Gallery of braids

Gallery Of Magick

2018.08.03 09:53 Gallery Of Magick

Welcome to the Gallery of Magick subreddit for readers of the books by the Gallery of Magick! From the curious to the practitioners, the Gallery of Magick subreddit is the perfect place to discuss the books and your experiences with the magick.
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2022.07.28 05:38 MysticalAlchemist Gallery_Of_Magick

Welcome to the Gallery of Magick subreddit for readers of the books by the Gallery of Magick! From the curious to the practitioners, the Gallery of Magick subreddit is the perfect place to discuss the books and your experiences with the magick.
[link]

2023.10.18 08:34 Extreme_Rocks GalleryOfNeoliberal

For the artwork of neoliberal. All artists welcome to poast. Poasts have to be related to NL and its in-jokes, not general shitposting.
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2024.05.10 05:55 ugoman04 [USA-OH][H] New ASUS STRIX Gaming PC Intel 13900K, RTX 4080, 32GB RAM, 2TB NVME [W] Paypal, local

#Complete PC for sale

EDIT: I realized the timestamp only showed the video.
I will not part out. I am looking for $2600. Local (Cleveland, OH -- But I am in Berea and Twinsburg often), I am willing to ship it for $150 (CONUS). My friend and I started building PCs, and this is our first attempt to see if it's worth putting the time in. I am active on other subreddits (GCX, GCTrading). I have one here and can provide their information for references. If you have enough trades, I don't mind going first. Paypal G/S or local. (First time doing this MODS, I checked the rules, but if I missed something, my bad)

Video Timestamp

###Timestamp Gallery

Here are the specs: Motherboard: ASUS STRIX Z690 WIFI - This high-performance motherboard supports the latest Intel processors and has built-in WiFi capabilities.
Processor: Intel i9 13900K CPU - This is a top-tier processor from Intel, offering excellent performance for gaming and other demanding tasks.
Cooler: Phanteks RGB 360mm liquid cooler - A liquid cooler of this size should provide excellent cooling performance, essential for maintaining your high-end CPU's stability and longevity.
Memory: T-Force Delta 32GB DDR4 4000MHz RGB RAM - High-speed RAM like this can significantly improve performance in games and demanding applications.
Storage: 2TB Samsung 980 Pro-NVME super high-speed M.2 drive - This very fast and spacious SSD will allow for quick load times and plenty of storage for games and other files.
Graphics: ASUS STRIX RTX 4080 White - This high-end graphics card is a gaming powerhouse, capable of handling the latest games at high settings with ease, delivering stunning visuals and smooth gameplay.
Power Supply: EVGA 1000W 80+ Gold Power Supply with direct 600W connection directly to GPU—A power supply of this wattage should be more than enough to power all the components in your system.
Case: NZXT FLOW H6 RGB Mid-Tower PC case with a total of 9 ARGB fans - This case should provide good airflow and plenty of room for your components, as well as looking great with its RGB fans.
Cables: White braided power connector cables with extra rubberized neon RGB strips - These will add to the aesthetic of your build and help with cable management.
submitted by ugoman04 to hardwareswap [link] [comments]

2024.05.07 14:00 SkyGinge Semi-final 1: Why your favourite will make it (and why they might not)

After almost an entire year of waiting, tonight we finally get to watch Eurovision again as the first fifteen fabulous performers face their fate. But which ten acts will rise like a phoenix, and which five will trip over their giant rock props? In a semi-final this open literally anything could happen, and it probably will! So, to weigh up each entry like I did last year, I present a tongue-in-cheek look at everybody's chances tonight. Please don't take anything here too seriously, and remember I'm writing this as a regular Eurovision fan, not as a mod!
Cyprus
Serbia
Lithuania
Ireland
Ukraine
Poland
Croatia
Iceland
Slovenia
Finland
Moldova
Azerbaijan
Australia
Portugal
Luxembourg
Whatever the result tonight, I hope you all have a wonderful start to the Eurovision week. For all the issues with the turquoise carpet, this really is an excellent production by SVT and this is one of the hardest semi-finals to predict of all time. Expect the unexpected, and may your favourites make the cut!
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2024.05.02 04:13 Junepero Story’s of panem 112 games and after matht

This years arena took place in the Garrigae Manior.
Day 1
Game maker Monty was right about the previous years statement about these next two games being relatively similar. The cornocpuia layed within the lobby of the seaside Garrigae manior. President Mcaine himself chose this arena mainly due to his recent frequenting visits of this manner in particular on his drunken summer Holidays. The Manior had 6 floors the 1st floor being the lobby/corncoupia. The corncopuia itself featured tridents and swords and surprisingly no food. The food could be found in many puesto side stores as an extra scavenger hunt for the tributes. Besides the maniore this years arena was circluar in shape feauturing many stores and trift shops with a salty air breeze that would distract tributes to the sea. Little the tributes know at the time the water was poisonus and if it had direct contact with human skin it would burn it and cause temporary paralysis. In the stores of the arena featured many valuable capital delcaises and weapons. Agrivated monkeys also roamed the arena mainly heighbernating in the trees until provked to awake.
When the tributes podiums rose up Brociade from 2 looked at Jafar from 1 nodding contently back at him as Tiffany from 1 located Anchor from 4. To Brociades right and left were Frank from 8 and Wybrana from 3. Both outliers were mortly petrified of teh carrer boy he even grinned placing the number 2 on his side to Jafar from 1. He noticed this start plan single before pointing at a grinning Qwendlon from 2 as she then pointened at Leon from 7 grimly looking a head.
As the gong sounded only Frank from 8 and Clarion and Victoria both from 5 ran away from then corncopuia. Qwendlon earned the first kill of this years games by tripping Geo from 6 and as he smaked his head on the ground Qwendlon threw the unconscious bleeding boy onto Brociade. Brociade yelped before he then was tackled to the ground by Leon from 7. As Brociade gasped for air he grinned when Leon fell to the ground with a knife in his heart. Tiffany grinned before shoutting “You ok.” Brociade nodded before grabbing a sword before shouting at Tiffany to watch out as Belle from 7 nearly stabbed her in the heart. Luckily for both ladies Belle ran of with a trident. . However with qwendllon hurled a trident at him it ended up impaling Ateno from 3 through the heart. Taking his opportunity at Qwendlons exhaustion Brociade took a trident off the wall of the corncopuia before hurling it into her throat. This death came as a shock to most in snow square but Camilia laughed saying she knew “That” would happen. As Jafar and Tiffany finished off the pair from 11 the remaining 20 tributes that werent the carrers ran off as the 6 blood bath cannons sounded.
“Finally that demented pig is gone.”
Brociade laughed before then turning in surprise not seeing Anchor. “Wheres the boy.”
“I think he pissed his pants after the blood bath.”
Tiffany laughed as the three took the remaining supplies before walking up the maniore rooms becoming quiet entranced at the pure luxury of the beds and decoir. Even the pair from one were transficked upon the architecture and jewlerly designs. The 3 of them then proceed to rest keeping watch over the arena. After afew hours of watching they heard a cannon sound. This was Marina from 4 after her district partner Anchor had grown quite impateint with Marina’s constant sobbing episodes before snapping her enck within an instant in an fit of rage. The pair from 1 and Brociade from 2 walked toward the window of where they had previously saw Marina’s deayj seeomh the pair from 8 walking the streets.
“Should we go for him.”
Jafar grinned before a sposmor gift flew down.
Tiffany then grabbed the gift before grinning as she then took out a shiny silver bow. Brociade looked on with a rather sour expression as viewers in snow square laughed Silca recounted “Someone’s jealloius.”.
Tiffany then took out a few arrows from the quiver before spotting out the window spotting the pair. As they stopped in there tracks.
“Did you hear something.”
Frank shrugged before continuing.
“Lets see if I can get a 2 in one special wanna try if I miss Brociade.”
He nodded before Tiffany shot her first double set of arrows. As they narrowly missed the pair. She swore before quickly tossing the bow and arrows to brociade he then stuck his head out before shooting the two double arrows at the pair from 8 threw there necks. As 2 cannos sounded Tiffany smiled before asking “Is that how its done.”
Brociade winked before saying “Indeed.” Back in the capital when this scene was replayed Camilia laughed before swearing she saw Brociade blush. As the moonlight soon enriched the arena the carrers were luckily sponsored a small feast of capital goodies from there good ol show. Brociade took first watch as Jafar Tiffany slept. At mid night horn of plenty played featuring the 9 fallen tributes. Qwendlon from 2 Anteno from 3 Marina from 4 Geo from 6 Leon from 7 the pair from 11 leaving 17 remaining.
Day 2
After Jafar’s morning watch came to an end. The three had a brief breakfast before watching for any action. However after growing quiet bored after no apparent action a cannon sounded. This was revealed to be Blanche from 10 after having an unforeanut encounter with Anchor from 4 in one of the vila stores.. After an short chase Anchor eventually caught up with her before throwing her in the acid water.
After this death was announced game maker monty made an live announcment. He congratulated the tributes on making it to the second day before suggesting they “Hide or get to an higher altuide” before an acidic tsunami would crash into the arena. As the wave startedts course many shouts of horror crossed the streets. Luckily for the carrers they still resided in the maniore however Jafar suggested that they’d go up to the roof that way they could have an overview of the arena and eventually eliminate more od the competition. As they then reached the roof a cannon sounded.
This was later revealed to be Wybrana from 3 as she succesfuly climbed a tall tree however she was soon whacked across ahead by Anchor from 4 and Bellle from 7 slammed her sword into Wybranna’s stomach. As the wave claimed Kaden from 9 Remedia from 12 and the girl from 14. After the girl from 14s cannon sounded. 2 sposnor gifts flew down.
Brociade walked up to the gift before smiling happliy at it taking his brand new “Shiny and rather expensive golden bow”. This gift and alongside Finnick Odair’s trident were known as the most expensive gifts in hunger games history. However as a note resided in the bottom of this sponsor gift Camilia declined to read it out loud to spare the ears of capital and district viewers,
As the wave returned to the bay game maker monty made an announcement declaring the streets to be safe to traverse. The carrers then begun there target practices splitting up to 3 corners of the maniore roof shooting near by birds and potentialy passing tributes.However after 6 hours of no action Tiffany gasped seeing Lunar from 6 weakly walking toward the manior as a last ditch effort to get food,.
“Who wants her.”
Jafar and Brociade immedtlay ran forward before aiming at the weak girl. However before she was about to enter the manior Brociade shot his first arrow. As it hit Lunar in the shoulder she screamed out as Brociade then was shoved out of the way by Jafar as he then shot more arrows at Lunar nearly all of them missed causing Tiffany to scream “She’s getting away!.’’
However as Lunar successfully limped away Jafar pushed Brociade to the ground rather agroantley shouting “It was you who missed.” However as Brociade had grown tired of being the punching back punched Jafar in the face.
“Your really gonna act like a child now you brat”
However as Jafar fought back and kicked Brociade in the crotch. He winced in pain before the pair got into a brutal fist fight. viewers in the captial started laughing hysterically at Tiffany’s face in the result of the fight of pure bewilderment.
Tiffany then grabbed both Jafar and Brociade by the scruffs of there necks meansingly saying
“We gonna act like real carrers or what?’
As Jafar stuck his middle finger out at Brociade he then gripped onto his trident as Tiffany rather surprisingly slammed her knife into Jafar heart. As he spluttered bloood and tried to attack Brociade he soon slipped in his own blood he screaned before falling off the roof of his cannon soon sounding. After Jafar’s cannon sounded Tiffany let a sny grin cross her face she grinned saying “Your welcome” before winking at Brociade. Brociade smirked before he and Tiffany chatted about lives in there own districts with Tiffany becoming entranced with interest when Brociade talked about the Heath Academy in his district and how he had pranked Qwendlons mentor Jade one time by putting a cockroach in her coffe which ended up being a fake resulting in Tiffany laughing hysterically. As night fell Tiffany asked if Brociad ecould keep first watch however a knife came whistling at there general direction. The pair doged before seeing Raven from 9 angrily hurling more knives at the pair. Viewers in the capital could see her blood shot eyes as she shouted that they “Would pay for killing Kaden”. Tiffany responded that they “Didnt kill him” but before Tiffany could say anything else Brociade stabbed Raven through the neck. As Raven begun to cough blood she soon faded out of consicous her cannon sounded.
Brociade and Tiffany soon walked back into the manior before the pair then slept in the nearest room. At midnight horn of plenty played featuring the 7 fallen tributes. Jafar from 1 Wybrana from 3 Kaden and Raven both from 9 Blanche from 10 Remeda from 12 and the girl from 14 leaving 10 tributes remaining. Tiffany from 1 Brociade from 2 Anchor from 4 Victoria and Clarion both from 5 Lunar from 6 belle from 7 Yreil from 10 sebastian from 12 and the boy from 14 remaining.
Day 3
Both of teh carrers decided it would be best for them to exit the manoir. And as they did this early in the morning an cannon rang out. This was Lunar from 6 after she had tried to climb the tree Wybrana had climbed the day before but the now imafous “coconut duo” and the suprsing crowd of monkeys attacked Lunar with the coconuts before she was finished of by Yreil from 10.
“I hope its that girl that nearly got you thrown off the manior roof>”
Brociade laughed before stopping for a second. As the quiet morning sun light soon became littered with dark clouds. As tornadoes begun to form the remaining nine tributes scattered through out the arena, Brociade and Tiffany soon spotted a distressed sebastian from 12 running away from Anchor from 4 and Belle from 7 with a few of there monkeys 🐒 with racing alongside.
Tiffany soon “shouted nice to see you again Anchor where were you from the first fay.”
Anchor flipped her of before throwing her trident at Tiffany, She yelped before throwing her self to the ground. The 2 groups of tributes barrled into the monior again before there fight resumed. Brociade lunged at Anchor slamming his face into a table as Tiffany and Belle begun widley shooting arrows at each other. Viewers in snow squares cheers grew at deathing level as Tiffany managed to get the upper hand against belle however just before she was about to stab Belle a Trident flew through there landing into Tiffany’s stomach. Brociade shouted out as he then delivered his signature move kicking Anchor in the stomach. He winced before Tiffany somehow got up and hurled her remaining arrow as it flew into anchors head. As his cannon sounded belle swore before slamming Anchors Trident into her heart. Tiffany’s cannon soon sounded as Belle looked wearily at Brociade before smiling saying.
“Thats for Anchor.”
As Belle ran off 2 more cannons sounded. Clarion and Victoria both from 5 had unforeanutly been sucked up into the tornado before being droopped from a high height crashing down into the ground.
Brociade walked over to Tiffanys body before pulling a rather kind move covering Tiffanys body with his shirt. He returned to the top floor of the monior before resting and eating the rest of the remaining rations he had. As the tornados soon dissipated game maker monty made another announcement. He congratulated the final four tributes on making to the final 4 before announcing that if a tribute were not back in the manior’s first floor in 5 minutes there tracker would denote.
As curious sounds of intrigue and interest and cheers sounded in snow square Brociade Yreil Belle and the boy from 14 made mad dash to the floor. The boy from 14 had been tripped up by Belle before she hurled one of her last remaining coconut shells at his head. Brociade soon spotted Yreil from 10 quickly running at him with a sword. However he then tripped giving Brociade the upper hand stabbing him in the heart. Brociade breathed and suddenly sat down happlily smiling. However as Brociade was having his “Winning fantasy” smiling and holding his knife in an action hero way a voice was soon heard saying “Coconuts are girls best friend.”
Brociade yelped before Belle quietly lowered her self from the ceiling of the first floor slicing Brociade’s throat. Viewing square was shocked and surprised as Brociade’s sadly saying “Im sorry Herminia”.
As Brociade’s cannon sound Belle grinned happly before sitting down in exhaustion as game maker monty crowned Bella “Belle” Figoura of district 7 had just won the 112th hunger games. In the mentoring gallery Herminia angrily ran out of the gallery as Acaia Ebony smiled serinly.
For her victors interview Belle was adorned in a light brown gown with cherry blossoms falling from top to bottom her messy red hair was straightened out and then braided. Eagle eye viewers could see a small anchor tatto on her neck as a momento to Anchor mean while camilia was adorned in a twilight yellow dress with green leaves decorating top of the dress.
She congratulated Belle on her rather sneaky victory. Before declaring her “The coconut assassin” by the captial causing her laugh. When pressed on her strategy Belle smiled and said “thank mrs ebony for it we made a plan the night before the games.” The captial citizens gasped as Acaia was seeen smiling warmly and nodding Canilia then asked if there was any “romatinc feelings” toward Anchor. Belle smiled and nodded as Camilia gasped before pressing her for details. As the pair had “lady chat”. After going over her 3 kills Belle commended Tiffany and brociades determination to win the games causing audience members and Camila said”aww”. Belle soon smiled warmly before bowing as she was then dismissed from the stage as game maker Monty was welcomed to the stage.
Cyrus regally waved to the audience in his stylish rainbow suit with a pure white bountiner. After he and camilia hugged each other game maker Monty announced that the following year would be his final year as the game maker. Many sounds of sadness and shouts of “‘no” sounded he then added in that he wanted to “start a family with silca”.
As the Saddness turned to cheers Camila smiled warmly before doing her usual “arena hints” requests. Cyrus grinned before saying to look for certain areas on this years games as hints. Many captial citizens gasped before shouting at game maker Monty to come back to the stage he grinned before camilia tried to calm the audience down. However as this was to no use she smiled before ending the interviews there.
Belle returned home to district 7 moving into the victors village with her sister and orphan friends. She would later go on to open her lumber company in the heart of the district. After the 116th games Belle became the mentor for both male and female tributes before she was rejoined by her mentor acaia ebony after whisterio Jansensions admission to the Mcaine physiatristic. She would later go on and marry her future husband Herb Jordan the pair would go on and have 5 kids together 1 would be chosen for a later games.
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2024.05.01 22:00 ColdestCore [USA-NY] [H] Playstation 5 Disk Edition bundle [W] Local Cash

Sold offline

PS5 lot for $500. Local cash in NYC only at this time. 10007
stamps
Please comment before DM (not chat)

Console

Physical Games (tested all this morning)

Accessories

submitted by ColdestCore to hardwareswap [link] [comments]

2024.04.19 00:53 normancrane Mercy

We always knew the end would come.
Sirens
That we would have to take what we could and run.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
But even the expected may come as a shock.
Like a terminal patient awaiting the certain hour of his death, who—when mercifully it arrives—greets it not with confidence but with a gasp:
Is this it?
My life is quiet now. I am content in my solitude. I am seventy-two years old, in good health and the company has dutifully fulfilled its end of the bargain, so I do not want for anything. If I lack luxury it is by choice. I do not speak much. Instead I write and think, and if I have any ritual it is to take my tea just as night falls. Sometimes the evening light hits at a certain angle, and when I take my first sip, I close my eyes and think of Mendeleev-1. Instinctively my fingers slip onto my forearm where the wound will never heal, and I remember…

Mendeleev-1

...mining colony. mineral-rich. cognosher-positive. cognosher-dormant. safe for temporary habitation. slated for eventual destruction…
On Earth my husband and I had nothing.
On Mendeleev-1 we had hope:
“Build a homestead. Mine. As long as the planet stays inactive, you remain Vectorien employees. The moment it awakens, you have forty-eight hours to get to the evacuation pods. When you do: Congratulations on your retirement. Enjoy your pension!”
No one knew for how long the planet would sleep.
Everyone knew about the cognoshers: interdimensional alien beasts that sensed and feasted upon human fear.
Under that shadow we lived.
Time passed.
It was a simple life, hard but predictable, the rhythms of the day magnified by the monotony of the weather and the changing of imagined seasons…
The cycles unfolded, one after the other in coldness and desolation.
I gave birth to Oan, then Erubi.
Then a mine shaft collapsed, killing my husband.
Vectorien paid out a small sum and paid for his burial, but their lawyers maintained that the contract we had signed was still binding. My husband and I had made separate agreements. As Mendeleev-1 had not yet awoken and I was still alive, I remained a Vectorien employee, with all the mining obligations that entailed.
I tried to endure alone, but I knew that with two young children and output requirements to meet, I could not succeed.
“Mendeleev-1 is not for the faint of heart or for single mothers,” a Vectorien representative told me. “Chemicals have always been available upon request.”
I put out a notice for help.
That is how I encountered Arkady.
He was a decade older than I, a tough man hardened by experiences he never shared. In fact, he shared almost nothing and could not speak at all, which perhaps is what bound us together. Although he was a bachelor, it was not like that between us. He built a cabin for himself next to the homestead, and we lived in harmony.
For months, we lived—

Sirens

I was washing clothes when the time came.
The sound was deafening.
Erubi was crying—
I left the wash and ran to him with water dripping from the tips of my fingers. A single drop, like an atomic bomb. I tried to comfort him, to speak to him, but this life is never one of comfort, and he would not cease his wailing so I let him be. There was not much to pack, but time was of the essence. We had forty-eight hours to reach the evacuation pods—
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
Oan was outside, hands over his ears—
Arkady had exited his cabin—leather boots polished, rifle slung over a shoulder, pistol stuck into his belt, coming toward me with a screen-map in his hands.
He unfurled it:
The familiar terrain of Mendeleev-1, a geography I was intimately familiar with, but now with areas lighting up red, like blotches on a sick man’s skin.
I knew immediately what they meant.
Arkady pointed at the two nearest evacuation points—
“Oan, get your brother! Now!”
—the only two we could reach in forty-eight hours, and between us and those points: the sickening red of the planet awakening: vengeance for years of exploitation: the cognosher fields.
Arkady looked at me.
Oan had disappeared into the homestead.
Sirens
We had no clear path. Every route took us through the red.
Arkady slid his finger across the screen-map, tracing a route that I understood would lead us from here to there within forty-eight hours, but just barely. It was a path of least risk, which meant of some risk, and although the thin strip of evolving red may have looked small on the screen-map, I knew it was at least ten kilometres on the ground. Ten kilometres across cognosher terrain. There’s a saying about the cognosher fields: “Cross fearlessly—or not at all.”
I nodded my approval.
Arkady furled the screen-map.
Oan came to me, cradling Erubi in his arms, and in both their eyes I saw the very emotion I dreaded.
“It will be OK,” I said, taking Erubi from his older brother. “We talked about this. We prepared for it. We’ve been waiting for it. In two days we’ll be on our way to Earth.”
Earth: I said it to mean home, but it was my home.
To my sons it was nothing but a story.
Arkady had already turned away, and when he began walking we followed.
It would be a lie to say I did not look back at the homestead with some fondness—it had been our nest—but what I felt most was grief. What I felt most was the absence of my husband.
How we had planned!
It should have been us walking away: walking toward the evacuation pods after so much toil and expectation.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
I held Erubi closely, and when Oan offered his hand I took it and did not let go. Perhaps the future no longer held the same happiness I had dreamed about, but it held happiness still. Only a journey separated us.
After a time, the sirens turned off.
All on Mendeleev-1 were now evacuating—
All but the beasts.

