that it treated of a holiday he had once taken in Brittany. More than this I cannot say about his work, because a diligent search in bibliographical works has convinced me that it must have appeared either anonymously or under a pseudonym. As to his character, it is not difficult to form some superficial opinion. He must have been an intelligent and cultivated man. It seems that he was near being a Fellow of his college at Oxford—Brasenose, as I judge from the Calendar. His besetting fault was pretty clearly that of over-inquisitiveness, possibly a good fault in a traveller, certainly a fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough in the end. On what proved to be his last expedition, he was plotting another book. Scandinavia, a region not widely known to Englishmen forty years ago, had struck him as an interesting field. He must have lighted on some old books of Swedish history or memoirs, and the idea had struck him that there was room for a book descriptive of travel in Sweden, interspersed with episodes from the history of some of the great Swedish families. He procured letters of introduction, therefore, to some persons of quality in Sweden, and set out thither in the early summer of 1863. Of his travels in the North there is no need to speak, nor of his residence of some weeks in Stockholm. I need only mention that some savant resident there put him on the track of an important collection of family papers belonging to the proprietors of an ancient manor-house in Vestergothland, and obtained for him permission to examine them. The manor-house, or herrgård, in question is to be called Råbäck (pronounced something like Roebeck), though that is not its name. It is one of the best buildings of its kind in all the country, and the picture of it in Dablenberg's Suecia antiqua et moderna, engraved in 1694, shows it very much as the tourist may see it to-day. It was built soon after 1600, and is, roughly speaking, very much like an English house of that period in respect of material—red-brick with stone facings—and style. The man who built it was a scion of the great house of De la Gardie, and his descendants possess it still. De la Gardie is the name by which I will designate them when mention of them becomes necessary. They received Mr. Wraxall with great kindness and courtesy, and pressed him to stay in the house as long as his researches lasted. But, preferring to be independent, and mistrusting his powers of conversing in Swedish, he settled himself at the village inn, which turned out quite sufficiently comfortable, at any rate during the summer months. This arrangement would entail a short walk daily to and from the manor-house of something under a mile. The house itself stood in a park, and was protected—we should say grown up—with large old timber. Near it you found the walled garden, and then entered a close wood fringing one of the small lakes with which the whole country is pitted. Then came the wall of the demesne, and you climbed a steep knoll—a knob of rock lightly covered with soil—and on the top of this stood the church, fenced in with tall dark trees. It was a curious building to English eyes. The nave and aisles were low, and filled with pews and galleries. In the western gallery stood the handsome old organ, gaily painted, and with silver pipes. The ceiling was flat, and had been adorned by a seventeenth-century artist with a strange and hideous "Last Judgment," full of lurid flames, falling cities, burning ships, crying souls, and brown and smiling demons. Handsome brass coronæ hung from the roof; the pulpit was like a doll's-house, covered with little painted wooden cherubs and saints; a stand with three hour-glasses was hinged to the preacher's desk. Such sights as these may be seen in many a church in Sweden now, but what distinguished this one was an addition to the original building. At the eastern end of the north aisle the builder of the manor-house had erected a mausoleum for himself and his family. It was a largish eight-sided building, lighted by a series of oval windows, and it had a domed roof, topped by a kind of pumpkin-shaped object rising into a spire, a form in which Swedish architects greatly delighted. The roof was of copper externally, and was painted black, while the walls, in common with those of the church, were staringly white. To this mausoleum there was no access from the church. It had a portal and steps of its own on the northern side. Past the churchyard the path to the village goes, and not more than three or four minutes bring you to the inn door. On the first day of his stay at Råbäck Mr. Wraxall found the church door open, and made those notes of the interior which I have epitomized. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend some time in investigation. The papers he had come to examine at the manor-house proved to be of just the kind he wanted for his book. There were family correspondence, journals, and account-books of the earliest owners of the estate, very carefully kept and clearly written, full of amusing and picturesque detail. The first De la Gardie appeared in them as a strong and capable man. Shortly after the building of the mansion there had been a period of distress in the district, and the peasants had risen and attacked several châteaux and done some damage. The owner of Råbäck took a leading part in suppressing the trouble, and there was reference to executions of ringleaders and severe punishments inflicted with no sparing hand. The portrait of this Magnus de la Gardie was one of the best in the house, and Mr. Wraxall studied it with no little interest after his day's work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man. On this day Mr. Wraxall took his supper with the family, and walked back in the late but still bright evening. "I must remember," he writes, "to ask the sexton if he can let me into the mausoleum at the church. He evidently has access to it himself, for I saw him to-night standing on the steps, and, as I thought, locking or unlocking the door." I find that early on the following day Mr. Wraxall had some conversation with his landlord. His setting it down at such length as he does surprised me at first; but I soon realized that the papers I was reading were, at least in their beginning, the materials for the book he was meditating, and that it was to have been one of those quasi-journalistic productions which admit of the introduction of an admixture of conversational matter. His object, he says, was to find out whether any traditions of Count Magnus de la Gardie lingered on in the scenes of that gentleman's activity, and whether the popular estimate of him were favourable or not. He found that the Count was decidedly not a favourite. If his tenants came late to their work on the days which they owed to him as Lord of the Manor, they were set on the wooden horse, or flogged and branded in the manor-house yard. One or two cases there were of men who had occupied lands which encroached on the lord's domain, and whose houses had been mysteriously burnt on a winter's night, with the whole family inside. But what seemed to dwell on the innkeeper's mind most—for he returned to the subject more than once—was that the Count had been on the Black Pilgrimage, and had brought something or someone back with him.
You will naturally inquire, as Mr. Wraxall did, what the Black Pilgrimage may have been. But your curiosity on the point must remain unsatisfied for the time being, just as his did. The landlord was evidently unwilling to give a full answer, or indeed any answer, on the point, and, being called out for a moment, trotted off with obvious alacrity, only putting his head in at the door a few minutes afterwards to say that he was called away to Skara, and should not be back till evening. So Mr. Wraxall had to go unsatisfied to his day's work at the manor-house. The papers on which he was just then engaged soon put his thoughts into another channel, for he had to occupy himself with glancing over the correspondence between Sophia Albertina in Stockholm and her married cousin Ulrica Leonora at Råbäck in the years 1705-1710. The letters were of exceptional interest from the light they threw upon the culture of that period in Sweden, as anyone can testify who has read the full edition of them in the publications of the Swedish Historical Manuscripts Commission. In the afternoon he had done with these, and after returning the boxes in which they were kept to their places on the shelf, he proceeded, very naturally, to take down some of the volumes nearest to them, in order to determine which of them had best be his principal subject of investigation next day. The shelf he had hit upon was occupied mostly by a collection of account-books in the writing of the first Count Magnus. But one among them was not an account-book, but a book of alchemical and other tracts in another sixteenth-century hand. Not being very familiar with alchemical literature, Mr. Wraxall spends much space which he might have spared in setting out the names and beginnings of the various treatises: The book of the Phœnix, book of the Thirty Words, book of the Toad, book of Miriam, Turba philosophorum, and so forth; and then he announces with a good deal of circumstance his delight at finding, on a leaf originally left blank near the middle of the book, some writing of Count Magnus himself headed "Liber nigræ peregrinationis." It is true that only a few lines were written, but there was quite enough to show that the landlord had that morning been referring to a belief at least as old as the time of Count Magnus, and probably shared by him. This is the English of what was written: "If any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary that he should first go into the city of Chorazin, and there salute the prince...." Here there was an erasure of one word, not very thoroughly done, so that Mr. Wraxall felt pretty sure that he was right in reading it as aëris ("of the air"). But there was no more of the text copied, only a line in Latin: "Quære reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora" (See the rest of this matter among the more private things). It could not be denied that this threw a rather lurid light upon the tastes and beliefs of the Count; but to Mr. Wraxall, separated from him by nearly three centuries, the thought that he might have added to his general forcefulness alchemy, and to alchemy something like magic, only made him a more picturesque figure; and when, after a rather prolonged contemplation of his picture in the hall, Mr. Wraxall set out on his homeward way, his mind was full of the thought of Count Magnus. He had no eyes for his surroundings, no perception of the evening scents of the woods or the evening light on the lake; and when all of a sudden he pulled up short, he was astonished to find himself already at the gate of the churchyard, and within a few minutes of his dinner. His eyes fell on the mausoleum. "Ah," he said, "Count Magnus, there you are. I should dearly like to see you." "Like many solitary men," he writes, "I have a habit of talking to myself aloud; and, unlike some of the Greek and Latin particles, I do not expect an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, I suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on the floor, whose clang startled me. Count Magnus, I think, sleeps sound enough." That same evening the landlord of the inn, who had heard Mr. Wraxall say that he wished to see the clerk or deacon (as he would be called in Sweden) of the parish, introduced him to that official in the inn parlour. A visit to the De la Gardie tomb-house was soon arranged for the next day, and a little general conversation ensued. Mr. Wraxall, remembering that one function of Scandinavian deacons is to teach candidates for Confirmation, thought he would refresh his own memory on a Biblical point. "Can you tell me," he said, "anything about Chorazin?" The deacon seemed startled, but readily reminded him how that village had once been denounced. "To be sure," said Mr. Wraxall; "it is, I suppose, quite a ruin now?" "So I expect," replied the deacon. "I have heard some of our old priests say that Antichrist is to be born there; and there are tales——" "Ah! what tales are those?" Mr. Wraxall put in. "Tales, I was going to say, which I have forgotten," said the deacon; and soon after that he said good night. The landlord was now alone, and at Mr. Wraxall's mercy; and that inquirer was not inclined to spare him. "Herr Nielsen," he said, "I have found out something about the Black Pilgrimage. You may as well tell me what you know. What did the Count bring back with him?" Swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps the landlord was an exception. I am not sure; but Mr. Wraxall notes that the landlord spent at least one minute in looking at him before he said anything at all. Then he came close up to his guest, and with a good deal of effort he spoke: "Mr. Wraxall, I can tell you this one little tale, and no more—not any more. You must not ask anything when I have done. In my grandfather's time—that is, ninety-two years ago—there were two men who said: 'The Count is dead; we do not care for him. We will go to-night and have a free hunt in his wood'—the long wood on the hill that you have seen behind Råbäck. Well, those that heard them say this, they said: 'No, do not go; we are sure you will meet with persons walking who should not be walking. They should be resting, not walking.' These men laughed. There were no forest-men to keep the wood, because no one wished to hunt there. The family were not here at the house. These men could do what they wished. "Very well, they go to the wood that night. My grandfather was sitting here in this room. It was the summer, and a light night. With the window open, he could see out to the wood, and hear. "So he sat there, and two or three men with him, and they listened. At first they hear nothing at all; then they hear someone—you know how far away it is—they hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of his soul was twisted out of him. All of them in the room caught hold of each other, and they sat so for three-quarters of an hour. Then they hear someone else, only about three hundred ells off. They hear him laugh out loud: it was not one of those two men that laughed, and, indeed, they have all of them said that it was not any man at all. After that they hear a great door shut. "Then, when it was just light with the sun, they all went to the priest. They said to him: "'Father, put on your gown and your ruff, and come to bury these men, Anders Bjornsen and Hans Thorbjorn.' "You understand that they were sure these men were dead. So they went to the wood—my grandfather never forgot this. He said they were all like so many dead men themselves. The priest, too, he was in a white fear. He said when they came to him: "'I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If I cannot forget that, I shall not be able to sleep again.' "So they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the wood. Hans Thorbjorn was standing with his back against a tree, and all the time he was pushing with his hands—pushing something away from him which was not there. So he was not dead. And they led him away, and took him to the house at Nykjoping, and he died before the winter; but he went on pushing with his hands. Also Anders Bjornsen was there; but he was dead. And I tell you this about Anders Bjornsen, that he was once a beautiful man, but now his face was not there, because the flesh of it was sucked away off the bones. You understand that? My grandfather did not forget that. And they laid him on the bier which they brought, and they put a cloth over his head, and the priest walked before; and they began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they could. So, as they were singing the end of the first verse, one fell down, who was carrying the head of the bier, and the others looked back, and they saw that the cloth had fallen off, and the eyes of Anders Bjornsen were looking up, because there was nothing to close over them. And this they could not bear. Therefore the priest laid the cloth upon him, and sent for a spade, and they buried him in that place." The next day Mr. Wraxall records that the deacon called for him soon after his breakfast, and took him to the church and mausoleum. He noticed that the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the pulpit, and it occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be left unlocked as a rule, it would not be difficult for him to pay a second and more private visit to the monuments if there proved to be more of interest among them than could be digested at first. The building, when he entered it, he found not unimposing. The monuments, mostly large erections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were dignified if luxuriant, and the epitaphs and heraldry were copious. The central space of the domed room was occupied by three copper sarcophagi, covered with finely-engraved ornament. Two of them had, as is commonly the case in Denmark and Sweden, a large metal crucifix on the lid. The third, that of Count Magnus, as it appeared, had, instead of that, a full-length effigy engraved upon it, and round the edge were several bands of similar ornament representing various scenes. One was a battle, with cannon belching out smoke, and walled towns, and troops of pikemen. Another showed an execution. In a third, among trees, was a man running at full speed, with flying hair and outstretched hands. After him followed a strange form; it would be hard to say whether the artist had intended it for a man, and was unable to give the requisite similitude, or whether it was intentionally made as monstrous as it looked. In view of the skill with which the rest of the drawing was done, Mr. Wraxall felt inclined to adopt the latter idea. The figure was unduly short, and was for the most part muffled in a hooded garment which swept the ground. The only part of the form which projected from that shelter was not shaped like any hand or arm. Mr. Wraxall compares it to the tentacle of a devil-fish, and continues: "On seeing this, I said to myself, 'This, then, which is evidently an allegorical representation of some kind—a fiend pursuing a hunted soul—may be the origin of the story of Count Magnus and his mysterious companion. Let us see how the huntsman is pictured: doubtless it will be a demon blowing his horn.'" But, as it turned out, there was no such sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a hillock, who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an interest which the engraver had tried to express in his attitude. Mr. Wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks—three in number—which secured the sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was detached, and lay on the pavement. And then, unwilling to delay the deacon longer or to waste his own working-time, he made his way onward to the manor-house. It is curious," he notes, "how on retracing a familiar path one's thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects. To-night, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I was going (I had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the epitaphs), when I suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness, and found myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, I believe, singing or chanting some such words as, 'Are you awake, Count Magnus? Are you asleep, Count Magnus?' and then something more which I have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been behaving in this nonsensical way for some time." He found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and copied the greater part of what he wanted; in fact, he stayed until the light began to fail him. "I must have been wrong," he writes, "in saying that one of the padlocks of my Count's sarcophagus was unfastened; I see to-night that two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot guess how it is opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost afraid I should have taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It is strange, the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear, somewhat ferocious and grim old noble." The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr. Wraxall's stay at Råbäck. He received letters connected with certain investments which made it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided, therefore, to make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his notes, and be off. These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to dine with them—they dined at three—and it was verging on half-past six before he was outside the iron gates of Råbäck. He dwelt on every step of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned to go, the thought struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count Magnus as well as the rest of the De la Gardies. The church was but twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to himself aloud. "You may have been a bit of a rascal in your time, Magnus," he was saying, "but for all that I should like to see you, or, rather——" "Just at that instant," he says, "I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash. It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time than I can write—almost as quickly as I could have said—the words; and what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I am not able to remember. What is this that I have done?" Poor Mr. Wraxall! He set out on his journey to England on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man. One of several small notebooks that have come to me with his papers gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. Much of his journey was made by canal-boat, and I find not less than six painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. The entries are of this kind: "24. Pastor of village in Skåne. Usual black coat and soft black hat. "25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhättan. Black cloak, brown hat. "26. Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned." This entry is lined out, and a note added: "Perhaps identical with No. 13. Have not yet seen his face." On referring to No. 13, I find that he is a Roman priest in a cassock. The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak and broad hat, and the other a "short figure in dark cloak and hood." On the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and the short figure is certainly absent. On reaching England, it appears that Mr. Wraxall landed at Harwich, and that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicle—it was a closed fly—not trusting the railway, and drove across country to the village of Belchamp St. Paul. It was about nine o'clock on a moonlight August night when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of the window at the fields and thickets—there was little else to be seen—racing past him. Suddenly he came to a cross-road. At the corner two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. He had no time to see their faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr. Wraxall sank back into his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before. Arrived at Belchamp St. Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived, comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full, but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from his pursuers—how or when he knows not—and his constant cry is "What has he done?" and "Is there no hope?" Doctors, he knows, would call him mad, policemen would laugh at him. The parson is away. What can he do but lock his door and cry to God? People still remembered last year at Belchamp St. Paul how a strange gentleman came one evening in August years back; and how the next morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the jury that viewed the body fainted, seven of 'em did, and none of 'em wouldn't speak to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of God; and how the people as kep' the 'ouse moved out that same week, and went away from that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown, on the mystery. It so happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of a legacy. It had stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect of letting it; so I had it pulled down, and the papers of which I have given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the window in the best bedroom.

NCTSBuckle Up South Carolina 200 at Darlington Raceway
Start Time: approximately 7:30pm EDT on May 10th
Television: FS1 @ 7:30pm EDT
Radio: MRN @ 7:30pm EDT
Race Length: 147 laps (200.8 mi / 323.16 km)
Race Stages: 45-45-57
Track Information: Darlington Raceway is a 1.366 mile (2.2 kilometer) oval located in Darlington, SC USA.
Weather Forecast: NASCAR.com / AccuWeather.com
Current Standings at NASCAR.com
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I was the one that found Jake dead, Tucked in the dark corner of the parking garage in his idling pest control truck that vibrated minutely.
The parking garage always had a humming from stainless metal fans to circulate the humid and hot Virgina air. Walking closer to the truck I saw his chemical box in the bed of the truck was open with the top flap sticking straight up.I thought nothing weird about the open box because it's not just us in the pest control company that live there and from time to time we steal from other trucks. For the summer the company buys out dozens of rooms for the employees to stay. Most employees are door to door salesmen who make a living selling pest control as a same day service. Where Jake and I, with a few others, come into play is after the sale. The ones who actually spray your house, the ones who interact with the customers and bring them down to reality after the salesmen fluff our feathers, or are they fluffing their own? We are the ones who click the rap trap mouths in place, with black jagged teeth…waiting, with the delicious neon blue food for the rats to nibble on and share with their newborns. We had 7 other trucks in the parking garage and from time to time chem went missing. Sometimes us technicians didn't want to wake up early and drive 30 minutes to the office to pick up materials, truckers were closer, much closer. I'd be lying to you if I didn't steal a de-weber every now and then off a truck, but I always made no trace of the thievery. I can't speak for everyone though. So when that lid was pointing up to the rusty pipes and concrete ceiling above, I wasn't surprised, hell I might have had a smirk on my face.
With the swing of my arm I slapped the box closed, a whiff of chemicals spewed out and hit my nose which gave me a feeling of a stinging sneeze that never comes. I gave the window a knock to see if he would turn around.. Silence. I got closer to see if he was glued to his phone and didn't hear me or didn’t bother looking. I put my hands up on the window and smushed my eyebrows against my index fingers to get a better look. I saw the seat was fully reclined back, him laying there…still as a morning lake. I knocked on the smaller back half door. Tap tap TAP. No movement. It was too dark to see so I dug my hand in my pocket to get my phone light out and put it flush to the back oval airplane shaped window. That's when I saw this face—— god his face—— skin a purplish hue and pulled taught by swelling, eyes adrift and red which were bulging out like they wanted to leave, jaw open with dark fluid sitting in his mouth, escaping on the sides. The streaks of dark liquid rolled down his purple face, curving down the back of his neck, and dribbling down the strands of hair meeting the head rest. My eyelids opened so wide they touched my eyebrows. His fingers curled limply around a chemical bottle, cap off and the liquid color matching that of the pool in his mouth…
“Jake” I whispered, my voice feels like it was stolen from me, my skin is tingling like an unknown channel on tv as heat takes over… I begin to fall, the last thing I notice are my fingers streaking down the window. I passed out.
4 months pass
I'm moving out of the building where it happened. I’ve wanted to get out of this building since it happened, but didn’t have the financial backing. Now I plan to stay in Virginia for the winter and move in with roommates from the pest control company. The salesmen call this time their “off season” due to them all leaving and going back home, most to Vegas. My other two roommates run the regular technician routes which consist of stopping at 14-15 designated houses a day, spraying chemicals and setting traps to take care of the contracts those grimey salesmen sell.
I used to share a room with jake. All of his things were taken out either by investigators or the maid service. The other roommates in the building told me to combine the abandoned twin bed with mine but I never touched it, I couldn't.
I’m making this entry due to finding something. Something I believe was very close to Jake.The last day of moving I had everything packed but my mattress and box spring. While moving my mattress lazily with the sheet still on I lost grip and it hit his mattress sliding it off the box spring and hitting the wall. I let go of my mattress automatically and wanted to fix his bed…. Preserve it. I wrapped my hands around his mattress when a wave of dizziness veiled over me. My hands became clammy and I didn't want to touch his mattress anymore, like a kid that doesn't want to touch an old person. I had to put it back! If I didn't it would haunt me forever my mind yelled at me. Just as I forced myself to slide the mattress back, my middle knuckle dropped into a slight groove, and I stopped in place. I pushed the mattress to the right and traced where my knuckle had been and found a slit in the box spring.I hesitated, staring at the unnatural slash in the cloth, Thinking about when Jake and I would make fun of our manager who always had a bone to pick with jake ever since the first day they met, the new manager 2 years younger than us yelling at jake to tuck his shirt in while his own untucked, covered his belt and belly. A smile slowly disappeared from my face as I was brought back with my whole forearm now in the slit of the box spring. My fingers clutched an object that had to be a book. I pulled My arm out of the box spring like pulling a calf out of its mother, now half expecting to see red viscous liquid and tiny wet legs, my eyes shut slowly like elevator doors closing.
But My hand appeared dry and my fingers clenched around a book of sorts. The outside of the book was void of color, almost like it absorbed it instead. I sat down on my thrown mattress and the empty apartment surrounded me. I flipped to the first page as the spine creaked at me, I saw Jake's name and it clicked in me that this wasn't a book. It was Jake's notebook! I flipped page after page reading Jacob’s writings about days of killing bugs and missing home till I got to the page. Sometimes I wish I wasn't lazy, I could have taken the sheet off the bed, this would have never happened, I would have never found the notebook. The apartment seemed to be silently closing in on me now like I was in the digestive tract of some huge monster. God the page—— in big dark letters he had written “THE LADY IN THE BASEMENT IS THE REASON WHY I AM GONE.” I was stuck reading the words again and again thinking I was seeing things. My heart was pumping so vigorously I could hear it agitate the fabric of my shirt little by little each beat. There was a dark arrow so dark that seemed to suck in light and pointed toward the right of the page wanting someone to flip it or something to flip it, so I did. For the next pages he wrote why…. And I clinging to every word …began to read.
2 months pass
The warm thick air has passed now, leaving a cold grey in the air. Virginia feels less claustrophobic with the heat gone. Winter is stinging its way into the picture more and more, breath starting to become visible almost every day.
My new apartment looks over the town of Arlington which is a nice view from the 13th floor. Whenever people ask where I live I tell them, “it’s 5 minutes from the pentagon,” I’ve said it so much it numbs me.
There are 3 guys in total that live in this apartment so the decor is minimal at best. Our tv stand is an upside down plastic bin, with our coffee table another bin, at least its a set. The floor is thick and worn carpet, light tan in color. The walls have the same yellowish void look. My favorite part of the apartment is the balcony that spans the whole side of the living room to which I can see a sliver of the Potomac river, an icy cold thing this time of year.
I've marinated in Jake's notebook for a while, I think I’m ready to share some of what is inside. Jake goes into extreme detail about these situations so I’ll just copy them down for you all to read, I think that is what’s best. After reading this I wasn’t the same, you are warned.
Thursday July 18th 2020 (7 months ago)

