When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

Last week's post https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6ng7c/roundup_ufos_kepler_aerospace_and/
Archive https://wayback-api.archive.org/web/20240602211034/https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6ng7c/roundup_ufos_kepler_aerospace_and/
Moon phase waning crescent 🌘 , four days before new
Mars Right Ascension 1h 36m 28s
.1 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6nqv1/there_were_3_of_these/ photos, daytime sky, threelights observed, photo shows twolights, moving fast, low over treeline, jefferson city Missouri, submission statement issues, , removed by mods
.2 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6nr9p/1979_ufo_close_encounter_a_version_was_posted_in/ sighting description, single object multiple lights, approach, directly in front, Laval Québec Canada 🇨🇦 , audio description beeping sound, scanning, oval-shaped, very dark, small colored lights racing along its middle ridge., the sonar beeps had reached me, hitting the ground around me in a rapid circular motion. , emotion of fear, witness left the area, vanishing, missing time 2 hours, subsequent entities
.3 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d6nyqn/balls_of_fire_in_mexico/ photo, daytime sky, fleet, on ridgeline, repeat visitors, Mexico 🇲🇽, “brujas bolas de fuego en Mexico”, following the witness, vanishing and reappearing, [GOODPOST]
.4 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d62ml5/what_is_this/ video, daytime sky, twolights observed, single object blackwhite possible metallic sphere, contemporaneous report, two witnesses, moving straight, at home, backyard, stationary overhead, trajectory change, right angle turn, departure, Utah
.5 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d53cim/uap_florida_53024/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, single light object stationary, Satellite Beach Florida, near water Atlantic Ocean, above Patrick Space Force Base., USSF , similar sighting in comments
.6 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6mkfc/possible_ufoarv_over_fort_collinsco_appx_1230_pm/ video, daytime cloudy sky, contemporaneous report, fort Collins Colorado, single light object, elongated, tictac, horizontal orientation, horizontal trajectory, disappeared into clouds, [GOODPOST], similar sightings in comments, two witnesses, appeared directly in front, possible reaction to being observed, right angle turn, departure, wtf_is_that, silent
.7 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d77rnx/the_cryptoterrestrial_hypothesis_a_case_fo new paper, ultraterrestrial
.8 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6ur3sighting_in_joshua_tree_june_1_after_contact_in/ photos, nighttime sky, Joshua Tree National Park California, single light object, human initiated contact, moving and stationary and moving, going left, right, stopping, going left abruptly, zig-zagging or moving in circle., zigzag movements, loop
.9 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7c7pn/all_the_relevant_uap_updates_from_may_27june_2/ information, state of disclosure USA https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d76s3u/disclosure_process_series_year_1/ different OP, overview of events
.10 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7bs3t/with_all_the_ufo_stuff_in_the_news_i_need_to_get/ sighting description, urban area, Sydney Australia 🇦🇺, nighttime, single light object, orange 🟠, overhead, it looked to be the size of a room or helicopter. , emotion of fear, I felt this rush of anxiety, or panic., silent , moving toward water, pacific ocean, it seemed to have metallic / silver fins portruding from the top and the bottom, barely visible from its glowing orange center. , electronic effects phone battery died, similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.11 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7cra5/orb_flashes_hello_and_goodbye_may_19th_2024/ video, at home, backyard, nighttime sky, single light object moving, flashing erratically, two witnesses, duration 3 minutes, Southern California, between San Diego and Los Angeles, multicolored, brightness change, flareup and dimming, blue 🔵 glow, vanishing and reappearing, powerlines , flew over the witness home , repeat visitor
.12 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d763bx/diamond_shaped_craft_with_blue_propulsion_et_o sighting description, at home, backyard, south Carolina, two witnesses, evening sky, single object multiple lights, blue 🔵 glow, diamond 💠 shaped, flew overhead, low over treeline, descending and ascending, speed change, The craft just swooped down from behind us to about tree top high then went back up as it went away from us. As it went forward and back up it increased speed., disappeared into clouds, cloaking, has anyone seen?, similar sighting in comments
.13 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1d7226c/ive_had_telepathic_communication_with_galactic/ experience description and photos, orb, fleet, single object blackwhite, emotion of love, telepathy, dream description, entities, physical effects goosebumps,
.14 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1d79z3z/berwick_upon_tweed/ photos, nighttime sky, single light object, angular, color change, berwick on tweed England the UK 🇬🇧, near water north sea, contemporaneous report, moving erratically observed, duration 3 hours
.15 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d6txk6/lightning_flashes_a_new_brother_cries_live/ video, nighttime sky, storm, lightning, single light object, low below treeline
.16 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7kxuz/in_light_of_jason_sands_scott_andrews_and_now/ childhood experience description, [GOODPOST], nighttime, at home, urban area, Annapolis Maryland, men in black response, event amnesia, facility off of Defense Highway that I ran away from as a kid., Northrup Grumman, I think I might have been used in some compartmentalized government program as a kid and all I can remember is running away from one of the facilities., similar experience in comments https://wayback-api.archive.org/web/20240604170928/https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7kxuz/in_light_of_jason_sands_scott_andrews_and_now/ Archive
.17 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7otwj/weird_story/ sighting description, at home, nighttime, single light object, reaction to being observed, sudden departure upward, I felt like it immediately saw me and shot straight up at a speed I can’t estimate because it was gone within a blink. , subsequent odor, I walk back outside again and there is a very strange clean smell, almost like an ozone type smell I used to get from an air purifier ., eastern Tennessee, similar sightings in comments, low over treeline, near oak ridge national laboratory, contemporaneous report
.18 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d842p9/going_through_my_old_sketchbooks/ drawing, single object multiple lights, red and yellow 🔴🟡, diamond 💎 shaped, threelights, triangle formation, disappeared behind ridgeline, duration 15-20 seconds , has anyone seen?, Central Kootenays British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦, similar sightings in comments
.19 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7v2x2/what_is_the_orb_in_the_skynyc/ video, nighttime sky, single light object stationary, multicolored, low below rooftop, urban area, Manhattan NYC New York state, OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy
.20 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7w0gd/new_zealand_sub_readers_did_you_see_that_pyramid/ sighting description, has anyone seen?, Wanganui new zealand 🇳🇿 , single dark object, pyramid shape, multicolored, all the edges lit up like a prism., over water Tasman Sea,
.21 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d841nq/sacramento_june_4_2024/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, at work, duration 3-4 minutes, threelights, triangle formation, blackwhite, flashing, formation change, speed change, vanishing, similar sighting in comments, low over treeline, Sacramento California , observed rotating, looked shiny and spinning,
.22 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7mshs/strange_lights_over_naperville_illinois_june_1st/ video, nighttime sky, single object multiple lights or fleet, flickering, threelights, formation change, low over treeline, anomalous to witness, Naperville Illinois, [GOODPOST], multicolored, flareup and dimming, lighting configuration change, stationary and moving, two witnesses
.23 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7yjci/weird_lights_in_the_sky_over_my_house/ photo, nighttime cloudy sky, fleet, stationary duration hours, all night, the UK 🇬🇧, similar sighting in comments, https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d80bzg/weird_lights_in_the_sky_over_my_house_video/ video, lighting configuration change, flashing in pattern and steady, [GOODPOST]
.24 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1d788yv/every_few_months_i_keep_having_a_dream_seeing/ dream description, repeat visitor, contemporaneous report, at home, single dark object, splitting, ship then broke into pieces and did a spiral motion and then disappeared., I then wake up what looks to be a shape or at least the wall to ceiling was curved and extremely clean and silver white., similar experiences in comments
.25 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d86k5f/vectors_vs_pixels/ sighting and discussion of movement, it was there and then wasn’t. My brain/memory tried filling it in with it disappearing but not sure.
.26 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1d7jj3a/ghost_girl_in_my_house/ childhood sighting description, entity, humanoid, inside home , Venezuela 🇻🇪 , i saw her with a white dress passing by , mimicking sister, emotion of fear, witness left the area
.27 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1d7kkmu/house_disappears_in_time_slip/ experience description, building anomaly, disappeared, One day I passed it going to Landrum south Carolina,the other town, and then when I come back it wasn't there no more. , witness stopped the car and got out
.28 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7yb8m/weird_message_in_the_head/ experience description, meditation, communication, AS5, AS5, AS5 and AS are my initials and number 5 in astrology stands for curiosity, knowledge and adventure., storm, lightning, contemporaneous report, the UK 🇬🇧
.29 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7nzml/vivid_memory_of_alienlike_glitch_of_tv/ audio description, loud sound, appeared out of nowhere, at home, two witnesses, nighttime, strange noise came from the tv. It was a foreign noise, so not something a tv or channel would make. , similar to the slenderman jumpscare sound except less extreme and more alien like., analysis requested
.30 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7bpbd/please_help_me_understand/ experience description, at home, repeat visitor, footsteps, circling, nighttime, anomalous animal activity, loud bird, bird squawking all night long, seemingly as if it’s right outside the windows, all around the house. , I would hear what sounded like rocks clicking together, the sound would circle around my trailer and I would hear rustling noises like something was moving all around my trailer. , similar experience in comments, Galisteo new Mexico
.31 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7gtk4/possible_ufo_encounter_when_i_was_a_teen/ sighting description, Northwest Arkansas, nighttime, from car, two witnesses, single light object, flashing, blinking and spinning., rotating, low over treeline, brief duration 3-5 seconds, vanishing, witness stopped the car, previous sighting shadow figure, inside home , doorway
.32 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1d88kepeople_who_have_seen_entities_inside_were_they/ discussion of sightings, entities, inside building, [GOODPOST] if I do say so myself.
.33 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8apn8/zero_doubt/ art 🎨, painting, "Zero Doubt"
.34 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8b9bmajestic_giant_blue_orb_floats_across_the_sky_and/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, blue 🔵, Oceanside California, duration 2 minutes, flew overhead, trajectory change observed, right angle turn, similar sightings in comments, ISS? , repeat visitor https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d95ui2/4_orbs_one_flashes_when_i_asked_it_to_3_times_may/ more video, big debunker energy, two witnesses https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9xb1j/stop_and_go_dancing_orb_may_21st_2024/ more video, single light object moving, multicolored
.35 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8dykx/tampa_florida_9pm_est/ video and photos, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, single light object moving fast, additional objects moving straight, urban area, Tampa Florida, similar sighting in comments
.36 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8hdd6/congressgov_s4443_intelligence_authorization_act/ document, IAA2025 uap amendment advances out of committee
.37 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8lmki/strange_lights_over_gosport_uk_5624/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, spotlights type, diffuse, downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, Gosport the UK 🇬🇧, contemporaneous report, low over rooftop,
.38 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8vxzd/any_ideas_what_this_could_be/ photo, nighttime sky, near water Atlantic Ocean, Tybee Island Georgia, triangle 🔺️ observed, ascending, moving and stationary and moving, hovered over the houses about 2 minutes before silently leaving. , had three large lights on each edge of the shape with smaller lights in between. , threelights,
.39 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1d8pbg6/camo_military_bomber_disappears/ sighting description, airplane anomaly, vanishing, two witnesses, appeared to be a b52 completely come out of nowhere and had to have disappeared. It was headed straight for the dam at a very low altitude and no way having enough time to pull up before either hitting dam or a mountain. Made no noise, silent, near water
.40 https://old.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1d8jd1v/what_is_this_and_howwhy_did_it_get_into_a_picture/ photo, daytime cloudy sky, possible entity, camping, Looks like a wooden robot heating up lava?
.41 https://old.reddit.com/InterdimensionalNHI/comments/1d8bul6/i_wish_i_could_some_how_let_you_all_see_what_i/ experience description, repeat visitor, ongoing, Pupcake3000, physical effects vision change, static, whenever a UAP is going to appear I can see a distortion that has a shape against the background of what it mimics or appears out of. I can track it until a flash occurs and then in place of the distortion, a physical UAP craft will appear.
.42 https://old.reddit.com/UFOB/comments/1d87eyo/uap_while_walking_outside/ video, daytime sky, powerlines, single light object, low over treeline, plane for comparison, possible interaction with airplane, possibly circling plane, possible jumpy movement or vanishing and reappearing, flickering erratically, repeat visitor, Clear cloudless days are better, sunglasses help a lot., [GOODPOST]
.43 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1d7ulw4/i_met_the_devil_in_florence/ sighting description, entity, urban area, Florence Italy 🇮🇹, emotion of fear, As if he had been a predator forever, a danger since the beginning of time. His face is giving me goosebumps all over my back and behind my ears even now as I describe it almost ten years later.
.44 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1d91a7b/my_friend_and_i_saw_a_ufo/ sighting description, nighttime, two witnesses, Central Arkansas, single light object, low over treeline, stationary and moving, physical effects paralysis, silent, horizontal trajectory, wtf_is_that, possible military response jets
.45 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9mygw/lights_in_phoenix/ video, nighttime sky, near fairgrounds, possible single object multiple lights, urban area, Phoenix Arizona, OP is not the witness , removed by mods
.46 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9nkwt/las_vegas_060524/ photo, nighttime sky, single light object, elongated, horizontal orientation, tictac, urban area, Las Vegas Nevada, contemporaneous report, submission statement issues, , removed by mods
.47 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8ym3d/strange_object_in_the_sky_recorded_on_night_vision/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, through night vision camera, single light object, elongated, angled from the horizon, moving, disappeared into clouds, contemporaneous report, fishing, near water, creek, not seen by eye, possible cloaked craft, a blurry section of sky moving through the clouds., Montana
.48 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9o965/someone_answe video, nighttime cloudy sky, hard to see, cylindrical shape observed, moving fast, submission statement issues , removed by mods
.49 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d97vta/im_reposting_with_an_edit_since_i_cant_edit_posts/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single light object moving fast, blackwhite, possible interaction with clouds, elongated, possible disk shape, downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy , Connecticut, video analysis requested , possible ARV
.50 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d92ktp/saw_last_night_in_the_sky/ drawing and reference image, single object multiple lights, multicolored, contemporaneous report, nighttime, central Missouri, stationary, from car, possible reaction to being observed, witness looked away and looked back, vanished,
.51 https://old.reddit.com/RBI/comments/1d961ax/who_showed_up_to_my_home/ experience description, men in black response, at home, One day my uncle went out on a hike in the woods, when he came back he claimed to have seen a UFO flying above a river, A few days later I heard a knock at the door., I answered the door and saw 2 men wearing black suits, they asked me if uncle was there, they referred to him by his full name., 2 men showed up to his work and offered him money to retract his statements on the radio
.52 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9oitw/object_moves_right_to_left_large_cloud/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single light object moving fast, contemporaneous report, urban area, Chicago Illinois, lighting configuration change, dark to light, flashing erratically, duration 10-15 seconds , downvoted to zero , polarized sunglasses., blackwhite, horizontal trajectory, silent , deleted
.53 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9t4uy/sighting_in_sacramento_ca_65_930pm/ video, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, Sacramento California, urban area, powerlines, low over rooftop, two witnesses, single light object, twolights or plane for comparison, interaction with airplane, pacing plane,.moving and stationary and moving, speed change, while flying off it was making erratic movements, almost like it was swirling while flying, and was slowing its speed down periodically. , duration 5-10 minutes,
.54 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9vnrassistance_in_narrowing_down_what_i_saw_i_the_sky/ sighting description, nighttime, contemporaneous report, twolights, single light object flareup and vanishing, moving in opposite directions, overhead, silent, duration 1 minute, near the Missouri-Arkansas border
.55 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dabdoy/sketches_from_my_experience/ experience description and drawings, [GOODPOST], at home, nighttime, fleet, line formation, moving, outside bedroom window, electronic effects lights wouldn't turn on, physical effects vibration, Then everything started vibrating and everything began glowing a bright golden light., location anomaly, found myself immediately back on my bed., audio description humming sound, approach, started to get louder and louder., communication, “Be Warned”, my guess is the warning was to brace myself, sudden departure, missing time 8 hours, northwest USA, https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dbgoxq/sketches_of_my_experience_pt_2/ more drawings
.56 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1daa5mmy_experience_at_11yo/ childhood experience description, no craft, at home, inside bedroom, daytime, felt observed, physical effects paralysis, I got the sense of aliens in the room watching me, and I got frozen there., similar experience in comments, Patagonia Argentina 🇦🇷
.57 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dah6e9/i_uploaded_video_on_some_red_orangish_orbs_if/ video, nighttime sky, greeley Colorado, https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbbz46/ufo_sighting_here_in_greeley_colorado_last_yea reposted
.58 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dalmhq/objects_objects_like_moving_stars_that_disappea sighting description, moving stars, repeat visitors, nighttime, near water, pool, zigzag movements
.59 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dan7ed/do_you_see_it_what_is_it_see_body_text_location/ video, nighttime sky, urban area, Czech Republic 🇨🇿 , single light object stationary and moving, possible reaction to being flashed with light, vanishing, After it disappears the lights do something like a quick search , contemporaneous report , deleted
.60 https://old.reddit.com/observingtheanomaly/comments/1dafi3v/possible_ufo/ sighting, two witnesses, electronic effects camera jammed, Michigan not far from lake Michigan. , near water
.61 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dansg2/took_this_tonight_i_have_a_video/ photo, contemporaneous report, single light object, elongated, tictac, horizontal orientation, wishaw Scotland the UK 🇬🇧 , removed by mods https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dao5hl/video_of_object_over_central_scotland/ video, powerlines, low over rooftop, disappeared behind rooftops , removed by mods
.62 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dalyhm/after_seeing_that_one_guys_sketches_i_thought_i/ drawing, experience, traveled to a burning golden world. Walking around the place was like standing on the surface of the sun without being harmed.
.63 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1daswk0/i_was_in_a_strange_gifted_program_in_the_early/ childhood experience description, no craft, Gifted program, space lab, rural south Georgia, early 1980s, similar experiences in comments, event amnesia, telepathy
.64 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dav8fq/so_what_am_i_seeing_here/ video, nighttime sky, plane and star or twolights, multicolored, flashing, possible jumpy movement
.65 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1daqpxd/saw_this_weird_white_thing_in_pacoima_ca_today/ photo, daytime sky, single object multiple lights, worm 🪱, contemporaneous report, pacoima California, at work, stationary, duration 3 minutes, stationary and moving, descending below rooftop,
.66 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1db018u/%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%BE_%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B6%D0%B5%D1%82_%D1%87%D1%82%D0%BE_%D1%8D%D1%82%D0%BE/ photos, daytime cloudy sky, single dim object, elongated, angled from the horizon , low over treeline
.67 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1db54c7/interesting_sighting/ sighting description, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, at home, backyard, plane for comparison observed, single light object stationary, overhead, duration 1 minute, vanishing , removed by mods
.68 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1db23kd/what_was_that/ photos and video, single light object, observed stationary and moving, at home, very bright, low below rooftop, Almaty Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
.69 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dayon4/this_was_about_200_feet_in_front_of_me_and_about/ photo, nighttime sky, single light object, elongated, observed moving slowly, vanishing, Yerington Nevada,
.70 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1db9n78/ufo_just_filmed_this_in_my_garden/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, single dark object moving erratically, wobbling, shape change observed, the actual shape of it was quite inconsistent too, moving almost like it was not a solid object. , Derbyshire the UK 🇬🇧, at home , removed by mods
.71 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1d7aexj/i_saw_a_house_in_the_woods_once_and_then_neve experience description, possible landed craft, mimicking house, entities, scientists, Midwest USA, [GOODPOST]
.72 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbdwah/5pm_672024_over_bradenton_fl/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, Bradenton Florida, two witnesses, over water, single light object, blackwhite, elongated, barbell, twolights close formation, zigzag movement observed, It was extremely shiny with no wings and it moved back and forth several times in an odd fashion.
.73 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1dbawxz/my_nhi_visitation_experience/ childhood experience description, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, entities, light shining in bedroom, angel, It was massive and seemed like it was coming from another dimension because it would not have fit in the space in front of my bed., emotion of calm, communication, telepathy, physical effects vibration, the vibrations were so loud and strong when it first spoke that I said ouch and kind of put my hands on my head in response to the intensity. It lowered the vibrations and asked me “is this better.” I responded yes., event amnesia, I can't remember that important thing it said to me where I told it I understood.
.74 https://old.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1dbfizd/ufo_sighting_darwin/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, orange 🟠, horizontal trajectory, low below treeline, Darwin northern territory Australia 🇦🇺 , near water, Timor sea
.75 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbey4c/flashing_object_over_seattle/ video, daytime sky, urban area, Seattle Washington state, over water, Puget Sound, single light object, flickering, flashing erratically, low over rooftop,
.76 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbfmrh/video_taken_back_in_the_middle_of_march_of_this/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, Bradenton Florida, two witnesses, twolights observed, moving and stationary, approach, directly in front, repeat visitor
.77 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbfs08/the_hanford_atom_factory_ghost_planes_and/ document, history, Hanford Atom Factory Washington state, multiple objects, repeat visitors, ghost planes, military response
.78 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbah9h/ok_second_try_to_post_thiszoomed_video_of_my/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, two witnesses, plane for comparison, downvoted to zero, Sofia Bulgaria 🇧🇬 , duration 1 minute, appearing and vanishing, single light object
.79 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dban4e/ufo_serbia/ photo, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, single light object, green 🟢, moving erratically, speed change, trajectory change, all different directions, low over rooftop, Serbia 🇷🇸, single light object, worm 🪱 or M-shaped, duration 10 minutes , downvoted to zero
.80 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbtwu5/did_anyone_else_go_to_the_connecticut_cryptid_and/ photos of public event, Trumbull Connecticut, ufo convention
.81 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1db4yjm/some_sort_of_craft_flying_around_our_house_fo sighting description, contemporaneous report, at home, nighttime, single object multiple lights, outside bedroom window, 5 bright red lights on top and 5 blue lights on bottom 🔴🔵, horizontal trajectory, trajectory change, it started spinning, and things got weird., rectangular shape or cylinder, silent, moving erratically, diving, spinning, zig-zagging, hovering, and moved more like a bird having fun or eating bugs than anything else. , angled from the horizon, zigzag movements, stationary and moving, five witnesses, duration 35 minutes, near airport, Bailey Colorado, interaction with airplane, approach, at one point it looked like it was going to intersect with a plane heading to Centennial. They were very, very close, and the object darted higher into the sky quickly just before the plane passed., similar sighting in comments , [GOODPOST], downvoted to zero
.82 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dbr1gx/farwell_to_hends/ drawing, art 🎨, entities, 2 species in cenos proxima centauri b.
.83 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dbo5e8/sighting/ sighting description, has anyone seen?, from airplane, single light object, ascending and descending, vanishing and reappearing, over water pacific ocean, California
.84 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dbud2w/invisible_silent_and_hyper_fast/ photo, possible cloaked craft, contrail, horizontal trajectory, moving fast, emitting orbs,
.85 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1db409e/how_do_you_think_it_works/ art 🎨, drawing, machinery
.86 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1dbwomneed_help_identifying_a_conversation_i_listened/ dream description, repeat visitor, urban area, being in a city that's "suspended" in the sky. These cities are connected to each other and you travel to them on vessels that are also suspended., emotion of fear, I remember the traveling parts of the dream the strongest because my fear was really strong and it allowed me to experience the dream more clearly. entity, has anyone seen?
.87 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbfy3z/garry_nolan_aaro_has_discredited_itself_beyond/l7sht44/ sighting description, historical event, Trumbull county Ohio, 1994 Trumbull County UFO Incident dozens of civilian witnesses and 3 different police agencies had around 6 or more police officers see it close up less then a few hundred feet above him and it shut down his patrol car and radio and lit up the area he was standing like it was 12pm not 12 am during the incident as reported., the entire craft is coated in some kind of thick rock/asteroid material that provides protection from radiation when traveling through out the solar system it also is extremely heat resistant. They also have 3 smaller craft that form a triangle around the craft using electromagnetic fields and a propulsion system and charged particles that defy gravity
.88 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dby11b/friendly_reminder_destroying_or_falsifying/ information, This is a friendly reminder that the act of destroying or falsifying records in advance of a GAO audit, even if legislation mandating the audit has not yet been fully ratified by Congress, is considered obstruction and will result in severe legal penalties., AARO, IAA2025
.89 https://www.reddit.com/UFOB/comments/1dbsf7v/spotted_in_the_air_over_southern_coast_of_japan/ video, nighttime sky, single light object moving, multicolored, south of Japan 🇯🇵, to the west of Hiroshima, right on the coast., near water, in the centre, there looked to be a black triangle 🔺️, dimming, vanishing, repeat visitor, similar sighting in comments
.90 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1dbq8yw/gilman_springs_is_an_extremely_creepy_and_haunted/ sighting description, entity, inside car, Gilman Springs California
.91 https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1dblfhb/what_are_the_green_dots/ photo, nighttime sky, twolights, not seen by eye, 10 minute long exposure, overhead
.92 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dbjool/ufo_sees_me_using_my_camera_and_disappears/ video, nighttime sky, at home, two witnesses, single light object stationary and moving, duration 3-4 minutes, reaction to being filmed, disappeared behind treeline
.93 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dc15zp/shadow_on_cloud_o video, daytime cloudy sky, cloud anomaly, stationary
.94 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dc34h3/ufo_spotted_during_drag_race_bakersfield_ca/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single object blackwhite, possible disk shape with dome, horizontal orientation, moving fast, from car, racecar, Bakersfield California
.95 https://www.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1dc3ebp/what_is_this_in_middle_of_video_several_lights/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, low over ridgeline, single light object, elongated, diffuse, vertical orientation, appeared out of nowhere, flashing, vanishing, repeat visitor
.96 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dc0l6a/saw_something_on_a_recent_flight_what_was_it/ sighting description, from airplane, urban area, NYC New York state, metallic cylinder with acorn 🌰 shaped head, moving fast
.97 https://old.reddit.com/AnomalousEvidence/comments/1dbzpbq/anyone_seen_this_entity/ childhood sighting description and drawing, entity, has anyone seen?, at home, nighttime, inside bedroom doorway, physical effects paralysis, approach, pain, event amnesia.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

