Schoolboy crush
Ayiieee kilig amp
2024.05.16 14:28 Basic_Departure_9691 Ayiieee kilig amp
Hi! I wrote here before about having a crush with a colleague at work titled "I know this is stupid but Im 27 and I get butterflies with you", something like that. Hahaha. Another month, another pagsasabog ng damdamin. đ„Č
Sooooo to recap. This boycrush was a colleague also from my previous work and we dont usually talk to each other. Now, in our current employer, we get to partner in terms of work and tasks. This is where I started getting crazy thoughts about him lol.
I said before in my post that he's the type that exercises regularly. He is fit but not Johnny Bravo level naman, sakto lang. He wears glasses, which I clearly have a thing for, and his smile is divineeeeee.
We got to sit in a room the entire day and he sat across me in the room. I can't help but notice how he looks so cute sitting there like a college student, his schoolboy glasses on, his eyes full of curiosity. I sometimes catch myself staring at him, too long, to a point of daydreaming. Shuta. Hahahaha
I can keep my hands to myself, sure, but he's too dreamy and I imagine myself holding his face, just looking at his pretty smile. Daaaammmn, this guy is too attractive and he doesnt even know it. His skin is pale and porcelain, his scent too alluring to ignore and his smile too captivating. Shutaaa sasabog nanaman puso ko picturing this out. đ
Sir, di ko talaga sure if nababasa mo to kasi nga youre older than me. Pero malay ko diba may reddit ka. Diba nga gamer ka. Hahaha. Nakakahiya, yes, pero ill be glad if you knew silently about this. Atleast you know that from afar, someone admires you and is already happier with just your existence. đ«¶
submitted by Basic_Departure_9691 to OffMyChestPH [link] [comments]
Sooooo to recap. This boycrush was a colleague also from my previous work and we dont usually talk to each other. Now, in our current employer, we get to partner in terms of work and tasks. This is where I started getting crazy thoughts about him lol.
I said before in my post that he's the type that exercises regularly. He is fit but not Johnny Bravo level naman, sakto lang. He wears glasses, which I clearly have a thing for, and his smile is divineeeeee.
We got to sit in a room the entire day and he sat across me in the room. I can't help but notice how he looks so cute sitting there like a college student, his schoolboy glasses on, his eyes full of curiosity. I sometimes catch myself staring at him, too long, to a point of daydreaming. Shuta. Hahahaha
I can keep my hands to myself, sure, but he's too dreamy and I imagine myself holding his face, just looking at his pretty smile. Daaaammmn, this guy is too attractive and he doesnt even know it. His skin is pale and porcelain, his scent too alluring to ignore and his smile too captivating. Shutaaa sasabog nanaman puso ko picturing this out. đ
Sir, di ko talaga sure if nababasa mo to kasi nga youre older than me. Pero malay ko diba may reddit ka. Diba nga gamer ka. Hahaha. Nakakahiya, yes, pero ill be glad if you knew silently about this. Atleast you know that from afar, someone admires you and is already happier with just your existence. đ«¶
2024.05.02 17:51 Left_Stuff9795 Full, Honest Ramble (long one. Story of my life)
TW: Self-harm, suicide, mental illness (I wasn't sure whether or not to mark this as NSFW)
When I was a child (now 16M), my parents fought often. Physical fights, verbal fights, all of it. Like, my mother dropped a cup. It broke and they started beating each other up over that. When I was six, maybe seven (or around that. Or younger) she drank toilet cleaner to kill or hurt herself.
My father sent her to the hospital a few times. Head injuries happened too. I was beaten too (don't remember how often). My father once broke down crying while I was sleeping with him. He once yelled at me that it was all my fault. My mother thought he was cheating on her, he thought she wasn't a 'good woman' or whatever, and that was pretty much the basis of their fighting.
I tried my best to mediate the fights. Tried to get them to apologize, all that kid stuff.
I was a straight A student (no friends. Didn't want those. And socially awkward) and the fights kind of mellowed out after I turned eight. Just...fizzled out. However, there were still issues (just verbal stuff. I think. My memory's grown blurry). And after COVID came, I got bored of class and started doing stuff on my phone. One day I just found an article on Asian Parenting and some criticisms of it and that's when the first thought that what I was going through wasn't normal came up.
(This is important for later) They put me in the Cambridge Board in sixth grade.
My grades slipped during COVID by a ton (not depression or anything. Just boredom). This was seventh and eighth grade, I think. Again, memories are blurry for me these days.
I wasn't really the most sane child either. I was kind of spoiled and bratty (I pulled a knife on my mother after she interrupted a video game I was playing. Pushed her too). I think I might have a personality disorder (to those of you who want to lecture me about self-diagnosing, please, tell my parents to take me to a therapist. They'll whack you over the head and slam the door in your face. Then they'll lecture/scold me).
I got friends in eight grade though. Which was nice. Three girls, one of whom turned out to have a crush on me (that ended badly with me just trying to ignore her advances until she outright spelled it out, and then telling her I wasn't interested but wanted to stay friends. Then I accidentally offended her. She said she wanted a sibling, I told her to ask her parents -as a joke- and it turns out her mother had an operation on her fallopian tube. Awwwwwwwwkwaaaaaaard).
Come ninth and tenth, something happened. Well, first off, we shifted states. Second, my mother's father died. She went off the deep end after that. Started doing the same things she did when I was a kid. She would constantly badmouth my father and his family (she blamed him for her father's death). This led to several physical altercations. I tried to get my little brother (who I have also been horrible to. Not as in, terrible terrible. Asian parents level, I guess. I'm trying to be better) to not watch, but he insisted on trying to stop them.
He really is my brother, I suppose. As self-destructive as I am.
My two remaining friends stopped contacting me after I moved, despite them all promising to keep in touch. Well, one of them pretty much stopped contacting me months before. I'm not sure why (I might've mentioned wanting to talk to their sister again. I swear, I didn't have a crush or anything. I'd only spoken to their sister once and spent half the conversation laughing since she was funny so I just wanted to do it again. My social skills weren't great at this time. They still aren't. I also misgendered them a few times on accident, but I don't think that was the issue since I apologized and did get their gender right later on).
Yeah, so my grades were kind of weird during this time. The board wasn't easy nor was it difficult. But I could barely muster up the energy to actually study (habits from COVID. Also, maybe some fatigue from my parents). I didn't get terrible grades but they weren't picture-perfect either. But that's partially because (apparently) some of the science teachers took questions from 11th year past papers.
Ultimately, I am currently waiting for my Board results (they went fairly well if I say so myself. I'd say, at least a B for everything other than French. At least. Hopefully).
For ninth grade: I had a friend (female), but I never really talked about this stuff with her.
Physical fights at my house were common. My dad beat me up sometimes too (or at the very least, insulted me with hurtful comments. I don't think he understood how deep they really cut).
My father left the country mid-year, leaving me with my mother and brother. My mother continued her muttering, and sometimes she even broke furniture when she was having a bad day (and slapped my brother around when she was mad and he was being slightly annoying). She slammed a cabinet door so hard the glass broke. Then she broke another cabinet door.
However, during this time I think I might've suffered from some kind of disorder. Mild form of depression, maybe. I'd enter these 'episodes' (not sure how else to describe them) of constant negative and self-deprecating thinking. Suicide attempts (Usually consisted of me trying to smother myself with a pillow, strangle myself, or slit my wrists with a geometry compass) and self-harm (biting, sometimes banging my head on the wall, and stabbing myself with a pen -this wasn't hard enough to bleed).
The pain helped drown everything else out.
This was the year I discovered my bisexuality too. And tenth grade was the grade I fell in love. Hard. Like, 'Fire Meet Gasoline' by Sia (am I getting old? I feel like this is kind of reference someone from the nineties would make) kind of hard. And yes, I'm fairly certain this was love rather than a crush. So, this guy I knew from ninth grade (cold, used to joke he had this 'sociopath serial killer look', worked with him and that one friend I made in ninth for a school project) was there, and I just invited him to sit with me and my friend, and then stuff snowballed.
He was hilarious, charming (to some people, at least) and most of all: he was challenging. Not in a bad way, just very snarky and stuff.
He's aromantic and asexual. I insisted on touching him (hugs, hand-holding, sometimes even resting my head in his lap and touching his hair). He never said no to it, though I didn't think he liked it either. But personally, I think I was touch-starved and just really needed physical affection of some kind. Oh, and also, now that I think about it, he might've been the one person to hug me in years. I tutored him for math in ninth and he hugged me after getting a good grade. That friend I made before him wasn't really into physical affection much.
Alongside that, I often made comments about him. Not sexual stuff (though I did tell him he was handsome a few times. He has a habit of downgrading himself which I find both kind of weird and adorable, and I enjoy setting the record straight for him), more like 'I would set the world on fire for you' kind of simpy crap.
So, yeah. I'm pretty sure everyone knew about this in my class. I'm pretty sure half the class already might've thought we were dating (though I've heard rumors about me and that girl too, which just...no. We are friends. She is not my type). I caught some guys looking at us weirdly (not homophobic, I think. Just curious) and I think a part of me enjoyed the attention on the two of us (like "This is mine, you got that fucker? Stare all you want, but if you come an inch closer I'll rip your jaw off").
I got jealous when any guy came close to him. Even his cousin (look, Targaryens did it, why not this guy? Yes, I'm an idiot). He once jokingly asked if I was jealous of his mother too and I pondered whether or not saying the truth was worth it.
I confessed ages ago. He told me he wasn't interested in me that way. We're still best friends and I'm slowly getting over it (yes, I still want to kiss him, but it's less intense, I guess?). Oh, and he was the first person I told about my parents. Afterwards I told the girl I'm friends with as well, and I also somehow managed to make two more friends/ friendly acquaintances. So I guess that support system is nice.
The girl I'm friends with even asked her mother to bring me food since they are convinced I'm being starved. Which, honestly? They might have a point about (before this I always had hunger pangs till lunch since breakfast was usually small. And even after lunch, sometimes it wasn't enough. I just ignored it. I might've even preferred it since I was also more self-conscious about my looks and weight).
Oh, and I also fell for some other guy (this is way more schoolboy crush stuff). Some guy who I'm pretty sure has seen all of my most embarrassing moments (running away after he asked me a question, yelling 'WHERE' after the soccer team asked me to get their ball for them despite it literally being a metre or so away -I couldn't see it- and saying some pretty stupid things).
He invited me to a party (celebration for the end of 10th grade Boards) and I saw him dancing with another guy (It was a waltz. A fucking waltz. My black, hollow husk of a heart chipped off a few ashes after seeing it). And I was emotionally immature enough to slam my glass of lemonade down on the table (I don't think anyone noticed, but if he did, I want to apologize. It was his birthday and I might've ruined it).
He also politely rejected me when I suggested keeping in touch over the break (to be fair, we barely know each other and I think he might've realized I had a crush. My reasons for keeping in touch were just platonic, though I might've hoped something more would develop).
This was easier to get over than the first guy. That was also how I discovered my type was 'Hard/Impossible to get'. I've heard Scorpios like challenges, but I never really got that (wasn't interested in academic stuff, though I can be competitive in sports) until I realized that I fell for the standard 'popular boy who is super nice but also in a drastically different social circle' and the 'asexual, aromantic guy'.
Pretty much nobody knows about either of these except maybe the people involved.
Anyway, so, all of this shit happens. Break starts and my father comes back to the country. Some more fights happen, and it turns out he wants me to do freaking IIT. Now, just to explain something: I have been doing Cambridge for over four years. I am used to things being fairly easy for me because this Board came way more easily to me.
Also, I had no interest in IIT. I was willing to do Computer Science and STEM if that's what my parents wanted (though I in truth just wanted to get an economics degree), but while I did get that IIT was a great opportunity, I just didn't want to put in the extra effort when I was already doing well in my previous Board. And the effort is a lot. Like, people who study for this from sixth can't get a good ranking. I'm starting from eleventh.
IIT is based on the state board in my country and it is way harder. The foundational math they teach these students (the stuff they learn in eighth and ninth) is more difficult than any tenth grade stuff I was doing. And the teachers are absolute- ugh! They're bunny hopping from topic to topic like (hold on, let me think of a good, hilarious example)...like rabbits on steroids and caffeine!
The classes are boring as fuck. It doesn't help that I never wanted to do this either. My lack of choice (and my parents literally said I didn't have a choice when I asked, despite me laying down all the reasons this was a bad idea) was probably the main reason I'm struggling. I hate being forced into anything.
Self-study is impossible too because the books fucking suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I've also been self-harming a lot more recently. I have scars all over the bottom of my left wrist (my parents don't particularly care. Or they just haven't noticed, which I find kind of odd seeing as I don't go about making any extra effort to cover it up. I just figured I'd tell them a cat did it or something, but they never asked. Half of the scars are from times my father was home).
The only time my Mother noticed was when they were on my neck (remember I said I was trying to be a good brother? Emphasis on trying. I'm an abusive piece of shit one day and he was screaming and I was angry and he kept hitting me and swearing at me so I just lost it. He's eight). I stormed into my room after leaving him a sobbing mess on the floor and just started hacking at my arm with a geometry compass. Remember the personality disorder thing?
I moved on to my neck, dragging three long vertical lines (the cuts were shallow, thankfully). I contemplated plunging them into my eyes (this is something I've thought about often. After all, my parents can't force me to do anything if I'm blind, right?) but decided against it. I told my mother my brother scratched me (he does this often. She cut his nails afterward, which, makes me feel even worse for hating her because I think she genuinely does care. But at the same time, she's a paranoid, mentally ill person who picks fights with people often and was partially responsible for making my childhood and even my latter teenage years miserable thanks to constant physical and verbal fights with my father).
I told my friends it was a cat. The girl seemed to believe me, but the guy (the one I had a crush on) may not have brought it as easily. I've been way more honest about my self-harming and suicidal tendencies with him (though sometimes I feel like I'm just burdening him. Which, honestly? I probably am. But it feels good to have someone validate that this situation sucks and to actually show me care. My father tries, but it feels like everything's tainted with resentment toward him. I don't want to stop hating him, partially because I don't think he deserves it and because he still hasn't stopped being a complete dick. I mean, sure, he's better than before, but that's more due to him growing old and exhausted thanks to my mother than anything else).
The guy has his own problems (he thinks he suffers from ADHD. He mentioned that he knows some relatives who have the same and has attention issues to the point where he skips important information in an actual test. Like, outright stated information that would make the answers crystal clear). He's told me that I'm not burdening him since either way he'd still be suffering the same problems (he isn't the most empathetic person in the world, but that's more due to him not really showing his empathy. He's probably been my biggest supporter through all of this. Also, I got 16 on a quiz for empathy while he got around 48, so...)
Alongside that, another thing about me: I think I might be suffering from Apathy or Anhedonia. It's hard to find genuine pleasure in some activities (it's gotten better recently. Partially due to this guy -I should give him a fake name but I'm too lazy- but it still feels like I'm just going through the motions on most days).
Back to academics?
So yeah, I wasn't really surprised when I got 30% in the final exam (I'm doing IIT Coaching over the summer break). Which was a couple of days ago. My mother pretty much dropped that out of the blue (I didn't know the results had come out) with my father on call and he just slapped his forehead and started muttering. We were having a decent conversation till then (I've been trying my best to avoid him and his calls, but the few ones we've had recently have been fine. Not affectionate, at least not on my side. But calm. Maybe cold).
So yeah. I just, I think I might've kind of just dissociated there. Cut the call, blocked his number (my mother does this often with him too. Like, just cut the call regardless of whatever he's saying. She pretty much just despises him and his family), and then just ran to my room. I've been trying my best to avoid speaking to him too.
Which brings us to today. He called me again, asked me why I was avoiding him (I hate him. Also, some of these conversations genuinely mess with my head and I'd rather not have more negative thoughts about myself than I already do), reminded me that there are people on the streets who make it to the top, asked me if I was gonna be able to do IIT or not (this was where I was an idiot. I just shouted 'I told you I wasn't going to be able to do IIT!". And I did. I made it clear plenty of times. I don't want to work hard. At least, not to the level he wants me to work hard. And I struggle with motivation most of the time too. I don't know if it's a side-effect of my own crappy mental health or just laziness.)
He asked me why I wasn't more ambitious. I'm not. I'm really not. Sure, I have delusions of grandeur and talk a big game to my friends. But they and I all know it's just talk. My dreams are largely just domestic. A husband, two kids, stuff like that (sometimes I fantasize about being pregnant). Would I like a ton of money? Sure. But ultimately, what I want is a choice which he took from me.
I wish I was more ambitious. But half the time I just feel empty and bored. I only really come alive when I'm with my friends. Or when I'm singing, or reading. Otherwise, everything just feels like going through the motions.
He told me that he was a railway conductor's son who became an engineer and I'm an engineer's son who became nothing. I'm dragging his name through the mud, all that.
So yeah. He cut the call afterwards. I broke down crying in front of my mother telling her that I wasn't ambitious and that I just wanted to study and leave (I don't think I communicated myself clearly here. What I ultimately want is to study what I want to study and leave. Preferably with my father's financial support because there's no way I can get a scholarship, but I'd be willing to do without if I really, really had to).
I don't know why I got so emotional. I feel idiotic. I really don't want to face my mother. She tried to console me, but I don't think she even understood why I was upset. Just told me that her parents used to say far worse.
So yeah. This is a full ramble on everything that's happened in my life in the last few years. Everything I wish people knew about me so instead of just seeing me as an idiot (which I am), they'd just, I don't know, acknowledge that something happened to fuck me up like this. A combination of genetics (I don't know whether or not whatever my mother has is genetic, but I think so. Personally, I tend to phrase it as 'madness runs in my blood' because it sounds cooler and I'm a diehard House Targaryen fan, but the base idea is the same, I guess) and crappy circumstance.
And before anyone says this: I'm aware that I have it better than most people here. I get away with words and insults that most people wouldn't (though in my mother's case, that's largely because she just doesn't care much). This isn't a grief pageant, as your rules so plainly put it.
Am I doing this for attention? A part of me thinks so. But I just wanted to get this out.
Sorry if it's hard to read.
submitted by Left_Stuff9795 to AsianParentStories [link] [comments]
When I was a child (now 16M), my parents fought often. Physical fights, verbal fights, all of it. Like, my mother dropped a cup. It broke and they started beating each other up over that. When I was six, maybe seven (or around that. Or younger) she drank toilet cleaner to kill or hurt herself.
My father sent her to the hospital a few times. Head injuries happened too. I was beaten too (don't remember how often). My father once broke down crying while I was sleeping with him. He once yelled at me that it was all my fault. My mother thought he was cheating on her, he thought she wasn't a 'good woman' or whatever, and that was pretty much the basis of their fighting.
I tried my best to mediate the fights. Tried to get them to apologize, all that kid stuff.
I was a straight A student (no friends. Didn't want those. And socially awkward) and the fights kind of mellowed out after I turned eight. Just...fizzled out. However, there were still issues (just verbal stuff. I think. My memory's grown blurry). And after COVID came, I got bored of class and started doing stuff on my phone. One day I just found an article on Asian Parenting and some criticisms of it and that's when the first thought that what I was going through wasn't normal came up.
(This is important for later) They put me in the Cambridge Board in sixth grade.
My grades slipped during COVID by a ton (not depression or anything. Just boredom). This was seventh and eighth grade, I think. Again, memories are blurry for me these days.
I wasn't really the most sane child either. I was kind of spoiled and bratty (I pulled a knife on my mother after she interrupted a video game I was playing. Pushed her too). I think I might have a personality disorder (to those of you who want to lecture me about self-diagnosing, please, tell my parents to take me to a therapist. They'll whack you over the head and slam the door in your face. Then they'll lecture/scold me).
I got friends in eight grade though. Which was nice. Three girls, one of whom turned out to have a crush on me (that ended badly with me just trying to ignore her advances until she outright spelled it out, and then telling her I wasn't interested but wanted to stay friends. Then I accidentally offended her. She said she wanted a sibling, I told her to ask her parents -as a joke- and it turns out her mother had an operation on her fallopian tube. Awwwwwwwwkwaaaaaaard).
Come ninth and tenth, something happened. Well, first off, we shifted states. Second, my mother's father died. She went off the deep end after that. Started doing the same things she did when I was a kid. She would constantly badmouth my father and his family (she blamed him for her father's death). This led to several physical altercations. I tried to get my little brother (who I have also been horrible to. Not as in, terrible terrible. Asian parents level, I guess. I'm trying to be better) to not watch, but he insisted on trying to stop them.
He really is my brother, I suppose. As self-destructive as I am.
My two remaining friends stopped contacting me after I moved, despite them all promising to keep in touch. Well, one of them pretty much stopped contacting me months before. I'm not sure why (I might've mentioned wanting to talk to their sister again. I swear, I didn't have a crush or anything. I'd only spoken to their sister once and spent half the conversation laughing since she was funny so I just wanted to do it again. My social skills weren't great at this time. They still aren't. I also misgendered them a few times on accident, but I don't think that was the issue since I apologized and did get their gender right later on).
Yeah, so my grades were kind of weird during this time. The board wasn't easy nor was it difficult. But I could barely muster up the energy to actually study (habits from COVID. Also, maybe some fatigue from my parents). I didn't get terrible grades but they weren't picture-perfect either. But that's partially because (apparently) some of the science teachers took questions from 11th year past papers.
Ultimately, I am currently waiting for my Board results (they went fairly well if I say so myself. I'd say, at least a B for everything other than French. At least. Hopefully).
For ninth grade: I had a friend (female), but I never really talked about this stuff with her.
Physical fights at my house were common. My dad beat me up sometimes too (or at the very least, insulted me with hurtful comments. I don't think he understood how deep they really cut).
My father left the country mid-year, leaving me with my mother and brother. My mother continued her muttering, and sometimes she even broke furniture when she was having a bad day (and slapped my brother around when she was mad and he was being slightly annoying). She slammed a cabinet door so hard the glass broke. Then she broke another cabinet door.
However, during this time I think I might've suffered from some kind of disorder. Mild form of depression, maybe. I'd enter these 'episodes' (not sure how else to describe them) of constant negative and self-deprecating thinking. Suicide attempts (Usually consisted of me trying to smother myself with a pillow, strangle myself, or slit my wrists with a geometry compass) and self-harm (biting, sometimes banging my head on the wall, and stabbing myself with a pen -this wasn't hard enough to bleed).
The pain helped drown everything else out.
This was the year I discovered my bisexuality too. And tenth grade was the grade I fell in love. Hard. Like, 'Fire Meet Gasoline' by Sia (am I getting old? I feel like this is kind of reference someone from the nineties would make) kind of hard. And yes, I'm fairly certain this was love rather than a crush. So, this guy I knew from ninth grade (cold, used to joke he had this 'sociopath serial killer look', worked with him and that one friend I made in ninth for a school project) was there, and I just invited him to sit with me and my friend, and then stuff snowballed.
He was hilarious, charming (to some people, at least) and most of all: he was challenging. Not in a bad way, just very snarky and stuff.
He's aromantic and asexual. I insisted on touching him (hugs, hand-holding, sometimes even resting my head in his lap and touching his hair). He never said no to it, though I didn't think he liked it either. But personally, I think I was touch-starved and just really needed physical affection of some kind. Oh, and also, now that I think about it, he might've been the one person to hug me in years. I tutored him for math in ninth and he hugged me after getting a good grade. That friend I made before him wasn't really into physical affection much.