 -Jake’s notebook- 

Today I am changed. It was right after lunch when my work phone notified me a house was booked. Usually I disliked the salesmen but the one that booked me was just alright, tolerable. I pulled into the neighborhood as the sun dimmed from clouds rolling in, storm maybe. Multiple groups of six townhomes were placed throughout the neighborhood with tall trees and bush linking them. The small homes shared walls only separated by a slight offset in depth, looking like crooked teeth. Porches stuck out a measly foot from the homes which were more for decoration than enjoyment. The porches all had different faded color variations that staggered from each house, blue, red, orange, green, and back to blue. The peeling wood porches had the style of a western movie set which I thought interesting, but I knew the webs were going to be a bitch to get out. I rolled up to the address the app told me as the salesmen popped out of some trees to greet me, probably pissing. Wind whipped his hair, yes a storm. I rolled down the window and stopped the truck, wheels stopping the popping of gravel underneath. He gave me the rundown of the house while leaning on the windowsill of my truck, where the smell of sweat leaked in from him. He mentioned the old woman that lived in the townhome and said she was an oddball but kind. I thought nothing of it, just another job before getting off. As I parked the car, I asked the salesmen, “interior?” He replied, “yes.”
My shoe covers zipped on the asphalt as I walked toward the door, pump tank in my hand. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. The old woman opened the splintered door as I introduced myself and got all the signatures I needed to apply the pesticides, legal reasons. The first thing I noticed about the woman was her eyes, they looked worn, tired as if she stayed up all night… or something was keeping her up. I smiled as I slipped the signed papers in the back pocket of my jeans, she reciprocated the smile and pushed the door open wide as creaks escaped the henges. Right before I stepped in I saw the salesmen grab a deweber from my truck, he is an alright one this salesmen. I looked back and the old woman kept her eyes on my face, I smiled again to break the slight awkwardness. The smell of wet concrete hit my nose when I stepped in the home, it started to sprinkle behind me, it cut off as she closed the door behind me.
The old woman’s home was tight like lungs that never sucked air back in. The layout was like a strip of gum, the start was the door I walked through and The end was the living room which had a step down. She offered me water which I politely declined, I could see the kindness the salesmen were talking about. The home was filled with random knick knacks but not messy, organized chaos. I asked her the routine questions about bugs like where she was seeing them to which she replied almost everywhere, thank god this was a small home. I started to spray in the kitchen which was directly left of the door I walked through. Spray shot Around the sides of the refrigerator and the baseboards and the woman followed me almost attached to the hip or like an obedient dog. I didn't think it weird, she kept conversation and genuinely looked fascinated about where I sprayed while listening to my little tips I replayed from the back of my mind on how to keep bugs away. We rounded the kitchen and stepped down into the living room where carpet met my boot covers with peppered static zaps. I sprayed the sliding back door focusing on the bottom track where bug highways usually gravitated. Then I traced the baseboards around the living room, avoiding wires powering lamps and televisions.
I heard quick stomps coming down the stairs to which I gave a glance of curiosity toward the bottom of the staircase and temporarily lifted my hand off the spray trigger. A child rounded the corner and ran to the old woman yelling, “grandma!” Must have woken up from a nap or something. The child then looked up at me and asked who I was and she explained in young terms, “he is here to make the bugs go away.” I smiled at that to reaffirm the old woman's version of me she gave, I was a version who told the bugs to go away, not kill them by the thousands. I liked that version of myself.
I had finished treating the main floor and now followed the old woman and child up the stairs, her veiny hands scratching her grandson's head. I went through every room, closet, bathroom, and windowsill spraying with the old woman still following me everywhere I went, pointing out the hotspots, her close presence becoming normal, almost warming as she reminded me of my grandmother. The child seemed just as interested as his grandmother about how I spray and I thought it wholesome.
After this point things took a dark sinister turn.
My job was now finished I thought. We were all on the main floor now and I began to reach for the front door and tell her we would finish the outside service now when she for the first time broke her distance from me. This made me feel, for lack of better words, alone. She steadily glided toward the living room not looking back and she stepped down the dip heading for the couch. Did she forget I was still in the house? Did she imagine opening the door and letting me out? The kid then followed her and jumped off the small dip in childlike fashion into the living room and landed on the carpet, gracing his tumble. The old woman never sat down, and her back was facing me as she stood there…. Her Body was still. Why didn't she sit down? She broke the silence right as my fingers touched the front door knob, her voice was colder now, “won't you come here for a second?” The knob rang numbly for a split second as my hands slid off. I then took a step toward the living room patiently, waiting for.. what? The rain now beat on the old woman's back windowed door, with the flash of illumination, lightning struck close, then thought of the salesmen with the metal deweber pole, that combination like brushing teeth and orange juice. The thought was erased as the tip of my boots hung off the step to the living room. I looked at the woman's face and dropped down in the living room, her wiry hair now covering some of her face with a blank stare. The kid now hugging her legs hiding his whole body except the right side of his face, the eyeball piercing me. Her hair was delayed as she snapped her head at me, then the hair caught up and fell. Her face then shook like when a student tries to stay awake in class, she then looked around, lost and took a deep breath. She said, “sorry sometimes I get these headaches, they just take over me,” as she laughed it off dryly. I told her “it's fine, I get them too,” I get them too? Are you stupid jake? She then raised her old saggy arm pointing to a door. I knew what this door led to. Being in hundreds of townhomes with the same layout, they led to the basement. Pairing with my thought she forced out, “Dear please spray the basement too, will you?
Before I could answer the kid somewhat loudly asked, “wait grandma… he is going into the basement? Grandma! Why the basement?” My neck chilled to goosebumps. I stepped back up onto the wood and stopped at the tooth white door expecting the old lady to open it for me, she had done this the whole way through the house, opening cabinets, windows, doors, flipping on light switches for me but here I am with the old woman standing firm in the same spot and the kid saying the same question, starting to cry. I looked back at the door as she said, “yes that door, the light switch is on the left, close the door when going down… we don't go down in the basement.” My heart started to pump faster and my fingers and forearm twisted the knob, opening the door, my mind replaying, “we don't go down in the basement, we dont go down in the basement,” What the fuck does that mean! I took one last look at her and saw only a part of the woman, due to the kitchen wall, she sat down now and grabbed something off her neck and started sifting it through her hands. She then did something my ears will never forget, she started to pray in spanish… and I took my first step down.
I shut the door behind me as then I switched the light on. It was very dim, only giving me the bare minimum brightness to reach the bottom. The walls were different as I descended, the light didn't bounce off them, instead the walls seem to let the light in. The old woman's prayers and childs crying muffled the creaks the wooden staircase gave off. The prayers were getting louder. I dreadfully got on the floor of the basement now. To the left, a wall, to the right, a long hallway leading to complete and utter darkness. My body felt a shiver like flying to a cold part of the world and the airport doors exposing you to the weather for the first time. My head naturally looked down at my feet for some reason. There was a door to the right of me now which I saw coming down the stairs. I shifted toward it with my boot covers scraping the carpet tips, uneasily, I opened it. The boiler room was dark as the swing of the door brought a string to my vision. The light for this room of course is a fucking string light. I pulled on it hard and light struggled to do its job. The light reminded me of when my 7th grade science teacher, mr. Crutcher, told us what would happen if a light bulb traveled the speed of light in space, “you will see the light, yes! But it will reflect no light! Precisely! what is a light but more than a mere tool that reflects light off of other things!” The memory should have put a smile on my face. I then sprayed around the water heater and cotton candy pink insulation sticking out from the room’s walls. My heart pounding and a veil of sickness came over me. The cold got stronger. This place… was pure sickness itself. Holding my hand up I wrapped around the string but paused, something deep inside of me telling me not to shut the light off, I almost felt as if someone with a remote was controlling my movements, I was separated from myself. I let the string slither out of my hand as I walked out of the room. My head fell back down at my boots, as if something didn't want me to look up. What would I see if I looked up? The exposed insulation made the old woman's prayers fuzzed, but now I was back in the hallway and I could hear the extent of it. She was screaming now. I imagined her old neck veins popping like blue miniature rivers flowing up to her wrinkly face.
I faced the hallway now, the walls darkening the further they got from the top stairway light. My brain was yelling at me to hurry and go as fast as I could but my body did not listen, we were disconnected. I took my first step still looking at my feet seeing the dark entrance from the hallway get closer, another step I go, I get closer, step, closer, step. I now know the sick thing in this home is in the dark void I approach with every step… waiting. I finally reach the end of the hallway and my body stops. The old woman's screams reach a pinnacle. The kid crying and yelling accompanies it. I am all alone. Even my brain is alone. I can do nothing. The darkness is all around me. I twitch my head to the right, it reminds me of the old womans movements, and reach my hand out to feel for a light switch, nothing. When I do this I can see in the dark room slightly with my hat hiding me from most, not all. My head comes back down to the center. I feel like throwing up now, my sickness is terrible. My head is spinning and so is my stomach. All of my extremities are ice now. I twitch my head to the left, my hand grazing the sandpaper wall and I feel A switch! My heart relaxes from the touch. Finally I'm not alone! the light switch accompanies me! Click…my finger flips the switch. My stomach drops. Click.CLICK.CLICK. NOTHING. My breathing is like a car engine that just turned over. The only thing that was with me for even a second is gone. No light. I won't move. I can't move. My hat doesn't cover it all. The ceiling now shakes from the old woman screaming as my eyes… my god damn EYES…. glance into the darkness and see the lady in the basement…. everything goes black.

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Clothes:

 
$11 - Retail LOVE Uniq1o x MoMA Art Tee - Small - Retailed for $30. Amazing design and lightly worn.
 
$39 - F3ar of G0d Essentia1s Longsleeve Polo Gray - Fits Small-Medium - Bought used and fits amazing. Exactly on point with my retail and I can’t tell any difference between both.
 
$55 - R@f S1mmons Denim Button-Up - Fits Large - Best batch out and only tried on. Rare rep from a haul I did a few years back and link is now dead.
 
$72 - G1venchy Cardigan Logo Sweater - Fits XL - Best batch out from 8Billi0n (who’s a Tao reseller). Blank is extremely plush and thick while the embroidery is very clean. Fine withholding so priced as is but still cheaper compared to buying from Tao and waiting the ~1 month.
 
$85 - 424 Denim Fairfax Distressed Jacket - Medium - Best batch out and only tried on. Rare rep from a haul I did a few years back and link is now dead. No red sleeve.
 
$69 - Pa1ace Arms Blue/White Jacket - Fits Small-Medium - Best batch out and was released a few years back. Has been in closet for a while but time to let go, unsure if it’s from Pa1ace37 or not. Insane quality and great for everyday wear.
 
$49 OBO - Kapita1 Fleece Olive/White Trousers Japan - Size 2 (Waist Size 32) - Extremely comfy and from a reputable seller a few years back. Perfect if you value comfiness and such a nice quality piece.
 
$25 - Balenc1aga Pride Tee - Cl0yad - Fits Small - From Cloyad who’s a top-tier reseller. Never been worn personally but seems lightly used.
 
$12 - Retail Uniq1o Kei1th Haring Black Tee - Medium - Great quality and embroidery.
 
$39 - Ga11ery Dept “Alone In Science” Tee - Fits Boxy Medium - From Cl0yad and has been tailored to fit a perfect boxy medium. Best batch out and such a clean piece.
 
$32 - Balenc1aga Paris Jersey Apparel Tee - Fits Medium-Large - From Cloyad and was pretty pricey. Lightly used and high quality tee.
 
$10 - Retail D0ckers Straight Fit Pants Grey - 32x29 - Paid $40 and quality is amazing. Have nice straight fit to drape slightly over your shoes and I would’ve 100% kept if I didn’t outgrow them.
 
$20 - Retail Vintage Chevy Walts Kings Men 1993 Tee - Fits Large - Thrifted and few imperfections (pictured) which might come out in wash. Take for a steal, can’t find comps on eBay.
 
$25 - Retail Pepsi Cola Timeless Tee 1993 Tee - Large - Bought from Consignment Shop and in great condition, just had tags removed and some slight aging as it’s an older shirt. Take for a steal.
 
$79 (FINAL SALE) - Y33ZY Season 5 Lost Hills Sports Jacket - Fits Medium - In like new condition and extremely rare rep from 2019, haven't seen one posted since. I have rarely used and I’m not in a rush to sell it cause this is most likely the first and last one that’s going to be posted on here, hence the price.
 
$22 - Pa1m Ange1s White Tee - Fits Medium - Amazing quality but has stains on front and back even though I only used a couple of times. Priced accordingly, haven’t really washed since so might be able to come out with wash but no guarantee.
 
$72 - St0ne Isl@nd Olive Ghost Crewneck - Bu$ystone - Fits Large - Best batch out from BS as TS dosen’t offer this model. Inside is extremely plush and it such a comfy crewneck. Has tonal badge and tags on point as well.
 
$72 - St0ne Isl@nd Cream Ghost Crewneck - Bu$ystone - Fits Medium-Large - Best batch out from BS as TS dosen’t offer this model. Inside is extremely plush and it such a comfy crewneck. Has tonal badge and tags on point as well.
 
$55 - Br0ken Plan3t “Into the Abyss” Blue Hoodie - Medium - From Hotd0g and one of the nicer designs from this brand IMO. Lightly worn and in amazing condition.
 

Shoes:

 
$115 OBO - Prad@ Monolith LeatheRenylon Pouch Boots - Fits 8-8.5 Mens - Extremely light and look to be on point with retail. Such a beautiful boot with extremely clean badges on pouch.
 
$165 OBO - Ann D Heeled Backlace Boots - 40 (Fits Mens 8.5) - Best batch out from Playershoes. Lightly used and in amazing condition. PS seller quality makes him one of the goats for boots and I think he’s sold out of this pair now. Priced accordingly as shipping was crazy expensive due to weight/volume and I’m not trying to lose too much $.
 
$89 - N1ke x 0FF-WH1TE Dunks Lot 38 - Fits Size 9 Mens - Lightly used and in amazing condition.
 
$85 - N3w Ba1ance 2002R Protection Pack Rain Cloud - TZE - 8.5 Mens - Bought best batch out at the time from TZE. Lightly used and still in amazing condition. Comfort and materials are really nice.
 
$139 OBO - Retail Y-3 x Ad1das 4D Exo Runners - Size 7.5 (Fits 7.5-8.5 Snug Mens) - Listings on eBay around $240 brand new/used. Take for an absolute steal. Lightly used and in amazing condition.
 
$129 OBO - Retail Y-3 x Ad1das Terrex Swift R3 Goretex - 8.5 Mens - Multiple listings on eBay around $230 brand new. Take for an absolute steal. Lightly used and in amazing condition. Has continental bottoms and perfect shoe for outdoors.
 
$79 OBO - Retail Y-3 Ajatu Court Low Black - 8 Mens - Selling for around $166 on StockX. Take for an absolute steal. Lightly used and in amazing condition. Has continental bottoms and perfect shoe for outdoors.
 
$29 - Black/White Penny Lug Loafers - Fits Mens Size 7.5-8 - Used once and in amazing condition. Saw Jeff Goldblum wear similar model and he pulls them off great but too small on me.
 
$49 OBO - Kapita1 Visv1m Slides - Fits 8.5 Mens - Worn quite a bit but still has a lot of life. The top and bottoms are very clean and the bed could use a wash.
 
$23 - Ultraboost$ Oreo 3.0 - 10 Mens (Fits 9-9.5 Mens) - Best batch out from Lin. Used but flash really accentuates flaws, they still have a lot of life.
 
$36 - N1ke Dunks Curry - Mens 8 - Used on the baseball fields but as you can seen from the bottoms they are still in amazing condition and once cleaned up will be perfect.
 
$15 - Retai1 Brown Dress Shoes - Mens 8.5 - Worn a few times and quality is amazing, take for a steal.
 
$38 - Ultrabo0st 4D White/Green - 8.5 Mens (Fits 8.5-9 Mens) - Bought a while ago from deadlink, used around 3 times and in amazing condition.
 
$89 OBO - Retail N1ke Air Max 1 Premium Hangul SE - 8.5 Mens - Brand new and only tried on. Paid 140 for them, take for a steal.
 

Accessories (Wallets/Belt/Bags/Cologne):

 
$13 - Retail T0M Ford “Oud Wood” Cologne Sample - 2ML - Beautiful smell and sprayed a little once just to try. A great way of sampling this beautiful fragrance.
 
$42 OBO - Kapita1 Cotton Canvas ShouldeWaist Bag - OOS - Saw resell going for $199 and decided to source rep. Quality is on point and tags are exactly like retail.
 
$62 - Prad@ Waist Bag from N1na - Best batch out at the time and only lightly used. Perfect for carrying phone, chargepack, and other small accessories. Badge is 1:1 with retail and nylon material for quality used is amazing.
 
$8 (Add-On) - White Clout Goggles Recntangle Sunglasses - These were the hottest sunglasses a few years back lmao. Rarely used.
 
$42 - H3rmes Belt Black/Brown with Silver Buckle from N1na - (Adjustable / Waist: 28-31, Includes Belt Hole Puncher to Adjust Sizing) - Lightly used and in amazing condition. 100cm in length and Nina’s quality speaks for herself.
 
$14 (1 Left!) - Carhart7 Corduroy Black Shoulder Bag - One Size - Brand new with tags. Perfect for fitting phone, wallet, keys, portable charger, and more. Has zipper pocket and inner pocket as well.
 
$12 - Cart1er Tank Strap from G33ktime - Strap for smallest size of Cartier Tank (I think it’s small?). Nice but I replaced mine, take for a steal.
 