My husband (44M) and I (42F) have been married for 18 years. We have two pre-teen children. He was my first and only and I met him at 18. The last 10 years have been slowly getting rockier and rockier. We are just not meeting each other’s emotional needs and things get better then worse then better then worse. If I had to sum it all up…I am not as physically affectionate as he wants and I wish he was nicer. He is a very smart man but it can be hard to meet his standards and he doesn’t have a lot of patience (a bit harsh approach). On the flip side I can be a bit flighty/messy and I don’t get angry about alot of things and happy to just roll with it if someone else cares about something more. I think, initially, our differences together made us more balanced. When it was just us (or our children were younger) it wasn’t as much of an issue… but as they have gotten older… our styles have caused a lot of conflict between us.
I want to start by saying that he is a good guy. I think his frustration with me for just not being who he wants and failing to meet his needs over years is making him act harsher than he would if he was happy. I realize this and feel awful for that too. It is happening more and more and my kids are noticing and I am just beginning to think it is worse for them to see a relationship like this….then just divorce.
It’s nothing awful…so it’s hard to convey by what I mean is unkind. But a little example would be that yesterday I was sitting on the floor in our family room on my laptop. I was calling to setup a large pizza order for my daughter’s birthday party the next day and reading the delivery address off the laptop to the guy on the phone. My husband and son were at the kitchen table eating a snack. I’m almost done the call and my husband walks near me then turns back towards the kitchen and loudly says my name and something about the dog. I hold up my index finger to signal hold on and cover my ear so I can just finish hearing the pizza guy’s confirmation on address.
At that point I see from the corner of my eye a paper towel roll being thrown towards floonear me (not to hit me) and my husband muttering something to my son about “do it herself then!”. I then see my son get up and come over… picking up the paper towels… and say something about he can help clean it up. I then see what my son is looking at… and it is the dog throwing up to the side of me over by the chair. At this point as I hang up the call… I hear my husband telling my son “No don’t help her! she can clean it up herself now” My son then kinda looks unsure and slowly sits back at the table. I have hung up the call now and am getting up off the floor and grab the paper towels and get the cleaning spray. I ask why is he so mad and he says he tried to tell me that the dog was throwing up and to grab his collar so he can’t re-eat it and I ignored him…. So fine I can do it myself then if I want to let the dog eat his own throw up.
I tell him I was trying to just hear the end of the call and hadn’t seen the dog was throwing up. He then reiterates that is fine then I can do it myself and that is what he told our son. I said that is fine if you are annoyed with me, although I think it’s ridiculous to be so mad over this when I was on the phone so didn’t see, but why in the world would you tell our son he can’t help me either. Were you trying to punish me or something? He then doesn’t answer me so I ask him again. Nothing - just chewing his snack and staring at me. So I stare back and I say what are you not going to answer or talk to me now? Then he says he doesn’t have to answer my questions. I then say that I think it is very unfair to throw a whole fit because I was on the phone and didn’t see the dog throwing up… but now he won’t answer my questions about why he threw such a fit. I also say that I think telling our son he can’t help me either was very unkind to me and a dick move. I say I would never tell our kids that they can’t help him.
He then walked out of the room (silent treatment since). My son then looked at me from the table and said he is sorry.. that he wasn’t sure what to do because Dad had told him not to help either. I told him it is fine I understand… I just didnt understand why he was so mad in the first place. That I’m the one that cleans up after the dogs most of the time anyway so why would he even think I’m intentionally ignoring or dodging cleaning up throw up. My son then said he doesn’t know either but he thinks dad is just mean sometimes and shrugged. It just broke my heart when he said that.
I know this is such a ridiculous incident. I think I’m just retelling it because it is such a small thing but seems so… mean spirited to me…. And there’s other incidents like this that have been happening and my now preteen kids are seeing it. I thought getting a divorce would blow up their lives so it’s better to keep trying but now I think we are just an awful example for them on how people are supposed to treat each other.
In the past I probably would have just apologized or whatever to calm things down as obviously I hurt his feelings by telling him to wait while on the phone. But I feel myself just getting angrier too after each incident… and that isn’t me either. I feel bad for confronting him in front of our son who already had gotten stuck in the middle. This is making us both crappy versions of ourselves and I don’t want end up hating each other.
I don’t know what to do. Am I crazy here for considering divorce over fights like this? What would you do?