The Cognosher Fields

We slept for four hours, drank water and walked again. We ate little. The way was dull and flat because the planet was dull and flat, sparsely spotted with tree-like plants like overgrown cauliflowers, and practised calmness. Be empty like the landscape. When Oan was little, my husband and I had done refocussing drills with him: substituting one thought for another, one emotion for another emotion. But Erubi was too young for that. In my arms he looked doe-eyed and calm, but who knew what was happening in that emergent mind of his.
When we neared the cognosher fields, Arkady unfurled the screen-map.
When we were at the boundary he bade us stop.
He showed me the map—
The red blotches were swollen and more numerous.
—and I knew the time had come.
Everything condensed to this: cross the fields and a good life on Earth awaits.
Or die.
“Remember what we talked about,” I told Oan. “Focus on something. Imagine it and keep it in your mind. In three hours it should all be over.”
“They feast on fear,” he said, repeating words from a storybook my husband had read to him.
“Yes.”
Arkady tapped his finger on his wrist.
We had to go.
Arkady entered first. After a brief hesitation, I followed, carrying Erubi with one arm, holding Oan's hand with the other. In a single step we had changed the physical reality around us. What was once barren became—by the power of our minds—pregnant with danger. Although I had no doubt cognoshers were real, it was unreal to feel that they were somewhere out there, awoken and hungry…
The initial seconds fell softly away to nothingness.
My heart beat quicker and Oan gripped my hand more tightly, but everything persisted as before. Arkady's broad back and long strides provided a familiar comfort. I would not have wanted to be in the lead, anticipating the future.
Seconds accumulated to minutes, which ticked away, footfall following footfall.
My focus was my grief.
I let it drape me, shielding all thoughts that could possibly evolve into fear.
Erubi fell in and out of sleep against my body.
Oan whispered stories to himself.
In the distance—
Arkady's hands travelled to his rifle, which he unslung. I had seen it too: a kind of flitting of the air itself. "No matter what, we must not stop," I said.
We walked.
Arkady scanning the horizon, sweat developing between Oan's hand and mine, Erubi opening his eyes, beginning slowly to whimper.
Another distant fluttering—
Unmistakeable.
All of us had seen it.
The enveloping silence descended into a low hiss. "Is it…"
"Shh."
Arkady raised his rifle. Cognoshers could be shot and killed, but it was difficult and exceedingly rare, for they only truly existed—in our understanding of that term: engaged with our dimension of reality—when they were scenting or feasting. Only then were they vulnerable.
Another flicker.
Closer.
And a third—
Followed in quick succession by a fourth and fifth.
We were maybe halfway through the cognosher fields and they were all around us. I had to remind myself that brief twinges of fear were insufficient. They felt it but not for long enough to localise the source. I thought of a memory—any memory—and started recollecting it aloud. "Remember when your father…"
They came!
It was as if reality had torn open—its very substance—rushing at us!
What happened next happened so quickly I struggle to make sequential sense of it, but in the years that have passed I have arranged and rearranged the remembered parts so many times I have settled on the following:
Arkady fired two shots into the ether.
Oan let go of my hand.
He stopped.
Arkady spun to face us and loosed another shot.
Oan stared at me—at us:
—as I heard a horrible shriek that felt ripped out of my very being.
I felt my body stiffen and the hissing of the silence melded with the sound of blood pulsing through my veins. I felt gazed upon and vulnerable, as the beasts of irreality were swooping down on us and as I tried to understand what was happening I understood that the shrieking was Erubi—that it was all Erubi—and I shall never forget the wonder and terror and love in his beautiful brown eyes as Arkady ripped him from his cradle in my arms, held him in one outstretched hand and shot him in the head with his pistol: his tiny body falling to that hideous ground, folding so unnaturally—
I screamed.
But the rushing had subsided.
It was not fear I was feeling but rage—and all at once I leapt at Arkady and for what remained of my son.
I fell face first on the ground, tasting the alien sands, and crawled forward, crawling desperately toward—
Arkady rolled the corpse away with his boot.
He grabbed me by the clothes on my back, lifted me to my feet, then pushed me toward the evacuation pods.
"I'll kill you," I growled.
When I looked at Oan, tears were rolling down his face. His eyes were pink. He wanted to pick Erubi up, but Arkady shook his head.
I hated him, but I knew he was right. They would not allow us to bring a corpse onto the evacuation pods, and we did not have the time for a burial. Erubi's body would lie here, on the only home planet he had ever known, until he and the planet were together obliterated. "Leave him,” I croaked.
I cannot describe how much my body shook.
How hard it was to leave.
Arkady walked with the same strides as always, the same wide back, the rifle slung again over his shoulder and the pistol tucked into his belt. I was glad, because I could not have borne the sight of his face.
I walked in wordless contemplation, with hatred having replaced grief as my protector, though the two could have coexisted.
Oan walked beside me, no longer holding my hand or reciting his stories. He had stopped crying, and his eyes had acquired the quality of numbness. Every few minutes he would look up at me with an expression I could not read, then down at his feet, which shuffled obediently along.
Suddenly Arkady stopped.
He glanced back at me, looking me in the eyes as always, looking at me as if nothing had happened, and motioned for me to stay.
He took the pistol from behind his belt and handed it to me.
I did not want to take it.
I did not want to touch its cold steel.
Arkady placed it on the ground before me, then turned and walked away from us. For what reason I did not know. What I knew was that if I didn't have such revulsion at the existence of that pistol, I would have picked it up and shot him in the back. How could he walk away so calmly—how he could trust me? But he was right. I left the pistol undisturbed upon the ground and watched him disappear.
"Where's he going?" Oan asked.
"I don't know."
We sat and remembered Erubi without speaking.
Before Arkady returned, we saw again flickering on the horizon and a chill passed through us both. The cognoshers were near. Oan rocked back and forth, trying to keep calm, and I watched him, wondering how it was possible to feel a contradiction: to want never to see Arkady again, and to need his presence. I craved the protective comfort of Earthfire.
"I don't think I can make it," Oan said.
"You can."
"It feels like… inside—"
"Refocus."
"—like I'm cracking, like it's all breaking apart."
He rocked more and more quickly, his eyes twitching from point to point, until finally I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "We're going," I said.
"No," he said.
I pulled him by the arm but he stayed in place. Anchored.
We both saw the fluttering sky.
"You go," he said. "I'll stay. I—I don't think I can… Maybe I'll see Erubi. Maybe we'll—"
I tugged harder but he didn't budge. "Come on!"
A blur passed across the horizon. There were so many of them now, waiting, unfolding. I wanted Arkady to be back. I wanted Oan to move.
"I'm scared," he said.
And for a moment the numbness in his eyes was gone, replaced by the brightness I had always associated with my son. But then that brightness too diminished, darkened by a kind of fear I have never seen again.
They came for him.
I backed away—back to where the pistol lay—picked it up and waved it madly at the nothingness rippling and hissing around us: the liquid distortions in the congealing mists of abnormality, but I didn't know at what to pull the trigger.
Oan sat.
I stumbled through a haze of fear: afraid for him, trying to be more afraid than him, to lure the beasts away, to offer them myself in exchange. I didn't want to live anyway. I was already dead. But I could not will myself into a more frenzied state of phobia.
Oan’s lips curved into a smile.
"Go," he whispered.
Then his smile became a terrible grin as his body stiffened and his neck bent backwards, and materializing behind him was a human-sized caterpillar—a unfathomable string of succulent translucent spheres braided into interconnectedness by oscillatory worms, all lined with a million undulating tentacles—topped with a glowing sphere-head of a mirrored eyes and one swollen ring of lips, which attached itself with ravenous intentions to Oan's face, devouring it and starting to suck his essence from within him and into itself.
I pointed the pistol at the cognosher and pulled the trigger—
The bullet slid through it.
Those wretched sucking sounds, like bloody gargled marbles, like wind rushing across a plain in reverse…
I knew what I had to do but could not do it.
I could not kill my son.
Even for this: out of mercy for him—for humanity itself.
A shot—fired:
Oan slumping to the ground—
The cognosher atomizing back into its own unknowable dimension—
The pistol still in my shaking outstretched hand, cold and dead, and silhouetted in the distance against the unforgiving sky: Arkady, lowering his rifle.
Those long strides.
The world rotated and Arkady stood on the wall of it, looking down at me. I wanted to stay; he wanted me to go. It took me several moments to realize I had collapsed, perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. Perhaps that even saved me. When Arkady yanked my arm and made the world upright, I knew that what I felt was neither fear nor rage but agony. I tried to look at my son, but Arkady caught my face in his hand. He shook his head. He tried to pull me forward, away from the agony and toward the evacuation pods, but now it was my time to stay anchored. He held out his hand and with two fingers showed we had not far to go: only an insignificant space. I wailed. He would not let go of my face. He pressed so hard my jaw bones hurt.
Through bleary eyes I perceived him.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and spat at him.
He backed away and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The same hand with which he’d just caused me so much pain—
And smacked me with it.
I fell back, gathered my strength and threw myself at him with everything I had.
Our bodies collided.
Again I ended up on the ground, but this time on my back.
He picked up his pistol, checked the bullets and motioned for me to follow. Again he made the gesture with his two fingers (only an insignificant space) and followed up by pointing to his wrist.
“Fuck you! I don’t care anymore,” I said.
He stepped toward me, grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. Held me like an hour ago he had held Erubi—except I fought. I swung my arms and pounded his body with my fists. I kicked out at his shins. Eventually he tossed me aside, and started walking away. I ran after him and grabbed him from behind.
He spun, throwing me down with a thud that made my brain rattle in my skull.
He walked.
“That’s right. You leave,” I yelled after him. “You leave me, you motherfucker!”
Then I got up and charged at him.
This time I attached myself to his back, locking my arms under his armpits like a human backpack, trying furiously to force the both of us to overturn: to wind up like a beetle, belly-up and dying...
He pressed forward, stride after gargantuan stride until we had travelled that way for maybe a hundred paces and I saw—lying like discarded refuse, two deflated people: skins still fresh but their entire beings flattened into sheets maybe an inch thick. They looked like humanoid rubber. Victims of the cognosher.
I let go of Arkady’s back and felt ground under my boots again.
I forced down the bile rising into my throat. “It’s horrible,” I said.
Arkady nodded. His eyes sparkled. I smiled at him—
And in that moment of manufactured vulnerability, when for the first time in my life I saw his hardness soften, I aimed a tackle into his mid-section that sent him sprawling. The pistol spilled from his hand and tumbled into the sand. Before he could react, I pounced on it. Then with him in its sights I backed away until I felt far enough away to kneel and put the pistol into my own mouth. This is the way it must end.
He approached me anyway.
I took the pistol out of my mouth and pointed it at him. “One more step,” I warned.
He didn’t stop.
“I fucking swear it!” I screamed at him.
He took one more step.
I fired.
The bullet whizzed by his head.
“I’ll fucking kill you.”
Another step.
This time the bullet tore into his shoulder, twisting his body.
He held up a single finger.
There was one bullet left, and if I wanted to—
As I scrambled to put the pistol back into my mouth, he covered the space between us and grabbed me by the arm. I pressed the trigger. The pistol fired, but instead of shutting off my brain, the bullet lodged itself into my forearm. He had bent my arm back at the last instant. I felt an immensity of pain, followed by a flow of warmth and the sound of ripping cloth. I felt a tightness surround my wounded limb, and my sight returned just as Arkady was tying the torn material below my elbow. His own shoulder was patchy with blood.
He picked me up like I was but a piece of lumber and carried me forward. I had no strength left. The only thing I felt was pain.
After a while he set me down and sat down himself.
He pulled out the screen-map and pointed at it, showing me what I already knew:
We had crossed the cognosher fields.

Destruction

The pods lifted off, leaving dissipating lines upon the sky and carrying their human cargo toward the fleet of Vectorien transporters waiting in orbit around Mendeleev-1.
In all, Vectorien estimated that 81% of its employees successfully reached the evacuation points.
The return journey by transporter lasted forty-one Earth years, most of which we spent in cryosleep. They did, however, allow us to remain awake for the destruction of Mendeleev-1 itself, and so we huddled in the galleries watching through small windows as a single ship launched a single bomb toward its surface. It fell like a water drop, after which there was a delay—and the planet was no more: first condensed, then dispersed as a cosmic rain of star stuff.
We disembarked in Florida.
At least that's what the signs said, because to me it was unrecognizable.
I saw Arkady on the lower deck of the starport.
There was no one waiting for him, just as there was no one waiting for me. The press had focussed on other arrivals. We walked one after the other down the tunnel, just as we had walked from the homestead to the evacuation pods forty-one years ago, in silence. When we got close to the doors leading outside, I stopped—needing to gather myself before greeting the new world awaiting me. He walked on. When he reached them, the doors slid open and he walked through without glancing back, and disappeared into the bustle outside.

Mercy

I lived for thirty years without seeing Arkady.
We did not keep in touch.
I moved on. I grieved, then found a house beyond the city, bought it outright and made a new life. I never remarried and I did not have a third child, but I learned not to dwell on the past. When I was ready, I bought a cemetery plot near where my husband and I had lived before Mendeleev-1 and buried three empty caskets, leaving space for one more. The cemetery gave me a discount on account of my "background."
The people on Earth were like that: treating us kindly but with a certain distance. They referred to us as the Vectoriens.
One day, a young woman arrived at my house.
She asked my name, and when I gave it said she had come on behalf of someone asking for my presence. "An elderly man," she said, "who doesn't speak."
I knew at once.
Arkady was a patient in a decrepit hospital in Costa Rica, located on the outskirts of San Jose. The staff were kind, but it was clear the institution lacked funding, and provided care mainly for the poor. When I entered his room I barely knew him: still a large man, but now bloated and flaccid, bald, with glassy skin and languid motions, even of the face, he did not appear to acknowledge my presence. It was only when I bent forward over him that a brightness came over his eyes!—but briefly, like the final flicker of a dying flame, followed by a diminishment to darkness.
I don't know what I felt toward him.
"He's a Vectorien," a nurse told me outside his room. "It's a miracle he's lasted this long. We used to see a lot of them after they came back, the ones who couldn't adjust to the world. Crime, drugs, any form of self-destruction. But that was in the months and years after. Here we have decades. I can't imagine what he's been doing all this time." She put her hand on my arm. "But all of a sudden he remembered you, I guess. It's good for him to have a visitor."
I stepped away from her. "Do you know where I can find a grocery store. Maybe something with household goods?"
"There's a plaza nearby. What is it that—"
I was already outside.
In the heat.
I bought what I needed and returned, as I had promised him.
I asked the nurse for a kettle.
When the water boiled, I steeped a tea and poured one cup. Then I asked the nurse for privacy. When she had gone, I added the other ingredient, and gave the tea to Arkady.
He took it in his large, calloused hands and tried to drink.
I helped him.
When he had finished, I sat beside him and held his hand, watching the remnants of his life evaporate, peacefully, like summer rain from asphalt.
He died without a gasp.
submitted by normancrane to Odd_directions [link] [comments]

2024.04.19 00:52 normancrane Mercy

We always knew the end would come.
Sirens
That we would have to take what we could and run.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
But even the expected may come as a shock.
Like a terminal patient awaiting the certain hour of his death, who—when mercifully it arrives—greets it not with confidence but with a gasp:
Is this it?
My life is quiet now. I am content in my solitude. I am seventy-two years old, in good health and the company has dutifully fulfilled its end of the bargain, so I do not want for anything. If I lack luxury it is by choice. I do not speak much. Instead I write and think, and if I have any ritual it is to take my tea just as night falls. Sometimes the evening light hits at a certain angle, and when I take my first sip, I close my eyes and think of Mendeleev-1. Instinctively my fingers slip onto my forearm where the wound will never heal, and I remember…

Mendeleev-1

...mining colony. mineral-rich. cognosher-positive. cognosher-dormant. safe for temporary habitation. slated for eventual destruction…
On Earth my husband and I had nothing.
On Mendeleev-1 we had hope:
“Build a homestead. Mine. As long as the planet stays inactive, you remain Vectorien employees. The moment it awakens, you have forty-eight hours to get to the evacuation pods. When you do: Congratulations on your retirement. Enjoy your pension!”
No one knew for how long the planet would sleep.
Everyone knew about the cognoshers: interdimensional alien beasts that sensed and feasted upon human fear.
Under that shadow we lived.
Time passed.
It was a simple life, hard but predictable, the rhythms of the day magnified by the monotony of the weather and the changing of imagined seasons…
The cycles unfolded, one after the other in coldness and desolation.
I gave birth to Oan, then Erubi.
Then a mine shaft collapsed, killing my husband.
Vectorien paid out a small sum and paid for his burial, but their lawyers maintained that the contract we had signed was still binding. My husband and I had made separate agreements. As Mendeleev-1 had not yet awoken and I was still alive, I remained a Vectorien employee, with all the mining obligations that entailed.
I tried to endure alone, but I knew that with two young children and output requirements to meet, I could not succeed.
“Mendeleev-1 is not for the faint of heart or for single mothers,” a Vectorien representative told me. “Chemicals have always been available upon request.”
I put out a notice for help.
That is how I encountered Arkady.
He was a decade older than I, a tough man hardened by experiences he never shared. In fact, he shared almost nothing and could not speak at all, which perhaps is what bound us together. Although he was a bachelor, it was not like that between us. He built a cabin for himself next to the homestead, and we lived in harmony.
For months, we lived—

Sirens

I was washing clothes when the time came.
The sound was deafening.
Erubi was crying—
I left the wash and ran to him with water dripping from the tips of my fingers. A single drop, like an atomic bomb. I tried to comfort him, to speak to him, but this life is never one of comfort, and he would not cease his wailing so I let him be. There was not much to pack, but time was of the essence. We had forty-eight hours to reach the evacuation pods—
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
Oan was outside, hands over his ears—
Arkady had exited his cabin—leather boots polished, rifle slung over a shoulder, pistol stuck into his belt, coming toward me with a screen-map in his hands.
He unfurled it:
The familiar terrain of Mendeleev-1, a geography I was intimately familiar with, but now with areas lighting up red, like blotches on a sick man’s skin.
I knew immediately what they meant.
Arkady pointed at the two nearest evacuation points—
“Oan, get your brother! Now!”
—the only two we could reach in forty-eight hours, and between us and those points: the sickening red of the planet awakening: vengeance for years of exploitation: the cognosher fields.
Arkady looked at me.
Oan had disappeared into the homestead.
Sirens
We had no clear path. Every route took us through the red.
Arkady slid his finger across the screen-map, tracing a route that I understood would lead us from here to there within forty-eight hours, but just barely. It was a path of least risk, which meant of some risk, and although the thin strip of evolving red may have looked small on the screen-map, I knew it was at least ten kilometres on the ground. Ten kilometres across cognosher terrain. There’s a saying about the cognosher fields: “Cross fearlessly—or not at all.”
I nodded my approval.
Arkady furled the screen-map.
Oan came to me, cradling Erubi in his arms, and in both their eyes I saw the very emotion I dreaded.
“It will be OK,” I said, taking Erubi from his older brother. “We talked about this. We prepared for it. We’ve been waiting for it. In two days we’ll be on our way to Earth.”
Earth: I said it to mean home, but it was my home.
To my sons it was nothing but a story.
Arkady had already turned away, and when he began walking we followed.
It would be a lie to say I did not look back at the homestead with some fondness—it had been our nest—but what I felt most was grief. What I felt most was the absence of my husband.
How we had planned!
It should have been us walking away: walking toward the evacuation pods after so much toil and expectation.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
I held Erubi closely, and when Oan offered his hand I took it and did not let go. Perhaps the future no longer held the same happiness I had dreamed about, but it held happiness still. Only a journey separated us.
After a time, the sirens turned off.
All on Mendeleev-1 were now evacuating—
All but the beasts.