$22 (2 Left!) - Stu$$y Camo Waist Bag - One Size - Brand new with tags. Perfect for fitting phone, wallet, keys, portable charger, and more. Amazing quality and IMO 1:1 with Retail.
 
$34 (3 Left!) - Loui$ Vuitt0n Checkered Brown/Gold Belt - (Adjutable / Waist: 28-34, Includes Belt Hole Puncher for Waist Sizes under 28) - Brand New. 110cm long. Using personal for around 6 months, leather is supple & belt is very durable.
 
$18 - Bap3 Camo Green Wallet - One Size - Brand New with papers and bag.
 
$18 - Aap3 Black Wallet - One Size - Brand New with papers and bag.
 
$16 - Palac3 Tri-Ferg Black Wallet - One Size - Brand New with papers and bag. Misspelled papers, but wallet is spot on.
 

Jewelry (Rings, Pendants, Necklaces, Keychains):

 
$46 - Chr0me Heart$ “Cross Diamond” Pendant from D@vid925 - OS - Paid around 380 Yuan shipped for this pendant. David is known for being one of the best CH sellers on the market. Personally a bit heavier than the pendants I sell below and he’s known as the goat ever since SS discontinued his CH. Used for a few weeks and in amazing condition.
 
$49 - Chr0me Heart$ “Plus Horseshoe” Pendant from D@vid925 - OS - Paid around 400 Yuan shipped for this pendant. David is known for being one of the best CH sellers on the market. Personally a bit heavier than the pendants I sell below and he’s known as the goat ever since SS discontinued his CH. Used for a few weeks and in amazing condition.
 
$25 - Chr0me Heart$ Pendants - OOS - Brand New & lead tested, have sold many with good reviews. I’ve personally used most models for 6+ months daily along with an Amazon-bought chain. Pendants have nice weight/quality and always get compliments. 925 sterling silver plated and has been used in the gym without issues. Available Models:

• Heart Cross
• David Star
• (1 Left!) 3D Dice Cross
• Square Horseshoe

 
$23 - Chr0me Heart$ Silichrome 20th Anniversary Cross Necklace - One Size Fits All (26 Inches) - Great alternative to paying CH’s wild retail price of $160, this rep is extremely accurate IMO (.95:1). Available Colors:

• Black
• Green
• Blue
• Orange
• Pink
• White

 
$21 - LV Keychain Black Checkered - OOS - Brand new and in plastic wrapping.
 
$21 - LV Keychain Brown Checkered - OOS - Brand new and in plastic wrapping.
 
$22 - Retail Gue$$ Blue/Black Watch - Fits Up to 6.25 Inch Wrists (Has additional clasp to expand to ~6.5 Inches) - Paid 120 shipped for this, take for an absolute steal. Movement is stuck so might need new battery, selling as is.
 
$22 (Add-On) - Culture K1ngs Cap CarrieStorage NFS - OOS - Exclusive item not being sold; need to buy 3 hats to receive. Take at a great price.
 

Beanies/Hats:

 
$33 - Retail LA Dodgers 9F0rty N3w 3ra Purple Haze A-Frame Hat - Adjustable - Retail and sold out at Cultur3 Kings. Link to retail is HERE. Paid $42 with shipping, just trying to make some money back, take them for $34 with free shipping. Insane quality and has nice Jackie Robinson patch on side.
 
$29 (2 Left!) - Chrom3 Heart$ “Big CH” Beanie - One Size - Brand new in bag. Very stretchy and breathable to fit most sized heads.
 
$20 - Canad@ Goos3 Beanies Various Colors - One Size - Brand new with tags. Very stretchy and breathable to fit most sized heads. Models:

• Black/Red
• Grey
• Cream
• Black/Black

 
$25 - Retail D0dgers A-Frame Trucker Hat N3w Era - Adjustable - Brand new and never used. I think this is a European exclusive as I see no US sellers have this. Take for a steal price.
 
$22 - Vuj@ De “VD” Black Hat - One Size (Adjustable) - Brand new and never used. Clean embroidery and nice quality blank.
 
$22 - Prad@ Badge Black Hat - One Size (Adjustable) - Brand new and never used. Clean embroidery and compared badge to SurvivalSourc3 keychain and looks 1:1.
 
$22 - Acn3 Studio$ Ice Grey Knit Beanie - One Size - Brand New. Embroidery and quality of beanie are spot on with Retail.

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3
I woke up to something tickling my nose. Something small and damp flicked across my nose. I reached out to wave it away but it would return within seconds.
I opened my eyes to see myself eye-to-eye with a snake. I instinctively jerked backwards and nearly tumbled off the toilet I’d fallen asleep on. After the initial shock of waking up face-to-face with a decently-sized snake wore off, I was able to redirect my focus from the snake to the man who was actually holding it. It was Psycho Jimmy.
After a rough night with very little sleep followed by a few hours of aimless wandering around Walmart, I had become dead-tired and locked myself in the bathroom stall to try and find a private place to take a nap.
Obviously, it wasn’t private enough as Psycho Jimmy had crawled under the stall door, somehow procured a snake and woke me up by holding it up to my face to let its tongue flick out across my nose.
Seeing I was awake, Psycho Jimmy thrust the snake further in my direction as if offering it to me. I waved a hand in a sign of refusal and he pulled the snake back and placed it in a pocket inside his jacket.
Having never been in a situation like this – locked in a bathroom stall with a man nicknamed ‘Psycho’ – I had no idea how to react, so I thanked him for waking me up as I had a big day ahead of me.
Psycho Jimmy nodded his head in acknowledgement, winked at me then left the way he came – by crawling out under the stall door. I waited until I heard him leave, then I waited another 10 minutes before I left the bathroom.
I had 3 missed calls and 2 unread text messages. The first of the text messages read, “Bro, I’m too High right now” the second message read, “Sorry Boss, that wasn’t for you.”
The text messages were obviously from Pedro. The calls were from Destiny.
I called Destiny back. She was understandably annoyed.
“You do realize what time it is, right?” I glanced at the clock for the first time that day, it was noon, “We have an appointment for 3pm and it's an hour drive if we don’t hit traffic. Are we doing this or not?”
I was embarrassed, “Ah shit, I’m sorry. I had a, uh, weird night. Look if yo-“
Destiny cut me off, “Oh, yeah, I get that. I figured that would happen when I saw that ghost in your bedroom yesterday. It didn’t seem, well, nice.”
“Look,” I continued, “I hate to be a burden, but do you think you could pick me up from Walmart?”
15 minutes later Destiny pulled into the Walmart parking lot driving a convertible Volkswagen beetle. “Boxers and a T-shirt at Walmart? You definitely had a rough night. Hop in.”
We stood on my doorstep and Destiny begged me to let her inside.
“Please let me go in with you, we need all the evidence we can find on this thing if we are going to figure out what it is and how to stop it.” She made a good point.
“That’s true,” I started my rebuttal, “but it might be dangerous.”
“If it’s dangerous then two is better than one” Damn. She had me beat.
“Alright, but I have no idea what we might see in there.” I turned the knob and pushed the door open.
Immediately the stench of cigarettes washed over us and I sprang into action running into the kitchen to grab a knife. I was so focused on getting a weapon in my hands that I didn’t even notice the source of the smell.
“Uh, so, what the hell is that?” Destiny asked, a finger pointing into the living room where Cynthia sat in an armchair. She was naked, cross-legged and held a smoldering cigarette in between two of her fingers. Her head was now screwed on correctly.
“That is…” I almost said ‘Cynthia’ and that would have made me look like a total perv, “something I’ve never seen before.” I walked over to Cynthia and took the cigarette out of her hand, extinguished it, then plunged the kitchen knife deep into her chest which accomplished exactly nothing.
“I’m going to brush my teeth and grab some clothes and we’ll get out of here, ok?”
“Ok,” Destiny replied, “Anything else? We’ll be gone most of the day.”
“Yeah,” I said back to her, “I’m going to call my intern.”
15 minutes later I was sitting shotgun in Destiny’s car as we drove to Pedro’s house to pick up my new employee. Cynthia was buckled up in the backseat. I had to beg Destiny to help me take it out of the house. She definitely didn’t believe me when I said I’d never seen her before. Which is fine, I didn’t believe her when she said her ghost dog, Hercules, was sitting in the backseat with Cynthia, although the car did smell like there was a dog in there with us. Maybe there really was a vengeful ghost dog with us.
We pulled up to Pedro’s house and again I had to convince Destiny to help me lug her out of the car and into the trash can.
“Will he be okay with this?” She asked.
“I’m his boss, he has to be.”
We tossed her in the can, but because of her weird robot-esque joints she didn’t fit too well and a leg poked out of the half-closed lid.
I sent Pedro a text and he came bounding out of his house like golden retriever but stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he saw the leg sticking out of his trash can, “Oh Shit!” he shouted, “You guys smoke somebody?” He looked nervous.
“Just a demon, Pedro. That’s just a demon. Hop in.”
“Oh, that’s dope dude,” Pedro hopped in, “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to the local college,” Destiny chirped.
“Ah shit. We don’t have to go to class, do we?” Pedro moaned.
We arrived 30 minutes before our meeting with Destiny’s old professor, Harold Potter. I shit you not, his name was Harry Potter, but apparently, he would get pretty upset if you called him anything other than Professor Potter.
The three of us sat across from Professor Potter in his shabby basement office surrounded on all sides by dusty books of various sizes and ages.
I pulled the leg we came to question him about out of my backpack and slid it across the table to him.
“Oh! It has a nipple! How exciting!” he exclaimed as he poked and prodded at the fake limb with a gloved finger.
“That’s a nipple?!” Pedro could hardly contain his excitement, “I thought that was a chocolate stain or something! Does this mean the leg is a girl?”
There was a beat of silence as we took a second to question if that really was the first thing Pedro sought to ask.
Destiny broke the silence, “Professor, we wanted to ask you what you could tell us about this leg. It is clearly bound in human skin, so you were the only person I could think of to consult. Any leads would be very helpful.”
“Let me start with a question of my own,” The professor was gently turning the leg over to examine it, “Where did you find it?”
Destiny and I both braced ourselves for whatever might come out of Pedro’s mouth, “My roommate Archie and I were at an illegal street race in Kansas City, Kansas and one of the cars crashed and blew up into a giant fireball”
Everyone in the room leaned in waiting for whatever insane nonsense followed, “And then?” Destiny nudged him.
“Then the police showed up and the law says that if the police use rubber bullets, then it’s okay to start looting.”
Harry Potter’s eyes were wide as saucers. I patted Pedro on the shoulder, “Keep going buddy.”
“I met a guy named Snake and we decided to loot a food truck that was parked nearby but none of the food inside was cooked, so we got a whole crew together and we flipped that bitch!”
“PEDRO. FOCUS.” Destiny was mortified about her favorite old professor associating her with a person as insanely stupid as Pedro, “Where did the leg come from?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Pedro continued, “Archie had it at the end of the night when I met back up with him at the motel. He had a bunch of wine and a whole mess of these crackers with him too. They weren’t very good though”
“So, your friend robbed a church?” Destiny asked, red in the face.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Pedro said, smiling, just happy to be there.
“Well boys and girls,” Harry Potter said, “All I can tell you is that this leg certainly appears to be bound in human flesh. I cannot confirm for certain without rigorous testing, but the nipple on the reverse side certainly points toward human.”
“How common is the practice of binding books in human skin,” I asked, curious.
“Well certainly not as common as it once was,” Professor Potter said with a laugh, “In ancient times anthropodermic bibliopegy was much more common. Still quite rare, mind you, but common in comparison to today.” He rubbed his chin then continued, “The question of why people did it however remains a mystery. We have evidence it was sometimes done to honor the work, to show respect to the actual writing itself. There are times when the skin of criminals was used as sort of a novelty, to create a collector’s item so to say. There are also examples of anthropodermic bibliopegy which is when an author uses their own skin to bind their own book. I wish I could give you more information, but maybe you could ask some of the other professors? Try Professor McGonagall in Anthropology”
We ascended the stairs out of the basement office, “Professor McGonagall?” I asked, “What is this fucking Hogwarts?”
Professor McGonagall sent us to the Foreign Languages department, which sent us to the Religious Studies Department who then re-routed us back to the History department who referred us back to Professor Harry Potter.
“I can’t believe no one here can tell us anything about this leg,” Destiny lamented, “I thought for sure Professor Potter would be a bigger help”
Destiny and I sat in silence on a bench near the student union and watched as Pedro tried asking nearly every single girl who walked past him for their phone number. He approached a tall redhead who instead of entertaining the idea of a conversation with Pedro took off in a full sprint the other direction.
“It's okay, Pedro!” I shouted to him, “Maybe she thought you were so handsome she just had to go tell her friends about you!”
“You shouldn’t encourage him,” Destiny said to me in a low tone so Pedro wouldn’t hear.
“You’re probably right,” I replied, “Hey, did you see that Heart-shaped mark on the leg? If that’s human skin, then it’s a tattoo, right?”
“Yeah, so what”
“Well, where do the kids with lots of tattoos hangout? Maybe we can ask them if they’d seen it before or if they recognize the artist” It was the only idea I could think of to salvage the situation.
“Definitely the Art department”
“Let’s go there.”
We walked into the unsymmetrically lit room where a ring of art students surrounded a naked man on a pedestal. Some were sketching him with pencils, some with charcoal, and a few were painting. There were a lot of tattooed people in this crowd. Lots of eyeliner and spiked collars too.
Pedro was mortified at the naked man, “Dude, does no one else see the naked guy? This is disgusting, let’s get out of here.”
“Pedro. Just close your eyes.” Pedro was getting on Destiny’s last nerve, “As a matter of fact, go stand in the corner and don’t speak for the next 72 hours”
We waited on the periphery of the circle until the class ended, then we approached the teacher, a middle-aged man in skinny jeans, fedora, eyeliner and a spiked collar. His name was Indigo and he thought he looked far cooler than he actually did.
We presented the leg to Indigo and he instantly stood up from his desk, walked over to the door and locked it, “Where did you get that?” he asked.
“Hey, I still need to get out of here man.” said the model who was now putting on his clothes in the corner of the room. Everyone ignored him.
“You know what this leg is?” Destiny and I said in unison.
“I know what it is, what I’m asking is why do you have it and why did you bring it into my classroom?”
A voice called from the corner of the room opposite the model putting on his clothes. It was Pedro, “I was at an illegal street race in Kansas City and –“
“Shut up!” Destiny and I said in unison.
“We don’t know where it came from,” Destiny continued, pointing over to Pedro who was standing motionless and staring at a blank canvas, “That’s Pedro. The leg belonged to his roommate. We’re aren’t exactly sure of its origins”
Indigo furrowed his brow, clearly not happy with the origin story, “And why did you bring it to me?”
“Because we’ve gone to nearly every other department at this school and no one has any clue what it is. The Art Department was kind of a Hail Mary.” I explained, “Can you help us?”
“I can tell you what you need to know, but that is it” Indigo couldn’t tear his eyes away from the fake limb, “I don’t want any part of this. I don’t want that thing anywhere near me.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s my mother-in-law” Indigo continued to stare at the flesh bound limb.
“You’re married…” I tried to put it together, “To this leg’s daughter?.... Son?”
Indigo finally peeled his eyes away from the leg and looked at me, “My mother-law created the leg with my late wife’s skin.” “How do we know you’re telling the truth?” I asked.
Indigo pointed to the ‘Mommy’s Home” tattoo on the cursed legs thigh, “You see that tattoo?” he asked. Before we could answer Indigo grabbed hold of his shirt collar with both hands and ripped his shirt clean off his body like he was a professional wrestler. Emblazoned across his chest was a massive tattoo of a heart, written across it were the words “Daddy’s Home”.
“Hell yeah! Hulkamania!” Shouted Pedro from across the room.
“I still need to get out of here. Can you please unlock the door?” Asked the model who was now standing next to the locked door.
Destiny and I looked at each other in disbelief, “What the hell was going on in your family?” was the only thing I could think to ask.
Indigo continued, “My wife died unexpectedly in a car accident while I was hiking the Appalachian trail, something I’d always wanted to do and something my wife encouraged me to conquer before I got too old. My mother-in-law, who was always deeply into the occult kept my wife’s death a secret. She told no one, not even her other children. Instead, she tried to resurrect her.”
Indigo walked around his desk that was cluttered with charcoal sketches and stacks of watercolor still life paintings. He sunk into his chair and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair before swiveling in his chair to regard a large portrait that hung above his desk. The painting was of a middle-aged woman in a gray sweatsuit. Brown, shoulder-length hair and dark circles under her eyes. She looked bored.
Indigo let loose a heavy sigh and without turning from the portrait picked up his story where he left off, “My wife wanted to be cremated. Instead, her body putrefied in a damp basement as her own mother performed ritual after ritual to call her back from the other side. Calling on Angels, Demons and the Old Gods alike, none answered her pleas. She tried to heat the blood and pump it fresh back into the body. She tried electric shocks to the heart and brain and she prayed day and night. None of it worked. She turned to other disciplines – Voodoo, Santeria, Palo Mayombe, Youtube tutorials; still none of it worked.”
I turned to look at Destiny who was enthralled. I glanced then at Pedro who was staring deeply into a blank canvas like it was the most interesting painting he’d ever seen.
“Then she did…this,” Indigo continued, pointing at the leg, “I don’t know what it is or how she did it. I assume she was trying to build her a new body. The only facts I know for sure are when I found my wife’s body it had large pieces of flesh removed and all that I could find of my mother-in-law was the notes she kept. I’m not sure if she died. Or was transported to another plane or if she’s contained within the leg itself. But I’m done with it.”
“I still need someon-,” the model started before I cut him off.
“Why are you giving up on this? Don’t you want to know what happened? Wouldn’t your wife want you to keep pushing?” I asked.
Indigo sat in silence for a moment, his chest heaving giving the impression that the heart tattoo across it was beating, “We tried to figure out what happened. We tried to destroy the leg. We tried to get rid of it for months and it just kept coming back. Eventually we gave it to a priest in Kansas City, Kansas for safe keeping and that seemed to work. I thought it was finally out of my life and now you idiots brought it right back to me. I want nothing to do with it. I'm done.”
“You’re saying ‘we’, who else tried to help you with this?” Destiny asked.
Indigo pointed up to the painting that hung above his office desk, “She did. That is my sister. She was helping get to the bottom of all of this. After a day's research she was spending the night at my house. I had fixed up an air mattress for her in my studio. When I came in to check on her the next morning, this painting was all I could find.”
“So, you’re saying she got turned into a painting? How do you know it’s her and not just, like, a painting of her?” Destiny questioned.
“It blinks sometimes,” Indigo answered.
His answer made my skin crawl. Not the fact that the painting could blink. I’d seen much worse stuff in the last 96 hours. What really twisted my stomach was thinking about his sister’s fate. If she could blink, she was still alive. She just couldn’t move, breathe, or communicate. A complete and total paralysis. Imagine locked-in syndrome on a much bigger scale. I’d rather be dead.
I took another glance at Pedro who was still engrossed in the blank white canvas he’d been staring at the entire time. He leaned in and licked it, smacked his lips and continued to stare at it like it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Someone please let me out, I have a class to get to,” the model pleaded.
“Shut up!” Destiny, Indigo and I all shouted at once - In hindsight we weren’t very nice to that guy. Defeated, the model walked over to look at some of the other canvases near Pedro.
Destiny asked another good question, “You said you guys were doing research on the leg, right? Did you find any way to destroy it?”
“Kind of,” Indigo cleared his throat before carrying on, “We spoke to a tattoo artist in Olathe named T-Bone. He was really into the occult and all that. He said, the only way to destroy something like this leg is to expose it to an act of true beauty or true love. We asked if he could be more specific or give an example of something like that, but he just told us he was late to do battle with a Warlock in Jefferson City. I assume he lost the battle, because I never saw him again.”
The three of us sat in quiet reflection trying to think of an example of “True” love or beauty. All I could think of were sappy rom-coms and, for some reason, a particular Melissa Ethridge song.
A loud THUD shook us from our brainstorm and Indigo, Destiny and I all turned towards the sound of the clatter. That side of the room was empty save for a few canvases and the gym bag the model had been carrying.
“Where’d Pedro go?” I asked.
Destiny pointed her finger towards a canvas, “There”
“God Damn it! Not Again!” Shouted Indigo.
I walked over and looked at the canvas, it was a painting of Pedro. Him standing solitary in a gray void, his hands in his pockets and his expression blank.
A few feet away another canvas contained the image of the model.
A pit grew in my stomach. The clock was officially ticking. We needed to snuff out this prosthetic leg before anyone else was killed, maimed or sucked into a painting.
Destiny tucked the painting of Pedro under her arm as we headed out of the classroom.
“Take the other one too!” Indigo shouted as we left, but we ignored him.
We walked to the car in silence, each of us thinking of the enormity of the situation we’d found ourselves in. All either of us did was answer an ad on the internet and, all of a sudden, we’d found ourselves locked in a battle with an entity from the other side of the veil. An entity we couldn’t touch or see, but now we’d realized it could see us, touch us and if it wants – kill us. Fuck the internet.
As our car pulled out of the university parking lot, we drove past a disheveled looking man on a park bench who seemed to be watching us. My heart skipped a few beats when I recognized him as Psycho Jimmy. Was he following me? It simply couldn’t be a coincidence. The man was showing up everywhere I went. Something told me he had a part to play in all of this.
I didn’t tell Destiny about Psycho Jimmy. We had enough on our minds already – chiefly what the fuck is a “True” act of beauty or love?