"EVERYBODY IS TRYING TO BLAME US"
Puts man's hand on stick to beat him
Shoots at the window of a guy recording
Arrests girl not drinking
Gets in a guys face and feelings hurt
Pulls down peaceful protestors mask
Roid Rage Cop
Arrest store owners that were being looted
Bodyslams innocent man
Draw guns on Stormtrooper Cosplayer
Cop accidentally shoots other cop then suspect
Off duty asks for papers
Arrests Firefighter
Pulls gun on student outside of his dorm
Points gun at man for tinted windows
Shoots Press with rubber bullets
Kicks handcuffed man in the head
Arrests man for doing what he is told
Beat man for reasons unknown
Uses illegal chokehold
Kneeling on neck and tasing pregnant woman
Tries to shoot dog, kills the owner
Homeowner gets arrested
Choke a 13-year old
Attacks man about to file complaint
Release K9 on someone not resisting
Pull gun on teens
Plants drugs
Shoot water-spraying protesters with rubber
Uvalde
Almost sprayed
Provokes man with mental illness
Bikes over man's head
No Warrant entry
Pulled over for obeying the law
Bag of weed vs Twenty cops
Refuse to leave wrongly accused house
Almost breaks guys arm
Arrogant C
Beat a man with mental illness
Vs peaceful protesters
Flips pregnant woman's car
Pulls over Sheriff
Schooled by superior
Sergeant defends cameraman
Traffic Cop
Beat after complying
Power trip
Mom vs Cop
Ego trip
SWAT shoots complying man
Arrested going to work
Locked in jail freezer
Vs crashed old lady
K9 gang beatdown
Kill man eating anxiety pill
Arrested for recording
Assaulted over beer
Old woman dies in police car
Store owner Vs Cop
Don't flip off cops
Vs store employee
Shooting protestors
Execute a man whose car isn't working
No warrant entry and choke
No warrant entry
Woman in cop car hit by train
Shoot man running away
2x POV police brutality
Tazed in Tennessee
Police brutality
Cop neighbor shoots dog
Dying in cop car
Abusing disabled man
Blind man has a stick
Victim blaming
Laughing at civilian killed by cop
Getting run over while tazed
Trigger happy cop executes man
Shoot a man running away
Shoot Pomeranian
Kill woman with knife
Cop vs Cop
Beatdown after complying
Killing suicidal man
Middle finger
Off duty officer punching man at red light
Scared cops hide from shooter
Officer breaks 64 year old woman's jaw
Officer throws 65 year old to the ground cause brain bleed
Arrested for not providing ID while looking for cat
Four mags unloaded on woman in her own home mistaken for burglar
Go to the wrong house, execute the man holding a gun when he opens the door
Trooper murders motorist
Pulling over a bicycle rider
Raid wrong house, injure premature baby
Enter house and kill two dogs
Taze car crash victim
Another slam to the ground
Cop flees after killing motorcycle driver
Punch handcuffed man 13 times in the face
Frames man with open-container
Wildly shoot at suspect and kill kidnapped victim
Brutality for resisting
Punching handcuffed woman in the face
Abandon mentally ill teen in facility lobby
Elbow man in the face offering donations
Sheriffs execute non aggressive dogs
Burst in man's home and arrest without warrant
Police misread address = dead dog
K9 attacks restrained, non-resisting suspect
Cops vs paint roller
Smash suspect's head with handcuffs
Not giving ID = made up charges
Unlawful entry, no warrant, no arrest
Shoots barking dog
Executes confused blind/deaf dog
Woman's face destroyed after pushed into holding cell
Airmen shot in his own home holding a gun after police hide from peephole

This story starts off with me (41f) and my husband (43m) being offered the chance to move into my grandmothers house back in 2021. My mother had power of attorney over everything. She allowed us to do renovations on the house at no cost to her for an entire year. We had always wanted a baby, but decided that unless the time and circumstances were right, we would not have one. When we were told that we could move into this house, we decided, as the work was almost done, that it was time to have a baby. I found out I was pregnant in June of 2021. One day, when I was visiting my grandmother, I mentioned something about the garden we had started at her old house that we were in the process of moving in to. She asked why we would be planting a garden over there? I, a bit confused by this question, told her that the work was almost done and we had started moving things over there. She asked why we would be doing this since we were not going to be living there. I was blindsided by this, 100%. Then my mother showed me texts about how she didn’t want to have to break it to me that we would no longer be allowed to live there because she didn’t want to break my heart. Keep in mind that she did have power of attorney and the decision was up to her. She assured me that day that she would work it out and we could still move there. There were months of discussions and arguments, during which time I continued to do the work on the house because I did not believe that she would take all of that away from us, especially knowing that she was about to have her first granddaughter. I was told in September that the new renters would be moving in October 1st, but not to worry because I would get to live there some day, just not right now. We were left with a house that had been completely neglected during the time we had been preparing the other house. My husband is a maintenance man at a mental hospital and I was an independent contractor, mostly doing Sheetrock work and popcorn ceilings/wall texture on apartments to get them ready for the next renters. When I finished up my job for the day, I’d go straight to the house we were moving into, to do the same work I’d been doing all day. He would come to help. We were gone from our current house from the start of our day until 12 or 1 am almost every day. Our plan was to finish that house, move what we were going to keep and then have an estate sale for all that was left at our old house, and then do the renovations to that house so that it could be rented. I had a rather complicated pregnancy, and was planning on being able to relax a little bit once we were moved into the house we had been working on. That didn’t happen, and it sent me into a pretty deep depression that lasted the entirety of my pregnancy and hasn’t really gotten much better. I did start feeling a little better when my mother divorced her pos husband that is the main character in a whole different part of this insanity. I thought we’d have my mother back once he was gone, and we did for awhile, but that only lasted until this past December, when she met another man. Ever since she has been with him, she seems to have been on the war path to destroy me. I’m not sure what happened, but it’s like a switch was flipped in her brain and she’s suddenly out to get me again. There are so many details to this story that have so much to do with it, but if I tried to list them all, this post would go on for days. Anyways, my question is, AITA for expecting that house to be mine, since I was told at the time the last renters moved in back in Oct 2021, that one day I would be allowed to live there, it just wasn’t going to be at that time? I need to add that the house was going to be left to me in my grandmothers will until my mother and step father bullied her out of so much money she was forced to sell the large portion of land she owned in Manchester, as well as other accounts and stocks she had at the time. They convinced her to change her will so that they would get the house that was always supposed to be mine. I was told all the way up until a few months ago that the house would be mine some day. Then my crazy momzilla completely cut me out of her life because I didn’t agree with the sale of my old house for $50,000 less than it was worth, or to the sale of the house in question here. She knows it was always supposed to be mineto be, but she doesn’t care and has cut off communication completely so she doesn’t have to hear that she’s wrong. I think it’s partly because her new boyfriend (who has lots of money) told her that he broke up with one of his exes because of their spoiled children, so she is trying to ensure that she gets his money too. Money is what motivates her, and she blows it every chance she gets. She no longer has anyone to bail her out and the houses that were left to her were meant to be rented out in order to keep up with her money hungry life style. If she sells them both, she will spend all the money and have no one left to bail her out, but she insists she has a plan. She is taking all of her frustrations out on me when I haven’t done anything wrong. She is only communicating with me through my dad and sister, and occasionally my son. The last renters just moved out and left the house a horrible mess. They also took whatever they wanted of my stuff that I was never allowed or capable of moving out at the time, since I was pregnant. Now she is having my dad and sister tell me what I can and cannot move from there, and she keeps changing the time frame based on things she thinks I’m doing wrong. I’m trying my very best to keep her happy and only do what I’ve been told to do. She refuses to accept that I’m not the one who dug up the bushes around the house that we’re supposed to be left there, and she’s mad at me for moving all of the things out of the basement when I was told to take what I wanted because the rest would be hauled off by the junk guys she is hiring. I didn’t dig anything up and I only took what I was told I could take. She won’t talk to me to clear things up and now she has cut my time short so that I don’t even have time to get the things of mine that haven’t been stolen already. Would I be the A hole if I just say f it and take her to court to contest the will? I know I would win and 95% sure the house would be awarded to me, but I don’t like drama and was willing to just let her have it as long as she allowed me time to get my stuff. She keeps telling everyone I’m doing so many things wrong that I have, in reality, had nothing to do with. What would you do?

So imma start with the obvious two
Ben 10 - easily an albedo alternate skin and his Omniverse jacket... If they use reboot Ben and not the Omniverse one they messed up. A ring out that has the Omnitrix timeout noise with a red flashing light would be perfect. For a stage? I mean you can take the brawlhalla approach and just throw a few Omnitrix logos on it and call it a day, but honestly I just want the forge of creation as a stage. Or the null void
Scorpion - again easy I think his default should be his scorpions revenge design, and he should have a mk2 style skin with unique poses to match this (like his victory he rips off the mask to show the skull, ane the loss he goes to and falls to the floor). Also his snowblind design... Just do it. As for a ring out either "toasty guy" or just the "fatality" text. And for stages... There's no better option for a platform fighter than the pit.
Green lantern - an Alan Scott design, I would say obviously do the other lantern corps but for team colours I don't think that would work well. For the ring out we already have one, but for no particular reason I would like a giant green boot ringout. As for the stage, obviously oa which hasn't been in a fighting game since mortal Kombat vs DC universe... We had two DC fighting games made by NRS and oa cameoed in one
Powerpuff girls - basically confirmed characters anyway but the rowdyruff boys is the most obvious choice I can think of. The ringout could be a chemical X spill followed by an explosion... I didn't watch this show so that's the best I've got. And we already have a stage for them.
Godzilla - extremely unlikely character, but if he is included then obviously the pink glowing one from the new film. The ringout literally has to be a nuclear explosion, like there is no debate about it. And the stage could literally just be Tokyo
Jerry Smith - we got a joke character and it wasn't Jerry?... Alright. Anyway his assistant outfit he wore in the fortune cookie episode, and his mech suit from "analyse piss". the ringout is difficult since we already have most of the Rick and Morty ones I wanted but honestly just make it a green portal with a monster coming out of it. And the stage should be the house which has loads of stage hazards in it