The Cognosher Fields

We slept for four hours, drank water and walked again. We ate little. The way was dull and flat because the planet was dull and flat, sparsely spotted with tree-like plants like overgrown cauliflowers, and practised calmness. Be empty like the landscape. When Oan was little, my husband and I had done refocussing drills with him: substituting one thought for another, one emotion for another emotion. But Erubi was too young for that. In my arms he looked doe-eyed and calm, but who knew what was happening in that emergent mind of his.
When we neared the cognosher fields, Arkady unfurled the screen-map.
When we were at the boundary he bade us stop.
He showed me the map—
The red blotches were swollen and more numerous.
—and I knew the time had come.
Everything condensed to this: cross the fields and a good life on Earth awaits.
Or die.
“Remember what we talked about,” I told Oan. “Focus on something. Imagine it and keep it in your mind. In three hours it should all be over.”
“They feast on fear,” he said, repeating words from a storybook my husband had read to him.
“Yes.”
Arkady tapped his finger on his wrist.
We had to go.
Arkady entered first. After a brief hesitation, I followed, carrying Erubi with one arm, holding Oan's hand with the other. In a single step we had changed the physical reality around us. What was once barren became—by the power of our minds—pregnant with danger. Although I had no doubt cognoshers were real, it was unreal to feel that they were somewhere out there, awoken and hungry…
The initial seconds fell softly away to nothingness.
My heart beat quicker and Oan gripped my hand more tightly, but everything persisted as before. Arkady's broad back and long strides provided a familiar comfort. I would not have wanted to be in the lead, anticipating the future.
Seconds accumulated to minutes, which ticked away, footfall following footfall.
My focus was my grief.
I let it drape me, shielding all thoughts that could possibly evolve into fear.
Erubi fell in and out of sleep against my body.
Oan whispered stories to himself.
In the distance—
Arkady's hands travelled to his rifle, which he unslung. I had seen it too: a kind of flitting of the air itself. "No matter what, we must not stop," I said.
We walked.
Arkady scanning the horizon, sweat developing between Oan's hand and mine, Erubi opening his eyes, beginning slowly to whimper.
Another distant fluttering—
Unmistakeable.
All of us had seen it.
The enveloping silence descended into a low hiss. "Is it…"
"Shh."
Arkady raised his rifle. Cognoshers could be shot and killed, but it was difficult and exceedingly rare, for they only truly existed—in our understanding of that term: engaged with our dimension of reality—when they were scenting or feasting. Only then were they vulnerable.
Another flicker.
Closer.
And a third—
Followed in quick succession by a fourth and fifth.
We were maybe halfway through the cognosher fields and they were all around us. I had to remind myself that brief twinges of fear were insufficient. They felt it but not for long enough to localise the source. I thought of a memory—any memory—and started recollecting it aloud. "Remember when your father…"
They came!
It was as if reality had torn open—its very substance—rushing at us!
What happened next happened so quickly I struggle to make sequential sense of it, but in the years that have passed I have arranged and rearranged the remembered parts so many times I have settled on the following:
Arkady fired two shots into the ether.
Oan let go of my hand.
He stopped.
Arkady spun to face us and loosed another shot.
Oan stared at me—at us:
—as I heard a horrible shriek that felt ripped out of my very being.
I felt my body stiffen and the hissing of the silence melded with the sound of blood pulsing through my veins. I felt gazed upon and vulnerable, as the beasts of irreality were swooping down on us and as I tried to understand what was happening I understood that the shrieking was Erubi—that it was all Erubi—and I shall never forget the wonder and terror and love in his beautiful brown eyes as Arkady ripped him from his cradle in my arms, held him in one outstretched hand and shot him in the head with his pistol: his tiny body falling to that hideous ground, folding so unnaturally—
I screamed.
But the rushing had subsided.
It was not fear I was feeling but rage—and all at once I leapt at Arkady and for what remained of my son.
I fell face first on the ground, tasting the alien sands, and crawled forward, crawling desperately toward—
Arkady rolled the corpse away with his boot.
He grabbed me by the clothes on my back, lifted me to my feet, then pushed me toward the evacuation pods.
"I'll kill you," I growled.
When I looked at Oan, tears were rolling down his face. His eyes were pink. He wanted to pick Erubi up, but Arkady shook his head.
I hated him, but I knew he was right. They would not allow us to bring a corpse onto the evacuation pods, and we did not have the time for a burial. Erubi's body would lie here, on the only home planet he had ever known, until he and the planet were together obliterated. "Leave him,” I croaked.
I cannot describe how much my body shook.
How hard it was to leave.
Arkady walked with the same strides as always, the same wide back, the rifle slung again over his shoulder and the pistol tucked into his belt. I was glad, because I could not have borne the sight of his face.
I walked in wordless contemplation, with hatred having replaced grief as my protector, though the two could have coexisted.
Oan walked beside me, no longer holding my hand or reciting his stories. He had stopped crying, and his eyes had acquired the quality of numbness. Every few minutes he would look up at me with an expression I could not read, then down at his feet, which shuffled obediently along.
Suddenly Arkady stopped.
He glanced back at me, looking me in the eyes as always, looking at me as if nothing had happened, and motioned for me to stay.
He took the pistol from behind his belt and handed it to me.
I did not want to take it.
I did not want to touch its cold steel.
Arkady placed it on the ground before me, then turned and walked away from us. For what reason I did not know. What I knew was that if I didn't have such revulsion at the existence of that pistol, I would have picked it up and shot him in the back. How could he walk away so calmly—how he could trust me? But he was right. I left the pistol undisturbed upon the ground and watched him disappear.
"Where's he going?" Oan asked.
"I don't know."
We sat and remembered Erubi without speaking.
Before Arkady returned, we saw again flickering on the horizon and a chill passed through us both. The cognoshers were near. Oan rocked back and forth, trying to keep calm, and I watched him, wondering how it was possible to feel a contradiction: to want never to see Arkady again, and to need his presence. I craved the protective comfort of Earthfire.
"I don't think I can make it," Oan said.
"You can."
"It feels like… inside—"
"Refocus."
"—like I'm cracking, like it's all breaking apart."
He rocked more and more quickly, his eyes twitching from point to point, until finally I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "We're going," I said.
"No," he said.
I pulled him by the arm but he stayed in place. Anchored.
We both saw the fluttering sky.
"You go," he said. "I'll stay. I—I don't think I can… Maybe I'll see Erubi. Maybe we'll—"
I tugged harder but he didn't budge. "Come on!"
A blur passed across the horizon. There were so many of them now, waiting, unfolding. I wanted Arkady to be back. I wanted Oan to move.
"I'm scared," he said.
And for a moment the numbness in his eyes was gone, replaced by the brightness I had always associated with my son. But then that brightness too diminished, darkened by a kind of fear I have never seen again.
They came for him.
I backed away—back to where the pistol lay—picked it up and waved it madly at the nothingness rippling and hissing around us: the liquid distortions in the congealing mists of abnormality, but I didn't know at what to pull the trigger.
Oan sat.
I stumbled through a haze of fear: afraid for him, trying to be more afraid than him, to lure the beasts away, to offer them myself in exchange. I didn't want to live anyway. I was already dead. But I could not will myself into a more frenzied state of phobia.
Oan’s lips curved into a smile.
"Go," he whispered.
Then his smile became a terrible grin as his body stiffened and his neck bent backwards, and materializing behind him was a human-sized caterpillar—a unfathomable string of succulent translucent spheres braided into interconnectedness by oscillatory worms, all lined with a million undulating tentacles—topped with a glowing sphere-head of a mirrored eyes and one swollen ring of lips, which attached itself with ravenous intentions to Oan's face, devouring it and starting to suck his essence from within him and into itself.
I pointed the pistol at the cognosher and pulled the trigger—
The bullet slid through it.
Those wretched sucking sounds, like bloody gargled marbles, like wind rushing across a plain in reverse…
I knew what I had to do but could not do it.
I could not kill my son.
Even for this: out of mercy for him—for humanity itself.
A shot—fired:
Oan slumping to the ground—
The cognosher atomizing back into its own unknowable dimension—
The pistol still in my shaking outstretched hand, cold and dead, and silhouetted in the distance against the unforgiving sky: Arkady, lowering his rifle.
Those long strides.
The world rotated and Arkady stood on the wall of it, looking down at me. I wanted to stay; he wanted me to go. It took me several moments to realize I had collapsed, perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. Perhaps that even saved me. When Arkady yanked my arm and made the world upright, I knew that what I felt was neither fear nor rage but agony. I tried to look at my son, but Arkady caught my face in his hand. He shook his head. He tried to pull me forward, away from the agony and toward the evacuation pods, but now it was my time to stay anchored. He held out his hand and with two fingers showed we had not far to go: only an insignificant space. I wailed. He would not let go of my face. He pressed so hard my jaw bones hurt.
Through bleary eyes I perceived him.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and spat at him.
He backed away and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The same hand with which he’d just caused me so much pain—
And smacked me with it.
I fell back, gathered my strength and threw myself at him with everything I had.
Our bodies collided.
Again I ended up on the ground, but this time on my back.
He picked up his pistol, checked the bullets and motioned for me to follow. Again he made the gesture with his two fingers (only an insignificant space) and followed up by pointing to his wrist.
“Fuck you! I don’t care anymore,” I said.
He stepped toward me, grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. Held me like an hour ago he had held Erubi—except I fought. I swung my arms and pounded his body with my fists. I kicked out at his shins. Eventually he tossed me aside, and started walking away. I ran after him and grabbed him from behind.
He spun, throwing me down with a thud that made my brain rattle in my skull.
He walked.
“That’s right. You leave,” I yelled after him. “You leave me, you motherfucker!”
Then I got up and charged at him.
This time I attached myself to his back, locking my arms under his armpits like a human backpack, trying furiously to force the both of us to overturn: to wind up like a beetle, belly-up and dying...
He pressed forward, stride after gargantuan stride until we had travelled that way for maybe a hundred paces and I saw—lying like discarded refuse, two deflated people: skins still fresh but their entire beings flattened into sheets maybe an inch thick. They looked like humanoid rubber. Victims of the cognosher.
I let go of Arkady’s back and felt ground under my boots again.
I forced down the bile rising into my throat. “It’s horrible,” I said.
Arkady nodded. His eyes sparkled. I smiled at him—
And in that moment of manufactured vulnerability, when for the first time in my life I saw his hardness soften, I aimed a tackle into his mid-section that sent him sprawling. The pistol spilled from his hand and tumbled into the sand. Before he could react, I pounced on it. Then with him in its sights I backed away until I felt far enough away to kneel and put the pistol into my own mouth. This is the way it must end.
He approached me anyway.
I took the pistol out of my mouth and pointed it at him. “One more step,” I warned.
He didn’t stop.
“I fucking swear it!” I screamed at him.
He took one more step.
I fired.
The bullet whizzed by his head.
“I’ll fucking kill you.”
Another step.
This time the bullet tore into his shoulder, twisting his body.
He held up a single finger.
There was one bullet left, and if I wanted to—
As I scrambled to put the pistol back into my mouth, he covered the space between us and grabbed me by the arm. I pressed the trigger. The pistol fired, but instead of shutting off my brain, the bullet lodged itself into my forearm. He had bent my arm back at the last instant. I felt an immensity of pain, followed by a flow of warmth and the sound of ripping cloth. I felt a tightness surround my wounded limb, and my sight returned just as Arkady was tying the torn material below my elbow. His own shoulder was patchy with blood.
He picked me up like I was but a piece of lumber and carried me forward. I had no strength left. The only thing I felt was pain.
After a while he set me down and sat down himself.
He pulled out the screen-map and pointed at it, showing me what I already knew:
We had crossed the cognosher fields.

Destruction

The pods lifted off, leaving dissipating lines upon the sky and carrying their human cargo toward the fleet of Vectorien transporters waiting in orbit around Mendeleev-1.
In all, Vectorien estimated that 81% of its employees successfully reached the evacuation points.
The return journey by transporter lasted forty-one Earth years, most of which we spent in cryosleep. They did, however, allow us to remain awake for the destruction of Mendeleev-1 itself, and so we huddled in the galleries watching through small windows as a single ship launched a single bomb toward its surface. It fell like a water drop, after which there was a delay—and the planet was no more: first condensed, then dispersed as a cosmic rain of star stuff.
We disembarked in Florida.
At least that's what the signs said, because to me it was unrecognizable.
I saw Arkady on the lower deck of the starport.
There was no one waiting for him, just as there was no one waiting for me. The press had focussed on other arrivals. We walked one after the other down the tunnel, just as we had walked from the homestead to the evacuation pods forty-one years ago, in silence. When we got close to the doors leading outside, I stopped—needing to gather myself before greeting the new world awaiting me. He walked on. When he reached them, the doors slid open and he walked through without glancing back, and disappeared into the bustle outside.

Mercy

I lived for thirty years without seeing Arkady.
We did not keep in touch.
I moved on. I grieved, then found a house beyond the city, bought it outright and made a new life. I never remarried and I did not have a third child, but I learned not to dwell on the past. When I was ready, I bought a cemetery plot near where my husband and I had lived before Mendeleev-1 and buried three empty caskets, leaving space for one more. The cemetery gave me a discount on account of my "background."
The people on Earth were like that: treating us kindly but with a certain distance. They referred to us as the Vectoriens.
One day, a young woman arrived at my house.
She asked my name, and when I gave it said she had come on behalf of someone asking for my presence. "An elderly man," she said, "who doesn't speak."
I knew at once.
Arkady was a patient in a decrepit hospital in Costa Rica, located on the outskirts of San Jose. The staff were kind, but it was clear the institution lacked funding, and provided care mainly for the poor. When I entered his room I barely knew him: still a large man, but now bloated and flaccid, bald, with glassy skin and languid motions, even of the face, he did not appear to acknowledge my presence. It was only when I bent forward over him that a brightness came over his eyes!—but briefly, like the final flicker of a dying flame, followed by a diminishment to darkness.
I don't know what I felt toward him.
"He's a Vectorien," a nurse told me outside his room. "It's a miracle he's lasted this long. We used to see a lot of them after they came back, the ones who couldn't adjust to the world. Crime, drugs, any form of self-destruction. But that was in the months and years after. Here we have decades. I can't imagine what he's been doing all this time." She put her hand on my arm. "But all of a sudden he remembered you, I guess. It's good for him to have a visitor."
I stepped away from her. "Do you know where I can find a grocery store. Maybe something with household goods?"
"There's a plaza nearby. What is it that—"
I was already outside.
In the heat.
I bought what I needed and returned, as I had promised him.
I asked the nurse for a kettle.
When the water boiled, I steeped a tea and poured one cup. Then I asked the nurse for privacy. When she had gone, I added the other ingredient, and gave the tea to Arkady.
He took it in his large, calloused hands and tried to drink.
I helped him.
When he had finished, I sat beside him and held his hand, watching the remnants of his life evaporate, peacefully, like summer rain from asphalt.
He died without a gasp.
submitted by normancrane to stories [link] [comments]

2024.04.19 00:52 normancrane Mercy

We always knew the end would come.
Sirens
That we would have to take what we could and run.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
But even the expected may come as a shock.
Like a terminal patient awaiting the certain hour of his death, who—when mercifully it arrives—greets it not with confidence but with a gasp:
Is this it?
My life is quiet now. I am content in my solitude. I am seventy-two years old, in good health and the company has dutifully fulfilled its end of the bargain, so I do not want for anything. If I lack luxury it is by choice. I do not speak much. Instead I write and think, and if I have any ritual it is to take my tea just as night falls. Sometimes the evening light hits at a certain angle, and when I take my first sip, I close my eyes and think of Mendeleev-1. Instinctively my fingers slip onto my forearm where the wound will never heal, and I remember…

Mendeleev-1

...mining colony. mineral-rich. cognosher-positive. cognosher-dormant. safe for temporary habitation. slated for eventual destruction…
On Earth my husband and I had nothing.
On Mendeleev-1 we had hope:
“Build a homestead. Mine. As long as the planet stays inactive, you remain Vectorien employees. The moment it awakens, you have forty-eight hours to get to the evacuation pods. When you do: Congratulations on your retirement. Enjoy your pension!”
No one knew for how long the planet would sleep.
Everyone knew about the cognoshers: interdimensional alien beasts that sensed and feasted upon human fear.
Under that shadow we lived.
Time passed.
It was a simple life, hard but predictable, the rhythms of the day magnified by the monotony of the weather and the changing of imagined seasons…
The cycles unfolded, one after the other in coldness and desolation.
I gave birth to Oan, then Erubi.
Then a mine shaft collapsed, killing my husband.
Vectorien paid out a small sum and paid for his burial, but their lawyers maintained that the contract we had signed was still binding. My husband and I had made separate agreements. As Mendeleev-1 had not yet awoken and I was still alive, I remained a Vectorien employee, with all the mining obligations that entailed.
I tried to endure alone, but I knew that with two young children and output requirements to meet, I could not succeed.
“Mendeleev-1 is not for the faint of heart or for single mothers,” a Vectorien representative told me. “Chemicals have always been available upon request.”
I put out a notice for help.
That is how I encountered Arkady.
He was a decade older than I, a tough man hardened by experiences he never shared. In fact, he shared almost nothing and could not speak at all, which perhaps is what bound us together. Although he was a bachelor, it was not like that between us. He built a cabin for himself next to the homestead, and we lived in harmony.
For months, we lived—

Sirens

I was washing clothes when the time came.
The sound was deafening.
Erubi was crying—
I left the wash and ran to him with water dripping from the tips of my fingers. A single drop, like an atomic bomb. I tried to comfort him, to speak to him, but this life is never one of comfort, and he would not cease his wailing so I let him be. There was not much to pack, but time was of the essence. We had forty-eight hours to reach the evacuation pods—
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
Oan was outside, hands over his ears—
Arkady had exited his cabin—leather boots polished, rifle slung over a shoulder, pistol stuck into his belt, coming toward me with a screen-map in his hands.
He unfurled it:
The familiar terrain of Mendeleev-1, a geography I was intimately familiar with, but now with areas lighting up red, like blotches on a sick man’s skin.
I knew immediately what they meant.
Arkady pointed at the two nearest evacuation points—
“Oan, get your brother! Now!”
—the only two we could reach in forty-eight hours, and between us and those points: the sickening red of the planet awakening: vengeance for years of exploitation: the cognosher fields.
Arkady looked at me.
Oan had disappeared into the homestead.
Sirens
We had no clear path. Every route took us through the red.
Arkady slid his finger across the screen-map, tracing a route that I understood would lead us from here to there within forty-eight hours, but just barely. It was a path of least risk, which meant of some risk, and although the thin strip of evolving red may have looked small on the screen-map, I knew it was at least ten kilometres on the ground. Ten kilometres across cognosher terrain. There’s a saying about the cognosher fields: “Cross fearlessly—or not at all.”
I nodded my approval.
Arkady furled the screen-map.
Oan came to me, cradling Erubi in his arms, and in both their eyes I saw the very emotion I dreaded.
“It will be OK,” I said, taking Erubi from his older brother. “We talked about this. We prepared for it. We’ve been waiting for it. In two days we’ll be on our way to Earth.”
Earth: I said it to mean home, but it was my home.
To my sons it was nothing but a story.
Arkady had already turned away, and when he began walking we followed.
It would be a lie to say I did not look back at the homestead with some fondness—it had been our nest—but what I felt most was grief. What I felt most was the absence of my husband.
How we had planned!
It should have been us walking away: walking toward the evacuation pods after so much toil and expectation.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
I held Erubi closely, and when Oan offered his hand I took it and did not let go. Perhaps the future no longer held the same happiness I had dreamed about, but it held happiness still. Only a journey separated us.
After a time, the sirens turned off.
All on Mendeleev-1 were now evacuating—
All but the beasts.

The Cognosher Fields

We slept for four hours, drank water and walked again. We ate little. The way was dull and flat because the planet was dull and flat, sparsely spotted with tree-like plants like overgrown cauliflowers, and practised calmness. Be empty like the landscape. When Oan was little, my husband and I had done refocussing drills with him: substituting one thought for another, one emotion for another emotion. But Erubi was too young for that. In my arms he looked doe-eyed and calm, but who knew what was happening in that emergent mind of his.
When we neared the cognosher fields, Arkady unfurled the screen-map.
When we were at the boundary he bade us stop.
He showed me the map—
The red blotches were swollen and more numerous.
—and I knew the time had come.
Everything condensed to this: cross the fields and a good life on Earth awaits.
Or die.
“Remember what we talked about,” I told Oan. “Focus on something. Imagine it and keep it in your mind. In three hours it should all be over.”
“They feast on fear,” he said, repeating words from a storybook my husband had read to him.
“Yes.”
Arkady tapped his finger on his wrist.
We had to go.
Arkady entered first. After a brief hesitation, I followed, carrying Erubi with one arm, holding Oan's hand with the other. In a single step we had changed the physical reality around us. What was once barren became—by the power of our minds—pregnant with danger. Although I had no doubt cognoshers were real, it was unreal to feel that they were somewhere out there, awoken and hungry…
The initial seconds fell softly away to nothingness.
My heart beat quicker and Oan gripped my hand more tightly, but everything persisted as before. Arkady's broad back and long strides provided a familiar comfort. I would not have wanted to be in the lead, anticipating the future.
Seconds accumulated to minutes, which ticked away, footfall following footfall.
My focus was my grief.
I let it drape me, shielding all thoughts that could possibly evolve into fear.
Erubi fell in and out of sleep against my body.
Oan whispered stories to himself.
In the distance—
Arkady's hands travelled to his rifle, which he unslung. I had seen it too: a kind of flitting of the air itself. "No matter what, we must not stop," I said.
We walked.
Arkady scanning the horizon, sweat developing between Oan's hand and mine, Erubi opening his eyes, beginning slowly to whimper.
Another distant fluttering—
Unmistakeable.
All of us had seen it.
The enveloping silence descended into a low hiss. "Is it…"
"Shh."
Arkady raised his rifle. Cognoshers could be shot and killed, but it was difficult and exceedingly rare, for they only truly existed—in our understanding of that term: engaged with our dimension of reality—when they were scenting or feasting. Only then were they vulnerable.
Another flicker.
Closer.
And a third—
Followed in quick succession by a fourth and fifth.
We were maybe halfway through the cognosher fields and they were all around us. I had to remind myself that brief twinges of fear were insufficient. They felt it but not for long enough to localise the source. I thought of a memory—any memory—and started recollecting it aloud. "Remember when your father…"
They came!
It was as if reality had torn open—its very substance—rushing at us!
What happened next happened so quickly I struggle to make sequential sense of it, but in the years that have passed I have arranged and rearranged the remembered parts so many times I have settled on the following:
Arkady fired two shots into the ether.
Oan let go of my hand.
He stopped.
Arkady spun to face us and loosed another shot.
Oan stared at me—at us:
—as I heard a horrible shriek that felt ripped out of my very being.
I felt my body stiffen and the hissing of the silence melded with the sound of blood pulsing through my veins. I felt gazed upon and vulnerable, as the beasts of irreality were swooping down on us and as I tried to understand what was happening I understood that the shrieking was Erubi—that it was all Erubi—and I shall never forget the wonder and terror and love in his beautiful brown eyes as Arkady ripped him from his cradle in my arms, held him in one outstretched hand and shot him in the head with his pistol: his tiny body falling to that hideous ground, folding so unnaturally—
I screamed.
But the rushing had subsided.
It was not fear I was feeling but rage—and all at once I leapt at Arkady and for what remained of my son.
I fell face first on the ground, tasting the alien sands, and crawled forward, crawling desperately toward—
Arkady rolled the corpse away with his boot.
He grabbed me by the clothes on my back, lifted me to my feet, then pushed me toward the evacuation pods.
"I'll kill you," I growled.
When I looked at Oan, tears were rolling down his face. His eyes were pink. He wanted to pick Erubi up, but Arkady shook his head.
I hated him, but I knew he was right. They would not allow us to bring a corpse onto the evacuation pods, and we did not have the time for a burial. Erubi's body would lie here, on the only home planet he had ever known, until he and the planet were together obliterated. "Leave him,” I croaked.
I cannot describe how much my body shook.
How hard it was to leave.
Arkady walked with the same strides as always, the same wide back, the rifle slung again over his shoulder and the pistol tucked into his belt. I was glad, because I could not have borne the sight of his face.
I walked in wordless contemplation, with hatred having replaced grief as my protector, though the two could have coexisted.
Oan walked beside me, no longer holding my hand or reciting his stories. He had stopped crying, and his eyes had acquired the quality of numbness. Every few minutes he would look up at me with an expression I could not read, then down at his feet, which shuffled obediently along.
Suddenly Arkady stopped.
He glanced back at me, looking me in the eyes as always, looking at me as if nothing had happened, and motioned for me to stay.
He took the pistol from behind his belt and handed it to me.
I did not want to take it.
I did not want to touch its cold steel.
Arkady placed it on the ground before me, then turned and walked away from us. For what reason I did not know. What I knew was that if I didn't have such revulsion at the existence of that pistol, I would have picked it up and shot him in the back. How could he walk away so calmly—how he could trust me? But he was right. I left the pistol undisturbed upon the ground and watched him disappear.
"Where's he going?" Oan asked.
"I don't know."
We sat and remembered Erubi without speaking.
Before Arkady returned, we saw again flickering on the horizon and a chill passed through us both. The cognoshers were near. Oan rocked back and forth, trying to keep calm, and I watched him, wondering how it was possible to feel a contradiction: to want never to see Arkady again, and to need his presence. I craved the protective comfort of Earthfire.
"I don't think I can make it," Oan said.
"You can."
"It feels like… inside—"
"Refocus."
"—like I'm cracking, like it's all breaking apart."
He rocked more and more quickly, his eyes twitching from point to point, until finally I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "We're going," I said.
"No," he said.
I pulled him by the arm but he stayed in place. Anchored.
We both saw the fluttering sky.
"You go," he said. "I'll stay. I—I don't think I can… Maybe I'll see Erubi. Maybe we'll—"
I tugged harder but he didn't budge. "Come on!"
A blur passed across the horizon. There were so many of them now, waiting, unfolding. I wanted Arkady to be back. I wanted Oan to move.
"I'm scared," he said.
And for a moment the numbness in his eyes was gone, replaced by the brightness I had always associated with my son. But then that brightness too diminished, darkened by a kind of fear I have never seen again.
They came for him.
I backed away—back to where the pistol lay—picked it up and waved it madly at the nothingness rippling and hissing around us: the liquid distortions in the congealing mists of abnormality, but I didn't know at what to pull the trigger.
Oan sat.
I stumbled through a haze of fear: afraid for him, trying to be more afraid than him, to lure the beasts away, to offer them myself in exchange. I didn't want to live anyway. I was already dead. But I could not will myself into a more frenzied state of phobia.
Oan’s lips curved into a smile.
"Go," he whispered.
Then his smile became a terrible grin as his body stiffened and his neck bent backwards, and materializing behind him was a human-sized caterpillar—a unfathomable string of succulent translucent spheres braided into interconnectedness by oscillatory worms, all lined with a million undulating tentacles—topped with a glowing sphere-head of a mirrored eyes and one swollen ring of lips, which attached itself with ravenous intentions to Oan's face, devouring it and starting to suck his essence from within him and into itself.
I pointed the pistol at the cognosher and pulled the trigger—
The bullet slid through it.
Those wretched sucking sounds, like bloody gargled marbles, like wind rushing across a plain in reverse…
I knew what I had to do but could not do it.
I could not kill my son.
Even for this: out of mercy for him—for humanity itself.
A shot—fired:
Oan slumping to the ground—
The cognosher atomizing back into its own unknowable dimension—
The pistol still in my shaking outstretched hand, cold and dead, and silhouetted in the distance against the unforgiving sky: Arkady, lowering his rifle.
Those long strides.
The world rotated and Arkady stood on the wall of it, looking down at me. I wanted to stay; he wanted me to go. It took me several moments to realize I had collapsed, perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. Perhaps that even saved me. When Arkady yanked my arm and made the world upright, I knew that what I felt was neither fear nor rage but agony. I tried to look at my son, but Arkady caught my face in his hand. He shook his head. He tried to pull me forward, away from the agony and toward the evacuation pods, but now it was my time to stay anchored. He held out his hand and with two fingers showed we had not far to go: only an insignificant space. I wailed. He would not let go of my face. He pressed so hard my jaw bones hurt.
Through bleary eyes I perceived him.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and spat at him.
He backed away and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The same hand with which he’d just caused me so much pain—
And smacked me with it.
I fell back, gathered my strength and threw myself at him with everything I had.
Our bodies collided.
Again I ended up on the ground, but this time on my back.
He picked up his pistol, checked the bullets and motioned for me to follow. Again he made the gesture with his two fingers (only an insignificant space) and followed up by pointing to his wrist.
“Fuck you! I don’t care anymore,” I said.
He stepped toward me, grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. Held me like an hour ago he had held Erubi—except I fought. I swung my arms and pounded his body with my fists. I kicked out at his shins. Eventually he tossed me aside, and started walking away. I ran after him and grabbed him from behind.
He spun, throwing me down with a thud that made my brain rattle in my skull.
He walked.
“That’s right. You leave,” I yelled after him. “You leave me, you motherfucker!”
Then I got up and charged at him.
This time I attached myself to his back, locking my arms under his armpits like a human backpack, trying furiously to force the both of us to overturn: to wind up like a beetle, belly-up and dying...
He pressed forward, stride after gargantuan stride until we had travelled that way for maybe a hundred paces and I saw—lying like discarded refuse, two deflated people: skins still fresh but their entire beings flattened into sheets maybe an inch thick. They looked like humanoid rubber. Victims of the cognosher.
I let go of Arkady’s back and felt ground under my boots again.
I forced down the bile rising into my throat. “It’s horrible,” I said.
Arkady nodded. His eyes sparkled. I smiled at him—
And in that moment of manufactured vulnerability, when for the first time in my life I saw his hardness soften, I aimed a tackle into his mid-section that sent him sprawling. The pistol spilled from his hand and tumbled into the sand. Before he could react, I pounced on it. Then with him in its sights I backed away until I felt far enough away to kneel and put the pistol into my own mouth. This is the way it must end.
He approached me anyway.
I took the pistol out of my mouth and pointed it at him. “One more step,” I warned.
He didn’t stop.
“I fucking swear it!” I screamed at him.
He took one more step.
I fired.
The bullet whizzed by his head.
“I’ll fucking kill you.”
Another step.
This time the bullet tore into his shoulder, twisting his body.
He held up a single finger.
There was one bullet left, and if I wanted to—
As I scrambled to put the pistol back into my mouth, he covered the space between us and grabbed me by the arm. I pressed the trigger. The pistol fired, but instead of shutting off my brain, the bullet lodged itself into my forearm. He had bent my arm back at the last instant. I felt an immensity of pain, followed by a flow of warmth and the sound of ripping cloth. I felt a tightness surround my wounded limb, and my sight returned just as Arkady was tying the torn material below my elbow. His own shoulder was patchy with blood.
He picked me up like I was but a piece of lumber and carried me forward. I had no strength left. The only thing I felt was pain.
After a while he set me down and sat down himself.
He pulled out the screen-map and pointed at it, showing me what I already knew:
We had crossed the cognosher fields.