I inherited a bunch of embossed leather belts from a company named Cowtown out of Fort Worth, Texas. All of them have a blank space on the back for stamping names/initials. I'm told they were purchased in the 70s and have been sitting in an attic for the last 20 years. Despite that they are in very good condition. No cracking or scuffs or loose stitches.
So what can I do with these? Should I try to sell them myself online or should I go to a vendor and sell them wholesale? How much do I even ask for these? I'll post a link to an album when I am able to get photos up.
Edit: First album was missing pictures, new album link Link to Album: https://imgur.com/SUy8dK3
Table of what sizes in which styles I have, * means it is missing a keeper

Sizes	18	20	22	24	26	28	30	32	34	36	38	40	42	44	46	Total	Buckles
Horses	2	2	1	X	2	2	X	2	2	2	X	1	3	2	1	22	2
Eagles	X	1	X	1	2	X	1	1	X	X	X	X	X	X	2	8	X
Eagles Buck	X	X	X	X	X	3	1	X	X	4	X	X	X	X	X	8	1
Acorns	1	X	1	3	2	3	1	3	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	14	X
Acorns Buck	X	X	X	X	1	1	1	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	3	X
Acorns Rope Insert	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	2	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	2	X
Roses	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	1	X	X	X	X	X	X	1	2	X
Roses Painted	X	X	X	X	X	X	1	X	X	X	X	1	X	X	X	2	X
Floral	1	2	1	1	X	2	1	2	1	X	X	2*	X	1	2	14	X
Stamped	X	X	X	1	X	1	1	X	1	X	X	X	X	2*	1	5	X
Stamped Painted	X	X	X	X	X	1	X	1*	X	X	X	1	1	X	X	3	2
Stamped Black	X	X	X	1	1	1	1	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	4	X
Stamped Black Painted	X	X	X	X	X	1	X	1	1	X	1	X	X	X	X	4	X
Plain Black	X	X	X	X	X	X	1	2	X	X	X	1	1	2	X	7	X
Blanket Insert	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	1	1	X	X	X	X	X	X	2	1
Blanket Insert Black	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	1	1	1	1	X	1	1	X	6	X
Blanket Black Conchos	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	1	X	X	X	X	X	X	1	X
Total	4	5	3	7	8	15	9	16	8	7	2	4	6	6	7	107	6