TITLE CORRECTION: TWOW Prologue Theory and Fan-Fic, 1 of 4

Hi, I am new here and I am posting for the first time. Please let me know if I am breaking any rules here so I can re-do it. It is one full chapter, but because it is so long, I broke into four parts.
This is a theory for the actual Prologue of The Winds of Winter. Please enjoy. This is Part 1 of 4.
The Winds of Winter
Prologue
A storm was coming, but that was not part of the plan.
To the east, dark grey clouds and flashes of lightning were seen afar while thunder could be heard mumbling its rage in the distance. Here where they stood, fierce sea-chilled winds blew from the clear skies of the west. Two weather fronts were on course for a collision, and caught in between was a giant rock that mountains above the shoreline, a hard place. The old natural stonewalls of Casterly Rock were half bathed in gold from the even-falling sun, while the other hid in the shadow of the approaching storm. And soon enough, everything will be clouded in black.
The sound of the strong waves smacking into the face of the stony cliffs can be felt from a mile away, as it was no different from the ones crashing into the wooden hull of their galley. Above their rocking swanship, three tall wooden masts sported simple dark black sails, filled with winds from the west, speeding their eastern course towards the home of House Lannister, ready to hug the coastline tight, fast and dangerous.
The Summer Isle captain at the helm shouted his accented announcement, “Awww shittt! Everyone get yo shields and weapons ready. It’s about to go down! Adventurers and avengers, assemble up to the deck of Motherfunker. Be sharp and stay on yo toes! We’re running this so let’s go!”
“With me to the boats!” the legendary stern knight Ser Brynden Tully called out as his fighting men rallied at the starboard rear of their ship, emerging from the cabins below.
“We all chose to be here. If any man wants to back down now, then do so quickly. I would not die in that man’s company. We elected to do this task for honor and for justice. Some of us are here for vengeance and we may even chance to kill some of them. If so, you may enjoy your short moment of pleasure. But what I offer here is the IMMORTALITY of the songs and tales. And when it is all said & done as we return safely home, the singers will sing of this glorious day, our honorable deed, and their shame of a jape. And they will sing it from this day to the ending of the world, and we in it shall be remembered! We few, we brave few, we band of brothers. For he who shed blood with me today shall be my brother forever in song!”
A roar of cheer exploded in the air, loud and thunderous. As the ruckus died down, Lady Mormont proclaimed, “And a sister too!”
“Aye Maege,” said the Blackfish. “But we have always considered you as one of our brothers. Between your legs, your sacs are larger than most men, especially all the Lannister soldiers.”
“Well that is easy to say, all those Lannisters are a bunch of golden eunuchs!” Lady Mormont declared unlady like.
Laughter swept the deck.
The Summer Isle captain above shouted again and prayed, “Today is The Day, and the moment is upon us my friends. Thirty seconds until the drop zone lads! May the gods be with yo!”
On the starboard stern, three small rowboats hung out from the hull, hovering above the rough waves. Attached over the swanship’s parapet was a roped ladder, allowing the fighters to lower themselves down onto their watercrafts. Each one was designed to hold four pairs of oarsmen abreast, and a single coxswain to steer at the rear.
They were twenty good men and Maege. Each one scaled in black boiled leather armor, with a quiver of arrows slung on one back shoulder, and a Summer Isle goldenheart bow on the other. Most fighters had their own selection of close quarter combat weapons that sat on their belts while a round black-painted wooden shield rested at the center of their backs. They wore no sigils and smeared mud spots on their faces to mimic dark ghostly shadows for this stealthy task. They were lightly armored and had fewer weapons, as their goal required speed. If all goes to plan, they would not need any of them. They could accomplish this mission without a soul lost on either side. But this approaching storm was not part of the plan.
The Blackfish made one last heroic call on the deck of the Motherfunker, before he lowered himself on the ladder, “Come with me and take this song!”
Rico added to the cry, “Come on brothers! Do you want to live forever!?!”
They roared proudly again and began their descent as the Summer Isle crewmen assisted the Westerosi to the ropes, sharing firm ebony and ivory handshakes as they told them they will be back.
Ser Brynden Tully reached the rear rowboat LionsJape along with June, Jory, Jess, Fess, Ben and Benjen. Though it was the end boat, it will be the first to fly.
Aboard the middle boat WinterStorm was Lady Maege Mormont, and the other six oarsmen Phyl, Rico, Sam the Shredder, Ser Barnabus the Goose, Scrooge, and Queen Jeyne’s brother Ser Raynald Westerling.
Lord Galbart Glover commandeered the third boat BattleWolf, which hung closer to the center of the swanship. On it were the younger men Donal, Mikkal, Raff, Leo, and Alesander, all merely teenagers.
As he watched from above, Ser Olyvar Frey thought they were little dark turtles crawling down the ladders with their black shields slung on their backs. As the last turtle, Olyvar hugged & kissed his sister Roslin, and then their brother Perwyn. Ser Perwyn Frey was Lady Tully’s sworn shield, charged with her life’s protection, and her unborn child’s too. Though they were all Frey as family, Rosby blood thorns in their veins as well. We were all just sweet Roses By another name, a horrible name.
Olyvar descended. Alesander Frey was waiting for him adjacent to an empty seat on the boat. He was Olyvar’s nephew, but because they were of a similar age, Alesander felt more like a cousin to him, a cousin that felt more like a brother. He wondered what their mothers would have thought if they saw them there now. As Olyvar sat, he stretched his arms wide at the starboard-bow of BattleWolf and the brothers both grabbed an oar each. Alesander sang and japed, “Are you ready to fly this boat to the moon somehow?”
“Nothing is impossible!” Olyvar smiled.
Ser Olyvar Frey never thought he would be on this boat, absorbing the wrath of the big blue watery roads, rocking BattleWolf as it clung to Motherfunker. But his new knightly confidence was so high he could roar at the Drowned God to look at him and tell him to piss off. But he knew better and kept his silence. With his Frey luck, he believed his corpse would be bedding with mermaids down under the sea if he ever cursed the Drowned God aloud.
The owner of the swanship Motherfunker was an exiled prince of the Summer Isles, a big man with a short black beard, shiny bald head and a dark patch over his left eye that he can’t see through. He was Captain Samullu Jaqenssen, but notoriously called the Black Sparrow … though Olyvar had never heard of him until recently. He and his crew were the only sailors that would assist them in their cause, hypnotized to be a part of their upcoming famous Westerosi song. He was to help navigate his galley at high speeds hugging the rocky coast of the Westerlands. With the three rowboats hung to the side of Motherfunker, it would be hard for the sentries on top of the Rock to spot from above. The Motherfunker stayed far away from the coastline to only emerge near their objective at the time of attack. With a single swanship with plain black sails, the Black Sparrow hoped that the Lannister watchmen would pay them no mind as a regular trading galley on its way to Lannisport or wherever, instead of a vessel for an amphibious assault on their castle. And the stronger the winds and the faster the ship, the window of time to be exposed was much shorter. “They had the need for speed, and the speed needed the wind,” Goose had said the night before. The gods have blessed them with strong winds now. They were to come with the sun setting at their backs in the west, blinding any coastal lookout. Because they were cursed with this approaching storm, the plan changed and they had to depart earlier. Olyvar prayed that this would not compromise the mission. Only time will tell.
Racing onto the storm and nearing the rising cliffs, the Captain spun his ship quickly to a southern course and gave the crewmen the signal to dismount. “Ahhhhhhhhh-ah Ahhhhhhhh-ah!”
“Get ready to push!” the Blackfish commanded.
Each oarsman pressed the tip of their long wooden stick onto the hull of the galley, ready to push off. The Summer Isle crewmen began severing the connections of the mothership and its three rowboats. Single-handed axes swung as LionsJape pushed itself off, the first of three. The rowboat plummeted and the waters swallowed it before spitting it back out just as quick. After allowing itself to lose in Motherfunker’s wake, the oarsmen redirected the bow towards the rocks at the Blackfish’s orders.
The WinterStorm followed right after with Lady Maege’s commands, “Push lads! Push! Push!” as it dropped.
Now it was BattleWolf’s turn. “Gods damn it, I’m too old for this shit,” Lord Glover said as he raised a gloved hand and swung it down, giving the signal to cut. At the main deck, the crewmen swung their axes, gleaming gold in the western sunlight as the oarsmen pushed off. For a heartbeat, the fall had taken Olyvar’s breath away as Lord Glover’s BattleWolf floated in the air. Are we flying? Are we on a dragon? His rowboat slammed into the water, splashing chilled wet droplets inside the boat and out. His hair of short black curls flew and fell, dampening at the plunge. The collision almost knocked Olyvar and the men overboard, but they hung on. The Motherfunker left them with a white salty wake as it headed south. Lord Glover then commanded the starboard men to pull their oars, aiming towards WinterStorm. Olyvar pulled. Once aligned, both sides of BattleWolf began to rev hard. The men were howling and roaring with each tension, trying to evade this dangerous zone of being spotted.
Since the Red Wedding and the death of his beloved King, Robb Stark, Olyvar could not sleep. Grief, anger, vengeance, insomnia and drowsiness took him over the days and nights that felt like half-dreams. But the crashing kiss of the water dive had re-woken Olyvar in shock, as he realized what they were about to do was no fantasy he had ever known. Nothing can stop us now, this is really happening. His heart was pounding to the rhythm of the oars and he wanted to scream his battle cry. He could still hear Jaqenssen the Black Sparrow sounding his siren “Ahhhhhhhh-ah Ahhhhhhh-ah!”
We are brothers loyal to the King in the North, the land of ice and snow. We serve Riverrun and Winterfell, where the hot springs flow. And now the divine winds of the gods had driven our mothership to the Westerlands. To fight for honor, the North will sing and the West will cry. Casterly Rock … Winter is Coming! On we sweep with threshing oars, our only goal will be the western shore!
As Olyvar’s oar rose and fell, he looked up to the windows of Casterly Rock’s tall stony towers, searching for the signaling candle light. But it could not be seen this early. Only when the sun was fully set as planned, this candle would replace it as the guiding light. They rowed by rocks and rocks and more rocks. Seagulls flew in spheres above them, chasing one another. The sun still hung in the air, slowly falling to splash onto the western horizon of the Sunset Sea. They then rowed by a courtyard that just floated on the earth forty feet above the sea’s surface. Suddenly on the other side of their boat, they eyed a whale skimming off the glimmering golden ocean. The boys of the vulnerable BattleWolf did not say a word as the monstrous water-beast swam the opposite direction just twenty yards away from them, paying them no mind. It was a good thing I did not curse the Drowned God as I was going to earlier.
Olyvar, Alesander, Leo, Mikkal, Raff and Donal were seated on Galbart Glover’s rowboat, rowing to Galbart Glover’s commands, “Row! Row! Row your boats you son o’ wh*res!” and taking in Galbart Glover’s cold stare as he eyed the two Freys specifically when he said it. Olyvar’s arms began to tire, but this was not the place to show weakness to his brothers. So he pulled on while keeping their rowboat as close to the stony walls as possible to avoid detection from above.
They trailed the Lady Bear while following the Blackfish. Soon after, Ser Brynden Tully had found his mark and grounded LionsJape onto a small beach. His men exited, flipped the rowboat above them and dashed forty yards straight toward the rocky edge, where a small barred cave was fitted at the base. Underneath the rusted iron, a thin valley of brown watery slush stank & trickled into the sand & sea. Everyone knew what that was when they agreed to participate in the assault. The Blackfish was told back at Riverrun about a sewer path inside Casterly Rock that allowed all the shit and piss to drain out to the ocean. This tiny hole by the foot of the mountain was all and everything for the mission.
When the sprinting men reached the end with their boat, they dropped it at the skirt and pressed themselves against the wall. The façade was conveniently arched outwards as it ascended, making it difficult to be sighted from above. With the waves muffling the noise of speech, any of them can speak freely outside at sea level. From the cliffs above, their human conversations below would only sound like ghostly whispers. No casual listener should be alerted to such. But hearing and seeing are different things, and they must not be seen.
WinterStorm and BattleWolf soon followed. As Olyvar departed BattleWolf, he cringed at the soreness of his arms that the work had left him. His arms will have to ache again as his squad lifted the rowboat above their heads. They stormed towards the barred entrance, with bow and quiver slung on each shoulder, a turtle shell shield at the center of his back. While the others carried shorter lighter personal weapons, Olyvar was equipped with a longsword that once belonged to his King, Robb Stark.
They dropped off BattleWolf when they reached the wall, waiting for a way in. Ten brothers on one side of the cave, and eleven on the other. The closest ones to the door had their small axes and weapons drawn along with their shields, while the further ones notched an arrow onto their bow. Olyvar had his Summer Isle goldenheart bow ready. The entrance was small, the same size as their black shields, guarding the realm of Casterly Rock, and they continued to wait.
This thunderstorm was coming, and it was not part of the plan. It was the Blackfish’s decision to leave Motherfunker earlier before the storm surges would flood the sewers of Casterly Rock. Their forty yard dash from the beach to the gate may be twenty yards if they arrived an hour later … and there may be no more exit by the time they escape back. But Stark loyalists hidden in the woods outside of the castle were told of executing this assault at the exact evenfall of Queen Jeyne Stark’s arrival to Casterly Rock. The Lannister soldier escorts would be exhausted from their march and acquired a false sense of security when they reached the safe comforts of the castle. The Stark land forces led by Lord Gawen Westerling would create a mummer’s farce with trumpets and drums, sending the weary Lannisters to one side, as the Blackfish himself attacked the other from the sea. Evenfall of this day was the golden time to do this, but they arrived an hour too early. With the storm, Olyvar prayed that everyone else would adjust to the plan. He wondered if Lord Westerling would account for the storm surges. But it makes no difference now. They were here, and they cannot turn back.
Suddenly the rusted iron of the barred cave unlocked and swung open, creaking like a loud squealing rat. Emerged was a crouching older man with a short gray beard and a jaw squared like a mason spice jar. “Welcome to the Rock!” Ser Rolph Spicer declared.
Ser Brynden greeted him with a hug, “I’m so glad you came early, we would be sleeping with the fishes if you were late.”
“It was Edmure’s idea to leave early, he said the storm would flood the sewers, and we prayed you would come sooner too.”
“Like that damn Mill again, Edmure acting prematurely? That boy will never learn! Thank the Gods!”
They both chuckled and began entering through the gate. The others soon followed, ducking into the small hole and into the darkness.
Once inside the caves of Casterly Rock, Ser Rolph grabbed his torchlight and lifted it to the air, showing the brothers the vastness. The lobby was an open abyss where the ceiling was fifty feet high. The walls had multiple rocky openings naturally carved in, small and large. Some were wide enough to walk through. Inside were all shadows, saved the areas illuminated by golden sunlight spying in through each seldom hole or fissure. Where the flames can brighten, hard brown rocks glowed and flickered, as well as old metal tracks, mining carts, abandoned tools, ladders, rusty chains and the occasional plant roots that brewed in the darkness of the caves. The smell reeked. Olyvar was sure there would be no real gold here as it was probably mined out over the centuries. Only shit shits down here in the sewers and caves of Lord Tywin Lannister’s home, not gold, Olyvar thought. This was where Lann the Clever started his legend, swindling the Casterly residents out of the castle, cheating them. It was their turn now to write history, these archers from the sea facing off with their own modern Casterly ploy … accomplishing it without being seen, doing it as faceless warriors.
They followed Ser Rolph and his torchlight in single file, going deeper up into the caves, fitting in burrowed hallways that barely fit them, pursuing his decisions at each fork in the paths, squishing their feet on sluggish wet slopes and steps. The very first entrance they encountered required them to descend a few yards before climbing up the rest of the way. It was hundreds of feet in elevation that they must ascend to. At times, the way was lit well enough. But at other instants, the darkness blinds them, only facing the brother in front of them for their flight. I have promises to keep. And steps to go before I sleep. And steps to go before I sleep.
“By now the guards at the top of the Rock should be asleep after I spiced up their ale,” Ser Rolph Spicer said with a cheeky smile. “Before my sister Sybell married into House Westerling, I explored these parts of Casterly Rock in my youth as a smuggler, going up and down many times. Your legs will tire, no doubt about that. But you lads are years younger than I, and I better hear no complaints unless I am the first one to make it.”
“I’ll do my best,” young Leo announced for himself.
“Your best?” Ser Spicer questioned. “Losers whine about their best. Winners rescue crowned queens.”
“Lady Jeyne Westerling-Stark is THE crowned Queen,” Leo replied.
“Is that so?” Ser Rolph gave Leo a sarcastic look with a raised eyebrow, before continuing up the steps inside the Rock.
“I’ll decide the turns and I’ll establish the security checkpoints. There, we can rest for a moment. A few of you will be left there to guard the area as the others will continue to ascend. Those few will wait until we fall back. But remember, the journey down is far less exhausting. For now, let’s go up and up. Ser Olyvar Frey, would you take the honor of watching our rear?”
Ser Olyvar Frey. The name was still queer to him. As much as he liked the ‘Ser’ in his name, he would like to rid the “Frey” in the surname. He had been the most loyal squire a king could have asked for. He would have stayed with King Robb Stark to the end of the world, but his own blood tore that away from him. Olyvar was not blind though. His young king had made grave mistakes, more than Olyvar wanted to count. As much as he would have favored his sister Roslin to marry him, Olyvar knew you cannot choose the people you love. And Robb genuinely loved another, he hoped. Jeyne Westerling was just as sweet as Roslin. Olyvar would have stayed at Robb’s side as his brother-in-law, or some uncle-in-law by Lord Edmure Tully. Though by choosing Jeyne, it slighted Olyvar’s father Lord Walder Frey. But Seven Hells father, did you have to murder him? At my sister’s wedding feast? Under your own roof? Under my roof? Robb Stark was my king. He was brave and good, and Olyvar Frey loved him. And his soul was tortured in sleepless days and nights, knowing he shared the same blood as the murderers … knowing he could have stopped it if it was not for impulse. You are an honorable fool Olyvar. His father had told him of the treacherous plan the day before, but Olyvar cursed it aloud, defending Robb as it was still his duty. You should’ve been smart and played stupid with father. You could have informed Robb while you were still free, breaking this bad dream. Olyvar shouldn’t have tried to bargain with his father. He should have known he made up his mind a long while ago. Olyvar was imprisoned in the dungeons of the Twins during the Red Wedding. The gaolers were japing at him, “Go ahead, do your duty. Save your king!”
My king. The sad memories faded into blurred flashbacks.
[Part 2]

I bought a bunch of shares on credit, saying I'll cover the debt once I've tripled or more and let the rest ride. I've seen that happen twice already, I just can't do it, I can't se-... Cant even say the word.
Idk what to do apes, my finger hovers over the button and i start breaking into a cold sweat, vision gets blurry, and giant green crayons suddenly rocket into my vision. It's like I start hallucinating and my finger would grow the face of a disappointed papa Cohen who then says, "paperhanded bitch selling infinity at $60." And of course I immediately break down in tears over nearly becoming a paperhanded bitch.
It's a good thing I have diamond hands, I think I've figured it out apes, I'm just gonna need to work the debt off. I don't think I bear to part with even one to cover my debt.

Note: My best friend and I are both posting about this so if you see two that look the same that is why
On St.Patrick’s day of this year my best friend (19f) and I (19f) were hanging out when we got a message from our other friend stating that our friend at the time who we will call Abby (19f) had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend who we will call Timmy (21m) and he had broken and displaced things in her room and that they were broken up and that we should ask her to hang out with us that day. We messaged Abby asking if she was alright and if she had wanted to hang out with us she replied that everything was fine and they had worked it out when we asked if he had cleaned up the mess she replied “he said he will”. We had texted her off and on through out the day and asked if we could come over and help her clean her room. She agreed and we came over with our other friend Alice.
Walking into the room it was a disaster to say the least there were clothes scattered around, a broken monitor, glass shards, and a broken chair,etc. Mind you they live with her parents who allow this behavior to continue to this day. While cleaning we did make a few comments under our breaths but never spoke to Timmy. After a while we needed more light so Alice called her Bf who was outside waiting for her to come screw in a lightbulb after joking for a bit he too began to help us clean while Timmy was cleaning some trash out of the room. Fast forward to when we needed to leave because Abby needed to start getting ready for work so we began to leave but before leaving I spoke to Timmy telling him that I never want to clean broken glass from my friends room again he then began to say it was our friend who is the crazy one blah blah blah to which Alice replied with “you’re not gonna gaslight us buddy” to which prompted Timmy to yell “I’ll knock you the fuck out” to Alice. How it escalated so quickly I have no idea but due to Alice’s bf being there at the time of the threat he did not take it well as you can imagine he began yelling at Timmy who began to post up the Alice’s bf. For comparison Alice’s bf is 6’3 and boxes and Timmy is 5’4 - 5’6 with a scrawny druggy build. Soon they begin to fight and Abby gets in between them and tries and fails to post up to Alice’s bf. During the altercation we are screaming for them to stop and after a few seconds they do and Alice’s bf begins to walk away and Timmy shoves him but other than that it is over and Abby’s parents rush in and kick Alice and her bf out. Me my best friend and Abby go outside the room and explain to her parents what had happened it was then that I was informed that Timmy had pulled out a gun,cocked it and pointed it at all of us (from my place in the room I couldn’t see).
Everything seemed to be calmed down when Timmy came out of the room shirtless (for some reason) pointed his finger in my face and said “this is her fault” he went back into the room and Abby followed and we could hear him yelling “you set me up” which is a wild thing to assume but not the point of the post. After speaking to her parents for a while we left to meet up with Alice and her bf because she had left her phone. Alice’s bf asked us to message Abby and apologize on his part because he felt bad for the way he acted it is now June and she blocked us on all forms of social media except TikTok and has not reached out to us at all. But we are fine with it because we decided that night that we did not want to be around her anymore there have had been many conversations about Timmy and and that the way he treats her is not normal and that night shows that she will always choose him in a way we are happy to know her true colors but wish it didn’t have to implode the way it did
I do feel like I am partially to blame because I said something to him which started the mess but In my defense how was I to know he would pull out a gun? AITA?

The Situation outside the Gates about Family

The meaning of family can be talked about in different ways. Three of the most common ways that people default to in talking about family are the biological/blood kinship that most of us that weren't born as orphans are familiar with, the formal religious institutions we belong to, as well as the elective communities we join that share a common set of shared symbols and values as well as offer support when we need it.
One of the most prominent examples of the third sort of family in Western culture that has received more attention in recent years are the support networks and communities that persons in the LGBTQ+ community have forged for themselves to make up for deficiencies in the former or as an adjunct to them.
https://prismreports.org/2022/09/16/queer-non-nuclear-non-conformist-family/
https://www.southcoast.org/pride-month-ally-moms-nancy
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/jun/20/american-family-trans-gender-queer-nonbinary

Entering the Gates

Zen communities were elective families that people entered in a manner distinct from biological kinship and religious institutions and in a way that generated a reaction of hostility, bigotry, and persecution that the modern religious-right in America has echoed in its targeting of trans youths.
Zen texts are replete with references to leaving home as well as biographical sketches of Zen Masters to-be setting aside both biological and religious families to engage with the Zen tradition. The biographical sketches need to be qualified with the fact that most of them were not written by the Zen Master themselves and are not referenced or cited in any great number in Zen instructional texts.

Yangshan

Ch' an master Hui Chi of Yang Shan mountain in Yuan Chou district was a native of Huai Hai in Shao Chou district. His lay surname was Yeh. At the age of fifteen, he intended to leave home but was prevented by his parents. Two years later, he cut off two of his fingers and prostrated himself before his parents, swearing that he would go in search of the right Dharma to pay the debt of gratitude which he owed them

Zhaozhou

After the master received the [precepts] and ordination, he heard that his original master¹ had moved to Hu-kuo yuan in the west of Ts’ao province,’ so he returned there to pay his respects. Upon his return, his original master sent a message to his home saying, “A child of your house has returned from his travels.” The people of his household were extremely happy, and planned to come and see him the following day. The master heard of this and said, “There is no end to the worldly dusts of the net of love. I have rejected this, and have left home. I do not wish to see them a second time.” That night he packed his things and left.

1: No name given, no references by other Zen Masters. Safe to say this "original master" isn't of the lineage.