Alongside that, I often made comments about him. Not sexual stuff (though I did tell him he was handsome a few times. He has a habit of downgrading himself which I find both kind of weird and adorable, and I enjoy setting the record straight for him), more like 'I would set the world on fire for you' kind of simpy crap.
So, yeah. I'm pretty sure everyone knew about this in my class. I'm pretty sure half the class already might've thought we were dating (though I've heard rumors about me and that girl too, which just...no. We are friends. She is not my type). I caught some guys looking at us weirdly (not homophobic, I think. Just curious) and I think a part of me enjoyed the attention on the two of us (like "This is mine, you got that fucker? Stare all you want, but if you come an inch closer I'll rip your jaw off").
I got jealous when any guy came close to him. Even his cousin (look, Targaryens did it, why not this guy? Yes, I'm an idiot). He once jokingly asked if I was jealous of his mother too and I pondered whether or not saying the truth was worth it.
I confessed ages ago. He told me he wasn't interested in me that way. We're still best friends and I'm slowly getting over it (yes, I still want to kiss him, but it's less intense, I guess?). Oh, and he was the first person I told about my parents. Afterwards I told the girl I'm friends with as well, and I also somehow managed to make two more friends/ friendly acquaintances. So I guess that support system is nice.
The girl I'm friends with even asked her mother to bring me food since they are convinced I'm being starved. Which, honestly? They might have a point about (before this I always had hunger pangs till lunch since breakfast was usually small. And even after lunch, sometimes it wasn't enough. I just ignored it. I might've even preferred it since I was also more self-conscious about my looks and weight).
Oh, and I also fell for some other guy (this is way more schoolboy crush stuff). Some guy who I'm pretty sure has seen all of my most embarrassing moments (running away after he asked me a question, yelling 'WHERE' after the soccer team asked me to get their ball for them despite it literally being a metre or so away -I couldn't see it- and saying some pretty stupid things).
He invited me to a party (celebration for the end of 10th grade Boards) and I saw him dancing with another guy (It was a waltz. A fucking waltz. My black, hollow husk of a heart chipped off a few ashes after seeing it). And I was emotionally immature enough to slam my glass of lemonade down on the table (I don't think anyone noticed, but if he did, I want to apologize. It was his birthday and I might've ruined it).
He also politely rejected me when I suggested keeping in touch over the break (to be fair, we barely know each other and I think he might've realized I had a crush. My reasons for keeping in touch were just platonic, though I might've hoped something more would develop).
This was easier to get over than the first guy. That was also how I discovered my type was 'Hard/Impossible to get'. I've heard Scorpios like challenges, but I never really got that (wasn't interested in academic stuff, though I can be competitive in sports) until I realized that I fell for the standard 'popular boy who is super nice but also in a drastically different social circle' and the 'asexual, aromantic guy'.
Pretty much nobody knows about either of these except maybe the people involved.
Anyway, so, all of this shit happens. Break starts and my father comes back to the country. Some more fights happen, and it turns out he wants me to do freaking IIT. Now, just to explain something: I have been doing Cambridge for over four years. I am used to things being fairly easy for me because this Board came way more easily to me.
Also, I had no interest in IIT. I was willing to do Computer Science and STEM if that's what my parents wanted (though I in truth just wanted to get an economics degree), but while I did get that IIT was a great opportunity, I just didn't want to put in the extra effort when I was already doing well in my previous Board. And the effort is a lot. Like, people who study for this from sixth can't get a good ranking. I'm starting from eleventh.
IIT is based on the state board in my country and it is way harder. The foundational math they teach these students (the stuff they learn in eighth and ninth) is more difficult than any tenth grade stuff I was doing. And the teachers are absolute- ugh! They're bunny hopping from topic to topic like (hold on, let me think of a good, hilarious example)...like rabbits on steroids and caffeine!
The classes are boring as fuck. It doesn't help that I never wanted to do this either. My lack of choice (and my parents literally said I didn't have a choice when I asked, despite me laying down all the reasons this was a bad idea) was probably the main reason I'm struggling. I hate being forced into anything.
Self-study is impossible too because the books fucking suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I've also been self-harming a lot more recently. I have scars all over the bottom of my left wrist (my parents don't particularly care. Or they just haven't noticed, which I find kind of odd seeing as I don't go about making any extra effort to cover it up. I just figured I'd tell them a cat did it or something, but they never asked. Half of the scars are from times my father was home).
The only time my Mother noticed was when they were on my neck (remember I said I was trying to be a good brother? Emphasis on trying. I'm an abusive piece of shit one day and he was screaming and I was angry and he kept hitting me and swearing at me so I just lost it. He's eight). I stormed into my room after leaving him a sobbing mess on the floor and just started hacking at my arm with a geometry compass. Remember the personality disorder thing?
I moved on to my neck, dragging three long vertical lines (the cuts were shallow, thankfully). I contemplated plunging them into my eyes (this is something I've thought about often. After all, my parents can't force me to do anything if I'm blind, right?) but decided against it. I told my mother my brother scratched me (he does this often. She cut his nails afterward, which, makes me feel even worse for hating her because I think she genuinely does care. But at the same time, she's a paranoid, mentally ill person who picks fights with people often and was partially responsible for making my childhood and even my latter teenage years miserable thanks to constant physical and verbal fights with my father).
I told my friends it was a cat. The girl seemed to believe me, but the guy (the one I had a crush on) may not have brought it as easily. I've been way more honest about my self-harming and suicidal tendencies with him (though sometimes I feel like I'm just burdening him. Which, honestly? I probably am. But it feels good to have someone validate that this situation sucks and to actually show me care. My father tries, but it feels like everything's tainted with resentment toward him. I don't want to stop hating him, partially because I don't think he deserves it and because he still hasn't stopped being a complete dick. I mean, sure, he's better than before, but that's more due to him growing old and exhausted thanks to my mother than anything else).
The guy has his own problems (he thinks he suffers from ADHD. He mentioned that he knows some relatives who have the same and has attention issues to the point where he skips important information in an actual test. Like, outright stated information that would make the answers crystal clear). He's told me that I'm not burdening him since either way he'd still be suffering the same problems (he isn't the most empathetic person in the world, but that's more due to him not really showing his empathy. He's probably been my biggest supporter through all of this. Also, I got 16 on a quiz for empathy while he got around 48, so...)
Alongside that, another thing about me: I think I might be suffering from Apathy or Anhedonia. It's hard to find genuine pleasure in some activities (it's gotten better recently. Partially due to this guy -I should give him a fake name but I'm too lazy- but it still feels like I'm just going through the motions on most days).
Back to academics?
So yeah, I wasn't really surprised when I got 30% in the final exam (I'm doing IIT Coaching over the summer break). Which was a couple of days ago. My mother pretty much dropped that out of the blue (I didn't know the results had come out) with my father on call and he just slapped his forehead and started muttering. We were having a decent conversation till then (I've been trying my best to avoid him and his calls, but the few ones we've had recently have been fine. Not affectionate, at least not on my side. But calm. Maybe cold).
So yeah. I just, I think I might've kind of just dissociated there. Cut the call, blocked his number (my mother does this often with him too. Like, just cut the call regardless of whatever he's saying. She pretty much just despises him and his family), and then just ran to my room. I've been trying my best to avoid speaking to him too.
Which brings us to today. He called me again, asked me why I was avoiding him (I hate him. Also, some of these conversations genuinely mess with my head and I'd rather not have more negative thoughts about myself than I already do), reminded me that there are people on the streets who make it to the top, asked me if I was gonna be able to do IIT or not (this was where I was an idiot. I just shouted 'I told you I wasn't going to be able to do IIT!". And I did. I made it clear plenty of times. I don't want to work hard. At least, not to the level he wants me to work hard. And I struggle with motivation most of the time too. I don't know if it's a side-effect of my own crappy mental health or just laziness.)
He asked me why I wasn't more ambitious. I'm not. I'm really not. Sure, I have delusions of grandeur and talk a big game to my friends. But they and I all know it's just talk. My dreams are largely just domestic. A husband, two kids, stuff like that (sometimes I fantasize about being pregnant). Would I like a ton of money? Sure. But ultimately, what I want is a choice which he took from me.
I wish I was more ambitious. But half the time I just feel empty and bored. I only really come alive when I'm with my friends. Or when I'm singing, or reading. Otherwise, everything just feels like going through the motions.
He told me that he was a railway conductor's son who became an engineer and I'm an engineer's son who became nothing. I'm dragging his name through the mud, all that.
So yeah. He cut the call afterwards. I broke down crying in front of my mother telling her that I wasn't ambitious and that I just wanted to study and leave (I don't think I communicated myself clearly here. What I ultimately want is to study what I want to study and leave. Preferably with my father's financial support because there's no way I can get a scholarship, but I'd be willing to do without if I really, really had to).
I don't know why I got so emotional. I feel idiotic. I really don't want to face my mother. She tried to console me, but I don't think she even understood why I was upset. Just told me that her parents used to say far worse.
So yeah. This is a full ramble on everything that's happened in my life in the last few years. Everything I wish people knew about me so instead of just seeing me as an idiot (which I am), they'd just, I don't know, acknowledge that something happened to fuck me up like this. A combination of genetics (I don't know whether or not whatever my mother has is genetic, but I think so. Personally, I tend to phrase it as 'madness runs in my blood' because it sounds cooler and I'm a diehard House Targaryen fan, but the base idea is the same, I guess) and crappy circumstance.
And before anyone says this: I'm aware that I have it better than most people here. I get away with words and insults that most people wouldn't (though in my mother's case, that's largely because she just doesn't care much). This isn't a grief pageant, as your rules so plainly put it.
Am I doing this for attention? A part of me thinks so. But I just wanted to get this out.
Sorry if it's hard to read.
2024.05.02 16:32 Absolutelee123 Help deciding what happened to my DMPC
I am the DM for a group of 4 PCs. I have this habit of accidentally introducing characters that the players latch on to and end up becoming part of the party.
Weâre playing SKT and in Brynn Shander they met a young man who left home to come north and prove himself hunting yetis. The group took him under his wing and heâs been with them since.
Over time heâs been a fun naive addition to the group. Heâs taken a bit of a schoolboy/teacher infatuation with our paladin, mostly because sheâs nice to him.
A couple sessions ago they met a charismatic privateer captain, and the paladin took a liking to him. This upset the young man, and he got a little sullen, realizing this was an unreciprocated boyhood crush.
The party went to a bar to have some fun, and cheer up the young man. The chaos agent of the party suggested finding him âsomething to take his mind off itâ. They ask around and get the secret location of a place that will be good for him. They get to a deserted alley with an orange door. Only the young man is let in, and after 1-2 hours he comes out with a blank expression and a thousand yard stare. He has since been acting more sullen and introspective, supplemented by his alchemy jug.
The party all thinks he got ravaged by some prostitute and lost his virginity. And now he getting all incel about the paladin not being into him. Iâm thinking something else happened in there. He got forced into a devil pact, or saw something that completely changes his character. But not sex
Since itâs a pre written campaign, I canât really alter course and make him into the BBEG, but I want to have some fun with it.
Any help appreciated! Thanks
submitted by Absolutelee123 to DnD [link] [comments]
Weâre playing SKT and in Brynn Shander they met a young man who left home to come north and prove himself hunting yetis. The group took him under his wing and heâs been with them since.
Over time heâs been a fun naive addition to the group. Heâs taken a bit of a schoolboy/teacher infatuation with our paladin, mostly because sheâs nice to him.
A couple sessions ago they met a charismatic privateer captain, and the paladin took a liking to him. This upset the young man, and he got a little sullen, realizing this was an unreciprocated boyhood crush.
The party went to a bar to have some fun, and cheer up the young man. The chaos agent of the party suggested finding him âsomething to take his mind off itâ. They ask around and get the secret location of a place that will be good for him. They get to a deserted alley with an orange door. Only the young man is let in, and after 1-2 hours he comes out with a blank expression and a thousand yard stare. He has since been acting more sullen and introspective, supplemented by his alchemy jug.
The party all thinks he got ravaged by some prostitute and lost his virginity. And now he getting all incel about the paladin not being into him. Iâm thinking something else happened in there. He got forced into a devil pact, or saw something that completely changes his character. But not sex
Since itâs a pre written campaign, I canât really alter course and make him into the BBEG, but I want to have some fun with it.
Any help appreciated! Thanks
2024.05.01 08:18 rizqiharahap13 Schoolboy Crush
 | submitted by rizqiharahap13 to DilrabaDilrmurat [link] [comments] |
2024.04.23 09:54 Normal_Choice_3065 I am completely and utterly in love with my girlfriend
I (23M) am so in love with my girlfriend (20F) that it legitimately makes me bounce off the walls yelling âyippeeâ like those terrible TikTok videos she likes.
Weâve been together for over a year and sheâs just perfect. All that crap about honeymoon phases is just that. Crap. I think Iâm actually acting more embarrassing around her now than I did when I first met her, which was pretty foolish to begin with. I canât help but have the biggest schoolboy crush on her.
Sheâs just so gorgeously beautiful. Like, stop on the street to stare level knockout. Sheâs tiny and sexy, my buddies call her Tinkerbell if we need code because sheâs built the same haha. Her personality is perfect on top of that. Youâll never meet someone as funny, witty, and smart as she is. Especially because she doesnât take shit from anyone (LEAST of all me haha)
Iâm not gonna get too into it but my life was pretty shit before I turned 20. I never really knew affection, respect and love like this until I met her. Even if I struggle with some aspects sometimes, sheâs kind to me, gentle with me, patient with me. Iâve never been treated this way before and I donât think Iâll ever get used to it.
I love her. I love her so much. I love her smell, how soft she is, how her eyes crinkle when she laughs, how sweet her voice is. I get butterflies when she pulls me down and stands on her tiptoes for a kiss, when she rambles about whatever niche interest sheâs taken under her wing for the day, when she puts extra food on my plate. She loves me and trusts me and Iâm the happiest Iâve ever been.
Itâs currently 2:31 AM and my girlfriend is sleeping with her head resting on my chest over my heart right at this moment and I love her more than anything. When she wakes up in the morning, her hair is gonna be all lumpy and stick out everywhere like in the cartoons and I just love her so much.
Thatâs it. I really love my girlfriend and want everyone to know.
PS: babe, if this somehow finds you and you realize itâs about you, I love you more than you love to watch the sunset. Iâll make sure to kiss you the way the sun kisses the horizon in the morning.
submitted by Normal_Choice_3065 to offmychest [link] [comments]
Weâve been together for over a year and sheâs just perfect. All that crap about honeymoon phases is just that. Crap. I think Iâm actually acting more embarrassing around her now than I did when I first met her, which was pretty foolish to begin with. I canât help but have the biggest schoolboy crush on her.
Sheâs just so gorgeously beautiful. Like, stop on the street to stare level knockout. Sheâs tiny and sexy, my buddies call her Tinkerbell if we need code because sheâs built the same haha. Her personality is perfect on top of that. Youâll never meet someone as funny, witty, and smart as she is. Especially because she doesnât take shit from anyone (LEAST of all me haha)
Iâm not gonna get too into it but my life was pretty shit before I turned 20. I never really knew affection, respect and love like this until I met her. Even if I struggle with some aspects sometimes, sheâs kind to me, gentle with me, patient with me. Iâve never been treated this way before and I donât think Iâll ever get used to it.
I love her. I love her so much. I love her smell, how soft she is, how her eyes crinkle when she laughs, how sweet her voice is. I get butterflies when she pulls me down and stands on her tiptoes for a kiss, when she rambles about whatever niche interest sheâs taken under her wing for the day, when she puts extra food on my plate. She loves me and trusts me and Iâm the happiest Iâve ever been.
Itâs currently 2:31 AM and my girlfriend is sleeping with her head resting on my chest over my heart right at this moment and I love her more than anything. When she wakes up in the morning, her hair is gonna be all lumpy and stick out everywhere like in the cartoons and I just love her so much.
Thatâs it. I really love my girlfriend and want everyone to know.
PS: babe, if this somehow finds you and you realize itâs about you, I love you more than you love to watch the sunset. Iâll make sure to kiss you the way the sun kisses the horizon in the morning.
2024.04.08 00:48 HumbleNinja2 Chicks who play yakuza
After how many games did you decide to start smoking cigs irl?
Straight chicks, how many games before you realized you were hopelessly addicted to hitting on hostesses?
All chicks, on a scale of inanimate Barbie doll to only child of a kingdom-level early Renaissance monarch, how much penis envy do ypu suffer for wondering if you are real yakuza?
Not straight chicks, how many times have you wanted to bang the ladies of Yakuza, and who would make the best waifu?
Kiryu wives, how many episodes of Bleach and Jojo's do you still have left to watch?
Majima wives, do you feel guilty that every hour you spend playing Yakuza is another hour you could have spent volunteering at the animal shelter but didn't?
Saejima wives, how do you cope with the fact that no man on the earth is man enough for you?
Nishiki wives, how did you feel the last time you reread that Malfoy-Hermione fanfic you wrote in middle school?
Ryuji wives, at what age did you finally start getting over your innocent childhood crush on your brother?
Daigo wives...I have nothing to ask except that you spare my life once you have conquered the known world
Ichiban wives...please don't say a single thing in this thread bc I haven't played infinite wealth yet and don't want to be spoiled
Married chicks, how do you feel about your husband not understanding that you could easily smash his face into the fridge and sever his spinal cord with a searing frying pan?
Asian chicks, how do you feel knowing your real dad will never be as loving and accepting of you as many ruthless crime patriarchs are of their bio and non-bio daughters?
Non Asian chicks, how do you feel knowing most Yakuza characters would react to you by running up like schoolboys excited to practice their broken English on you?
Single chicks who have 100%'d every game, how do you feel that the crop of males who have done the same is hideously undatable, and that as a result you will never be with a man who can truly understand you?
Smart chicks who play yakuza, how do you feel realizing that every man you like is several tiers dumber than you?
Dumb chicks who play yakuza, how many games in did you come to finally understand that the true Hallmark of a man's love for you, is his willingness to lie to you and hide everything from you?
Basic chicks who play yakuza, how do you feel about having lost taste for all other games?
submitted by HumbleNinja2 to yakuzagames [link] [comments]
Straight chicks, how many games before you realized you were hopelessly addicted to hitting on hostesses?
All chicks, on a scale of inanimate Barbie doll to only child of a kingdom-level early Renaissance monarch, how much penis envy do ypu suffer for wondering if you are real yakuza?
Not straight chicks, how many times have you wanted to bang the ladies of Yakuza, and who would make the best waifu?
Kiryu wives, how many episodes of Bleach and Jojo's do you still have left to watch?
Majima wives, do you feel guilty that every hour you spend playing Yakuza is another hour you could have spent volunteering at the animal shelter but didn't?
Saejima wives, how do you cope with the fact that no man on the earth is man enough for you?
Nishiki wives, how did you feel the last time you reread that Malfoy-Hermione fanfic you wrote in middle school?
Ryuji wives, at what age did you finally start getting over your innocent childhood crush on your brother?
Daigo wives...I have nothing to ask except that you spare my life once you have conquered the known world
Ichiban wives...please don't say a single thing in this thread bc I haven't played infinite wealth yet and don't want to be spoiled
Married chicks, how do you feel about your husband not understanding that you could easily smash his face into the fridge and sever his spinal cord with a searing frying pan?
Asian chicks, how do you feel knowing your real dad will never be as loving and accepting of you as many ruthless crime patriarchs are of their bio and non-bio daughters?
Non Asian chicks, how do you feel knowing most Yakuza characters would react to you by running up like schoolboys excited to practice their broken English on you?
Single chicks who have 100%'d every game, how do you feel that the crop of males who have done the same is hideously undatable, and that as a result you will never be with a man who can truly understand you?
Smart chicks who play yakuza, how do you feel realizing that every man you like is several tiers dumber than you?
Dumb chicks who play yakuza, how many games in did you come to finally understand that the true Hallmark of a man's love for you, is his willingness to lie to you and hide everything from you?
Basic chicks who play yakuza, how do you feel about having lost taste for all other games?
2024.04.03 02:17 BlackBeamGames The story of one of our colleagues
I grew up in a low-income family. Due to this, I had difficulty accessing the internet and my computer, and I often looked with envy at my classmates who seemed to have more opportunities. When I finally gained access to the internet at the age of 14, my desire to become a hacker grew stronger. Additionally, I wanted to create websites, reverse-engineer programs, perform system administration, and, of course, create video games. At that time, I felt like a king in the world of technology. I knew so many things! I could do anything! I knew many programming languages, and I thought I could invent something new. However, like a shovel to the head, my dreams were dashed when I attempted to make money from my skills. It turned out that while I knew a lot of things superficially, I only copied basic examples from books and articles.
My attempts to create something unique were unsuccessful, and I realized that it takes more than just knowing the basics to be successful in this field. Today, I understand that it's important to learn from others and to constantly improve my skills. While I may not have become a successful hacker, I have learned a lot from my experiences and continue to learn new things every day.I was feeling depressed and crushed.
I discovered that I was not a hacker but an evil schoolboy who could not handle one thing and understand it properly. Every time I started something, I was interrupted by questions like: 1) What if there would be more money in something else? 2) And if I teach, won't it become outdated? 3) Are you sure this is yours? When I turned off my "thought machine" and focused on one thing, real progress started. After working hard every day for a long time on one topic, I became a professional and got a stable job with good income. Most importantly, I did not get burnt out and truly loved my business. I went from being a food trainee to a senior level worker. I even worked as a technical director at one point. As a result, I started my own company on this topic. And all of this is not because of some secret or important information. It's because I decided to focus on one thing.
submitted by BlackBeamGames to u/BlackBeamGames [link] [comments]
My attempts to create something unique were unsuccessful, and I realized that it takes more than just knowing the basics to be successful in this field. Today, I understand that it's important to learn from others and to constantly improve my skills. While I may not have become a successful hacker, I have learned a lot from my experiences and continue to learn new things every day.I was feeling depressed and crushed.
I discovered that I was not a hacker but an evil schoolboy who could not handle one thing and understand it properly. Every time I started something, I was interrupted by questions like: 1) What if there would be more money in something else? 2) And if I teach, won't it become outdated? 3) Are you sure this is yours? When I turned off my "thought machine" and focused on one thing, real progress started. After working hard every day for a long time on one topic, I became a professional and got a stable job with good income. Most importantly, I did not get burnt out and truly loved my business. I went from being a food trainee to a senior level worker. I even worked as a technical director at one point. As a result, I started my own company on this topic. And all of this is not because of some secret or important information. It's because I decided to focus on one thing.
2024.03.20 18:50 Icy_Competition8947 Reworking Ayano (now in a dedicated post)
Following my post series on what I would change about Yandere Simulator, I have decided to continue my rewrite exercise by focusing on the major characters. According to the poll I made, it seems that you wanted me to fully develop my ideas on the 2 main characters first, either because you really liked what I had in mind for them in my rant-rewrite series, or because you have no idea what I'm talking about and just chose the most logical way to start (which seems way more probable). In either case, here is my reworked version of the player's avatar.