Mini serial up in my head for a while. Writing after 10 years pause, please go easy on me. No hfy yet, just setting things up.
........................
Looking up towards the orbital ring, through dirty plexiglass roofing, James wipes his forehead and furrowed his eyebrows. The ring, known to the local as Halo Station due to the yellow sun glinting off of it when the angle is right, was an ugly strip of brutalist sunshade in James's opinion. It had been hastily constructed over the course of five years with government of private fundings, with the local bureaucrats and politicians the most well off from the scheme. The locals, third generation from the initial colonisers, had been opposed to government postings from the hub worlds but was strong armed by the mining and agriculture conglomerate to accept it. There were of course altercation between the locals and the conglomerate but anything larger than a demonstration were heavily suppressed with threats of cutting off vital terraforming supplies. The uneasy tension lasted until the ring orbital proposal was announced, with the locals divided in two camps. One was in favour, their thinking was that the station would bring attention of the wider human communities to their plights. The opposing view is that it would only bring more corporate interest to their system, with the oppressions and wealth discrimination that their forefathers escaped from to this new world in the first place.
James was of neither the opinions. He was planning on hitchhiking across the frontier worlds, edges of the explored galaxy, relying on his knowledge and skill of hydroponics to earn his living. He empathise with the locals, as he was ine himself, but knew that corporate greeds is as inescapable as taxes and death. The only thing keeping him from despairing the future was the tiny sum his family saved up. He wasrecently orphaned, but his parents were rather well off when they were alive, working on the water treatment plants of the terraforming complex, before an influx of dissolved salts from a hydrothermal vents eruption caused a chlorine gas build up, leading to an explosion when they were doing maintenance on the gas extraction chamber. James was thankful that at least his parents passed away painlessly, but the funeral arrangements had cut into the family funds. It was due to this that he was still stuck on the half terraformed planet.
"Penny for your thought?" asked a hoarse gravelly voice. One would be forgiven for thinking the owner of the voice a male. A frail looking woman with grey hair peered up at James from behind a trellis supporting vines of red pod peas. "Counting down the days the merchant trader will pick me off this pile of dirt," James replied, "Not that I don't see why you would want to stay here." "Can't get the theiving bastards to give me my insurance money otherwise." The woman scowled. " Speaking about that, how's the surgery going? Inhaling that much chlorine would put anyone out of action, not that I'm not thankful for pulling my parents out of there. The company would've let them dissolved if they had their way." James asked the woman. "Well, the off world volunteer doctors bumped me up cue and if lady luck don't interfere, I'll be fully recovered by the end of the local year." she replied with a chuckle then a cough. The planet they are on has a 22 hours day but 976 days per year. This has made the locals used phrase 'end of the year' as a joke for deliberately slow bureaucracy, especially when the government is the one paying. Elisabeth was working with his parents when the accident occured, a toilet break saving her from the experience. She was trained as a first reponder and had taken it up on herself to at least recover the remains of her colleague and friend. Either due to cost cutting or by sheer incompetence, the recently cleared hazmat suit she took from the emergency storage had a leaking hose and she had barely survived. James was grateful for her action and offered her a job in his mostly automated hydroponic farm as she waits for the company to pay her insurance as she can no longer do heavy manual labour. James was going to transfer all his business to her as thanks when he got off planet but had told her yet. "I hope you recover fully," James smiled at the not bad news, "I'm going to give you this farm and the house after I leave. You've been a good friend to the family and I'd to see you suffer because of a good deed." Elisabeth looked thoughtful for a moment then nodded, realising that James was resolved. "I have no need for more money than what I need to survive, I'll send any profits left from the farm to you. You'll need it if you're going to gallavanting around the galaxy." Elisabeth said with a firm tone, or slightly deeper and hoarser to James's ear. "It'll also be somewhere to return to if the galaxy doesn't agree with you. A journey isn't complete if you haven't return and all that." she added. James was expecting this and knows that she won't change her mind. "I'll drop by with souvenirs whenever I come near this part." James said. The rest of the day went by as usual. As James finished checking the monitoring terminal in preparation for the night, a message popped up on his iris implant. He checked the message as he exited the decontamination airlock:
Dear James,
I hope this finds you well. I hate to impose on paying customers but a good friend of mine needs somewhere hole up for a few days on your planet. He has his own ship and offered to take you anywhere you wish after he finished offloading his cargo to the orbital. I have given him your contacts and attached his along with his headscan. I am terribly sorry for taking liberties but I hope you find this a good deal.
Sincerely,
Cpt. Frank Rowe
James was surprised but didn't mind it that much as he had empty rooms and he'll save some money. He quickly went into his sonic shower booth and tapped off a reply to the captain and his guest. He was preparing to cook some of the ripe tomatoes and eggplants he harvested today when Elisabeth came out of her room. He had asked her to moved into his guest bedroom when she started working on his farm and they had been having meals together since. It helped the make the house more lively and Elisabeth liked his cooking. "I don't know if it's the fresh produce or your cooking that make something mundane taste this god." Elisabeth said in between bites, "Either way, I'll miss this when you go. I'll have to remember to scan this into the automeal." "It'll be close but the Dad's recipe needs more dressing oil and salt than the standard automeal will allow. It won't be too unhealthy if you work and sweat enough for two people." James grinned, "My parents always debated this over dinner." "That reminds me about the workload. I will have to automate the fish feeder, my lungs are about done by the time I finished checking the fruit bins," Elisabeth said. "I'll dial in the settings tomorrow, you'll only need to top up pellets." replied James.
That night James got a reply from the guest confirming he will take up the offer. The guest will arrive in two days and James planned to offer his own room. He had not touched his parents bedroom since the accident and he is going to tidy up the room as a farewell. He did not look forward to spending a night in the room but he knows he will regret not doing something to mark off the end of his stay in this house.
On the day of the arrival, James woke up and looked at himself in the mirror. His curly brown hair that he got from his mother was growing out past his liking, along with the light stubble he put off shaving due to being busy setting up the farm for a one person operation. His grey eyes was sparkling and lively, despite waking up an hour before his usual time. He was excited since he will be departing tomorrow and had finished packing last night. After confirming with Elisabeth that everything is working fine in the farm, he left her to get used to the new routine to prepare lunch. A flying taxi touched down as he fished out a large pizza from the oven. He wiped his hands and went to greet his ticket off the planet. A short stocky man climbed down, his skin, where visible was deeply tan, highly unusual for a ship captain travelling long journey through deep space. His dark hair fluttered in the wind and brown piercing eyes take in the rural sight. His glance fell on James and smiled a toothy grin. "You must be the owner of this lovely estate!" he bellowed out with a thick accent James can't place. James walked up to him, offered his hand, and they shook. "James Howard, looking forward to getting on your ship." James replied, a bit put off by the excitement from the man. "Miguel, Miguel Emille. Captain of the Flying Snail. I am very thankful for your hospitality at such short notice. The corpo here kicks the captain off their ship! Imagine that!" James looked around for security drones, a bit fearful of being reported for sedition. The captain looked at him, confused, then in understanding, "Ah, one of those world? Say no more. I won't put my passenger in danger." "Is it not the same where you are from? That's why I'm trying to get off the planet." James asked. "No, I grew up and works mainly for the frontier colony. This one is a special favour for the captain that you contacted for a lift. Contract for some heavy metal isotopes from one of the asteroid mining station for one of your 'esteemed' governer." Miguel winked.
The rest of the day passed by uneventfully, with Miguel switching between telling news of the outer colonies and checking his ship's security cameras. The next morning, James and Elisabeth had a tearful farewell before heading off towards one of the pillar supporting the orbital that doubled as cargo elevator. As they rise, James takes a look at the purple and green landscape falling below. He could see the curvature of the planet right as they enter the orbital. He took a picture of his homeworld, intending to put into his journal to mark the start of his journey. The maglev took them towards the internal docking area, James looking out then windows at the opulence of the wealthy living in the station. As they walk towards the flying snail, they were jossled around wnd forced to stop a few times by the workers and machineries bustling around the dock. James took in the sight of the Flying Snail as they approached, staring at the size and unusual roundedness of the ship, in contrast to the blocky and angular ships standard for most space vehicles. "Custom made on Mariana IX station, designed by my grandfather. A great advertisement for my business and comfortable quarters too. And not as slow as the name suggests" Miguel said as he looked at not a few workers staring at his ship. The advertisement mentioned was stencilled in bright red cursive letters on bare metal, in contrast to the ship's black blocky registration number. As they made their way to airlock, passing the the ship's closing cargo door, an inspector passed Miguel a datapad to sign off. "Cargo confirmed received, payments are being processed by customs due to the new tax coming into effect yesterday. You shouldn't lose much with the currency exchange," the inspector said after looking the form over, " you are clear to depart when traffic control indicates." The inspector turn to another ship busy loading cargo, not waiting for a reply. Miguel lead James through the airlock to his room, a larger than standard room furnished with wooden furniture and upholstered, unheard of in a spaceship from the hub worlds. "Get yourself comfortable then join me on the bridge. The ship AI will help you with the layout. No need to address me as captain since it'll only be the two of us until your destination. I'll be going around looking for government approved bugs. Corporate overlords never can get the idea of privacy." Miguel said before leaving James to unpack. James look around the room, trying to wrap his head around the decor. It was as if someone stole a museum exhibit then use it to furnish a spaceship. He unpacked his luggage, looking around for a storage locker, before putting his meager clothings into a dark wood wardrobe. He then set off to put his toiletries in the attached bathroom before being shocked at the size and items he saw. A large oval mirror hangs on the wall above porcelain basin, with an archaic brass and glass shower cubicle with valves and pipes off to the side. He consdered the logistics of internal plumbing and water storage on the ship for a moment before shaking his head, "Might as well enjoy the luxuries. If this isn't a great start, I don't know what is."
After he finished, James head out of his room then froze as he peered into the corridor. The sterile white panelling had turned into stained wood, the harsh lighting into warm yellow glow from what looks like wall mounted lamps. He turned to look back at his room to see the standard white panelling was still there. He decided to ask the AI for directions to the Captain, "Ship? Where's the bridge?" "Please find the ship map in the mailbox behind the door," a synthetic female voice chimed out. He looked at the automatic sliding door and noticed it had changed to a wooden hinged door with a basket below a metal slot. He grabbed a rolled up brown paper bundle from the basket, unrolling it to seems to be hand drawn diagram of the ship. Other details such as crew members list and meal times are neatly list in one corner. He closed the door before following the map. He was not surprised to find his name engraved below the room number on the brass plaque on the door.
James was apprehensive about finding anything on the ship but there were signs jutting out from the wall at each intersection, surrounded by decorative metalwork in forms of flowers, pointing to major locations. The flooring hard changed from patterned wood to being carpeted the closer he is to the bridge. He finally arrived at a double door, with a plaque indicating that it was indeed the bridge, and he wondered if he should knock. He decided not to, and swung open, to hear a bell ring as the door opens. "James! Come strap yourself in. How do you like my ship?" Miguel was seated on what looks like a couch in the centre of the room, looking at a large screen. The screen shows the outside of the ship, which was the landing bay blast door, still shut. "It's nice but too much like a museum piece to be flying around," James responded, "Isn't it against regulation and too hazardous if the grav generator fails?" "That's why I set the nanites to change to standard whenever I dock. Changed back to what my grandpa designed when we're clear for take off," Miguel answered, " also cleared out to bare walls with carpeting whenever there's an emergency. Only ever happens once in all my years of flying." James had heard of nanites but wasn't aware that it could be used on ships. "The ship was supposed to be a private cruiser for a hubworlder, but he backed out of deal so the swimming pool and hydrotherapy areas was converted into the cargo hold," Miguel added.
James strapped himself in a plush fabric covered armchair near the screen. As he figured out the buckle, the comm beeped then a voice called out, " landing bay E42 cleared. All ships ensure airlock and cargo door are closed before depressurisation in 15 minutes." "Hal, check the doors and prepare for take off," Miguel said. "Sorry captain, I cannot do that." "Stops scaring the passengers. Maybe it's time you watch some modern movies." A huff sounded before the AI replied, "Aye aye, Captain." "She always does that, scaring the living daylight out of my last crew when she pretended to lock the airlock during EVA," Miguel sighed, " i don't know what my Pa was doing, feeding her all that old robot uprising movies." "I thought she was just a basic navigation AI when I asked her for directions." "Yeah, she does that to make people let their guards down before springing the 'Exterminate!' stuff on them. That's why my last crews all signed off." "Isn't that bad on you?" James asked, "also your reputation won't be good." " It's fine, I mainly take on crews for company. Most contracts I got are from fellow captains needing to take orders from regulars but are to far out to accept. She got the latest repair drones and all nanites tech to take care of all damages, excluding only jump core explosions," Miguel smiled.
They waited in the bridge, chatting about life in space and homicidal AI, with Hal, James learned shortened from Haley and pronunciation changed courtesy of the AI herself, chiming in when the checks are done. "Landing bay E42 depressurised in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Landing bay depressurised. All ships clear to take off in E42 once landing bay door fully opened. Green light will light up when ready for manually piloted crafts. Halo orbital thanks you for your business." The traffic controller speaks through the comm, indicating he is a native. Off-worlder would usually call the station 'The Regina's Ring' after the planet. Once the door slides open fully, ships start to go out in rows. When it was the Flying Snail's turn to take off, a hologram of Hal appeared besides the captain's couch and the ship starts to move out slowly in formation, coordinating with the other ships. Once the Flying Snail cleared the door, Hal spoke, "Captain, there's any energy spike reading in the aft sensor. No details on origin available due to station's plating. Seems to be mostly neutrons" "Perhaps someone forgot to shut their cargo door. Probably transporting tritium or helium three. Put up shield just to be safe."
The captain's decision turns out to be just in time as a heavy blast blew the ships out of the orbital. Alarms started wailing and James was pushed back into his seat. "Damage report!" Miguel shouted over the alarms and a diagram of the ship's system popped up on screen. "No structural damage, low EMP, main computer rebooting, shields down to 60 percent," Hal replied mechanically, "Reboot complete. Putting rear view on screen." The screen shows a large explosion on the inner ring side, dropping debris onto the planet below. The alarms turned off as Hal reports, "Ring appears to be holding. Debris calculated to fall on low population area and ocean. Minimal damage to civilians and properties." " There's that at least. Are we expected to help?" Miguel asked. "Negative, the station order civilian vessels to clear the area. No detention order." "Good, get us to the jump point. James, you got a destination?" Miguel turns to look at James. James was still trying to recover from being slammed into his seat, saved from concussions by the seat's padding. "I need to check on Elisabeth," James said as he reached for his wristcom. He then saw an incoming video call from Elisabeth. He sighed in relief as he picked up the call. "I'm glad you're alright. Exciting starts to your trip, eh?" Elisabeth said after seeing James. "Good to see you unharmed too. Did the emergency broadcast says anything?" James asked. "They were saying no damage to those living below. The corporate news network was saying it was the work of the anti-hub government groups." Elisabeth said with a grimace, "trying to weasel out of responsibility if you ask me. I need to check the farm systems in case anything went down. Safe trip out there, I don't want to cry for the second time today," Elisabeth was starting to tear up as James tried to reply before the call cut off. "All's well that ends well," Miguel said as James gathered himself, "good to see her safe. So, destination?" James thought for a moment then replied, "I've never been anywhere further than the Halo. I was thinking of getting off at the last stops but I'm the only passenger here so I think I'll get off wherever your next business ends." " Fine by me. I'm going back three system on my route here, pick up some cargo and or crews, then out to the frontiers," miguel said to James then turn to Hal, " You remembered the station with extra medical supplies looking for buyers? Set destination there." " Aye captain. Arriving at jump point. Jumping in 5 seconds," Hal said before starting the count down. The jump drive, the second most popular after warp, generates a wormhole from Lagrange points. The energy requirements is higher than warp but the near instantaneous travel time is highly value by merchants and diplomats alike.
The jump starts without a hitch and they exited into a red dwarf system. As they make they way towards a spherical station above a green gas giants, they were hailed on all frequencies as the screen starts to shows an armada of black pyramids blockading ships trying to enter and leave the station. The screen suddenly flickers then shows a black upside down triangle with glowing blueish white lights runni ng on its surface. The speakers blared out a high pitch voice, " Bags of mostly water our flattest desire exchange thinking patterns. Flattest yours here deliver. Airwaves produce expect agreement." This broadcast then repeats itself. "Ain't this the strangest day of my life," Hal said loudly. "Exciting first day for our passenger here for sure," Miguel added. James just stared blankly at the screens.
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part 1
A week later I walked out of the hospital, literally. The doctors said I’d been very lucky. Because I’d been sweating, the oil didn’t stick to my skin. Since oil and water don’t mix, it was literally floating on top of the sweat on my legs. Even though I did receive some burns, they weren’t nearly as bad as they could’ve been.
I guess I’m just one lucky guy. Now I get to go home and barricade myself in my house, hoping that thing forgets about me, or better yet, that it had died from its burn injuries.
When I got home, I walked up to the front door and saw the scratches on it. I took the steps one at a time, looking at the doorframe where it had gotten stuck, trying to gouge my eyes out. I opened the front door slowly as if expecting it to be waiting behind the door to nab me and drag me off into the forest to do unspeakable things to me. I released my white knuckles from the doorknob then quickly shut and locked the door.
Splinters and sawdust covered the carpet, along with muddy, inhuman, footprints. After doing a quick walkthrough of the house to make sure it wasn’t there, I grabbed the vacuum and started cleaning.
I had just finished when a knock at my door nearly sent me through the ceiling.
Peeking out through the peephole, I saw the man who’d saved me that night, and opened the door.
“What’re you doing here?” I said.
“I came to check on you,” he said. “Mind if I come in?”
I stepped aside and motioned for him to enter. He stepped in and scoped out the room.
“It’s surprisingly clean for having a wendigo nearly destroy it.”
“I just got done vacuuming.”
He eyed me up and down.
“Of course you did,” he said plopping into a comfortable chair.
“So how goes the hunt?” I said, sitting in my usual chair.
He shifted in his seat.
“It’s going well.”
“So you’ve captured it then?”
“Not exactly.”
“Killed it?”
He shook his head.
“Then what have you done?”
“I saved your life.”
“And I thank you. What have you done lately?”
“Well, that’s kind of what I’m here for,” he said. “How would you like to join our team?”
“Team of what?”
“Cryptid hunters.”
I looked at him with sheer disbelief.
“Pass.”
“You haven’t even heard… “
“I don’t want anything to do with that thing,” I said, walking into the kitchen.
“But you’re the only one who’s ever survived an attack.”
I wondered to myself if that was true or if he was just trying to make my pride force me into a bad decision.
“Pass,” I said.
“You wouldn’t be going alone,” he said, getting up and following me to the kitchen. “There’s two other cryptid hunters that would be along, plus me.”
“Not interested,” I said.
“There’s a reward for its capture. You’d get a share of it.”
“No deal,” I said, starting up the stairs.
He seemed flustered, grasping at straws.
“You’d get to carry a big gun,” he said.
I paused halfway up the stairs.
“How big of a gun?”
“Big.”
I thought about it for a long moment.
“Alright,” I said then continued up the stairs.
“Great, then let’s go.”
I paused.
“What do you mean, let’s go? Like right now? I just got home.”
“We need to strike while the trail is fresh.”
“Fresh? A week old is fresh?”
He shrugged. “The guys and your equipment are in the truck.”
“Can I at least grab a shower first?”
There was an odd look in his eye.
“No need,” he said. “We’ll be out on the trail.”
We stood in a silent stare down for a long moment, then I shrugged and came back down the steps.
“So how much money will I be making,” I said.
He smiled. “Enough.”
I followed him outside, turning at the last moment to lock my front door that had seen better days and looked like a stiff breeze would blow it over.
He grinned but said nothing as we approached the truck and climbed in the back doors.
The two men in the front merely nodded when we got in, then the driver started the truck and drove away toward the woods. I wasn’t having pleasant memories flashback when we pulled into the same trailhead I had barely escaped from just over a week ago. I had to wonder if I’d had some head trauma they hadn’t noticed at the hospital, or if Mr. three letter government agency had drugged me without my knowledge to get me to come back here.
I was tempted to run as soon as I opened the door, but I didn’t want to look like a coward in front of these guys, even though I didn’t know them from Adam and they each had a good fifty pounds of pure muscle on me. We stepped around to the back and Mr. three handed me a backpack that was so heavy it nearly pulled me over.
“You gonna be good with that,” he said noticing my struggle. “You can take some stuff out if you want.”
“Nope, I’m good,” I said, hefting it onto my back and somehow managing to keep it there without my knees buckling under the weight.
Next he handed me a belt that had all kinds of stuff on it, including the big gun. It was a revolver, but the cylinder was so long, I wondered if it would shoot rifle shells.
“Just remember,” he told me. “We’re trying to capture it, not kill it.”
“That was never part of the deal,” I said.
“It is if you want the big payday.”
I stopped in front of him.
“What if I want revenge?”
He looked me up and down, sizing me up as if seeing me for the first time.
“Then you should go home and leave the hunting to us,” he said, then stepped around me and started down the trail.
The second hunter followed him, but the third stayed behind and stared at me.
“Aren’t you following them?” I said.
“I’m the rear guard,” he said. “I go last and watch everybody else’s back.”
“So, you’re waiting to see if I follow them or tuck my tail between my legs and slink home?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
I looked from the trail to the road and back again, then slumped my shoulders and started down the trail.
“So, what do I call you?” I said over my shoulder to the hunter behind me.
He was silent for a moment, then softly said, “You can call me Ray.”
My mind shot back to an old comedy routine I’d seen on one of those classic TV shows.
“Alright, Ray, I guess it’s gonna be you and me for a while, because I know I won’t be catching up to them with what feels like a Buick strapped t my back.”
“He told you to take out whatever you felt you didn’t need.”
“Ever heard of this thing called pride, Ray?”
He shook his head ruefully.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “Does that mean I can count on you to continue to make stupid decisions?”
I stopped and turned on him.
“I think the answer is obvious.”
“Great,” he said with no small amount of sarcasm.
We started down the trail and I must say, I did pretty well for around a half hour. And when I say pretty well, I mean trudging, heaving, and moaning at the incredible amount of weight on my back as we slowly followed the trail through the forest. To make things worse, it started to drizzle.
It didn’t take too long for him to have…
“Enough!” he said. “Just stop right here.”
I obeyed and nearly fell over backward as gravity grabbed the backpack and tried to hurl it to the ground. If it wouldn’t have been for Ray catching me, I would’ve hit the ground hard and rolled around like a helpless turtle, unable to get up on my own.
He lifted the pack off my back effortlessly and set it on the ground. He dug through it and started thrusting things toward me.
“Here,” he said, shoving a handful of granola bars toward me. “Put these in your pants pockets.”
Next, he handed me a flashlight and some extra rounds of ammo, a water bottle, and a rain poncho. I took the poncho out of its wrapper and put it on.
The first few steps I took sounded like I was wearing a snow suit. Everything he’d given me to stow in my pockets made some kind of noise. The granola bar wrappers rubbed together, the rounds of ammo clinked and clicked, even the rain poncho made noise when I took a step.
“I thought we were trying to sneak up on this thing,” I said, stopping in my tracks. “I sound like a freakin’ one man band.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said avoiding my eyes as he set the pack off to the side of the trail and stepped past me. “I’m sure the rain will cover your sounds.”
I looked up and only a few drops landed on my cheeks. The rest was just a fine mist. Narrowing my eyes, I watched as Ray walked ahead of me on the trail. I hadn’t known him long, but it was easy to see he was hiding something. Maybe he didn’t want to scare me so I would keep on with the search. In any case, I rested my hand on the gun in its holster for comfort.
“Don’t go pulling that out unless you have to,” he said without looking back. “Remember, we’re here to capture, not kill.”
“Maybe you are,” I said.
He stopped dead in his tracks and turned toward me.
“Look, I get it. You’re scared. I would be too if this was the first time I was hunting something like this, but you have to do things our way so no one gets hurt, understand?”
He hadn’t said it a threatening way, just matter of fact, but I still found myself taking a step back.
“What if that thing decides it wants to hurt someone?”
He looked me in the eyes.
“Then we stop it,” he said, then turned and started down the trail not even checking to see if I was following.
I sighed and fell in step behind him, finding it much easier now without the heavy pack of doom weighing me down. I still rested my hand on the gun as we walked.
The forest was quiet. The animals weren’t making much sound and the wind was still. I didn’t know if it was the intensifying rain or something else that seemed to spook them.
“Ray.” I heard someone whisper.
He stopped and whipped around on me.
“What?” he said, looking at me.
“I didn’t say anything.”
His eyes were full of suspicion but he continued along the trail.
It wasn’t long until we heard the sound again.
“Ray… “
His eyes instantly shot to me but I held up my hands in surrender and shook my head.
He scanned the trees, looking for where the voice had come from when we heard it again. This time he was able to focus in on where it had come from. He started toward it without a second glance at me.
“Wait a minute,” I whispered. “Are you sure you want to follow this?”
“Of course,” he said, but his eyes had an otherworldly quality to them like he’d been hypnotized or somehow was under the voice’s spell.
He stepped forward slowly, but not carefully. It was as if he were being drawn and started walking into the woods in front of me. He had almost disappeared when suddenly the creature appeared as huge and real as ever. Its skin was burned all over its body and hanging loosely in some places like it was about to fall off. It was much more terrifying than the last time I’d seen it. Even the hide of the other animal that it wore as a shawl seemed melted to its shoulders.
It slashed Ray across the throat in one lightning fast motion. All I saw was a spray of red before the creature picked Ray up and started off into the woods.
Before I knew what was happening, my gun was in my hand and I was firing it over and over at the beast as it escaped with its prize. I fired the gun empty, but kept squeezing the trigger on empty cylinders. Finally, I realized I wasn’t shooting anymore and emptied the shell casings out, digging into my pocket to reload and dropping bullets in my haste.
Once I finally had it reloaded, I slammed the cylinder shut and looked for the creature. To my surprise two trees came toward me. I aimed the shaking gun toward them when one of them said, “Stop! Don’t shoot us!”
It was so shocking to hear a tree talk that I obeyed its command.
They continued to advance on me when they stopped a few feet away and one of them ripped its top off revealing a human head. It was the agent.
“Give me that gun,” he said with an outstretched branch.
“Absolutely not!” I said, holding it away from him like a kid withholding a toy from a parent. “Where have you two been?”
The other agent removed his treetop as well.
“We were staking out the area,” he said. “You two were supposed to bring it to us so we could capture it.”
“Bring it to you? How were we supposed to do that?”
He stared at me for a long time, looking as though he was unsure of what to say.
I finally got it.
“You used me as bait,” I said. “You knew once that thing got my scent it would follow me.”
He shrugged. “It was as good a plan as any.”
“Except, it caught on to your little plan and now Ray is in harms way, and could already be dead.”
“What do you mean, dead?” he said.
I described him being taken with a special emphasis on the blood spray.
He stared at me silently.
“We need to regroup and think what our next tactic is.”
“Our next tactic is to find this thing and put as many holes in it as possible before it has Ray for an afternoon snack,” I said holding up the gun for emphasis.
“I told you, we’re bringing it in alive.”
“Even at the cost of our lives?” I said, looking from one agent to the other.
My point seemed to sink in grudgingly with both of them.
“We still need to find it,” the head agent said. “After we find it, we can debate killing it or not.”
“Fine, this way,” I said, starting in the same direction I’d seen the creature and Ray disappear.
“Who died and made you boss?” he said following as quickly as his tree outfit would let him.
I turned and faced him, serious as a heart attack.
“Hopefully not Ray,” I said, then turned and resumed in the direction I’d seen them.
I didn’t turn back to see if they were following, but I could hear trees rustling behind me. I hoped that was them, or I was in trouble.
As we walked, my senses were on alert, watching, and listening for the creature in hopes that it wouldn’t pull another sneak attack. Thinking back to the brief battle, I wondered how many of my six shots hit the beast, and how many might’ve hit Ray. I couldn’t be that careless in the upcoming fight. I would have to take better aim and be patient. Not only was there Ray to think of as a potential victim, but also the two clowns behind me dressed up as trees.
We weren’t on any trail, and that made it rough going for me. My legs were still sensitive and I had rushed out of the house in just a pair of shorts and a Metallica t-shirt. The rain poncho I wore gave me a little warmth, but not as much as I would’ve liked. When we left, it was nice out, with the temperature in the mid-seventies, but once the rain started, it dropped ten degrees. That plus the fact that we were walking through rough country, avoiding jaggers, thorns, and all kinds of plants that seemed like they were designed just for the annoyance factor. I can’t imagine how those two behind me were doing in their ridiculous tree outfits.
I turned to check on them, but they were gone.
Slowly looking around the forest, I searched for them, but they were nowhere to be found. With their outfits on, they could’ve been right beside me and I wouldn’t know it. They also admitted to using me as bait. Maybe that’s what they were doing again.
I wish I would’ve stayed home, ordered a pizza, and watched Wipeout on TV, then fallen asleep on the couch. That would’ve been a good first day home from the hospital. Instead I was freezing in the middle of the woods, all alone, and now that I had looked around, I lost which direction I was going. So now I was officially lost in the woods.
Great.
The rain was coming down harder now. I decided to look for some kind of shelter and regroup. I walked forward, looking not for the creature, but anything I could use to hide from the rain. A cave would be great, as long as nothing was in it. A fallen tree that I could sit under would do as well.
In the end, I lucked out, I hadn’t gone far when a cave appeared up ahead. Instead of blundering inside, I circled around and watched the entrance for a while, until I was cold enough to ignore the potential danger and get out of the rain.
Standing in the mouth of the cave helped a little by getting me out of the rain, but I was still freezing. I turned and looked inside. The huge maw of blackness stared back out. Even using my flashlight didn’t tell me much about my impromptu rest stop.
Hanging out near the entrance was not advised. I would have to find someplace else once the rain stopped. But as I looked up a flash of light, followed soon by a crash of thunder that made the world shake, told me the rain wasn’t about to let up.
A cold as I was, it would take a special kind of crazy to go exploring this cave that could hold any number of wild animals who had no problem eating humans. I hoped one of them wouldn’t be the creature. What did the agent call it, a Wendigo?
Against every survival instinct, I shone my light into the cave and started walking. It was big, at least twelve feet from the ceiling, but the walls were smooth, almost like it had been dug with a machine. There weren’t a lot of rocks and debris like you would envision in a cave. It seemed like someone had made this cave and concealed it as natural. But why? There was nothing out here in the middle of the woods. Even the cave itself was far off the beaten path.
As I was wondering about the nature of the cave I heard a sound behind me. Slowly I turned, hoping that the creature hadn’t snuck up behind me like it did with Ray.
All I saw was two trees standing on either side of the cave.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Like no one’s going to notice two trees suddenly growing in the middle of a cave with no sunlight?”
Neither tree moved, but I was sure one of them make a shushing sound.
I shook my head and continued into the cave. The further I went the more the flashlight struggled to ward off the dark. It was like the light was overwhelmed by the darkness.
As big as the cave was, I came to a spot where it opened up into a larger room. The ceiling was so far up it was hard for the flashlight to reach. As I scanned around the room with the light, I settled on something over in the corner. The closer I got to it the more I wanted to turn around and leave.
I stepped up right beside it and pulled my shirt collar up over my nose to cover the stench of death and decay.
It was Ray, or what was left of him, strung up on a rack. Both his legs were gone and the huge puddle of blood under him didn’t give me hope that he had survived. I reached up and felt for a pulse anyway. My hand went right into the opening where the creature had slashed his neck. There was no pulse. At least I didn’t see any bullet holes in him. That made me feel a little better.
I hung my head and turned to report to the trees following me when I saw a sight that made me question reality. The creature had returned. It was in a life and death battle with a tree. It had picked the tree up and was holding it near the top. The tree was kicking and punching the creature as though its life depended on it.
The creature seemed confused at first, but once the tree delivered a well-placed kick, the creature seemed to decide that it had enough. It swung the tree around effortlessly like a baseball bat and smashed it into a wall. The sickening crunching sound it made on impact were a combination of wood and bone breaking.
The tree instantly went limp, but the creature wanted to make sure. It threw the tree at the other wall leaving a red splotch on impact before collapsing the to ground.
The second tree hadn’t moved the entire time. The creature stepped close to it, suddenly suspicious. It reached out when I made my decision to act.
I pulled out the gun, aimed at the creature’s head and squeezed the trigger.
I’d never fired a .44 magnum in a cave before, and I never will again.
My ears were ringing so bad, I couldn’t hear anything. I saw the tree holding its ears as well as the wendigo. Its mouth was open and I imagined it was screaming, but I couldn’t hear it.
I don’t know what happened. If something in me just snapped, or I realized I was about to end up like Ray. I ran up to the wendigo while it was disoriented by the gunshot, stuck the gun under its chin near its neck and squeezed the trigger five more times.
The top of its head exploded with a geyser of bone and blood. It screamed so loud I even heard it through my hopefully temporary deafness.
I didn’t hang around to see what was going to happen. I ran toward the cave entrance, grabbing the uninjured tree and pulling him out with me. It only took a moment for the tree to get the point and run along.
Once out, he guided me back to the trail and took the top of his tree disguise off to talk to me.
“I told you I wanted that thing alive,” he said, looking and sounding very unhappy.
“Why don’t you tell Ray and the other agent you just lost how that thing’s life was more important than theirs?”
He glared at me.
“Don’t give me that look,” I said. “I just shot a wendigo at point blank range. You think your little glare is going to frighten me?”
He continued to glare.
“Ok, you have two choices here,” I said. “Either drive me home or give me your keys.”
He finally allowed his shoulders to relax and started walking.
“I’m not giving you the keys to my car,” he muttered.
We walked back out in silence. Whatever his deal was with bringing the creature in alive, he was serious about it.
I was just glad the whole ordeal was over.
“Do you think its dead?” I said.
He ignored me for a few minutes, then finally said, “I don’t know. I’ve heard some amazing stories about how they recuperate.”
“Wow, gee thanks, I feel so much safer now,” I said as we rounded a corner and there standing in the middle of the trail was a huge bear.
We both froze.
“What do we do?” I whispered to him.
“Shut up,” he whispered back.
We stood as still as humanly possible as the bear sniffed the air and lumbered up to us. For some reason it looked familiar. Could it possibly be the same bear that fought with the wendigo over a week ago. It had some scars and scratch marks on it that looked partially healed.
It stepped up to the agent and stared at him. Perhaps it had never seen a tree partially eat a human before. That’s what he looked like with the top of the outfit off. Like the tree had half digested a human the way a snake devours its prey.
Then it stepped over and sniffed me. Its eyes grew wide with what I would almost call fear. But that couldn’t be right, could it. I mean why would a bear be afraid of me.
It turned tail and ran off into the woods without looking back.
“What was that about?” I said.
“Do you really want to question it, or just get out of here?”
“Get out of here,” I said, my feet already double-timing it down the trail.
We were within sight of the car before we slowed down. Both of us were breathing hard from powerwalking the whole way. I was sure it couldn’t have been easy for him in that tree suit.
“I think I may have figured it out,” he said as we arrived at the car and he fished out his keys.
“Do tell, oh wise one,” I said.
“It smelled the wendigo’s blood on you.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Think about it, if you’re enough of a badass to have wendigo blood on you, the bear probably didn’t want to mess with you.”
I thought about it and it made sense in a way.
Just as we were about to leave, we heard an inhuman shriek off in the distance. He turned to me with a gleam in his eyes.
“Oh no,” I said. “You take me home right now, then I don’t care if you go try to hunt this thing down and end up getting eaten.”
“Oh all right,” he said pouting.
We drove in silence, each of us in our own world of thoughts. Every once in a while I couldn’t help glancing in the rear view mirror, just to be sure.
When we arrived at my house I got out and turned to leave, then stopped.
“Why was that cave man made?” I said.
“What makes you think it was man made?” he said with a nervous chuckle.
“The walls and ceiling were too smooth,” I said.
“They seemed rough enough to me,” he said.
“So you’re not going to tell me that there was a secret military base nearby?”
“You enjoy your recuperation, sir,” he said, handing me a business card. “If you ever have problems like this again, give me a call.”
I dropped the card on the seat.
“I think I’d be better off on my own,” I said. “You don’t protect your partners very well.”
I walked inside my house without looking back.