Huineng

My father, a native of Fan Yang, was dismissed from his official post and banished to be a commoner in Hsin Chou in Kwangtung. I was unlucky in that my father died when I was very young, leaving my mother poor and miserable. We moved to Canton and were then in very bad circumstances.
It must be due to my good karma in past lives that I heard about this, and that I was given ten taels for the maintenance of my mother by a man who advised me to go to HuangMei to interview the Fifth Patriarch. After arrangements had been made for her, I left for Huang Mei, which took me less than thirty days to reach.

Mingben

I had not yet finished school, that, when I was nine years old, my mother died and I [therefore] stopped attending school. From early on, I harbored the wish to become a monk. The worldly conditions daily became more restrictive, so I made a hundred plans how to abandon these conditions.
Until I was 24, although I made no special effort to liberate myself from these conditions, it just resolved by itself…
In the fifth month of this year, I climbed the mountain alone and paid the late master my respect.

Ascending the Seat

Zen instruction overturns both the blood-kinship-loyalty notions of family as well as the religious-doctrinal-affirmation notion of family while using the language of a Zen lineage with fathers, uncles, sons, daughters, and ancient patriarchs.

When the Master was crossing a river with Uncle Mi of Shen-shan, he asked, "How does one cross a river?"
"Don't get your feet wet," said Shen-shan.
At your venerable age, how can you say such a thing!" said the Master.
"How do you cross a river?" asked Shen-shan.
"Feet don't get wet," replied the Master.

This is an interview between Dongshan and his dharma-grandfather's (Yaoshan Weiyan) dharma-son (Shenshan Sengmi). There's an intergenerational dynamic of instruction being played out here as well as a context of references that could get lost in translation.
"How does one cross the river?" ("How do you get enlightened?")
"Don't get your feet wet," said Shen-shan. ("You can't do it by taking it step by step")
"At your venerable age, how can you say such a thing!" ("You're my uncle, you should know better than pulling this crap!")
"How do you cross a river?" ("What's your take, kid?")
"Feet don't get wet," ("Enlightenment is already manifest.")
From Linji:

"Followers of the Way, if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by others. Whether you're facing inward or facing outward. whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents, kill your parents. If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk. Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go.

The context here is critical and frequently misrepresented in the West by Dogenism and New Age religious gurus.
The central practice of Zen instruction as attested by the thousand years of records is public interviewing, not meditation, not mind-purification, not sutra-chanting, not merit-cultivation.
You can only kill a buddha, a patriarch, a saint, your parents, and your kinfolk if you can proceed in dharma-conversation with them, answer their questions, and set out a question for them that leaves them unable to instantaneously attest. This goes to show that there is both a recognition of understanding within the Zen tradition that can be talked about as familial but which defies the commonplace understandings surrounding the duties of blood-kinship-loyalty and religious-affiliation that are couched as essentially and intrinsically familial by believers in them.
Of course, killing is only one-half of the Zen tradition of killing-and-giving-life. But if someone can't even kill, how could anyone say they know anything about the meaning of giving life?
I'll hand off the mic to Hengchuan.
Here he is speaking to an old lady that was visiting the Zen community-storehouse that she donated to:

A strong and solid storehouse — every person has one, filled with precious things, but these are not gold and silver. Today, grandmother, you must recognize yours, so in the future you won’t have to ask anyone else.