A yandere, by definition, is a character that acts sweet and lovely on the outside but is actually very possessive towards their crush and won't hesitate to become violent or even murderous to reach their end, blinded by love. Believe it or not, but love is a feeling. So why is the canon version of the protagonist, whose archetype is about being completely driven by their feelings, an emotionless shell? It makes no sense. Although my version of Ayano doesn't strictly follow the definition either, she at least stays truthful to the "emotion burst" aspect of the original archetype.
Since she was a child, Ayano had always felt overwhelmed by her emotions and feelings, resulting in extreme reactions, such as attacking her classmates out of spite, shutting herself in, acting paranoid, or even mutilating herself sometimes. Due to her behavior, she was always reminded by her parents that she had to restrain herself and stop making waves, and thus, now in high school, she has managed to appear completely stoic. Alas, suppressing your emotions for such a long time, especially for a teenager, is a very unhealthy habit, and thus it was prone to cause her worse problems later. Like many other people her age, Ayano has developed a crush on someone: a kind, studious, and cultivated schoolboy one year older than her. Once she realized she was experiencing love, something snapped in her. All her life, she had been told that her emotions would be a burden, yet at that moment she was experiencing the best thing she had ever felt. She slowly started to change back to her former self, when she didn't have to conceal everything she felt. Now that her thoughts are even more unhinged than before, she will do whatever it takes to keep the boy she loves, the source itself of those feelings, close to her, even if that means she might have to kill whoever stands between them.
As a direct consequence of Ayano's rewrite, you would also have to manage your mental state much more actively. Sorry guys, but simply giggling won't be enough this time. In my hypothetical version of the game, this mechanic would be a little more complex. Basically, you have 2 meters: the regular sanity meter that stays mostly the same as in canon, and an "obsession meter" (since I can't think of a better name) that evolves much slower than the former and would take at least several days to have a significant impact. The obsession meter increases when Ayano stays too peaceful regarding her elimination methods. When your obsession is too high, your sanity will start to gradually decrease. You can decrease your obsession the healthy way by simply behaving like an ordinary student and taking time to study, practice your hobby, having a good time with your friends so that you can canalize your emotions and think about something else than murder. Obviously, as the game progresses and the rivals keep arriving, decreasing your meter this way will become less effective since Ayano will be constantly reminded that she has a crush who is approached by romantic threats. You would thus have to dedicate increasingly longer sessions to those healthy activities, which means increasingly less time to prepare eliminations. Or you could also give yourself up to your violent instincts and kill or torture someone, which decreases the meter much quicker, but makes your sanity drop as well, in addition to the usual risks you are exposed to when choosing to do so. Itâs up to you. Just like the official game, when your sanity meter is too low, Ayano will start to become delusional and less collected, resulting in messier eliminations and an appearance that progressively shows her insane nature to the other characters. I would personally take this delusion concept a step further by adding alternative dialogs and cutscenes for some events that would play when your sanity is too low or your obsession too high, as a representation of Ayanoâs hallucinations, and even moments when she would snap out, ignore the playerâs control, and do actions by herself. Just cranking up the mental instability portraying a bit.
Since my take on the game puts more accent on social interactions than the original, I would also like the player to be able to do activities during the weekend. You could gather resources for your eliminations, hang out with your friends, stay at home studying, or exploring various places, including your house (who knows what you might find?). Come on dev, this is such a no-brainer idea to add interesting variety to the gameplay. Iâm not even the first one to come up with it.
Senpai
Well, obviously, he's the main goal of the game. Ayano has grown strong feelings for him since the day she met him, and has sworn to do anything necessary to make him hers. To get rid of a pace-breaking and unrealistic behavior, as well as letting her have normal interactions with him, and because that idea was just dumb to begin with, my version of Ayano would not immediately get flustered when approaching him. Nothing much to change otherwise.
Her parents
Ayano was at first resentful towards them when they told her to conceal her feelings, but nowadays, she feels quite indifferent, due to having come to understand that they meant well, and because she is too focused on her love to care anyway. From the two, her father was the one who showed the most concern about her emotional state. Obviously, like their canon counterpart, I would like to develop an interesting an interesting backstory and couple dynamic, but in order to do that, I would have to rewrite the mess that is the Aishi family lore, which is a considerable amount of work that is currently pretty low in my priorities.
Edit: fixed formatting and some grammatical errors
submitted by Icy_Competition8947 to Osana [link] [comments]
The lovestruck student: Ayano Aishi (æćż ç¶Ÿäč)
The kanjis I chose to write her name are directly taken from those propositions originally posted on the main subreddit. As they said, Ayano Aishi is a name that stands out in a good way, and thus doesn't really need a change. Her family name, Aishi, has an uncommon spelling, using æ, which means "love", and ćż, which means "purpose" or "ambition", and that fits her yandere role perfectly.A yandere, by definition, is a character that acts sweet and lovely on the outside but is actually very possessive towards their crush and won't hesitate to become violent or even murderous to reach their end, blinded by love. Believe it or not, but love is a feeling. So why is the canon version of the protagonist, whose archetype is about being completely driven by their feelings, an emotionless shell? It makes no sense. Although my version of Ayano doesn't strictly follow the definition either, she at least stays truthful to the "emotion burst" aspect of the original archetype.
Since she was a child, Ayano had always felt overwhelmed by her emotions and feelings, resulting in extreme reactions, such as attacking her classmates out of spite, shutting herself in, acting paranoid, or even mutilating herself sometimes. Due to her behavior, she was always reminded by her parents that she had to restrain herself and stop making waves, and thus, now in high school, she has managed to appear completely stoic. Alas, suppressing your emotions for such a long time, especially for a teenager, is a very unhealthy habit, and thus it was prone to cause her worse problems later. Like many other people her age, Ayano has developed a crush on someone: a kind, studious, and cultivated schoolboy one year older than her. Once she realized she was experiencing love, something snapped in her. All her life, she had been told that her emotions would be a burden, yet at that moment she was experiencing the best thing she had ever felt. She slowly started to change back to her former self, when she didn't have to conceal everything she felt. Now that her thoughts are even more unhinged than before, she will do whatever it takes to keep the boy she loves, the source itself of those feelings, close to her, even if that means she might have to kill whoever stands between them.
Gameplay role
Since she is the protagonist, her role in the game will be to be an avatar that the player can control to interact with the game. Groundbreaking, isn't it? I bet you would've never guessed. Ok, more seriously, I've already talked about what bothers me in the game before, but since you've all got better things to do than reading a boring old post, here's a synthesis: I think the main problem with the game is that it feels way too similar to Hitman, minus the setting. The most efficient and funniest elimination method by far is straight murder, which makes sense in a game setting where you're playing as a trained assassin with believable access to many resources, but not so much when your character is an ordinary schoolgirl. If I had to remake the game, I would create a more grounded setting where it would be much harder for Ayano to have access to the necessary tools to kill her rivals and dispose of their bodies, and thus giving more gameplay relevance to the social aspect of the game. Talking to other characters and attending classes would be nearly as important as planning your next elimination, as it would be your most reliable way of getting the necessary tools and/or support to achieve your romantic goal. Thatâs why interactions with other students (at least the important ones) would be a little bit more organic than some generic fetch quests, which would help to both give more depth to the gameplay and flesh out those NPCs. That means being able to hang out with them at various moments of the week so that you could befriend them more naturally. For Godâs sake, youâre playing as a high school student. You should be able to act like one. Some of you might think that spending time doing ordinary stuff would just kill the pace of the game and make it more boring, but I personally think this would be much more interesting than simply getting the tool you need for the murder, standing at the right place, and skipping time till the right moment. Donât get the wrong idea, the main goal of the game will still be the same: eliminate your rivals and confess to your Senpai at the end. You will just have to be a bit cleverer than in the official game to do so.As a direct consequence of Ayano's rewrite, you would also have to manage your mental state much more actively. Sorry guys, but simply giggling won't be enough this time. In my hypothetical version of the game, this mechanic would be a little more complex. Basically, you have 2 meters: the regular sanity meter that stays mostly the same as in canon, and an "obsession meter" (since I can't think of a better name) that evolves much slower than the former and would take at least several days to have a significant impact. The obsession meter increases when Ayano stays too peaceful regarding her elimination methods. When your obsession is too high, your sanity will start to gradually decrease. You can decrease your obsession the healthy way by simply behaving like an ordinary student and taking time to study, practice your hobby, having a good time with your friends so that you can canalize your emotions and think about something else than murder. Obviously, as the game progresses and the rivals keep arriving, decreasing your meter this way will become less effective since Ayano will be constantly reminded that she has a crush who is approached by romantic threats. You would thus have to dedicate increasingly longer sessions to those healthy activities, which means increasingly less time to prepare eliminations. Or you could also give yourself up to your violent instincts and kill or torture someone, which decreases the meter much quicker, but makes your sanity drop as well, in addition to the usual risks you are exposed to when choosing to do so. Itâs up to you. Just like the official game, when your sanity meter is too low, Ayano will start to become delusional and less collected, resulting in messier eliminations and an appearance that progressively shows her insane nature to the other characters. I would personally take this delusion concept a step further by adding alternative dialogs and cutscenes for some events that would play when your sanity is too low or your obsession too high, as a representation of Ayanoâs hallucinations, and even moments when she would snap out, ignore the playerâs control, and do actions by herself. Just cranking up the mental instability portraying a bit.
Since my take on the game puts more accent on social interactions than the original, I would also like the player to be able to do activities during the weekend. You could gather resources for your eliminations, hang out with your friends, stay at home studying, or exploring various places, including your house (who knows what you might find?). Come on dev, this is such a no-brainer idea to add interesting variety to the gameplay. Iâm not even the first one to come up with it.
Relationships with other characters
Due to her former distant behavior, Ayano doesnât have any real acquaintances at school. Most of her affinities with other characters will thus depend on the player's choices during the game. However, there are a couple of characters she would most likely feel the same about, regardless of what you do:Senpai
Well, obviously, he's the main goal of the game. Ayano has grown strong feelings for him since the day she met him, and has sworn to do anything necessary to make him hers. To get rid of a pace-breaking and unrealistic behavior, as well as letting her have normal interactions with him, and because that idea was just dumb to begin with, my version of Ayano would not immediately get flustered when approaching him. Nothing much to change otherwise.
Her parents
Ayano was at first resentful towards them when they told her to conceal her feelings, but nowadays, she feels quite indifferent, due to having come to understand that they meant well, and because she is too focused on her love to care anyway. From the two, her father was the one who showed the most concern about her emotional state. Obviously, like their canon counterpart, I would like to develop an interesting an interesting backstory and couple dynamic, but in order to do that, I would have to rewrite the mess that is the Aishi family lore, which is a considerable amount of work that is currently pretty low in my priorities.
Trivia
- You might have guessed, but Ayano really needs therapy. Why did her parents never bring her to a psychologist? Well, let's just say that her very persuasive mother sees absolutely nothing wrong with her despite all her outbursts.
- Itâs a good idea to give your character a well-defined hobby that isnât related to their story role to flesh them out. Since I didnât really know what favorite activity my Ayano should have, it would be chosen by the player at the beginning of the game.
- Just like most girls, Ayano has a drawer full of perfectly ordinary panties that donât do anything special.
- Also, no more ridiculously huge skirt inventory. Hide your weapons somewhere else.
- I might consider introducing a former schoolmate of Ayano that got assaulted by her during their childhood depending on this rewriteâs direction.
Edit: fixed formatting and some grammatical errors
2024.03.18 15:50 boywithapplewatch Lolla?
 | Sooooo the Lolla lineup comes out tomorrow and a realistic looking lineup got leaked (itâs been called out as fake since) but what got me was the person including Ayesha on itâŠ. submitted by boywithapplewatch to AyeshaErotica [link] [comments] Thereâs no way this girl is doing a festival show right? I mean we will find out tomorrow but the moment I read her I saidâŠ. This ainât real. |
2024.03.04 17:04 Substantial-Luck-609 My Story of Her Affair
It's six months from Dday and I've never shared this story in detail, not with a family member or a friend, not even my psychiatrist got this much detail.
FYI - this is very long. No advice sought, just getting it off my chest.
It was the summer of 2012 and I was away from home driving a tractor-trailer over the road OTR (cross-country) while she was at home and working summer school. I hated being away from her and my family but needed this job to provide for my family. I would call her several times a day just to hear her voice and tell her how much I missed her.
In July 2012 she had started the extended school year (ESY) and was assigned a new teacher. The teacher was a younger (29) male and she said he was good-looking. She of course never told me this but during discovery, she said this. She said she was impressed by the new teacher's passion for the special needs kids in her class. This was something that she was passionate about as well.
She said that as they worked together he would pass compliments to her about her looking nice or doing something new to her hair. She admitted that she welcomed the compliments and enjoyed them. This puzzled me because I constantly gave her compliments on her looks, especially her hair. They ended up working closely during the ESY and then school was finished until September.
I finished my OTR assignment and was stationed close to home on a dedicated route. This meant I would go out daily and be home at night. While I was home, our relationship seemed normal to me. We had our petty disagreements but we also had our moments of love and even frequent sex. I had no idea she had formed this relationship with the new teacher (Shitbag). She never offered any information about her work even when I would inquire about her class assignment.
September came and she returned to school and within a week my youngest sister died. I quit the trucking job and took some time off to clear my head and grieve the loss of my sister. Then in early October, I took a job out of state as a crane operator. I didn't want to go or take the job but financially it was the right thing to do, so I thought. I packed up my car and told my family goodbye and let my wife know how much I hated leaving her. Then off to Texas, I went.
So while I was away working, she was developing a closer relationship with Shitbag. She said they were friends and she felt like she could talk to him and confide in him about her personal life. They eventually would meet at the park and talk while she pushed my granddaughter around in the stroller. As time passed and October turned to November her relationship with Shitbag became sexual. They were in the classroom one day and he said to her âWe should kissâ and so she did. Just like that, with no thought of her marriage vows, no thought of her husband, and no fear of getting caught in school.
The kiss led to the two of them making plans to meet in the mall parking lot after work one day. She said they met and then they had sex in the car while parked in a public lot. She said shortly after this, they then met again in the hospital parking lot which was adjacent to her school. The events after this have not been clear, even though I've asked numerous times. All I know is that she said they would have sex (she says oral but we know that's a lie) in the classroom after school. She said they would lock the classroom door and then spend 15 minutes having sex. She said she would then leave and go home only arriving shortly after her normal arrival time. This helped eliminate any questions from our two daughters who were still at home.
This scenario continued until I came home in late November for the Thanksgiving holiday. She swears that she never saw him sexually while I was back in town. While I was home, we had our normal relationship including the daily âI love youâsâ and the sex. The sex was remembered because I had been away and was so excited to be with her again. After the holiday, I left and returned to Texas. She continued to see Shitbag and have sex after school. This continued until late December when I came home for the Christmas holidays.
Once I arrived back home for the Christmas holidays she again swears that she never had sexual contact with him while I was in town. I was oblivious to any danger to our relationship and had no thought of her being unfaithful to me. While home, we again had (what I thought to be) our normal relationship. With plenty of affection and telling me how she missed me while I was gone. We also had our disagreements and moments of discontent with each other. Which to me was normal for us. I made love to her frequently while I was home and ensured she was pleased as well. We took pictures together smiling happily. We went out together and even attended a New Year's Eve party at one of her co-workers' apartments. I took several pictures of her smiling and looking like she was having a good time. At no point did I suspect that she was screwing another man while I was away.
After the holidays, I returned to Texas to continue the job. While away I called her daily and told her how much I loved her and how deeply I missed her. She always responded in kind to my comments. She never said she wasn't happy or she had found herself attracted to another man. Just the opposite⊠she would tell me she missed me and would ask when the job was going to be through. I continued to work in Texas until early spring (April). Not coming home once after the Christmas holidays. Once the job was through and I returned home in the beginning of April she again swears that she had no sexual contact with Shitbag while I was home.
I hated being away from my family so I decided to find local crane work. I took a job with a construction company in the local area. This new job allowed me to be home every night and on weekends. While I was home, we had our arguments about normal stuff but mostly about my drinking. I was going on and off my mental health medication and also self-medicating with alcohol. My mental health medications were being changed and adjusted as the doctor was trying to find the right medicine for my issues. The drinking and the lack of a continuous medication (Daily) regime contributed greatly to my poor mental health. This resulted in more frequent arguments between her and I. I was angry at myself and didn't like who I was but couldn't find the right way to emotionally deal with it. I was argumentative and mean to my wife at times. At other times I was the normal loving and caring husband that she deserved.
This became our normal cycle after a while. I wish it hadn't been that way but it's the truth. Meanwhile, she continued her job at school and still maintained a working relationship with Shitbag and they didn't have any sexual contact. It's still not clear whether or not the Emotional Affair was still active at this point. During the 2013 ESY, Shitbag would periodically ask her to âTake a rideâ after school. The purpose of the ârideâ was so he could have sex with my wife. He couldn't use the classroom because ESY was in a different school. She says she always said, âNo, my husband's homeâ. Again, she swears that she never had any sexual contact with him while I was home. She should have given a better reason for her denial⊠like, No, Iâm married and can't do that anymore or No, leave me alone Iâm married. But no, she led him to believe it was strictly a no because I was in town. So if I was out of town what would the answer have been?
My local job was finished at the beginning of fall (October) and financially I needed to work. I had been home in April, May, June, July, August, September and most of October at this point (Seven Months). Then I took another crane job out of state. This time the job was in Louisiana and was set to be four months. I hated to leave my family, to leave her, and be away from the people that I loved. Nonetheless, the time came for me to leave again and I left. This time I was gone November,
December, January, and February. I came home for a few days for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Again, while home, we had our normal relationship with the hugs and kisses and smiles of âI love youâ. Holding hands while going out to dinner and giving her compliments as usual. Not at any point did she display that she had been or was interested in another man. According to her recollection, the affair fizzled out sometime during the first period I was home for seven months.
Again, while I was away, we had daily phone calls and text messages. I even found some âI love youâ notes she packed away in my suitcase. I just remember hating each day I was away. Away from her, away from my kids and granddaughter. At times it was almost unbearable but I knew I had to stick it out for my family. While I was away we didn't argue much. For the most part, I was content in my marriage during this period.
At the end of February when the job was over I went home for a week and then took a crane job not far from home but far enough to require me to be away in a hotel again. Given the fact that the new job location wasn't too far, I asked her to come stay in the hotel with me for a day and night. She came and we had a great time. We talked and held each other and had passionate sex. When the time came for her to leave and go back home I was crushed. She again left me little love notes (That I still have today) and told me how much she loved me. I still remember this like it was yesterday. Again, she says during this period and the second period I was gone, the affair was over.
In March of 2014, I took another local crane job and was once again at home. She continued her job in the school and still saw Shitbag daily in class while I was away. But she says the affair had ended before I left town back in October of 2013. She seems to be unclear about this but when asked if she had sex with him anymore after my seven-month stay at home in 2013 she said âNoâ. I continued to work locally for the next seven months of 2014. She says Shitbag left the school in July of 2014 and she hasn't seen or talked to him since.
This guy was married and he even admitted to her when his wife became pregnant around November of 2013. She knowingly had sex with a married man with no regard for her vows to her husband or the damage she could be causing to his marriage and innocent wife. They both displayed a blatant disregard for anyone other than themselves and their desire for self-gratification. The most hurtful part of this is how she âactedâ like we had a good marriage and she loved me. The whole time she did this, she was having sex with that shitbag, that hurts. How could she mislead me so blatantly and have such a disregard for my feelings? How could she risk our marriage, our family, and even her job over this guy? How was she able to look me in the eye and tell me she loved me or missed me? How was she able to perform so well sexually with me after having recently been with him? What type of person can do this? Why did she choose a guy 16 years younger than herself?
When I discovered this at the end of August 2023 I was devastated. She had lied to me all those years that had passed. Even during discovery, she continued to lie. First, she said it was just a kiss and then she shut it down, LIE. She said they had intercourse ONE TIME and that was it, LIE. Then she said they only had finger play and handjobs in the classroom, LIE. Later she says it was all only oral sex in the classroom (I don't believe this either). Later she admits to having car parking lot sex one more time with him and she had forgotten about it. A physical affair is pretty significant and you don't forget having sex in a car while cheating on your husband. She denies ever having feelings for him but I know her well enough to know that she had some type of emotional connection to this shitbag. Someone just doesn't have sex with another person multiple times for five months without having some feelings.
Her deceitfulness of leading me to believe that she loved me and missed me while she was screwing him hurts so deeply. But her years of lies and continued lies after discovery are severely damaging to me as well. I have been ripped to shreds and am living in a hellish nightmare it seems. But it's not a nightmare, it's real, it happened and is still happening (the lies). Nothing in my life has ever hurt as bad as this. Iâve lost both of my parents, my little sister, and a brother and none of that pain or grief is even close to what I feel over this affair. Nobody has ever hurt me like this before. The one person that I trusted and loved the most is the one who has hurt me the most. The pain was all new to me and the emotional rollercoaster has been hard to navigate.
Honestly, in the beginning of discovery, I wanted to die. I wanted the hurt and the physical pain to just stop. My mind was a complete disaster and my mental health was suffering to say the least. One day after I learned of the car sex, I went upstairs and took every sleeping pill that I had in my medicines. I then laid on the bed and waited to fall asleep and hopefully never wake up. Obviously, it didn't work because here I am writing this. I had some violent shaking and disorientation but no never-ending sleep. I knew my mental health was in a dangerous state and after deep thought I realized I didn't want to leave her or my family. So I began to seek mental health support by calling the Veterans Crisis line.
A two-hour conversation on the crisis line and a future appointment for therapy seemed to help give me some hope. I contacted a psychiatrist and made a prompt appointment. I began to read articles on how to navigate a betrayal such as this. I felt this was detrimental to my living or not. I sought mental health care and it pulled me from my suicidal ideation. However, I was still an emotional basket case 24 hours a day.
I began praying and reading the bible for support and comfort. I gave a lot of thought to whether I wanted to stay married to someone like this or not. My mind was filled with all the hurtful things she did to me in order to have her affair. I began to think of all the hurtful and damaging things I had done to her or said to her. Memories of the affair period filled my head. Images and videos of her telling me how much she loved me or missed me would play out in my mind. These images would then be followed by images of her and the shitbag having sex or even kissing. The pain was so great I wanted to die again but I kept my faith in prayer and continued mental health support.
I concluded that she was a different person today than she was during the affair. Our relationship was different as well. We were in love with each other and we both knew it. I struggled at first with the idea of forgiveness but once I realized that I loved her unconditionally, I chose to forgive her. I chose to release her from the consequences of her hurtful actions to me. But forgiving her didn't wipe the images and thoughts from my mind. I now felt like I should focus on whether or not I should leave the relationship.
I thought of all the good times and memories we had together and I thought of all the pain I put her through. I wasn't justifying her actions but merely trying to recall the positives of our relationship. I knew I loved her endlessly and that I would be in pain without her. I knew then that I wanted the relationship to work. I still struggled with the images and thoughts each time I considered staying with her. After some deep thought and some time, I decided to work through this travesty and maintain our marriage. After disclosing this to her, I would still struggle as to whether or not I had made the right decision.