A week later I walked out of the hospital, literally. The doctors said I’d been very lucky. Because I’d been sweating, the oil didn’t stick to my skin. Since oil and water don’t mix, it was literally floating on top of the sweat on my legs. Even though I did receive some burns, they weren’t nearly as bad as they could’ve been.
I guess I’m just one lucky guy. Now I get to go home and barricade myself in my house, hoping that thing forgets about me, or better yet, that it had died from its burn injuries.
When I got home, I walked up to the front door and saw the scratches on it. I took the steps one at a time, looking at the doorframe where it had gotten stuck, trying to gouge my eyes out. I opened the front door slowly as if expecting it to be waiting behind the door to nab me and drag me off into the forest to do unspeakable things to me. I released my white knuckles from the doorknob then quickly shut and locked the door.
Splinters and sawdust covered the carpet, along with muddy, inhuman, footprints. After doing a quick walkthrough of the house to make sure it wasn’t there, I grabbed the vacuum and started cleaning.
I had just finished when a knock at my door nearly sent me through the ceiling.
Peeking out through the peephole, I saw the man who’d saved me that night, and opened the door.
“What’re you doing here?” I said.
“I came to check on you,” he said. “Mind if I come in?”
I stepped aside and motioned for him to enter. He stepped in and scoped out the room.
“It’s surprisingly clean for having a wendigo nearly destroy it.”
“I just got done vacuuming.”
He eyed me up and down.
“Of course you did,” he said plopping into a comfortable chair.
“So how goes the hunt?” I said, sitting in my usual chair.
He shifted in his seat.
“It’s going well.”
“So you’ve captured it then?”
“Not exactly.”
“Killed it?”
He shook his head.
“Then what have you done?”
“I saved your life.”
“And I thank you. What have you done lately?”
“Well, that’s kind of what I’m here for,” he said. “How would you like to join our team?”
“Team of what?”
“Cryptid hunters.”
I looked at him with sheer disbelief.
“Pass.”
“You haven’t even heard… “
“I don’t want anything to do with that thing,” I said, walking into the kitchen.
“But you’re the only one who’s ever survived an attack.”
I wondered to myself if that was true or if he was just trying to make my pride force me into a bad decision.
“Pass,” I said.
“You wouldn’t be going alone,” he said, getting up and following me to the kitchen. “There’s two other cryptid hunters that would be along, plus me.”
“Not interested,” I said.
“There’s a reward for its capture. You’d get a share of it.”
“No deal,” I said, starting up the stairs.
He seemed flustered, grasping at straws.
“You’d get to carry a big gun,” he said.
I paused halfway up the stairs.
“How big of a gun?”
“Big.”
I thought about it for a long moment.
“Alright,” I said then continued up the stairs.
“Great, then let’s go.”
I paused.
“What do you mean, let’s go? Like right now? I just got home.”
“We need to strike while the trail is fresh.”
“Fresh? A week old is fresh?”
He shrugged. “The guys and your equipment are in the truck.”
“Can I at least grab a shower first?”
There was an odd look in his eye.
“No need,” he said. “We’ll be out on the trail.”
We stood in a silent stare down for a long moment, then I shrugged and came back down the steps.
“So how much money will I be making,” I said.
He smiled. “Enough.”
I followed him outside, turning at the last moment to lock my front door that had seen better days and looked like a stiff breeze would blow it over.
He grinned but said nothing as we approached the truck and climbed in the back doors.
The two men in the front merely nodded when we got in, then the driver started the truck and drove away toward the woods. I wasn’t having pleasant memories flashback when we pulled into the same trailhead I had barely escaped from just over a week ago. I had to wonder if I’d had some head trauma they hadn’t noticed at the hospital, or if Mr. three letter government agency had drugged me without my knowledge to get me to come back here.
I was tempted to run as soon as I opened the door, but I didn’t want to look like a coward in front of these guys, even though I didn’t know them from Adam and they each had a good fifty pounds of pure muscle on me. We stepped around to the back and Mr. three handed me a backpack that was so heavy it nearly pulled me over.
“You gonna be good with that,” he said noticing my struggle. “You can take some stuff out if you want.”
“Nope, I’m good,” I said, hefting it onto my back and somehow managing to keep it there without my knees buckling under the weight.
Next he handed me a belt that had all kinds of stuff on it, including the big gun. It was a revolver, but the cylinder was so long, I wondered if it would shoot rifle shells.
“Just remember,” he told me. “We’re trying to capture it, not kill it.”
“That was never part of the deal,” I said.
“It is if you want the big payday.”
I stopped in front of him.
“What if I want revenge?”
He looked me up and down, sizing me up as if seeing me for the first time.
“Then you should go home and leave the hunting to us,” he said, then stepped around me and started down the trail.
The second hunter followed him, but the third stayed behind and stared at me.
“Aren’t you following them?” I said.
“I’m the rear guard,” he said. “I go last and watch everybody else’s back.”
“So, you’re waiting to see if I follow them or tuck my tail between my legs and slink home?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
I looked from the trail to the road and back again, then slumped my shoulders and started down the trail.
“So, what do I call you?” I said over my shoulder to the hunter behind me.
He was silent for a moment, then softly said, “You can call me Ray.”
My mind shot back to an old comedy routine I’d seen on one of those classic TV shows.
“Alright, Ray, I guess it’s gonna be you and me for a while, because I know I won’t be catching up to them with what feels like a Buick strapped t my back.”
“He told you to take out whatever you felt you didn’t need.”
“Ever heard of this thing called pride, Ray?”
He shook his head ruefully.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “Does that mean I can count on you to continue to make stupid decisions?”
I stopped and turned on him.
“I think the answer is obvious.”
“Great,” he said with no small amount of sarcasm.
We started down the trail and I must say, I did pretty well for around a half hour. And when I say pretty well, I mean trudging, heaving, and moaning at the incredible amount of weight on my back as we slowly followed the trail through the forest. To make things worse, it started to drizzle.
It didn’t take too long for him to have…
“Enough!” he said. “Just stop right here.”
I obeyed and nearly fell over backward as gravity grabbed the backpack and tried to hurl it to the ground. If it wouldn’t have been for Ray catching me, I would’ve hit the ground hard and rolled around like a helpless turtle, unable to get up on my own.
He lifted the pack off my back effortlessly and set it on the ground. He dug through it and started thrusting things toward me.
“Here,” he said, shoving a handful of granola bars toward me. “Put these in your pants pockets.”
Next, he handed me a flashlight and some extra rounds of ammo, a water bottle, and a rain poncho. I took the poncho out of its wrapper and put it on.
The first few steps I took sounded like I was wearing a snow suit. Everything he’d given me to stow in my pockets made some kind of noise. The granola bar wrappers rubbed together, the rounds of ammo clinked and clicked, even the rain poncho made noise when I took a step.
“I thought we were trying to sneak up on this thing,” I said, stopping in my tracks. “I sound like a freakin’ one man band.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said avoiding my eyes as he set the pack off to the side of the trail and stepped past me. “I’m sure the rain will cover your sounds.”
I looked up and only a few drops landed on my cheeks. The rest was just a fine mist. Narrowing my eyes, I watched as Ray walked ahead of me on the trail. I hadn’t known him long, but it was easy to see he was hiding something. Maybe he didn’t want to scare me so I would keep on with the search. In any case, I rested my hand on the gun in its holster for comfort.
“Don’t go pulling that out unless you have to,” he said without looking back. “Remember, we’re here to capture, not kill.”
“Maybe you are,” I said.
He stopped dead in his tracks and turned toward me.
“Look, I get it. You’re scared. I would be too if this was the first time I was hunting something like this, but you have to do things our way so no one gets hurt, understand?”
He hadn’t said it a threatening way, just matter of fact, but I still found myself taking a step back.
“What if that thing decides it wants to hurt someone?”
He looked me in the eyes.
“Then we stop it,” he said, then turned and started down the trail not even checking to see if I was following.
I sighed and fell in step behind him, finding it much easier now without the heavy pack of doom weighing me down. I still rested my hand on the gun as we walked.
The forest was quiet. The animals weren’t making much sound and the wind was still. I didn’t know if it was the intensifying rain or something else that seemed to spook them.
“Ray.” I heard someone whisper.
He stopped and whipped around on me.
“What?” he said, looking at me.
“I didn’t say anything.”
His eyes were full of suspicion but he continued along the trail.
It wasn’t long until we heard the sound again.
“Ray… “
His eyes instantly shot to me but I held up my hands in surrender and shook my head.
He scanned the trees, looking for where the voice had come from when we heard it again. This time he was able to focus in on where it had come from. He started toward it without a second glance at me.
“Wait a minute,” I whispered. “Are you sure you want to follow this?”
“Of course,” he said, but his eyes had an otherworldly quality to them like he’d been hypnotized or somehow was under the voice’s spell.
He stepped forward slowly, but not carefully. It was as if he were being drawn and started walking into the woods in front of me. He had almost disappeared when suddenly the creature appeared as huge and real as ever. Its skin was burned all over its body and hanging loosely in some places like it was about to fall off. It was much more terrifying than the last time I’d seen it. Even the hide of the other animal that it wore as a shawl seemed melted to its shoulders.
It slashed Ray across the throat in one lightning fast motion. All I saw was a spray of red before the creature picked Ray up and started off into the woods.
Before I knew what was happening, my gun was in my hand and I was firing it over and over at the beast as it escaped with its prize. I fired the gun empty, but kept squeezing the trigger on empty cylinders. Finally, I realized I wasn’t shooting anymore and emptied the shell casings out, digging into my pocket to reload and dropping bullets in my haste.
Once I finally had it reloaded, I slammed the cylinder shut and looked for the creature. To my surprise two trees came toward me. I aimed the shaking gun toward them when one of them said, “Stop! Don’t shoot us!”
It was so shocking to hear a tree talk that I obeyed its command.
They continued to advance on me when they stopped a few feet away and one of them ripped its top off revealing a human head. It was the agent.
“Give me that gun,” he said with an outstretched branch.
“Absolutely not!” I said, holding it away from him like a kid withholding a toy from a parent. “Where have you two been?”
The other agent removed his treetop as well.
“We were staking out the area,” he said. “You two were supposed to bring it to us so we could capture it.”
“Bring it to you? How were we supposed to do that?”
He stared at me for a long time, looking as though he was unsure of what to say.
I finally got it.
“You used me as bait,” I said. “You knew once that thing got my scent it would follow me.”
He shrugged. “It was as good a plan as any.”
“Except, it caught on to your little plan and now Ray is in harms way, and could already be dead.”
“What do you mean, dead?” he said.
I described him being taken with a special emphasis on the blood spray.
He stared at me silently.
“We need to regroup and think what our next tactic is.”
“Our next tactic is to find this thing and put as many holes in it as possible before it has Ray for an afternoon snack,” I said holding up the gun for emphasis.
“I told you, we’re bringing it in alive.”
“Even at the cost of our lives?” I said, looking from one agent to the other.
My point seemed to sink in grudgingly with both of them.
“We still need to find it,” the head agent said. “After we find it, we can debate killing it or not.”
“Fine, this way,” I said, starting in the same direction I’d seen the creature and Ray disappear.
“Who died and made you boss?” he said following as quickly as his tree outfit would let him.
I turned and faced him, serious as a heart attack.
“Hopefully not Ray,” I said, then turned and resumed in the direction I’d seen them.
I didn’t turn back to see if they were following, but I could hear trees rustling behind me. I hoped that was them, or I was in trouble.
As we walked, my senses were on alert, watching, and listening for the creature in hopes that it wouldn’t pull another sneak attack. Thinking back to the brief battle, I wondered how many of my six shots hit the beast, and how many might’ve hit Ray. I couldn’t be that careless in the upcoming fight. I would have to take better aim and be patient. Not only was there Ray to think of as a potential victim, but also the two clowns behind me dressed up as trees.
We weren’t on any trail, and that made it rough going for me. My legs were still sensitive and I had rushed out of the house in just a pair of shorts and a Metallica t-shirt. The rain poncho I wore gave me a little warmth, but not as much as I would’ve liked. When we left, it was nice out, with the temperature in the mid-seventies, but once the rain started, it dropped ten degrees. That plus the fact that we were walking through rough country, avoiding jaggers, thorns, and all kinds of plants that seemed like they were designed just for the annoyance factor. I can’t imagine how those two behind me were doing in their ridiculous tree outfits.
I turned to check on them, but they were gone.
Slowly looking around the forest, I searched for them, but they were nowhere to be found. With their outfits on, they could’ve been right beside me and I wouldn’t know it. They also admitted to using me as bait. Maybe that’s what they were doing again.
I wish I would’ve stayed home, ordered a pizza, and watched Wipeout on TV, then fallen asleep on the couch. That would’ve been a good first day home from the hospital. Instead I was freezing in the middle of the woods, all alone, and now that I had looked around, I lost which direction I was going. So now I was officially lost in the woods.
Great.
The rain was coming down harder now. I decided to look for some kind of shelter and regroup. I walked forward, looking not for the creature, but anything I could use to hide from the rain. A cave would be great, as long as nothing was in it. A fallen tree that I could sit under would do as well.
In the end, I lucked out, I hadn’t gone far when a cave appeared up ahead. Instead of blundering inside, I circled around and watched the entrance for a while, until I was cold enough to ignore the potential danger and get out of the rain.
Standing in the mouth of the cave helped a little by getting me out of the rain, but I was still freezing. I turned and looked inside. The huge maw of blackness stared back out. Even using my flashlight didn’t tell me much about my impromptu rest stop.
Hanging out near the entrance was not advised. I would have to find someplace else once the rain stopped. But as I looked up a flash of light, followed soon by a crash of thunder that made the world shake, told me the rain wasn’t about to let up.
A cold as I was, it would take a special kind of crazy to go exploring this cave that could hold any number of wild animals who had no problem eating humans. I hoped one of them wouldn’t be the creature. What did the agent call it, a Wendigo?
Against every survival instinct, I shone my light into the cave and started walking. It was big, at least twelve feet from the ceiling, but the walls were smooth, almost like it had been dug with a machine. There weren’t a lot of rocks and debris like you would envision in a cave. It seemed like someone had made this cave and concealed it as natural. But why? There was nothing out here in the middle of the woods. Even the cave itself was far off the beaten path.
As I was wondering about the nature of the cave I heard a sound behind me. Slowly I turned, hoping that the creature hadn’t snuck up behind me like it did with Ray.
All I saw was two trees standing on either side of the cave.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Like no one’s going to notice two trees suddenly growing in the middle of a cave with no sunlight?”
Neither tree moved, but I was sure one of them make a shushing sound.
I shook my head and continued into the cave. The further I went the more the flashlight struggled to ward off the dark. It was like the light was overwhelmed by the darkness.
As big as the cave was, I came to a spot where it opened up into a larger room. The ceiling was so far up it was hard for the flashlight to reach. As I scanned around the room with the light, I settled on something over in the corner. The closer I got to it the more I wanted to turn around and leave.
I stepped up right beside it and pulled my shirt collar up over my nose to cover the stench of death and decay.
It was Ray, or what was left of him, strung up on a rack. Both his legs were gone and the huge puddle of blood under him didn’t give me hope that he had survived. I reached up and felt for a pulse anyway. My hand went right into the opening where the creature had slashed his neck. There was no pulse. At least I didn’t see any bullet holes in him. That made me feel a little better.
I hung my head and turned to report to the trees following me when I saw a sight that made me question reality. The creature had returned. It was in a life and death battle with a tree. It had picked the tree up and was holding it near the top. The tree was kicking and punching the creature as though its life depended on it.
The creature seemed confused at first, but once the tree delivered a well-placed kick, the creature seemed to decide that it had enough. It swung the tree around effortlessly like a baseball bat and smashed it into a wall. The sickening crunching sound it made on impact were a combination of wood and bone breaking.
The tree instantly went limp, but the creature wanted to make sure. It threw the tree at the other wall leaving a red splotch on impact before collapsing the to ground.
The second tree hadn’t moved the entire time. The creature stepped close to it, suddenly suspicious. It reached out when I made my decision to act.
I pulled out the gun, aimed at the creature’s head and squeezed the trigger.
I’d never fired a .44 magnum in a cave before, and I never will again.
My ears were ringing so bad, I couldn’t hear anything. I saw the tree holding its ears as well as the wendigo. Its mouth was open and I imagined it was screaming, but I couldn’t hear it.
I don’t know what happened. If something in me just snapped, or I realized I was about to end up like Ray. I ran up to the wendigo while it was disoriented by the gunshot, stuck the gun under its chin near its neck and squeezed the trigger five more times.
The top of its head exploded with a geyser of bone and blood. It screamed so loud I even heard it through my hopefully temporary deafness.
I didn’t hang around to see what was going to happen. I ran toward the cave entrance, grabbing the uninjured tree and pulling him out with me. It only took a moment for the tree to get the point and run along.
Once out, he guided me back to the trail and took the top of his tree disguise off to talk to me.
“I told you I wanted that thing alive,” he said, looking and sounding very unhappy.
“Why don’t you tell Ray and the other agent you just lost how that thing’s life was more important than theirs?”
He glared at me.
“Don’t give me that look,” I said. “I just shot a wendigo at point blank range. You think your little glare is going to frighten me?”
He continued to glare.
“Ok, you have two choices here,” I said. “Either drive me home or give me your keys.”
He finally allowed his shoulders to relax and started walking.
“I’m not giving you the keys to my car,” he muttered.
We walked back out in silence. Whatever his deal was with bringing the creature in alive, he was serious about it.
I was just glad the whole ordeal was over.
“Do you think its dead?” I said.
He ignored me for a few minutes, then finally said, “I don’t know. I’ve heard some amazing stories about how they recuperate.”
“Wow, gee thanks, I feel so much safer now,” I said as we rounded a corner and there standing in the middle of the trail was a huge bear.
We both froze.
“What do we do?” I whispered to him.
“Shut up,” he whispered back.
We stood as still as humanly possible as the bear sniffed the air and lumbered up to us. For some reason it looked familiar. Could it possibly be the same bear that fought with the wendigo over a week ago. It had some scars and scratch marks on it that looked partially healed.
It stepped up to the agent and stared at him. Perhaps it had never seen a tree partially eat a human before. That’s what he looked like with the top of the outfit off. Like the tree had half digested a human the way a snake devours its prey.
Then it stepped over and sniffed me. Its eyes grew wide with what I would almost call fear. But that couldn’t be right, could it. I mean why would a bear be afraid of me.
It turned tail and ran off into the woods without looking back.
“What was that about?” I said.
“Do you really want to question it, or just get out of here?”
“Get out of here,” I said, my feet already double-timing it down the trail.
We were within sight of the car before we slowed down. Both of us were breathing hard from powerwalking the whole way. I was sure it couldn’t have been easy for him in that tree suit.
“I think I may have figured it out,” he said as we arrived at the car and he fished out his keys.
“Do tell, oh wise one,” I said.
“It smelled the wendigo’s blood on you.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Think about it, if you’re enough of a badass to have wendigo blood on you, the bear probably didn’t want to mess with you.”
I thought about it and it made sense in a way.
Just as we were about to leave, we heard an inhuman shriek off in the distance. He turned to me with a gleam in his eyes.
“Oh no,” I said. “You take me home right now, then I don’t care if you go try to hunt this thing down and end up getting eaten.”
“Oh all right,” he said pouting.
We drove in silence, each of us in our own world of thoughts. Every once in a while I couldn’t help glancing in the rear view mirror, just to be sure.
When we arrived at my house I got out and turned to leave, then stopped.
“Why was that cave man made?” I said.
“What makes you think it was man made?” he said with a nervous chuckle.
“The walls and ceiling were too smooth,” I said.
“They seemed rough enough to me,” he said.
“So you’re not going to tell me that there was a secret military base nearby?”
“You enjoy your recuperation, sir,” he said, handing me a business card. “If you ever have problems like this again, give me a call.”
I dropped the card on the seat.
“I think I’d be better off on my own,” I said. “You don’t protect your partners very well.”
I walked inside my house without looking back.
Part 1