Destruction

The pods lifted off, leaving dissipating lines upon the sky and carrying their human cargo toward the fleet of Vectorien transporters waiting in orbit around Mendeleev-1.
In all, Vectorien estimated that 81% of its employees successfully reached the evacuation points.
The return journey by transporter lasted forty-one Earth years, most of which we spent in cryosleep. They did, however, allow us to remain awake for the destruction of Mendeleev-1 itself, and so we huddled in the galleries watching through small windows as a single ship launched a single bomb toward its surface. It fell like a water drop, after which there was a delay—and the planet was no more: first condensed, then dispersed as a cosmic rain of star stuff.
We disembarked in Florida.
At least that's what the signs said, because to me it was unrecognizable.
I saw Arkady on the lower deck of the starport.
There was no one waiting for him, just as there was no one waiting for me. The press had focussed on other arrivals. We walked one after the other down the tunnel, just as we had walked from the homestead to the evacuation pods forty-one years ago, in silence. When we got close to the doors leading outside, I stopped—needing to gather myself before greeting the new world awaiting me. He walked on. When he reached them, the doors slid open and he walked through without glancing back, and disappeared into the bustle outside.

Mercy

I lived for thirty years without seeing Arkady.
We did not keep in touch.
I moved on. I grieved, then found a house beyond the city, bought it outright and made a new life. I never remarried and I did not have a third child, but I learned not to dwell on the past. When I was ready, I bought a cemetery plot near where my husband and I had lived before Mendeleev-1 and buried three empty caskets, leaving space for one more. The cemetery gave me a discount on account of my "background."
The people on Earth were like that: treating us kindly but with a certain distance. They referred to us as the Vectoriens.
One day, a young woman arrived at my house.
She asked my name, and when I gave it said she had come on behalf of someone asking for my presence. "An elderly man," she said, "who doesn't speak."
I knew at once.
Arkady was a patient in a decrepit hospital in Costa Rica, located on the outskirts of San Jose. The staff were kind, but it was clear the institution lacked funding, and provided care mainly for the poor. When I entered his room I barely knew him: still a large man, but now bloated and flaccid, bald, with glassy skin and languid motions, even of the face, he did not appear to acknowledge my presence. It was only when I bent forward over him that a brightness came over his eyes!—but briefly, like the final flicker of a dying flame, followed by a diminishment to darkness.
I don't know what I felt toward him.
"He's a Vectorien," a nurse told me outside his room. "It's a miracle he's lasted this long. We used to see a lot of them after they came back, the ones who couldn't adjust to the world. Crime, drugs, any form of self-destruction. But that was in the months and years after. Here we have decades. I can't imagine what he's been doing all this time." She put her hand on my arm. "But all of a sudden he remembered you, I guess. It's good for him to have a visitor."
I stepped away from her. "Do you know where I can find a grocery store. Maybe something with household goods?"
"There's a plaza nearby. What is it that—"
I was already outside.
In the heat.
I bought what I needed and returned, as I had promised him.
I asked the nurse for a kettle.
When the water boiled, I steeped a tea and poured one cup. Then I asked the nurse for privacy. When she had gone, I added the other ingredient, and gave the tea to Arkady.
He took it in his large, calloused hands and tried to drink.
I helped him.
When he had finished, I sat beside him and held his hand, watching the remnants of his life evaporate, peacefully, like summer rain from asphalt.
He died without a gasp.
submitted by normancrane to horrorstories [link] [comments]

2024.04.19 00:51 normancrane Mercy

We always knew the end would come.
Sirens
That we would have to take what we could and run.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
But even the expected may come as a shock.
Like a terminal patient awaiting the certain hour of his death, who—when mercifully it arrives—greets it not with confidence but with a gasp:
Is this it?
My life is quiet now. I am content in my solitude. I am seventy-two years old, in good health and the company has dutifully fulfilled its end of the bargain, so I do not want for anything. If I lack luxury it is by choice. I do not speak much. Instead I write and think, and if I have any ritual it is to take my tea just as night falls. Sometimes the evening light hits at a certain angle, and when I take my first sip, I close my eyes and think of Mendeleev-1. Instinctively my fingers slip onto my forearm where the wound will never heal, and I remember…

Mendeleev-1

...mining colony. mineral-rich. cognosher-positive. cognosher-dormant. safe for temporary habitation. slated for eventual destruction…
On Earth my husband and I had nothing.
On Mendeleev-1 we had hope:
“Build a homestead. Mine. As long as the planet stays inactive, you remain Vectorien employees. The moment it awakens, you have forty-eight hours to get to the evacuation pods. When you do: Congratulations on your retirement. Enjoy your pension!”
No one knew for how long the planet would sleep.
Everyone knew about the cognoshers: interdimensional alien beasts that sensed and feasted upon human fear.
Under that shadow we lived.
Time passed.
It was a simple life, hard but predictable, the rhythms of the day magnified by the monotony of the weather and the changing of imagined seasons…
The cycles unfolded, one after the other in coldness and desolation.
I gave birth to Oan, then Erubi.
Then a mine shaft collapsed, killing my husband.
Vectorien paid out a small sum and paid for his burial, but their lawyers maintained that the contract we had signed was still binding. My husband and I had made separate agreements. As Mendeleev-1 had not yet awoken and I was still alive, I remained a Vectorien employee, with all the mining obligations that entailed.
I tried to endure alone, but I knew that with two young children and output requirements to meet, I could not succeed.
“Mendeleev-1 is not for the faint of heart or for single mothers,” a Vectorien representative told me. “Chemicals have always been available upon request.”
I put out a notice for help.
That is how I encountered Arkady.
He was a decade older than I, a tough man hardened by experiences he never shared. In fact, he shared almost nothing and could not speak at all, which perhaps is what bound us together. Although he was a bachelor, it was not like that between us. He built a cabin for himself next to the homestead, and we lived in harmony.
For months, we lived—

Sirens

I was washing clothes when the time came.
The sound was deafening.
Erubi was crying—
I left the wash and ran to him with water dripping from the tips of my fingers. A single drop, like an atomic bomb. I tried to comfort him, to speak to him, but this life is never one of comfort, and he would not cease his wailing so I let him be. There was not much to pack, but time was of the essence. We had forty-eight hours to reach the evacuation pods—
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
Oan was outside, hands over his ears—
Arkady had exited his cabin—leather boots polished, rifle slung over a shoulder, pistol stuck into his belt, coming toward me with a screen-map in his hands.
He unfurled it:
The familiar terrain of Mendeleev-1, a geography I was intimately familiar with, but now with areas lighting up red, like blotches on a sick man’s skin.
I knew immediately what they meant.
Arkady pointed at the two nearest evacuation points—
“Oan, get your brother! Now!”
—the only two we could reach in forty-eight hours, and between us and those points: the sickening red of the planet awakening: vengeance for years of exploitation: the cognosher fields.
Arkady looked at me.
Oan had disappeared into the homestead.
Sirens
We had no clear path. Every route took us through the red.
Arkady slid his finger across the screen-map, tracing a route that I understood would lead us from here to there within forty-eight hours, but just barely. It was a path of least risk, which meant of some risk, and although the thin strip of evolving red may have looked small on the screen-map, I knew it was at least ten kilometres on the ground. Ten kilometres across cognosher terrain. There’s a saying about the cognosher fields: “Cross fearlessly—or not at all.”
I nodded my approval.
Arkady furled the screen-map.
Oan came to me, cradling Erubi in his arms, and in both their eyes I saw the very emotion I dreaded.
“It will be OK,” I said, taking Erubi from his older brother. “We talked about this. We prepared for it. We’ve been waiting for it. In two days we’ll be on our way to Earth.”
Earth: I said it to mean home, but it was my home.
To my sons it was nothing but a story.
Arkady had already turned away, and when he began walking we followed.
It would be a lie to say I did not look back at the homestead with some fondness—it had been our nest—but what I felt most was grief. What I felt most was the absence of my husband.
How we had planned!
It should have been us walking away: walking toward the evacuation pods after so much toil and expectation.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
I held Erubi closely, and when Oan offered his hand I took it and did not let go. Perhaps the future no longer held the same happiness I had dreamed about, but it held happiness still. Only a journey separated us.
After a time, the sirens turned off.
All on Mendeleev-1 were now evacuating—
All but the beasts.

The Cognosher Fields

We slept for four hours, drank water and walked again. We ate little. The way was dull and flat because the planet was dull and flat, sparsely spotted with tree-like plants like overgrown cauliflowers, and practised calmness. Be empty like the landscape. When Oan was little, my husband and I had done refocussing drills with him: substituting one thought for another, one emotion for another emotion. But Erubi was too young for that. In my arms he looked doe-eyed and calm, but who knew what was happening in that emergent mind of his.
When we neared the cognosher fields, Arkady unfurled the screen-map.
When we were at the boundary he bade us stop.
He showed me the map—
The red blotches were swollen and more numerous.
—and I knew the time had come.
Everything condensed to this: cross the fields and a good life on Earth awaits.
Or die.
“Remember what we talked about,” I told Oan. “Focus on something. Imagine it and keep it in your mind. In three hours it should all be over.”
“They feast on fear,” he said, repeating words from a storybook my husband had read to him.
“Yes.”
Arkady tapped his finger on his wrist.
We had to go.
Arkady entered first. After a brief hesitation, I followed, carrying Erubi with one arm, holding Oan's hand with the other. In a single step we had changed the physical reality around us. What was once barren became—by the power of our minds—pregnant with danger. Although I had no doubt cognoshers were real, it was unreal to feel that they were somewhere out there, awoken and hungry…
The initial seconds fell softly away to nothingness.
My heart beat quicker and Oan gripped my hand more tightly, but everything persisted as before. Arkady's broad back and long strides provided a familiar comfort. I would not have wanted to be in the lead, anticipating the future.
Seconds accumulated to minutes, which ticked away, footfall following footfall.
My focus was my grief.
I let it drape me, shielding all thoughts that could possibly evolve into fear.
Erubi fell in and out of sleep against my body.
Oan whispered stories to himself.
In the distance—
Arkady's hands travelled to his rifle, which he unslung. I had seen it too: a kind of flitting of the air itself. "No matter what, we must not stop," I said.
We walked.
Arkady scanning the horizon, sweat developing between Oan's hand and mine, Erubi opening his eyes, beginning slowly to whimper.
Another distant fluttering—
Unmistakeable.
All of us had seen it.
The enveloping silence descended into a low hiss. "Is it…"
"Shh."
Arkady raised his rifle. Cognoshers could be shot and killed, but it was difficult and exceedingly rare, for they only truly existed—in our understanding of that term: engaged with our dimension of reality—when they were scenting or feasting. Only then were they vulnerable.
Another flicker.
Closer.
And a third—
Followed in quick succession by a fourth and fifth.
We were maybe halfway through the cognosher fields and they were all around us. I had to remind myself that brief twinges of fear were insufficient. They felt it but not for long enough to localise the source. I thought of a memory—any memory—and started recollecting it aloud. "Remember when your father…"
They came!
It was as if reality had torn open—its very substance—rushing at us!
What happened next happened so quickly I struggle to make sequential sense of it, but in the years that have passed I have arranged and rearranged the remembered parts so many times I have settled on the following:
Arkady fired two shots into the ether.
Oan let go of my hand.
He stopped.
Arkady spun to face us and loosed another shot.
Oan stared at me—at us:
—as I heard a horrible shriek that felt ripped out of my very being.
I felt my body stiffen and the hissing of the silence melded with the sound of blood pulsing through my veins. I felt gazed upon and vulnerable, as the beasts of irreality were swooping down on us and as I tried to understand what was happening I understood that the shrieking was Erubi—that it was all Erubi—and I shall never forget the wonder and terror and love in his beautiful brown eyes as Arkady ripped him from his cradle in my arms, held him in one outstretched hand and shot him in the head with his pistol: his tiny body falling to that hideous ground, folding so unnaturally—
I screamed.
But the rushing had subsided.
It was not fear I was feeling but rage—and all at once I leapt at Arkady and for what remained of my son.
I fell face first on the ground, tasting the alien sands, and crawled forward, crawling desperately toward—
Arkady rolled the corpse away with his boot.
He grabbed me by the clothes on my back, lifted me to my feet, then pushed me toward the evacuation pods.
"I'll kill you," I growled.
When I looked at Oan, tears were rolling down his face. His eyes were pink. He wanted to pick Erubi up, but Arkady shook his head.
I hated him, but I knew he was right. They would not allow us to bring a corpse onto the evacuation pods, and we did not have the time for a burial. Erubi's body would lie here, on the only home planet he had ever known, until he and the planet were together obliterated. "Leave him,” I croaked.
I cannot describe how much my body shook.
How hard it was to leave.
Arkady walked with the same strides as always, the same wide back, the rifle slung again over his shoulder and the pistol tucked into his belt. I was glad, because I could not have borne the sight of his face.
I walked in wordless contemplation, with hatred having replaced grief as my protector, though the two could have coexisted.
Oan walked beside me, no longer holding my hand or reciting his stories. He had stopped crying, and his eyes had acquired the quality of numbness. Every few minutes he would look up at me with an expression I could not read, then down at his feet, which shuffled obediently along.
Suddenly Arkady stopped.
He glanced back at me, looking me in the eyes as always, looking at me as if nothing had happened, and motioned for me to stay.
He took the pistol from behind his belt and handed it to me.
I did not want to take it.
I did not want to touch its cold steel.
Arkady placed it on the ground before me, then turned and walked away from us. For what reason I did not know. What I knew was that if I didn't have such revulsion at the existence of that pistol, I would have picked it up and shot him in the back. How could he walk away so calmly—how he could trust me? But he was right. I left the pistol undisturbed upon the ground and watched him disappear.
"Where's he going?" Oan asked.
"I don't know."
We sat and remembered Erubi without speaking.
Before Arkady returned, we saw again flickering on the horizon and a chill passed through us both. The cognoshers were near. Oan rocked back and forth, trying to keep calm, and I watched him, wondering how it was possible to feel a contradiction: to want never to see Arkady again, and to need his presence. I craved the protective comfort of Earthfire.
"I don't think I can make it," Oan said.
"You can."
"It feels like… inside—"
"Refocus."
"—like I'm cracking, like it's all breaking apart."
He rocked more and more quickly, his eyes twitching from point to point, until finally I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "We're going," I said.
"No," he said.
I pulled him by the arm but he stayed in place. Anchored.
We both saw the fluttering sky.
"You go," he said. "I'll stay. I—I don't think I can… Maybe I'll see Erubi. Maybe we'll—"
I tugged harder but he didn't budge. "Come on!"
A blur passed across the horizon. There were so many of them now, waiting, unfolding. I wanted Arkady to be back. I wanted Oan to move.
"I'm scared," he said.
And for a moment the numbness in his eyes was gone, replaced by the brightness I had always associated with my son. But then that brightness too diminished, darkened by a kind of fear I have never seen again.
They came for him.
I backed away—back to where the pistol lay—picked it up and waved it madly at the nothingness rippling and hissing around us: the liquid distortions in the congealing mists of abnormality, but I didn't know at what to pull the trigger.
Oan sat.
I stumbled through a haze of fear: afraid for him, trying to be more afraid than him, to lure the beasts away, to offer them myself in exchange. I didn't want to live anyway. I was already dead. But I could not will myself into a more frenzied state of phobia.
Oan’s lips curved into a smile.
"Go," he whispered.
Then his smile became a terrible grin as his body stiffened and his neck bent backwards, and materializing behind him was a human-sized caterpillar—a unfathomable string of succulent translucent spheres braided into interconnectedness by oscillatory worms, all lined with a million undulating tentacles—topped with a glowing sphere-head of a mirrored eyes and one swollen ring of lips, which attached itself with ravenous intentions to Oan's face, devouring it and starting to suck his essence from within him and into itself.
I pointed the pistol at the cognosher and pulled the trigger—
The bullet slid through it.
Those wretched sucking sounds, like bloody gargled marbles, like wind rushing across a plain in reverse…
I knew what I had to do but could not do it.
I could not kill my son.
Even for this: out of mercy for him—for humanity itself.
A shot—fired:
Oan slumping to the ground—
The cognosher atomizing back into its own unknowable dimension—
The pistol still in my shaking outstretched hand, cold and dead, and silhouetted in the distance against the unforgiving sky: Arkady, lowering his rifle.
Those long strides.
The world rotated and Arkady stood on the wall of it, looking down at me. I wanted to stay; he wanted me to go. It took me several moments to realize I had collapsed, perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. Perhaps that even saved me. When Arkady yanked my arm and made the world upright, I knew that what I felt was neither fear nor rage but agony. I tried to look at my son, but Arkady caught my face in his hand. He shook his head. He tried to pull me forward, away from the agony and toward the evacuation pods, but now it was my time to stay anchored. He held out his hand and with two fingers showed we had not far to go: only an insignificant space. I wailed. He would not let go of my face. He pressed so hard my jaw bones hurt.
Through bleary eyes I perceived him.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and spat at him.
He backed away and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The same hand with which he’d just caused me so much pain—
And smacked me with it.
I fell back, gathered my strength and threw myself at him with everything I had.
Our bodies collided.
Again I ended up on the ground, but this time on my back.
He picked up his pistol, checked the bullets and motioned for me to follow. Again he made the gesture with his two fingers (only an insignificant space) and followed up by pointing to his wrist.
“Fuck you! I don’t care anymore,” I said.
He stepped toward me, grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. Held me like an hour ago he had held Erubi—except I fought. I swung my arms and pounded his body with my fists. I kicked out at his shins. Eventually he tossed me aside, and started walking away. I ran after him and grabbed him from behind.
He spun, throwing me down with a thud that made my brain rattle in my skull.
He walked.
“That’s right. You leave,” I yelled after him. “You leave me, you motherfucker!”
Then I got up and charged at him.
This time I attached myself to his back, locking my arms under his armpits like a human backpack, trying furiously to force the both of us to overturn: to wind up like a beetle, belly-up and dying...
He pressed forward, stride after gargantuan stride until we had travelled that way for maybe a hundred paces and I saw—lying like discarded refuse, two deflated people: skins still fresh but their entire beings flattened into sheets maybe an inch thick. They looked like humanoid rubber. Victims of the cognosher.
I let go of Arkady’s back and felt ground under my boots again.
I forced down the bile rising into my throat. “It’s horrible,” I said.
Arkady nodded. His eyes sparkled. I smiled at him—
And in that moment of manufactured vulnerability, when for the first time in my life I saw his hardness soften, I aimed a tackle into his mid-section that sent him sprawling. The pistol spilled from his hand and tumbled into the sand. Before he could react, I pounced on it. Then with him in its sights I backed away until I felt far enough away to kneel and put the pistol into my own mouth. This is the way it must end.
He approached me anyway.
I took the pistol out of my mouth and pointed it at him. “One more step,” I warned.
He didn’t stop.
“I fucking swear it!” I screamed at him.
He took one more step.
I fired.
The bullet whizzed by his head.
“I’ll fucking kill you.”
Another step.
This time the bullet tore into his shoulder, twisting his body.
He held up a single finger.
There was one bullet left, and if I wanted to—
As I scrambled to put the pistol back into my mouth, he covered the space between us and grabbed me by the arm. I pressed the trigger. The pistol fired, but instead of shutting off my brain, the bullet lodged itself into my forearm. He had bent my arm back at the last instant. I felt an immensity of pain, followed by a flow of warmth and the sound of ripping cloth. I felt a tightness surround my wounded limb, and my sight returned just as Arkady was tying the torn material below my elbow. His own shoulder was patchy with blood.
He picked me up like I was but a piece of lumber and carried me forward. I had no strength left. The only thing I felt was pain.
After a while he set me down and sat down himself.
He pulled out the screen-map and pointed at it, showing me what I already knew:
We had crossed the cognosher fields.