I began to seek comfort from her. I would simply want her touch to make me feel better. She would smile at me and take me from a severely depressed state to contentment. I sought refuge in the one person who had hurt me more than anyone or anything else in my life. I had conflicting thoughts on this. How could I ever trust this person again? How do I know their love for me is real and not just words? Will I ever be able to look at her the same way that I used to? If not, how can I have a relationship with all these uncertainties? The questions just kept coming to mind, one after another. This became a new battle for me to deal with. I just kept sharing my thoughts and innermost feelings with her and kept praying that I was doing the right thing.
I decided to stand firm on my decision to stay in the relationship. I needed advice or answers on how to repair the damage and how to reconnect with my wayward wife. I read numerous articles and even took an online course for affair recovery. The information I gained was helping me understand and navigate this difficult situation. I read books on how to heal or how to realize how the affair possibly could have started. I began to focus on reconciliation. The information available was overwhelming. But I committed the time and effort into my endeavor. As time slowly passed, I could see the healing taking place little by little. There would be days that were unbearable to get through but I kept on reading and acting upon my newfound information. I began to be hopeful that we would have our relationship back to where it was or better.
During this period, I had an immense feeling of love for her. It felt like I was in love with her again for the first time. All I thought about was her, all I wanted was to be next to her, to hold her hand or simply gaze into her eyes. I remember thinking, âWow, this is what real love feels likeâ. I was wanting the same from her but didn't feel like my love was being reciprocated. This left me confused and wondering. How could she not love me after what I just did? I just gave her the gift of forgiveness and chose to stay with her when almost everything was saying to leave the relationship. Does she not love me as much as I love her? I was stuck on this thought.
I began to write her letters, almost daily. Letters describing my deep love for her. Letters describing how I forgave her for what she did to us. I even wrote her a story of the first time we met up to the point of our first kiss. I was desperate to show her how serious my love was for her. I probably looked like a fool or a schoolboy by all my efforts to woo her.
I did an exercise with her to find each other's love language. I learned that everything I did to show my love for her was nice but it wasn't speaking in her specific love language. She views love as me doing acts of service for her. Washing the dishes, cooking dinner, vacuuming the floors, or unloading the dishwasher were acts that showed her I loved her. I took chores off her plate and she interpreted that as me showing her my love for her. On the flip side, my love language was mostly physical touch or affection. This new revelation was vital to me expressing my love for her.
As time passed, we became closer through our signs of love and intimate conversations again. I felt empowered learning this new information. I kept telling myself that I was ready to reengage in bedroom intimacy again. So we tried and I had several setbacks. The mind videos and intrusive thoughts made it almost impossible to touch her in any way sexually without thinking of her and him together. Once again the questions began to swirl in my mind. Did she do this with him? Did she make these noises with him? Is she being authentic right now or is she pretending for my sake? Does she even think Iâm attractive? The questions were almost endless. I had hit another roadblock.
Sex was vital, in my mind, to a healthy relationship. It allowed me to âconnectâ with her on a closer level and at times was almost a spiritual connection. I knew how much I desired her and how emphatically I enjoyed her touch. But the mind images kept preventing me from being able to perform. I would try and then want to cry right in the middle of it. I would then have to apologize to her for my failure. I felt like less of a man. My self-esteem was already at the zero level but now I was feeling less than zero. I felt, and still do, that she is not physically attracted to me. I see no desire from her to want to be with me physically. I take into consideration her current physical status of menopause and the decreased libido that accompanies it. But this hurdle is one of the most difficult ones to solve. How can I ever make love to my wife again while I have the images of that shitbag screwing my wife?
So that's my story of my wife's affair and how I am dealing with it. Did I deserve this hurt, the lies, and the betrayal? No one deserves this type of hurt from the one person they felt safe with, from the person they trusted with their thoughts and feelings, or from the one person in the world that you would never think of doing this to. Nothing in our or her past justifies what she did. She made the conscious decision to throw our marriage away and risk our family. This was all on her and I told her that.
I see guilt and shame on her face when we discuss this topic. It pains me to see her hurting, even though she created the hurt. I hurt for her even on top of my existing pain from her actions. I want all the hurt to go away. To go away from her, to go away from us, and to allow us to move forward. Iâve read that I need to grieve my old relationship and focus on a new one. Itâs extremely difficult to let go of all the years that she and I have had together, good and bad. Our relationship is supposed to start all over again and build trust and foster love and our connection to each other. I am trying my best to follow the steps of reconciliation. Sheâs trying too. I can see her efforts. However, at times I feel like she gets discouraged and then slacks off. I think she wants us to just move past the whole affair already. I get that too. I wish the whole thing was behind us and the thoughts and memories didn't exist today.
So where are we today in our relationship? I think we both still want the best outcome and are trying to achieve this. I see where we both have grown in this new relationship and I see areas weâve reconnected on as well. We are both seeking marriage counseling and support from therapy. We need to find the âWhyâ of the affair. I need to know the âHowâ of the affair. We are both looking for answers during our marriage counseling sessions.
Where do I see us in the future? I have faith that weâll work through this and come out better than before. I truly believe this is possible. I can see her attempts to rebuild trust again. Itâll take some time and serious work on her part but this too is possible.
How has this changed me? It destroyed my faith in her. It has caused me to withdraw from friends and family. Iâd just rather be alone most times. It has shamed me and emasculated me. I feel less of a man and inadequate to her. Iâve lost some of my self-respect and most of my self-esteem. Itâs made me open my eyes to the world of what is really out there in terms of selfishness. I knew people could be careless and hurtful but never once imagined my wife could do something so heinous. It completely changed the image I had of her. I now know what she's capable of. I had such a virtuous image of her that is forever tarnished. This event has taught me to renew my faith in God. I now know just how far hurt can go.
How do I feel after writing this? It feels like I got a lot of thoughts out of my mind. I actually feel better, like Iâve told someone my story and they can understand my feelings.
submitted by Substantial-Luck-609 to survivinginfidelity [link] [comments]
FYI - this is very long. No advice sought, just getting it off my chest.
It was the summer of 2012 and I was away from home driving a tractor-trailer over the road OTR (cross-country) while she was at home and working summer school. I hated being away from her and my family but needed this job to provide for my family. I would call her several times a day just to hear her voice and tell her how much I missed her.
In July 2012 she had started the extended school year (ESY) and was assigned a new teacher. The teacher was a younger (29) male and she said he was good-looking. She of course never told me this but during discovery, she said this. She said she was impressed by the new teacher's passion for the special needs kids in her class. This was something that she was passionate about as well.
She said that as they worked together he would pass compliments to her about her looking nice or doing something new to her hair. She admitted that she welcomed the compliments and enjoyed them. This puzzled me because I constantly gave her compliments on her looks, especially her hair. They ended up working closely during the ESY and then school was finished until September.
I finished my OTR assignment and was stationed close to home on a dedicated route. This meant I would go out daily and be home at night. While I was home, our relationship seemed normal to me. We had our petty disagreements but we also had our moments of love and even frequent sex. I had no idea she had formed this relationship with the new teacher (Shitbag). She never offered any information about her work even when I would inquire about her class assignment.
September came and she returned to school and within a week my youngest sister died. I quit the trucking job and took some time off to clear my head and grieve the loss of my sister. Then in early October, I took a job out of state as a crane operator. I didn't want to go or take the job but financially it was the right thing to do, so I thought. I packed up my car and told my family goodbye and let my wife know how much I hated leaving her. Then off to Texas, I went.
So while I was away working, she was developing a closer relationship with Shitbag. She said they were friends and she felt like she could talk to him and confide in him about her personal life. They eventually would meet at the park and talk while she pushed my granddaughter around in the stroller. As time passed and October turned to November her relationship with Shitbag became sexual. They were in the classroom one day and he said to her âWe should kissâ and so she did. Just like that, with no thought of her marriage vows, no thought of her husband, and no fear of getting caught in school.
The kiss led to the two of them making plans to meet in the mall parking lot after work one day. She said they met and then they had sex in the car while parked in a public lot. She said shortly after this, they then met again in the hospital parking lot which was adjacent to her school. The events after this have not been clear, even though I've asked numerous times. All I know is that she said they would have sex (she says oral but we know that's a lie) in the classroom after school. She said they would lock the classroom door and then spend 15 minutes having sex. She said she would then leave and go home only arriving shortly after her normal arrival time. This helped eliminate any questions from our two daughters who were still at home.
This scenario continued until I came home in late November for the Thanksgiving holiday. She swears that she never saw him sexually while I was back in town. While I was home, we had our normal relationship including the daily âI love youâsâ and the sex. The sex was remembered because I had been away and was so excited to be with her again. After the holiday, I left and returned to Texas. She continued to see Shitbag and have sex after school. This continued until late December when I came home for the Christmas holidays.
Once I arrived back home for the Christmas holidays she again swears that she never had sexual contact with him while I was in town. I was oblivious to any danger to our relationship and had no thought of her being unfaithful to me. While home, we again had (what I thought to be) our normal relationship. With plenty of affection and telling me how she missed me while I was gone. We also had our disagreements and moments of discontent with each other. Which to me was normal for us. I made love to her frequently while I was home and ensured she was pleased as well. We took pictures together smiling happily. We went out together and even attended a New Year's Eve party at one of her co-workers' apartments. I took several pictures of her smiling and looking like she was having a good time. At no point did I suspect that she was screwing another man while I was away.
After the holidays, I returned to Texas to continue the job. While away I called her daily and told her how much I loved her and how deeply I missed her. She always responded in kind to my comments. She never said she wasn't happy or she had found herself attracted to another man. Just the opposite⊠she would tell me she missed me and would ask when the job was going to be through. I continued to work in Texas until early spring (April). Not coming home once after the Christmas holidays. Once the job was through and I returned home in the beginning of April she again swears that she had no sexual contact with Shitbag while I was home.
I hated being away from my family so I decided to find local crane work. I took a job with a construction company in the local area. This new job allowed me to be home every night and on weekends. While I was home, we had our arguments about normal stuff but mostly about my drinking. I was going on and off my mental health medication and also self-medicating with alcohol. My mental health medications were being changed and adjusted as the doctor was trying to find the right medicine for my issues. The drinking and the lack of a continuous medication (Daily) regime contributed greatly to my poor mental health. This resulted in more frequent arguments between her and I. I was angry at myself and didn't like who I was but couldn't find the right way to emotionally deal with it. I was argumentative and mean to my wife at times. At other times I was the normal loving and caring husband that she deserved.
This became our normal cycle after a while. I wish it hadn't been that way but it's the truth. Meanwhile, she continued her job at school and still maintained a working relationship with Shitbag and they didn't have any sexual contact. It's still not clear whether or not the Emotional Affair was still active at this point. During the 2013 ESY, Shitbag would periodically ask her to âTake a rideâ after school. The purpose of the ârideâ was so he could have sex with my wife. He couldn't use the classroom because ESY was in a different school. She says she always said, âNo, my husband's homeâ. Again, she swears that she never had any sexual contact with him while I was home. She should have given a better reason for her denial⊠like, No, Iâm married and can't do that anymore or No, leave me alone Iâm married. But no, she led him to believe it was strictly a no because I was in town. So if I was out of town what would the answer have been?
My local job was finished at the beginning of fall (October) and financially I needed to work. I had been home in April, May, June, July, August, September and most of October at this point (Seven Months). Then I took another crane job out of state. This time the job was in Louisiana and was set to be four months. I hated to leave my family, to leave her, and be away from the people that I loved. Nonetheless, the time came for me to leave again and I left. This time I was gone November,
December, January, and February. I came home for a few days for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Again, while home, we had our normal relationship with the hugs and kisses and smiles of âI love youâ. Holding hands while going out to dinner and giving her compliments as usual. Not at any point did she display that she had been or was interested in another man. According to her recollection, the affair fizzled out sometime during the first period I was home for seven months.
Again, while I was away, we had daily phone calls and text messages. I even found some âI love youâ notes she packed away in my suitcase. I just remember hating each day I was away. Away from her, away from my kids and granddaughter. At times it was almost unbearable but I knew I had to stick it out for my family. While I was away we didn't argue much. For the most part, I was content in my marriage during this period.
At the end of February when the job was over I went home for a week and then took a crane job not far from home but far enough to require me to be away in a hotel again. Given the fact that the new job location wasn't too far, I asked her to come stay in the hotel with me for a day and night. She came and we had a great time. We talked and held each other and had passionate sex. When the time came for her to leave and go back home I was crushed. She again left me little love notes (That I still have today) and told me how much she loved me. I still remember this like it was yesterday. Again, she says during this period and the second period I was gone, the affair was over.
In March of 2014, I took another local crane job and was once again at home. She continued her job in the school and still saw Shitbag daily in class while I was away. But she says the affair had ended before I left town back in October of 2013. She seems to be unclear about this but when asked if she had sex with him anymore after my seven-month stay at home in 2013 she said âNoâ. I continued to work locally for the next seven months of 2014. She says Shitbag left the school in July of 2014 and she hasn't seen or talked to him since.
This guy was married and he even admitted to her when his wife became pregnant around November of 2013. She knowingly had sex with a married man with no regard for her vows to her husband or the damage she could be causing to his marriage and innocent wife. They both displayed a blatant disregard for anyone other than themselves and their desire for self-gratification. The most hurtful part of this is how she âactedâ like we had a good marriage and she loved me. The whole time she did this, she was having sex with that shitbag, that hurts. How could she mislead me so blatantly and have such a disregard for my feelings? How could she risk our marriage, our family, and even her job over this guy? How was she able to look me in the eye and tell me she loved me or missed me? How was she able to perform so well sexually with me after having recently been with him? What type of person can do this? Why did she choose a guy 16 years younger than herself?
When I discovered this at the end of August 2023 I was devastated. She had lied to me all those years that had passed. Even during discovery, she continued to lie. First, she said it was just a kiss and then she shut it down, LIE. She said they had intercourse ONE TIME and that was it, LIE. Then she said they only had finger play and handjobs in the classroom, LIE. Later she says it was all only oral sex in the classroom (I don't believe this either). Later she admits to having car parking lot sex one more time with him and she had forgotten about it. A physical affair is pretty significant and you don't forget having sex in a car while cheating on your husband. She denies ever having feelings for him but I know her well enough to know that she had some type of emotional connection to this shitbag. Someone just doesn't have sex with another person multiple times for five months without having some feelings.
Her deceitfulness of leading me to believe that she loved me and missed me while she was screwing him hurts so deeply. But her years of lies and continued lies after discovery are severely damaging to me as well. I have been ripped to shreds and am living in a hellish nightmare it seems. But it's not a nightmare, it's real, it happened and is still happening (the lies). Nothing in my life has ever hurt as bad as this. Iâve lost both of my parents, my little sister, and a brother and none of that pain or grief is even close to what I feel over this affair. Nobody has ever hurt me like this before. The one person that I trusted and loved the most is the one who has hurt me the most. The pain was all new to me and the emotional rollercoaster has been hard to navigate.
Honestly, in the beginning of discovery, I wanted to die. I wanted the hurt and the physical pain to just stop. My mind was a complete disaster and my mental health was suffering to say the least. One day after I learned of the car sex, I went upstairs and took every sleeping pill that I had in my medicines. I then laid on the bed and waited to fall asleep and hopefully never wake up. Obviously, it didn't work because here I am writing this. I had some violent shaking and disorientation but no never-ending sleep. I knew my mental health was in a dangerous state and after deep thought I realized I didn't want to leave her or my family. So I began to seek mental health support by calling the Veterans Crisis line.
A two-hour conversation on the crisis line and a future appointment for therapy seemed to help give me some hope. I contacted a psychiatrist and made a prompt appointment. I began to read articles on how to navigate a betrayal such as this. I felt this was detrimental to my living or not. I sought mental health care and it pulled me from my suicidal ideation. However, I was still an emotional basket case 24 hours a day.
I began praying and reading the bible for support and comfort. I gave a lot of thought to whether I wanted to stay married to someone like this or not. My mind was filled with all the hurtful things she did to me in order to have her affair. I began to think of all the hurtful and damaging things I had done to her or said to her. Memories of the affair period filled my head. Images and videos of her telling me how much she loved me or missed me would play out in my mind. These images would then be followed by images of her and the shitbag having sex or even kissing. The pain was so great I wanted to die again but I kept my faith in prayer and continued mental health support.
I concluded that she was a different person today than she was during the affair. Our relationship was different as well. We were in love with each other and we both knew it. I struggled at first with the idea of forgiveness but once I realized that I loved her unconditionally, I chose to forgive her. I chose to release her from the consequences of her hurtful actions to me. But forgiving her didn't wipe the images and thoughts from my mind. I now felt like I should focus on whether or not I should leave the relationship.
I thought of all the good times and memories we had together and I thought of all the pain I put her through. I wasn't justifying her actions but merely trying to recall the positives of our relationship. I knew I loved her endlessly and that I would be in pain without her. I knew then that I wanted the relationship to work. I still struggled with the images and thoughts each time I considered staying with her. After some deep thought and some time, I decided to work through this travesty and maintain our marriage. After disclosing this to her, I would still struggle as to whether or not I had made the right decision.
I began to seek comfort from her. I would simply want her touch to make me feel better. She would smile at me and take me from a severely depressed state to contentment. I sought refuge in the one person who had hurt me more than anyone or anything else in my life. I had conflicting thoughts on this. How could I ever trust this person again? How do I know their love for me is real and not just words? Will I ever be able to look at her the same way that I used to? If not, how can I have a relationship with all these uncertainties? The questions just kept coming to mind, one after another. This became a new battle for me to deal with. I just kept sharing my thoughts and innermost feelings with her and kept praying that I was doing the right thing.
I decided to stand firm on my decision to stay in the relationship. I needed advice or answers on how to repair the damage and how to reconnect with my wayward wife. I read numerous articles and even took an online course for affair recovery. The information I gained was helping me understand and navigate this difficult situation. I read books on how to heal or how to realize how the affair possibly could have started. I began to focus on reconciliation. The information available was overwhelming. But I committed the time and effort into my endeavor. As time slowly passed, I could see the healing taking place little by little. There would be days that were unbearable to get through but I kept on reading and acting upon my newfound information. I began to be hopeful that we would have our relationship back to where it was or better.
During this period, I had an immense feeling of love for her. It felt like I was in love with her again for the first time. All I thought about was her, all I wanted was to be next to her, to hold her hand or simply gaze into her eyes. I remember thinking, âWow, this is what real love feels likeâ. I was wanting the same from her but didn't feel like my love was being reciprocated. This left me confused and wondering. How could she not love me after what I just did? I just gave her the gift of forgiveness and chose to stay with her when almost everything was saying to leave the relationship. Does she not love me as much as I love her? I was stuck on this thought.
I began to write her letters, almost daily. Letters describing my deep love for her. Letters describing how I forgave her for what she did to us. I even wrote her a story of the first time we met up to the point of our first kiss. I was desperate to show her how serious my love was for her. I probably looked like a fool or a schoolboy by all my efforts to woo her.
I did an exercise with her to find each other's love language. I learned that everything I did to show my love for her was nice but it wasn't speaking in her specific love language. She views love as me doing acts of service for her. Washing the dishes, cooking dinner, vacuuming the floors, or unloading the dishwasher were acts that showed her I loved her. I took chores off her plate and she interpreted that as me showing her my love for her. On the flip side, my love language was mostly physical touch or affection. This new revelation was vital to me expressing my love for her.
As time passed, we became closer through our signs of love and intimate conversations again. I felt empowered learning this new information. I kept telling myself that I was ready to reengage in bedroom intimacy again. So we tried and I had several setbacks. The mind videos and intrusive thoughts made it almost impossible to touch her in any way sexually without thinking of her and him together. Once again the questions began to swirl in my mind. Did she do this with him? Did she make these noises with him? Is she being authentic right now or is she pretending for my sake? Does she even think Iâm attractive? The questions were almost endless. I had hit another roadblock.
Sex was vital, in my mind, to a healthy relationship. It allowed me to âconnectâ with her on a closer level and at times was almost a spiritual connection. I knew how much I desired her and how emphatically I enjoyed her touch. But the mind images kept preventing me from being able to perform. I would try and then want to cry right in the middle of it. I would then have to apologize to her for my failure. I felt like less of a man. My self-esteem was already at the zero level but now I was feeling less than zero. I felt, and still do, that she is not physically attracted to me. I see no desire from her to want to be with me physically. I take into consideration her current physical status of menopause and the decreased libido that accompanies it. But this hurdle is one of the most difficult ones to solve. How can I ever make love to my wife again while I have the images of that shitbag screwing my wife?
So that's my story of my wife's affair and how I am dealing with it. Did I deserve this hurt, the lies, and the betrayal? No one deserves this type of hurt from the one person they felt safe with, from the person they trusted with their thoughts and feelings, or from the one person in the world that you would never think of doing this to. Nothing in our or her past justifies what she did. She made the conscious decision to throw our marriage away and risk our family. This was all on her and I told her that.
I see guilt and shame on her face when we discuss this topic. It pains me to see her hurting, even though she created the hurt. I hurt for her even on top of my existing pain from her actions. I want all the hurt to go away. To go away from her, to go away from us, and to allow us to move forward. Iâve read that I need to grieve my old relationship and focus on a new one. Itâs extremely difficult to let go of all the years that she and I have had together, good and bad. Our relationship is supposed to start all over again and build trust and foster love and our connection to each other. I am trying my best to follow the steps of reconciliation. Sheâs trying too. I can see her efforts. However, at times I feel like she gets discouraged and then slacks off. I think she wants us to just move past the whole affair already. I get that too. I wish the whole thing was behind us and the thoughts and memories didn't exist today.
So where are we today in our relationship? I think we both still want the best outcome and are trying to achieve this. I see where we both have grown in this new relationship and I see areas weâve reconnected on as well. We are both seeking marriage counseling and support from therapy. We need to find the âWhyâ of the affair. I need to know the âHowâ of the affair. We are both looking for answers during our marriage counseling sessions.
Where do I see us in the future? I have faith that weâll work through this and come out better than before. I truly believe this is possible. I can see her attempts to rebuild trust again. Itâll take some time and serious work on her part but this too is possible.
How has this changed me? It destroyed my faith in her. It has caused me to withdraw from friends and family. Iâd just rather be alone most times. It has shamed me and emasculated me. I feel less of a man and inadequate to her. Iâve lost some of my self-respect and most of my self-esteem. Itâs made me open my eyes to the world of what is really out there in terms of selfishness. I knew people could be careless and hurtful but never once imagined my wife could do something so heinous. It completely changed the image I had of her. I now know what she's capable of. I had such a virtuous image of her that is forever tarnished. This event has taught me to renew my faith in God. I now know just how far hurt can go.
How do I feel after writing this? It feels like I got a lot of thoughts out of my mind. I actually feel better, like Iâve told someone my story and they can understand my feelings.
2024.02.09 17:59 BORU_Lover AITAH for screaming at my wife that I didn't make our 4yo a sociopath.
Brigading is against the rules and is likely to get you banned from the parent subs as well as BORU. Do not message OOP, like or comment on any of the original posts or comments. There is a 7 day waiting period before posts can be shared here, meaning your brigading will be obvious.