Synopsis:
"You are a monster, Adam, but you didn't choose to be. Make your first choice."
Molded into a mindless killing machine from birth, psychic prodigy Augustus Adam makes his first real choice and frees himself from the shackles of his upbringing. But it was too late.
After being tried for his crimes against humanity, he is sentenced to summary execution after a short trial. Unwilling to let his mind be studied to produce more psychics like himself, he does the only thing that ensures humanity's freedom from psychic tyranny: suicide.
Though death's embrace is sweet, it's surprisingly short as Adam awakes in an unknown forest, learning soon after that he is in a world of magic, of swords and sorcery. Accompanied by magical beasts that could flatten a mountain if they so wished, Adam sets forth into this new world, hoping to make a positive difference this time around. It was his choice, a real chance for freedom, and he wasn't about to let some demon lords, necromancers, or gods get in his way towards redemption.
***
Note:
A rewrite from a previous version, this story is a slice-of-life adventure of an young man blessed with powers but burdened by a heavy and troubled past, hoping to reconcile himself with his innate humanity. Though the premise is magic vs psychic power, I also want to explore the human heart. I believe that there is good in people, but they all need to make the choice. This story follows that line of thinking. Any and all constructive criticism is encouraged and appreciated.
Prev / Next / RoyalRoad
______
Chapter 1
Death felt cold, as I expected it to be. It was like going under anesthesia before a major surgery where the body becomes completely numb, leaving only a chill.
And yet, as time went on, I realized that I could think. Wasn't I dead? My mind should be blissfully blank, wiped clean of any and all thoughts. In spite of this, memories streamed into my mind in a steady flow, flashing muted imagery of scenes long past and done.
Then my eyes shot open and I found myself laying on my back, staring at a ceiling of mist. Tall, thick trees stretched into the mist and towards the sky, drooping with vines that dangled from unseen branches above.
The air felt cold yet full while a constant breeze brushed against my skin. Where was I? How was I? Was this the afterlife? I pinched myself to make sure, hoping that this was a dream, or perhaps a coma.
Nope, there was pain.
I lifted myself up and stood, looking around at my current surroundings. There were other sources of light beyond the mist just a short distance away. They looked to be numerous and glowed in a variety of different colors.
What caught my eye the most, however, was the seemingly unending dense forest of extremely tall and thick trees that stretched in all directions, standing proud underneath the white veil of mist. Despite the mist making it hard to see further into the ceiling or beyond the trees within my immediate vicinity, there was a constant light permeating from... everywhere. There was no source for the light, just that it was there.
Strange.
I took a step forward and heard a crunch. Looking down, I found my foot stepping on a peculiar shrub. It was glowing. Removing my foot, I knelt down and inspected the plant. It looked to be a normal shrub in terms of structure, but that was about it. The stem looked to be like glass, reflecting light, while the leaves were colored silver, emitting a pale white glow. Weirder still were the roots. Instead of digging and burrowing into the ground, the roots instead sprawled all over the surface of the soil, stretching towards the base of a nearby tree.
Curious, I grabbed the shrub, pulling it from the soil, and inspected it. It felt like any other shrub in my hands, rough and coarse to the touch, but it also had this smooth texture along the edges. Pulling it close to my eye, I saw the veins pulsing white, flowing with something.
The shrub was damaged considerably after being stepped on and being pulled from the ground. As I assessed the entire thing, I couldn't help but feel bad. I should have just left it alone, but my curiosity got the better of me.
I decided to try and place the plant back in its place. Much to my surprise, as soon as the severed roots of the shrub neared the roots on the ground, both sides moved and connected, repairing the connection. The plant then settled into the soil where it stood, seemingly uncaring for my intrusion.
"How strange." I muttered as I left the plant alone. I looked around again, taking in the strange environment I found myself in. Tall trees that disappeared into the sky, glowing plants with weird roots, a mist that seemed to never end, and a prevailing light that came from nowhere, yet was everywhere at the same time.
Looking again at the ground, I saw piles of leaves. Big leaves. Some were oval, others spiked or sharp. Their colors varied too. At least this confirmed that there was indeed a forest canopy full of leaves beyond the mist above.
Where my normal, mundane senses failed me, I could always call upon my psychic powers to enhance them, and that was exactly what I did. My psychic sense expanded into every direction, allowing me to feel the surrounding area, essentially scanning multiple places at once.
The forest was vast. Not just vast, but seemingly unending. No matter how far I stretched my psychic sense, I felt nothing but the looming trees. There were glowing plants everywhere on the forest floor while vines dangled from the sky in their thousands.
Curiously, or rather concerningly, there was a lack of animal or insect life. There was only the strange flora. As if compelled by my hunger to know where I was or what this place is, I started walking.
I picked a direction and continued onward, making sure to avoid the glowing plants while navigating the thick trunks of the trees. I paused from time to time, taking a moment to behold the strange scenery that surrounded me. The tree trunks were coarse and rough, either jagged or worn down by years of growth, and yet their appearance betrayed a hidden strength. I couldn't even pull out a piece of bark for inspection with my hands. And I had the strength of ten men, or at least that was the description of my official physical assessment.
The tree trunks came in a narrow spectrum of colors, either brown, gray or in-between. The leaves of these trees seemed to reflect the color of the trunk, judging by the leaves that had fallen to the ground. However, there seemed to be little difference between the trees beyond that.
Using my powers, I tried to feel something, anything to give me a clue as to the nature of this place. Unfortunately, I sensed nothing. Nothing but a weak coldness, and a constant breeze blowing between the trees, howling a muted whistle.
"If nobody comes out and explains to me what's going on, then I must be dead." I said out loud, hoping that someone was watching, or at least listening to me. Maybe they were hidden from my psychic sense. and the mist.
A few seconds later, nothing. There was only silence. I shook my head and sighed.
"I must be in hell then," I said, "Is this my penance? To wander alone in this strange labyrinth?"
No answer. Why was I even speaking? Of course there wouldn't be an answer. I must already be going mad.
I took a deep breath and continued on my journey to nowhere, picking another direction and following it for the rest of the day. Thanks to my training, and some brain tuning, I had an excellent sense of time. I knew that it was midday, close to the start of noon, and so I timed my journey as it began in earnest.
Minutes turned to hours as I walked, discovering new and strange plants, encountering hundreds more trees, and accidentally losing my footing on a bunch of glowing tall grass with blades shaped like a burning fire. The blades bristled and burst into white flame, but it neither burned my skin or produced any heat. Instead, the flames simply danced around my arm, ignoring the fabric of my clothes, fluttering before flickering away.
I inspected the tall grass and decided to experiment a bit. Using my psychic power, I pulled a few of the blades from the rest of the grass and watched as the severed portions reacted, bursting into the same white flame. It seemed to be a defensive mechanism of some kind. If it was, then it wasn't very effective. Maybe it had a psychological effect against wildlife, perhaps.
Speaking of the wildlife, I was yet to encounter them. I wasn't even sure if the forest had animals. The lack of insects was unnerving. During my time wading through rainforests, jungles, and swamps, I always had to deal with the constant assault of the local undergrowth from bugs to spiders. There were ants, bees, wasps, flies, not to mention the dreadful spawns of Satan himself: mosquitos. Humanity had the chance to *not* spread the mosquito to other worlds, but somehow they got through, and were then everywhere by the time the war started.
I did not miss dealing with mosquitos. Even with my suit of armor, the constant buzzing they made against my psychic sense made it difficult to focus. However, killing any and all mosquitos using my power was always great exercise. Due to their size, agility, and numbers, it was hard to wrap my power around their tiny bodies. Once I got the hang of it, however, it felt like manipulating grains of sand with the dexterity of a surgeon's hands. Only this time the mosquitos would find themselves squished.
I did, however, miss the other insects, especially the ants and bees. It was always fascinating to see these social creatures crawl or fly in the middle of what seemed to them as a gigantic world of towering trees and the vast forest floor. They had societies similar to humanity, but different in their on ways. They lived to serve their queens, to expand their colonies, and protect their future.
Maybe I was the ant now, stuck in a strange new place, surrounded by enormous things. Unlike the ants or bees, I was alone. The forest was deserted, empty. There was no other form of life.
More hours went by and evening came. My sense of time assured me that if there was a sun, it should have already set, and yet the forest did not change in the slightest. The mist was as white as snow, and the light remained with not even the slightest hint of dimness.
I used my psychic sense once more and scanned my surroundings, extending it for as far as 10 kilometers in every direction. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing. What was happening? Was this actually my punishment? The idea was there, but my mind refused to accept it. There should be something that would explain all of this, right?
Why was I even asking myself.
Seeing no other option, and realizing I should have tried this sooner, I decided to lift myself up using my power and fly towards the forest canopy beyond the misty heights, hopefully finding a clear sky.
Summoning my power, I wrapped my entire body around my mental influence, gripping at myself like holding a figurine in my hand. I felt my power against my skin like a current of electricity, its influence pushing against my limbs and beckoning to be used.
And so I did. With a mental thought, I flew. I lifted from the ground abruptly, disturbing the air when I did. I ascended through the mist, finding more vines dangling in the air. The ground disappeared below my feet and soon enough I found... nothing. There were only the same tree trunks plowing through the mist towards the sky and ground, neither being seen through the now even thicker mist. To be fair, there were a few branches sticking out of the trunks here and there with large leaves similar to those on the forest floor. The branches were long and sturdy enough to stand on if I wanted to, but other than that there wasn't anything else worth mentioning.
In spite of this, I continued on my steady ascent. The air brushed against my skin, howling in my ears as I gained more speed. I pushed my psychic sense even further than before, trying as hard as I could to sense the forest canopy, if it even existed at all. I was beginning to doubt myself and this place. Maybe logic did not apply here. Maybe this was indeed my punishment, my hell.
I felt a surge of emotion rise within my heart. Anger coursed into my mind, swirling into a boiling rage directed at nobody. Nobody but myself. Yes, this was correct. This was good. I was being punished for my crimes. I was alone and afraid, cold and ignored.
Suddenly, that raging anger turned into melancholy. A deep sadness descended upon me like an avalanche of guilt, swiping away my furrowed brows before making my eyes blurry with rising tears.
I landed on a nearby branch as the tears fell down. Wiping away at my eyes, I sat down against the tree trunk and wept. I couldn't help but feel that my life could've been better. I could've been a better person. I only ever needed a chance. A choice. I couldn't have known... I couldn't have...
I'm sorry.
The night came and went, heralded not by darkness and instead by the unseen passing of time. I awoke after a few hours, having cried myself to sleep. I was still on the branch, feet dangling in the air. Sighing away a heavy chest, I decided to linger longer in the small space I found myself in.
Another few hours went by where I did nothing but look at the endless mist, counting the many trees that stood around me. Occasionally, a leaf or two would fall from the sky, gently floating down towards the faraway ground. I couldn't help but feel that the forest was beckoning me to continue with my ascent, telling me that there was indeed a forest canopy to discover.
After realizing that all I could do now was continue, I stood up and flew once more. Then the air tingled ever so slightly. Before I could even make it a few feet from my branch, I was attacked.
A bolt of light slammed against my head, sending me stumbling in the air before another bolt hit me in the chest and knocked me off balance. Instinctively, I raised my psychic shield and braced for another attack as I careened in the air. It came and jolted me downward, hurling me towards the ground at incredible speed.
After failing to reorient myself, I crashed into the ground a minute later, breaking a few of my bones. If I hadn't conjured my psychic shield, I would have certainly died. The speed in which I impacted the ground sent a cloud of dust into the air, forming a crater where I now lay broken and battered.
As the dust settled and my vision cleared, I saw a blue flame in the shape of a bird descend from the sky in a direct course towards me. Oh no.
Using my power, I slapped the creature off-course with a wall of air. Taken by surprise, it crashed into the ground a few meters away.
Adrenaline pumped all over my body as I forced myself to stand, ignoring the pain that was beginning to arise. My psychic sense went into battle mode and I summoned forth my power, readying myself to fight whatever attacked me.
The bird recovered itself from its crash and was soon fluttering its wings. The wings were literally made of blue flames, burning and dancing against the mist with every flap. It stood at the same height as I and looked at me with a scornful, fiery glare.
I glared back, bracing myself for another bolt to the face. But just as the flaming bird flew into the air once more, another bolt of light came from somewhere within the mist and towards my face, sending me stumbling back into the ground.
I found myself attacked by bolts from every direction, slamming against my psychic shielding with increasing power and ferocity. Try as might, my psychic sense was impaired and I had difficulty trying to focus my power. Fear welled up within me as death seemed to loom closer.
I was alive, my emotions were real, my thoughts still existed. If this was the afterlife, or something similar, then why then did I have this desire, this burning passion to stay alive? Hadn't I resigned myself to die? Even going as far as to kill myself to ensure that my brain couldn't be used to further the pain I had wrought?
After a few seconds of contemplation, under the constant fire of unseen foes, I realized what I wanted.
I wanted a second chance.
My psychic power exploded outward, sending a shockwave that traveled in all directions. The mist was violently pushed back while trees rumbled in place as plants were flattered. Whatever was firing the bolts stopped.
I breathed heavily as I refocused my power and recalibrated my psychic sense. As I did, the blue flaming bird appeared from the corner of my eye. I quickly reached out with my hand and grabbed the bird with my power, slamming it into the ground as it struggled against my psychic grip.
The mist retreated, revealing the rest of those that had attacked me. There were many, and they were all animals. They surrounded me from all sides, their eyes bristling with either flame or sparks. I recognized them as being wolf, deer, elk, and moose. The deer were the most numerous, their antlers made of shimmering silver. The elk had longer antlers that sparkled with glowing motes. Notably, the lone moose had majestic antlers growing on either side of its head, forming a sort of crown. They were made of steel, glistening with sharpness and sparkling with electricity. Its body glowed an almost ethereal light, matching the glistening silver fur it had. Lastly, the large wolves with muscular bodies and somewhat thick gray fur. Six stood on each side of the moose. All of the animals had pulsing lines all over the skin, forming markings I did not understand.
The animals stood a distance away, their eyes and antlers pointed towards me. The moose looked to be their leader, standing directly in front of me. A moment later, fluttering and crackling filled my ears as more of the same blue flaming birds appeared from the sky.
Outnumbered and seemingly outgunned, I decided that I would do the only thing I had ever known.
Fight.
This time, however, I was not fighting for a despotic government or for a parent that never viewed me as a son. Instead, I was fighting for myself. For a chance. To survive. To live and be redeemed.
_____
Prev / Next / RoyalRoad

Just as a for-you-to-know, this isn’t completely accurate to real history, there will be inaccuracies at certain points but for the most part I’ll try to make it historically accurate!
Monika leaned back in her bed, her left hand reaching up to fondle and fiddle with the metal tag affixed to her neck ‘Klaus Jäger’ the name was etched twice in the metal, once for each hemisphere of the oval tag, Monika let each breath come and go without any resistance, the smell of metal, fire and oak filling her nose, the sounds of weapon cleaning, late night conversations and crackling wood enough to calm her busy mind.
Klaus rolled over, facing away from the soldier who’d just stepped into the tent. “Jäger, guardsman duty tonight, you’ll be relieved by oh-three-thirty” the man stated, soon after walking away to ruin someone else’s evening. ‘Could be worse’ Monika thought to herself while buttoning her tunic. ‘Could’ve been on medical’ she’d chuckle while buckling her belt and webbing on to her torso, Monika roamed the camp to find Otto cleaning and maintaining a few of the camps guns, most importantly of all, Klaus’ machine gun. “Where’s Zimmermann?” Klaus questioned about his assistant gunner before being told to find him at the guard’s post.
Monika felt way over her head, there was so much mentally to keep track of it had her in near constant stress, a fake name, a fake identity, fake family stories, and no one to tell about it, everything constantly had the young woman on edge but she was stil semi glad that she’d joined the military, at least now she could look after the country and defend it from the invading American army, but it was hardly at all easy. Monika was shoved back to being Jäger by Zimmermann yelling for him to hurry up. “Klaus! I’m freezing my ass off waiting for those matches!” The assistant gunner yelled while Klaus sped up his pace slightly. “You try running with a machine gun” he’d grunt before finally getting to her assistant. Klaus laid the gun down and loaded it, making sure to slam the dust cover down and rack the bolt. “Here, Zimmermann.” Klaus sighed before passing the matchbook to him. “Thank you.” He nodded before kneeling down to start building a small fire.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
Heya! As previously stated this will be mostly historical, excluding certain specifics for our characters to not only met but potentially date or just be generally romantic, I don’t mind which army your character is a member of but, Monika is a German infantry soldier during the later war, so keep that in mind.
Feel free to ask any questions you might have, I’m more than happy to answer!
Please take time and put effort into openers, as long as it’s a bit more than just a “wanna rp?” I’ll reply to you, feel free to ask for my discord if you prefer rp there!
No one under 18 F

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$11 - Retail LOVE Uniq1o x MoMA Art Tee - Small - Retailed for $30. Amazing design and lightly worn.
 
$46 - F3ar of G0d Essentia1s Longsleeve Polo Gray - Fits Small-Medium - Bought used and fits amazing. Exactly on point with my retail and I can’t tell any difference between both.
 
$75 - G1venchy Cardigan Logo Sweater - Fits XL - Best batch out from 8Billi0n (who’s a Tao reseller). Blank is extremely plush and thick while the embroidery is very clean. Fine withholding so priced as is but still cheaper compared to buying from Tao and waiting the ~1 month.
 
$75 - Pa1ace Arms Blue/White Jacket - Fits Medium - Best batch out and was released a few years back. Has been in closet for a while but time to let go, unsure if it’s from Pa1ace37 or not. Insane quality and great for everyday wear.
 
$29 - Balenc1aga Pride Tee - Cl0yad - Fits Small - From Cloyad who’s a top-tier reseller. Never been worn personally but seems lightly used.
 
$14 - Retail Uniq1o Kei1th Haring Black Tee - Medium - Great quality and embroidery.
 
$35 - Balenc1aga Paris Jersey Apparel Tee - Fits Medium-Large - From Cloyad and was pretty pricey. Lightly used and high quality tee.
 
$12 - Retail D0ckers Straight Fit Pants Grey - 32x29 - Paid $40 and quality is amazing. Have nice straight fit to drape slightly over your shoes and I would’ve 100% kept if I didn’t outgrow them.
 
$85 - Y33ZY Season 5 Lost Hills Sports Jacket - Fits Medium - In like new condition and extremely rare rep from 2019, haven't seen one posted since. I have rarely used and I’m not in a rush to sell it cause this is most likely the first and last one that’s going to be posted on here, hence the price.
 
$25 - Pa1m Ange1s White Tee - Fits Medium - Amazing quality but has stains on front and back even though I only used a couple of times. Priced accordingly, haven’t really washed since so might be able to come out with wash but no guarantee.
 
$78 - St0ne Isl@nd Olive Ghost Crewneck - Bu$ystone - Fits Large - Best batch out from BS as TS dosen’t offer this model. Inside is extremely plush and it such a comfy crewneck. Has tonal badge and tags on point as well.
 
$78 - St0ne Isl@nd Cream Ghost Crewneck - Bu$ystone - Fits Medium-Large - Best batch out from BS as TS dosen’t offer this model. Inside is extremely plush and it such a comfy crewneck. Has tonal badge and tags on point as well.
 
$56 - Br0ken Plan3t “Into the Abyss” Blue Hoodie - Medium - From Hotd0g and one of the nicer designs from this brand IMO. Lightly worn and in amazing condition.
 

Shoes:

 
$149 OBO - Ji1 Sander$ Leather Monk Derby Shoes - XWCL - Fits Size 9-9.5 Mens - Insane quality and I tried to rebuy in 8.5 Mens as I like my shoes perfect fit but looks like he sold out. Unbranded but design and materials are all on point and XWCL is an extremely reputable seller. I’ve owned the other Derbies he sells from Jil for over a year now and are still holding up perfectly. Fine with holding so trying to make a majority of my money back, especially since he’s sold out now.
 
$119 OBO- Prad@ Monolith LeatheRenylon Pouch Booths - Fits 8-8.5 Mens - Extremely light and look to be on point with retail. Such a beautiful boot with extremely clean badges on pouch.
 
$46 - Retail Sauc0ny Endorphin Pro Running Shoes - 9 Mens - Retailed for $250 IIRC and have been barely used. Was the most hyped and best performance running shoe from most critics around when I bought it in 2021. Rarely used and take for an absolute steal. Can’t find insoles but will try to find before shipping.
 
$85 - N3w Ba1ance 2002R Protection Pack Rain Cloud - TZE - 8.5 Mens - Bought best batch out at the time from TZE. Lightly used and still in amazing condition. Comfort and materials are really nice.
 
$29 - Black/White Penny Lug Loafers - Fits Mens Size 7.5-8 - Used once and in amazing condition. Saw Jeff Goldblum wear similar model and he pulls them off great but too small on me.
 
$23 - Ultraboost$ Oreo 3.0 - 10 Mens (Fits 9-9.5 Mens) - Best batch out from Lin. Used but flash really accentuates flaws, they still have a lot of life.
 
$36 - N1ke Dunks Curry - Mens 8 (Fits 8.5 Mens) - Used on the baseball fields but as you can seen from the bottoms they are still in amazing condition and once cleaned up will be perfect.
 
$15 - Retai1 Brown Dress Shoes - Mens 8.5 - Worn a few times and quality is amazing, take for a steal.
 
$38 - Ultrabo0st 4D White/Green - 8.5 Mens (Fits 8.5-9 Mens) - Bought a while ago from deadlink, used around 3 times and in amazing condition.
 
$89 OBO - Retail N1ke Air Max 1 Premium Hangul SE - 8.5 Mens - Brand new and only tried on. Paid 140 for them, take for a steal.
 

Accessories (Wallets/Belt/Bags/Cologne):

 
$62 - Prad@ Waist Bag from N1na - Best batch out at the time and only lightly used. Perfect for carrying phone, chargepack, and other small accessories. Badge is 1:1 with retail and nylon material for quality used is amazing.
 
$8 (Add-On) - White Clout Goggles Recntangle Sunglasses - These were the hottest sunglasses a few years back lmao. Rarely used.
 
$42 - H3rmes Belt Black/Brown with Silver Buckle from N1na - (Adjustable / Waist: 28-31, Includes Belt Hole Puncher to Adjust Sizing) - Lightly used and in amazing condition. 100cm in length and Nina’s quality speaks for herself.
 
$14 (1 Left!) - Carhart7 Corduroy Black Shoulder Bag - One Size - Brand new with tags. Perfect for fitting phone, wallet, keys, portable charger, and more. Has zipper pocket and inner pocket as well.
 
$12 - Cart1er Tank Strap from G33ktime - Strap for smallest size of Cartier Tank (I think it’s small?). Nice but I replaced mine, take for a steal.
 
$22 (2 Left!) - Stu$$y Camo Waist Bag - One Size - Brand new with tags. Perfect for fitting phone, wallet, keys, portable charger, and more. Amazing quality and IMO 1:1 with Retail.
 
$34 (3 Left!) - Loui$ Vuitt0n Checkered Brown/Gold Belt - (Adjutable / Waist: 28-34, Includes Belt Hole Puncher for Waist Sizes under 28) - Brand New. 110cm long. Using personal for around 6 months, leather is supple & belt is very durable.
 
$18 - Bap3 Camo Green Wallet - One Size - Brand New with papers and bag.
 
$18 - Aap3 Black Wallet - One Size - Brand New with papers and bag.
 
$16 - Palac3 Tri-Ferg Black Wallet - One Size - Brand New with papers and bag. Misspelled papers, but wallet is spot on.
 