Destruction

The pods lifted off, leaving dissipating lines upon the sky and carrying their human cargo toward the fleet of Vectorien transporters waiting in orbit around Mendeleev-1.
In all, Vectorien estimated that 81% of its employees successfully reached the evacuation points.
The return journey by transporter lasted forty-one Earth years, most of which we spent in cryosleep. They did, however, allow us to remain awake for the destruction of Mendeleev-1 itself, and so we huddled in the galleries watching through small windows as a single ship launched a single bomb toward its surface. It fell like a water drop, after which there was a delay—and the planet was no more: first condensed, then dispersed as a cosmic rain of star stuff.
We disembarked in Florida.
At least that's what the signs said, because to me it was unrecognizable.
I saw Arkady on the lower deck of the starport.
There was no one waiting for him, just as there was no one waiting for me. The press had focussed on other arrivals. We walked one after the other down the tunnel, just as we had walked from the homestead to the evacuation pods forty-one years ago, in silence. When we got close to the doors leading outside, I stopped—needing to gather myself before greeting the new world awaiting me. He walked on. When he reached them, the doors slid open and he walked through without glancing back, and disappeared into the bustle outside.

Mercy

I lived for thirty years without seeing Arkady.
We did not keep in touch.
I moved on. I grieved, then found a house beyond the city, bought it outright and made a new life. I never remarried and I did not have a third child, but I learned not to dwell on the past. When I was ready, I bought a cemetery plot near where my husband and I had lived before Mendeleev-1 and buried three empty caskets, leaving space for one more. The cemetery gave me a discount on account of my "background."
The people on Earth were like that: treating us kindly but with a certain distance. They referred to us as the Vectoriens.
One day, a young woman arrived at my house.
She asked my name, and when I gave it said she had come on behalf of someone asking for my presence. "An elderly man," she said, "who doesn't speak."
I knew at once.
Arkady was a patient in a decrepit hospital in Costa Rica, located on the outskirts of San Jose. The staff were kind, but it was clear the institution lacked funding, and provided care mainly for the poor. When I entered his room I barely knew him: still a large man, but now bloated and flaccid, bald, with glassy skin and languid motions, even of the face, he did not appear to acknowledge my presence. It was only when I bent forward over him that a brightness came over his eyes!—but briefly, like the final flicker of a dying flame, followed by a diminishment to darkness.
I don't know what I felt toward him.
"He's a Vectorien," a nurse told me outside his room. "It's a miracle he's lasted this long. We used to see a lot of them after they came back, the ones who couldn't adjust to the world. Crime, drugs, any form of self-destruction. But that was in the months and years after. Here we have decades. I can't imagine what he's been doing all this time." She put her hand on my arm. "But all of a sudden he remembered you, I guess. It's good for him to have a visitor."
I stepped away from her. "Do you know where I can find a grocery store. Maybe something with household goods?"
"There's a plaza nearby. What is it that—"
I was already outside.
In the heat.
I bought what I needed and returned, as I had promised him.
I asked the nurse for a kettle.
When the water boiled, I steeped a tea and poured one cup. Then I asked the nurse for privacy. When she had gone, I added the other ingredient, and gave the tea to Arkady.
He took it in his large, calloused hands and tried to drink.
I helped him.
When he had finished, I sat beside him and held his hand, watching the remnants of his life evaporate, peacefully, like summer rain from asphalt.
He died without a gasp.
submitted by normancrane to DarkTales [link] [comments]

2024.04.19 00:51 normancrane Mercy

We always knew the end would come.
Sirens
That we would have to take what we could and run.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
But even the expected may come as a shock.
Like a terminal patient awaiting the certain hour of his death, who—when mercifully it arrives—greets it not with confidence but with a gasp:
Is this it?
My life is quiet now. I am content in my solitude. I am seventy-two years old, in good health and the company has dutifully fulfilled its end of the bargain, so I do not want for anything. If I lack luxury it is by choice. I do not speak much. Instead I write and think, and if I have any ritual it is to take my tea just as night falls. Sometimes the evening light hits at a certain angle, and when I take my first sip, I close my eyes and think of Mendeleev-1. Instinctively my fingers slip onto my forearm where the wound will never heal, and I remember…

Mendeleev-1

...mining colony. mineral-rich. cognosher-positive. cognosher-dormant. safe for temporary habitation. slated for eventual destruction…
On Earth my husband and I had nothing.
On Mendeleev-1 we had hope:
“Build a homestead. Mine. As long as the planet stays inactive, you remain Vectorien employees. The moment it awakens, you have forty-eight hours to get to the evacuation pods. When you do: Congratulations on your retirement. Enjoy your pension!”
No one knew for how long the planet would sleep.
Everyone knew about the cognoshers: interdimensional alien beasts that sensed and feasted upon human fear.
Under that shadow we lived.
Time passed.
It was a simple life, hard but predictable, the rhythms of the day magnified by the monotony of the weather and the changing of imagined seasons…
The cycles unfolded, one after the other in coldness and desolation.
I gave birth to Oan, then Erubi.
Then a mine shaft collapsed, killing my husband.
Vectorien paid out a small sum and paid for his burial, but their lawyers maintained that the contract we had signed was still binding. My husband and I had made separate agreements. As Mendeleev-1 had not yet awoken and I was still alive, I remained a Vectorien employee, with all the mining obligations that entailed.
I tried to endure alone, but I knew that with two young children and output requirements to meet, I could not succeed.
“Mendeleev-1 is not for the faint of heart or for single mothers,” a Vectorien representative told me. “Chemicals have always been available upon request.”
I put out a notice for help.
That is how I encountered Arkady.
He was a decade older than I, a tough man hardened by experiences he never shared. In fact, he shared almost nothing and could not speak at all, which perhaps is what bound us together. Although he was a bachelor, it was not like that between us. He built a cabin for himself next to the homestead, and we lived in harmony.
For months, we lived—

Sirens

I was washing clothes when the time came.
The sound was deafening.
Erubi was crying—
I left the wash and ran to him with water dripping from the tips of my fingers. A single drop, like an atomic bomb. I tried to comfort him, to speak to him, but this life is never one of comfort, and he would not cease his wailing so I let him be. There was not much to pack, but time was of the essence. We had forty-eight hours to reach the evacuation pods—
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
Oan was outside, hands over his ears—
Arkady had exited his cabin—leather boots polished, rifle slung over a shoulder, pistol stuck into his belt, coming toward me with a screen-map in his hands.
He unfurled it:
The familiar terrain of Mendeleev-1, a geography I was intimately familiar with, but now with areas lighting up red, like blotches on a sick man’s skin.
I knew immediately what they meant.
Arkady pointed at the two nearest evacuation points—
“Oan, get your brother! Now!”
—the only two we could reach in forty-eight hours, and between us and those points: the sickening red of the planet awakening: vengeance for years of exploitation: the cognosher fields.
Arkady looked at me.
Oan had disappeared into the homestead.
Sirens
We had no clear path. Every route took us through the red.
Arkady slid his finger across the screen-map, tracing a route that I understood would lead us from here to there within forty-eight hours, but just barely. It was a path of least risk, which meant of some risk, and although the thin strip of evolving red may have looked small on the screen-map, I knew it was at least ten kilometres on the ground. Ten kilometres across cognosher terrain. There’s a saying about the cognosher fields: “Cross fearlessly—or not at all.”
I nodded my approval.
Arkady furled the screen-map.
Oan came to me, cradling Erubi in his arms, and in both their eyes I saw the very emotion I dreaded.
“It will be OK,” I said, taking Erubi from his older brother. “We talked about this. We prepared for it. We’ve been waiting for it. In two days we’ll be on our way to Earth.”
Earth: I said it to mean home, but it was my home.
To my sons it was nothing but a story.
Arkady had already turned away, and when he began walking we followed.
It would be a lie to say I did not look back at the homestead with some fondness—it had been our nest—but what I felt most was grief. What I felt most was the absence of my husband.
How we had planned!
It should have been us walking away: walking toward the evacuation pods after so much toil and expectation.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
I held Erubi closely, and when Oan offered his hand I took it and did not let go. Perhaps the future no longer held the same happiness I had dreamed about, but it held happiness still. Only a journey separated us.
After a time, the sirens turned off.
All on Mendeleev-1 were now evacuating—
All but the beasts.

The Cognosher Fields

We slept for four hours, drank water and walked again. We ate little. The way was dull and flat because the planet was dull and flat, sparsely spotted with tree-like plants like overgrown cauliflowers, and practised calmness. Be empty like the landscape. When Oan was little, my husband and I had done refocussing drills with him: substituting one thought for another, one emotion for another emotion. But Erubi was too young for that. In my arms he looked doe-eyed and calm, but who knew what was happening in that emergent mind of his.
When we neared the cognosher fields, Arkady unfurled the screen-map.
When we were at the boundary he bade us stop.
He showed me the map—
The red blotches were swollen and more numerous.
—and I knew the time had come.
Everything condensed to this: cross the fields and a good life on Earth awaits.
Or die.
“Remember what we talked about,” I told Oan. “Focus on something. Imagine it and keep it in your mind. In three hours it should all be over.”
“They feast on fear,” he said, repeating words from a storybook my husband had read to him.
“Yes.”
Arkady tapped his finger on his wrist.
We had to go.
Arkady entered first. After a brief hesitation, I followed, carrying Erubi with one arm, holding Oan's hand with the other. In a single step we had changed the physical reality around us. What was once barren became—by the power of our minds—pregnant with danger. Although I had no doubt cognoshers were real, it was unreal to feel that they were somewhere out there, awoken and hungry…
The initial seconds fell softly away to nothingness.
My heart beat quicker and Oan gripped my hand more tightly, but everything persisted as before. Arkady's broad back and long strides provided a familiar comfort. I would not have wanted to be in the lead, anticipating the future.
Seconds accumulated to minutes, which ticked away, footfall following footfall.
My focus was my grief.
I let it drape me, shielding all thoughts that could possibly evolve into fear.
Erubi fell in and out of sleep against my body.
Oan whispered stories to himself.
In the distance—
Arkady's hands travelled to his rifle, which he unslung. I had seen it too: a kind of flitting of the air itself. "No matter what, we must not stop," I said.
We walked.
Arkady scanning the horizon, sweat developing between Oan's hand and mine, Erubi opening his eyes, beginning slowly to whimper.
Another distant fluttering—
Unmistakeable.
All of us had seen it.
The enveloping silence descended into a low hiss. "Is it…"
"Shh."
Arkady raised his rifle. Cognoshers could be shot and killed, but it was difficult and exceedingly rare, for they only truly existed—in our understanding of that term: engaged with our dimension of reality—when they were scenting or feasting. Only then were they vulnerable.
Another flicker.
Closer.
And a third—
Followed in quick succession by a fourth and fifth.
We were maybe halfway through the cognosher fields and they were all around us. I had to remind myself that brief twinges of fear were insufficient. They felt it but not for long enough to localise the source. I thought of a memory—any memory—and started recollecting it aloud. "Remember when your father…"
They came!
It was as if reality had torn open—its very substance—rushing at us!
What happened next happened so quickly I struggle to make sequential sense of it, but in the years that have passed I have arranged and rearranged the remembered parts so many times I have settled on the following:
Arkady fired two shots into the ether.
Oan let go of my hand.
He stopped.
Arkady spun to face us and loosed another shot.
Oan stared at me—at us:
—as I heard a horrible shriek that felt ripped out of my very being.
I felt my body stiffen and the hissing of the silence melded with the sound of blood pulsing through my veins. I felt gazed upon and vulnerable, as the beasts of irreality were swooping down on us and as I tried to understand what was happening I understood that the shrieking was Erubi—that it was all Erubi—and I shall never forget the wonder and terror and love in his beautiful brown eyes as Arkady ripped him from his cradle in my arms, held him in one outstretched hand and shot him in the head with his pistol: his tiny body falling to that hideous ground, folding so unnaturally—
I screamed.
But the rushing had subsided.
It was not fear I was feeling but rage—and all at once I leapt at Arkady and for what remained of my son.
I fell face first on the ground, tasting the alien sands, and crawled forward, crawling desperately toward—
Arkady rolled the corpse away with his boot.
He grabbed me by the clothes on my back, lifted me to my feet, then pushed me toward the evacuation pods.
"I'll kill you," I growled.
When I looked at Oan, tears were rolling down his face. His eyes were pink. He wanted to pick Erubi up, but Arkady shook his head.
I hated him, but I knew he was right. They would not allow us to bring a corpse onto the evacuation pods, and we did not have the time for a burial. Erubi's body would lie here, on the only home planet he had ever known, until he and the planet were together obliterated. "Leave him,” I croaked.
I cannot describe how much my body shook.
How hard it was to leave.
Arkady walked with the same strides as always, the same wide back, the rifle slung again over his shoulder and the pistol tucked into his belt. I was glad, because I could not have borne the sight of his face.
I walked in wordless contemplation, with hatred having replaced grief as my protector, though the two could have coexisted.
Oan walked beside me, no longer holding my hand or reciting his stories. He had stopped crying, and his eyes had acquired the quality of numbness. Every few minutes he would look up at me with an expression I could not read, then down at his feet, which shuffled obediently along.
Suddenly Arkady stopped.
He glanced back at me, looking me in the eyes as always, looking at me as if nothing had happened, and motioned for me to stay.
He took the pistol from behind his belt and handed it to me.
I did not want to take it.
I did not want to touch its cold steel.
Arkady placed it on the ground before me, then turned and walked away from us. For what reason I did not know. What I knew was that if I didn't have such revulsion at the existence of that pistol, I would have picked it up and shot him in the back. How could he walk away so calmly—how he could trust me? But he was right. I left the pistol undisturbed upon the ground and watched him disappear.
"Where's he going?" Oan asked.
"I don't know."
We sat and remembered Erubi without speaking.
Before Arkady returned, we saw again flickering on the horizon and a chill passed through us both. The cognoshers were near. Oan rocked back and forth, trying to keep calm, and I watched him, wondering how it was possible to feel a contradiction: to want never to see Arkady again, and to need his presence. I craved the protective comfort of Earthfire.
"I don't think I can make it," Oan said.
"You can."
"It feels like… inside—"
"Refocus."
"—like I'm cracking, like it's all breaking apart."
He rocked more and more quickly, his eyes twitching from point to point, until finally I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "We're going," I said.
"No," he said.
I pulled him by the arm but he stayed in place. Anchored.
We both saw the fluttering sky.
"You go," he said. "I'll stay. I—I don't think I can… Maybe I'll see Erubi. Maybe we'll—"
I tugged harder but he didn't budge. "Come on!"
A blur passed across the horizon. There were so many of them now, waiting, unfolding. I wanted Arkady to be back. I wanted Oan to move.
"I'm scared," he said.
And for a moment the numbness in his eyes was gone, replaced by the brightness I had always associated with my son. But then that brightness too diminished, darkened by a kind of fear I have never seen again.
They came for him.
I backed away—back to where the pistol lay—picked it up and waved it madly at the nothingness rippling and hissing around us: the liquid distortions in the congealing mists of abnormality, but I didn't know at what to pull the trigger.
Oan sat.
I stumbled through a haze of fear: afraid for him, trying to be more afraid than him, to lure the beasts away, to offer them myself in exchange. I didn't want to live anyway. I was already dead. But I could not will myself into a more frenzied state of phobia.
Oan’s lips curved into a smile.
"Go," he whispered.
Then his smile became a terrible grin as his body stiffened and his neck bent backwards, and materializing behind him was a human-sized caterpillar—a unfathomable string of succulent translucent spheres braided into interconnectedness by oscillatory worms, all lined with a million undulating tentacles—topped with a glowing sphere-head of a mirrored eyes and one swollen ring of lips, which attached itself with ravenous intentions to Oan's face, devouring it and starting to suck his essence from within him and into itself.
I pointed the pistol at the cognosher and pulled the trigger—
The bullet slid through it.
Those wretched sucking sounds, like bloody gargled marbles, like wind rushing across a plain in reverse…
I knew what I had to do but could not do it.
I could not kill my son.
Even for this: out of mercy for him—for humanity itself.
A shot—fired:
Oan slumping to the ground—
The cognosher atomizing back into its own unknowable dimension—
The pistol still in my shaking outstretched hand, cold and dead, and silhouetted in the distance against the unforgiving sky: Arkady, lowering his rifle.
Those long strides.
The world rotated and Arkady stood on the wall of it, looking down at me. I wanted to stay; he wanted me to go. It took me several moments to realize I had collapsed, perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. Perhaps that even saved me. When Arkady yanked my arm and made the world upright, I knew that what I felt was neither fear nor rage but agony. I tried to look at my son, but Arkady caught my face in his hand. He shook his head. He tried to pull me forward, away from the agony and toward the evacuation pods, but now it was my time to stay anchored. He held out his hand and with two fingers showed we had not far to go: only an insignificant space. I wailed. He would not let go of my face. He pressed so hard my jaw bones hurt.
Through bleary eyes I perceived him.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and spat at him.
He backed away and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The same hand with which he’d just caused me so much pain—
And smacked me with it.
I fell back, gathered my strength and threw myself at him with everything I had.
Our bodies collided.
Again I ended up on the ground, but this time on my back.
He picked up his pistol, checked the bullets and motioned for me to follow. Again he made the gesture with his two fingers (only an insignificant space) and followed up by pointing to his wrist.
“Fuck you! I don’t care anymore,” I said.
He stepped toward me, grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. Held me like an hour ago he had held Erubi—except I fought. I swung my arms and pounded his body with my fists. I kicked out at his shins. Eventually he tossed me aside, and started walking away. I ran after him and grabbed him from behind.
He spun, throwing me down with a thud that made my brain rattle in my skull.
He walked.
“That’s right. You leave,” I yelled after him. “You leave me, you motherfucker!”
Then I got up and charged at him.
This time I attached myself to his back, locking my arms under his armpits like a human backpack, trying furiously to force the both of us to overturn: to wind up like a beetle, belly-up and dying...
He pressed forward, stride after gargantuan stride until we had travelled that way for maybe a hundred paces and I saw—lying like discarded refuse, two deflated people: skins still fresh but their entire beings flattened into sheets maybe an inch thick. They looked like humanoid rubber. Victims of the cognosher.
I let go of Arkady’s back and felt ground under my boots again.
I forced down the bile rising into my throat. “It’s horrible,” I said.
Arkady nodded. His eyes sparkled. I smiled at him—
And in that moment of manufactured vulnerability, when for the first time in my life I saw his hardness soften, I aimed a tackle into his mid-section that sent him sprawling. The pistol spilled from his hand and tumbled into the sand. Before he could react, I pounced on it. Then with him in its sights I backed away until I felt far enough away to kneel and put the pistol into my own mouth. This is the way it must end.
He approached me anyway.
I took the pistol out of my mouth and pointed it at him. “One more step,” I warned.
He didn’t stop.
“I fucking swear it!” I screamed at him.
He took one more step.
I fired.
The bullet whizzed by his head.
“I’ll fucking kill you.”
Another step.
This time the bullet tore into his shoulder, twisting his body.
He held up a single finger.
There was one bullet left, and if I wanted to—
As I scrambled to put the pistol back into my mouth, he covered the space between us and grabbed me by the arm. I pressed the trigger. The pistol fired, but instead of shutting off my brain, the bullet lodged itself into my forearm. He had bent my arm back at the last instant. I felt an immensity of pain, followed by a flow of warmth and the sound of ripping cloth. I felt a tightness surround my wounded limb, and my sight returned just as Arkady was tying the torn material below my elbow. His own shoulder was patchy with blood.
He picked me up like I was but a piece of lumber and carried me forward. I had no strength left. The only thing I felt was pain.
After a while he set me down and sat down himself.
He pulled out the screen-map and pointed at it, showing me what I already knew:
We had crossed the cognosher fields.