These are not my posts. OOP is u/kramuz.Trigger warning: admission of sociopathic behavior of OOP; sociopathic behavior of a child; mentions of sexual harassment, fraud, theft, violence; threats of violence; controlling behavior; manipulation;
Mood spoiler: I am honestly scared for his wife
AITAH for screaming at my wife that I didn't make our 4yo a sociopath. posted February 1, 2024 to AITAH
I, 34M, come from a family with a history of mental illness and unethical behavior patterns on both sides.
My wife, 39F, is obsessing over that fact because our 4-year-old is showing extreme anti-social behaviors. She didn't know much about my family until two weeks ago. She also did not know about my previous criminal charges. I shared it all with her now in hopes of brainstorming a solution to help our son.
Our kid was kicked out of kindergarten for biting other kids. Strangely enough, he plays well with the neighborsâ children and his company is sought after. At pre-school, he does not want to share. He can hold a grudge and sulk for three days straight with no break. Incidents as small as running out of his favorite flavor of ice cream can set that off. He likes kicking anthills and crushing insects. I can best describe it as a strange and intentional fascination with putting others in discomfort or disturbing the balance of things.
My wife has sobbed multiple times for hours in my arms about this situation. We don't know why he's doing any of this. We're trying to reach him in warm conversations but he's playing his own game where we are fools.
We were talking in bed one evening when our childhood behaviors came up. We wanted to know if we could ask our parents how they dealt with us. Up to that point, she thought we were both extremely well-adjusted so what worked for us must be good.
I decided to tell her about my past. The reason I hadn't done so earlier was because I was putting it all behind me. But I'm also very concerned for our son, and the filter came off without me realizing.
As a child and up to my twenties, I also exhibited sociopathic traits. I remember searching other kidsâ backpacks and stealing money when I was 9. I'm not sure where I got the idea. At 25, my employer wanted to press charges against me for fraud. I'd lied about going to an Ivy League-level university when I didn't attend any, then proceeded to mismanage major projects while admittedly creating toxicity. There are many other incidents in between. For a few years, I lived under a completely assumed identity and false backstory for a reason I can't quite say except the thrill of it. Lying has always come naturally to me as an amoral tool for navigating situations.
My wife made a good point that my surroundings could've caused that behavior. But our son has had a very sheltered life.
My uncle Jeff is a sociopath. He's never treated people with respect and was jailed for fraud. My aunt Kate is a psychopath whose two eldest children no longer speak to her. They report horrific abuse while growing up. That's my mom's side.
My mother has APD. She has an extreme lack of empathy and a tendency to cause conflict. She would often talk behind her friendsâ backs to me when I was growing up. She always seeks control and lacks self-awareness. My mother has not sought a diagnosis because she is a religious fanatic who does not believe in mental illness.
My Dad seems rather normal. I'd say he's the most well-adjusted of every member of my family, immediate and extended.
On my Dad's side, two cousins suffer from psychosis and schizophrenia. Our culture is one where infidelity is frowned upon and tends to cause divorce, but three of my Dad's four brothers have children out of wedlock.
Maybe it's not hereditary and it's generational trauma. But I've worked hard to reverse my negative traits.
For the past two weeks, she's come closer and closer to saying I betrayed her and our son is doomed. She joked about it at first, but that was her own way of lightening it in her mind. I could tell it was sitting heavily on her. We can't talk about anything without it leading back to my past or family history. She's able to tie the most unrelated details to it when we're watching a movie or taking a walk.
We were doing the weekly shop when she tried to joke about me having a shoplifting gene.
As it happens, yes, I did have a shoplifting habit for a while as a schoolboy. That's something I'd kind of buried in my mind. I had that nostalgic ecstasy when you remember a period after forgetting it entirely for years. I thought we were carrying on with the chit-chat so I started recounting the details as they came to me.
She turned serious all of a sudden and said this is a serious issue and it's like she doesn't know who I am. She started saying our son is in serious trouble and needs help and if sheâd known she could have sought help for him when he was extremely young but she didn't because I never told her and that was unfair to her and an evil thing to do.
I lost my temper and screamed that she must not be smart to have married a sociopath and not realized all this while. Clearly I've changed! And the whole thing seemed worth a look in the beginning but now it seems like voodoo thinking to me.
She hasn't spoken to me for hours. When I approach her, she faces another direction or tells me to get away.
Am I the asshole here?
Wife (39F) found out about my (34M) family medical history and possible connection with son's issues, and won't talk to me. posted February 1, 2024 to relationship_advice
I need advice to resume control of my marriage ASAP. I'm currently at a loss.
My wife, 39F, will not speak to me, 34M, and I fear this might be difficult or impossible to get back from.
Two weeks ago, I told my wife that my family has a history of mental illness, anti-social behavior, and trouble with the law. I want to emphasize that I shared this information of my own accord when I could have kept it private. Somehow, that seems to be getting lost in her viewpoint.
So now, she's making me out to be the bad guy for telling her things. So much for honesty.
Basically, she pushed too far and insensitively on this issue and I ended up screaming at her in the shop yesterday. She hasn't spoken to me since.
The background is this.
Our four-year old boy has been causing issues at home and pre-school. He has been biting other kids. He laughs at others being in pain or discomfort. He likes kicking anthills and squashing bugs. My wife said he stares at their insides after crushing them but I've personally not noticed that. Once, when another kid fell and started crying, my sonâs reaction was to go over and hit him.
These behaviors are odd to me too but I don't think they are very alarming. One incident with my son taking a knife from the kitchen and apparently threatening to stab my wife is
My wife has wept over this multiple times and I've comforted her and assured her it will be ok.
One evening two weeks ago, we were in bed talking about our own childhood problems. Hers were nothing concerning.
Mine are worse but she didn't know them. I didn't necessarily hide them so much as put them behind me. Given our sonâs potential condition and my intense desire for him not to follow the path I did for a while, I told her some details about my history.
I was troublesome from childhood up to my 20s. An employer once wanted to press charges against me for fraud after I lied that I went to an Ivy League-level university and was given projects I frankly was not equipped for. I mismanaged them, cost the company money and opportunity, and rubbed many colleagues the wrong way. That's when I was 25. At 9, I searched other kidsâ backpacks and stole money. I'm not sure why I did that because I got some from my Dad. I also spent a few years living under a false identity and history for no real reason than I guess the thrill of getting away with it. There are countless other incidents, so many that some come to me as long-forgotten flashes.
Again, this is my past and no longer who I am or how I think. It's all 100% behind me.
My wife also asked about similar patterns in my family.
On my Dad's side, multiple individuals have schizophrenia, psychosis, and long-running issues with impulsive and manipulative behavior.
On my momâs, one of her siblings is a known abuser and conflict-monger who successfully alienated her two oldest kids to the point of no contact. Another is a convicted fraudster and adulterer with three kids by different women that each want nothing to do with him. She has a brother who died of some neuro-degenerative disease I never knew specifically but that's ages ago and he's practically forgotten now. My maternal grandfather was known to be a troublemaker but he's mellowed in his old age. And my mom shows many ASPD behaviors and we're not in regular contact.
My wife sounded a mixture of bemused and disturbed but overall fine at the mention of these details. She was being quite jokey and a good spot about it until she got serious and concluded this was a major risk factor for our son during the conversation from yesterday that caused the fallout.
My question for you is: How do I get back in my wife's good graces or create an environment where she is receptive to me?
I'm losing precious time. Sheâs getting colder by the hour. The more solitude she has to craft her independent perception of me, the harder it will be to get back to our life of happiness.
For context, she's been wanting:
- Us to learn an instrument together well enough to compose.
- A backyard re-landscaping to achieve a very specific aesthetic.
- A trip to visit her closest cousin who lives in France.
- An overhaul of our decor.
- An e-bike.
How can I approach her so she doesn't turn aside or tell me to get away? What can I say exactly?
Ideally, it shouldn't mean I'm on weaker footing throughout the discussion.
Thank you for your suggestions. The more specific, the better.
TL;DR: My 4yo is causing problems that kind of reflect or signal my own childhood, adolescent, and early adulthood problems according to my wife. I told her similar traits are relatively common in my extended family and now she won't talk to me. Help.
Comment threadthrowaway0279967
Do you think your wifeâs anger is valid? Genuinely, this is not meant to be a âgotchaâ question-I canât figure it out from your answers.
OOP
It's disproportionate and therefore not valid in my mind. But I understand that people need to feel understood and accommodated even when their reactions are irrational.
p0tat0p0tat0
You are not the arbiter of rationality. Everyone other than you thinks her reaction is valid and rational. If anything, sheâs under reacting.
OOP
Overreacting because this isn't worth throwing away 5 years and a happy future.
p0tat0p0tat0
Thatâs up to her to decide. Not you.
OOP
Our son's life is involved along with my lifestyle so it's not a one-person decision. We all have skin in the game.
p0tat0p0tat0
She still has agency and can (and should) leave you, either with or without your son.
OOP
Ok, thanks. If you were planning to leave a husband, what preparations would you be putting in place? What would be the tells?
p0tat0p0tat0
Are you going to murder her? Do you consider that a reasonable choice
OOP
No. I've never been involved in violent crime, ever. I'm asking because I find your point reasonable and would like to investigate whether she is indeed planning to disappear. Again, what would be the signs?
p0tat0p0tat0
Youâve never been involved in violent crime, yet. You had never yelled at her, until you did.
I do not trust you to be self-aware enough to predict your own behavior. Hopefully, youâll wake up one morning and sheâll be gone.
OOP
What you're saying is alarming because our son is also mine. What are the signs that someone is planning to disappear? How can I investigate? I'd really appreciate you answering these questions, please.
p0tat0p0tat0
Iâm not going to help you, because doing so would hurt your wife. I want her to be safe, happy, and alive. Giving you clues would put that in danger.
OOP
You seem like a genuine person. I assume you also sympathize with my son and don't want him to be abducted. Being separated from me will cause him significant stress and harm his psychological well-being.
What are the indicators of someone preparing to disappear within a few days? Thank you.
p0tat0p0tat0
Your son would benefit from intensive psychological intervention, as soon as possible. If you cared about him as a person, youâd want him to turn out to be nothing like you. Distance between you and him would benefit him.
OOP
My wife is not equipped to raise him if he really is developmentally disturbed like I was. He needs someone who understands him deeply to shepherd him through childhood and adolescence. Otherwise he'll keep getting into trouble and enjoying odd things without knowing what's wrong with him.
p0tat0p0tat0
You donât think anythingâs wrong with him. Your wife might get him the help he needs, so heâs got a fighting chance with her.
OOP
p0tat0, I'm not your enemy. If I met you IRL, I'd go out of my way to make you comfortable and cheerful. I promise that. It'll probably never happen but I just want you to know where my heart is. Helping me to see if my wife's planning to leave won't put her in danger. I'm not that kind of person. If she needs to go, I want to do it more civilly so she doesn't become vulnerable while living like a fugitive. I want what's best for everyone. Please help me achieve that. And I'm so glad we've been speaking!
p0tat0p0tat0
You are transparently trying to manipulate me. It is obvious. I do not trust you. You need to let your wife go.
OOP
I wasn't. Even if you don't believe me, I still like you very much from the sense of your personality that I've gotten.
p0tat0p0tat0
You are lying. Youâve learned that complimenting people gets them to give you what you want.
OOP
That's okay. I can see why you wouldn't believe me. But I'll definitely credit you for this conversation as I try to be a better husband and father. Feel free to share pointers on how to see if my wife's planning to disappear. It would be bad for her to get involved in an accident or something while fleeing in the middle of the night.
p0tat0p0tat0
Everything Iâve said boils down to you not being capable of being a decent husband or father. You donât deserve to be, either.
OOP
I've grown fond of you over this chat. Thanks.
firegem09
Well, that's a lie. Immediately after this comment, you went on to say the opposite on your other post because she didn't do what you wanted. Your desperate manipulation attempts have gotten sadly transparent.
Comment threadOOP Comment removed by moderator
p0tat0p0tat0 Iâm not being mean, Iâm just saying things you donât like. They make you feel uncomfortable, so you perceive them as âmean.â
OOP Comment removed by moderator
p0tat0p0tat0 Iâve spent roughly 12 hours in conversation with you. I initially thought that maybe you had turned off your ability to feel empathy as a coping mechanism, which would indicate that you were redeemable. The more Iâve spoken with you, the more I realize that you simply do not have that functionality. You do not have the ability to feel empathy, or to understand other peopleâs feelings, needs, or emotions. Iâm more concerned about the people around you and their safety, than I am in whether or not you are redeemable.
OOP Comment removed by moderator
p0tat0p0tat0 Your want, not need, is to feel in control. That doesnât take priority over the safety and security of everyone else in your life. Itâs not your fault, per se, but it doesnât give you the right to ruin other peopleâs lives.
OOP Comment removed by moderator
p0tat0p0tat0 You guiding him would put him at risk. Anything other than intensive psychological/psychiatric intervention would put him at risk.
OOP Comment removed by moderator
p0tat0p0tat0 You are lying. Youâve repeatedly said that you lie to get what you want. How about this, Iâll give you the signs if you tell me your wifeâs name and phone number. And Iâll send this thread to her.
OOP Comment removed by moderator
p0tat0p0tat0 Her name and phone number. I will share my honest opinion with her
firegem09 And... just like that, he stopped responding lol. It's amazing how quickly he shifted to "I'll get him help if you do what I want" like he genuinely expected you to fall for that! Lol. Then immediately went onto marriage and went back to the "no therapy for my son" line.
How can I tell if my wife, 39F, is planning to flee with my son? posted February 2, 2024 to Marriage
My, 34M, married life has imploded in the last few days. I have a feeling my wife, 39F, is planning to flee in the dead of night or when I'm not around. Someone suggested that idea and now I can't get it out of my head.
It hurts but I don't mind if she needs space. My concern is she will probably take our 4yo son and I cannot allow that under any circumstances. She is an unfit parent to him.
She hasn't spoken to me in two days. This is the first time she's sulked and brooded like this.
Her friends and cousins are poisoning her against me as she's been on the phone a lot lately.
I would ask her what she's planning directly, but I cannot be assertive at this time because the balance is very shaky. I also don't want to give her ideas or possibly rush her plan.
If you can point me to stories of wives who've fled their husbands similarly, that would help to spot patterns. Or you can tell me specific things that point to a person who's about to disappear.
And if I'm sure she's planning to abduct our son, I want to be able to flee first so our kid is in my care.
At the same time, I don't want to make that move wrongly as it would escalate the conflict.
Long-term, I would like us to be a happy family again. But this is a turbulent time and I need to secure some leverage, especially regarding our son.
She has also proven unable to parent him effectively and will probably cause him permanent damage. It's in our son's best interests to be with me.
Thanks for your answers.
Comment threadswampcatz
Your other posts are very telling. You SHOULD be concerned that your son has been biting and hitting other kids, laughing at his peers when theyâre in pain, hurting animals, and had intentions of stabbing your wife. He needs mental health interventions and supports now before things become worse. Your wife being concerned does not make her an unfit parent.
OOP
Thanks for your advice, but I'm not interested in making my son feel broken or faulty and tanking his self-worth.
Are you able to answer the question in the title?
p0tat0p0tat0
So you were lying to me when you said youâd get him help if I told you the signs of your wife preparing to leave you? Iâm shocked!
OOP
Why are you so concerned with sabotaging me? You've detailed this post and now I'm not getting the information I need.
p0tat0p0tat0
Because Iâm concerned for your wifeâs safety! I care about her more than you do. I donât want anyone getting tricked into giving you information that will put her in danger
u/1Bookwormtogoplz compiled a history and some research into where OOP may be located here, posted in BestOfRedditorSagas February 11, 2024
Tagged as inclusive due to OOPâs account being suspended. OOP keeps making new accounts (u/frumlum and u/monblocue), to comment that this was all fake and âa performance art pieceâ, with his proof being an imagur screenshot showing him logged into the OOP account (I screenshot his imagur and posted it to my own imagur, linking in it here from my imagur instead of his in case he deleted that post).
Reminder, no brigading.
2024.02.08 21:25 LimaIndiaAlphaRomeo Little Black Dress in Tropical Hut
This is gonna be long, di ako pinatulog na matino and I still can't believe this happened to me just cause I got distracted by your little black dress.
Throwaway account cause I'm kinda courting someone but I just have to share this. TLDR at the bottom.
So anniversary promo ng tropical hut kahapon Feb 7 and as per tradition, lalafang kaming buong family for dinner. Tropical Hut somehow has kept their taste and quality the same since I was a kid and lagi talaga pag burger ang cravings, nasa top 3 sya ng puntahan.
Yesterday tho, busy silang lahat so I (30m) went by myself to take out dinner. 6 classic burger meals which was on sale for 50% off and 1 double burger a la carte. I just finished work (wfh) and knowing I'm just gonna order take-out and not stay long or meet anyone, di nako nagayos. Pants on, beanie on with whatever shirt I could grab and I was on my way.
7:30pm I was parking na sa Tropical Hut Food Mart along Panay. Mas madaming customers than usual cause of the sale and most of them were my parents' ages. Nostalgic feels talaga.
Went in and you've got the usual line of riders around the door and people waiting for takeouts seated along the wall opposite the counters.
That's when I noticed you.
You were seated among the people waiting but I saw no one else.
Your beauty seemed out of place.
I don't remember how long I looked but you held my gaze for what seemed longer than normal. I felt myself holding my breath. Stammered thru my order afterwards and my hands were shaking as I was scanning the gcash qr code.
Ano ba? Oorder ka lang e gano ba kahirap to?
'Ano po name sir? Sir? Ano po name for the order?'
'____ po.'
'Ok po tawagin na lang po namin kayo. Upo po muna kayo sir'
So I sat. A few chairs to your left. And grabe ang kabog ng dibdib ko. Like tangina totoo ba to. You're a complete stranger and yet dafak bigla akong parang may schoolboy crush.
Like if we do end up talking, I'd probably just be staring at you mesmerized. Parang tanga.
Next thing I know you were standing and pacing near me. You were wearing this tiny little black number that hangs low on the back. Enough to reveal rib tattoos on both sides. (Didn't look long enough to decipher tho) No makeup and yet you looked made up. Understated beauty and elegance.
The person on my right just left her seat. And a few moments later you sat down. Beside me.
My mind was racing. I wanna say something!
Like ano ba pumunta ka dito para bumili ng food. And diba weird to try and start a convo.
5 minutes passed. You were scrolling thru your phone. I was browsing reddit but my mind was in shambles.
Tangina ano sasabihin ko!
Parang naiinis ka na cause your order was taking long. Ako naman I was giddy with excitement kasi tinabihan mo ko. Parang sira.
10 minutes.
I folded my legs and leaned back on my seat.
And you did the same!
I wanna say something!
I'm just gonna ask what time ka pa naghihintay or smth. Should I take my mask off? Pero di ako nagshave today ang dugyot ko tingnan!
I want to say something! Anything! F\*k!*
'Takeout for number 5!'
You shot up faster than I could open my mouth and went to the counter for your orders.
And back to reality na tayo.
'Order for sir ___?'
Wait that's me. Magkasunod pala tayo? I went to the counter. Right beside you. Another chance to talk? F\*k but what do I say now?*
Checked my drinks as the cashier was enumerating my orders. Checked the fries and everything seemed copacetic so I picked my orders and proceeded to the door.
Someone opened the door for you and you raced ahead of me and exited. Bilis mo maglakad! I was behind you all the way to my car cause we were parked near each other.
Secured my orders in the car and when I looked up, the van you rode was already gone.
All the way home and up until I was prepping the table for dinner, you were on my mind. What if I did say something? What then? I'll probably never know now.
I put the fries out, the drinks and then the burgers. All 6 of them. Wait. There should be 7!
Tangina di ko ba chineck? I only got 5 classic burgers and 1 double burger. Anyare bat di ko chineck?
Worth it pa ba balikan? If bumalik ba ko, makikita ba kita ulit?
Ended up reheating leftovers, while my whole family had their burgers. Tinatawanan nila ko as I was recounting my tale of regret. All the while I was stuck thinking what if?
Next year I'll be back.
What are the chances nandun ka ulit?
Pero promise, kakausapin na kita.
TL;DR: Ordered 50% off burgers from tropical hut. Got distracted by this beautiful little number and forgot to properly double check my order. Ended up with a whole night of regret and missing 1 burger.
submitted by LimaIndiaAlphaRomeo to AlasFeels [link] [comments]
Throwaway account cause I'm kinda courting someone but I just have to share this. TLDR at the bottom.
So anniversary promo ng tropical hut kahapon Feb 7 and as per tradition, lalafang kaming buong family for dinner. Tropical Hut somehow has kept their taste and quality the same since I was a kid and lagi talaga pag burger ang cravings, nasa top 3 sya ng puntahan.
Yesterday tho, busy silang lahat so I (30m) went by myself to take out dinner. 6 classic burger meals which was on sale for 50% off and 1 double burger a la carte. I just finished work (wfh) and knowing I'm just gonna order take-out and not stay long or meet anyone, di nako nagayos. Pants on, beanie on with whatever shirt I could grab and I was on my way.
7:30pm I was parking na sa Tropical Hut Food Mart along Panay. Mas madaming customers than usual cause of the sale and most of them were my parents' ages. Nostalgic feels talaga.
Went in and you've got the usual line of riders around the door and people waiting for takeouts seated along the wall opposite the counters.
That's when I noticed you.
You were seated among the people waiting but I saw no one else.
Your beauty seemed out of place.
I don't remember how long I looked but you held my gaze for what seemed longer than normal. I felt myself holding my breath. Stammered thru my order afterwards and my hands were shaking as I was scanning the gcash qr code.
Ano ba? Oorder ka lang e gano ba kahirap to?
'Ano po name sir? Sir? Ano po name for the order?'
'____ po.'
'Ok po tawagin na lang po namin kayo. Upo po muna kayo sir'
So I sat. A few chairs to your left. And grabe ang kabog ng dibdib ko. Like tangina totoo ba to. You're a complete stranger and yet dafak bigla akong parang may schoolboy crush.
Like if we do end up talking, I'd probably just be staring at you mesmerized. Parang tanga.
Next thing I know you were standing and pacing near me. You were wearing this tiny little black number that hangs low on the back. Enough to reveal rib tattoos on both sides. (Didn't look long enough to decipher tho) No makeup and yet you looked made up. Understated beauty and elegance.
The person on my right just left her seat. And a few moments later you sat down. Beside me.
My mind was racing. I wanna say something!
Like ano ba pumunta ka dito para bumili ng food. And diba weird to try and start a convo.
5 minutes passed. You were scrolling thru your phone. I was browsing reddit but my mind was in shambles.
Tangina ano sasabihin ko!
Parang naiinis ka na cause your order was taking long. Ako naman I was giddy with excitement kasi tinabihan mo ko. Parang sira.
10 minutes.
I folded my legs and leaned back on my seat.
And you did the same!
I wanna say something!
I'm just gonna ask what time ka pa naghihintay or smth. Should I take my mask off? Pero di ako nagshave today ang dugyot ko tingnan!
I want to say something! Anything! F\*k!*
'Takeout for number 5!'
You shot up faster than I could open my mouth and went to the counter for your orders.
And back to reality na tayo.
'Order for sir ___?'
Wait that's me. Magkasunod pala tayo? I went to the counter. Right beside you. Another chance to talk? F\*k but what do I say now?*
Checked my drinks as the cashier was enumerating my orders. Checked the fries and everything seemed copacetic so I picked my orders and proceeded to the door.