Armaments: Daggers: - [x] Dagger - [x] Parrying dagger - [x] Miséricorde - [x] Great knife - [x] Bloodstained dagger - [x] Erdsteel dagger - [x] Wakizashi - [x] Celebrants sickle - [x] Ivory sickle - [x] Crystal knife - [x] Scorpions stinger - [x] Cinquedea - [x] Glintstone kris - [x] Reduvia - [x] Blade of calling - [x] Black knife Straight swords: - [x] Shortsword - [x] Longsword - [x] Broadsword - [x] Weathered straight sword - [x] Lordsworns straight sword - [x] Nobles slender sword - [x] Cane sword - [x] Warhawks talon - [x] Lazuli Glintstone sword - [x] Carian knights sword - [x] Crystal sword - [x] Rotten Crystal sword - [x] Miquellan knights sword - [x] Ornamental straight sword - [x] Golden epitaph - [x] Sword of st trina - [x] Regalia of eochaid - [x] Coded sword - [x] Sword of night and flame Greatswords: - [x] Bastard sword - [x] Claymore - [x] Iron greatsword - [x] Lordsworns greatsword - [x] Knights greatsword - [x] Banished knights greatsword - [x] Forked greatsword - [x] Flamberge - [x] Gargoyles greatsword - [x] Gargoyles black blade - [x] Inseparable sword - [x] Sword of Milos - [x] Marias executioner sword - [x] Ordovis’ greatsword - [x] Alabaster lords sword - [x] Deaths poker - [x] Helphen’s steeple - [x] Blasphemous blade - [x] Golden order greatsword - [x] Dark moon greatsword - [x] Sacred relic sword Colossal swords: - [x] Zweihander - [x] Greatsword - [x] Watchdogs greatsword - [x] Trolls golden sword - [x] Troll knights sword - [x] Royal greatsword - [x] Grafted blade greatsword - [x] Ruins greatsword - [x] Starscourge greatsword - [x] Godslayers greatsword - [x] Malikeths black blade Thrusting swords: - [x] Rapier - [x] Estoc - [x] Nobles estoc - [x] Cleanrot knights sword - [x] Rogiers rapier - [x] Antspur rapier - [x] Frozen needle Heavy thrusting swords: - [x] Great epee - [x] Godskin stitcher - [x] Bloody helice - [x] Dragon kings cragblade Curved swords: - [x] Scimitar - [x] Falchion - [x] Shamshir - [x] Grossmesser - [x] Bandits curved sword - [x] Shotel - [x] Scavengers curved sword - [x] Mantis blade - [x] Beastmans curved sword - [x] Flowing curved sword - [x] Serpent gods curved sword - [x] Magma blade - [x] Nox flowing sword - [x] Wing of astel - [x] Eclipse shotel Curved greatswords: - [x] Dismounter - [x] Omen cleaver - [x] Monks flame blade - [x] Beastmans cleaver - [x] Bloodhounds fang - [x] Onyx lords greatsword - [x] Zamor curved sword - [x] Magma wyrms scalesword - [x] Morgotts cursed sword Katanas: - [x] Uchigatana - [x] Nagakiba - [x] Serpentbone blade - [x] Meteoric ore blade - [x] Moonveil - [x] Rivers of blood - [x] Dragon scale blade - [x] Hand of malenia Twinblades: - [x] Twinblade - [x] Twinned knights sword - [x] Godskin peeler - [x] Gargoyles twinblade - [x] Gargoyles black blades - [x] Eleonora’s poleblade Axes: - [x] Hand axe - [x] Forked hatchet - [x] Battle axe - [x] Warped axe - [x] Jawbone axe - [x] Iron cleaver - [x] Highland axe - [x] Celebrants cleaver - [x] Sacrificial axe - [x] Icerind hatchet - [x] Ripple blade - [x] Stormhawk axe - [x] Rosus’ axe Greataxes: - [x] Greataxe - [x] Crescent moon axe - [x] Longhaft axe - [x] Executioners greataxe - [x] Great omenkiller cleaver - [x] Rusted anchor - [x] Butchering knife - [x] Gargoyles greataxe - [x] Gargoyles black axe - [x] Winged greathorn - [x] Axe of godrick Hammers: - [x] Club - [x] Curved club - [x] Spiked club - [x] Stone club - [x] Mace - [x] Morning star - [x] Warpick - [x] Hammer - [x] Monks flame mace - [x] Varrés bouquet - [x] Envoys horn - [x] Nox flowing hammer - [x] Ringed finger - [x] Scepter of the all knowing - [x] Marikas hammer Flails: - [x] Flail - [x] Nightrider flail - [x] Chain link flail - [x] Family heads - [x] Bastards stars Great hammers: - [x] Large club - [x] Curved greatclub - [x] Great mace - [x] Pickaxe - [x] Brick hammer - [x] Battle hammer - [x] Rotten battle hammer - [x] Celebrants skull - [x] Great stars - [x] Greathorn hammer - [x] Envoys longhorn - [x] Cranial vessel candlestand - [x] Beastclaw greathammer - [x] Devourers scepter Colossal weapons: - [x] Duelist greataxe - [x] Rotten greataxe - [x] Golems halberd - [x] Giant crusher - [x] Prelates inferno cozier - [x] Greatclub - [x] Trolls hammer - [x] Dragon greatclaw - [x] Watchdogs staff - [x] Staff of the avatar - [x] Rotten staff - [x] Envoys greathorn - [x] Ghizas wheel - [x] Falling star beast jaw - [x] Axe of Godfrey Spears: - [x] Short spear - [x] Iron spear - [x] Spear - [x] Partisan - [x] Pike - [x] Spiked spear - [x] Cross-naginata - [x] Claymans harpoon - [x] Celebrants rib-rake - [x] Torchpole - [x] Inquisitors girandole - [x] Crystal spear - [x] Rotten Crystal spear - [x] Cleanrot spear - [x] Death ritual spear - [x] Bolt of gransax Greatspears: - [x] Lance - [x] Treespear - [x] Serpent hunter - [x] Silurias tree - [x] Vykes war spear - [x] Mohgwyn’s sacred spear Halberds: - [x] Halberd - [x] Banished knights halberd - [x] Lucerne - [x] Glaive - [x] Vulgar militia shotel - [x] Vulgar militia saw - [x] Guardians swordspear - [x] Gargoyles halberd - [x] Gargoyles black halberd - [x] Nightrider glaive - [x] Pests glaive - [x] Ripple crescent blade - [x] Golden halberd - [x] Dragon halberd - [x] Lorettas war sickle - [x] Commanders standard Reapers: - [x] Scythe - [x] Grave scythe - [x] Halo scythe - [x] Winged scythe Whips: - [x] Whip - [x] Thorned whip - [x] Urumi - [x] Hoslow’s petal whip - [x] Magma whip candlestick - [x] Giants red braid Fists: - [x] Caestus - [x] Spiked caestus - [x] Katar - [x] Iron ball - [x] Star fist - [x] Clinging bone - [x] Veterans prosthesis - [x] Cipher pata - [x] Grafted dragon Claws: - [x] Hookclaws - [x] Bloodhounds claws - [x] Venomous fangs - [x] Raptors talons Light bows: - [x] Shortbow - [x] Composite bow - [x] Red branch shortbow - [x] Misbegotten shortbow - [x] Harp bow Bows: - [x] Longbow - [x] Albunaric bow (snowfield) - [x] Black bow - [x] Pulley bow - [x] Horn bow - [x] Serpent bow - [x] Erdtree bow Greatbows: - [x] Greatbow - [x] Golem greatbow - [x] Erdtree greatbow - [x] Lion greatbow Crossbows: - [x] Soldiers crossbow - [x] Light crossbow - [x] Heavy crossbow - [x] Arabalest - [x] Crepus’ black-key crossbow - [x] Pulley crossbow - [x] Full moon crossbow Ballistas: - [x] Hand ballista - [x] Jar cannon Glintstone staffs: - [x] Astrologers staff - [x] Glintstone staff - [x] Academy Glintstone staff - [x] Diggers staff - [x] Demi-human queens staff - [x] Azur Glintstone staff - [x] Lusats Glintstone staff - [x] Carian Glintstone staff - [x] Carian glintblade staff - [x] Carian regal scepter - [x] Albunaric staff - [x] Staff of loss - [x] Gelmir Glintstone staff - [x] Crystal staff - [x] Rotten Crystal staff - [x] Meteorite staff - [x] Staff of the guilty - [x] Prince of deaths staff Sacred seals: - [x] Finger seal - [x] Erdtree seal - [x] Golden order seal - [x] Gravel stone seal - [x] Giants seal - [x] Godslayer seal - [x] Clawmark seal - [x] Frenzied flame seal - [x] Dragon communion seal Torches: - [x] Torch - [x] Beast repellent torch - [x] Steel wire torch - [x] Sentry’s torch - [x] Ghostflame torch - [x] St trinas torch Small shields: - [x] Rickety shield - [x] Riveted wooden shield - [x] Blue-white wooden shield - [x] Scripture wooden shield - [x] Red thorn roundshield - [x] Pillory shield - [x] Buckler - [x] Iron roundshield - [x] Gilded iron shield - [x] Man-serpents shield - [x] Ice crest shield - [x] Rift shield - [x] Perfumers shield - [x] Shield of the guilty - [x] Spiralhorn shield - [x] Smoldering shield - [x] Coil shield Medium shields: - [x] Hawk crest wooden shield - [x] Horse crest wooden shield - [x] Candletree wooden shield - [x] Flame crest wooden shield - [x] Marred wooden shield - [x] Sun realm shield - [x] Round shield - [x] Large leather shield - [x] Black leather shield - [x] Marred leather shield - [x] Heater shield - [x] Blue crest heater shield - [x] Red crest heater shield - [x] Beast crest heater shield - [x] Inverted hawk heater shield - [x] Eclipse crest heater shield - [x] Kite shield - [x] Blue-gold kite shield - [x] Scorpion kite shield - [x] Twinbird kite shield - [x] Brass shield - [x] Banished knights shield - [x] Albunaric shield - [x] Beast-mans jar shield - [x] Carian knights shield - [x] Silver Mirrorshield - [x] Great turtle shell Greatshields: - [x] Wooden greatshield - [x] Lordsworns shield - [x] Briar greatshield - [x] Spiked palisade shield - [x] Icon shield - [x] Golden beastcrest shield - [x] Manor towershield - [x] Crossed-tree towershield - [x] Inverted hawk towershield - [x] Dragon towershield - [x] Distinguished greatshield - [x] Gilded greatshield - [x] Cuckoo greatshield - [x] Redmane greatshield - [x] Golden greatshield - [x] Haligtree crest greatshield - [x] Crucible hornshield - [x] Dragonclaw shield - [x] Fingerprint stone shield - [x] Eclipse crest greatshield - [x] Ants skull plate - [x] Erdtree greatshield - [x] Jellyfish shield - [x] Visage shield - [x] One-eyed shield
Armour: Heads: - [x] Alberich’s pointed hat - [x] Albunaric mask - [x] All-knowing helm - [x] Aristocrat hat - [x] Aristocrat headband - [x] Ash of war scarab - [x] Astrologers hood - [x] Azur’s glintstone crown - [x] Bandit mask - [x] Banished knight helm - [x] Beast champion helm - [x] Black dumpling - [x] Black hood - [x] Black knife hood - [x] Black wolf mask - [x] Black flame monk hood - [x] Blackguards iron mask - [x] Bloodhound knight helm - [x] Bloodsoaked mask - [x] Blue cloth cowl - [x] Blue festive hood - [x] Blue silver mail hood - [x] Briar helm - [x] Bull-goat helm - [x] Carian knight helm - [x] Cerulean tear scarab - [x] Chain coif - [x] Champion headband - [x] Cleanrot helm - [x] Commoners headband - [x] Confessor hood - [x] Consorts mask - [x] Crimson hood - [x] Crimson tear scarab - [x] Crucible axe helm - [x] Crucible tree helm - [x] Cuckoo knight helm - [x] Depraved perfumers headscarf - [x] Diallos mask - [x] Drake knight helm - [x] Duelist helm - [x] Eccentrics hood - [x] Elden Lord crown - [x] Envoy crown - [x] Exile hood - [x] Festive hood - [x] Fia’s hood - [x] Finger maiden fillet - [x] Fingerprint helm - [x] Fire monk hood - [x] Fire prelate helm - [x] Foot soldier cap - [x] Foot soldier helm - [x] Foot soldier helmet - [x] Gelmir knight helm - [x] Gilded foot soldier cap - [x] Glintstone scarab - [x] Godrick knight helm - [x] Godrick soldier helm - [x] Godskin apostle hood - [x] Godskin noble hood - [x] Great horned headband - [x] Greathelm - [x] Greathood - [x] Guardian mask - [x] Guilty hood - [x] Haima glintstone crown - [x] Haligtree helm - [x] Haligtree knight helm - [x] Hierodas glintstone crown - [x] High page hood - [x] Highwayman hood - [x] Hoslows helm - [x] Iji’s mirrorhelm - [x] Imp head cat - [x] Imp head corpse - [x] Imp head Elder - [x] Imp head fanged - [x] Imp head long-tongued - [x] Imp head wolf - [x] Incantation scarab - [x] Iron helmet - [x] Iron kasa - [x] Jar - [x] Juvenile scholar cap - [x] Kaiden helm - [x] Karolos glintstone crown - [x] Knight helm - [x] Land of reeds helm - [x] Lazuli glintstone crown - [x] Leyndell knight helm - [x] Leyndell soldier helm - [x] Lionel’s helm - [x] Lusat’s glintstone crown - [x] Malenia’s winged helm - [x] Malformed dragon helm - [x] Malikeths helm - [x] Marais helm - [x] Marionette soldiers birdhelm - [x] Marionette soldiers helm - [x] Mask of confidence - [x] Mushroom crown - [x] Mushroom head - [x] Navy hood - [x] Night maiden twin crown - [x] Nights cavalry helm - [x] Nomadic merchants chapeau - [x] Nox mirrorhelm - [x] Nox monk hood - [x] Nox swordstress crown - [x] Octopus head - [x] Okina mask - [x] Old aristocrat cowl - [x] Olivinus glintstone crown - [x] Omen helm - [x] Omensmirk mask - [x] Page hood - [x] Perfumers hood - [x] Preceptors big hat - [x] Prisoner iron mask - [x] Prophet blindfold - [x] Pumpkin head - [x] Queens crescent crown - [x] Radahn solider helm - [x] Radahns redmane helm - [x] Radiant gold mask - [x] Raging wolf helm - [x] Raya Lucarian helm - [x] Redmane knight helm - [x] Rotten duelist helm - [x] Royal knights helm - [x] Royal remains helm - [x] Ruler’s mask - [x] Sacred crown helm - [x] Sage hood - [x] Sanguine noble hood - [x] Scaled helm - [x] Shining horn headband - [x] Silver tear mask - [x] Skeletal mask - [x] Snow witch hat - [x] Spellblades pointed hat - [x] Traveler’s hat - [x] Travelling maidens hood - [x] Tree sentinel helm - [x] Twinned helm - [x] Twinsage glintstone crown - [x] Vagabond knight helm - [x] Veterans helm - [x] Vulgar militia helm - [x] White mask - [x] Witch’s glintstone crown - [x] Zamor mask Chest: - [x] Alberich’s robe - [x] All-knowing armour - [x] Aristocrat coat - [x] Aristocrat garb - [x] Astrologers robe - [x] Azur’s glintstone robe - [x] Bandit garb - [x] Banished knight armour - [x] Battlemage robe - [x] Beast champion armour - [x] Black knife armour - [x] Blackflame monk armour - [x] Blaidd’s armour - [x] Bloodhound knight armour - [x] Bloodsoaked tabard - [x] Blue cloth vest - [x] Blue festive garb - [x] Blue silver mail armour - [x] Briar armour - [x] Bull-goats armour - [x] Carian knight armour - [x] Chain armour - [x] Chain-draped tabard - [x] Champions pauldron - [x] Cleanrot armour - [x] Cloth garb - [x] Commoners garb - [x] Commoners simple garb - [x] Confessor armour - [x] Consorts robe - [x] Corhyns robe - [x] Crucible axe armour - [x] Crucible tree armour - [x] Cuckoo knight armour - [x] Cuckoo surcoat - [x] Deathbed dress - [x] Depraved perfumer robe - [x] Dirty chainmail - [x] Drake knight armour - [x] Eccentrics armour - [x] Elden Lord armour - [x] Erdtree surcoat - [x] Errant sorcerer robe - [x] Exile armour - [x] Eye surcoat - [x] Fell omen cloak - [x] Festive garb - [x] Fia’s robe - [x] Finger maiden robe - [x] Fingerprint armour - [x] Fire monk armour - [x] Fire prelate armour - [x] Foot soldier tabard - [x] Fur rainment - [x] Gelmir knight armour - [x] Godrick knight armour - [x] Godskin apostle robe - [x] Godskin noble robe - [x] Goldmask’s rags - [x] Gravekeeper cloak - [x] Guardian garb - [x] Guardian garb full bloom - [x] Haligtree crest surcoat - [x] Haligtree knight armour - [x] High page clothes - [x] Highwayman cloth armour - [x] Hoslows armour - [x] Ivory draped tabard - [x] Juvenile scholar robe - [x] Kaiden armour - [x] Knight armour - [x] Land of reeds armour - [x] Lazuli robe - [x] Leather armour - [x] Leather draped tabard - [x] Leyndell knight armour - [x] Lionel’s armour - [x] Lord of bloods robe - [x] Lusat’s robe - [x] Malenia armour - [x] Malformed dragon armour - [x] Malikeths armour - [x] Marais robe - [x] Marionette soldier armour - [x] Mausoleum knight armour - [x] Mausoleum surcoat - [x] Mushroom body - [x] Night maiden armour - [x] Nights cavalry armour - [x] Nobles traveling garb - [x] Nomadic merchants finery - [x] Nox monk armour - [x] Nox swordstress armour - [x] Officials attire - [x] Old aristocrat gown - [x] Omen armour - [x] Omenkiller robe - [x] Page garb - [x] Perfumers robe - [x] Perfumers traveling garb - [x] Preceptors long gown - [x] Prisoner clothing - [x] Prophet robe - [x] Queens robe - [x] Radahns lion armour - [x] Raging wolf armour - [x] Raptors black feathers - [x] Raya lucarian robe - [x] Redmane knight armour - [x] Redmane surcoat - [x] Ronins armour - [x] Rotten gravekeeper cloak - [x] Royal knight armour - [x] Royal remains armour - [x] Rulers robe - [x] Sage robe - [x] Sanguine noble robe - [x] Scale armour - [x] Scaled armour - [x] Scarlet tabard - [x] Shaman furs - [x] Snow witch robe - [x] Spellblades traveling attire - [x] Travelers clothes - [x] Traveling maiden robe - [x] Tree sentinel armour - [x] Tree surcoat - [x] Tree and beast surcoat - [x] Twinned armour - [x] Upper-class robe - [x] Vagabond knight armour - [x] Veterans armour - [x] Vulgar militia armour - [x] War surgeon gown - [x] White reed armour - [x] Zamor armour Arms: - [x] Alberich’s bracers - [x] All-knowing gauntlets - [x] Astrologers gloves - [x] Azur’s manchettes - [x] Bandit manchettes - [x] Banished knights gauntlets - [x] Battlemage manchettes - [x] Beast champion gauntlets - [x] Black knife gauntlets - [x] Black flame monk gauntlets - [x] Blaidds gauntlets - [x] Bloodhound knight gauntlets - [x] Bloodsoaked manchettes - [x] Blue silver bracelets - [x] Briar gauntlets - [x] Bull-goats gauntlets - [x] Carian knights gauntlets - [x] Champion bracers - [x] Cleanrot gauntlets - [x] Confessor gloves - [x] Crucible gauntlets - [x] Cuckoo knight gauntlets - [x] Depraved perfumer gloves - [x] Drake knight gauntlets - [x] Eccentric manchettes - [x] Elden Lord gauntlets - [x] Errant sorcerer manchettes - [x] Exile gauntlets - [x] Fingerprint gauntlets - [x] Fire monk gauntlets - [x] Fire prelate gauntlets - [x] Foot soldier gauntlets - [x] Gauntlets - [x] Gelmir knight gauntlets - [x] Godrick knight gauntlets - [x] Godrick solider gauntlets - [x] Godskin apostle bracelets - [x] Godskin noble bracelets - [x] Gold bracelets - [x] Guardian bracers - [x] Haligtree gauntlets - [x] Haligtree knight gauntlets - [x] Highwayman gauntlets - [x] Hoslows gauntlets - [x] Iron gauntlets - [x] Kaiden gauntlets - [x] Knight gauntlets - [x] Land of reeds gauntlets - [x] Leather gloves - [x] Leyndell knight gauntlets - [x] Leyndell soldier gauntlets - [x] Lionel’s gauntlets - [x] Lusats manchettes - [x] Malenias gauntlets - [x] Malformed dragon gauntlets - [x] Malikeths gauntlets - [x] Mausoleum gauntlets - [x] Mausoleum knights gauntlets - [x] Mushroom arms - [x] Nights cavalry gauntlets - [x] Nobles gloves - [x] Nox bracelets - [x] Omen gauntlets - [x] Omenkiller long gloves - [x] Perfumer gloves - [x] Preceptor gloves - [x] Queens bracelets - [x] Radahn soldier gauntlets - [x] Radahns gauntlets - [x] Raging wolf gauntlets - [x] Raya lucarian gauntlets - [x] Redmane knight gauntlets - [x] Ronin’s gauntlets - [x] Royal knight gauntlets - [x] Royal remains gauntlets - [x] Scaled gauntlets - [x] Sorcerer manchettes - [x] Spellblade gloves - [x] Travelers gloves - [x] Travelers manchettes - [x] Traveling maiden gloves - [x] Tree sentinel gauntlets - [x] Twinned gauntlets - [x] Vagabond knight gauntlets - [x] Veterans gauntlets - [x] Vulgar militia gauntlets - [x] War surgeon gloves - [x] Warrior gauntlets - [x] White reed gauntlets - [x] Zamor bracelets Legs: - [x] Alberich’s trousers - [x] All-knowing greaves - [x] Aristocrat boots - [x] Astrologer trousers - [x] Bandit boots - [x] Banished knights greaves - [x] Battlemage leg wraps - [x] Beast champion greaves - [x] Black knife greaves - [x] Blackflame monk greaves - [x] Blaidd’s greaves - [x] Bloodhound knight greaves - [x] Blue silver mail skirt - [x] Briar greaves - [x] Bull-goats greaves - [x] Carian knight greaves - [x] Chain leggings - [x] Champion gaiters - [x] Cleanrot greaves - [x] Cloth trousers - [x] Commoners shoes - [x] Confessor boots - [x] Consorts trousers - [x] Crucible greaves - [x] Cuckoo knight greaves - [x] Depraved perfumer trousers - [x] Drake knight greaves - [x] Duelist greaves - [x] Eccentrics breeches - [x] Elden Lord greaves - [x] Errant sorcerer boots - [x] Exile greaves - [x] Finger maiden shoes - [x] Fingerprint greaves - [x] Fire monk greaves - [x] Fire prelate greaves - [x] Foot soldier greaves - [x] Fur leggings - [x] Gelmir knights greaves - [x] Godrick knight greaves - [x] Godrick solider greaves - [x] Godskin apostle trousers - [x] Godskin noble trousers - [x] Gold waistwrap - [x] Guardian greaves - [x] Haligtree greaves - [x] Haligtree knight greaves - [x] Hoslows greaves - [x] Kaiden trousers - [x] Knight greaves - [x] Land of reeds greaves - [x] Leather boots - [x] Leather trousers - [x] Leyndell knight greaves - [x] Leyndell soldier greaves - [x] Lionel’s greaves - [x] Malenias greaves - [x] Malformed dragon greaves - [x] Malikeths greaves - [x] Mausoleum knight greaves - [x] Mushroom legs - [x] Nights cavalry greaves - [x] Nobles trousers - [x] Nomadic merchants trousers - [x] Nox greaves - [x] Old aristocrat shoes - [x] Old sorcerers leg wraps - [x] Omen greaves - [x] Omenkiller boots - [x] Page trousers - [x] Perfumer sarong - [x] Preceptors trousers - [x] Prisoner trousers - [x] Prophet trousers - [x] Queens leggings - [x] Radahn solider greaves - [x] Radahns greaves - [x] Raging wolf greaves - [x] Raya lucarian greaves - [x] Redmane knights greaves - [x] Ronins greaves - [x] Rotten duelists greaves - [x] Royal knight greaves - [x] Royal remains greaves - [x] Sage trousers - [x] Sanguine noble waistcloth - [x] Scaled greaves - [x] Shaman leggings - [x] Snow witch skirt - [x] Sorcerers leggings - [x] Spellblade trousers - [x] Travelers boots - [x] Travelers slops - [x] Traveling maiden boots - [x] Tree sentinel greaves - [x] Twinned greaves - [x] Vagabond knight greaves - [x] Veterans greaves - [x] Vulgar militia greaves - [x] War surgeon trousers - [x] Warrior greaves - [x] White reed greaves - [x] Zamor legwraps
Talismans: - [x] Crimson amber medallion - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Crimson seed talisman - [x] Blessed dew talisman - [x] Cerulean amber medallion - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Cerulean seed talisman - [x] Viridian amber medallion - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Green turtle talisman - [x] Arsenal charm - [x] Great-jar’s Arsenal - [x] Erdtrees favour - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Radagons scarseal - [x] Radagons soreseal - [x] Marikas scarseal - [x] Marikas soreseal - [x] Starscourge heirloom - [x] Prosthesis-wearer heirloom - [x] Stargazer heirloom - [x] Two fingers heirloom - [x] Dragoncrest shield talisman - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Dragoncrest greatshield talisman - [x] Spelldrake talisman - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Flamedrake talisman - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Boltdrake talisman - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Haligdrake talisman - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Pearldrake talisman - [x] +1 - [x] +2 - [x] Immunising horn charm - [x] +1 - [x] Stalwart horn charm - [x] +1 - [x] Clarifying horn charm - [x] +1 - [x] Mottled necklace - [x] +1 - [x] Prince of deaths pustule - [x] Prince of deaths cyst - [x] Dagger talisman - [x] Curved sword talisman - [x] Twinblade talisman - [x] Axe talisman - [x] Hammer talisman - [x] Spear talisman - [x] Lance talisman - [x] Claw talisman - [x] Greatshield talisman - [x] Arrow’s sting talisman - [x] Arrow’s reach talisman - [x] Graven-school talisman - [x] Graven-mass talisman - [x] Faithful’s canvas talisman - [x] Flock’s canvas talisman - [x] Primal glintstone blade - [x] Moon of nokstella - [x] Old lords talisman - [x] Radagon icon - [x] Roar medallion - [x] Companion jar - [x] Perfumers talisman - [x] Carian filigreed crest - [x] Warrior jar shard - [x] Shard of Alexander - [x] Godfrey icon - [x] Bull-goats talisman - [x] Blue dancer charm - [x] Magic scorpion charm - [x] Fire scorpion charm - [x] Lightning scorpion charm - [x] Sacred scorpion charm - [x] Crucible scale talisman - [x] Crucible feather talisman - [x] Crucible knot talisman - [x] Red-feathered branchsword - [x] Blue-feathered branchsword - [x] Ritual sword talisman - [x] Ritual shield talisman - [x] Assassins crimson dagger - [x] Assassins cerulean dagger - [x] Winged sword insignia - [x] Rotten winged sword insignia - [x] Millicent’s prosthesis - [x] Godskin swaddling cloth - [x] Kindred of rots exultation - [x] Lord of bloods exultation - [x] Takers cameo - [x] Ancestral spirits horn - [x] Gold scarab - [x] Silver scarab - [x] Crepus’ vial - [x] Concealing veil - [x] Longtail cat talisman - [x] Furled finger’s trick-mirror - [x] Host’s trick-mirror - [x] Shabiri’s woe - [x] Daedicar’s woe - [x] Sacrificial twig
Ashes: Basic ashes: - [x] Wandering noble - [x] Noble sorcerer - [x] Nomad - [x] Putrid corpse - [x] Skeletal militiaman - [x] Skeletal bandit - [x] Albunaric - [x] Winged misbegotten - [x] Demi human - [x] Clayman - [x] Oracle envoy - [x] Lone wolf - [x] Rotten stray - [x] Giant rat - [x] Warhawk - [x] Land squirt - [x] Spirit jellyfish - [x] Miranda sprout - [x] Fanged imp - [x] Soldjars of Fortune - [x] Archer - [x] Greatshield solider - [x] Page - [x] Vulgar militia - [x] Marionette soldier - [x] Avionette soldier - [x] Kaiden sellsword - [x] Mad pumpkinhead - [x] Fire monk - [x] Ancestral follower - [x] Azula beastmen - [x] Man-serpent - [x] Crystalian - [x] Kindred of rot - [x] Glintstone sorcerer - [x] Twinsage sorcerer - [x] Godrick soldier - [x] Raya Lucaria soldier - [x] Leyndell soldier - [x] Radahn soldier - [x] Haligtree soldier - [x] Mausoleum soldier Renowned ashes: - [x] Stormhawk Deenh - [x] Banished knight Oleg - [x] Banished knight Engvall - [x] Bloodhound knight Floh - [x] Battlemage Hughes - [x] Latenna the Albunaric - [x] Perfumer Tricia - [x] Depraved perfumer Carmaan - [x] Omenkiller Rollo - [x] Blackflame monk Amon - [x] Ancient Dragon knight Kristoff - [x] Redmane knight Ogha - [x] Lhutel the headless - [x] Cleanrot knight Finlay - [x] Black knife Tiche - [x] Mimic tear Puppets: - [x] Finger maiden Therolina - [x] Jarwight - [x] Dolores the sleeping arrow - [x] Nepheli Loux - [x] Dungeater - [x] Night maiden and swordstress
Ashes of war: - [x] Stamp (upward cut) - [x] Stamp (sweep) - [x] Wild strikes - [x] Lions claw - [x] Cragblade - [x] Kick - [x] Endure - [x] Ground slam - [x] Earthshaker - [x] Hoarah Loux’s earthshaker - [x] War cry - [x] Barbaric roar - [x] Braggart’s roar - [x] Trolls roar - [x] Spinning slash - [x] Impaling thrust - [x] Piercing fang - [x] Repeating thrust - [x] Double slash - [x] Sword dance - [x] Unsheathe - [x] Quickstep - [x] Bloodhounds step - [x] Raptor of the mists - [x] Beasts roar - [x] Square off - [x] Charge forth - [x] Spinning strikes - [x] Giant hunt - [x] Stormblade - [x] Storm assault - [x] Stormcaller - [x] Storm stomp - [x] Vacuum slice - [x] Phantom slash - [x] Determination - [x] Royal knights resolve - [x] Glintstone pebble - [x] Glintblade phalanx - [x] Carian greatsword - [x] Carian grandeur - [x] Spinning weapon - [x] Loretta’s slash - [x] Gravitas - [x] Waves of darkness - [x] Flaming strike - [x] Flame of the redmanes - [x] Eruption - [x] Prelates charge - [x] Blackflame tornado - [x] Thunderbolt - [x] Lightning slash - [x] Lightning ram - [x] Sacred blade - [x] Prayerful strike - [x] Sacred ring of light - [x] Sacred order - [x] Shared order - [x] Golden land - [x] Golden slam - [x] Golden vow - [x] Vow of the indomitable - [x] Holy ground - [x] Poisonous mist - [x] Poison moth flight - [x] Blood blade - [x] Bloody slash - [x] Blood tax - [x] Seppuku - [x] Ice spear - [x] Chilling mist - [x] Hoarfrost stomp - [x] Spectral lance - [x] Lifesteal fist - [x] White shadow’s lure - [x] Assassins gambit - [x] Mighty shot - [x] Through and through - [x] Barrage - [x] Sky shot - [x] Enchanted shot - [x] Rain of arrows - [x] Parry - [x] Golden parry - [x] Storm wall - [x] Shield bash - [x] Shield crash - [x] Barricade shield - [x] Thops’ barrier - [x] Carian retaliation - [x] No skill
Spells: Sorceries: - [x] Adula’s moonblade - [x] Ambush shard - [x] Ancient death rancor - [x] Briars of punishment - [x] Briars of sin - [x] Cannon of Haima - [x] Carian greatsword - [x] Carian phalanx - [x] Carian piercer - [x] Carian retaliation - [x] Carian slicer - [x] Collapsing stars - [x] Comet - [x] Comet azur - [x] Crystal barrage - [x] Crystal burst - [x] Crystal release - [x] Crystal torrent - [x] Eternal darkness - [x] Explosive ghostflame - [x] Fias mist - [x] Founding rain of stars - [x] Freezing mist - [x] Frozen armament - [x] Gavel of Haima - [x] Gelmirs fury - [x] Glintblade phalanx - [x] Glintstone arc - [x] Glintstone cometshard - [x] Glintstone icecrag - [x] Glintstone pebble - [x] Glintstone stars - [x] Gravity well - [x] Great glintstone shard - [x] Great oracular bubble - [x] Greatblade phalanx - [x] Loretta’s greatbow - [x] Loretta’s mastery - [x] Lucidity - [x] Magic downpour - [x] Magic glintblade - [x] Magma shot - [x] Meteorite - [x] Meteorite of Astel - [x] Night comet - [x] Night maidens mist - [x] Night shard - [x] Oracle bubbles - [x] Rancorcall - [x] Ranni’s dark moon - [x] Rennala’s full moon - [x] Rock blaster - [x] Rock sling - [x] Roiling magma - [x] Rykard’s rancor - [x] Scholars armament - [x] Scholars shield - [x] Shard spiral - [x] Shatter Earth - [x] Shattering Crystal - [x] Star shower - [x] Starlight - [x] Stars of ruin - [x] Swift glintstone shard - [x] Terra magica - [x] Thops’ barrier - [x] Tibia summons - [x] Unseen blade - [x] Unseen form - [x] Zamor ice storm Incantations: - [x] Agheel’s flame - [x] Ancient dragons lightning strike - [x] Ancient dragons lightning spear - [x] Aspects of the crucible: Breath - [x] Aspects of the crucible: Horns - [x] Aspects of the crucible: Tail - [x] Assassins approach - [x] Barrier of Gold - [x] Beast claw - [x] Bestial constitution - [x] Bestial sling - [x] Bestial vitality - [x] Black blade - [x] Black flame - [x] Blackflame blade - [x] Blackflame’s protection - [x] Blackflame ritual - [x] Blessing of the erdtree - [x] Blessings boon - [x] Blood boon - [x] Bloodflame blade - [x] Bloodflame talons - [x] Borealis’ mist - [x] Burn O flame - [x] Catch flame - [x] Cure poison - [x] Darkness - [x] Death lightning - [x] Discus of light - [x] Divine fortification - [x] Dragonbolt blessing - [x] Dragonclaw - [x] Dragonfire - [x] Dragonice - [x] Dragonmaw - [x] Ekzykes decay - [x] Elden stars - [x] Electrify armament - [x] Erdtree heal - [x] Fires deadly sin - [x] Flame fortification - [x] Flame sling - [x] Flame of the fell god - [x] Flame, cleanse me - [x] Flame, fall upon them - [x] Flame, grant me strength - [x] Flame, protect me - [x] Fortissax’s double lightning spear - [x] Frenzied burst - [x] Frozen lightning spear - [x] Giantsflame take thee - [x] Glintstone breath - [x] Golden lightning fortification - [x] Golden vow - [x] Great heal - [x] Greyoll’s roar - [x] Gurranq’s beast claw - [x] Heal - [x] Honed bolt - [x] Howl of shabriri - [x] Immutable shield - [x] Inescapable frenzy - [x] Lansseax’s glaive - [x] Law of casualty - [x] Law of regression - [x] Lightning fortification - [x] Lightning spear - [x] Lightning strike - [x] Litany of proper death - [x] Lords aid - [x] Lords divine fortification - [x] Lords heal - [x] Magic fortification - [x] Magma breath - [x] Noble presence - [x] O, Flame! - [x] Order healing - [x] Order’s blade - [x] Pest threads - [x] Placidusax’s ruin - [x] Poison armament - [x] Poison mist - [x] Protection of the erdtree - [x] Radagons rings of light - [x] Rejection - [x] Rotten breath - [x] Scarlet aeonia - [x] Scouring blackflame - [x] Shadow bait - [x] Smarag’s glintstone breath - [x] Stone of Gurranq - [x] Surge, O flame - [x] Swarm of flies - [x] The flame of frenzy - [x] Theodorix’s magma - [x] Triple rings of light - [x] Unendurable frenzy - [x] Urgent heal - [x] Vykes dragonbolt - [x] Whirl, O flame - [x] Wrath of Gold