Destruction

The pods lifted off, leaving dissipating lines upon the sky and carrying their human cargo toward the fleet of Vectorien transporters waiting in orbit around Mendeleev-1.
In all, Vectorien estimated that 81% of its employees successfully reached the evacuation points.
The return journey by transporter lasted forty-one Earth years, most of which we spent in cryosleep. They did, however, allow us to remain awake for the destruction of Mendeleev-1 itself, and so we huddled in the galleries watching through small windows as a single ship launched a single bomb toward its surface. It fell like a water drop, after which there was a delay—and the planet was no more: first condensed, then dispersed as a cosmic rain of star stuff.
We disembarked in Florida.
At least that's what the signs said, because to me it was unrecognizable.
I saw Arkady on the lower deck of the starport.
There was no one waiting for him, just as there was no one waiting for me. The press had focussed on other arrivals. We walked one after the other down the tunnel, just as we had walked from the homestead to the evacuation pods forty-one years ago, in silence. When we got close to the doors leading outside, I stopped—needing to gather myself before greeting the new world awaiting me. He walked on. When he reached them, the doors slid open and he walked through without glancing back, and disappeared into the bustle outside.

Mercy

I lived for thirty years without seeing Arkady.
We did not keep in touch.
I moved on. I grieved, then found a house beyond the city, bought it outright and made a new life. I never remarried and I did not have a third child, but I learned not to dwell on the past. When I was ready, I bought a cemetery plot near where my husband and I had lived before Mendeleev-1 and buried three empty caskets, leaving space for one more. The cemetery gave me a discount on account of my "background."
The people on Earth were like that: treating us kindly but with a certain distance. They referred to us as the Vectoriens.
One day, a young woman arrived at my house.
She asked my name, and when I gave it said she had come on behalf of someone asking for my presence. "An elderly man," she said, "who doesn't speak."
I knew at once.
Arkady was a patient in a decrepit hospital in Costa Rica, located on the outskirts of San Jose. The staff were kind, but it was clear the institution lacked funding, and provided care mainly for the poor. When I entered his room I barely knew him: still a large man, but now bloated and flaccid, bald, with glassy skin and languid motions, even of the face, he did not appear to acknowledge my presence. It was only when I bent forward over him that a brightness came over his eyes!—but briefly, like the final flicker of a dying flame, followed by a diminishment to darkness.
I don't know what I felt toward him.
"He's a Vectorien," a nurse told me outside his room. "It's a miracle he's lasted this long. We used to see a lot of them after they came back, the ones who couldn't adjust to the world. Crime, drugs, any form of self-destruction. But that was in the months and years after. Here we have decades. I can't imagine what he's been doing all this time." She put her hand on my arm. "But all of a sudden he remembered you, I guess. It's good for him to have a visitor."
I stepped away from her. "Do you know where I can find a grocery store. Maybe something with household goods?"
"There's a plaza nearby. What is it that—"
I was already outside.
In the heat.
I bought what I needed and returned, as I had promised him.
I asked the nurse for a kettle.
When the water boiled, I steeped a tea and poured one cup. Then I asked the nurse for privacy. When she had gone, I added the other ingredient, and gave the tea to Arkady.
He took it in his large, calloused hands and tried to drink.
I helped him.
When he had finished, I sat beside him and held his hand, watching the remnants of his life evaporate, peacefully, like summer rain from asphalt.
He died without a gasp.
submitted by normancrane to scaryshortstories [link] [comments]

2024.04.19 00:50 normancrane Mercy

We always knew the end would come.
Sirens
That we would have to take what we could and run.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
But even the expected may come as a shock.
Like a terminal patient awaiting the certain hour of his death, who—when mercifully it arrives—greets it not with confidence but with a gasp:
Is this it?
My life is quiet now. I am content in my solitude. I am seventy-two years old, in good health and the company has dutifully fulfilled its end of the bargain, so I do not want for anything. If I lack luxury it is by choice. I do not speak much. Instead I write and think, and if I have any ritual it is to take my tea just as night falls. Sometimes the evening light hits at a certain angle, and when I take my first sip, I close my eyes and think of Mendeleev-1. Instinctively my fingers slip onto my forearm where the wound will never heal, and I remember…

Mendeleev-1

...mining colony. mineral-rich. cognosher-positive. cognosher-dormant. safe for temporary habitation. slated for eventual destruction…
On Earth my husband and I had nothing.
On Mendeleev-1 we had hope:
“Build a homestead. Mine. As long as the planet stays inactive, you remain Vectorien employees. The moment it awakens, you have forty-eight hours to get to the evacuation pods. When you do: Congratulations on your retirement. Enjoy your pension!”
No one knew for how long the planet would sleep.
Everyone knew about the cognoshers: interdimensional alien beasts that sensed and feasted upon human fear.
Under that shadow we lived.
Time passed.
It was a simple life, hard but predictable, the rhythms of the day magnified by the monotony of the weather and the changing of imagined seasons…
The cycles unfolded, one after the other in coldness and desolation.
I gave birth to Oan, then Erubi.
Then a mine shaft collapsed, killing my husband.
Vectorien paid out a small sum and paid for his burial, but their lawyers maintained that the contract we had signed was still binding. My husband and I had made separate agreements. As Mendeleev-1 had not yet awoken and I was still alive, I remained a Vectorien employee, with all the mining obligations that entailed.
I tried to endure alone, but I knew that with two young children and output requirements to meet, I could not succeed.
“Mendeleev-1 is not for the faint of heart or for single mothers,” a Vectorien representative told me. “Chemicals have always been available upon request.”
I put out a notice for help.
That is how I encountered Arkady.
He was a decade older than I, a tough man hardened by experiences he never shared. In fact, he shared almost nothing and could not speak at all, which perhaps is what bound us together. Although he was a bachelor, it was not like that between us. He built a cabin for himself next to the homestead, and we lived in harmony.
For months, we lived—

Sirens

I was washing clothes when the time came.
The sound was deafening.
Erubi was crying—
I left the wash and ran to him with water dripping from the tips of my fingers. A single drop, like an atomic bomb. I tried to comfort him, to speak to him, but this life is never one of comfort, and he would not cease his wailing so I let him be. There was not much to pack, but time was of the essence. We had forty-eight hours to reach the evacuation pods—
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
Oan was outside, hands over his ears—
Arkady had exited his cabin—leather boots polished, rifle slung over a shoulder, pistol stuck into his belt, coming toward me with a screen-map in his hands.
He unfurled it:
The familiar terrain of Mendeleev-1, a geography I was intimately familiar with, but now with areas lighting up red, like blotches on a sick man’s skin.
I knew immediately what they meant.
Arkady pointed at the two nearest evacuation points—
“Oan, get your brother! Now!”
—the only two we could reach in forty-eight hours, and between us and those points: the sickening red of the planet awakening: vengeance for years of exploitation: the cognosher fields.
Arkady looked at me.
Oan had disappeared into the homestead.
Sirens
We had no clear path. Every route took us through the red.
Arkady slid his finger across the screen-map, tracing a route that I understood would lead us from here to there within forty-eight hours, but just barely. It was a path of least risk, which meant of some risk, and although the thin strip of evolving red may have looked small on the screen-map, I knew it was at least ten kilometres on the ground. Ten kilometres across cognosher terrain. There’s a saying about the cognosher fields: “Cross fearlessly—or not at all.”
I nodded my approval.
Arkady furled the screen-map.
Oan came to me, cradling Erubi in his arms, and in both their eyes I saw the very emotion I dreaded.
“It will be OK,” I said, taking Erubi from his older brother. “We talked about this. We prepared for it. We’ve been waiting for it. In two days we’ll be on our way to Earth.”
Earth: I said it to mean home, but it was my home.
To my sons it was nothing but a story.
Arkady had already turned away, and when he began walking we followed.
It would be a lie to say I did not look back at the homestead with some fondness—it had been our nest—but what I felt most was grief. What I felt most was the absence of my husband.
How we had planned!
It should have been us walking away: walking toward the evacuation pods after so much toil and expectation.
”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”
I held Erubi closely, and when Oan offered his hand I took it and did not let go. Perhaps the future no longer held the same happiness I had dreamed about, but it held happiness still. Only a journey separated us.
After a time, the sirens turned off.
All on Mendeleev-1 were now evacuating—
All but the beasts.

The Cognosher Fields

We slept for four hours, drank water and walked again. We ate little. The way was dull and flat because the planet was dull and flat, sparsely spotted with tree-like plants like overgrown cauliflowers, and practised calmness. Be empty like the landscape. When Oan was little, my husband and I had done refocussing drills with him: substituting one thought for another, one emotion for another emotion. But Erubi was too young for that. In my arms he looked doe-eyed and calm, but who knew what was happening in that emergent mind of his.
When we neared the cognosher fields, Arkady unfurled the screen-map.
When we were at the boundary he bade us stop.
He showed me the map—
The red blotches were swollen and more numerous.
—and I knew the time had come.
Everything condensed to this: cross the fields and a good life on Earth awaits.
Or die.
“Remember what we talked about,” I told Oan. “Focus on something. Imagine it and keep it in your mind. In three hours it should all be over.”
“They feast on fear,” he said, repeating words from a storybook my husband had read to him.
“Yes.”
Arkady tapped his finger on his wrist.
We had to go.
Arkady entered first. After a brief hesitation, I followed, carrying Erubi with one arm, holding Oan's hand with the other. In a single step we had changed the physical reality around us. What was once barren became—by the power of our minds—pregnant with danger. Although I had no doubt cognoshers were real, it was unreal to feel that they were somewhere out there, awoken and hungry…
The initial seconds fell softly away to nothingness.
My heart beat quicker and Oan gripped my hand more tightly, but everything persisted as before. Arkady's broad back and long strides provided a familiar comfort. I would not have wanted to be in the lead, anticipating the future.
Seconds accumulated to minutes, which ticked away, footfall following footfall.
My focus was my grief.
I let it drape me, shielding all thoughts that could possibly evolve into fear.
Erubi fell in and out of sleep against my body.
Oan whispered stories to himself.
In the distance—
Arkady's hands travelled to his rifle, which he unslung. I had seen it too: a kind of flitting of the air itself. "No matter what, we must not stop," I said.
We walked.
Arkady scanning the horizon, sweat developing between Oan's hand and mine, Erubi opening his eyes, beginning slowly to whimper.
Another distant fluttering—
Unmistakeable.
All of us had seen it.
The enveloping silence descended into a low hiss. "Is it…"
"Shh."
Arkady raised his rifle. Cognoshers could be shot and killed, but it was difficult and exceedingly rare, for they only truly existed—in our understanding of that term: engaged with our dimension of reality—when they were scenting or feasting. Only then were they vulnerable.
Another flicker.
Closer.
And a third—
Followed in quick succession by a fourth and fifth.
We were maybe halfway through the cognosher fields and they were all around us. I had to remind myself that brief twinges of fear were insufficient. They felt it but not for long enough to localise the source. I thought of a memory—any memory—and started recollecting it aloud. "Remember when your father…"
They came!
It was as if reality had torn open—its very substance—rushing at us!
What happened next happened so quickly I struggle to make sequential sense of it, but in the years that have passed I have arranged and rearranged the remembered parts so many times I have settled on the following:
Arkady fired two shots into the ether.
Oan let go of my hand.
He stopped.
Arkady spun to face us and loosed another shot.
Oan stared at me—at us:
—as I heard a horrible shriek that felt ripped out of my very being.
I felt my body stiffen and the hissing of the silence melded with the sound of blood pulsing through my veins. I felt gazed upon and vulnerable, as the beasts of irreality were swooping down on us and as I tried to understand what was happening I understood that the shrieking was Erubi—that it was all Erubi—and I shall never forget the wonder and terror and love in his beautiful brown eyes as Arkady ripped him from his cradle in my arms, held him in one outstretched hand and shot him in the head with his pistol: his tiny body falling to that hideous ground, folding so unnaturally—
I screamed.
But the rushing had subsided.
It was not fear I was feeling but rage—and all at once I leapt at Arkady and for what remained of my son.
I fell face first on the ground, tasting the alien sands, and crawled forward, crawling desperately toward—
Arkady rolled the corpse away with his boot.
He grabbed me by the clothes on my back, lifted me to my feet, then pushed me toward the evacuation pods.
"I'll kill you," I growled.
When I looked at Oan, tears were rolling down his face. His eyes were pink. He wanted to pick Erubi up, but Arkady shook his head.
I hated him, but I knew he was right. They would not allow us to bring a corpse onto the evacuation pods, and we did not have the time for a burial. Erubi's body would lie here, on the only home planet he had ever known, until he and the planet were together obliterated. "Leave him,” I croaked.
I cannot describe how much my body shook.
How hard it was to leave.
Arkady walked with the same strides as always, the same wide back, the rifle slung again over his shoulder and the pistol tucked into his belt. I was glad, because I could not have borne the sight of his face.
I walked in wordless contemplation, with hatred having replaced grief as my protector, though the two could have coexisted.
Oan walked beside me, no longer holding my hand or reciting his stories. He had stopped crying, and his eyes had acquired the quality of numbness. Every few minutes he would look up at me with an expression I could not read, then down at his feet, which shuffled obediently along.
Suddenly Arkady stopped.
He glanced back at me, looking me in the eyes as always, looking at me as if nothing had happened, and motioned for me to stay.
He took the pistol from behind his belt and handed it to me.
I did not want to take it.
I did not want to touch its cold steel.
Arkady placed it on the ground before me, then turned and walked away from us. For what reason I did not know. What I knew was that if I didn't have such revulsion at the existence of that pistol, I would have picked it up and shot him in the back. How could he walk away so calmly—how he could trust me? But he was right. I left the pistol undisturbed upon the ground and watched him disappear.
"Where's he going?" Oan asked.
"I don't know."
We sat and remembered Erubi without speaking.
Before Arkady returned, we saw again flickering on the horizon and a chill passed through us both. The cognoshers were near. Oan rocked back and forth, trying to keep calm, and I watched him, wondering how it was possible to feel a contradiction: to want never to see Arkady again, and to need his presence. I craved the protective comfort of Earthfire.
"I don't think I can make it," Oan said.
"You can."
"It feels like… inside—"
"Refocus."
"—like I'm cracking, like it's all breaking apart."
He rocked more and more quickly, his eyes twitching from point to point, until finally I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "We're going," I said.
"No," he said.
I pulled him by the arm but he stayed in place. Anchored.
We both saw the fluttering sky.
"You go," he said. "I'll stay. I—I don't think I can… Maybe I'll see Erubi. Maybe we'll—"
I tugged harder but he didn't budge. "Come on!"
A blur passed across the horizon. There were so many of them now, waiting, unfolding. I wanted Arkady to be back. I wanted Oan to move.
"I'm scared," he said.
And for a moment the numbness in his eyes was gone, replaced by the brightness I had always associated with my son. But then that brightness too diminished, darkened by a kind of fear I have never seen again.
They came for him.
I backed away—back to where the pistol lay—picked it up and waved it madly at the nothingness rippling and hissing around us: the liquid distortions in the congealing mists of abnormality, but I didn't know at what to pull the trigger.
Oan sat.
I stumbled through a haze of fear: afraid for him, trying to be more afraid than him, to lure the beasts away, to offer them myself in exchange. I didn't want to live anyway. I was already dead. But I could not will myself into a more frenzied state of phobia.
Oan’s lips curved into a smile.
"Go," he whispered.
Then his smile became a terrible grin as his body stiffened and his neck bent backwards, and materializing behind him was a human-sized caterpillar—a unfathomable string of succulent translucent spheres braided into interconnectedness by oscillatory worms, all lined with a million undulating tentacles—topped with a glowing sphere-head of a mirrored eyes and one swollen ring of lips, which attached itself with ravenous intentions to Oan's face, devouring it and starting to suck his essence from within him and into itself.
I pointed the pistol at the cognosher and pulled the trigger—
The bullet slid through it.
Those wretched sucking sounds, like bloody gargled marbles, like wind rushing across a plain in reverse…
I knew what I had to do but could not do it.
I could not kill my son.
Even for this: out of mercy for him—for humanity itself.
A shot—fired:
Oan slumping to the ground—
The cognosher atomizing back into its own unknowable dimension—
The pistol still in my shaking outstretched hand, cold and dead, and silhouetted in the distance against the unforgiving sky: Arkady, lowering his rifle.
Those long strides.
The world rotated and Arkady stood on the wall of it, looking down at me. I wanted to stay; he wanted me to go. It took me several moments to realize I had collapsed, perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. Perhaps that even saved me. When Arkady yanked my arm and made the world upright, I knew that what I felt was neither fear nor rage but agony. I tried to look at my son, but Arkady caught my face in his hand. He shook his head. He tried to pull me forward, away from the agony and toward the evacuation pods, but now it was my time to stay anchored. He held out his hand and with two fingers showed we had not far to go: only an insignificant space. I wailed. He would not let go of my face. He pressed so hard my jaw bones hurt.
Through bleary eyes I perceived him.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and spat at him.
He backed away and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The same hand with which he’d just caused me so much pain—
And smacked me with it.
I fell back, gathered my strength and threw myself at him with everything I had.
Our bodies collided.
Again I ended up on the ground, but this time on my back.
He picked up his pistol, checked the bullets and motioned for me to follow. Again he made the gesture with his two fingers (only an insignificant space) and followed up by pointing to his wrist.
“Fuck you! I don’t care anymore,” I said.
He stepped toward me, grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. Held me like an hour ago he had held Erubi—except I fought. I swung my arms and pounded his body with my fists. I kicked out at his shins. Eventually he tossed me aside, and started walking away. I ran after him and grabbed him from behind.
He spun, throwing me down with a thud that made my brain rattle in my skull.
He walked.
“That’s right. You leave,” I yelled after him. “You leave me, you motherfucker!”
Then I got up and charged at him.
This time I attached myself to his back, locking my arms under his armpits like a human backpack, trying furiously to force the both of us to overturn: to wind up like a beetle, belly-up and dying...
He pressed forward, stride after gargantuan stride until we had travelled that way for maybe a hundred paces and I saw—lying like discarded refuse, two deflated people: skins still fresh but their entire beings flattened into sheets maybe an inch thick. They looked like humanoid rubber. Victims of the cognosher.
I let go of Arkady’s back and felt ground under my boots again.
I forced down the bile rising into my throat. “It’s horrible,” I said.
Arkady nodded. His eyes sparkled. I smiled at him—
And in that moment of manufactured vulnerability, when for the first time in my life I saw his hardness soften, I aimed a tackle into his mid-section that sent him sprawling. The pistol spilled from his hand and tumbled into the sand. Before he could react, I pounced on it. Then with him in its sights I backed away until I felt far enough away to kneel and put the pistol into my own mouth. This is the way it must end.
He approached me anyway.
I took the pistol out of my mouth and pointed it at him. “One more step,” I warned.
He didn’t stop.
“I fucking swear it!” I screamed at him.
He took one more step.
I fired.
The bullet whizzed by his head.
“I’ll fucking kill you.”
Another step.
This time the bullet tore into his shoulder, twisting his body.
He held up a single finger.
There was one bullet left, and if I wanted to—
As I scrambled to put the pistol back into my mouth, he covered the space between us and grabbed me by the arm. I pressed the trigger. The pistol fired, but instead of shutting off my brain, the bullet lodged itself into my forearm. He had bent my arm back at the last instant. I felt an immensity of pain, followed by a flow of warmth and the sound of ripping cloth. I felt a tightness surround my wounded limb, and my sight returned just as Arkady was tying the torn material below my elbow. His own shoulder was patchy with blood.
He picked me up like I was but a piece of lumber and carried me forward. I had no strength left. The only thing I felt was pain.
After a while he set me down and sat down himself.
He pulled out the screen-map and pointed at it, showing me what I already knew:
We had crossed the cognosher fields.

Destruction

The pods lifted off, leaving dissipating lines upon the sky and carrying their human cargo toward the fleet of Vectorien transporters waiting in orbit around Mendeleev-1.
In all, Vectorien estimated that 81% of its employees successfully reached the evacuation points.
The return journey by transporter lasted forty-one Earth years, most of which we spent in cryosleep. They did, however, allow us to remain awake for the destruction of Mendeleev-1 itself, and so we huddled in the galleries watching through small windows as a single ship launched a single bomb toward its surface. It fell like a water drop, after which there was a delay—and the planet was no more: first condensed, then dispersed as a cosmic rain of star stuff.
We disembarked in Florida.
At least that's what the signs said, because to me it was unrecognizable.
I saw Arkady on the lower deck of the starport.
There was no one waiting for him, just as there was no one waiting for me. The press had focussed on other arrivals. We walked one after the other down the tunnel, just as we had walked from the homestead to the evacuation pods forty-one years ago, in silence. When we got close to the doors leading outside, I stopped—needing to gather myself before greeting the new world awaiting me. He walked on. When he reached them, the doors slid open and he walked through without glancing back, and disappeared into the bustle outside.

Mercy

I lived for thirty years without seeing Arkady.
We did not keep in touch.
I moved on. I grieved, then found a house beyond the city, bought it outright and made a new life. I never remarried and I did not have a third child, but I learned not to dwell on the past. When I was ready, I bought a cemetery plot near where my husband and I had lived before Mendeleev-1 and buried three empty caskets, leaving space for one more. The cemetery gave me a discount on account of my "background."
The people on Earth were like that: treating us kindly but with a certain distance. They referred to us as the Vectoriens.
One day, a young woman arrived at my house.
She asked my name, and when I gave it said she had come on behalf of someone asking for my presence. "An elderly man," she said, "who doesn't speak."
I knew at once.
Arkady was a patient in a decrepit hospital in Costa Rica, located on the outskirts of San Jose. The staff were kind, but it was clear the institution lacked funding, and provided care mainly for the poor. When I entered his room I barely knew him: still a large man, but now bloated and flaccid, bald, with glassy skin and languid motions, even of the face, he did not appear to acknowledge my presence. It was only when I bent forward over him that a brightness came over his eyes!—but briefly, like the final flicker of a dying flame, followed by a diminishment to darkness.
I don't know what I felt toward him.
"He's a Vectorien," a nurse told me outside his room. "It's a miracle he's lasted this long. We used to see a lot of them after they came back, the ones who couldn't adjust to the world. Crime, drugs, any form of self-destruction. But that was in the months and years after. Here we have decades. I can't imagine what he's been doing all this time." She put her hand on my arm. "But all of a sudden he remembered you, I guess. It's good for him to have a visitor."
I stepped away from her. "Do you know where I can find a grocery store. Maybe something with household goods?"
"There's a plaza nearby. What is it that—"
I was already outside.
In the heat.
I bought what I needed and returned, as I had promised him.
I asked the nurse for a kettle.
When the water boiled, I steeped a tea and poured one cup. Then I asked the nurse for privacy. When she had gone, I added the other ingredient, and gave the tea to Arkady.
He took it in his large, calloused hands and tried to drink.
I helped him.
When he had finished, I sat beside him and held his hand, watching the remnants of his life evaporate, peacefully, like summer rain from asphalt.
He died without a gasp.
submitted by normancrane to TheCrypticCompendium [link] [comments]

2024.04.17 19:03 Sparktrog Question for casting UL set up

So recently picked myself up a 6 ft 6in sierra trout/panfish rod paired with a 1000 Daiwa Legalis LT and some mule jigs from the panfish bundle on his site. I've got it on 6# braid with a 4# mono leader of about 2-3 feet.
When trying to cast yesterday at the river with just the 1/64 oz mule and a donkey tail or horse fly on it I never felt like I was casting it more than a few feet from me. I was at a wide part of the river and bank fishing so was trying to get out towards the middle of the water and work it back to me but had to add a sz 5 weight a few inches above to just get the distance.
Is there anything else I should look into to get better cast distance or was adding the weight fine for such a small lure profile? Also, any tips on targeting panfish and smallmouth bass or Guadalupe bass on artificials in Central Texas would be helpful as I'm fishing the southern part of the San Antonio river well past downtown.
Edit: Adding gallery of rig and knots used for people to scrutinize https://imgur.com/a/kyYHLAv
submitted by Sparktrog to FishingForBeginners [link] [comments]

2024.04.13 05:21 sr20rocket A bit of DIY work!