Someone opened the door for you and you raced ahead of me and exited. Bilis mo maglakad! I was behind you all the way to my car cause we were parked near each other.
Secured my orders in the car and when I looked up, the van you rode was already gone.
All the way home and up until I was prepping the table for dinner, you were on my mind. What if I did say something? What then? I'll probably never know now.
I put the fries out, the drinks and then the burgers. All 6 of them. Wait. There should be 7!
Tangina di ko ba chineck? I only got 5 classic burgers and 1 double burger. Anyare bat di ko chineck?
Worth it pa ba balikan? If bumalik ba ko, makikita ba kita ulit?
Ended up reheating leftovers, while my whole family had their burgers. Tinatawanan nila ko as I was recounting my tale of regret. All the while I was stuck thinking what if?
Next year I'll be back.
What are the chances nandun ka ulit?
Pero promise, kakausapin na kita.
TL;DR: Ordered 50% off burgers from tropical hut. Got distracted by this beautiful little number and forgot to properly double check my order. Ended up with a whole night of regret and missing 1 burger.
2024.02.06 14:04 CIAHerpes I was sent to a sinister psychiatric hospital. In each room, they put up a list of strange rules [part 2]
Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1ajf4j5/i_was_sent_to_a_sinister_psychiatric_hospital_in/
Freddie went to the corpse of the undead woman. She lay sprawled on the hallway, a spreading pool of black blood surrounding her pale, lifeless form. Her milky eyes stared sightlessly up at the fluorescent lights as they continued their interminable strobing.
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
submitted by CIAHerpes to nosleep [link] [comments]
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1ajf4j5/i_was_sent_to_a_sinister_psychiatric_hospital_in/
Freddie went to the corpse of the undead woman. She lay sprawled on the hallway, a spreading pool of black blood surrounding her pale, lifeless form. Her milky eyes stared sightlessly up at the fluorescent lights as they continued their interminable strobing.
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
2024.02.05 16:00 CIAHerpes I was sent to a sinister psychiatric hospital. In each room, they put up a list of strange rules [part 2]
Freddie went to the corpse of the undead woman. She lay sprawled on the hallway, a spreading pool of black blood surrounding her pale, lifeless form. Her milky eyes stared sightlessly up at the fluorescent lights as they continued their interminable strobing.
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
submitted by CIAHerpes to MrCreepyPasta [link] [comments]
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
2024.02.05 15:57 CIAHerpes I was sent to a sinister psychiatric hospital. In each room, they put up a list of strange rules [part 2]
Freddie went to the corpse of the undead woman. She lay sprawled on the hallway, a spreading pool of black blood surrounding her pale, lifeless form. Her milky eyes stared sightlessly up at the fluorescent lights as they continued their interminable strobing.
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
submitted by CIAHerpes to TheDarkGathering [link] [comments]
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
2024.02.05 13:19 CIAHerpes I was sent to a sinister psychiatric hospital. In each room, they put up a list of strange rules [part 2]
Freddie went to the corpse of the undead woman. She lay sprawled on the hallway, a spreading pool of black blood surrounding her pale, lifeless form. Her milky eyes stared sightlessly up at the fluorescent lights as they continued their interminable strobing.
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
submitted by CIAHerpes to CreepsMcPasta [link] [comments]
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
2024.02.05 13:18 CIAHerpes I was sent to a sinister psychiatric hospital. In each room, they put up a list of strange rules [part 2]
Freddie went to the corpse of the undead woman. She lay sprawled on the hallway, a spreading pool of black blood surrounding her pale, lifeless form. Her milky eyes stared sightlessly up at the fluorescent lights as they continued their interminable strobing.
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
submitted by CIAHerpes to ZakBabyTV_Stories [link] [comments]
âAlright, letâs do this,â Freddie said. I glanced up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of the wandering undead corpses. We had made sure to close the door tightly behind us. I hoped that following the rules would be enough to keep those abominations away, but I had my doubts.
âA pound of flesh,â I whispered. The hallway was deathly silent except for the tinking of the lights overhead. Freddie gave me a strange look. âShakespeare, you know.â Apparently, he didnât. He just shrugged and knelt down. Without a moment of hesitation, he started sawing through the dead womanâs hand.
âThe bone is always the hardest part,â he said apathetically, as if he were talking about cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey. I watched in sickened fascination as he sawed through the flesh. Then he grabbed a random bedpan flung onto the side of the dirty hallway floor, put it under her hand and smashed his foot down on her wrist. The bone cracked with a sound like a muted gunshot. With a smile of accomplishment, he knelt down, picking up the hand.
âWhat are you doing here, Freddie?â I asked suddenly. He looked up, his face glowering. âI mean, not here necessarily, butâŠâ
âI killed my girlfriend,â he said simply. âWell, she was cheating on me. I found her and the guy and shot them both in the head. I remember how my fingers traced the exit wounds under the moonlight, how still they seemedâŠâ His eyes stared a thousand miles away. Then he abruptly snapped back, heaving a deep sigh. âThey found me criminally insane. I think the nail in the coffin was theâŠâ He hesitated for a long moment. â...the blood I drank from her body.â I gave him a sideways glance, waiting for the punchline.
âUh, what?â I said. âYou⊠drank her blood?â He nodded grimly, his brown, cross-eyed stare showing no hint of emotional disturbance.
âThere was a lot of stuff going on at the time,â he responded, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolboy. âI thought my heart was stopping. I was hearing voices and seeing faces in the trees. The voices always came from outside, and soon, I couldnât tell when people were really speaking to me, because they always spoke. The voices told me that her blood would heal my heart, it would heal all the damage done, and so I got a glass and put it under the bullet hole⊠and I drank it. I did. I admit it. I see now that I was sick, that I was wrong. Even if she was cheating on me, she didnât deserve to die. But sometimes, things get⊠well, they get a little crazy and confused, and when that happens, sometimes I get a little crazy and confused, and make bad choices.
âIâve been in nuthouse after nuthouse since then. The last seven years of my life, Iâve been shuffled from one psych ward to another. Iâve been in mental hospitals where they keep you underground and you never see the light of day, ever. Then three days ago, the doctor said I was getting a transfer. I had responded well to my antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy, he said, and I would be going to a place with more freedom.
âThey drove me here in a closed van with no windows. I couldnât see where we were going. Some guy in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the back with me, not talking. Then, when we pulled in, he leaned close to me and said the strangest damn thing.
ââRemember to follow the rules,â he said. âAt Whiting, the danger is real. Itâs not in your head.â I gave him an odd look. Then he shuffled me outside. I saw this building, this one weâre in right now. From the outside, it looks like a concrete cube. It has no windows whatsoever and only one door. Itâs just plain, smooth, gray concrete on the outside, like some kind of government building from 1984.â He stopped speaking, cocking his head to the side. I thought I heard soft dragging from far down the hall. âWe should keep moving. Itâs not a good idea to stay in one place out here like this.â With that, he shepherded me through the silver-gray metal door labeled âStairwayâ.
***
The dark staircase loomed in front of us like a curtain of shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed they were switchback stairs, or stairs that went in abrupt 180 degree turns with flat landings between each of the sections. Narrow trickles of light streamed in through cracks in the doors and holes eaten in the walls. The door started to close behind me, but as it swung by in the darkness, I caught a glimpse of four bloody chips stuck into the wood. I grabbed it by the edge and leaned closer, inspecting the strange, slightly-curved objects. My breath caught in my throat when I realized they were bloody human fingernails. It looked like someone had tried to claw their way through the door in sheer animal panic.
âMove,â Freddie whispered, breaking me out of my horrified reverie. âAnd close that goddamn door. Now.â I didnât need to be told twice. Just the thought of what happened last time I left the door open made my heart turn into a block of ice. I silently pushed it closed.
Holding the severed hand clenched tightly in his fist, Freddie walked forward, haltingly taking the steps down. He kept looking behind him, up and down, like a child checking for monsters under the bed. But here, the monsters were real.
I heard a predatory inhalation that clicked and gurgled from the floor beneath us, seeming to go on for a long time. Freddie turned pale, and I had the sudden urge to just turn around and run. I didnât want to see what was waiting below. I looked down and caught a glimpse of something totally alien peeking up at me. Its rounded, crimson head disappeared in a blur, but I knew it was stalking us.
âJust⊠keep⊠walkingâŠâ Freddie said through gritted teeth, his eyes wide. I didnât know if he was talking to me or himself. He held out the dismembered hand in front of him as if it were a sacred talisman used to ward off evil spirits. The railing shook slightly, and I realized I didnât hear anything. The silence seemed deafening.
Then the claws wrapped around the handrail in front of Freddie. The fingers looked like sharp, crimson railroad spikes. Something pulled itself up in front of us, moving as silently as death. I beheld the nightmarish spectacle, looking in awe at the killing machine that loomed over us.
The Keeper was a dark red, the color of clotted blood. It had no eyes that I could see. It stood seven or eight feet high. It had a shining, chitinous exoskeleton that formed gently curving ridges over its long torso. I saw two holes for its nasal passages like those of a snakeâs. Its head pointed forward like some sort of eyeless velociraptor. It had a strange combination of reptilian and insectoid features. As its jaw unhinged, it gave a predatory roar that echoed through the stairwell like thunder. Silver rivulets of saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Dozens of deadly spikes shone in its mouth, each as long as a pencil. They reminded me of the teeth of some monstrous deep sea abomination like a dragonfish.
I backpedaled, my mortal terror screaming at me to turn and run. As soon as I had taken a single step backwards, though, the creatureâs head ratcheted towards me in a blur, moving so fast that it seemed like a machine more than an animal.
It took a step toward me, ignoring Freddie. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. I felt it in my bones. The stairs seemed to shake as it grew in intensity. I stared into the eyeless face as it lowered its sharp fangs towards me, making clicking sounds in its throat. It exhaled fumes that smelled like blood and sulfur directly into my face, but I didnât dare even blink.
Freddie threw the dismembered hand between me and the Keeper. It jerked, its head twitching back and forth from me to the piece of pale gore on the ground in front of it. It began gnashing its teeth, chittering in an alien tongue. It snapped up the hand from the ground like a toad snatching a fly from the air. I heard the crunching of bones as its sword-like teeth crushed it, sending out a spattering of blood that splashed onto my face. I didnât dare wipe it off, though. I stood as still as a corpse, watching, waiting. Freddie loomed behind the Keeper, sweating heavily, his eyes wild, his whole body trembling.
The Keeper gave one last rumbling, clicking growl before jumping up onto the railing. Using its claws, it climbed up and out of sight in a blur. The railings shook under its weight as I started forward again, feeling like a man who had just stared the Angel of Death in the face and lived to tell the story.
***
We came out on the first floor. I carefully closed the door behind me, making sure it clicked shut. I didnât want anything from that stairwell or those upper floors going through it.
âUgh, I could use some water after that,â Freddie said, his rubbery lips forming the faintest trace of a smile. âBut, honestly, there are worse things in here than the Keeper. I feel like if I had enough time, maybe I could domesticate the Keeper, like some sort of alien dog.â
âYeah, you could give it treats of human fingers and hearts when it sits or rolls over,â I said, rolling my eyes. A large room opened up to our left. Freddie speed-walked right in there. I had to practically jog to catch up.
I saw tables flipped over and rotten food scattered all over the floor. Patches of orange and red and black mold grew wild like trees in a jungle. A dead body lay in the center of the cafeteria, a woman in the same outfit as Freddie and me. Blood seeped from a deep wound in her back.
âOh my God,â I said. Freddie just ignored the corpse. He started to walk past without a downwards glance.
But then the corpse moved. I heard choked, ragged breathing. I ran forward to the injured woman, flipping her over.
Her eyes were rolling and her teeth were chattering. More blood kept spilling out of the wound, forming a spreading puddle around her torso. She inhaled deeply and seemed to come back for a few moments. Her eyes came back down and focused on me. She squinted, blearily flicking her eyes from me to Freddie.
âI⊠almost got outâŠâ she said, giving a faint smile. Frothy blood bubbled from her lips. âItâs in the keyroom. The key to the front door⊠is there⊠itâs in the back⊠on a big, black metal chain. But the guardâŠâ Her eyes widened at the memory. âOh God, the guardâŠâ The whites of her eyes gleamed brightly as they rolled back in her head. She began to seize, kicking her feet and clenching her fingers. After a few seconds of this, she stopped. Her head fell limply to the side. She gave a long, shuddering death gasp.
I looked up at Freddie, a rising surge of hope mixing with the horror of this innocent womanâs death. He had an excited, manic look on his face.
âJesus, the keyroom,â he whispered excitedly. âOf course thereâs a key for the front door. I wonder who told her where it was.â
âWell, letâs go get it!â I said excitedly.
âAfter we eat and drink something,â Freddie said, gesturing to the kitchen with his head. âI need some strength. And you act like itâs so simple. Do you have any idea what the guard will do to us if he catches us sneaking around the keyroom?â
âWhat is it, like, a human security guard?â I asked, though deep down I knew better. Freddie laughed, a sardonic giggle.
âYeah, OK,â he said, sneering. âA human. No, nothing here is ever normal. I caught a glimpse of the guard once and⊠well, youâll probably see for yourself soon enough, but itâs horrifying. That thing definitely isnât human.â
***
There was barely any food in the kitchen. We found a jar of old peanut butter and started eating it. The fridges were filled with rotting meat and clotted, moldy dairy products. They emitted a sickening odor that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. The water tasted soapy and a little off, but I was so thirsty that I barely noticed, chugging cup after cup.
âThe keyroomâs just down the hall,â Freddie said, looking even paler and more nervous than in the stairwell. âShe was right. Itâs the only way. We have to get past the guard and get out. If we die here, no one will ever know what happened.â I nodded, but my stomach was doing flips. My heart palpitated in my chest as waves of fear shook me to the core.
We walked past broken medical carts, shattered bottles, bloody knives and pieces of skin and gore that drew clouds of thick, black flies. The entire building smelled like a death camp. I felt that the smell of rotten meat and decaying bodies had likely filtered into my clothes by now.
The keyroom was marked by a large sign. It had a wooden door with a safety glass window smeared with streaks of blood in the shape of a handprint. It did not seem like a favorable omen.
As we got to the door, Freddie turned to me.
âIn and out, amigo,â he said curtly. âNo fucking around. Got it? We go to the back, find the key on the big metal chain, and run. If the guard comes, we split up. At least one of us should get out alive.â I took a deep breath, bending over.
âI donât know if I can do this, man,â I said. âIâm fucking terrified right now. The rules say not to go in the keyroom, and it seems like breaking them leads to some crazy shit happening.â He shrugged. I knew we didnât have a choice. I nodded. âOK, letâs do this before my nerve totally shatters.â
He quietly flung open the door and we went inside.
***
Thousands of keys glittered on the walls around us. Rows of cabinets divided up the huge room all the way to the back. Freddie quietly sprinted toward the back. I followed close behind, my head on a swivel. I didnât see anything.
We got to the back and began sifting through hundreds of keys on a desk. I saw one at the end with a massive, round steel chain attached to it. I sprinted over to it.
A creature walked around the corner, something humanoid in a black night watchmanâs uniform, but the creature had no eyes or nose. Its skin was smooth and white over its face, traced with a spiderwebbing of black veins. It grinned, showing off two long, vampiric fangs dripping with blood.
The eyeless guard brought his hands up. To my horror, I saw giant, dark eyes in the center of both of his palms. The large pupils flitted to me and then to Freddie. The eyes on the hands blinked as the guard opened his mouth and gave an eerie, high-pitched shriek.
I grabbed the key, turning to run for my life. Freddie and I split up, each sprinting through a different path past the open key cabinets that loomed overhead. I had my knife clenched tightly in one hand and the key in the other. Something hit me from behind and I went flying forward toward the door.
âNo!â Freddie shrieked, turning the corner and leaping over me in a few bounding steps. He had his knife raised. I flipped onto my back, trying to raise the knife as the guard looked down, his smooth, hairless face as white as freshly cut marble. Freddie crashed into it, bringing the blade down into the center of its head as he did so. The knife quivered there, shaking like a leaf.
With a roar, the guard grabbed Freddie and yanked his neck back. Its vampiric fangs shot out like the teeth of a rattlesnake. They sunk deeply into his jugular. Blood spurted from the wound as I jumped up. I ran toward the guard with my knife out in front of me, intending to cut its throat.
Its eye on its hand glared at me. The giant hand came up and smacked me. I fell and the knife went flying. Freddieâs breaths had started to come in slow, irregular gurgling by this point. His legs gave out and he collapsed, but the guard held him in its arms like a lover, drinking every drop of blood down to the dregs.
Faint and on the verge of vomiting, I sprinted out the door of the keyroom, toward the front of the building. I found the key worked. The sunlight streamed in, beautiful and warm. I was surrounded by rolling hills in the middle of nowhere.
It took me a long time to hitchhike out of that place, but I remember the way back. I went to the police, but they just laughed at me and called me insane.
I just need someone to believe me. That place is Hell on Earth, and it needs to be shut down. It needs to be stopped before any more unsuspecting people get sent there.
And Iâd like to get the body back of the man who saved my life.
2024.01.25 04:17 tikudz THAT TIME I GOT REINCARNATED AS A SLIME â AURA PURPLE
Based on the FUSE light novel
Sequel to https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/umwznthat_time_i_got_reincarnated_as_a_slime_pettiness/
Night time peeks through the window, but sleep must have the gates barred to it. Refused. Manifested temptation struggled against. Concentrationâs effort directed at this project and daytimeâs rise must not see its incompleteness. Little girl Zaina sat in the room at home, sketching away on canvas.
Next day she in the kitchen with daddy Zayn eating breakfast. A happy and typical household.
Nestled conveniently at a lakeside settlement, El Tiz, where her house happens to be, Zaina walks past the school gate with other 10 year olds and younger this morning. Under the shoulder the squarish drawing in a frame protected in cloth.Science magicians practice a meeting of the two.
Stellos, location of the workplace lab in the far corner of El Tiz settlement. A large facility, harbouring a concentration of scientifically inclined talent. Among its conveniences, outdoor hitching posts for horses. Entry is gained by waving a hand and a hole for a door expands in the wall and individuals casually pass right through. Doable by magic imbued persons.
Named Upflow, a touch of art on its grounds shape of a water wall â this liquid flowed in reverse upward â anti gravity spell.People in white lab coats, the science magicians, occupy its confines. Arenât for prestige only â a protective clothing from lifeâs little accidents.
Magisteel, a material extracted from Magic ore, centers on research the scientists conduct. High grade equipment is fashioned from Magisteel. A scientist explains in idealistic terms the material can act in what called âfactors.â Applications of the magical attuned material. âOur progress is a slow stream, Iâm confident more we do the water will flow with a riverâs strength. When things pan out, possibilities top what weâve done with it by our imagination thus far: emit magic waves that heal internal injury and illness, another factor is calming a personâs mental state.
âOverhearing, fellow scientist Zayn, a middle-aged man, however fires off his own speech â not to be confused with intruding. Placing his stack of roll paper to one side atop equipment. âMy steel has a million and one ways to fame, fortune, power. The notion of âsoftieâ purposes is the way magic scientists get shafted. Short end of the stick. Weâd do right tossing that idealism. No, my ways earn scientists their rightful due from the world at large. Kings come begging for our knowledge. We donât beg for grants.ââSay that when its your loved one in need.ââWonât matter when weâre set for life.â He has no intent for medical applications or altruism.
Stanakiss, whom the first speaker was addressing, dons eye frames daily, lip stick accentuating gorgeous lips, average height and shapely, a middle-aged lady showing what form a raven-haired beauty that age in the flesh takes.She expresses the possibilities offering their seminal discovery to the world for free.
âName recognition has its place but chasing obscures the good; the world shouldnât revolve round us. Think of the multitude of lives transformed when we share it freely.
ââWide eyed idealism gets you nowhere,â retorts he.
âThe world doesnât revolve around us â that future is fast approaching.
âWould have happened even if the teacher were in class.
âWhat is your problem?!â asks a startled classmate. The unexpected disturbance turns every student glance their way.Class day next good girl Zaina grabs what belonging of the child, a paint bottle, who grabs it back, âI want the color purple,â Zaina boldfaced, argues.
The classmateâs canvas had violet among its still wet, freshly done unfinished picture. âThatâs mine,â the classmate yells. Both children have hands tightly on it, struggling for possession. A quarrel about to erupt to a fight by looks of it.Much of the class stood up, some children walk closer.
One bumps into the robbed student, who lost footing in turn grip on the bottle. Zaina remains with it in her hands. Teacher is bound to arrive, getting the gist, the class couldnât miss their face color red in rage. They want more answers to build a picture. Zaina says wanted their purple paint for herself. âAnd your bright idea is stealing?â Teacher also hears of the accident, âI couldnât make them fall. Somebody bumped them. All I did was take the purple paint. â
âKind of the problem, Zaina. â
Thereâs a brief pause â during that teacherâs rage found its context. The child hasnât taken any wrong to heart. Then smacking her hand and admonishing the bullying. âWould you want someone take whatâs yours?â Teacher brings up the work she defied sleep for, âNow that Iâve fixed your attention. The sort of mind you haveâŠthe class assignment you brought in. The drawing is so evil I wonât grade it. Parents are to blame I say.â Zaina gets one more tongue lashing and the teacher turns about and walks away. The little girl doesnât look bothered. Smashes the leg teacher does into furniture.
Zaynâs co-workers, some operating on site willing to sleep in, contrast to Zayn who disallows late hours catching him, heading home. One could reasonably forgive him changing his mind to stay overtime and work. A single father raising a daughter â he outright says its not that. A fresh excuse bringing up the idealistic vision of earlier simply doesnât wish to spend more time than needed on a project celebrating a marode end goal of world betterment.
Zaina, school bag over the shoulder, walks home: over time a jogger slips, a flying bird smashes into a building, a tree branch falls to the ground. Unfortunate, supposedly explainable happenings in her vicinity she barely registers.
Developing children drum up tantrums. âDonât turn your back on me!â Zayn angrily tells the child outside the bedroom door she has partially open. He standing there with a school report on her action in school. He is to sign and she bring back to school. âSchool sucked today, OK.â
âThatâs no reason to turn your back on me.â
The girl rudely, âPfft.â
âCareful child. Right now, school isnât like you.â
Wanting to brush him off, âI have art to do.â
He grabs her slender arm. He isnât going to stand for a moody daughter. The girl is rebellious enough to spit on her own father.
Straight up spit on her own father.
Time stopped for the man. Some sort of recognition in his deep conscious. His arm extends slowly aiming to slap her face off but stops. Zayn reads a parchment paper in their study. The topic demons and their influence on people. The child behaves with mood swings, being disobedient, challenging fatherâs authority, only to be well behaved and normal the next in following days. Is known to be tough with kids her age. Albeit most times exhibits nothing out the ordinary.
One day without a tantrum asks daddy for stuff, purple like her friendâs hair. Heâd had to make up a story explaining Violetâs disappearance when she last dropped by. He denies her request and she while disappointed doesnât blow up this time.
More episodes denote unhealthy mental behaviour â in her room marks lines diagonally to a paper. Just one color pencil used - purple. A growing interest in that friend from that time.In between family struggles and work life, Zayn contemplates, no, wonât, the cause, burying it in his psyche. The parchment provided uncomfortable answer.