Jewelry (Rings, Pendants, Necklaces, Keychains):

 
$35 (1 Left!) - Vivienn3 W3stwood Gold Pearl Necklace - 16.5 Inch Opening - I have silver one I’ve worn that’s held up for a few years but I always take off in shower. This is the same batch from dead link.
 
$25 - Chr0me Heart$ Pendants - OOS - Brand New & lead tested, have sold many with good reviews. I’ve personally used most models for 6+ months daily along with an Amazon-bought chain. Pendants have nice weight/quality and always get compliments. 925 sterling silver plated and has been used in the gym without issues. Available Models:

• Heart Cross
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$23 - Chr0me Heart$ Silichrome 20th Anniversary Cross Necklace - One Size Fits All (26 Inches) - Great alternative to paying CH’s wild retail price of $160, this rep is extremely accurate IMO (.95:1). Available Colors:

• Black
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• Blue
• Orange
• Pink
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$21 - LV Keychain Black Checkered - OOS - Brand new and in plastic wrapping.
 
$21 - LV Keychain Brown Checkered - OOS - Brand new and in plastic wrapping.
 
$22 - Retail Gue$$ Blue/Black Watch - Fits Up to 6.25 Inch Wrists (Has additional clasp to expand to ~6.5 Inches) - Paid 120 shipped for this, take for an absolute steal. Movement is stuck so might need new battery, selling as is.
 
$22 (Add-On) - Culture K1ngs Cap CarrieStorage NFS - OOS - Exclusive item not being sold; need to buy 3 hats to receive. Take at a great price.
 

Beanies/Hats:

 
$33 - Retail LA Dodgers 9F0rty N3w 3ra Purple Haze A-Frame Hat - Adjustable - Retail and sold out at Cultur3 Kings. Link to retail is HERE. Paid $42 with shipping, just trying to make some money back, take them for $34 with free shipping. Insane quality and has nice Jackie Robinson patch on side.
 
$32 (2 Left!) - Chrom3 Heart$ “Big CH” Beanie - One Size - Brand new in bag. Very stretchy and breathable to fit most sized heads.
 
$20 - Canad@ Goos3 Beanies Various Colors - One Size - Brand new with tags. Very stretchy and breathable to fit most sized heads. Models:

• Black/Red
• Grey
• Cream
• Black/Black

 
$25 - Retail D0dgers A-Frame Trucker Hat N3w Era - Adjustable - Brand new and never used. I think this is a European exclusive as I see no US sellers have this. Take for a steal price.
 
$22 - Vuj@ De “VD” Black Hat - One Size (Adjustable) - Brand new and never used. Clean embroidery and nice quality blank.
 
$22 - Prad@ Badge Black Hat - One Size (Adjustable) - Brand new and never used. Clean embroidery and compared badge to SurvivalSourc3 keychain and looks 1:1.
 
$22 - Acn3 Studio$ Ice Grey Knit Beanie - One Size - Brand New. Embroidery and quality of beanie are spot on with Retail.

First: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/14vo5lb/troublemakers_deaths_pity/
*previous:*https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1cibp3n/troublemakers\_a\_cloak\_of\_rage\_to\_hide\_the\_pain/
......
Drake walked through the softly sloping hallways that substituted for stairs between the lower levels of the mansion. As he walked, he flexed what felt like a new muscle, pale flames bursting from his palm and lighting his way every few seconds. As he lit the flames by an open doorway, he heard crying, turning his head to see a semi-opaque figure cowering in the corner of the pitch-black room wearing little more than tattered rags. He slowly stepped in, looking at the chains and manacles hanging from the walls by thick chains. Kneeling by the figure, he extinguished the flames.
To his surprise, the figure disappeared the moment the flames were extinguished. Reigniting them in his off-hand, he gently set a hand on the shoulder of the figure. They sniffled and looked back at him, Drake almost cringing as he saw a piece of fungus growing out of their skull. The figure was of a malnourished Klauvil, gender demolished by fungal growths. A croaky voice asked.
"Death... is that you?"
Drake's mouth fell softly open, but then the ghostly figure brought a skeletal hand to stroke the air a few inches from his face. A look of utter relief washed over their face as tears dripped from their one intact eye. Drake clamped his mouth shut as they softly cried, their gaze falling to the pale flames in his palm.
"It is you... I'm ready to go home... please, let me rest... set me free..."
Drake looked between the flames in his palm, and the soul's outstretched hand, before softly taking it. The soul cried out in agony and Drake tried to let go, but they held onto his hand with a death grip, refusing to let go as Drake tried to disengage. But then he noticed...
The fungal growths were burning away, turning into golden ashes as the Klauvil began to weep tears of joy. The flames slowly licked against their flesh to burn away the scars and infection, Beautiful white robes knitting themselves over their nude form. The flames dissipated slowly, leaving a young Klauvil man with plump, rosy cheeks holding onto Drake's hand with the most grateful expression he'd ever seen. His voice was still weak, but it no longer sounded scared as he slowly let go of Drake's hand, his form blowing away like mist on an unfelt wind.
"Thank you, for laying me to rest... angel of Death..."
There was an odd feeling like the new muscle he'd gained had grown stronger, the flames burning with an almost purified light as he rose to his feet. There was something odd about this... power... he'd gained. Before now he'd only noticed the flames when he pumped his conviction and anger into his sword, but now, He could almost summon them at will. Extinguishing the flame in his palm, he left the room with a deep steadying breath, softly saying to himself.
"That was... odd..."
Continuing to hike up the sloped hallways, Drake passed a door that whooshed open as he walked by, Halcyon slamming into him and falling back with a grunt. Drake looked at Halcyon blankly, then looked into the well-lit room he'd just burst out of. A dozen fighters, clad in freshly made combat armor looked at him with both shock and guilt in their eyes; More than half of the assembled fighters were the recently acquired Geknosian Warborn. Drake slowly took in more details of the room, muted surprise making him take a moment to comprehend what he was looking at.
Looking down at Halcyon, who looked panicked to have run into him. Drake offered Halcyon a hand up and softly asked.
"Raiding party... and you didn't invite me?"
Halcyon took Drake's hand, letting himself get hauled to his feet before admitting.
"Yeah, Martha came up with the idea. she knew you wouldn't approve of us going out on our own, so she didn't tell you. I take full responsibility for that, sir."
looking at those gathered, he patted Halcyon on the shoulder.
"Well, if I'm being honest, nothing would get done if I had my way. Martha is the brains of this operation, I'm just the brawn. Anyway, spill, why're you in such a hurry?"
Taking a deep breath, Halcyon gestured Drake into the room, the door swooshing shut as the blonde-haired hellion gestured at a map of Golgotha spread out on a table. Chess pieces were used to mark locations based on a small key pinned to the corner of the map. Rooks marked manufacturing plants and warehouses. Knights the landing locations of the various Geknosian armed forces. Bishops to represent armored divisions. A king was set on top of the sprawling fortress that was D'vinn's castle, alongside a queen that had a little piece of paper as a crown reading: Go'mon. Pawns marked various troop barracks and blockades. Halcyon explained all this rapidly while Drake scratched his chin, absorbing the information. Halcyon pointed to a rook with a red line drawn to it from the mansion, following an odd, jagged path.
"We're aiming for this warehouse, Martha says that there's been a bunch of odd shipments to it from one of the geknosian ships. She couldn't get any more information from the system than that it was something stored in pressurized canisters."
Drake nodded, furrowing his brow softly before gesturing for Halcyon to continue as the fighters checked their equipment. One man lugged a backpack with two single-use rocket tubes onto his back, grunting beneath the weight as Halcyon continued.
"Martha says that we should be able to pop up right in the middle of the warehouse floor if we take the sewers, but recommended we pop out roughly a hundred yards from the front gate of the storage compound. It's fenced in so chances are there's going to be armed guards. I've already explained this to them, but stealth is of utmost impor... why is your hand on fire?"
Drake glanced down at his left palm, having flexed the strange new muscle as a fidget. Extinguishing the flames he stated.
"practicing, continue."
Nodding, The sandy-haired young man cleared his throat quickly stating.
"stealth is of utmost importance, if we can get in and out without them knowing we were there, all the better. But... we are bringing some heavy artillery in case things don't go to plan. Got that boss?"
Drake nodded and then looked to the man who was adjusting the straps of his rocket launcher backpack, holding out his hand for the backpack.
"I'll carry the heavy stuff, You'll make more noise if you're Huffin' and puffin' from exertion."
The man breathed a sigh of relief and unslung the backpack, laboriously putting the strap in Drake's hand only for Death's chosen to sling it over his shoulder like a knapsack. Drake looked over Halcyon's men approvingly, they carried themselves with the confidence of trained soldiers. A small, soft smile came to his lips as he asked.
"You decide on a name for your group here yet?"
Halcyon shook his head, nervously chuckling.
"I don't, never really thought we needed one, you got a suggestion?"
Drake gave them a rare, soft smile.
"How does Halcyon's Hellions sound?"
A geknosian warborn barked a soft laugh saying.
"It's fitting!"
There was a general murmur of agreement and Halcyon let out a soft sigh and short laugh.
"Halcyon's Hellions it is."
...
The soft splash of cold, fetid water marked their progress through the sewers. Coming up on a set of floor-to-ceiling bars blocking their path, Halcyon looked to Drake.
"We could probably squeeze through, But you wanna see if you can't remove them entirely?"
Drake nodded slowly, unslinging the launcher pack and setting it to the side as he popped his neck. Grabbing a bar in each hand, Drake pulled them in opposite directions. The metal screeched in protest before buckling, dust falling from the duracrete ceiling the two bars warped enough to be pulled free. Drake tossed the bars into the water before picking up the launcher pack and waving for them to go through.
"Thanks, boss."
Halcyon stated, patting Drake's exposed bicep as he passed through. Taking up the Rear, Drake looked back the way they came, he'd had a feeling they were being watched, but he couldn't sense anything. Even with his enhanced senses, he saw and heard nothing, slipping through the bars he heard something, head snapping up as a strained clicking noise came from deep in the tunnel from back the way they came.
"Drake! Something wrong?"
"I think we're being followed!"
The soft splashing of the Hellion's boots stopped, in the utter silence that followed, Drake closed his eyes, sharpening his hearing to a pinpoint. That's when he heard what he'd been missing, The soft sloshing of more than a dozen pairs of feet trudging slowly through the water. Opening his eyes Drake urgently whispered.
"Keep moving, I don't think they know we're onto them."
The whispered command was relayed and they continued marching forward, Drake holding the rear as he kept his ears open for that odd clicking or a change in the slow trudging pace behind them. As they marched, one of the warborn spoke up.
"I've heard that before the Geknosian empire took over this place, It was used as a testing ground for chemical and biological weapons by the Tyranians... I was not informed of much more... but the empire has a habit of disposing of things improperly."
Glancing at the warborn who was scanning the ceiling with a cybernetic eye, Drake nodded, turning his vision up and pausing in shock. Deep, gouging marks covered the ceiling, small clumps of fungus growing from some of the gouges. A fungus he recognized from only hours before.
"What kind of biological and chemical weapons were they testing here?"
The warborn looked to Drake hesitantly before falling back to speak in a low tone.
"From what I was told, they were engineering a fungus from your planet into a weapon. I do not remember the name of it, but like all their weapons... I'd have to assume it was meant to turn a certain percentage of the population into mindless beasts that attack friend and foe indiscriminately. I'd have to assume the experiment was a failure."
He gestured up at the ceiling, cradling his slug thrower in one arm before whispering.
"Judging by the fact we are not being run down, and assuming you're correct that we're being followed... They didn't get the mindless drones they wanted..."
The words sent a chill down Drake's spine. Spotting a ladder affixed to the wall he made an executive order.
"Everyone! Out of the sewers, I've got a bad feeling about what we're marching towards."
Halcyon looked back at Drake through the gloom as the Hellions stopped in their tracks. To his horror, so did the trudging splashing behind them. Drake whipped around, drawing his sword as a loud clicking noise came from behind them. The strained sound came from at least a dozen sources hidden in the gloom beyond where his eyes could negate the darkness. His heart pounded in his throat as he whisper-yelled.
"Somebody hand me a flashlight!"
A plastic cylinder landed in his hand and he clicked the button on the back, shining it down the tunnel behind them. His blood froze in his veins as the blue-white beam of light illuminated a lone figure just beyond the range of where Drake could pear into the gloom. It was a figure that was so covered in fungal growths that it couldn't be made out if it was man, woman, or something else entirely. Thick fungal stocks protruded and rose from the four vacant eyesockets in its deformed skull. Thick plates of fungus covering its emaciated body, it cocked its head, a large hole in its throat opening to release a loud clicking sound. The jagged hole was reminiscent of a bite mark, no, it was a bitemark, a very human-looking one. Drake watched with mounting horror as a few dozen more slowly stepped into the light, one appearing to be a mass of several bodies that had melted together, the fungus fusing over discolored flesh to make a towering monster with four heads. But they didn't move to attack, they just stood there, facing down Drake and the Hellions like a monstrous specter.
The one that appeared to be the leader released another loud series of clicks, almost covering up the sound of something scratching along the ceiling.
Drawing his sword in a fluid motion, He whipped around. Flinging it by the crossguard into the gaping maw of a fungal creature with its head turned backward that crawled on the ceiling by digging hardened, chitinous claws of fungus into the duracrete, pinning it there. The beam fell on the still struggling creature, and then down the tunnel along the ceiling where dozens more silently clung, milky white eyes shining in the light. But to his surprise, they didn't attack, instead, they shied away from the light fearfully. The one with his sword in its mouth scrabbling against the handle before yanking it out and backing away to a healthy distance. Drake caught his sword slowly shining the beam around at the various fungal creatures that had them surrounded in the sewer tunnels.
"What the fuuuuuuuuck..."
Halcyon confusedly whispered, looking to Drake for answers. But Drake could only shake his head as if to say he was just as clueless. Shining his light back on to what he would consider the "leader" of the fungal creatures he called out.
"If you can understand me cock your head to the left!"
The creature slowly cocked its head to the left, sealing the hole in its throat as Drake glanced back around at the strange creatures and the uneasy Hellions. Focusing back on the leader of the strange, corpse-like creatures he asked.
"Are you going to hurt us?! Left for no, right for yes!"
The creature straightened its neck before letting it fall back to the left with a muffled click.
"Can any of you speak?"
The creature's head cocked to the right and Drake nodded, tension stiffening his muscles. Then, slowly, he flexed his new muscle, his right hand bursting into pale flames as he almost whispered.
"Do you want me to set you free?"
The being's head fell to the left almost eagerly as Drake suddenly understood the grim situation. Turning to the Hellions he stated.
"Forge ahead, I'll link up with you at the emergence point."
Halcyon gave a sharp nod, shuddering softly before beckoning the others to follow. Cautiously walking beneath the ceiling crawlers, their guns still pointed at the poor creatures. As the splashing of the Hellion's boots faded into the distance, Drake felt a pair of cold, clammy hands gently take his burning palm. He looked back at the leader of the poor creatures as it pressed Drake's hand to what must've been its cheek in a caressing motion. Pale flames burst out over its body, charring and burning flesh and fungus alike without a wisp of smoke. The clicking that came from its throat was one of great relief, of gratitude as it slowly crumbled away into ash, revealing a young woman with arachnoid features. Deep black eyes gazed into his, a soft chittering sound coming from her mandibles before she blew away like mist.
His eyes were wet as he gently stroked the cheek of the four-headed creature. A gaggle of small forms fell out in a lump as the fungus and flesh burned away. Five small children of various species he didn't recognize saying things in languages he didn't understand, but sounding oh so grateful as they blew away like dust on the wind. He had to close his eyes as he took the hands of small, scared, tortured creatures, their gentle sighs of relief and freedom like a bittersweet symphony. He could feel their pain, though it was not his own. With a great weight on his shoulders, he slowly looked down at the smallest figure; Little more than an emaciated ball of fungus, and gently scooped them from the ground, cradling the small bundle in his arms as he hummed a soft melody he vaguely remembered from childhood. The fungus burned away with an intense white flame, leaving behind a small, giggling human baby. It reached towards his face, laying its small, chubby hand against what it could only perceive as the cold metal of his helmet, a few inches away from his face. Then, with a fading giggle, they blew away like a whisp of light.
Drake clicked the flashlight off and weakly fell to his knees in the fetid water, composing himself as a cold sort of rage filtered through his system. The flame in his palm burned pure white before he extinguished it in a clenched fist, sending their souls back to the cycle.
...
Halcyon peered through the second-story window of an abandoned slum apartment with a pair of binoculars. Twelve Geknosian soldiers in power armor stood in stiff rank-and-file as they guarded a freshly installed armored gate. He checked the simple digital watch on his wrist, Drake had been gone for almost an hour with no word. Halcyon worried something had gone horribly wrong for the boss deep down in the sewers. But the sound of a bulb popping down the quiet street caught his attention. Smoothly sliding from the window, he crept over to the kitchen and peered out the window where they'd left the maintenance hatch open.
A figure clad in darkness rose from the sewer like Death himself, a blood-red mohawk adorning his helmet as he step-climbed out of the hatch and stood to his full height. He'd never seen the boss wear a cape before, but there it fluttered about his shoulders over the launcher pack. As he marched down the street, the lamps flared and popped as he passed, drawing the attention of the soldiers.
They stepped forward as a unit, fanning out into an arrowhead configuration as Drake brandished his sword out to the side, pale flames bursting forth as the Geknosian soldiers took a knee behind pre-determined defensive positions, marked with sandbags. Halcyon gasped softly as he realized what Drake was doing and quickly signed a message to his second-in-command through the window. He snatched up his rifle, making sure the suppressor was on tight before he took up his firing position at the living room window, bringing the helmet of a Geknosian soldier into the crosshairs of his scope, dialing the zoom in for a clearer view of the soldier's eyeslit. The menacing figure that was Drake slowly marched into his peripheral vision, raising his sword like a gavel.
Then he brought it down like a Judge with an audible THUNK! but it was not Drake's sword that made the noise, but the sound of twelve Hellion rifles spitting suppressed hatred. The clatter and squeal of falling power armor broke the silence of the night as Halcyon grinned.
"I fucking love you, you crazy bastard!"
He ecstatically whispered, Quickly uprooting from his position and hurrying down the stairs to regroup with Drake and the rest of the Hellions. His men joined his side in the main street before they joined Drake's side, Halcyon at his right hand to ask knowingly.
"If only we had a way to bust this gate open without drawing half the city."
"If only..."
Drake growled softly, marching forward and kicking the gate open with an audible, but very much less audible than an explosion. Two small secondary crashes echoed from either gate door alongside the clatter and whine of power armor hydraulic leaks. Drake strolled in with a menacingly confident stride towards the only warehouse that had extra reinforcements to the doors and windows. Halcyon and his Hellions followed in a low Crouch-walk, not feeling as invincible as the boss. Drake held up a fist to halt them as he reached the warehouse door and kicked it open with a crash. Four guards who'd been playing poker around a table rushed for their power armor. The boss's sword flicked through the air like a whisper of fate, pinning one of the Geknosians into their armor. Like magic, the sword flew back to his hand with a flick of his wrist only to get thrown like a spear again to penetrate the armored stomach of the only one who'd managed to enter their power armor. The soldier fell to their knees as their legs collapsed beneath them, the two warming bodies of their comrades slumping from their armor, bodies riddled with holes from suppressed rifles and slug throwers.
Drake stepped up to the soldier and mercilessly kicked them onto their back before stomping in their helmet, purple gore spewing from the visor as Drake breathed slowly and heavily. Then with a sigh he reached up and pulled his helmet off, taking deep calming breaths as dark veins slowly receded down his neck. Halcyon looked on, a little disturbed as he asked.
"You okay boss, what happened down in the sewer? what were those things?"
Drake slowly looked at Halcyon, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot as he sighed deeply, looking at the various pressurized cylinders marked with a few numbers, symbols, and a word: Cordyceps-M. Drake looked at the ground and his gore-covered boot before raspily replying.
"They were people... Victims of... this... I set them free, but I got a little pissed in the process. Change of plans, We're taking a canister of this back to the mansion and we're having Martha figure out a way to counter it, I refuse to let anyone get infected with this... it's a fate worse than death."
He gestured at the canisters before picking one up by a stainless durasteel handle before marching back toward the busted doors. Pausing he stated.
"Leave the bodies, I don't want to be here any longer than we have to. I'm gonna go drag the gate guards inside so it's not immediately obvious. Regroup in thirty minutes at the maintenance hatch."
Tossing a salute, Halcyon was secretly relieved not to be the one giving the hurry-hurry order as he made a signal for everyone to get to work. Slinging his rifle over his back he curiously checked the soldier's cards.
"Well, that's a fucked up coincidence."
"What is?"
"All four of them had the dead man's hand. Two black aces and eights."
"Death must have a sick sense of humor."
......
Part 102: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1clhj0i/troublemakers_the_comfort_of_shared_pain/