A deer hit back at the end of February lead to me tearing my 2010 G37S 6MT apart.
New Grille, New hood (stock), repaired bumper, and polished headlights started off the work.
While I had the front end apart I went ahead and dove into the gallery gaskets, water pump, and thermostat.
Next I pulled the Diff out to do the dreaded diff bushings. Replaced them all with Z1 bushing set and a Z1 Diff Brace.
After I got the diff back in, I pulled the transmission out to do the clutch. Z1 HD clutch kit with lightweight flywheel and HD CSC kit will be going I with a new clutch master and braided lines.
Currently at a point where the hood is still of and the transmission is currently pulled out. I have a hood sourced but I haven't picked it up just yet. Got a couple more parts to order from Z1 yet before it's all said and done.
Just wish I had the funds for a decent exhaust instead of putting the OE stuff back on.
submitted by sr20rocket to G37 [link] [comments]

2024.04.06 20:37 foxlikething seeking your fave photographers & portrait/costume galleries full of burners in their wondrous dusty miscellany — but with a wide range of ages, genders, sexualities, races, body types, etc.

because online galleries and googles of “burner portraits” and “burning man costumes” have been dominated by facetuned, box-braided, glossy-appareled, early-20s white influencers for years — influencing (ironically?) many good folks that the burn is not for them. that will feel self-conscious, even bad about themselves out there.
in truth, stereotypical influencers are just one dated demographic of countless; a semi-avoidable & easily ignorable sameness. I explain this a lot to aspiring campers, and I’m sure many of you do as well.
I would love more galleries to share that showcase realistic cross-sections of burners. lots of quirky, creative, thrifted, lived-in costumes — or lack thereof. humor and hot messy beauty. more proof that we actually feel fucking fantastic out there, better & freer than anywhere else, no matter what our bodies look like.
personal, professional, anything. thanks all!
submitted by foxlikething to BurningMan [link] [comments]

2024.03.30 17:41 voxels-box [Store] VoxelMods Spring Sale - 30% off Curated Colorway Cables (BoW/WoB, Copper, GMK Bordeaux, Laser, etc) Bespoke USB Cables, IEM Cables, Power Cables, and More

Howdy Y'all!
VoxelMods, your friendly bespoke cable artist, here with updates and cable sales for you!
Gallery of Commission Types/Styles Thumbnails

Spring Sale - Save 30% off any Curated Colorway Commission!

Use code SPRING 30 to enjoy 30% off any commission based on one of my 25+ "Curated" preset themes! Themes include GMK Bordeaux, GMK Taro, GMK Terror Below, BoW, WoB, monochromes, copper, brass, steel, and so many more! Also included are popular braided USB cables, my specialty multi-tone coils, and even gradient cables!

Bespoke USB Cable Menu

Cerakote Chart - USB Port Menu - Detachable Size Comparisons - Cable Terminology - Sleeve Anatomy
I've completely overhauled my custom cable ordering menu, and its simpler and easier to use!
I've taken dozens of photos of cable configurations using all white sleeve and hardware, with the goal of conveying that "each cable type is a canvas to customize"!
New Cerakote options are present, including GRADIENT cerakote, splattered cerakote, and colorshift FX!
Also, I now offer the choice between matte and glossy white or black cerakote!
Each cable can be customized with any Detachable and USB Port options
Cable Type Starting price w/ SilveGold Finishes Starting price w/ Cerakote Finishes
Straight USB Cable w/ Detachable $79 w/ Heatshrink Ports $129+
Braided IEM Style USB Cable w/ Detachable $89 $129+
Charger Style USB Cable $29+ $76+
Coiled USB Cable w/ Any Detachable $79-99 $139+
Right Angle USB Cable $79 $129+
Gradient Straight USB Cable w/ Detachable N/A $219-249 (CNC Machined USB Ports)
Gradient Braided IEM Style USB Cable w/ Detachable N/A $249 (CNC Machined USB Ports)
Gradient Coiled USB Cable w/ Any Detachable N/A $219-249 (CNC Machined USB Ports)
Split Keyboard Cables $39-49 $49-99
Coiled Split Keyboard Cables $79-89 $89-129
AC Wall Power Cable for PC $199 $249
Ultimate Themed USB Cable $299
IEM Y Audio Cables $249+ available by DMs only
As always, the easiest way to commission a custom cable is to contact me via email, Discord, or IG messages! You can also submit a form through the "Request a free consultation" buttons on my site. I offer a free design consultation where I help you through each step of the customization, and I make recommendations and sample images.

Production Queue length:

My production queue is fairly open, and my time estimate for most orders is 3 working weeks! (Orders with components ordered from overseas will take longer. Most of my components are stocked in the US)
Sleeve ya later!
Voxel
submitted by voxels-box to mechmarket [link] [comments]

2024.03.26 07:18 hollymay Some hair, eye and detail edits to this artwork for my DND character?

Hello!
OG Art Here: https://stablecog.com/gallery/o/c56e70bc-dbbb-482a-b7d5-75cf78f45330
I was wondering is you can edit this character to have the following things
- golden eyes
- removal of face jewels and blush glitter (we want a plain girly)
- remove the metal and straps from the cloak to give the cloak more of a plain tunic vibe)
- (optional) remove the hair braid to just make the hair looked pulled back
​
The idea here is that this is a character post a traumatic event and she is in her sad girl era, (messy bun, loose clothing, sad times)
I can tip as well!
Thank you wonderful artists out there <3 <3
submitted by hollymay to PhotoshopRequest [link] [comments]

2024.03.25 20:49 JEWCEY Biting the bullet and sharing some of my work. Not sure why it makes me nervous

Biting the bullet and sharing some of my work. Not sure why it makes me nervous
I make things, art, crafty bits. Mostly collages, 3D wall art, drawings, painting and sculptures. I tend to make a lot of art out of recycled material of all sorts.
I fill my house like a gallery and pretty much show no one but my friends. Going out on an anxious limb today because I posted about some bamboo I made from toilet paper cardboard rolls and then I was too much of a wuss to post an image. Then I found the courage, but couldn't figure out how to post the image.
So here's my cardboard bamboo. I came up with the idea because of the sheer abundance of the rolls I see my family create. At least it's paper and can be recycled, unlike so much other waste we create in patterns, but I felt like there had to be a fun craft or a problem I could solve that would give me a reason to put them to a better use than paper pulp. I scoured the internet for months, bored with a lot of the ideas that I found. I did find some paper sculpture artists using them to create really expressive faces, which I tried but couldn't get the paper to respond the way I wanted it to. In the process of experimenting with that idea, I noticed the paper tubes looked kind of cool shoved into each other. Rather like bamboo! And there you have it.
I used it to create a hanging room divider in my bedroom, where i have a mini set of stairs that lead down to a lower level princess suite, where I used to store all my nail polish and braiding hair and lady notions, and which has since been turned into my baby's bedroom. (hopefully transitioning him to his own room soon!)
Some images of the bamboo process and materials, how it looked before it was painted, during painting, painted, and then hanging. Critique welcome I guess. Constructive criticism preferred, but I guess this is reddit. Thanks for letting me share? Ok, I'm anxious now. Hoping the photos don't look like hot garbage or cold potatoes thanks.
submitted by JEWCEY to HomeDecorating [link] [comments]

2024.03.15 00:01 eza2510 Drawings of Characters With Their Hair in a Bun - When in Doubt, Twist It Up ♡ [2024.03.14 ]

Drawings of Characters With Their Hair in a Bun - When in Doubt, Twist It Up ♡ [2024.03.14 ]
​
Drawings of Characters With Their Hair in a Bun
When you’re having a hectic day and barely have time to fix your hair, let alone brush it, there’s one handy solution: throw it all into a bun! A messy bun is the quintessential “I woke up like this but still look chic” hairstyle and can look as casual or stylish as you make it. A single bun on top of your hair gives you the classic out-running-errands look, while space buns can make for a cute and sporty vibe. Little additions like braids, ribbons, or scrunchies can also elevate your look, as does the tightness of the bun—the harder the task, the tighter the bun!
Check out the illustrations below for a bun-tastic time! Are you Team Lazy Chic or Team Buns of Steel?

あやめどの by いだしげ

あやめどの by いだしげ

保登心愛 by 風神

保登心愛 by 風神

無題 by 鯱ノ丸

無題 by 鯱ノ丸

ZOZOレオニミクさん by 雨

ZOZOレオニミクさん by 雨

orange by waka

orange by waka
Please feel free to check the original article over at pixivision to view the rest of the artworks for this gallery.
submitted by eza2510 to Pixivision [link] [comments]

2024.03.14 04:06 SoloWing1 The Skalgan [40]

[First] [Previous] [Next]

[BONUS 6] (NSFW, M Skalgan X F Venlil)

Author's note: Massive thank you to frostedscales for making me some wonderful art of Freya! As well as an adorable Goober version of her!
Memory Transcription Subject: Freya, Smitten Venlil, Raincloud
Date [Standardized human time]: February 12, 2137
We didn’t have the time to take a bath together, we spent too much time making even more of a mess first, so we ended up just having a quick shower together, and even then, it was mostly wet soppy cuddles under running water. It’s miraculous that we actually came out of it spotless.
After getting ourselves dried off with the blowers, we gave into our appetites and chose to forgo the usual braiding until we got some food in us. We had a lot of physical activity that drained us last paw.
We stepped out of the steamy bathroom feeling refreshed, and quickly got to wiping down everything that we may or may not have made unsavory with our actions, mostly the kitchen counters and the couch, and also opening the windows to let a breeze flow through the apartment.
It only took me a minute to wipe down the counter, and I stopped as that bright yellow zurulian shaped bottle got my attention. I picked it up and felt the smooth plastic with my paw.
“S-So this is honey? This is what predators eat?”
Jorlka tossed the washcloth he used on the couch in with the dirty bedsheets, to be washed in the small washing machine built into the bathroom wall, and returned to me, also looking at the bottle.
“If it is indeed like flowerbug nectar, it is really not that unusual for us to consume. It is mostly sugars from flowers, which is plant based.” His attention shifted from the bottle to me. “And also, you really should stop calling them ‘Predators’, that is a negative stigma made by the federation.”
“Right, yes. I know I should, but it’s kinda just… Ingrained in my mind. It’s hard to shake.” I turned the bottle in my paws. “Well, I guess it’s not the weirdest thing the humans eat. I still find that whole ‘cheese’ thing to be just insane.”
Jorlka’s ears flicked in confusion, and he blinked a few times as he processed what I just said. “I apologize, the translator parsed that as ‘aged milk’. What in the…” His eyes opened wide as he came to a sudden realization on something, and he placed a closed fist into the palm of his other paw. “So that is why human women have engorged breasts! Their species consumes milk past infancy!”
“That doesn’t sound right, but I’ve never really asked Rebecca about her breasts before.” I was always so focused on things like their diet and culture, I never really thought about their biology, except for that whole vitamin thing they got from meat.
“I… Often need to make a concerted effort not to look at her chest, it would be rude to do so.” Jorlka’s face started to bloom a bit at this.
Wait, hang on, this could be fun. “Jorlka, do you like boobs?”
His bloom got stronger. “Th-they are a sign of fertility! It-It is only natural to be attrac- I mean, it is healthy to-“ He got more flustered as he tried to justify himself on this. Seeing him become bashful about the things that he enjoys continues to be endlessly fun to witness.
This is really good to know. I now got another tool in my belt to tease him over. My tail whipped around behind me as I was humored by this. “Alright, we can talk about this later. I’ll go tell Rebecca that it’s safe to touch things here again.” I walked around the counter and past him, slowing down enough to drag my tail along his body as I passed by him.
I returned with Rebecca in less than a minute while Jorlka heated the pancakes in the microwave. His ears perked up as she walked in after me. “Rebecca, how often do you give your milk for this ‘cheese’ food Freya told me about?”
This took the human entirely by surprise, she was clearly not ready for such a sudden question. Her eyebrows rose as she took a second to just stare blankly at the Skalgan.
“I-I… What?” She looked towards me, as though I had an explanation. It will likely not help.
“He, uh, he thinks that’s why your species has breasts even when without child. To be fair, I don’t know why either.” I sheepishly explained, hoping to not add to the problem.
She muttered quietly as she was clearly exasperated by this. “Oh my god, this again.” Her attention turned to Jorlka. “No. Human milk is not consumed by anyone but our newborns… And some weirdos, but we don’t talk about them. We get our milk from non-sapient livestock that we’ve domesticated, and before either of you get upset, these livestock must be kept happy, or the milk comes out tasting horrid. They live good full lives, nothing like what the Arxur did with their ‘cattle’.”
The microwave beeped and Jorlka removed the steaming pile of pastry from it, and divvied them up onto another plate, handing it to me.
“So, species having ‘weirdos’ that eat unusual food is not just exclusive to Venlil than either?” He snatched the honey bottle in his free paw as he came around the counter and his tail quickly wrapped with mine, guiding the two of us to the couch to eat. After we sat down, he popped open the bottle and squirted a little bit on the side of his plate, before dipping his claw into the golden substance and bringing it to his mouth to taste test it.
Seeing him casually consume a food that had its origin from animals was just surreal to me. To see a prey species do this simply shattered my entire world view. What Jorlka just did would have been grounds to be thrown into a predator disease facility, possibly even just killed by the more extreme exterminators.
His ears flicked with satisfaction after tasting the gooey sugar. “This is extremely similar to what I remember. It’s slightly off, but that could be explained by variance in the source of the sugars that were used by the insects that made this.” He picked up the bottle and drizzled it onto the golden discs on his plate. “I’m sure if you were to have these insects use Skalgan flowers, it would come out identical to what we had.”
He offered the bottle to me, and I stared at it in fear. This was it. I’m about to do something that prey should not do. Something not normal.
No. Venlil do this. We did do this. This IS normal.
Jorlka is right. It’s just processed plant sugars. It’s not like it was meat, or milk, or… whatever else the humans eat from animals. I didn’t even want to imagine what other depraved things that the predators got from animals.
Jorlka watched my hesitation, concern growing. “Raincloud, if you are not comfortable with this, you do not have to participate.”
Rebecca perked up after he said this. “He’s right, Freya. You don’t need to use it on the pancakes. You can put some fruit on them instead, or just eat them as is if you want.” She glanced at Jorlka. “Also, ‘Raincloud’? That’s just precious! My god, you two just keep being absolutely adorable. What’s the source of that name?”
“H-He calls me that cause I am soft and light like a cloud, and c-calming like rain.” With a shaky paw I gently grasped at the bottle, letting this topic distract me from the fear that gripped at me. I turned the bottle in my paws once again. “I-I… I am g-going to do this. If Jorlka could get the strength to masturbate for Skalga, then I can handle tasting some spehhing sugar.”
Jorlka’s face went into bloom when I bluntly and unexpectantly made that comparison between our struggles. “Wait, Raincloud, did you really need to mention-“
Forcing myself forward with a sudden rush of courage, I lifted the bottle to my lips and squeezed it, pushing a massive glob of the substance into my mouth.
And it was…
It was…
Delicious.
By the STARS I had never tasted anything like this before! It had an amazing richness behind the sweetness that I was not expecting, with a delightful gooey viscosity that got runnier as my saliva and body heat warmed it. It warmed me back. It warmed my very soul.
This is something we once had, and was stolen from us, like so much else.
“Freya, you alright there?” Rebecca waved her hand in front of my face, making an unusual snapping sound with her fingers. “You’ve been staring off into space for a solid minute now.”
My ears and tail twitched as I snapped out of the headspace I was in, noticing that tears were forming in the edges of my vision. “Y-Yeah. I’m fine. This is… Really good. Really really good.” Without another word said I blinked the moisture away as I drizzled the amazing liquid onto the pastries on my plate, practically drowning them in it. I nearly emptied the small bottle before putting it down and greedily sinking my fork into the food.
Rebecca sat down in the chair across from us as she watched me eat happily. “Well, I am glad you like it. Try not to make a mess, it’s really sticky and hard to get out of hair. Don’t need you taking another bath today.” She glanced at Jorlka and started a new topic with him. “So, what did you mean by Venlil having ‘weirdos’ when it comes to food?”
I happily ate quietly as I tilted my ears towards Jorlka to hear him talk more about ancient Skalga. “Mostly exactly that. How about I just explain with a story of my puphood. There was an eccentric chef that ran a small traveling kitchen that passed through Twilight Meadow back when I was… thirteen or so. It was before I had my last growth spurt, but my best friend had hers, so this was during the brief moment when I was the runt.”
The thought of Jorlka being considered a runt was bewildering to me. He wasn’t always this massive void of pure sexiness? I almost didn’t believe that was possible.
His tail flicked happily as he recalled this memory from his life, briefly pausing to think on what to say. “This chef’s kitchen kart was plastered with the standard of the Fogged Wool party, so really, that should have been the warning that something was off with him. He presented a rare food that we had never seen before. It was bright red, and he had heated it on a metal skillet with salt to taste, oozing with juices.”
Rebecca’s eyebrows rose. “Wait, hold up. Do not tell me that he fed you…”
Jorlka flicked his ears in the affirmative. “Indeed, he did. It was an unusual texture. Very chewy, and more savory than even barkcap mushrooms. I doubt I will ever try it again, but I do not regret the experience.”
“Holy shit.” Rebecca was shocked and alarmed by this story. “Jorlka. I say this now because I love you and do not want anything bad to ever happen to you or Freya. Do not ever tell this story again.”
“Oh no, of course not. I have a good idea on how people would react to this tale.” His body language signaled amusement at the thought of telling this again. “We take this to our deaths.”
I was completely confused by what was being said. I spoke up between another bite of my food. “I don’t get it. What did that chef feed you?”
Jorlka and Rebecca shared a glance with each other before they both spoke at once.
“Meat.”
The plate slipped from my lap and splattered its contents over the wooden floor.
submitted by SoloWing1 to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]

2024.03.13 23:15 nickjacobsss [USA-OH] [H] Ayn Odin 2 Pro, Apple Magic Keyboard 11", Pslate custom 3x 8 12vhpwr cable, corsair 12vhpwr cable, Gen 2 apple pencil, gen 3 apple airpods [W] paypal, local cash

Looking to offload a few extra things!
​
-Pslate Custom unsleeved 3x8 Pin 12vhpwr corsair cable: brand new, for corsair PSU, made for dan a4 h20 or similar sandwhich style SFF cases like formD t1, fractal terra, etc. Asking $35
​
-Corsair 12VHPWR braided cable: used for around a month while waiting for custom cables, works perfect, its a 2x8 pin to 12vhpwr cable, comes in the original package. Asking $25 shipped
​
-SOLD-Ayn Odin 2 pro (black): Essentially brand new, just received it, turned on for around an hour, decided the screen was too small for my eyes, not worth the hassle of shipping back to china. Asking $315 shipped-SOLD
-SOLD-Apple Magic keyboard & Pencil: made for the 11" ipad pro and 10.9" Air, both keyboard and pencil were a gift, and have been used maybe twice, perfect condition, I just dont use them. Asking $125 for both shipped-SOLD-
-SOLD-Airpods Gen 3: Been used quite a bit, but functionally still perfect, I feel weird asking a lot for used earbuds, but have no use for them so $35 takes it!-SOLD-
​
Not looking for any trades at this time, will give discount if buying more than 1 item off the lineup!
Local to Dayton, OH
​
Timestamps: https://imgur.com/gallery/gy81FFu
​
Thanks for looking!
​
submitted by nickjacobsss to hardwareswap [link] [comments]