In the school play yard Zaina entertains herself by the clap game Pat-a-cake, with her girl partner. In vicinity another child playing jump rope trips; a flying bird falls out the sky, skidding on the ground; a kid climbing a slide lost their footing. Following this, classwork is uneventful.
Zaina, book bag to her back is walking home. Passing a shed, a roof tile fell away. Turns her head to the sound of its shattering on the ground briefly and continued on her way. Later a resident carrying a load of water buckets on their shoulder, hanging them with a pole walks on the opposite roadside, inexplicably loose balance, the load fearfully crashing down. Before fully rounding a corner, a small landslide causes a cart pulling horse to spook. A horse drawn coach speeding at a leisurely pace, then its spoked wheel falls away, bringing a violent stop.
Its been a series of events over time.
Mere steps to walk to home, when the neighbourâs animal, four legged with a trunk is directed by finger pointing to water plants. The beast stops, turns, staring at its master ominously and soaks them to utter surprise.
Meantime reached the house and a blank wall greets. This opens into a mouth shape and the girl walks in. Wasnât her doing, daddyâs creative door spell recognized her, a great surprise to the unaccustomed.
âUnbelievable heâs still in the thick of it maâam,â words of a Stellos scientist. Zayn commandeered a lab room for his own desire.â
Magisteel darts flying under the power of nothing but a manâs mind magically linked to them by a magical head band something schoolboy youâd call the principal for,â he speaks calm; the hint of annoyance indicates a slam.
âToo old to not be cognizant of a weapon and ethics,â the scientist retorts thinking can right the ship.
He out-and-out challenged the accusation unethical, âWho said weapons a non-starter? You? This lab has no barriers to weapons here and there.â About twenty scientist witnesses to him launching darts at a target on the far wall without throwing and organizing them in a mid-air pattern. âGoing by your intense stare a scent of âunethicalâ hangs airborne,â directed at Stanakiss.
âPersonal gain is outside our motives.â Goes without saying the maverick hadnât secured permission either. Zayn doesnât look her direction; one would conceive basic respect for the boss called for. Then again what does anyone know?
âIâve come to a point discerning our motley science group has an enemy more insidious than whoâs outside. The one residing inside.â
Her eyebrows knitted into another level of annoyance if that possible. He continues manipulating the darts mid-air, âMinds. Minds refusing to accept the cage surrounding them, blinding them from realizing their true power over the world.â
âOneâs ardent vision has its place sometimes, that attitude can advance science-magic. The problem arises when yours collide with that of the majority. Yours the best in one manâs world.â A flying dart stops inches from Stanakissâ gorgeous face.
Zayn isnât ready to chafe under the woman or idealistic credentials, looking at her sternly. âWe scientists have a world duty, which doesnât extend to us being second to anyone. The world will see us as akin to master. Weapons can make our name in clientsâ eyes and so a path to our dominance.â
Exclaiming, âThe world has enough bloodshed, Zayn!â
Later at home, soon rises after resting his head down. He learns of what he dubs "fate power." He sets her down inquiring if anything out of the ordinary happened lately, explaining curiosity born of one parchment in his possession. The weird stuff. His child describes it from her perspective. In her child vocabulary she sees things, things happen round her. âStuff thatâs bad.â
The scientist asks if she causes any and the child says no, she doesnât understand how they happen. Except when she grabbed the childâs paint and the teacher scolded her, something bad happened to them both.
He requests a description. He conducts small experimentation and he strikes epiphany. He is a magician and father in the grand scheme of things. Trying to get her to cause harm in the house by will power yielded no result, based on her description, indeed happens seemingly randomly. A wind of destruction would fit, although nothing to say isnât a specific requirement, just him short of the exact cause not out the question.
âDaddy will solve it baby,â he promises hugging, patting her back gently.
Heâd in addition to refusing overtime work, eventually announced heâd show up to work fewer days to peopleâs letâs say disappointment. Little could be done to stop him. The beauteous Stanakiss pulls rank, pointing the index finger and tries to order the man work as everyone else. He brushes his boss off. The science magicians have reached the stage already of extracting Magisteel out of ore magically. In general labor intensive measures are the practiced method by contrast.
Zayn no cockiness dripping off the lips, counters the only reason the motley group of scientists have Magisteel is the Magic Ore he acquired by business contact. Exploitable leverage team player. Stanakiss for her part is taken back to an old perception - sheâd seen an over ambition in that man.
Zaina anything but paying attention to the teacher at the black board â she sketches on paper hid under the desk in purple color pencil. The subject a girl â Violet.
In coming days sets himself up in a new rented villa, said the bigger size facilitated his work. Pulled his child out school explaining to administration facilitates his child moving to the rental, her belongings are transported there. The girlâs absence is to be temporary.
At Stellos scientists impress upon him places extra travel time to work from the villa, his absence forces his inferior others take up the slack, heâd interpret colleagues as needling â his activities belong at the lab not a villa. Things considered minimizing contact with undesirables seems the plan.
Obliging in a reversal and gets things that associated with the primordial for his child: purple clothes similar to Violet; purple lollipops; ribbons and paints the childâs room that colour; hires a florist to plant flowers on villa grounds, - violet. Heâs trying to strengthen the connection betwixt the girls - loving dad he is. May as well do a shrine â Zainaâs new bedroom is one, center of it the magical mini statuette of the two conjoined, made during her visit to the world. Zayn reasons his daughterâs power could be unimaginable â it rejects normal moulds.
One day out by herself dressed casually in a built-up part of El Tiz. Two horse drawn carriages head seemingly toward the other, in fact in own lanes when about to pass each other, clip they do in a loud noise and get stuck. Her chaotic fate power activated without doing a thing.
His color specifics and moving done, takes his daughter aside for some education on summons and demons downstairs. âThis my new schoolwork?â she asks.
âIn a manner of speaking.â
Later to surprise shows up a day, daughter in tow. The day in question his personal off day. Daddy takes his child around, familiarising her with his workplace.
Sure enough mysterious accidents happen on site.
In his head daddy is elated, more of that fate power. Encouraging dad he is theorizes to her the fate power manifests in her vicinity, he clarifies what near her can turn to disaster without her actually wanting it, she doesnât have to move a finger.
Fate power â works that way and invisibly. None could pin anything on him. Zayn to assuage Zainaâs fear says embrace it. Back home he entertains possibility of him summoning again. While he doesnât necessarily summon anything himself on the scale of his kidâs friend, continues teaching her summoningâŠand demons. Nothing that worries.
Came to a head. A grouping of scientist magicians in a Stellos office this morning. Only one name on every lip. Zayn has pushed his peers to the limit. Suspecting of somehow by surreptitious magical means of causing accidents that time they couldnât decipher. Happened when his kid came by, casting suspicion on a child. Wasnât any sign of any mystical persuasion in her be it possession or innate magic to be honest. These are professional scientists who wouldnât be so careless around a lab. Then how? Discussion coalesces on his shiny villa.
The Stello accidents have any connection to activities there? None says cast an eye upon the villa. Instead part Zayn from the magisteel, hire adventurers to expedite his departure is how. Morose sets in when Kulokoâs death at home casts a shadow. Zaynâs "business contact." Kuloko linked Zayn to Magic Ore. Thereâs a suspicion back to the time Zaina visited and things went haywire, unable to explain, discussions return to Kuloko. Unthinkable on the surface, canât be cast aside Zayn had no connection to the manâs death. Reports read his eyes found outside the skull.
Stanakiss speaks up and says drawing unproven conclusions is unscientific and against hiring adventurers to steal. She says moderate their aims, investigate the villa quietly with those hired help. Her track decided upon, albeit unclear where the money is going to come from. Partial payment in magisteel the solution. The thing associated with great value.
Later a night time rendezvous lakeside to discuss terms with Stanakiss. The adventurer thought this lady a babe in her age.
The adventures find Zayn and get menacing. His new villa residence a rental situated a top a low elevation hill, accessed by private road; largely isolated at the El Tiz outskirts, the lake visible in the far distance. He picked to be away from co-workers when not working with them, whilst closer to the work site â thatâs further than his original home.
The rent he said to its owner would find its way to themâŠeventually, leveraging his status as a science magician has perks. Told his daughter fresh air does her lungs good. Adventures number a little under 12 who approach him indoors. Theyâd broken in, simply opening the door.
Mid-day Zayn suddenly confronted by a small mob. One starts the tough talk, âYou mister. Pack up and skedaddle. Today.â
âWhat?â
âScram. Sticking around here is bad for old men.â Heâs middle aged â a deliberate diss heâd call weak sauce if he thought to say it.
âYouâd threaten me?â Gears spun in his head. âBest get out my face!â
Their buddy menacingly, âPass over all your money man.â
âOdd adventurers want to rob and expedite my departure. You sort are usually hired to clean out monsters. And here bother yourselves with a scientist?â The firstâs face became as a loss. They step into Zaynâs personal space, a finger pointed into the manâs visage for emphasis.
âLook carry your old self out or we do it.â
âYou know what to kiss. You best disappear before I rearrange your insides.â A man like himâŠthereâs only one answer. His little girl playing in a small garden out back, when she turns her head towards faint voices.
Zaina arrives in her quick walking pace â freezing in her tracks to find hands are bodily on father. Her young mind comprehends enough this is danger. Adorned by a purple floral accessory in the hair, left side of the head and above the knee length socks that are of course that color.
âDaddy whatâs happening?â
âSomebody shut that kid up,â says the first. One of their people, a stranger, puts firm hands on her little shoulders. âWouldnât want something happen to a sweet kid ole man,â they continue.
Zaina is nervous. âDaddy!â she cries out. The one touching her, not the speakerâs ankle, twisted by fate power when adjusting their legâs position, âAh, ahhh!â thereâs a light, purple, bathing the place emanating from her body and next few moments the whole bunch flung outside by nothing more than her aura repelling them. Wanted to protect daddy as opposed to herself. Genesis a particular petty act by her parent. The girl exhibited more obvious and intense power manifesting when her parent is in to a little girl, mortal danger.
The gang are nonplussed. Her aura is a point of notice once theyâd landed bodily outside and gathered themselves soon. Strong and malevolent. Thinking a childâs power exceeds theirs, its they who skedaddle.
âBaby girl,â he appealed his voice strained. âTheyâre gone, itâs alright.â Thatâs the auraâs pressure, generating a wind able to ruffle clothes and disturb items in the building. The man barely standing, sprawling his legs to remain upright.
The girl seemed in her own world; face knotted in a hideous anger. Wall and structural support nearby crack under the pressure itself. Arms wrap round her little body, âBaby girl itâs alright.â Words reached her then. She gasps and back to her senses, the light reduces to nothing. Zayn lifts her up comfortingly.
Galooth, absent at the scene, receives word in the forest tent and noting the little girl sounds very least bizarre, worst too strong to be the Hazard class threat level reported to them.
Her dad sits on steps connecting to the living room, holding tenderly the hands of his child standing on them. His internal scientist ran through current possibilities conceivable thus far: some sort of unknown magic type, auras can affect physical surroundings under the right conditions. Then from that time thereâs that girâŠcould it be?
Zayn would explain more to his daughter about his interpretation of what her actions could mean â no longer a normal person. Says her purple friend must be the one giving power to a regular human like herself someway. It makes Zaina strong. Strong enough to fight for him.
Galooth, the one Stanakiss met, made their way over bringing a band of low-level adventurers numbering dozens. The day hadnât ended; Zayn and his daughter step outdoors, some feet separate each side.
Galooth back of the mind reckoned in trouble with his employers â investigate quietly. âThat little thing must be Zaina. Galoothâs the name.â
No magicule emanation from her, nothing abnormal, totally an ordinary kid, they subsume in their head. At worst HAZARD CLASS threat level as reported to them by the crew. Going to be a merry bash it looked, wanting to finish what their underlings couldnât. Low ranked underlings whoâd returned and joined by way more.
Asking their employer about the girl beforehand heard she just ordinary. Being an otherworlder summon was ruled out according to them because thatâs his child. So why were their underlings whipped? âIâm sure youâve heard it before and Iâll say it gently, pick up yourselves and leave.â
âI wouldnât be much of a magician if I ran away from trouble,â Zayn responds firm. Lurks a confidence in the eye.
âYou know not your situation good sir.â With that Galooth emitted a threatening, unseen aura from the body as Zaina without the wind. Scare the guy is all. Zayn winces. An aura can harm or kill.
âI bet you a CALAMITY CLASS adventurer.â
âNow youâre in the know, run.â All the gang had less power than this partial power release. Everyone can feel not least ZaynâŠwho nudged his daughter forward. Wanting to get at Zayn to scare him, this father far as Galoothâs concerned, is hiding behind this little kid â theyâd be spot on.
Zayn gambled under right circumstances and sheâd blossom. âWant to leave under your own power, take your people and you run.â
Wasnât using her at all.
Galooth perplexed, Thinks he can turn the tables? Instead of running for the hills, brings his kid into it. What play here?
Galooth is thrown literally by her physical strength â to be accurate the aura. Bare moments to spare, reorients their body, twists mid-air to land on their feet safely and stops emitting aura. Her own imposing purple aura manifests again a moment before they able to react and levelled off to nothing. Zayn too feels its pressure. âItâs returned for a bit.â
The adventurer remembers the girlâs power reserves. âAm I seeing things? A childâŠsheâs on a scale approaching my magicule level. If sheâs other than an otherworlder summon, what is she?â In this world above HAZARD CLASS, the CALAMITY CLASS, able to take down governments. A danger evaluation system developed by humans, must mean one is strong indeed â levels above even that exist.
The user gets confirmation a real foe and makes a speech that they canât be condemned fighting a child. They proceed to engage. First vanish, in truth super speed faster than the ordinary eye follows, landing a chop to one of their people. She was intended to be knocked out.
âWhat happened? I ended up here?â Far from the girlâs position.
Turns her direction and takes a few steps before accelerating to super speed and ends up beside one of their startled people â this instance has a chance to figure something. âSped towards her and I couldnât stop in time. Hey manâŠâ When beginning the second sentence ended in front Zayn courtesy super speed, âyou did that didnât you? Hiding behind your daughter.â
The man is stunned temporarily and recovers to reply softly menacing, âI donât hold a candle to Zaina, a monster like no other.â
âStop joking with me. Zaina the distraction while you pull it off - old man.â That diss once more. Reaching a hand for Zayn that never reached because Zaina sees and suddenly lost his footing, just in time athletically balances themselves. Asks themselves whatâs going on.
Their followers more perplexed if that were possible. Answers dad, âFate power. My baby gives messed up ones. Said another way your fate in her vicinity is bad, isnât your lucky day chum. In her body Temeron souls.â
âTemeron? That was you?â Never be ashamed to change tactics. Walking towards the daughter decides targeting her would get dad to screw up. Just donât go overboard.
Light attacksâŠfail to land. They launch them. They know because they wanted to! Arenât perceiving an aura from this kid and yet⊠Her fate power dominating to Galoothâs confusion. Collapses onto their back, a preceding failed attack.
The followers look on in unified shock. Safe to say more than a few jaws dropped. With this Zaina, âI donât know whoâd call you adventurer.â Gal agreed. This goes on, headed back to a client empty handed. Reputation puts money in the purse just as power can. That only applies far as abiding by agreements, the fight has no business erupting. A fire lit under these undisciplined adventurers devolving into a scrap.
Befuddled why their moves arenât getting the job done against a kid, agitated, try harder. They stand, glare at dad and refocus on his dark progeny. Turning on the juice â tapping into their magicules raises their fighting potential and here it known have a specific power.
âUNIQUE SKILL - TIME SAVANT.â
Zayn isnât thrown by that â would be rather peculiar if one with their magicule energy bereft of one. Zaina felt a sensation. Pain. A tap to the head connects. Zaynâs turn to be perplexed. âWent great all the time?â
A human maintaining it canât be anything but impressive, handy in fights too; the young girl takes on an adult. The power can cause enemies to miss, attack each other in what seem accidents, trip up and the like â that said this point in time strong opponents say calamity level arenât affected, effect of fate immunity, once tapping into more magicule power, overwhelming her. A free pass equals wrong conclusion.
Live and learn â see the first isnât guaranteed. Didnât stop with a tap. Everyone but the girl sensed Galoothâs formidable magicule release. First punches, graduating to kicks land. Zayn didnât feel he needed to rush in and save her. Zaina coughs from the pain, clutching parts of her little frame. Her eyes glance over at daddy a moment.
âAm I mistaken thinking magicule level can cross out fate power?! Damn.â
Galooth retorts and queries, âMean to say your kid really has cheat moves like that?â Things keep like this seemed Zaynâs associates would have their way.
Zaina spat on them.
Shocked, âYou stinkin!â Only next did rage swell, expressed on their face. A lash connects to her arm sending her sprawling and about to fall, and then as if her movement in a strange reverse, rise back up in reach of her enemy who cuffs her in the chest and with this went sprawling and fell down.
Zayn didnât rush in.
The user can reverse time a few seconds to for instance add attacks â whereby land one then reverse time enough to the moment before that strike lands and then attack again thereby the attacks in each instance adds up in damage. A multiplier.
The little lady bad mouthing them chucks wood to the fire, really endears them to her. Did in one manâs name. âStupid adventurer. Touch my daddy I break you in two.â
The fight escalates, the adventurer forgetting what brought them â a spy mission. Their feet join their hands to land hits, SAVANT in play too. The time reversing of her body looked all too unnatural, this effect clearly witnessed by every eye present. A bandmember looking on voiced worry things went too far. Her death in the offing. A backhand knocks her downward, inches before her falling body contacts the ground, time reverses, raising her back up where the adult grabs hold of her. The girl wracked by pain is held standing by the scruff of her neck by the supposed victor.
âBrought out my bad side,â sheâs told.
Coughs and defiantly, âUp yours.â Galooth through clenched teeth raged theyâd had up to here with this brat. In pain her darkness never gleamed darker. Fiendish smile in place declares to her enemies, âTime to suffer you all!â
The earlier damage the villa sustained gave out and the front face of the building fell off in a great noise, chunks crushing over a dozen, survivors yelled or too shocked to utter anything. Worked because Galoothâs followers targeted, not them.
âHuh?â says the astounded Zayn and blurts, âFate powers came back?â Galooth no less awed.
âMYSTIC TECHNIQUE â DEMON SUMMONING!â Zaina incants through the pain â a gentle purple glow permeated the air, on the ground develops symbology near instantly. âMy offering, these bodies.â The deceased bodies wither away, ritual in sacrifice. Inches above the ground forms two clouds of purple a darker hue, seconds later take a demon pairâs forms.
https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/19ezky7/that_time_i_got_reincarnated_as_a_slime_aura/ pt 2
submitted by tikudz to HFY [link] [comments]
Sequel to https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/umwznthat_time_i_got_reincarnated_as_a_slime_pettiness/
Night time peeks through the window, but sleep must have the gates barred to it. Refused. Manifested temptation struggled against. Concentrationâs effort directed at this project and daytimeâs rise must not see its incompleteness. Little girl Zaina sat in the room at home, sketching away on canvas.
Next day she in the kitchen with daddy Zayn eating breakfast. A happy and typical household.
Nestled conveniently at a lakeside settlement, El Tiz, where her house happens to be, Zaina walks past the school gate with other 10 year olds and younger this morning. Under the shoulder the squarish drawing in a frame protected in cloth.Science magicians practice a meeting of the two.
Stellos, location of the workplace lab in the far corner of El Tiz settlement. A large facility, harbouring a concentration of scientifically inclined talent. Among its conveniences, outdoor hitching posts for horses. Entry is gained by waving a hand and a hole for a door expands in the wall and individuals casually pass right through. Doable by magic imbued persons.
Named Upflow, a touch of art on its grounds shape of a water wall â this liquid flowed in reverse upward â anti gravity spell.People in white lab coats, the science magicians, occupy its confines. Arenât for prestige only â a protective clothing from lifeâs little accidents.
Magisteel, a material extracted from Magic ore, centers on research the scientists conduct. High grade equipment is fashioned from Magisteel. A scientist explains in idealistic terms the material can act in what called âfactors.â Applications of the magical attuned material. âOur progress is a slow stream, Iâm confident more we do the water will flow with a riverâs strength. When things pan out, possibilities top what weâve done with it by our imagination thus far: emit magic waves that heal internal injury and illness, another factor is calming a personâs mental state.
âOverhearing, fellow scientist Zayn, a middle-aged man, however fires off his own speech â not to be confused with intruding. Placing his stack of roll paper to one side atop equipment. âMy steel has a million and one ways to fame, fortune, power. The notion of âsoftieâ purposes is the way magic scientists get shafted. Short end of the stick. Weâd do right tossing that idealism. No, my ways earn scientists their rightful due from the world at large. Kings come begging for our knowledge. We donât beg for grants.ââSay that when its your loved one in need.ââWonât matter when weâre set for life.â He has no intent for medical applications or altruism.
Stanakiss, whom the first speaker was addressing, dons eye frames daily, lip stick accentuating gorgeous lips, average height and shapely, a middle-aged lady showing what form a raven-haired beauty that age in the flesh takes.She expresses the possibilities offering their seminal discovery to the world for free.
âName recognition has its place but chasing obscures the good; the world shouldnât revolve round us. Think of the multitude of lives transformed when we share it freely.
ââWide eyed idealism gets you nowhere,â retorts he.
âThe world doesnât revolve around us â that future is fast approaching.
âWould have happened even if the teacher were in class.
âWhat is your problem?!â asks a startled classmate. The unexpected disturbance turns every student glance their way.Class day next good girl Zaina grabs what belonging of the child, a paint bottle, who grabs it back, âI want the color purple,â Zaina boldfaced, argues.
The classmateâs canvas had violet among its still wet, freshly done unfinished picture. âThatâs mine,â the classmate yells. Both children have hands tightly on it, struggling for possession. A quarrel about to erupt to a fight by looks of it.Much of the class stood up, some children walk closer.
One bumps into the robbed student, who lost footing in turn grip on the bottle. Zaina remains with it in her hands. Teacher is bound to arrive, getting the gist, the class couldnât miss their face color red in rage. They want more answers to build a picture. Zaina says wanted their purple paint for herself. âAnd your bright idea is stealing?â Teacher also hears of the accident, âI couldnât make them fall. Somebody bumped them. All I did was take the purple paint. â
âKind of the problem, Zaina. â
Thereâs a brief pause â during that teacherâs rage found its context. The child hasnât taken any wrong to heart. Then smacking her hand and admonishing the bullying. âWould you want someone take whatâs yours?â Teacher brings up the work she defied sleep for, âNow that Iâve fixed your attention. The sort of mind you haveâŠthe class assignment you brought in. The drawing is so evil I wonât grade it. Parents are to blame I say.â Zaina gets one more tongue lashing and the teacher turns about and walks away. The little girl doesnât look bothered. Smashes the leg teacher does into furniture.
Zaynâs co-workers, some operating on site willing to sleep in, contrast to Zayn who disallows late hours catching him, heading home. One could reasonably forgive him changing his mind to stay overtime and work. A single father raising a daughter â he outright says its not that. A fresh excuse bringing up the idealistic vision of earlier simply doesnât wish to spend more time than needed on a project celebrating a marode end goal of world betterment.