Max had recently returned from his fight with the rogue Gundalians and most notably their army of Mechtogan. Max thought that the battle beetwen Alpha turned Leviathan Hydranoid and Infinity Helios was tense, but fighting a near endless ending hoard of Mechtogan absolutely blew that out of the water. Partnered with Dawn getting corrupted by some kind of dark energy, and the recent incursion at the hands of the Neathian zealot that rigged a battlefield and challenged Mike to a battle. So to say Max, who hasn't known true combat until now, was distraught was an understatement. To take out his anger he went to Interspace to let of some steam.
He was currently locked in a brawl with a man around his age. A brawler called Ren Suzuki. He had brown hair, red eyes and dark skin. He wore casual clothes which were mostly red. His partner was a digital Pyrus Iron Dragonoid.
The two bakugan had just landed on the field for a second time, this time on Max's gate card. Ren's life gauge was at 20 percent while Max's was untouched at 100 percent. The battle slightly reminded Hydranoid of the time he and Masquerade faced off against Dan Kuso and his Ultimate Dragonoid all those years ago.
Leviathan Hydranoid: 1200 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 900 Gs
“Ability Activate!” The Pyrus brawler called out. “Iron Dragonoid!”
Iron Dragonoid roared ferociously as a fire ball charged up in his jaws. A few seconds later he unleashed the attack, which hit Hydranoid head on.
Leviathan Hydranoid: 1200 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 900+400= 1300 Gs
Hydranoid didn't even try to dodge. When the smoke cleared Hydranoid stood still, like the attack didn't land at all.
“Is that it?” Hydranoid deadpanned. “I expected more. Max?”
Max nodded. “We'll crush them Hydranoid! Ability Activate! Eraser Trident!” Hydranoid's six heads roared as they instantly charged up six balls of Darkus energy. Moments later Hydranoid unleashed them. Mid air each ball split into six, as the total of 36 energy balls which flew towards Iron Dragonoid.
Leviathan Hydranoid: 1200 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 1300-600= 700 Gs
Max chuckled. “All too easy.” He said with uncharacteristic glee at stomping down on his opponent. “I guess you and your little Dragonoid aren't up to snuff-”
“Max!” Hydranoid called out.
“What Hydranoid?!” Max shouted back at his partner. “What's so important that you had to interrupt me- oh.”
When Max actually turned his attention to the battle he could see his opponent had activated two abilities which were currently glowing on his BakuMeter. “Double Ability Activate! Pyrus Reflector plus Blazing Dragon!”
Before Max could load in a counter, the Pyrus Reflector ability threw Hydranoid's own attack back at him. On top of that, the attack was boosted by the power of Blazing Dragon. Hydranoid got hit head by the attack and was sent flying to the edge of the arena.
Leviathan Hydranoid: 1200-600-300= 300 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 900+600+300= 1600 Gs
“What's the matter with you Hydranoid?! Get up!” Max yelled at his partner.
“What's the matter with me?! You could have nullified that easily with Double Dimension if you actually paid attention instead of wasting breath with gloating.” Hydranoid snapped back at his partner.
For a split second actual anger toward his partner flashed through Max’s eyes. Reaper’s ball form was glowing purple in Max's pocket, but no one could see that.
Thankfully Max managed to calm his anger. “You're absolutely right Hydranoid. I am sorry, I am just a little… tense after everything.”
“Hey, no need to get so upset you know. It's just a game after all.” Ren said casually to try and lighten Max’s mood, but it only seemed to reignite it instead.
“Just a game? Yeah right. Though I guess you would think that. But guess what? We don't plan on losing to you and your clone. So get ready, because we're about to crush you. Right Hydranoid?”
Hydranoid got up and flexed his eight wings. He was worried about Max’s aggressiveness but he didn't disagree with the sentiment.
“Uhh huh.” Ren said. “Listen if you're done venting, can we continue with the battle? No hard feelings right?”
That only fueled Max's reignited rage. “Oh sure. No hard feelings. Fusion Ability Activate! Dread Decimator!”
Hydranoid's fourteen heads all charged up with Darkus energy. Soon after he unleashed 14 beams of energy which bombarded the Pyrus bakugan. The dragonoid hit the edge of the arena, almost hurting Ren in the process.
Leviathan Hydranoid: 300+1800= 2100 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 1600-600= 1000 Gs
“How's that for no hard feelings?” Max shamelessly mocked his opponent.
“Hang in there Dragonoid! Ability Activate! Iron Valiant! This is Iron Dragonoid's ultimate ability! It brings his power level to the highest point it's been in the battle and it adds the opponent's current G Power to Iron Dragonoid. And it can only be nullified by another Pyrus Dragonoid.”
Leviathan Hydranoid: 2100 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 1000+600+2100= 3700 Gs
Even though Ren’s tone was nothing but friendly, if a little competitive, Max couldn't help but take it as an insult. “I don't need to nullify your pathetic little ability. In fact. Gate Card Open! Pyrus Reactor!”
The gate card opened as a storm of fire surrounded Iron Dragonoid for a few seconds before disappearing. Iron Dragonoid's G Power was now at 4200.
“You raised my G Power?” Ren asked. “But I am double over your power level now.”
“It doesn't matter. It won't be enough. Come on. Give us your best shot.” Max challenged his opponent.
Ren raised his eyebrow. But if Max wasn't going to attack, he had to take the lead. “All right then! Iron Dragonoid, triple ability Activate! Olan Terror plus Garran Demura plus Fusion Ability, Ultimate Dragonoid!”
Iron Dragonoid was then surrounded in a giant twister of Pyrus fire and pretty much roared down the arena.
Leviathan Hydranoid: 2100-800-500-1000=0Gs Iron Dragonoid: 4200+500+700= 5400 Gs
Iron Dragonoid then unleashed the twister or pure unadulterated Pyrus fire directly towards his opponent. Ren felt bad about widening the power gap beetwen Hydranoid and Dragonoid so much, but he just did what Max told him to. Max however held no such feelings.
“Double Ability Activate. Darkus Equalizer, plus Grand Down!” Max said coldly with a cruel grin on his face. He already had a plan formed. Once the dark hydra was hit by the attack, he didn't even budge. Like the first attack of this round, it had no effect on Hydranoid.
Leviathan Hydranoid: 0+5400= 5400 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 5400-500= 4900 Gs
“Sorry. I used Darkus Equalizer to bring Hydranoid's power level up to your own, and then used Grand Down to shut down my gate card which was giving you 500 Gs.” Max said mockingly.
Ren just whistled in response. “Not bad, not bad! You're pretty good Max. Honestly this is the most fun I’ve had in a brawl yet!” Ren exclaimed excitedly.
Max’s eye actually twitched at that. Reaper’s ball form glew even brighter, but no one could see it still.
“Sorry to ruin your fun, but Hydranoid and I will be winning this match now. You might as well give up.”
Ren chuckled at the remark. “Sorry. Never heard of a “give up”. Not in my vocabulary. Let's go Dragonoid! Ability Activate! Ultimate Boost Striker!”
Leviathan Hydranoid: 5400 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 4900+800= 5700 Gs
Iron Dragonoid flew up into the air and roared. All around him flaming meteors appeared, ready to descend upon Hydranoid at any second.
“Tsk tsk tsk. They never learn.” Max said as he lifted his arm up to show off the ability he was activating. “Merge Shield~” he sing songed mockingly.
Hydranoid was surrounded by a twister of Darkus power, some of which was drained from his opponent. When the meteors were launched at Hydranoid, they were all torn apart to pebbles the instant they collided with the aura of Darkus power that surrounded Hydranoid.
“What the- what is that ability?” Ren asked as he looked at his BakuMeter only to be met with a horrifying sight.
Leviathan Hydranoid: 5400+400+600+300+600+2100+500+500+700+800= 11 900 Gs
Iron Dragonoid: 5700 Gs
“No way…” Ren awed at the power level. “How did you… wait I get it. You tok all of my power increases from the fight and gave it to your Hydranoid! Makes sense why you would set down a Pyrus Reactor card, you knew that power boost would go to Hydranoid eventually. But wait! I can still nullify it-”
“Too late! Triple Ability Activate! Fusion Ability Hydra Cannon plus Spice Balista plus Fusion Ability Final Demolition!”
Leviathan Hydranoid: 11900+600+500+1000= 14 000 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 5700-500= 5200 Gs
Max grinned as he saw the power gap widen even further. Really all he needed was Hydra Cannon to prevent Merge Shield or his offense from being nullified. But he decided to go the extra mile, just to see his opponent squirm a little. “Now Hydranoid!” He said before raising his hand and then snapping his fingers. “Dispose of him!”
Hydranoid roared and unleashed the hurricane of Darkus power towards his opponent.
“Dragonoid get out of there!” Ren called fruitlessly. Iron Dragonoid did try to fly out of the way, but was forcefully pulled in by the force of the tornado. He screeched and squirmed helplessly for several seconds, enduring the pain of being hurt by the Darkus power and almost torn apart by the tornado. It looked like Iron Dragonoid was three seconds away from being literally torn apart by Hydranoid's attack.
Fortunately for him luck was on his side in that moment. He reverted back to ball form and shot off next to Ren's feet.
Max just laughed as Ren's life gauge instantly depleted to zero. A moment later he victoriusly caught Hydranoid in his hand.
“Good game. No hard feelings right?” Max said mockingly before turning around and walking away from the arena. “Next time try to provide an actual challenge, okay?” is the last thing Max said before leaving the arena.
Hydranoid in stark contrast to his partner's glee, was worried. Max had been acting a little off ever since the battle with the Mechtogan army, but now he was acting completely out of character. Taking joy in brutalizing bakugan and demoralizing his opponent, even if their bakugan was a digital clone was complete opposite of who Max is.
While this battle had started with Iron Dragonoid reminding Hydranoid of his final battle with Drago, it ended with Max reminding Hydranoid more and more of his original partner…
Battle Log: Max Howlet vs Ren Suzuki
R1: Darkus Leviathan Hydranoid vs Pyrus Iron Dragonoid. Winner: Darkus Leviathan Hydranoid. Winner: Max Howlet.
R2: Darkus Leviathan Hydranoid vs Pyrus Iron Dragonoid.
Turn 1:
Leviathan Hydranoid: 1200 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 900+400-600= 700 Gs
Abilities used: Iron Dragonoid and Erasure Trident.
Turn 2: Leviathan Hydranoid: 1200-600-300= 300+1800= 2100 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 900+600+300= 1600-600= 1000 Gs
Abilities used: Pyrus Reflector, Blazing Dragon and Fusion Ability Dread Decimator.
Turn 3: Leviathan Hydranoid: 2100 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 1000+600+2100= 3700+500= 4200 Gs
Abilities used: Iron Valiant.
Gate card opened: Pyrus Reactor
Turn 4: Leviathan Hydranoid: 2100-800-500-1000= 0+5400= 5400 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 4200+500+700= 5400-500= 4900 Gs
Abilities used: Olan Terror, Garran Demura, Fusion Ability Ultimate Dragonoid, Darkus Equalizer and Grand Down
Turn 5:
Leviathan Hydranoid: 5400+6500= 11900 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 4900+800= 5700 Gs
Abilities used: Ultimate Boost Striker and Merge Shield.
Turn 6:
Leviathan Hydranoid: 11900+600+500+1000= 14 000 Gs Iron Dragonoid: 5700-500= 5200 Gs
Abilities used: Fusion Ability Hydra Cannon, Spice Balista and Fusion Ability Final Demolition.
Winner: Max Howlet