2024.03.12 19:35 Carl_Sefni I Haven't Forgotten My Ex-Girlfriend

I don't know if I'm writing this as a warning, a cry for help, or all of the above at once. All I know is that I need to share my experience.
My name is Alex, and recently, I embarked on a journey to forget the past. I guess we all want to forget something, don't we? I'm 26 years old, I live in Kansas, and I'm a small-scale agricultural producer. Lately, my biggest problem, however, has been Emily, my ex-girlfriend. Not that I have any problem with her; she's not the type who can't accept a breakup, stalks me, or anything like that. Our relationship was perfect. And I think that's what makes things worse. We never fought, but due to some personal factors (which I reserve the right not to share), we had to end our relationship. It was horrible; neither of us wanted it, but we both realized it was what needed to be done.
I spent the next two months in total decline. I had never had a drop of alcohol, but after that, I drank almost every weekend. I lost count of how many times I drunkenly called her, and I know it hurt her. So, in order to help both of us through this process, I decided to seek out an experimental therapy that promised to erase difficult memories. I was convinced that I could only move forward if I forgot Emily, convinced that I couldn't love again while she still haunted my thoughts.
I drove to the clinic, and I confess I was surprised. The spam in my email made me think that place was a psychiatric office or something, but instead, there was a varnished wooden house, with dreamcatchers on the doors and a strong smell of incense. "Damn," I thought. "Hippie therapy?" But, as I was already there and entitled to a free session, I decided to go in anyway.
I entered and was immediately greeted by a woman, wearing a black cloak and dark facial paintings, her blonde hair braided in intricate patterns. She led me to the room, a cubicle lit by a single candle, and began inducing relaxation with scents. The therapy itself was a mixture of meditation, thought channeling, and an esoteric element that I couldn't fully understand. A small, red, shiny thing, almost like a pill, was given to me to consume. I don't know what that was, but it left an electric taste in my mouth. After that, she recommended that I come back whenever I felt bad about Emily, and then we would do it again.
After the session, I left the clinic with a strange feeling. Part of me was hopeful that I could finally overcome the relationship and move on with my life. But there was a small voice inside me, a feeling of unease that I couldn't ignore.
In the following days, I tried to convince myself that the treatment was working. Memories of Emily began to fade slowly, as if being erased from my mind. I felt lighter, freer, as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. But as the memories disappeared, a terrible and growing thing began to creep into my mind. Disturbing nightmares haunted my nights; I saw some moments from the past, but... distorted, strange...
I woke up sweating, heart pounding, unable to distinguish reality from dream. On the first night, I dreamt that Emily had died and I found myself with her parents at the funeral. I woke up desperate and called her. She thought I was drunk, and I don't blame her. Things only got worse in the following days. Fleeting flashbacks assaulted me when I least expected, moments of happiness with Emily now turned into distorted images, tragically modified: Our first date, at the movies, this time with the theater catching fire and her getting trapped inside; the trip we took together to the beach, where the waves dragged her to the bottom of the sea; and even the simple act of holding her hands was now replaced by the sensation of sinking into quicksand, unable to escape.
Gradually, my sanity dwindled, I stopped sleeping, until a week later I decided to visit the clinic again. But when I got there, I found the clinic closed, the windows covered with dark curtains, and the door locked. A sense of despair flooded me as I tried to understand what was happening. I circled around to the back of the building and gently pulled one of the curtains, revealing the dark interior of the building. It wasn't empty: the mysterious therapist, sitting in front of a dark wooden table, surrounded by candles that illuminated her face sinisterly. I was about to knock on the window when my phone vibrated, making me jump back. I picked up the device: it was a message from Emily.
"Look Alex, I thought we were going to end things on good terms. I even understand you drinking and calling from time to time, but can you not stay here?"
I replied with just a "?".
"What's up, Alex? I didn't expect this from you. I almost had a heart attack when I saw you in the backyard, and what the hell is with the sinister smile and all?"
"Emily, what are you talking about?"
"Look, this thing of sending messages without moving is a good trick, was that what you wanted to hear? Please Alex, don't make me call the police."
I didn't understand almost anything...
"Look Emy, I'm in a cabin in the woods right now, I'm coming there, don't open the door, okay?"
I looked into the house one more time through the window: this time, nothing, no woman or candles, all silent. I ran to my car and sped towards Emily's house. What was happening? My heart raced as I drove down the dark road, the sun had already set. My mind was clouded with a mixture of worry and confusion. What had I experienced? Had that therapy had any side effects on my ex-girlfriend too? Was it like a reverse 'love spell'?
As the city lights disappeared in the rearview mirror, I found myself immersed in my own thoughts, trying to fit at least one piece in this tangled mess. When I finally arrived at Emily's house, I saw the faint light from inside illuminating the closed curtains. I ran across the lawn to the door, banging on it hard as I called her name. There was no response. With my heart in my throat, I tried the doorknob. The door was locked.
Desperate, I began to shout Emily's name, begging her to open the door. That's when I heard a click. She opened the door, her silhouette with long black hair appeared.
"Emily, what - "
I was interrupted by a slap on the face.
"What do you think you're doing?" She asked me with a mixture of anger and fear in her voice.
I rubbed my face.
"What's going on? You send me a message out of nowhere and then hit me?"
"As if you didn't do anything," that last word didn't actually come from her mouth. She stopped in the middle of the sentence, her eyes widened, looking at something behind me, and then pulled me inside, closing the door with the latch. I took a deep breath, trying to understand what was happening. I looked through the crack in the curtain, seeing only the darkness of the night beyond the closed door. Emily was visibly nervous, her body tense, her eyes still wide and tears forming on her face.
"What's happening, Emily? Why are you acting like this?" I asked, trying to control my own confusion and worry.
"Can't you see him?" she whispered frantically, pointing outside.
I looked and could only see the dark lawn, with the streetlights partially illuminating its surface.
"See who, Emily? There's no one out there," I replied, perplexed by the situation.
She stepped back a few steps, still keeping her eyes fixed on the door.
"He... He's out there, Alex. I swear. I... I thought it was you, but... it's not. He looks so much like you," she murmured, her voice trembling with fear.
"Hey, calm down, have you been drinking too?" I approached, but she quickly grabbed her phone, opening her gallery.
"Can you see him here?"
My legs trembled when I saw the image. It was obviously from earlier today, the sun must have been setting at the time, a faint orange light shining over her backyard. But what really sent shivers down my spine was the human figure in the center of the frame. It was as if someone was there, looking at her, and worst of all, it was my face. Or almost, it displayed a wide, toothy grin, and the eyes seemed obscured. The photo was taken from the second floor, and that thing in the photo had its neck twisted at an impossible angle.
"What the hell is this?" I said, holding the phone with my hands trembling.
Emily looked at me with wide eyes, her breath quick and shallow.
"I... I don't know, Alex. I just... I saw this for the first time when in the backyard. I thought it was you, so I messaged you. The way he looked at me, the smile... I thought it was some prank of yours going too far. So I grabbed my phone and took the picture, and when I looked again, he was closer..."
A chill ran down my spine as I looked at the image again. There was no doubt that there was something there. Something with my appearance, but... twisted, distorted in a way that made me feel a deep sense of horror.
"And is that thing still out there? Can you see?"
"Yes," she nodded, looking through the window.
"Okay, can you take another photo? I want to see how it is now."
Emily hesitated for a moment, but eventually agreed. With trembling hands, she lifted the phone and took another photo. I was right behind her and could see with precision the moment that would never leave my mind:
When the camera flash went off, illuminating everything, I could see its outline, and some of its details. It was at the window, literally, its hands pressed against the glass, laughing like a maniac. Its mouth was wider, but I could still see some resemblance between our faces. I almost fell from the shock, my legs stiffening immediately as a shock ran down my spine, Emily recoiled too, frightened.
I didn't know what to think or do. Fear and shock paralyzed my mind for a moment. Emily trembled beside me, her eyes fixed on the cell phone screen, as if she expected that figure to magically disappear.
"What are we going to do?" she whispered.
I looked at her, trying to gather enough courage to formulate a coherent response. Before I could open my mouth, however, my fear became overwhelming: three knocks on the door, right in front of us. Emily collapsed into tears as I looked, helpless, holding my breath. A flashback hit my mind, bringing me a memory of ours when we were together, playing a little hiding game in her house. But this time, the memory was distorted, like the others. In it, there was the sound of distorted laughter, echoing through the empty corridors of the house, as Emily pulled me into a dark closet, trembling with fear. "He's going to get us," the memory said. "Don't make any noise!"
I was about to shout, to tell Emily to hide somewhere safe, when another knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. My mind raced in panic, trying to understand what was happening, while my heart beat so hard it felt like it wanted to burst out of my chest. I knew I couldn't just stand there, waiting for something terrible that could happen at any moment. With my mind in turmoil, I tried to think of some way to protect myself and Emily.
"Emily, let's go to the bedroom, lock the door, and call the police. We're not going to let this thing scare us," I suggested, trying to keep my voice steady despite the growing fear.
She nodded, sobbing, and together we headed to the master bedroom. We locked the door and sat on the bed, waiting as Emily dialed the emergency number. The sound of knocks on the door continued, rhythmic and persistent, as if something were trying to get in at all costs. We called the police, and as soon as they arrived, they searched the area. Emily showed one of the officers the photos we had taken; he looked at the photo, looked at my face, repeated the process.
"Ma'am, is this some kind of prank?"
The policeman's question only increased our confusion and despair. We exchanged glances, unsure of how to explain what we were facing. We decided it would be best not to stay in the house alone that night. We packed some essential things and drove to the nearest hotel, where we checked in for the night.
"You can sleep in the bed, Em," I said. "I think I'll stay awake tonight, keep an eye out."
She looked at me with concern in her tired eyes. She lay down on the bed, hugging a pillow as she tried to calm herself enough to sleep. Meanwhile, I remained alert, watching the darkness beyond the bedroom window.
The hours passed slowly, and I remained there, sitting in a chair next to the window. The silence of the night was almost soporific. My mind was clouded with thoughts about what we had witnessed a few hours earlier, but everything seemed to pull me into a strange and deep sleep. I fell asleep, and had another one of those nightmares...
In the dream, I was back at the clinic, facing the mysterious therapist. She was sitting in her chair, with a sinister smile on her face, while the small red pill glowed in her outstretched hand. I saw myself accepting it again, consuming it with the hope of forgetting Emily. But this time, instead of erasing the memories, I was consumed by flames, my flesh burning while still alive, screaming, hearing my skin blister and burst.
I woke up with a start, my heart pounding wildly in my chest. I looked around the room, breathing heavily as I tried to calm myself. Emily was still sound asleep in bed, oblivious to my torment. I felt paralyzed by fear and confusion, not knowing what to do next. The wall clock ticked away, marking 3:30 a.m., and cold sweat gathered on my neck.
That's when I heard a sound coming from the hotel corridor. A soft dragging, as if something were moving slowly toward our room. My muscles tensed, my body ready for action, as I got up from the chair and approached the door. Carefully, I opened the door of the room, looking out into the dark hallway beyond. There was nothing out there, just the silent emptiness of the sleeping hotel. But still, I felt a presence, a sense that something was watching, waiting in the shadows. The only thing I heard was a sound coming from the end of the corridor. A low, chilling laughter, echoing through the hotel walls. I locked the door and placed the wardrobe we had in the room in front of it, blocking the passage, and didn't sleep anymore that night.
When the first rays of sunlight finally penetrated through the curtains of the room, a feeling of relief mixed with exhaustion washed over me. Emily woke up, looking around with a sleepy and confused expression.
"What's with this wardrobe at the door?" she murmured, rubbing her eyes.
"Emily, we need to talk," I replied, my voice hoarse from stress and lack of sleep.
I told her about what I had done, about the clinic, the memories, and everything else. Perhaps it's useful to mention that one of the reasons for the breakup was also spiritual; Emily dabbled in witchcraft and esotericism, and it seems she understood what they had done to me in that cabin.
"Alex... this was a ritual! You summoned a damn OBSESSOR to come after me!" she said, hitting me with the pillow.
"I didn't know, Emily. I thought I was doing something to forget you, to move on," I said, my voice faltering with guilt and fear.
She sighed, running a hand through her hair as she tried to process everything that was happening.
"I know, Alex. I know. But this is serious. This kind of thing isn't a joke. You need to get rid of it, before it's too late. That thing... it will come after me until it kills me, and then, if I die, everyone will forget that I ever existed," she said, her voice sounding firm and concerned.
This new information hit me like a powerful blow. That wasn't what I wanted... I didn't want to erase Emily from existence. At that moment, I didn't even know if I wanted to erase her from my life!
"I... I don't know how. I went back to the cabin yesterday, and there was no one there, around the time you called me. I mean, there was, but she disappeared out of nowhere, and seemed not to want company,"
She started pacing back and forth in the room, running her hands through her hair frantically.
"Okay," she said after a few minutes. "I think I have a friend who can help us."
Emily grabbed her phone and made a quick call, murmuring a few words quietly. After a few minutes of conversation, she hung up and turned to me.
"She said she'll help us, come on, quickly, it's bad enough having to deal with this thing."
We drove to her friend's house, a very "wiccan" decoration surrounded the garden. I could see some mandrakes planted there before we climbed a flight of wooden steps and reached the door. We were greeted by a girl in a brown poncho who looked very scared; she called us inside, closing the door behind us and checking the surroundings.
"So, this is your jerk ex-dude?" she said.
Emily nodded, and the friend turned to me with a serious expression.
"You really got yourself into some trouble, Stupid!"
I told her everything that had happened, from the breakup with Emily to the nightmares and the spooky apparitions. She listened attentively, her expression growing darker with every word I spoke.
"This is very serious," she murmured. "You've summoned something dark and dangerous."
I swallowed hard, feeling a chill down my spine. What had I done?
"What can we do to get rid of it?" Emily asked, her voice trembling.
The friend looked at us seriously.
"There's an ancient ritual we can try, but it's risky. It involves banishing the obsessor. But I can't guarantee it'll work, nor that there won't be consequences. It's bound to your memories," She turned to me, "Maybe we'll have to get rid of them."
I was taken aback.
"That's right," she continued. "In the end, you'll get what you wanted, you'll get rid of the memories."
I paused for a moment. I looked at Emily, our eyes meeting. Was that what I wanted? Getting rid of our memories was really the solution? Emily held my hand, her worried expression reflecting my own doubts. I knew how much those memories meant to her. But I also understood the gravity of the situation we were in.
"Alex..." Emily began, her soft voice carrying a mixture of sadness and determination. "I understand." That sentence put an end to everything, it was what was missing. I looked at her friend, this time more determined.
"Okay, let's finish this ritual."
She nodded, and we began to prepare the ingredients. It was already night when we finished. The ritual began with the preparation of the sacred space. Emily's friend lit candles and incense, creating an atmosphere of serenity. She drew mystical symbols on the floor with special chalk, while reciting ancient words of power.
Then, she instructed us to sit in a circle in the center of the space, holding our hands as we closed our eyes. She began to chant a chant, a call to the realms. I felt an intense energy forming around us, as if we were connected to something greater than ourselves. As she continued to chant the song, Emily's friend instructed us to visualize the obsessor, a dark and sinister presence, appearing before us. It was a difficult exercise, given the fear it caused me.
Suddenly, the air grew heavy. We opened our eyes, and there it was, floating in the middle of our circle, that thing, still in my form but more distorted than before: its back twisted backward, its eyes gleaming with a cold light. With our hearts pounding uncontrollably, we continued to recite the words of the ritual, focusing all our intention on expelling that evil entity. Emily's friend lifted a bright crystal that was attached to a necklace, placing it on me.
"Now, think of everything you wanted to forget," she instructed me.
I began to remember little by little, everything: The happy moments with Emily, but also the disappointments, our breakup. I let all these memories flow within me, focusing on the sensation of releasing them, of letting them go. I could feel an electric current running through my body, a sensation of warmth spreading from within to without. The creature stopped laughing, now hissing in irritation, but it was too late for her, the light grew, grew, and I was hit by a wave. When I woke up, I was in my bed, already not remembering anything about my relationship, there was none of our photos in the frames hanging around the house, not even her contact was saved on my phone.
I started to get better after that. I dedicated myself to sports, improved my physical and professional life, expanded my farm. I haven't seen Emily since then; I believe it's part of the instructions to stay away, not to bring the memories back to me. That said, how do I remember all this?
Well, it all started this morning while I was brewing my coffee. It was a busy day of work, but I gave up on that when I looked out the window. My heart filled with fear, my legs quickly began to tremble when I saw in the distance, in the pasture, a female figure, long dark hair, my type of woman, except for one thing: The distorted smile, abnormally large and full of teeth. She's now getting closer to home, and I don't have the contact of any mystic or anything like that.
I haven't forgotten my ex-girlfriend, and it seems she hasn't forgotten me either.
submitted by Carl_Sefni to nosleep [link] [comments]

2024.03.11 15:15 Confident-Proof8138 Boho Nursery Decor Ideas (2024 Look)

Here are a few ideas for incorporating bohemian style into a nursery decor:
  1. Use natural materials: Incorporate natural materials such as bamboo, rattan, and wicker into the nursery decor to create a rustic, bohemian vibe.
  2. Add plants: Fill the nursery with plants to bring in a natural and organic element. Potted plants, hanging plants, and even dried flowers can all work well in a bohemian nursery.
  3. Use patterned textiles: Incorporate patterned textiles such as colorful rugs, throw pillows, and blankets to add texture and visual interest to the space.
  4. Mix and match decor: Don't be afraid to mix and match different decor elements to create a unique and eclectic look. Mix and match different patterns, textures, and colors to create a bohemian nursery that reflects your personal style.
  5. Use wall hangings: Hang wall hangings, tapestries, or woven baskets on the walls to add visual interest and a bohemian touch to the space.
Remember to keep the needs of your baby in mind when decorating the nursery, and choose functional and safe decor items that will work well in the space. With a little bit of creativity and attention to detail, you can create a stylish and functional bohemian nursery that you and your baby will love.
The bohemian interior design style is characterized by its playful colors, textures, and patterns. Boho design adopts maximalism through layers, textures, art, and other decorative objects.
Boho-themed interior design utilizes influences from around the globe. As a result of its dynamic and free-spirited approach, it is one of the most popular interior design trends today. This article will take you through how to incorporate this decor into your little one's nursery. So, let's walk you through achieving boho nursery decor.

WHY CHOOSE BOHEMIAN DECOR FOR THE NURSERY?

Boho decor may seem like an unconventional choice for a nursery but it has its appeal and has been embraced by many. While modern kids' bedroom ideas certainly appeal, there's just something about the relaxed vibes of boho decor that is hard to resist.
Bohemian decor is intrinsically simple and easygoing, making it the perfect design choice for your baby's nursery decor. Choosing bohemian decor also allows you to keep the decor gender-neutral.
Every parent hopes to create a calming space for their child that looks pretty and possesses the little fun elements of a child's room.

TRENDY BOHO CHIC NURSERY DECOR IDEAS

Welcoming a new baby into your home can be incredibly amazing and overwhelming at the same time. No worries, we've got you covered. Here is a list of stunning boho nursery ideas that will delight you and your baby!

COLOR PALETTE

There isn't a stereotypical color scheme for bohemian decor. To inject a boho ambiance, you could either use bright colors or earthy tones or a mix of both.
Calming and neutral colors create a cozy, comforting, and peaceful vibe. You can opt for light-colored walls and incorporate pops of color through artwork and accessories.
A boho nursery can even look great without any color! Lean in on textures and details in the absence of color.

DECORATE WITH PLANTS

Give the nursery a refreshing look with plants to give it a more outdoorsy look. Plants provide tranquility to a room. Their natural elegance can liven up a room.
There are several other advantages too. For starters, they allow more oxygen in the room. Some plants like the parlor palm, cast iron plant, calathea medallion, braided money tree, and lady palm are known to purify the air.
You can choose one large statement plant to adorn a corner or a few small pots grouped together on a tabletop. Hanging plants also look great. Ensure you use non-toxic plants with non-spiky foliage.

RUSTIC FURNITURE FOR A LAID-BACK STYLE

Make the room feel vintage by adding furniture that looks lived-in and natural. Bohemian furniture is typically low seated and made from materials like wicker, rattan, stained wood, woven, and other similar materials.
Rocking chairs in gorgeous natural materials are not only indispensable assets for getting your baby off to sleep, they also look particularly adorable. It can instantly elevate the charm quotient of your boho nursery.

ADD IN THE WOW-FACTOR WITH WALLPAPERS

You can choose from a range of boho wallpapers or stick with decals or murals. Pick nature-inspired wallpaper with large botanical or floral prints, or go with the minimal rainbows, delicate herringbone patterns, or polka dots.

MIX AND MATCH TEXTILES AND PATTERNS

The Boho style is characterized by layering different materials and textures. Integrate different textiles and patterns in the same space and swaddle your little one in a cosy bohemian blanket? Don't forget to add some wooden toys or hand-knit dolls. They are eco-friendly, durable, and provide sensory stimulation to your little one.
Accessorize with printed or textured pillows and throws. Incorporating funky prints and tassels on the bedding or baskets adorned with pompoms adds a whimsical tone to the room.
Create a gallery wall with macramé, or add a statement dream catcher to the wall. The intricate weave of the macramé brings artistry to the room. Use a faux leather ottoman or pouf to give the nursery a warm and relaxed feel.
Opt for woven chandeliers, wicker pendant lights or beds or baby changing stations made of rattan. A set of seagrass baskets can be the perfect alternative to a gallery wall.
Faux pampas grass is back! A vase atop the drawer looks great and really adds that boho vibe to your nursery decor.

COZY UP WITH A CANOPY

A canopy hung from the ceiling can create a beautiful focal point to a nursery. It forms a peaceful, sheltered nook and looks best hung over the crib or bed or the corner of the room.
Alternately you could have a teepee adorned with beautiful tassels and pompoms, giving the nursery a playful yet soothing vibe! Cream, white and beige colors work really well.

BOHO NURSERY NAME SIGN

Wooden name signs or monograms for the nursery are big right now. They come in a variety of styles, from vintage fonts to flowers, rainbows, or hand-painted on wood or burlap - pick one that inspires you.

FAQS

WHAT IS A BOHO-CHIC NURSERY?

Boho nursery decor at its heart is an interplay of patterns, prints, and textures that are put together to suit your needs. Its vibrant and free-spirited approach makes it an effortless aesthetic. It doesn't follow stereotypical color schemes and rules, which makes it all the more attractive.

WHAT IS A BOHO RAINBOW?

Typically, a boho rainbow includes shades of green, blue, coral, salmon, beige, and taupe. It can also be monochromatic - meaning darker and lighter variations of the same colors can be used.
You can incorporate a boho rainbow in the nursery through hand-drawn artwork, macrame, or a cushion. You can add rainbows in the form that best suits your style.

HOW DO YOU MAKE A BOHO NURSERY?

To create a boho nursery, focus on the key design elements of boho aesthetic, which are:

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, there are many ways to incorporate bohemian style into a nursery decor. By using natural materials, adding plants, using patterned textiles, mixing and matching decor elements, and hanging wall hangings, you can create a cozy and stylish nursery that reflects your personal taste and style. Remember to keep the needs of your baby in mind when decorating the nursery, and choose functional and safe decor items that will work well in the space. With a little bit of creativity and attention to detail, you can create a bohemian nursery that is both stylish and functional for your little one.
Best of all, it doesn't have to be expensive. With a little creative practice anyone can achieve their dream boho nursery on a budget by opting to DIY. What are you waiting for?
submitted by Confident-Proof8138 to bohointeriordesign [link] [comments]

2024.03.10 14:46 eza2510 Drawings Featuring Floral Hair Decorations - Let Your Beauty Bloom [2024.03.10]

Drawings Featuring Floral Hair Decorations - Let Your Beauty Bloom [2024.03.10]
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Drawings Featuring Floral Hair Decorations
Hair decorations are a great way to add extra oomph to your hair with minimal styling. Although they go well with casual outfits too, they look especially lovely when paired with a dress or kimono, amping up the sweetness factor and celebratory mood. Stick a single large blossom in your hair, weave several small ones into a braid, or even wear a flower crown—you’ll be amazed to see how different of an impression a single flower can make!
From sweet to elegant, today’s feature showcases various floral hair decorations that serve to enhance your natural beauty. Enjoy!

神里綾華 by Hira薇薇

神里綾華 by Hira薇薇

HAPPY NEW YEAR by ゆがー

HAPPY NEW YEAR by ゆがー

辰年 by 雀白なずな

辰年 by 雀白なずな

ｶﾖｺちゃん by かるかるめ

ｶﾖｺちゃん by かるかるめ

I miss you by sieka

I miss you by sieka
Please feel free to check the original article over at pixivision to view the rest of the artworks for this gallery.
submitted by eza2510 to Pixivision [link] [comments]

http://swiebodzin.info