Zaina, school bag over the shoulder, walks home: over time a jogger slips, a flying bird smashes into a building, a tree branch falls to the ground. Unfortunate, supposedly explainable happenings in her vicinity she barely registers.
Developing children drum up tantrums. âDonât turn your back on me!â Zayn angrily tells the child outside the bedroom door she has partially open. He standing there with a school report on her action in school. He is to sign and she bring back to school. âSchool sucked today, OK.â
âThatâs no reason to turn your back on me.â
The girl rudely, âPfft.â
âCareful child. Right now, school isnât like you.â
Wanting to brush him off, âI have art to do.â
He grabs her slender arm. He isnât going to stand for a moody daughter. The girl is rebellious enough to spit on her own father.
Straight up spit on her own father.
Time stopped for the man. Some sort of recognition in his deep conscious. His arm extends slowly aiming to slap her face off but stops. Zayn reads a parchment paper in their study. The topic demons and their influence on people. The child behaves with mood swings, being disobedient, challenging fatherâs authority, only to be well behaved and normal the next in following days. Is known to be tough with kids her age. Albeit most times exhibits nothing out the ordinary.
One day without a tantrum asks daddy for stuff, purple like her friendâs hair. Heâd had to make up a story explaining Violetâs disappearance when she last dropped by. He denies her request and she while disappointed doesnât blow up this time.
More episodes denote unhealthy mental behaviour â in her room marks lines diagonally to a paper. Just one color pencil used - purple. A growing interest in that friend from that time.In between family struggles and work life, Zayn contemplates, no, wonât, the cause, burying it in his psyche. The parchment provided uncomfortable answer.
In the school play yard Zaina entertains herself by the clap game Pat-a-cake, with her girl partner. In vicinity another child playing jump rope trips; a flying bird falls out the sky, skidding on the ground; a kid climbing a slide lost their footing. Following this, classwork is uneventful.
Zaina, book bag to her back is walking home. Passing a shed, a roof tile fell away. Turns her head to the sound of its shattering on the ground briefly and continued on her way. Later a resident carrying a load of water buckets on their shoulder, hanging them with a pole walks on the opposite roadside, inexplicably loose balance, the load fearfully crashing down. Before fully rounding a corner, a small landslide causes a cart pulling horse to spook. A horse drawn coach speeding at a leisurely pace, then its spoked wheel falls away, bringing a violent stop.
Its been a series of events over time.
Mere steps to walk to home, when the neighbourâs animal, four legged with a trunk is directed by finger pointing to water plants. The beast stops, turns, staring at its master ominously and soaks them to utter surprise.
Meantime reached the house and a blank wall greets. This opens into a mouth shape and the girl walks in. Wasnât her doing, daddyâs creative door spell recognized her, a great surprise to the unaccustomed.
âUnbelievable heâs still in the thick of it maâam,â words of a Stellos scientist. Zayn commandeered a lab room for his own desire.â
Magisteel darts flying under the power of nothing but a manâs mind magically linked to them by a magical head band something schoolboy youâd call the principal for,â he speaks calm; the hint of annoyance indicates a slam.
âToo old to not be cognizant of a weapon and ethics,â the scientist retorts thinking can right the ship.
He out-and-out challenged the accusation unethical, âWho said weapons a non-starter? You? This lab has no barriers to weapons here and there.â About twenty scientist witnesses to him launching darts at a target on the far wall without throwing and organizing them in a mid-air pattern. âGoing by your intense stare a scent of âunethicalâ hangs airborne,â directed at Stanakiss.
âPersonal gain is outside our motives.â Goes without saying the maverick hadnât secured permission either. Zayn doesnât look her direction; one would conceive basic respect for the boss called for. Then again what does anyone know?
âIâve come to a point discerning our motley science group has an enemy more insidious than whoâs outside. The one residing inside.â
Her eyebrows knitted into another level of annoyance if that possible. He continues manipulating the darts mid-air, âMinds. Minds refusing to accept the cage surrounding them, blinding them from realizing their true power over the world.â
âOneâs ardent vision has its place sometimes, that attitude can advance science-magic. The problem arises when yours collide with that of the majority. Yours the best in one manâs world.â A flying dart stops inches from Stanakissâ gorgeous face.
Zayn isnât ready to chafe under the woman or idealistic credentials, looking at her sternly. âWe scientists have a world duty, which doesnât extend to us being second to anyone. The world will see us as akin to master. Weapons can make our name in clientsâ eyes and so a path to our dominance.â
Exclaiming, âThe world has enough bloodshed, Zayn!â
Later at home, soon rises after resting his head down. He learns of what he dubs "fate power." He sets her down inquiring if anything out of the ordinary happened lately, explaining curiosity born of one parchment in his possession. The weird stuff. His child describes it from her perspective. In her child vocabulary she sees things, things happen round her. âStuff thatâs bad.â
The scientist asks if she causes any and the child says no, she doesnât understand how they happen. Except when she grabbed the childâs paint and the teacher scolded her, something bad happened to them both.
He requests a description. He conducts small experimentation and he strikes epiphany. He is a magician and father in the grand scheme of things. Trying to get her to cause harm in the house by will power yielded no result, based on her description, indeed happens seemingly randomly. A wind of destruction would fit, although nothing to say isnât a specific requirement, just him short of the exact cause not out the question.
âDaddy will solve it baby,â he promises hugging, patting her back gently.
Heâd in addition to refusing overtime work, eventually announced heâd show up to work fewer days to peopleâs letâs say disappointment. Little could be done to stop him. The beauteous Stanakiss pulls rank, pointing the index finger and tries to order the man work as everyone else. He brushes his boss off. The science magicians have reached the stage already of extracting Magisteel out of ore magically. In general labor intensive measures are the practiced method by contrast.
Zayn no cockiness dripping off the lips, counters the only reason the motley group of scientists have Magisteel is the Magic Ore he acquired by business contact. Exploitable leverage team player. Stanakiss for her part is taken back to an old perception - sheâd seen an over ambition in that man.
Zaina anything but paying attention to the teacher at the black board â she sketches on paper hid under the desk in purple color pencil. The subject a girl â Violet.
In coming days sets himself up in a new rented villa, said the bigger size facilitated his work. Pulled his child out school explaining to administration facilitates his child moving to the rental, her belongings are transported there. The girlâs absence is to be temporary.
At Stellos scientists impress upon him places extra travel time to work from the villa, his absence forces his inferior others take up the slack, heâd interpret colleagues as needling â his activities belong at the lab not a villa. Things considered minimizing contact with undesirables seems the plan.
Obliging in a reversal and gets things that associated with the primordial for his child: purple clothes similar to Violet; purple lollipops; ribbons and paints the childâs room that colour; hires a florist to plant flowers on villa grounds, - violet. Heâs trying to strengthen the connection betwixt the girls - loving dad he is. May as well do a shrine â Zainaâs new bedroom is one, center of it the magical mini statuette of the two conjoined, made during her visit to the world. Zayn reasons his daughterâs power could be unimaginable â it rejects normal moulds.
One day out by herself dressed casually in a built-up part of El Tiz. Two horse drawn carriages head seemingly toward the other, in fact in own lanes when about to pass each other, clip they do in a loud noise and get stuck. Her chaotic fate power activated without doing a thing.
His color specifics and moving done, takes his daughter aside for some education on summons and demons downstairs. âThis my new schoolwork?â she asks.
âIn a manner of speaking.â
Later to surprise shows up a day, daughter in tow. The day in question his personal off day. Daddy takes his child around, familiarising her with his workplace.
Sure enough mysterious accidents happen on site.
In his head daddy is elated, more of that fate power. Encouraging dad he is theorizes to her the fate power manifests in her vicinity, he clarifies what near her can turn to disaster without her actually wanting it, she doesnât have to move a finger.
Fate power â works that way and invisibly. None could pin anything on him. Zayn to assuage Zainaâs fear says embrace it. Back home he entertains possibility of him summoning again. While he doesnât necessarily summon anything himself on the scale of his kidâs friend, continues teaching her summoningâŠand demons. Nothing that worries.
Came to a head. A grouping of scientist magicians in a Stellos office this morning. Only one name on every lip. Zayn has pushed his peers to the limit. Suspecting of somehow by surreptitious magical means of causing accidents that time they couldnât decipher. Happened when his kid came by, casting suspicion on a child. Wasnât any sign of any mystical persuasion in her be it possession or innate magic to be honest. These are professional scientists who wouldnât be so careless around a lab. Then how? Discussion coalesces on his shiny villa.
The Stello accidents have any connection to activities there? None says cast an eye upon the villa. Instead part Zayn from the magisteel, hire adventurers to expedite his departure is how. Morose sets in when Kulokoâs death at home casts a shadow. Zaynâs "business contact." Kuloko linked Zayn to Magic Ore. Thereâs a suspicion back to the time Zaina visited and things went haywire, unable to explain, discussions return to Kuloko. Unthinkable on the surface, canât be cast aside Zayn had no connection to the manâs death. Reports read his eyes found outside the skull.
Stanakiss speaks up and says drawing unproven conclusions is unscientific and against hiring adventurers to steal. She says moderate their aims, investigate the villa quietly with those hired help. Her track decided upon, albeit unclear where the money is going to come from. Partial payment in magisteel the solution. The thing associated with great value.
Later a night time rendezvous lakeside to discuss terms with Stanakiss. The adventurer thought this lady a babe in her age.
The adventures find Zayn and get menacing. His new villa residence a rental situated a top a low elevation hill, accessed by private road; largely isolated at the El Tiz outskirts, the lake visible in the far distance. He picked to be away from co-workers when not working with them, whilst closer to the work site â thatâs further than his original home.
The rent he said to its owner would find its way to themâŠeventually, leveraging his status as a science magician has perks. Told his daughter fresh air does her lungs good. Adventures number a little under 12 who approach him indoors. Theyâd broken in, simply opening the door.
Mid-day Zayn suddenly confronted by a small mob. One starts the tough talk, âYou mister. Pack up and skedaddle. Today.â
âWhat?â
âScram. Sticking around here is bad for old men.â Heâs middle aged â a deliberate diss heâd call weak sauce if he thought to say it.
âYouâd threaten me?â Gears spun in his head. âBest get out my face!â
Their buddy menacingly, âPass over all your money man.â
âOdd adventurers want to rob and expedite my departure. You sort are usually hired to clean out monsters. And here bother yourselves with a scientist?â The firstâs face became as a loss. They step into Zaynâs personal space, a finger pointed into the manâs visage for emphasis.
âLook carry your old self out or we do it.â
âYou know what to kiss. You best disappear before I rearrange your insides.â A man like himâŠthereâs only one answer. His little girl playing in a small garden out back, when she turns her head towards faint voices.
Zaina arrives in her quick walking pace â freezing in her tracks to find hands are bodily on father. Her young mind comprehends enough this is danger. Adorned by a purple floral accessory in the hair, left side of the head and above the knee length socks that are of course that color.
âDaddy whatâs happening?â
âSomebody shut that kid up,â says the first. One of their people, a stranger, puts firm hands on her little shoulders. âWouldnât want something happen to a sweet kid ole man,â they continue.
Zaina is nervous. âDaddy!â she cries out. The one touching her, not the speakerâs ankle, twisted by fate power when adjusting their legâs position, âAh, ahhh!â thereâs a light, purple, bathing the place emanating from her body and next few moments the whole bunch flung outside by nothing more than her aura repelling them. Wanted to protect daddy as opposed to herself. Genesis a particular petty act by her parent. The girl exhibited more obvious and intense power manifesting when her parent is in to a little girl, mortal danger.
The gang are nonplussed. Her aura is a point of notice once theyâd landed bodily outside and gathered themselves soon. Strong and malevolent. Thinking a childâs power exceeds theirs, its they who skedaddle.
âBaby girl,â he appealed his voice strained. âTheyâre gone, itâs alright.â Thatâs the auraâs pressure, generating a wind able to ruffle clothes and disturb items in the building. The man barely standing, sprawling his legs to remain upright.
The girl seemed in her own world; face knotted in a hideous anger. Wall and structural support nearby crack under the pressure itself. Arms wrap round her little body, âBaby girl itâs alright.â Words reached her then. She gasps and back to her senses, the light reduces to nothing. Zayn lifts her up comfortingly.
Galooth, absent at the scene, receives word in the forest tent and noting the little girl sounds very least bizarre, worst too strong to be the Hazard class threat level reported to them.
Her dad sits on steps connecting to the living room, holding tenderly the hands of his child standing on them. His internal scientist ran through current possibilities conceivable thus far: some sort of unknown magic type, auras can affect physical surroundings under the right conditions. Then from that time thereâs that girâŠcould it be?
Zayn would explain more to his daughter about his interpretation of what her actions could mean â no longer a normal person. Says her purple friend must be the one giving power to a regular human like herself someway. It makes Zaina strong. Strong enough to fight for him.
Galooth, the one Stanakiss met, made their way over bringing a band of low-level adventurers numbering dozens. The day hadnât ended; Zayn and his daughter step outdoors, some feet separate each side.
Galooth back of the mind reckoned in trouble with his employers â investigate quietly. âThat little thing must be Zaina. Galoothâs the name.â
No magicule emanation from her, nothing abnormal, totally an ordinary kid, they subsume in their head. At worst HAZARD CLASS threat level as reported to them by the crew. Going to be a merry bash it looked, wanting to finish what their underlings couldnât. Low ranked underlings whoâd returned and joined by way more.
Asking their employer about the girl beforehand heard she just ordinary. Being an otherworlder summon was ruled out according to them because thatâs his child. So why were their underlings whipped? âIâm sure youâve heard it before and Iâll say it gently, pick up yourselves and leave.â
âI wouldnât be much of a magician if I ran away from trouble,â Zayn responds firm. Lurks a confidence in the eye.
âYou know not your situation good sir.â With that Galooth emitted a threatening, unseen aura from the body as Zaina without the wind. Scare the guy is all. Zayn winces. An aura can harm or kill.
âI bet you a CALAMITY CLASS adventurer.â
âNow youâre in the know, run.â All the gang had less power than this partial power release. Everyone can feel not least ZaynâŠwho nudged his daughter forward. Wanting to get at Zayn to scare him, this father far as Galoothâs concerned, is hiding behind this little kid â theyâd be spot on.
Zayn gambled under right circumstances and sheâd blossom. âWant to leave under your own power, take your people and you run.â
Wasnât using her at all.
Galooth perplexed, Thinks he can turn the tables? Instead of running for the hills, brings his kid into it. What play here?
Galooth is thrown literally by her physical strength â to be accurate the aura. Bare moments to spare, reorients their body, twists mid-air to land on their feet safely and stops emitting aura. Her own imposing purple aura manifests again a moment before they able to react and levelled off to nothing. Zayn too feels its pressure. âItâs returned for a bit.â
The adventurer remembers the girlâs power reserves. âAm I seeing things? A childâŠsheâs on a scale approaching my magicule level. If sheâs other than an otherworlder summon, what is she?â In this world above HAZARD CLASS, the CALAMITY CLASS, able to take down governments. A danger evaluation system developed by humans, must mean one is strong indeed â levels above even that exist.
The user gets confirmation a real foe and makes a speech that they canât be condemned fighting a child. They proceed to engage. First vanish, in truth super speed faster than the ordinary eye follows, landing a chop to one of their people. She was intended to be knocked out.
âWhat happened? I ended up here?â Far from the girlâs position.
Turns her direction and takes a few steps before accelerating to super speed and ends up beside one of their startled people â this instance has a chance to figure something. âSped towards her and I couldnât stop in time. Hey manâŠâ When beginning the second sentence ended in front Zayn courtesy super speed, âyou did that didnât you? Hiding behind your daughter.â
The man is stunned temporarily and recovers to reply softly menacing, âI donât hold a candle to Zaina, a monster like no other.â
âStop joking with me. Zaina the distraction while you pull it off - old man.â That diss once more. Reaching a hand for Zayn that never reached because Zaina sees and suddenly lost his footing, just in time athletically balances themselves. Asks themselves whatâs going on.
Their followers more perplexed if that were possible. Answers dad, âFate power. My baby gives messed up ones. Said another way your fate in her vicinity is bad, isnât your lucky day chum. In her body Temeron souls.â
âTemeron? That was you?â Never be ashamed to change tactics. Walking towards the daughter decides targeting her would get dad to screw up. Just donât go overboard.
Light attacksâŠfail to land. They launch them. They know because they wanted to! Arenât perceiving an aura from this kid and yet⊠Her fate power dominating to Galoothâs confusion. Collapses onto their back, a preceding failed attack.
The followers look on in unified shock. Safe to say more than a few jaws dropped. With this Zaina, âI donât know whoâd call you adventurer.â Gal agreed. This goes on, headed back to a client empty handed. Reputation puts money in the purse just as power can. That only applies far as abiding by agreements, the fight has no business erupting. A fire lit under these undisciplined adventurers devolving into a scrap.
Befuddled why their moves arenât getting the job done against a kid, agitated, try harder. They stand, glare at dad and refocus on his dark progeny. Turning on the juice â tapping into their magicules raises their fighting potential and here it known have a specific power.
âUNIQUE SKILL - TIME SAVANT.â
Zayn isnât thrown by that â would be rather peculiar if one with their magicule energy bereft of one. Zaina felt a sensation. Pain. A tap to the head connects. Zaynâs turn to be perplexed. âWent great all the time?â
A human maintaining it canât be anything but impressive, handy in fights too; the young girl takes on an adult. The power can cause enemies to miss, attack each other in what seem accidents, trip up and the like â that said this point in time strong opponents say calamity level arenât affected, effect of fate immunity, once tapping into more magicule power, overwhelming her. A free pass equals wrong conclusion.
Live and learn â see the first isnât guaranteed. Didnât stop with a tap. Everyone but the girl sensed Galoothâs formidable magicule release. First punches, graduating to kicks land. Zayn didnât feel he needed to rush in and save her. Zaina coughs from the pain, clutching parts of her little frame. Her eyes glance over at daddy a moment.
âAm I mistaken thinking magicule level can cross out fate power?! Damn.â
Galooth retorts and queries, âMean to say your kid really has cheat moves like that?â Things keep like this seemed Zaynâs associates would have their way.
Zaina spat on them.
Shocked, âYou stinkin!â Only next did rage swell, expressed on their face. A lash connects to her arm sending her sprawling and about to fall, and then as if her movement in a strange reverse, rise back up in reach of her enemy who cuffs her in the chest and with this went sprawling and fell down.
Zayn didnât rush in.
The user can reverse time a few seconds to for instance add attacks â whereby land one then reverse time enough to the moment before that strike lands and then attack again thereby the attacks in each instance adds up in damage. A multiplier.
The little lady bad mouthing them chucks wood to the fire, really endears them to her. Did in one manâs name. âStupid adventurer. Touch my daddy I break you in two.â
The fight escalates, the adventurer forgetting what brought them â a spy mission. Their feet join their hands to land hits, SAVANT in play too. The time reversing of her body looked all too unnatural, this effect clearly witnessed by every eye present. A bandmember looking on voiced worry things went too far. Her death in the offing. A backhand knocks her downward, inches before her falling body contacts the ground, time reverses, raising her back up where the adult grabs hold of her. The girl wracked by pain is held standing by the scruff of her neck by the supposed victor.
âBrought out my bad side,â sheâs told.
Coughs and defiantly, âUp yours.â Galooth through clenched teeth raged theyâd had up to here with this brat. In pain her darkness never gleamed darker. Fiendish smile in place declares to her enemies, âTime to suffer you all!â
The earlier damage the villa sustained gave out and the front face of the building fell off in a great noise, chunks crushing over a dozen, survivors yelled or too shocked to utter anything. Worked because Galoothâs followers targeted, not them.
âHuh?â says the astounded Zayn and blurts, âFate powers came back?â Galooth no less awed.
âMYSTIC TECHNIQUE â DEMON SUMMONING!â Zaina incants through the pain â a gentle purple glow permeated the air, on the ground develops symbology near instantly. âMy offering, these bodies.â The deceased bodies wither away, ritual in sacrifice. Inches above the ground forms two clouds of purple a darker hue, seconds later take a demon pairâs forms.
https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/19ezky7/that_time_i_got_reincarnated_as_a_slime_aura/ pt 2
2024.01.24 05:18 Metum_Chaos Tip of my tongue for a regression manga
I don't really recall much of the manga, I just remember some salaried man in his 30s was working for a black company, then due to stress and overworking he suffers a heart attack. In his dying moments, he remembers his school crush, and he ends up regressing to when he was a schoolboy and resolves to ask her out.
submitted by Metum_Chaos to manga [link] [comments]
2024.01.20 20:14 Personal-Friend8345 Weird Alien Schoolboy
About 12 years ago I saw a short film about an alien schoolboy somewhere in Asia who was lactose intolerant. The alien boy also had a crush on a girl at school. I donât remember the artist or the name of the film but hopefully someone can help me out
submitted by Personal-Friend8345 to WeirdYouTube [link] [comments]
2024.01.18 02:25 Midnightwitch92 Did Palpatine and Jar Jar use mind tricks to make Anakin and Padme fall in love?
The Darth Jar Jar theory paints the awkward romance between Anakin and Padme in a very disturbing new light. In The Phantom Menace, it's Jar Jar that plants the seeds of an infatuation with Padme in Anakin's head. In The Clone Wars, Anakin has not seen Padme for years yet his schoolboy crush is still in place and arguably develops into an obsession. Padme, on the other hand, seems barely interested in Anakin and on more than one occasion looks annoyed by his presence, until out of nowhere with no real explanation she suddenly changes to the point of standing by him after he becomes a mass murderer. That's one hell of a 180 and in such a short amount of time.
Bear in mind that Anakin is Palpatine's son. During the Phantom, Menace multiple assassination attempts were made on Padme's life and all of them failed. At that point doesn't it make sense for Palpatine and Jar Jar to change their strategy? Planting Palpatine's abandoned son into the group, getting him trained as a Jedi, and placing him right next to Padme offers a lot of possibilities. Palpatine drips poison into Anakin's ear and transforms him into Darth Vader while Jar Jar manipulates Padme into handing over power to the dark side. If killing Padme and taking command by force isn't an option why not mind tricking her into marrying his son? This would guarantee Palpatine's power in the long term even if he fails.
submitted by Midnightwitch92 to StarWars [link] [comments]
Bear in mind that Anakin is Palpatine's son. During the Phantom, Menace multiple assassination attempts were made on Padme's life and all of them failed. At that point doesn't it make sense for Palpatine and Jar Jar to change their strategy? Planting Palpatine's abandoned son into the group, getting him trained as a Jedi, and placing him right next to Padme offers a lot of possibilities. Palpatine drips poison into Anakin's ear and transforms him into Darth Vader while Jar Jar manipulates Padme into handing over power to the dark side. If killing Padme and taking command by force isn't an option why not mind tricking her into marrying his son? This would guarantee Palpatine's power in the long term even if he fails.
2024.01.17 22:36 Dick_Destroyer800 Drake the type of schoolboy scallywag to be best friends with DJ Khaled, have a crush on Taylor Swift and be bullied by these two delinquents:
submitted by Dick_Destroyer800 to DrakeTheType [link] [comments]