Like all haunted house stories, this took place right after I moved in. Cliché, right? My wife and I saved up enough money from our rental to finally put down on a house of our own. So we moved in and everything seemed right...at first.
It wasn’t until later that I realized there were warning signs. The seller seemed really anxious to close, and we were offered a much cheaper price than we expected for the space we got. While there was a moment of doubt, we brushed it off as some weird circumstance that ended in a great deal for us.
How could we possibly pass that up?
The strange occurrences were small at first. I would be up late watching TV and swore I heard something. I’d pause the show and make out what sounded like dragging noises. After investigating, I wouldn’t find anything. Even stranger was that no matter where I walked in the house, the noise always sounded the same distance away. When I focused on it, I noticed the particular noise was rhythmic.
Tap, tap...sliiiiiiide.
It was like that every single time. My wife never heard it, it was only me. None of us believe in ghosts, mind you. But as I said before it was a small thing, so I brushed it off.
One night, I woke up in a startle. I listened intently but could hear nothing. I decided to grab a late night snack from the kitchen since I was awake anyway.
Halfway down the hall, I heard something. This time, it sounded like dirt being sifted und. I knelt down and swore that the sound was louder. Before I knew it, I had my ear pressed to the hardwood floor, listening intently.
Schht, schht.....sccchhhhhhh...
I jumped up from the floor. It was that same pattern of noises, but this time it sounded like someone in the dirt. Trying to ignore the chills washing over me, I took a step towards the kitchen when…
…something grabbed my ankle.
I fell forward, almost busting my chin on the floor.
“What the...”
Flipping over, I turned to face my assailant, but there was no one behind me. I brushed it off and chalked it up to poor balance from a sleep-hangover. My wife got a good chuckle out of that one.
After that, the house began to feel.....heavier. It was this weight over me that would come and go. This was accompanied by feeling cold no matter how much we turned up the heat, and this was the middle of the summer. Even stranger, the cold seemed to only be in certain spots, particularly on the floor itself. I liked to walk around barefoot no matter what time of year it was, but it was even too cold for me.
Another night, I woke up again. My ears stood at attention, but couldn’t hear any evidence of what woke me up. I got up just like before, except I never made it to the kitchen.
I only made if halfway down our hall before I suddenly felt a horrible pain in my right leg. I had to limp to keep moving, then my other leg was wracked with a wave of pain. It was so bad I found myself face down on the ground, writhing in agony.
Then I heard it again…that awful succession of noises.
Tap, tap....sliiiiiide.
The sliding sound was coming from the hardwood floor this time, not from underneath. And the sound was getting closer and closer until...
I watched in horror as a hand came around the corner in front of me. It was soon joined by another, and they tugged at the floor. My heart hammered in my chest as a person slowly came into view.
It was a woman with long black hair, her disheveled clothing smeared with dirt and hanging off in shreds. Her mouth was crudely stitched shut. She looked up at me with empty, lost eyes and I instantly felt a lifetime of pain and misery. It took my breath away, and I had to focus on my breathing to keep myself from fainting.
Tap, tap....sliiiiiide.
That awful sound repeated as she grabbed the floor and pulled herself towards me. I was in a terrified trance, eyes locked with her as she slowly closed the distance. I could now see that she dragged herself because her legs were horribly mangled. A low moan emanated from her throat, sending ice through my veins.
Her very presence seemed to drain me, and I couldn’t move no matter how hard I tried. She made this awful gurgling sound as she got within arm’s reach. In seconds, her face was right up to mine. I tried to scream, but couldn’t make any sound.
Then...I woke up.
“AAAAHHhhh!” I shouted as I sprang up in bed.
My wife tried to console me, but it did very little. I’d never had a dream that felt so real before. Shaking, I walked out into the hallway where I had collapsed in my dream. I put a hand on the floor, expecting it to be freezing cold as usual.
But it was warm...
“Honey?” I felt the soft hand of my wife touch my shoulder.
“What’s going on? You look white as a sheet.”
“I’m okay...I just...”
On the floor in front me, I noticed the faint trace of fingernail marks.
“Was that there before?” My wife inquired.
“I’m...I’m not sure.”
“Let’s go back to bed. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow.”
I tried to hold back my stubborn expression, but she still saw it.
“C’mon, you need to rest.”
With an exasperated exhale, I went back to bed with the strange occurrence replaying incessantly in my brain.
In the morning, I told my wife about all the strange experiences. To my shock she actually believed me.
“What do you want to do, then?” She asked.
“Well...I have a theory I want to check out.”
“Theory of what?”
“Well, let’s just say that ghosts exist, and there are certain reasons why they haunt certain places. If that is true then...I think there could be a body in our crawlspace.”
“What, are you crazy?”
“I know how it sounds, but what would it hurt to look?”
“You really think there’s something down there?”
“More someone, but I’m not sure to be honest. Hopefully I can get a confirmation either way it goes.”
That afternoon, I found myself standing at the door to our crawlspace. It felt ridiculous, but so many details pointed to it. The sounds and cold spots were all related to the floor. The ghastly woman’s clothes were smeared with dirt. It was obscure, but it was all I had to go on.
I had to pry the door open with a crowbar, but I managed after a minute or two. A wave of unnatural cold air blasted me, so strong that I had to throw on a coat just to stop from shivering so badly.
I clicked on my flashlight, illuminating the eerie underbelly of our home. The dirt sifted under my feet as I crouch-walked around. After hearing it, it only confirmed what I thought I heard from under the floor.
Expecting to see more, I was almost disappointed that the crawlspace was completely bare. Not believing it entirely, I shined my light around more. The back part of the crawlspace led to concrete and it was there that I noticed one section of the wall looked different than the rest.
Hands quivering, I pushed against the section of concrete and felt it shift under the pressure. It continued to wobble around in place the more I pushed. Holding my flashlight between my teeth, I had to use both hands to pry the piece away from the wall. To my astonishment, it pulled away very easily. It was no coincidence that the section of wall fit the hole exactly, like a puzzle piece.
After leaning the piece of concrete against the wall, I found that the concrete was covering a door with a padlock.
There’s no way anything good is behind this...
Minutes later, I returned to the mysterious door with a pair of bolt cutters. I debated whether or not I’d go in. There was no reason I shouldn’t satisfy my curiosity, because if there wasn’t anything then great, but if there was something terrible, I’d simply have to deal with it. Either way, I had to know.
I clipped the metal bar off the lock and it thudded softly to the dirt floor. Taking in a deep breath, I dared to aim my beam down the opening. The crawlspace extended much further into the house, and I had a good guess where it led. I now had to crawl on my hands and knees as a knot of dread formed in my stomach.
“You always tell people not to do this in movies, why are you doing this now??!” I chastised myself.
I knew all too well how stupid this was but the part of my brain that can’t look away from a car wreck pushed me to carry along regardless.
It was difficult to navigate with the flashlight and crawl. A mild claustrophobia settled in that pushed me along with a sense of urgency. The temperature couldn’t have been any more than a meatlocker. My hands shook despite my thick jacket. Eventually, I came to a dead end.
Is this all?
I stopped for a moment and checked around with my light some more, hoping a more thorough search would bear some fruit. Yet, there was nothing.
Sighing in frustration, I decided that perhaps I was losing my mind and was just having really vivid dreams after all. How could I have been so stupid?
I made it halfway across the hidden area when I felt my legs suddenly give out. They weren’t tired or sore before this. It was as if they stopped working of their own volition. I attempted to cry out, but my mouth felt as if some force held it closed.
Just like a stitched mouth...
One of the few things I could move was my neck and I turned to the side to see...
…a tuft of a blanket?
Due to the narrow space, I must have missed it. I slowly reached for it with all the internal alarms in my body going off at once. Ignoring the warning, I pulled the cloth back to reveal a skeletal hand.
In this moment of revulsion, something turned on my motor skills again as I regained control of my legs, crawling out of there as quickly as I could muster. Heaving, I stumbled out of the crawlspace and instantly felt the rise in temperature. I sat on the porch and stayed there as I called the police and explained the situation.
It turns out that one of the previous owners of the home was a major suspect in the disappearance of a young lady fifteen years ago. There wasn’t enough evidence to conduct a home search so they were never able to find the body. And what they found was something I wish I had never known.
From examining the body, they found that her captor had broken both of her legs so she couldn’t escape and sewn her mouth shut to keep her from screaming. It was hard to tell how long she’d been locked down there before she died, but they hypothesized it was a month or two. The cause of death was unclear. This was clearly enough to pursue the former owner.
When they picked him up, the guy tried to play the ignorance card, pretending as if he didn’t know what house they were referring to. This of course made it even more suspicious.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything concrete enough to tie him to her death...until they searched his current home. Blueprints of the home showed that the crawlspace was supposed to end ten feet where the concrete wall was. No contractors were hired to do any work on the home, so someone had personally busted it up and created the door going further in. The last part of it was the padlock on the door.
When the police searched the man’s home, they found a shoebox full of seemingly innocent keepsakes. Among the keepsakes were some heirlooms, pictures of close family members, and a key. As suspected, the key matched the padlock to the crawlspace door. It was apparently enough to make him crack. It wasn’t long before he confessed to the kidnapping and murder, albeit without a hint of remorse. Turns out the bastard kept the key as a sick trophy.
They even questioned him about other possible victims since this was a trait commonly shared by serial killers. He denied it, but the police couldn’t feel any truth from it. If anything they knew that they solved one case, put a guilty man behind bars, and put a family at peace. Justice was served and he was locked away for the rest of his miserable life. Poetic justice, if you ask me. The poor girl’s parents buried her remains on a family plot.
After all this, we had serious doubts about staying in the home. Knowing something this egregious happened in our home was almost unbearable. I can’t tell you how much we cried when we heard the story of what happened to that poor girl. We were on the brink of selling the house for about a week, but one night changed all that.
I woke up from a dream, one so vivid yet it somehow escaped my thoughts like a fistful of sand. There was a strange feeling in my gut as if something was going to happen.
It was neither good nor bad, just....strange.
After drinking a small glass of milk, I meandered down the hall and stopped in my tracks. A woman stood in front of me, half-transparent with a bluish luminescence. I felt as if I knew her, although I didn’t recognize her appearance at all. She smiled, and I instantly knew who she was. Compared to her previous horrific manifestation, the woman was almost unrecognizable.
Never speaking, she motioned to her legs and I saw that they were in perfect condition. In a mild state of shock, I managed to form a smile. She beamed even wider and ran her fingers across her lips, pointing out her lack of stitches. A blanket of warmth wrapped around me, and I couldn’t resist the salty tears that streamed down my face.
Right before she waved goodbye, a voice spoke within my mind.
"It’s over now. Thank you..."
She faded away, and for the first time since we moved into that house, all hints of the oppressive energy dissipated. That was the last time I ever saw her.
It’s been 30 years now, and we’re still in that house to this day...
May she continue to rest in peace...

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

TW SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND VIOLENCE
For context my boyfriend since early April has been having episodes where he is detached from reality, starting off manageable staring off into space, loss of memory, slurred speech or unable to talk/find words and unable to walk without help. He is a heavy smoker the most weed i’ve seen anyone smoke. It got progressively worse without him believing me and me begging him to get help. He had an episode after an argument and I went to bed and woke up to him talking to my sleeping father, I got him to sit on the couch and he was acting like he’s at work. He would come in and out of reality until I got him to take a nap and he was fine. Then in late May he broke his hand the next day he took the pain medication he was prescribed and had another episode but it was much scarier my first thought was an OD and called emergency services. he was released the next morning still out of touch with reality and it took him three days to come back mentally and he was pissed off at me. A few days ago he had another episode where he was staring off into space not talking just looking at us and almost fell on our coffee table, my father helped me get him into bed and I had to watch him all night, I was laying with him scratching his head and had a movie playing on my phone to keep him calm, he shot out of bed and fell on the ground on his broken hand. I tried to pick him up and he for the first time ever got physical with me and I pinned him to the bed, I weigh a great deal more than him and he was still able to get me on the ground, I got up tried to put him back in bed and he choked me. It was scary but I can’t blame him since he wasn’t connected to reality, he’s never once laid a finger on me before this in the last three years we’ve been dating and the last two we’ve been living together. I called his mother to get him an uber to her house because in the process my glasses were broken and unable and scared to drive him down myself. immediately after he was crying asking what is going on, what happened, why do i have to leave. and that went on until the uber got here. he spent two days at his moms before he walked off and said he was walking back to our house an hour drive away from his mothers. he asked me to pick him up and i said i can’t do that (my father won’t let him back in the house until he’s on medication) he then hung up and posted to social media he was going to k!ll himself and texted me that as well. his sister called emergency services and they contacted me for the information I had. He left his mothers around 10-11 pm and wasn’t picked up by cops until almost 7 am. He just called me today pissed off from the mental facility. basically what i’m asking is what should I do for both our mental health. We have 5 cats together and all his things are still at our place. but I can’t having him have another episode or get mad at me and try to get me baker acted for revenge. I love him and he was never like this until April. I just need advice. I apologize for my grammar and long post.

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